Better MS Report

From The New York Times: An oil platform exploded and caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning, touching off flurries of conflicting reports about sightings of oil slicks in the water and whether any workers had been injured in the blast. Coast Guard officials said a sheen measuring one mile long by [...]

From The Times-Picayune: The Coast Guard is reporting the the Gulf oil rig explosion has left a sheen that is 100 feet wide and about a mile long, Chief Warrant Officer Barry Lane said. “We’re monitoring the oil sheen to make sure it’s not growing,” he said. Lane said the Coast Guard has received reports [...]

From The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal: A federal jury chosen Monday in Greenville holds the fate of Mitchell Scruggs’ farming empire. This legal battle has been going on since Sept. 7, 2000, when agriculture giant Monsanto sued Scruggs; his brother, Eddie Scruggs; and five of their business operations. Monsanto sought to stop the Scruggses from [...]

From The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal: Community colleges in Northeast Mississippi are adjusting to a second year of growth. Each of the four community colleges that serve Northeast Mississippi have reported increased enrollment for the current fall semester. Those increases have resulted in larger class sizes, more adjunct teachers and instructors carrying greater class loads. [...]

From The Oxford Eagle: Colonel Reb, the University of Mississippi’s iconic former mascot who conjures up — for many — images of the plantation-era of the South of the past, is soon to be a remnant of the past himself. The Colonel Reb image was officially — and legally — retired Wednesday. Tuesday was is [...]

From The Sun Herald: Memorial Hospital at Gulfport laid off 47 employees Friday as part of cost-cutting measures to offset an $11 million budget shortfall, hospital administrators said Tuesday. The layoffs were part of a plan that included some restructuring, elimination of services and changes in benefits, Memorial President and CEO Gary Marchand said. “The [...]

From The Sun Herald: A former Jackson County accounts-payable clerk indicted on eight felony counts of embezzlement is accused of stealing $890,000 from the county over a nine-year period in what State Auditor Stacey Pickering described Tuesday as likely the largest individual embezzlement case in state history. Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd said deputies served [...]

Charlie Mitchell, syndicated columnist: Three things to remember: * PEER is a function of the Legislature. * PEER’s job is to inform. Scandal is not inherent in PEER reports. * PEER is powerless. Only if the Legislature or citizens react to PEER reports does anything happen. No reaction and the reports go on a shelf [...]

From The Associated Press: With the help of Mississippi first lady Marsha Barbour, four endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles have been released back into Gulf waters. Barbour joined officials from the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies on Monday in returning the turtles to the Mississippi Sound. IMMS Director Moby Solangi said the hooks of pier [...]

From The Associated Press: Republican Gov. Haley Barbour and a bipartisan group of Mississippi lawmakers are considering saving, rather than spending, one of the two pots of federal stimulus money Congress recently approved. Doing so could make it easier for officials to craft a state budget during the 2011 election-year session when most lawmakers are [...]