Business

An update on the Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed expansion of the Mississippi State Port at Gulfport outlines options for the long-term. The complete study by the Corps of Engineers will be done in 2015.

The head of the MDA will decide if rules set up by that agency are valid.

Port Commissioners confirmed their promise to create 1,200 more jobs at the state port in Gulfport in order to get $570 million in restoration funds from HUD. The restoration from Hurricane Katrina is in progress, but some residents say the jobs aren't showing up soon enough.

Conservation officials are looking hundreds of miles up the Mississippi River in hopes of fighting dead zones in the Gulf.

The future of drilling in Mississippi gulf waters is in the balance at a set of hearings in Jackson.

Port leaders are under pressure from the Governor to move forward aggressively with the $570 million expansion of the state port in Gulfport.  The Georgia Ports Authority has been working with the Corps of Engineers in Savannah for 13 years to to deepen the channel there.

Hands Across the Sand is one way Mississippi environmental groups are drawing a line against drilling in state waters. The Mississippi Development Authority and two environmental groups face off Wednesday at an administrative hearing on the drilling rules.

In a study on the effects of the BP oil spill, lead researcher Alice Ortmann says when the dispersant Corexit was added to water from the Gulf of Mexico, the number of ciliates and phytoplanktons went down by half and bacteria doubled. The study suggests a possible disturbance in the food chain.

"When you don't have other crops then you resort to illegal crops. if we can teach them how to grow vegetables, things to help them feed their families and things that they can do to raise their livestock to where they'll have meat to eat then those other things will go by the wayside."

"March 2013 if anyone receives a federal benefit check via the mail you're gonna be sent a debit card automatically. But every time they  use that debit card they're gonna be charged from the folks who sent them the debit card and where they use that debit card."

The Port Commission submitted a revised plan for the state port in Gulfport to the Governor, who wants to speed up the expansion to create the port of the future.

The State Supreme Court denied Mississippi Power's petition for an interim rate increase that would be used toward construction costs of the Kemper County plant.

A federal lawsuit accuses Virginia College in Jackson of fraud, negligence, and breach of contract.

Gulf Coast residents brought concerns  to Mississippi 4th District Congressman Steven Palazzo at a town hall meeting in Gautier. Issues inlcuded the health care overhaul, smoke-free cities, jobs and Social Security.

The Gulf Coast Tourism Partnership created to dole out $16 million from BP will have $10 million spent by the end of this year.