Georgia Trend Daily – Oct. 30, 2025

Oct. 30, 2025 Savannah Morning News

RISE childcare study shows demand to increase significantly by peak need in 2028

Evan Lasseter reports, sprinkled throughout the Savannah Economic Development Authority’s 2023 regional workforce study were mentions of childcare access as a challenge to the Savannah area’s workforce. In a tight labor market where workers are needed to meet job growth, lack of childcare can keep people on the sidelines or even take them off the market, said Regional Industry Support Enterprise (RISE) Vice President Justin Farquhar.

Oct. 30, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!

30 Years of Culture: The Economic Impact of the Wildlife Arts Festival

Jana Lawrence reports that Thomasville Center for the Arts, a dynamic non-profit located in the bustling, small town of Thomasville, Georgia pays annual tribute to a powerful idea—one that has evolved into a cherished tradition throughout the Southeast. This idea flourished and became the Wildlife Arts Festival—an event which celebrates the vital role of the arts in driving cultural vibrancy, shaping Southern identity and inspiring economic growth in the Southeast.

Oct. 30, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

For Indians in Georgia, Trump’s new $100K visa fee sows confusion, panic

Lautaro Grinspan reports, when Asheesh Sharma first settled in Atlanta in the early 2000s, he remembers there being just a dozen Indian restaurants dotted across the metro area. Now, he estimates that number is likely in the hundreds, a sign of the Indian community’s growth.

Oct. 30, 2025 Rough Draft Atlanta

Metro Atlanta food banks brace for SNAP cuts. Here’s where to receive food assistance, or donate and volunteer

Sarra Sedghi, Beth McKibbon and Bob Pepalis report, on Nov. 1, nearly 1.4 million Georgia residents (12.6 percent of the population), including more than 908,000 children, are on track to lose SNAP and EBT benefits. As of publication, the Trump administration had not agreed on a plan to use federal reserves to keep the government assistance program going, despite a contingency fund of close to $6 billion.

Oct. 30, 2025 Rome News-Tribune

From London to Berry: new president seeks to raise college’s national, international profile

Tom Mayer reports, Sandeep Mazumder, a London-born economist, came to Berry College after a lifetime of education and, most recently, serving as dean of Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business. Today, as Berry’s ninth president, Mazumder says his first order of business is to lead the institution into its next chapter — one he hopes will make the Rome campus better known nationally and abroad while strengthening its local ties and enhancing opportunities for students.

Oct. 30, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!

Commitment to Community

Sucheta Rawal reports, located on Virginia Avenue in the ATL Airport District, Party of 5 by MetroWest is a buzz-worthy dining establishment offering stylish cocktails, comforting brunch, and Southern-style dinner entrees. Inside the cozy space you will see Instagram-worthy graffiti walls with affirmative messages like “Always dream big dreams” and “Living proof.”

Oct. 30, 2025 Georgia Recorder

Georgia agency will research imperiled diamondback terrapin but declines to require protections

Ross Williams reports that the Georgia Board of Natural Resources has rejected a petition aimed at protecting diamondback terrapins from crab nets, but state wildlife experts will perform a statewide terrapin survey and study methods for protecting the unique turtle. Terrapins live in brackish tidal creeks along the Atlantic coast as far north as Cape Cod in Massachusetts and along the Gulf Coast from Florida all the way into Texas.

Oct. 30, 2025 Augusta Chronicle

Ground rules: Columbia County drafts proposed laws governing controversial data centers

Joe Hotchkiss reports, as Columbia County residents weigh the merits and drawbacks of an $11 billion data center possibly coming to the area, county leaders want to codify such developments in a class by themselves. Recently disclosed documents show a draft of a proposed new ordinance to create a new zoning category to set limits on a data center’s size, property setbacks and road access.

Oct. 30, 2025 Marietta Daily Journal

Marietta council tabling measure that would require permit to protest

Megan Jackson reports that the Marietta City Council tabled a proposed ordinance requiring permitting for protests for further legal review during the committee meetings Tuesday. During the meeting, Councilwoman Cheryl Richardson made a motion to table the ordinance until the city hires a constitutional law firm or attorney to review and draft the ordinance.

Oct. 30, 2025 WABE

In rural Georgia, pregnancy care could get even harder to find as hospital funds shrink

Jess Mador reports that Georgia is set to lose nearly $1.75 billion in federal rural Medicaid spending, according to a KFF Health News analysis. The state has seen its first hospital obstetrics unit close since President Donald Trump signed the GOP’s tax and spending law, previously known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Oct. 30, 2025 Albany Herald

State Senate Democratic Caucus members get real-world take of rural issues

Carlton Fletcher reports that at times, state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims said she’s felt like a lone voice calling out in the wilderness, telling her colleagues under the Gold Dome about the issues that plague poor and rural areas like most of her district in southwest Georgia. But Sims realized a long-held wish Tuesday when she brought members of the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus to Albany to get an up-close-and-personal look at those issues and hear the concerns of the people who endure them.

Oct. 30, 2025 Capitol Beat News

Political shutdown fight over food stamps comes to Georgia

Ty Tagami reports that stalemate in Washington could cause gnawing hunger for more than a million Georgians starting Saturday, when federal funding for low-income food subsidies, informally referred to as food stamps, runs out. The administration of President Donald Trump has said the government shutdown will cut off money for the program that feeds an estimated 1.4 million Georgians, many of them children.

Oct. 30, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

AJC poll: Georgia Democrats express growing distrust in the election system

Greg Bluestein reports, for much of the last decade, it was Republicans who questioned the integrity of Georgia’s elections. Now a growing share of Democrats are voicing doubts of their own.