- 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. Fitch, Watson announces order against national scheme to defraud seniors
On Monday, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Secretary of State Michael Watson announced, in partnership with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and 29 other states, that California-based company, Safeguard Metals LLC, and its owner, Jeffrey Santulan, also known as Jeffrey Ikahn or Jeffrey Hill (Santulan), have been ordered to pay more than $51 million in restitution to their fraud victims and in civil penalties.
In addition, the announcement from the two said Secretary Watson has issued an order barring Ikahn from any position of employment, management, or control of any investment adviser, broker-dealer, or commodity adviser in Mississippi. Six investors in Mississippi were defrauded out of nearly $892,000 in the execution of this national scheme.
This final judgment follows an October 2023 court finding that Safeguard Metals used aggressive sales tactics to coerce more than 450 people nationwide, mostly elderly, to liquidate their retirement accounts to purchase overpriced metals and coins. This violates federal and state commodities and security laws.
2. Mississippi Tourism Association recognized for its Heart of Hospitality Workforce Development campaign
The Mississippi Tourism Association (MTA) says it was honored with the Best Niche Marketing “Shining Example” Award from the Southeast Tourism Society (STS) at the 2025 Connections Conference in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The award recognizes excellence in marketing efforts that demonstrate exceptional creativity, originality, and effectiveness in reaching a clearly defined audience.
Mississippi Tourism received this distinction for its Heart of Hospitality Workforce Development campaign; a statewide initiative designed to elevate and celebrate the people who power Mississippi’s tourism and hospitality industry. The campaign combines storytelling videos, certification programs, digital marketing, a podcast and a statewide job bank to highlight tourism as one of Mississippi’s most rewarding career paths. The campaign shares the personal stories of professionals working in Mississippi’s travel industry, showcases the pride and professionalism within the industry, and provides accessible training tools to strengthen the state’s tourism workforce.
National News & Foreign Policy
1. Senate Democrats continue to keep the shutdown going
As The Hill reports, “The Senate on Monday voted against reopening the federal government for the 11th time, pushing the shutdown to the three-week mark with both sides at loggerheads and unable to break the impasse. The chamber voted 50-43 on the House-passed continuing resolution to fund the government through late November. It needed 60 votes to pass.”
The Hill reported that “there remain precious few signs that the stalemate will dissolve in the near term, likely ensuring that it will extend into a fourth week and potentially into November. In remarks on the floor Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Democratic position ‘remains the same.'”
“The Senate is expected to next vote on the stopgap funding bill on Wednesday,” The Hill added.
2. Biden completes radiation therapy
The Washington Post reports that former president Joe Biden “completed a round of radiation therapy Monday, as part of his treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer.”
“I can confirm that he has completed a course of radiation therapy today,” said Kelly Scully, a Biden spokesperson, who noted that Biden, 83, “rang the bell” at Penn Medicine Radiation Oncology in Philadelphia where he has been undergoing the therapy for several weeks.
“Biden’s office announced in May that he had been diagnosed with an advanced form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones,” WP reported. “At the time, Biden’s office said the cancer was responding to hormone therapy, ‘which allows for effective management.’ He also underwent surgery last month to remove skin cancer lesions from his head.”
Sports
1. Southern Miss women’s basketball’s Johnson, Thames earn pre-season honors
Southern Miss Athletics said Monday that Jakayla Johnson and Meloney Thames were named to the Preseason All-Sun Belt First and Third Team, respectively.
The women’s basketball team at Southern Miss was also predicted to finish fifth in the 2025-26 standings with a new head coach on the court.
“The Sun Belt Conference is an extremely tough league with great coaches and great players,” said first-year Lady Eagle head coach Missy Bilderback. “To have two of our players represented on the preseason teams is exciting, as is the coaches’ decision to pick us fifth in the conference standings. Jakayla and Meloney are outstanding players on our team and will definitely play a key role in achieving our goals this season.”
2. Belhaven’s Hodgin names conference Defensive Player of the Week
Belhaven Athletics said Monday that the league had named Icarius Hodgin the USA South Football Defensive Player of the Week.
According to the school, Hodgin helped lead the Blazers to a 41-26 home victory over Greensboro, returning an interception 28 yards for a touchdown early in the third quarter to spark a run that put Belhaven in control. It marked the second pick-six of his Belhaven career, with his first also coming against Greensboro last season.
The senior defensive back finished with five tackles, one pass breakup, and a key interception that extended Belhaven’s lead to double digits midway through the third quarter.
Markets & Business
1. AWS outage looks to have originated from Northern Virginia data center
According to Business Insider, “Early Monday morning, Amazon’s AWS experienced an outage that brought down more than 100 of its services. Platforms like Snapchat, Reddit, and Venmo that use AWS for hosting servers and delivering content all suffered the impact, as did games like Roblox, Wordle, and Fortnite.”
“Based on the AWS service status page, the outage started with an error with its Domain Name System at Amazon’s northern Virginia data plant, located in what is known as the ‘Data Center Alley,’ where hundreds of data centers are located,” Business Insider reported, adding, “Following the DNS failure, a domino effect of other issues followed, including issues with cloud computing service and Network Load Balancers, which route traffic between servers. This affected AWS services.”
Business Insider continued, “While it is common for internet service providers to experience issues with DNS, due to the reach of AWS, the scale of disruption seen on Monday is rare.”
2. China weaker than expected 3rd quarter GDP growth
The Wall Street Journal reports that “China said economic momentum decelerated to its slowest pace in a year, putting Beijing on alert in the midst of hardball trade negotiations with the U.S.”
“China said its gross domestic product expanded 4.8% in the third quarter of 2025 compared with a year earlier, down from 5.2% growth in the second quarter. Over the first nine months of the year, China’s economy expanded 5.2% from the year-earlier period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That means that Beijing is largely on track to hit its official target of around 5.0% growth for 2025,” WSJ reported. “China’s economy has defied expectations this year thanks in large part to its resilient exports in the face of new U.S. tariffs. China’s customs agency last week reported a 6.1% year-over-year increase in overall exports in the first nine months of 2025, even as exports to the U.S. fell nearly 17% for the same period.”
WSJ added, “But weaker household spending and investment weighed on momentum in the third quarter.”
