Business Blog

The University of Southern Mississippi has yanked the scholarships of five members of its pep band who took part in the heckling of a Kansas State basketball player at last Thursday’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament game. Their pep band careers at USM are over as well, according to a story by The Associated Press.

Here’s a report card Mississippians can be fairly proud of: A C-plus for government integrity. The grading by The Center for Public Integrity placed the state sixth on the integrity grading scale with a number score of 79 – one point away from achieving a B-. The highest score went to New Jersey with a [...]

In a move that ensures Sanderson Plumbing Products Inc. will remain in Columbus and keep its 400-person workforce intact, Beneke Magnolia Inc. has acquired the 110-year-old maker of toilet seats. The Mississippi Development Authority provided the locally-owned Beneke Magnolia a $2.5 million loan to assist with the acquisition. The MDA made the loan through its [...]

The Mississippi Legislature’s expected approval of a stringent anti-immigration law that easily passed the state House Wednesday night could become causes of concern in the Tokyo board rooms of Toyota and Nissan, which have manufacturing plants in Mississippi. This is because the foreign car manufacturers can expect pressure from groups questioning the companies’ silence on [...]

Phil Hardwick and Stennis Insitute director Marty Wiseman discuss Mississippi’s community college system. To see more videos please visit MBJ’s Video Vault page.

What do a doctor, engineer and Saudi Arabian banker have in common? They are all students of the one-year old executive MBA program at the Else School of Management at Millsaps College in Jackson. The program is the first of its kind for Mississippi and will give born corporate leaders and entrepreneurs the skills they [...]

In offering a $2,500 reward recently for information leading to the arrest of the killer of a bald eagle in Lucedale, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proclaimed that “every eagle” is protected. Not exactly. A pair of the national birds in Wyoming will soon be sacrificed in a religious service that has the blessing [...]

The Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian is not only the final resting place of the renowned Gypsy Queen, it is also the first site in North America where a particular type of sedge from Eurasia was found. A four-man team spent five years gathering data for a floristic survey of Lauderdale County. They discovered the [...]

The majority of Mississippi House members want to extend the reach of government into the bodies of women who seek abortions in the state. A bill passed out of the Republican-controlled House on a 78-36 vote Wednesday night requires women to undergo a vaginal ultrasound probe before receiving an abortion. No exception is made for [...]

Mississippi’s job picture continued to be a bleak one through January, according to the Mississippi Department of Employment Securities, which put the adjusted rate at 9.9 percent. All but 21 of the state’s 81 counties reported double-digit unemployment, with Holmes County continuing to have the highest rate of jobless residents at 18 percent, followed by [...]