- 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. McComb Weyerhaeuser plant “bets it can replace met coal with pine trees”
The Wall Street Journal reports that “Weyerhaeuser, America’s largest private landowner, said it has launched a venture to turn runty trees and sawdust from its fleet of mills into a replacement for metallurgical coal used in steel making.”
“The forest-products company said it expects production to begin in 2027 at a facility being built next to its sawmill in McComb, Miss.—the first of several biocarbon plants planned by Weyerhaeuser and partner Aymium,” WSJ reported. “It is the latest effort to find a market for the trees too small or otherwise unsuitable for making lumber. Such wood has typically been sent to pulp and paper mills, but U.S. wood-pulp consumption capacity has plunged due to waning paper demand. This year alone, the U.S. has shed roughly 10% of its capacity to produce containerboard, the thick paper used to make corrugated boxes.”
WSJ noted, “The closures have walloped timber growers, especially in the South, where landowners ranging from Weyerhaeuser, with its vast loblolly plantations, to families with 40-acre woodlots raise pine for the forest-products industry.”
2. Auditor: Mississippi’s average teacher salary is the lowest in the nation
A new report by the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor says Mississippi’s average teacher salary is the lowest in the nation while the average cost-of-living-adjusted teacher salary is the third lowest.
“My team found that even when you adjust for Mississippi’s low cost of living, teachers here are still some of the lowest paid in the nation,” said State Auditor Shad White. “We need to cut the amount of money spent on administration and bureaucracy and redirect that money to what actually matters: teacher salaries and inside-the-classroom spending.”
Analysts at the State Auditor’s Office found that the average teacher salary in Mississippi today is worth less than a teacher’s salary from 2008 once you adjust for inflation.
Analysts also compared Mississippi teacher’s salaries to the salaries of teachers in places with higher costs of living. Mississippi teachers are paid less than teachers in any other state, even when you adjust for our state’s low cost of living. Mississippi’s cost of living is 12.7% lower than the national average yet even after adjusting for cost of living, Mississippi teacher salaries are still nearly $9,000 behind the national average.
White’s office said Mississippi spends a larger percentage of its education budget on administration than every other state in the South.
National News & Foreign Policy
1. House passes GOP health care bill
As reported by The Hill, “The House advanced a GOP health care bill Wednesday, even as moderate Republicans signed a Democratic discharge petition to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies in an act of defiance against leadership.”
“The vote was 213-209. Rep. Jen Kiggans (Va.) was the only Republican to vote no,” The Hill reported. “The GOP package would not address the expiring ObamaCare subsidies. Rather, it would appropriate funds to pay for cost-sharing reductions in ObamaCare, a complicated move that would lower premiums for some people but decrease the overall number of subsidies and make premiums more expensive for others.”
The Hill went on to report, “Wednesday’s vote came shortly after four GOP centrists — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Rob Bresnahan (Pa.) and Ryan Mackenzie (Pa.) — signed on to a discharge petition from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to extend the subsidies for three years, in a major act of defiance against House leadership. Their votes were enough to push the petition to the 218-signature threshold to force a vote.”
2. FCC chair’s comment irk Senate Democrats
The New York Times reports that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission “said in a hearing on Wednesday that the agency was not independent, stunning Democratic lawmakers concerned that President Trump could use the government office as a tool for censorship.”
“The Republican chair, Brendan Carr, said in an agency oversight hearing by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that ‘formally speaking, the F.C.C. isn’t independent,'” NYT reported, adding, “Mr. Carr has argued that local stations that carry the television and radio content are held to a ‘public interest’ standard. Mr. Trump has pushed for the F.C.C. to use its powers over the broadcast industry to retaliate against coverage that he has deemed unfavorable to him. The agency’s main power over the industry lies in its approvals of mergers and of licenses to broadcasters to use the public airwaves.”
NYT continued, “In Wednesday’s hearing, Mr. Carr, a career telecommunications lawyer, said the 1934 Communications Act did not explicitly describe the president’s authority over the agency. ‘So I can be fired by the president for no reason or any reason at all,’ he said.”
Sports
MSU punter Pulliam names to Sporting News 2025 College Football All-America Second Team
Mississippi State football’s Ethan Pulliam has been named to The Sporting News 2025 College Football All-America Second Team, the publication announced Wednesday.
MSU Athletics said Pulliam punted 40 times with a total yardage of 1,874 yards. He averaged 46.9 yards per punt with a long punt of 67 yards. Of his 40 punts, 16 were at least 50 yards, and he pinned 10 inside the 20-yard line.
If the season ended today, his average of 46.9 yards per punt would be a program record, passing Andy Russ, who had an average of 46.5 in 1996.
Markets & Business
1. Trump’s blockade leaves nearly a dozen Venezuelan oil-filled tankers at seas
CNBC reports that at least 34 U.S.-sanctioned oil tankers “with a history of carrying Venezuelan oil are currently at sea in the Caribbean, according to a new analysis obtained by CNBC on Wednesday.”
“And at least 12 of those tankers appear to be filled with crude oil from Venezuela, according to vessel location data from Kpler, a global trade intelligence company,” CNBC reported. “One of the tankers, Skipper, was seized by the U.S. forces in the Caribbean last week and was being taken to the United States.”
“In light of President Trump’s recent announcement, these tankers may be exposed to heightened scrutiny and potential enforcement actions by U.S. authorities,” Dimitris Ampatzidis, senior risk and compliance Analyst at Kpler, told CNBC.
CNBC also reported, “In a separate report to clients on Wednesday, Kpler said that a blockade of Venezuelan oil should not lead to higher crude prices.”
2. GM investing $242 million in skilled workforce development
FoxBusiness reports that while many companies are working to address the skilled workforce shortage, “General Motors has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build its own pipeline of future workers.”
“Over the past five years alone, the automaker has invested more than $242 million in its skilled trades apprenticeship program, which is geared toward training the next generation of skilled trade professionals with a combination of classroom instruction and thousands of hours of hands-on experience at a GM facility, Michael Trevorrow, GM’s senior vice president of global manufacturing,” FoxBusiness reported.
According to GM, as shared by FoxBusiness, “Apprentices will go through up to 672 hours of related technical instruction in a classroom setting and approximately 7,920 hours of on-the-job training with an assigned qualified skilled trades person. Focus areas of the program include a diemaker, electrician, experimental assembler inspector, experimental laboratory paint technician, millwright, metal model maker, wood model maker, pattern maker, pipefitter, toolmaker and machine repairer.”
