By JACK WEATHERLY Northeast Mississippi is known as the upholstered-furniture capital of the United States. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it is playing the “soft” card as it seeks to further distinguish itself from other furniture centers – especially High Point, N.C. Forty-four mattress and box spring makers will be on hand for the semi-annual Tupelo Furniture ...

By JACK WEATHERLY  The at-times stormy effort to redevelop the former Colonial Country Club in Jackson has settled into the business phase. Bo Lockard, manager of Colonial Jackson LLC, which owns the property and is overseeing the development, said Tuesday that the Neel-Schaffer engineering firm has been hired and that conversations with potential developers are underway. “We are working toward ...

By LISA MONTI The Bay St. Louis beachfront retail and restaurant district is seeing change on both sides of Beach Boulevard. The French Settlement retail building at 108 South Beach Blvd. has a new owner, and across the street, the Murphy family is rebuilding their popular beachfront restaurant and bar that Hurricane Katrina wiped away in 2005. The Murphy family ...

Forget their differing opinions on marriage, home ownership, and politics – the most telling differences between younger and older generations is how they prefer to get their news. A new Pew Research Center’s survey on modern news consumption trends, conducted in partnership with the Knight Foundation, shows that, when it comes to news consumption, the old and young look very ...

Casino revenue continued to grow statewide in Mississippi in June, with gamblers losing more at casinos along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast. Figures released this week by the state Revenue Department show casinos won $175 million in June, up 1.4 percent from $173 million in June 2015. Revenue at the 16 Mississippi River casinos rose 2 percent from ...

The University of Southern Mississippi has won a $3 million federal grant to develop three pilot programs to aid regions whose economic health is dependent on defense initiatives. The university said Tuesday it was selected due to its expertise in economic development and the state’s dependence on Department of Defense spending. DOD spends $5.5 billion per year spent in Mississippi. ...

Daiquiri fans will soon be able to sip their favorite flavor from a go cup while walking around Old Town Bay St. Louis when the Daiquiri Shak opens next month at 112 Court St. “It’s the first shop of its kind in Hancock County,” said owner Caleb McQueen. “We are a to-go cup city. We want to serve people and ...

AIA Countertops, a division of Patrick Industries Inc., is opening operations in Baldwyn in Lee County, investing $600,000 and creating 60 jobs. AIA will be located in an existing 110,000-square-foot building in the Harry A. Martin North Lee Industrial Complex. The building was previously occupied by Fairfield Distribution. Elkhart, Ind.-based Patrick Industries describes itself as the leading manufacturer of building products and materials to ...

Starving the beast” is a popular conservative approach to governance. “If they (legislators) don’t have the money, they can’t spend it,” one Republican operative explained, strongly endorsing this approach.    True enough, but as another longtime Mississippi leader told me, “‘Starve the beast’ is not a smart way to govern, in fact, it isn’t governing at all.”   Also true. ...

Three new members and a new slate of executive officers have been elected to the Mississippi Main Street Association Board of Directors. Chris Chain, president of Renovations of Mississippi, Inc. in Columbus, Kagan Coughlin, executive director and trustee of Base Camp Coding Academy in Water Valley, and Kevin Stafford, professional engineer with Neel-Schaffer in Columbus have been elected as new ...