- 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. City, JXN Water set for hearing before Wingate
A hearing is set for Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate regarding the future of JXN Water, its billing and other matters.
JXN Water is seeking a rate increase to continue to repair and replace water lines in the capital city. However, Jackson city leaders have opposed the rate increase and have asked the judge to step in address collections and other operational issues.
2. Lawsuit filed against Jackson Academy alleging retaliation
WAPT reports that a “Madison County couple has filed a lawsuit against Jackson Academy and its head of school, alleging their teenage son was removed from the private school in retaliation after the father shared concerns about alleged illegal athletic recruiting.”
“Carolyn and Jason Voyles filed the complaint Monday in Hinds County Court, naming Jackson Academy and head of school Edward ‘Eddie’ Wettach as defendants. The lawsuit seeks damages and other relief related to their son’s removal from the school in June 2025,” WAPT reported.
WAPT continued, “The lawsuit alleges that during the summer of 2025, Jason Voyles became aware that Jackson Academy had recruited student-athletes from nearby public schools, a practice prohibited under rules of the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools. The complaint claims Voyles compiled a document identifying more than 10 student-athletes who were allegedly recruited and shared it with two other parents. Three days later, according to the lawsuit, Wettach requested a meeting with the Voyles family. During a June 9 meeting that included a school board member, Wettach informed the family that Jackson Academy had decided to unenroll them, including their son.”
National News & Foreign Policy
1. Rubio says Trump wants to buy Greenland from Denmark
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that recent administration threats against Greenland didn’t signal an imminent invasion and that the goal is to buy the island from Denmark, according to people familiar with the discussions.”
“Rubio’s statements, which were made Monday during a closed briefing, come as the White House has been offering increasingly belligerent statements about controlling the island,” WSJ reported. “President Trump and senior administration officials have publicly declined to rule out seizing the territory by force.”
“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, per WSJ. “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander in chief’s disposal.”
WSJ noted that the State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
2. Democrats advised not to make Trump the centerpiece of their campaigns
According to The Hill, “Political strategists say Democrats running in competitive races in this year’s midterm elections for the House and Senate should steer clear of making President Trump the centerpiece of their campaigns.”
“While Trump’s approval ratings are low and Americans have been frustrated by his job performance in the first year of his second term, the strategists say the key to winning is to home in on economic issues — particularly affordability,” The Hill reported, adding, “It’s not as though Trump won’t be mentioned, people familiar with the strategy of the House Democrats’ campaign arm say. It’s that the president will be secondary to the primary focus of how Democrats can make the economy better.”
“You can’t ignore Trump because it’s his economy. But the top message is the economy and affordability,” one source familiar with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) plans for the midterms said, per The Hill.
Sports
1. Hubbard named SEC Player of the Week
Mississippi State basketball’s Josh Hubbard was named SEC Player of the Week on Monday. It marks his sixth weekly award from the SEC. He was a five-time SEC Freshman of the Week during the 2023-24 season.
MSU Athletics said Hubbard posted 30.0 points, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals per contest as State moved its winning streak to five consecutive games. He poured in a career-high tying 38 points at Texas which also marked the most points scored by an SEC player this season.
The school added that Hubbard brought State to the finish line as he amassed 10 points in overtime and hit the go-ahead trey with 39 seconds remaining to break a 96-96 tie to give the Bulldogs the lead for good. The 38-point effort vaulted Hubbard into 11th place on State’s all-time scoring list, while the six treys pushed him into a 2nd place tie at State with 260 career treys. Five of his six career games of 30+ points have come against SEC opponents.
2. Johnson named Sun Belt Player of the Week
Southern Miss graduate student guard Jakayla Johnson was selected as the Sun Belt Conference’s Player of the Week.
Southern Miss Athletics said Johnson led the Sun Belt in scoring with 56 total points and 28.0 points per game in the second week of league action. She began the week with a game-high 26 points against Arkansas State on Jan. 1, finishing 6-of-11 from the field and a career-best 14-of-16 at the free throw line. She tied her career high in made free throws and set a new high with 16 attempts at the line. She also assisted two buckets and grabbed three steals on just 23 minutes of floor time.
The school noted that Johnson led the Lady Eagles to a 98-95 shootout victory over Troy on Jan. 3 with a season-high 30 points. She finished 11-of-20 from the floor with four rebounds, four assists and two steals. She helped Southern Miss dig out of an early eight-point deficit and fend off the Trojans to pick up Southern Miss’ third conference win of the year and match last season’s total win total of 10.
Markets & Business
1. Mortgage demand down to start 2026
CNBC reports that mortgage rates moved lower to end 2025 and start 2026, but that did little to pull demand back to the market.
“For the week ending January 2, 2026, total mortgage application volume fell 9.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis from two weeks earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. There were additional adjustments made for the holidays, and the read is for two weeks because the MBA did not report last week,” CNBC reported. “Over those two weeks, the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances, $806,500 or less, decreased to 6.25% from 6.32%, with points decreasing to 0.57 from 0.59, including the origination fee, for loans with a 20% down payment. That was the lowest level since September 2024.”
CNBC continued, “Applications to refinance a home loan dropped 14% over the two week period but were still 133% higher than the same week one year ago.”
2. Staying the course in Venezuela has set Chevron apart
The New York Times reports that “it was a big bet roughly two decades ago that set Chevron apart from other American producers in Venezuela.”
“Hugo Chávez, the country’s president at the time, was nationalizing parts of Venezuela’s oil industry, forcing foreign investors to accept smaller stakes in projects without compensating them,” NYT reported. “Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, and ConocoPhillips walked away and have been pursuing, with little success, billions of dollars in claims against Venezuela. Chevron saw opportunity.”
NYT went on to report, “Chevron has taken a long-term view in many countries besides Venezuela, including Kazakhstan, a Central Asian nation with some of the world’s largest oil fields, and Israel, where the company is developing two big gas fields. Staying the course in Venezuela could pay off for Chevron in even more ways. As the only Western oil company with U.S. government authorization to export oil from Venezuela, it is positioned, given the right political conditions, to increase production more quickly than companies that have no presence in the country.”
Magnolia Tribune
