Georgia Trend Daily – Aug. 28, 2026

Aug. 28, 2026 Georgia.gov

Gov. Kemp: Walmart to Bring 1,000 Jobs, Next-Gen Fulfillment Center to Carnesville

Staff reports that Gov. Kemp on Thursday announced that Walmart, Inc. plans to build a high-tech, next-generation fulfillment center in Carnesville, creating 1,000 new jobs and bringing $1.3 billion in investment to Franklin County. “This massive investment from Walmart in a rural part of our state will not only create new, good-paying jobs for hardworking Georgians, it will also allow them to work close to home rather than commuting to a larger city for work,” he said.

Aug. 28, 2026 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!

Georgia’s Growing Energy Needs Require a Strong Grid

Julia Roberts reports, Georgia communities expect safe, reliable and cost-effective power at home, at work and everywhere in between. As the state grows and technology changes how people use energy, the electric grid must be ready to meet rising demand.

Aug. 28, 2026 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Chinese auto parts supplier plants its roots in U.S. with Georgia HQ

Zachary Hansen reports, Chinese cars are effectively banned in the United States through steep tariffs and regulatory restrictions, but that doesn’t apply to everything China touches in the auto industry. Car parts, for example, are generally treated like other goods from China despite ongoing tensions over the country’s fast-growing auto sector.

Aug. 28, 2026 Capitol Beat News

Federal government completing distribution of first-year grants to Georgia to bolster rural hospitals

Ty Tagami reports, the federal government announced the delivery Thursday of the rest of a $218 million award to Georgia to support rural hospitals. The $93.3 million completes the first fiscal year of a five-year, $50 billion national funding program approved by Republicans in Congress last year in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

 

Aug. 28, 2026 WABE

Georgia Power agrees to new protections against data center costs

Emily Jones reports, following the surprise announcement last month of a massive new data center planned near Savannah, Georgia Power has agreed to new protections to shield ordinary customers from the costs of serving energy-hungry data centers. Critics of the utility are cautiously optimistic but are still calling for more transparency.

Aug. 28, 2026 State Affairs

$20B OpenAI data center wins Georgia approval with ratepayer protections

Beau Evans reports that state regulators have signed off on a $20 billion data center in Effingham County, marking the largest data center in Georgia so far amid a boom of facilities designed to support artificial intelligence and a vast expansion of the state’s power grid. The breakthrough came late Wednesday after the state’s largest energy utility, Georgia Power, struck a deal with the Public Service Commission to provide 3,200 megawatts of electricity annually for the Savannah-area data center, owned by tech giant OpenAI.

Aug. 28, 2026 The Current

PSC boosts safeguards in Georgia Power’s massive contract with OpenAI

Mary Landers reports that staff at the Georgia Public Service Commission on Wednesday approved a contract between Georgia Power and OpenAI that clears the utility to provide electricity for a 3.2 gigawatt hyperscale data center planned for Effingham County. The contract includes new protections for residential and business ratepayers, according to a letter filed with the PSC and signed by its staff and Georgia Power attorneys.

Aug. 28, 2026 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Nuclear microreactor coming to Fort Benning, part of $2.2 billion program. What that means

Kala Hunter reports, the  U.S. Army is betting $2.2 billion on nuclear microreactors to bring safe, reliable, resilient power to the grid via the Department of Defense Innovation Unit Janus Program. Wednesday, the Department of the Army announced Fort Benning is one of five installations (along with Fort Bragg, Fort Campbell, Fort Hood and Fort Drum) selected to operate nuclear microreactors.

Aug. 28, 2026 GlobalAtlanta.com

Foreign Investors in Forsyth County See ‘Opportunity in Chaos’ in U.S.

Trevor Williams reports, it  isn’t the easiest time to be a foreign-owned manufacturer in the U.S., with tariffs on inputs upending costs structures and changing regulations creating a constant battle to engage and retain local talent.  But being in the U.S. beats the alternatives, as even the “chaos” of the past couple of years presents its own set of opportunities, a panel executives said during Global Atlanta’s North Metro International Investment Roundtable in April, sponsored by The Manely Firm P.C.

Aug. 28, 2026 Gainesville Times

Hall County reinstates planning commission following open meetings scandal

Danny McArthur reports, more than a year after suspending its planning commission amid an Open Meetings Act investigation that led to three commissioners’ removal, Hall County is poised to bring the board back. Hall County commissioners voted unanimously to reactivate the planning commission as part of the consent agenda at its Aug. 27 meeting.

Aug. 28, 2026 Georgia Recorder

Georgia cattlemen push back on Trump’s plan to import beef in bid to lower prices

Ross Williams reports, a White House plan intended to help ranchers build up the nation’s cattle herd is causing consternation among Georgia cattlemen and generating beef in the Georgia governor’s race. A pound of ground beef cost the average Fourth of July grill master about $6.89 last month, up from $6.25 in July 2025 and $4.39 in July 2021, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Aug. 28, 2026 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Democratic criticism mounts over Hasan Piker comments

Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report, add Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff to the growing list of Democrats condemning left-wing commentator Hasan Piker after he suggested that pro-Israel advocacy could fuel violence against American Jews. Asked on Piker’s remarks, Ossoff said through a spokesperson that he “unreservedly rejects reckless and dangerous rhetoric suggesting that policy advocacy invites violence against the Jewish community or any community.”