The House unanimously adopted changes to the state’s food safety guidelines in the wake of a deadly salmonella outbreak to a Georgia plant. The chamber voted to allow county health officials to report possible violations of safety rules to state and federal agencies. State Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn, said it allows the state to deputize local inspectors to get “another set of eyes” on food plants across the state.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has announced that a new manufacturing and distribution center will create 320 jobs in Douglas. The governor said Tuesday that GreenTech Manufacturing will invest more than $20 million in the facility. The company makes environmentally friendly construction products.

Rheem Manufacturing Co. is closing its Milledgeville heating and cooling unit plant by the year’s end, which means 1,200 people will be out of a job.

Granola bars, cereals, cookies, nut mixes and peanut butter have long been a mainstay of food pantries because of their durability and long shelf life. Now, the food banks are throwing out thousands of pounds of food containing peanuts recalled in the salmonella outbreak.

The salmonella outbreak has made for a strange sport in the Georgia Capitol: Lawmakers are turning it into a contest of sorts over who can out-peanut each other.

Auto parts supplier Federal-Mogul is closing its plant in Summerton. The Michigan company says the facility, which employs about 350 people, will close by the end of the year.

A Detroit-area candy store is recalling some chocolate-covered peanuts because of salmonella fears. Gayle’s Chocolates of Royal Oak says it has no reports of illnesses. But the peanuts used in 10-ounce boxes of sugar-free chocolate-covered peanuts came from Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corp. of America.

Officials report progress on leasing 2,500 acres within Savannah River Site that could be marketed as an energy park or a possible site for a commercial nuclear power plant.

The peanut processing company at the heart of a national salmonella outbreak has filed for bankruptcy. The Virginia-based Peanut Corp. of America filed Friday for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in bankruptcy court in Lynchburg, Va. The company’s attorney, Andrew Goldstein, says the filing was “regrettable” but inevitable.

The president of the peanut company accused of knowingly distributing salmonella-tainted peanut products and the manager of the company’s plant in Blakely, Ga., refused Wednesday to answer the questions of a congressional panel. Stewart Parnell of Lynchburg, Va., the president, and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the plant where investigators believe the contaminated peanut butter originated, took the Fifth. Each invoked his constitutional right not to incriminate himself, refusing to answer the questions of the investigations panel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Amy Dominello has more.

A sweeping new food safety measure proposed in the wake of the salmonella outbreak has passed its first key legislative hurdle.

A sweeping new food safety measure proposed in the wake of the salmonella outbreak has passed its first key legislative hurdle. The Senate Agriculture Committee voted unanimously Wednesday on a plan that would require food makers to alert state inspectors within 24 hours if a plant’s internal tests show its products are contaminated. The bill also would force the companies to conduct the tests at least once a year to supplement surprise state and federal inspections.

A peanut company blamed for a salmonella outbreak discovered the dangerous bacteria at its Georgia plant as far back as 2006. Darlene Cowart of JLA testing company told a House committee on Wednesday that Peanut Corp. of America contacted her business in November 2006 to help control salmonella discovered in the plant.

Internal e-mails indicate the owner of a peanut company urged his workers to ship tainted products after receiving test results identifying salmonella.

Health officials in Texas say lab tests show there may have been salmonella at a shuttered Texas plant operated by the peanut company linked to a national outbreak.