Business Blog

Here’s a pretty interesting story from Mike Oliver at al.com. According to a survey at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mississippi and Alabama may rank highest in obesity rates because Southerners are more truthful when asked about their weight. The central United States actually may be slightly more obese when scales are brought into [...]

A little over a year ago, my sister-in-law suggested a book to my wife. She, in turn, suggested it to me, saying it was a good book by a Mississippi author. At the time, I had no idea the book, “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts” would become one of my favorite books of all time. [...]

JACKSON — Today the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) reports the state’s first human case of West Nile virus (WNV) for 2013. The reported case is in Madison County. The MSDH only reports laboratory-confirmed cases to the public. In 2012, Mississippi had 247 WNV cases and five deaths. “This is actually not the first [...]

Nearly 100 Mississippi businesses showcased their products and services Thursday at the Mississippi Business Journal’s Business & Technology EXPO, the state’s largest business-to-business networking event. Visitors filled the exhibition aisles at the Mississippi Trade Mart throughout the daylong EXPO which reached its 30-year milestone this year with a 20 percent increase in exhibitors over last [...]

Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee has rejected expansion of Medicaid in his state over impatience with the Obama administration’s for approval of his proposal to let the state use the money to buy private insurance for the working poor who wold otherwise be covered by Medicaid expansion. In turning down Medicaid expansion, Haslam called for [...]

AP has a story out on Gov. Bryant’s new appointee to the state board of health. AP- Gov. Phil Bryant says he wants senators to confirm his nomination of anti-abortion activist Terri Herring to the state Board of Health, but a top lawmaker said it’s unclear whether Herring will receive enough support… Herring, 54, of [...]

Customers of Mississippi restaurants will now know whether the catfish on their table is domestically produced or is an imported variety of catfish-like pangasius, also sold as basa, tra and swai. Mississippi producers persuaded legislators this month to amend the state’s catfish Country of Origin Labeling law to require restaurants to also identify the origin [...]

A $1 million gift commitment from Joe and Kathy Sanderson of Laurel has pushed the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation’s College of Nursing Building Campaign over the $5 million mark and closer to its $8 million goal. With the donation, the clinical simulation lab will be named for the Sandersons. The Sanderson Clinical Simulation Lab [...]

“The new normal.” Those are an awful trio of words the nation’s nagging economic slump has left us with. They mark a concession that we are prepared to live with things that are less good than before, such as double-digit unemployment, underwater home values and — for downtown Jackson — historically high office vacancy rates. [...]

Google has started a big “Go Paperless in 2013” campaign. Paper, they say, is bad for the environment. It’s high time someone called bovine manure on this. Trees are organic. Trees are renewable. Tree farms reduce CO2. There are more forests in Mississippi than there were at the turn of the century. Sixty-five percent of [...]