- Important state and national stories, market and business news, sports and entertainment, delivered in quick-hit fashion to start your day informed.
In Mississippi
1. Sappington found not guilty of threatening Senator Wicker
As reported by WJTV, a jury has found William Carl Sappington not guilty of threatening to injure or kill a United States official, Senator Roger Wicker, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.
“Sappington’s attorney, Tom Levidiotis, said federal prosecutors failed to prove the alleged threat was credible,” WJTV reported. “After the verdict in the two-day trial, Sappington was released from jail for the first time since he was arrested on the charge in May 2023.”
WJTV added, “Sappington was accused of going to the Hickory Flat home of the senator’s second cousin, George Wicker, on April 26, 2023. Prosecutors believed the testimony of George Wicker, 83, who said Sappington asked if he was related to the senator and then said, ‘You tell him that I’m going to kill him.'”
2. Lemmons named Nature Conservancy State Director
Scott Lemmons has been named the State Director of the Mississippi Chapter of The
Nature Conservancy.
Lemmons has been the Director of Freshwater Programs for the past ten years focusing on wetland restoration, bottomland hardwood reforestation programs, large-scale floodplain reconnections, and side channel reconnection projects along the Mississippi River and Yazoo Basin.
The Nature Conservancy said Lemmons was instrumental in directing one of the largest conservation projects in the history of the chapter at Loch Leven in Southwest Mississippi. Through his leadership, Lemmons brought together more than 15 state, local and federal partners to complete the multi-million dollar 6-thousand-acre floodplain reconnection project. Loch Leven is the largest floodplain reconnection in the history of the Lower Mississippi River Basin.
National News & Foreign Policy
1. Johnson goes back to the funding drawing board
The Hill reports that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) scrapped plans for the U.S. House to vote on his conservative funding bill Wednesday when it became clear it didn’t have the GOP votes to pass.
“Some Republicans are pushing Johnson to make another attempt at clearing a conservative funding bill, arguing that a successful effort could help strengthen the party’s hand in forthcoming bipartisan negotiations,” The Hill reported. “Muddying the waters, former President Trump is urging Republicans to vote against any short-term funding bill that does not secure ‘absolute assurances on Election Security.'”
Yet, as The Hill noted, others are privately “concluding that a bipartisan stopgap is inevitable, so it would be in the best interest to get it over with sooner rather than later.”
2. Biden dons Trump hat at 9/11 event
As reported by FoxNews, President Joe Biden visited the Shanksville Fire Station Wednesday after participating in a wreath-laying ceremony at the town’s memorial site for United Airlines Flight 93, one of the four flights hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001.
“A video of Biden at the station showed the president taking the Trump 2024 campaign hat from a Trump supporter and putting it on top of his own hat, in what the White House said was a friendly gesture of unity,” FoxNews reported. “The image of Biden wearing a Trump 2024 hat quickly took X by storm with many feeling the need to clarify the video was not fake.”
Sports & Entertainment
1. Southern Miss updates game day procedures
Southern Miss Athletics announced updated game day, tailgating and parking procedures ahead of their home game against USF this Saturday.
The updates include information regarding the announcement of expanded drop-off areas as well as free parking for guests on game day to go along with student parking.
You can read more about the updated procedures here.
2. Mississippi JUCO football on tap for Thursday
Mississippi Community College football is back in action Thursday night. Here’s a rundown of the matchups in the Magnolia State:
- Coahoma at Holmes
- Hinds at Co-Lin
- Jones at MGCCC
- Southwest at Pearl River
- East Central at Itawamba
Markets & Business
1. Investors await more inflation data
CNBC reports that stock futures inched higher Thursday as investors brace for more inflation and labor data, following a volatile session spurred by the release of the August consumer price index.
“Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 64 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures gained nearly 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.1%,” CNBC reported, adding, “Stocks dropped earlier in the day when August’s consumer price index showed an uptick in core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices. The reading spooked investors hoping for a half-percentage point cut from the Federal Reserve at its Sept. 17-18 meeting.”
2. Rent, utilities rise faster that home values
The Washington Post reports that the cost of rent and utilities in 2023 rose faster than home values for the first time in a decade, “the latest sign that a distorted housing market has pushed more people into renting.”
“That’s one takeaway from the 2023 American Community Survey, released Thursday by the Census Bureau. From 2011 to 2019, real rent costs rose less than 3 percent every year, the data show.,” WP reported. “In 2022, after peaking during the coronavirus pandemic, rent grew 1 percent. But last year, rent rose 3.8 percent, compared with a 1.8 percent rise in inflation-adjusted median home values.”
WP went on to added that “the Census Bureau found that nearly half of the nation’s 42.5 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs in 2023, a threshold that considers them ‘cost-burdened.'”
Magnolia Tribune
