News Staff Bill Luckett was an attorney, small-town mayor, candidate for governor, blues promoter, friend and business partner of Morgan Freeman and irrepressible teller of tales about the people and culture of his beloved Mississippi. Luckett died Thursday at 73, a year after being diagnosed with cancer. He will be remembered Tuesday at a party he ordered … Read more
The Grand Ole Opry’s broadcast of its 5,000th Saturday show attracted a host of big country music stars to its historic venue. Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Darius Rucker, Vince Gill, Chris Young and a half-dozen others lined up to celebrate the nearly century-old country music program. The radio broadcast was carried by WSM radio. It’s … Read more
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee could be voting as soon as the week’s end on whether to ban most businesses from solely requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for their customers and workers. The GOP-controlled General Assembly could also severely limit when companies and government entities — including schools — can require masks amid the pandemic. Lawmakers … Read more
The family of a World War II veteran from Mississippi who was among the first Black men to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps received the Congressional Gold Medal in honor of his service. U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly, a Republican who represents a northeastern Mississippi-based district, presented the medal to relatives of Embra Jackson Sr. … Read more
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has appointed Clay Bright to serve as CEO of the Memphis Regional Megasite industrial complex. The site will soon be home to a Ford Motor Co. electric vehicle and battery plant. Bright currently serves as the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Transportation. He is slated to earn $175,000 a year … Read more
Tennessee’s most populous county has lifted a mask requirement for indoor, public spaces due to a drop in COVID-19 cases, but the face coverings are still required inside schools. Shelby County is still highly recommending mask-wearing inside restaurants, bars, grocery stores, retail shops and other indoor spaces, according to an order issued Wednesday by the … Read more
Emails show that the firing of Tennessee’s former vaccination director caught the state’s top health leaders off guard and sent them scrambling for answers. Meanwhile the health commissioner fumed over the praise fellow coworkers heaped on the ousted employee. Earlier this year, Tennessee’s Department of Health sparked national attention when Dr. Michelle Fiscus was fired … Read more
The Mississippi attorney general can take over a case when a local prosecutor steps away, but the takeover must be voluntary and a judge cannot set deadlines for the work. In a unanimous ruling Tuesday, Mississippi Supreme Court justices said a circuit court “acted outside its authority” this year when it ordered Attorney General Lynn … Read more
The governing board for Mississippi’s eight public universities is extending the contract of Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum, and while his annual compensation remains the same, a larger share of it will come from public money. The board of trustees for the Institutions of Higher Learning announced Thursday that it had approved Keenum’s new … Read more
The Mississippi Supreme on Thursday set a Nov. 17 execution date for an inmate who withdrew his appeals and once filed court papers calling himself “worthy of death.” Mississippi has not had an execution since 2012, and it had six that year. David Neal Cox pleaded guilty in 2012 to killing his wife, Kim, in … Read more