Georgia Trend Daily – Aug. 4, 2025
Aug. 4, 2025 Rome News-Tribune, News & Record
New Pinnacle-Synovus bank to be based in Atlanta
Richard Craver reports that Pinnacle Financial Partners is acquiring Synovus Financial Corp. to form one of the largest super-regional banks in the Southeast at $115.8 billion in total assets. It will be based in Atlanta.
Aug. 4, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
When Stroke Strikes
Mary Anne Dunkin reports, it was the middle of the night in February 2021 when 56-year-old pharmacy technician Beth Lisk awoke with a sharp, sudden headache. Thinking it might be her first migraine, she took over-the-counter medication and waited for it to pass. But it didn’t.
Aug. 4, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amazon’s data center division pays $270M to buy sprawling Georgia property
Zachary Hansen reports, Amazon recently paid hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire nearly 1,000 acres between Atlanta and Macon for potential data center development. Amazon Web Services, a division of the e-commerce giant, agreed July 25 to pay roughly $270 million to buy a 985-acre development site along I-75 in rural Lamar County, about an hour south of Atlanta.
Aug. 4, 2025 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
124-year-old Columbus depot restored in $5 million multiuse project. See inside
Jordyn Paul Slater reports that a Columbus real estate developer has completed a project to revive a 124-year-old piece of Columbus history. Built in 1901, the Union Depot at 1200 Sixth Ave. was a multiuse railroad station.
Aug. 4, 2025 Macon Melody
MGA establishes federal partnership for enhanced air traffic controller training program
Casey Choung reports that Middle Georgia State University’s School of Aviation signed onto the Federal Aviation Administration’s enhanced air traffic controller program earlier this month, shortening students’ path toward certification. MGA joins several other college programs in the enhanced Air Traffic Collegiate Training initiative as the federal administration faces a shortage of nearly 3,000 air traffic controllers nationwide, according to a FAA press release.
Aug. 4, 2025 Macon Telegraph
Macon program helps people in mental crisis stay out of jail. How it works.
Jesse Fraga reports, many people with behavioral health issues end up incarcerated because they don’t know they have a psychological disorder or don’t get help before they’re behind bars, according to Parrin Cowan, the in-reach program director and a clinician for River Edge. “As a therapist, I had to understand that resistance is part of the process,” Cowan said.
Aug. 4, 2025 The Brunswick News
Appeals court upholds Sea Island ruling
Gordon Jackson reports that the 2022 court ruling that Sea Island Co. did not violate the Clean Water Act when it filled wetlands and sodded over a .49-acre area has been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The original lawsuit was filed in 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia after Sea Island filled in the wetland with plans to build a new office building and parking lot.
Aug. 4, 2025 Marietta Daily Journal
Cobb Dems select elections board members, Republicans object
Isabelle Manders reports that Democrats who represent Cobb County in the General Assembly have appointed two people to the Cobb Board of Elections over objections from their Republican colleagues.
Aug. 4, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Son of First Liberty exec under investigation resigns Republican posts
Dave Williams reports that the son of the owner and president of a financial institution that is the subject of a federal lawsuit and a state investigation has resigned from the Georgia Republican State Committee effective immediately. Brant Frost V also has informed state GOP Chairman Josh McKoon that he will be resigning as chairman of the Coweta County Republican Party, McKoon said Friday.
Aug. 4, 2025 WABE
Georgia State Election Board continues raising eyebrows with recent moves
Sam Gringlas reports that for most of its life, the Georgia State Election Board has been a sleepy bureaucratic body little-known outside the State Capitol, charged with making rules to help carry out Georgia election law. That changed last year, when an emboldened Republican majority passed a slew of last-minute rule changes that drew legal challenges and national headlines just before the 2024 election.
Aug. 4, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Georgia lawmakers to return this winter to Capitol chambers refreshed with 19th Century details
Amber Roldan reports, lawmakers may be gone, but work is still being accomplished underneath Georgia’s Gold Dome this summer. With legislators away, architects have started to give both the House and Senate chambers a makeover.
Aug. 4, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Georgia lawmakers to weigh repealing state income tax
Dave Williams reports that policy wonks on both sides of an upcoming debate in the General Assembly over whether to eliminate Georgia’s income tax are advocating a cautious approach. “That’s a very lofty goal,” said Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst with the progressive-leaning Georgia Budget & Policy Institute.
Aug. 4, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Why Derek Dooley is embracing his football past to run for Senate
Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report, long before Derek Dooley entered the race for U.S. Senate, his political rivals mocked his football coaching career. They took jabs at his losing record as Tennessee’s head coach, resurfaced awkward pregame interviews and circulated off-kilter gridiron photos.
