Mississippi
US state bans transgender athletes from women’s sports
Mississippi became the first US state on Thursday to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls or women’s sports teams, a move denounced as discriminatory by LGBTQ groups and likely to face legal challenges. Governor Tate Reeves said the “Mississippi Fairness Act” would “ensure young girls are not forced to compete against biological males.” The bill requires public schools in the conservative southern state to designate sports teams based on biological sex as for “Males,” “Females” or “Coed.” “Athletic teams or sports designated for ‘females,’ ‘women,’ or ‘girls,’ shall not be open to students of the male sex,” it states. Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a group which defends LGBTQ rights, described the bill as “discriminatory anti-transgender legislation” and said it would be challeng...
Full-Capacity Concerts, Music Festivals May Return in Texas and Mississippi After Lift of Mask Mandates
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has effectively opened the door for the state’s events sector to reopen, including full-capacity concerts and music festivals. After the passing of Executive Order GA-34, all Texas businesses will be able to reopen with no restrictions—including mask-wearing—starting March 10th. “I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING,” Abbott tweeted on Tuesday, March 2nd. “I also ended the statewide mask mandate.” Following Abbott’s executive order, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced his own, which reopened the state in similar fashion. “Starting tomorrow, we are lifting all of our county mask mandates and businesses will be able to operate at full capacity without any state-imposed rules,” he tweet...
U.S. agents search Nashville blast site, seeking clues behind Christmas explosion
Police and federal agents were scouring the charred site of a Christmas Day explosion in Nashville on Saturday, trying to determine how and why a motor home blew up and injured three people in the heart of America’s country music capital. The fiery blast, heard from miles away, destroyed several vehicles, damaged more than 40 businesses and left a trail of glass shards around the area. The motor home, parked on a downtown street of Tennessee’s largest city, exploded at dawn on Friday moments after police responding to reports of gunfire noticed the recreational vehicle and heard an automated message emanating from it warning of a bomb. The means of detonation and whether anyone was inside the RV when it blew up were not immediately known, but investigators were examining what they believed...
US country music star Charley Pride dies of coronavirus
US country music star Charley Pride has died of complications from Covid-19 at the age of 86, his family said Saturday in a message posted to the singer’s website. Pride’s “rich baritone voice and impeccable song-sense altered American culture,” the statement read further. Born a sharecropper’s son in Sledge, Mississippi, on March 18, 1934, Pride became US country music’s first Black superstar and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Between 1967 and 1987, Pride delivered 52 Top 10 country hits, won Grammy awards, and became RCA Records’ top-selling country artist. His best-known songs include “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” and “Please Help Me I’m Falling.” He won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award in 1971, its top male vocalist prize in 1971 a...
Mississippi Voters Approve A New State Flag Over Old Confederate Banner
Source: Tasos Katopodis / Getty While there’s still a good possibility that the Racist-In-Chief will remain in office for another four years (or longer), Mississippi is still looking to distance itself from it’s prejudice past and has decided to ditch it’s most blatantly racist piece of history. According to Raw Story, the people of the Hospitality State voted in a new measure which would change the state flag from that confederate battle emblem to a new banner which would feature the magnolia flower. Donald Trump and his cult of a political party isn’t gonna like that one bit. The old flag was retired over the summer, as the US exploded with the biggest protests in decades against racism and police brutality. The ongoing movement for racial justice in the US also prompted the removal of s...
US election: Republicans hold back Democrats, narrowing path to Senate control
The battle for power in the Senate tightened into Wednesday as Democrats picked up a seat in Colorado, but suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in high-profile races in South Carolina, Iowa, Texas and Kansas, dramatically narrowing the political map. Republicans fought to retain their Senate majority by turning back a surge of Democrats challenging allies of President Donald Trump, and the Democrats’ various paths to seizing control were growing more limited. With several contests still too early to call, and one Georgia race heading to a January runoff, the final verdict is expected to drag on. Democrats gained a seat when ex-Gov. John Hickenlooper ousted GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, a must-win to flip the Senate, but couldn’t hold on in Alabama, where forme...
Gold rises on renewed US stimulus hope, dollar falls
Spot gold rose 0.3 percent to $1,910.56 an ounce at 3:37pm, New York time, after falling as much as 0.5 percent. Gold rose on renewed optimism for a preelection aid package in the U.S., while the dollar fell to a one-week low. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a bill for a compromise stimulus package is being written as she awaits a key phone call with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber would take up a comprehensive coronavirus package if an accord is struck. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index headed for the third straight decline. Pelosi said in a Bloomberg Television interview that while there are areas where more work is required to get a compromise, she was pleased with the Trump administration’s latest position on coronavirus testing ...
Mississippi governor signs bill removing confederate symbol from flag
The Republican governor of the southern US state of Mississippi signed a bill Tuesday removing the Confederate battle standard from the state flag, after nationwide protests drew renewed attention to symbols of the United States’ racist past. “This is not a political moment, it is a solemn occasion to come together as a Mississippi family, reconcile, and move forward together,” Governor Tate Reeves wrote on Facebook. Mississippi is the only American state to incorporate the Confederate standard on its official flag, after nearby Georgia dropped it in 2003. Tate said a commission on the flag would “begin the process of selecting a new one — emblazoned with the words ‘In God We Trust.’” The swift signing comes after state lawmakers voted Sunday to remove the emblem in a 91-23 majority vote i...
Pfizer, BioNTech dose U.S first participants of trial coronavirus vaccine
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE announced on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, that the first participants have been dosed in the U.S in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the BNT162 vaccine program to prevent COVID-19. The trial is part of a global development program, and the dosing of the first cohort in Germany was completed last week. The Phase 1/2 study is designed to determine the safety, immunogenicity and optimal dose level of four mRNA vaccine candidates evaluated in a single, continuous study. The dose level escalation portion (Stage 1) of the Phase 1/2 trial in the U.S will enrol up to 360 healthy subjects into two age cohorts (18-55 and 65-85 years of age). The first subjects immunized in Stage 1 of the study will be healthy adults 18-55 years of age. Older adults will only be immunized with ...
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