- Important state and national stories, market and business news, sports and entertainment, delivered in quick-hit fashion to start your day informed.
In Mississippi
Ingalls recognizes new apprenticeship class graduates
Ingalls Shipbuilding celebrated its newest class of apprentice graduates during a ceremony at the shipyard on Saturday. The event recognized the graduates who have completed the three-to four-year program combining classroom instruction with hands-on shipbuilding experience.
Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Blanchette provided remarks at the ceremony and praised the graduates for their commitment and contribution to the company’s shipbuilding legacy.
Since its inception in 1952, the company said the program has produced more than 4,000 graduates who have gone on to support operations at Ingalls Shipbuilding and currently has over 600 students enrolled in the program.
National News & Foreign Policy
1. MoveOn irate with Democratic leaders, want more obstruction of Trump
Politico reports that the progressive organization MoveOn “said in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that its members are irate over what they see as inaction from Democratic lawmakers in Congress. The memo, which was first shared with POLITICO, cautioned that grassroots volunteers and donors will stop helping the Democratic Party if it doesn’t do more to obstruct Trump.”
“The memo includes data from a poll of MoveOn’s members that illustrates the pressure that Democratic lawmakers are facing from their liberal base. The survey found that 78 percent of respondents do not believe that Democrats in Congress are doing everything they can to stop Trump, and 49 percent said they were less likely to volunteer for or donate to Democrats after seeing the party’s reaction to Trump,” Politico reported. “Meanwhile, 89 percent of those polled believe Democrats should take aggressive measures to thwart Trump, and only 4 percent said they should follow congressional norms to take him on.”
2. Louisiana redistricting case heads to SCOTUS with far reaching implications on the line
The New York Times reports that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday “in a dispute over whether Louisiana’s legislature impermissibly took race into account when drawing the state’s latest congressional voting map.”
“The justices’ decision in the dispute could determine how congressional maps are drawn in Louisiana and beyond as courts wrestle with the extent to which states can legally consider race in the process,” NYT reported. “It is the latest in a series of challenges to the Voting Rights Act to come before the court in recent years.”
NYT went on to report, “A group of non-Black voters will argue that the Legislature impermissibly considered race in drawing the district lines, creating ‘a sinuous and jagged second majority-Black district based on racial stereotypes, racially ‘Balkanizing’ a 250-mile swath of Louisiana.’ Louisiana’s state officials have countered that the non-Black voters cannot show they have been directly injured and that Supreme Court precedent requires the state to consider race when it draws voter maps. In court filings, officials in the Republican-led state expressed frustration with what they called an ‘impossible’ case, arguing that they had followed the letter of the law in the Voting Rights Act, while at the same time denouncing the act’s requirements for states.”
Sports
1. Ole Miss men, women feeling Sweet
Both the Ole Miss men’s and women’s basketball teams played their way into the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 over the weekend.
For the men, it’s only their second trip to the Sweet 16, and first since 2001 where they lost against Arizona. This time, the men will take on Michigan State after defeating Iowa State on Sunday.
The women’s team will make their second appearance in the Sweet 16 in the past three seasons, last reaching it in 2023. Overall, it’s the program’s 12th time to make it into the Sweet 16.
The women defeated Baylor Sunday and will now take on the winner of No. 1 UCLA and Richmond.
2. Big 3 baseball round up
Here’s how Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Southern Miss fared on the baseball field over the weekend:
- No. 18 Ole Miss swept the Missouri Tigers to move to 18-5, 4-2 SEC on the year. The Rebels take on Memphis Tuesday night.
- No. 19 Southern Miss swept ULM, sending them to 18-6 overall and in 5-1 in the Sun Belt. The Golden Eagles will play Nicholls at Keesler Federal Ballpark in Biloxi on Tuesday night.
- Mississippi State dropped 2 out of 3 versus No. 10 Oklahoma, sending the Bulldogs to 15-9, 1-5 SEC on the year. State plays Samford on Tuesday.
3. Miss. State men out, women playing for chance at Sweet 16
The Mississippi State men’s basketball team left the Big Dance early, falling to Baylor in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
But the women are still in the hunt. The ladies play look to continue their run in March when they take on the top-seeded and fourth-ranked team in the country, USC, Monday at 9 p.m.
Markets & Business
1. Trump narrowing tariffs expected next week
The Wall Street Journal reports that President Donald Trump “is narrowing its approach to tariffs set to take effect on April 2, likely omitting a set of industry-specific tariffs while applying reciprocal levies on a targeted set of nations that account for the bulk of foreign trade with the U.S.”
“President Trump has declared his April 2 deadline to be ‘Liberation Day’ for the U.S., when he will put in place what is called reciprocal tariffs that seek to equalize U.S. tariffs with the duties charged by trading partners, as well as tariffs on sectors like automobiles, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors he repeatedly said would be enacted on that day,” WSJ reported. “Those sector-specific tariffs, however, are now not likely to be announced on April 2, said an administration official, who said the White House is still planning to unveil the reciprocal -tariff action on that day, though planning remains fluid.”
2. Stock futures up to start the week
CNBC reports that stock futures jumped early Monday “on reports President Donald Trump was planning on holding back some of the tariffs initially planned for April 2, raising hopes the U.S. won’t plunge the globe into an all-out trade war.”
“Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 305 points, or 0.7%. S&P 500 futures added 0.9%, while Nasdaq 100 futures were 1.2% higher,” CNBC reported, adding, “Stocks are coming off of a much-needed winning week.”
