Georgia Trend Daily – June 24, 2025

June 24, 2025 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Kala Hunter reports, the energy research community is cheering after Georgia Power completed the largest ever test of blending hydrogen and natural gas to create energy at Plant McDonough last week. The utility giant Georgia Power, which serves 2.7 million customers, collaborated with Mitsubishi Power, a Florida-based power company, to attempt the 50% hydrogen and 50% natural gas blend in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

June 24, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!

Rebecca Wilbert reports, as Atlanta laces up for the Peachtree Road Race on July 4 – with its 60,000 runners, 150,000 spectators and billing as the world’s largest 10K – it’s also worth looking around Georgia at other races gaining ground. Each has its own personality and brings attention, fun and a positive economic impact to its community.

June 24, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Alson Mawn reports, there’s something in the water — and in the gators. A University of Georgia ecotoxicology study found there may be elevated levels of mercury in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp.

June 24, 2025 Marietta Daily Journal

Hunter Riggall reports, county staff are set to brief the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday on next year’s budget, including several options proposed to address a $7 million shortfall in the general fund. The general fund budget, the main operating fund which includes most county departments, is projected to be $644.5 million, up from $625 million last year.

June 24, 2025 Macon Telegraph

Margaret Walker reports that a new nonprofit dedicated to reducing food waste and increasing food access is coming to Middle Georgia this summer. Food Rescue US is a volunteer-based, national nonprofit with 39 locations across the country, and is opening its first location in Georgia late this summer in Houston County.

June 24, 2025 Athens Banner-Herald

Wayne Ford reports, two University of Georgia graduates have taken a common product – the sleeping mask – and reinvented it in a way to make it more comfortable, a better fit, and energize its purpose, which is a good night’s rest. Lori Oliver, who grew up in Athens, and her business partner, Jill MacRae, formed The Inactive Company to produce and market the masks.

June 24, 2025 Albany Herald

Lucille Lannigan reports, about 40 people filled the grand front room of the Dawson Carnegie Library recently to share stories and swap tidbits of building history as the Terrell County Historic Preservation Society prepares to hand over the reins of the building’s operation to the city. “This building, when it was a library, was the hub in the community,” Shawn O’Connor-Veazie, the TCHPS president, said, “We want to see these buildings preserved and continue to be hubs in the community.”

June 24, 2025 State Affairs

Beau Evans reports that state officials are on alert following U.S. missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities that prompted a terrorist threat warning from national security authorities on Saturday. Gov. Brian Kemp announced Sunday that he and other governors have begun working with state, local and federal law enforcement agencies to “closely monitor any possible threats” of retaliation from Iran.

June 24, 2025 11 Alive

Zack Merchant reports, Representative David Scott, a Democrat, has spent more than 20 years in Congress.  Now members of his own party are lining up to try to unseat him. “People are saying, ‘hey we need to hear from you, we need to see you, we need you to show up for us because we’re concerned, we’re vulnerable, we’re scared,’” said State Representative Jasmine Clark.

June 24, 2025 Savannah Morning News

Vanessa Countryman reports, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is speaking out against U.S. military action in Iran, saying the real threats to Americans are at home, not in the Middle East. In a statement posted online on Monday, June 22, Greene criticized what she called the “neocon warmongers” in Washington pushing the U.S. toward another foreign conflict.

June 24, 2025 Georgia Recorder

Maya Homan reports that Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case enshrining abortion rights across the country, was overturned three years ago today in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, intensifying a yearslong battle over access to reproductive health care in Georgia. The fallout of the Dobbs decision is continuing to cause ripple effects throughout the state, with advocates on both sides gearing up for a fight that will play out — at least in part — at the ballot box in 2026.

June 24, 2025 Capitol Beat News

Dave Williams reports that Georgia politicians are reacting to President Donald Trump’s weekend decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites mostly along party lines. Republicans have rushed to support the president’s action, while Democrats criticized Trump for ordering the bombing without congressional authorization and warned it could drag the U.S. into a lengthy war.

June 24, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report, Georgians voted for two Public Service Commission seats in last week’s primaries, and one race is heading to a runoff on July 15. Yet there’s a chance that November’s general election could be canceled due to another legal challenge, the AJC’s Mark Niesse reports. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a motion to expedite a lawsuit alleging this year’s special elections violate the Georgia Constitution’s requirement for the state’s utility regulators to serve six-year terms.