Important state and national stories, market and business news, sports and entertainment, delivered in quick-hit fashion
In Mississippi
1. Auditor White questions DeSoto County Crime Stoppers spending
State Auditor Shad White released a report on Monday showing the DeSoto County Crime Stoppers spent nearly $400,000 over the last 10 years while not being able to provide evidence that it ever gave a tip on a crime to law enforcement or gave a reward to anyone who reported a crime to law enforcement.
According to the Auditor, DeSoto County Crime Stoppers is a nonprofit that exists to reduce crime in DeSoto County by providing a service where citizens can submit anonymous tips of potential criminal activity. Since 2015, DeSoto County Crime Stoppers has received over $400,000 from local government through fees on misdemeanors like speeding tickets.
Analysts at the Office of the State Auditor noted:
- DeSoto County Crime Stoppers paid extra fees to keep one of their two tip hotlines unpublished on the internet.
- DeSoto County Crime Stoppers could not produce any records showing it collected or gave tips to law enforcement over a ten-year period. They provided no records showing a reward paid to an informant in the last decade.
- Records show over $240,000—60% of total spending—went to employee salaries. Further records show the organization paid only one employee for years.
- In 2023 and 2024, DeSoto County Crime Stoppers purchased 3,000 calendars and paid over $600 to ship them 13 miles from a company in Hernando to their address in Horn Lake.
The report can be found here.
2. MSU launches Energy Resilience, Innovation Hub
Mississippi State University is launching the Energy Resilience and Innovation Hub to foster collaboration and innovation that will support the Magnolia State’s future energy needs.
Led by MSU Associate Vice President for Research and Economic Development Narcisa Pricope, the school said the unit will serve as a thinktank and collaborative hub working to catalyze economic growth, strengthen community and institutional energy resilience, foster policy alignment and promote access to energy resources.
Pricope noted MSU is working toward several projects that tackle areas such as energy efficiency, local government retrofits and audits, water-energy resilience, policy and workforce, and renewable site planning. The new initiative builds on existing MSU expertise in energy systems, grid resilience, clean fuels, energy storage, artificial intelligence and carbon utilization.
MSU added that the hub will provide a dedicated space for sharing information, building partnerships and aligning research and development efforts across multiple sectors. As energy systems evolve, the initiative will support emerging workforce development needs to ensure Mississippians are ready to take advantage of current and future job opportunities in the energy sector.
National News & Foreign Policy
1. Tensions among Democrats boiling over as Senate moves to reopen government
As The Hill reports, “Democrats from both chambers of Congress and differing wings of the party are furious after eight Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to advance a measure to reopen the government.”
“The Senate passed the spending bill Monday night, and House leaders said they would vote on it as early as 4 p.m. on Wednesday. President Trump said he would ‘abide by the deal’ once it reaches his desk,” The Hill reported. “House Democrats are widely expected to oppose the bill, while a few moderate members may buck the party and vote for it. Republicans will be operating with an ultranarrow majority to get it to Trump for a signature.”
The Hill went on to report that ” tensions are boiling over within the Democratic Party, just a week after the party was riding high off its sweeping success in last Tuesday’s elections.”
“What Senate Dems who voted for this horses**t deal did was f— over all the hard work people put in to Tuesday’s elections,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, posted on the social platform X. “Healthcare matters. Not platitudes.”
2. Trump legal team asks SCOTUS to overturn Carrol judgment
According to the New York Times, “President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to overturn a $5 million civil judgment that he had sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll.”
“In the petition, lawyers for Mr. Trump claimed that the assertions against him were ‘implausible’ and ‘unsubstantiated’ and argued that the trial court had erred in a ‘series of indefensible evidentiary rulings,'” NYT reported. “A copy of the petition, which had not yet appeared on the court’s public-facing docket, was reviewed by The New York Times. A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team said the president would continue to fight the case and referred to it as ‘liberal lawfare.’ Lawyers for Ms. Carroll declined to comment.”
NYT continued, “The appeal stems from a case that played out in a New York City courtroom before Mr. Trump was re-elected. A federal jury in May 2023 had found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. The jury also concluded that Mr. Trump had defamed her when, in 2022, he said on Truth Social that her case was a hoax and a lie.”
Sports
1. MSU WR Evans named to Biletnikoff Award watch list
Mississippi State wide receiver Anthony Evans III has been added to the prestigious Biletnikoff Award watch list, the Tallahassee Quarterback Club (TQC) Foundation announced on Monday.
MSU Athletics said Evans has had a career year in 2025, setting career bests in receptions (56), yards (680) and touchdowns (4). He leads the SEC in receptions this season and ranks sixth in receiving yards. Evans is averaging 68.0 yards per game, 12.1 yards per reception and 5.6 receptions per game. He is tied for fourth in the SEC on plays from scrimmage of at least 40 yards (4). Evans also has 26 plays from scrimmage that have gone for at least 10 yards, which is the 15th-best total in the SEC.
Voting to determine semifinalist begins Nov. 10 and will run through Nov. 16. Fans can vote by clicking here.
2. Shuckers’ Lara named Minor League Gold Glove winner
Rawlings and Minor League Baseball recently announced that Biloxi Shuckers outfielder Luis Lara was named a 2025 Rawlings Gold Glove Award® winner as an outfielder.
Lara becomes the sixth Shucker to win the award and marks the fourth consecutive season a Shuckers player has earned the award. The team said Lara made 126 starts in centerfield and recorded 10 outfield assists, tied for the fifth-most at the Double-A level. His 1,078.2 innings in the outfield during the 2025 season marked the second-most in Double-A and the ninth-most in Minor League Baseball.
According to the team, Lara, the 20-year-old native of Venezuela, was one of eight players under 21 years old to appear for the Shuckers during the 2025 season, a franchise record. Lara was originally signed by the Brewers as an International Free Agent on June 3, 2022.
Markets & Business
1. 50-year mortgages?
FoxBusiness reports that President Donald Trump and administration officials “signaled that they’re planning to develop a 50-year mortgage that they think could expand access to homeownership, though experts are cautioning the longer-term mortgages could hamstring homebuyers.”
“Trump on Saturday posted on his Truth Social platform with a graphic showing pictures of ‘Great American Presidents’ including Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in office when the 30-year mortgage was popularized, and himself to suggest he will develop a 50-year mortgage,” FoxBusiness reported. “Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte added in a post on X that, ‘Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage – a complete game changer.'”
FoxBusiness added, “Financial industry experts responded to the 50-year mortgage proposal with skepticism, noting it would likely come with a higher interest rate than a traditional 30-year mortgage and the longer duration would increase the cumulative interest paid by borrowers.”
2. Energy Dept. looks to boost nuclear power
CNBC reports that nuclear power “will receive most of the money from the Energy Department’s loan office as the Trump administration pushes to quickly break ground on new reactors, Secretary Chris Wright said on Monday.”
“President Trump signed an executive order in May that called for the U.S. to break ground on 10 large nuclear reactors by 2030. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to restart old nuclear plants, upgrade existing ones, and deploy new reactor technology to meet the electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers,” CNBC reported.
CNBC noted, “Wright said he expects electricity demand from AI to attract billions of dollars in equity capital to build new nuclear capacity from ‘very creditworthy providers.’ The Energy Department could match those private dollars by as much as four to one with low cost debt financing from the loan office, he said.”
“When we leave office three years and three months from now, I want to see hopefully dozens of nuclear plants under construction,” Wright said, per CNBC.
-- Article credit to the staff for the Magnolia Tribune --
