Mississippi Senate leaders are proposing a plan to increase teachers’ pay an average of $4,700 over two years to try to move the state away from its perpetually low national ranking for educators’ salaries. Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar unveiled the proposal Monday during a public policy forum. … Read more
Mississippi government collected more money during the first half of this budget year than it did during the same period a year earlier. With the robust collections, legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves say they want to approve some sort of tax cut during the three-month session that ends in early April. But, they … Read more
A special exhibit at the University of Mississippi explores the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and ’40s. “Americans and the Holocaust,” a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, is on display at the university’s J.D. Williams Library through Jan. 14. … Read more
A winter storm blanketed parts of the South with snow, freezing rain and sleet Thursday, tying up roads in Tennessee and Kentucky as the system tracked a path through Appalachia toward the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The National Weather Service says Nashville saw snowfall of 6.3 inches. Freezing rain and sleet coated areas around the Tennessee-Alabama … Read more
The Republican-controlled Mississippi House on Thursday approved a plan to redraw the state’s four congressional districts. The 76-42 vote was mostly along party lines, with Republicans and one independent in favor and Democrats and one independent opposed. The Republican-controlled Senate will also have to approve a plan, and no date has been set for that … Read more
A former assistant U.S. attorney for the state’s southern district on Thursday was named the new director of the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security, and the former Homeland Security operations director has been appointed deputy director. Baxter Kruger, the new director, prosecuted criminal matters ranging from violent crimes to white-collar crimes when he worked for … Read more
Tennessee officials have opened up a new $40.4 million lodge at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Gov. Bill Lee was among those on hand Tuesday for the grand opening of the facility that includes an 85-room hotel, conference space and restaurant and lounge. The hotel has a limited number of rooms available for reservations, while … Read more
Authorities say an arrest warrant has been issued for a Tennessee man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of rapper Young Dolph. The rapper was gunned down in a daylight ambush at a popular cookie shop in November in his hometown of Memphis. The U.S. Marshals Service says a first-degree murder warrant has been … Read more
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has tested positive for COVID-19 after the opening day of a legislative session when Hosemann and many other people were walking around the Capitol without wearing masks. “He currently has no symptoms and has been double vaccinated and boosted,” according to a news release from Hosemann’s office Wednesday. “He is … Read more
The Republican-controlled Mississippi House is expected to vote Thursday on a plan to redraw the state’s four congressional districts. The proposal was unveiled last month. It expands the territory of the state’s only majority-Black U.S. House district because the 2020 Census showed the district — the 2nd — lost population during the previous decade. Democratic … Read more