Business Blog

JACKSON — Current and former Mississippi lawmakers, across party lines, are mourning the death of longtime Democratic Sen. Bennie Turner of West Point, who died Nov. 27. He was 64. Turner, an attorney, was first elected to the Senate in 1992 and took office in January 1993. The most recent configuration of his district included [...]

I’ve always bought into the adage that readers don’t care what a journalist must go through to get information for a story. Readers don’t want to hear that Councilman Smith bolted his door shut when you arrived at his office to ask who paid for that wonderful new Olympic-sized swimming pool, cabana and tennis court [...]

In Nov. of 2011 the Mississippi Business Journal reported Twin Creeks Technologies’ new 88,000-square-foot factory, funded with $26 million in state dollars, sat in Senatobia with very little going on. Twin Creeks spokesperson Tarpan Dixit said, at the time, the plant was not in commercial production but in “validation mode” and waiting for certification — but [...]

By Associated Press Kia Motors sent yet another major signal Wednesday that its fast-paced growth at its mammoth auto assembly plant in West Point, Ga., is here for the long term. The company, along with several agencies in Troup County and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s office, said it will be investing $1.6 billion in machinery [...]

  A claim by New Orleans Saints players that airport workers pelted their bus with eggs after they touched down in Atlanta for tonight’s game in the Georgia Dome brought this headline on Charlie Harper’s PeachPundit.com website: “Atlanta Airport Workers Promote GA Agribusiness To Arriving Tourists.” Why the poultry party? Perhaps it’s because the Saints [...]

From partnering with game developer Zynga to promote her bestselling album “Born this Way” to Tweeting “natural” pictures of herself sans makeup, pop superstar Lady Gaga apparently knows how to use social media to her advantage. The 26-year-old multiple Grammy and MTV award-winning artist (who’s real name is Stefani Germanotta) is a walking brand and admits [...]

“The Indispensable Milton Friedman” is a collection of little known essays by the late American economist Milton Friedman, newly published to commemorate his 100th birthday. MBJ-TV talked with Dr. Lanny Ebenstein, an economics professor at UC-Santa Barbara and the book’s editor earlier this week. Ebenstein says the book adds to Friedman’s legacy as a Great Depression [...]

Developers of the Hemingway Resort and Casino say the bell has tolled to signal the start of construction for the $120 million gambling palace adjacent to Jones Park and the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor. A spokesman says construction plans are far enough along, the company will likely start pushing dirt in December, reports TV station [...]

  File Tuesday’s College Board economic forecasting conference under “Missed Opportunities.” Here was an opportunity for a seriously detailed discussion on what steps Mississippi can take to avoid a bleak forecast that jobs growth in many of the state’s business sector won’t return to pre-2007 levels until 2020 at the earliest. Instead, a filibuster on [...]

Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis sent out a picture this morning from yesterday’s hot fire test of the J-2X power pack assembly. Engineers had moved the assembly in September to install instrumentation to its fuel turbopump. According to an agency release, the four-minute test helped measure the turbine structural strain when the turbopump [...]