Free Republic

Vicksburg Forest Products is reopening a lumber mill in Vicksburg it purchased from Anderson-Tully Co. in March. After significant upgrades and modifications are complete, the multi-million dollar corporate investment will create 125 jobs and expects to begin operations late next month, according to news release from the governor’s office. Anderson-Tully, which had operated in Vicksburg since 1889, employed 158 at the time of the sale in March for an undisclosed amount. Anderson-Tully produced hardwood lumber primarily harvested in Mississippi. Vicksburg Forest Products will manufacture southern yellow pine lumber, with a goal of producing up to 100 million board feet per...

Randy Wadkins, the Democratic nominee for Mississippi’s first congressional district, is apparently having a hard time remembering exactly what seat he is running for. In a tracking video captured by America Rising PAC, Wadkins tries and fails twice to tell the camera who he is and whether he is running for Senate or the House of Representatives. “Hey, my name is Randy Wadkins, I am the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate,” he begins before realizing he is not actually running for Senate. “Er, sorry let’s back up.”

The 24-year-old driver in a dramatic car crash at a gas station in Flowood, Mississippi is accused of driving under the influence, MS News Now reported. The gas station's surveillance cameras captured the crash Thursday (June 21) and the video shows a white sedan speeding down the road, losing control, going airborne, flipping and crashing down into the pumps. The driver, Shelby Lynne May, walked away from the crash unharmed, but was arrested shortly after on a DUI charge, MS News reported.

Rory Doyle’s ongoing personal project shares the story of African-American cowboy culture in the rural Mississippi Delta, challenging the Hollywood portrayal of the American cowboy. The work highlights the black cowboys and cowgirls in the Delta as a proud group existing beyond the movie image of the American West. The project began in early 2017 when Doyle attended a rodeo celebrating black cowboy heritage in the region. Over the past year, he’s documented this band of horse riders in a place not typically known for its cowboys. A recent article from Smithsonian magazine estimated that one in four cowboys was...

GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) - A 5-day cooperative operation between various law enforcement divisions led to a massive crime bust in Gulfport. Forty people were arrested as a result of Operation Shark Tank, carried out by the Gulfport Police Narcotics Division, US Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force, MBN, ATF, HSI and MDOC. The arrests took place between April 16- April 20. Officials say several firearms and narcotics were seized during this operation. Operation Shark Tank is a sub-operation of Operation Triple Beam, a six-week-long violence reduction initiative for the Southern District of Mississippi under the U.S. Department of Justice....

Voting precincts have closed in Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota as eight states hold primaries Tuesday, including in California where the Democratic Party’s plan to regain control of the House of Representatives faces a big test. The Fox News Decision Desk can now project that former pharmaceutical executive Bob Hugin will win Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary in New Jersey. But it is too early to project a winner on the Democratic side, where incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez is battling fellow Democrat Lisa McCormick. Menendez’s corruption and bribery case is expected to play a starring role in...

Full title (17-year-old Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, performing Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe". Filmed at the Blue Canoe in Tupelo, Mississippi, by Stephane C. Jonathan, on Friday, March 17th 2017. )

WEST POINT, Miss. — An Alabama-based chicken processor will open a plant in northeast Mississippi to process and distribute frozen chicken products. Peco Foods on Monday announced its plan to invest $40 million in West Point, hiring 300 people over the next four years. Governor Phil Bryant was at the groundbreaking Monday morning in West Point.....

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI (WLOX) - South Mississippi's casinos are already breaking revenue records before the peak summer season even begins. The Mississippi Department of Revenue released figures of last month's gaming gross revenue, boasting a total of $108.5 million dollars to Coast casinos in April. This marks a record-breaking 9 percent increase from April 2017, when Coast Casinos brought in $99 million. The second highest April earnings took place in 2007, when there was a large resurgence in business and revenue following Hurricane Katrina. That year, Coast casinos reported a revenue of $107 million.

U.S. Senate candidate Howard Sherman is holding a campaign kickoff party from 6-9 pm on Meridian City hall lawn Saturday may 12th

A lawyer who led the fight against Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate, eventually winning the Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court, won confirmation by the Senate Tuesday to a federal appeals court. Senators voted 50-47 to confirm Stuart Kyle Duncan to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Only one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, broke with his party to support Mr. Duncan. Other Democrats voiced opposition to Mr. Duncan as an “unfit ideologue” who fought women’s access to reproductive healthcare. They also said his defense of state laws requiring photo-ID to vote,...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hasn’t lost his ability to make Democrats mad, and once again, he has triggered an intraparty kerfuffle on social media. As we head towards the next presidential cycle, many people — on the right, the left and in the media — will be saying Democrats are in the throes of an identity crisis, a struggle for their party’s soul that will tear them apart. But they aren’t, and they won’t be. The Democratic Party screws up plenty and contains its share of idiots, but when it comes to its identity, it’s doing just fine. On Wednesday,...

Three boys made a historic discovery in Mississippi after they dug up an intact mastodon fossil while playing in their backyard. The Ice Age-era beast went extinct about 11,000 years ago.

FULL TITLE: Abortion Activists Claim Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Hurt Blacks, Ignoring How Abortion Kills Black Babies If they gave out prizes for projecting your own faults on others, abortion activists would win first place. An article at the liberal news site Vox cried racism in its attacks on pro-life Mississippi lawmakers’ efforts to save unborn babies and mothers from abortion – a disproportionately high number of whom are black. The law, signed Monday by Gov. Phil Bryant, creates the earliest ban on abortion in the U.S. by pushing back Mississippi’s current limit from 20 weeks to 15. Just a...

Mississippi’s Gov. Phil Bryant will reportedly appoint the state's first female member of Congress by picking the state’s agriculture commissioner to fill the vacancy to be left by Sen. Thad Cochran’s upcoming retirement. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Cindy Hyde-Smith, who has served as the state’s agriculture commissioner since 2011, will step into the veteran Republican’s seat. That announcement could come as soon as Wednesday. Should Hyde-Smith be appointed, she will hold the seat for the special election on Nov. 6, when she would be backed by the GOP establishment against both Democrats and a challenger from the right...

A 9-year-old boy fatally shot his 13-year-old sister Saturday (March 17) in northeast Mississippi after she refused to hand over a video game controller, The Clarion-Ledger reports. Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell told the Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper the boy is accused of shooting his sister in the back of the head with a .25 caliber handgun. The girl was rushed to Le Bonheur's Children's Hospital in Memphis where she died Sunday at 6:45 p.m.Authorities don't yet know how the child had access to the weapon they say he used to shoot his sister. It's also unclear how much knowledge the...

The parents of a 12-year-old Mississippi boy say he killed himself last week after being subjected to intense bullying. Andrew Leach of Southaven, Mississippi, was found dead at his family’s home March 6. Leach’s parents believe the sixth-grader had been struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, and killed himself after being bullied by fellow students at Southaven Middle School. “He finally came out with the information at school that he thought he may be bisexual,” Matt Leach told WREG. “I think that really amped up the bullying.” Leach said Southaven Middle School students had threatened his son with...

While he survived a brutal and controversial Senate primary in 2014, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, citing his failing health, is resigning effective April 1. A special election will be held to finish the remainder of his term that ends in 2020. If no one gets above 50 percent, a runoff will be held. For now, Gov. Phil Bryant will appoint an interim senator to fill the vacancy until the election. Cochran’s colleague, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI), is up for re-election this year and is facing a challenge by state Sen. Chris McDaniel. McDaniel challenged Cochran in 2014 (via NPR): I...

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) resigned from office on Monday, effective April 1. He has been in failing health for several months. “Longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Associated Press on Monday that he will resign April 1 because of health problems,” the wire service reported from Jackson, Mississippi late Monday afternoon: Cochran, who turned 80 in December, stayed home for a month last fall with urinary tract infections, returning to Washington in October to give Republicans the majority they needed to pass a budget plan. “I regret my health has become...

Espy became Assistant State Attorney General from 1984 to 1985, when he was elected as a Democrat to the 100th Congress in 1986 from Mississippi's 2nd congressional district. He defeated two-term Republican Webb Franklin to become the first African-American to represent Mississippi at the federal level since Reconstruction. He was reelected three times. Just 20 days after taking office for his fourth term, Espy resigned after being appointed Secretary of Agriculture in the Cabinet of President Bill Clinton. He served as Secretary of Agriculture in 1993–94.