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By Bob Warren, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune May 09, 2015 at 9:59 PM, updated May 09, 2015 at 11:59 PM Two Hattiesburg, Miss., police officers were shot Saturday night (May 9), south Mississippi media outlets were reporting. Both officers have died, the Clarion Ledger in Jackson and WDAM in Hattiesburg were reporting. The Clarion Ledger's story said police were seeking two men as suspects, Curtis Banks and Marvin Banks. The Hattiesburg American reported the shooting occurred near East Fourth and Bouie streets around 8 p.m. Multiple agencies are involved in a search. The identities of the officers have not been...

A suspected Subway sandwich store employee has sparked outrage with tasteless social media posts celebrating Saturday’s killing of two Mississippi cops. “2 police officers was shot in hattiesburg tonight.!” cheered Sierra “C-Babi” Mccurdy, in a message posted overnight. “We can turn this bxtch into Baltimore real quick,” she posted on Facebook. “Police take away innocent people lives everyday now & get away w/ it, fxck them…[no mercy].”

My apologies for starting off your Mothers Day with such horrible news, but two more law enforcement officers have been assassinated, this time in Mississippi. It’s barely twelve hours since the incident, but it seems as if the local police in Hattiesburg were all over the case and two suspects are already in custody. Fox News is reporting that the manhunt for two brothers, Curtis and Marvin Banks, was over in a matter of hours and they were taken into custody with no further injury to the police. Two suspects accused of killing two Mississippi police officers Saturday night...

Curtis Banks, right, and Marvin Banks, are suspects in the killings of two Hattiesburg, Mississippi police officers.Two brothers have been identified as the suspects in the killing of two Hattiesburg, Mississippi police officers. Curtis Banks, 26, and Marvin Banks, 29, were held in connection with the shooting, police said. The officers were shot during a traffic stop Saturday night at about 8 p.m., according to WDAM-TV. They have been identified as 34-year-old Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate, 25, according to The Clarion-Ledger. Here’s what you need to know: 1. The Brothers Were Arrested Early Sunday Morning Ryan Moore(PHOTO-AT-LINK) ✔ ‎@RyanMooreMS...

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A coroner says two Mississippi police officers have died after being shot in the line of duty. Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger (http://on.thec-l.com/1GWpqRp ) Saturday night that both Hattiesburg officers had died. They’d been taken to the hospital, and it wasn’t immediately clear if they died there or earlier.

In last June’s Mississippi GOP runoff, liberal Republican Thad Cochran engaged in mass election fraud to defeat conservative primary challenger Chris McDaniel. Team Cochran paid thousands of African-Americans $15 per vote, and planted stories in liberal media outlets alleging McDaniel of having ties to the KKK. Cochran narrowly defeated McDaniel in the primary, and went on to win the general election. On Monday, Rand Paul urged conservatives to “get over” any hard feelings… “There are still some hard feelings…have to get over it. It’s hard when you run a race and you don’t win. Ahead of Paul’s visit, Mississippi Tea...

Exactly two months after the latest Warren Buffett-owned BNSF train derailed near the spot where the Galena river meets the Mississippi, resulting in a huge fire and the evacuation of all homes in a one mile radius, moments ago another of Buffett's BNSF oil trains derailed, this time near the town of Heimdal, North Dakota, resulting in the same outcome. According to the Bismark Tribune, the town in Wells County was evacuated Tuesday morning after a train full of oil tanker cars derailed and burned about a mile and half east of here. ... For those concerned that these countless...

Movie star Ben Affleck has another nine slaveholder ancestors from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, according to publicly available Census records and genealogy research conducted by Breitbart News. Last week, Affleck admitted that he successfully pressured Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates to edit his Georgia slaveholding ancestor, Benjamin Cole, out of an episode of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots” that featured his family history. This brings the number of Affleck’s known slaveholder ancestors to 12, who owned a total of 214 slaves. The relative ease with which Breitbart News was able to find these nine additional slaveholding...

A staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) admitted to distributing methamphetamine and another drug in exchange for sexual favors, according to a report in The Washington Post. Customs and Border Patrol officers in Cincinnati found a package of gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) addressed to Fred Wesley Pagan, according to a court document. Homeland Security agents searched his house in the Brightwood neighborhood of Washington D.C., on Thursday and found a substance that tested positive for meth in plastic bags, the court document states. The Post reports Pagan is a long-time employee of Cochran and currently serves as his office manager. Pagan allegedly...

Five years ago this week, a blowout of BPÂ’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig 40 miles from the Gulf Coast tragically claimed eleven lives and spilled 3 million barrels of oil from the damaged wellhead into the Gulf. ItÂ’s hard to forget the video images of thick oil gushing, day after day, into the regionÂ’s waters. It was a horrific accident that caused substantial damage to the ecology and commerce of the region. Gulf-area wildlife, portions of the shoreline, tourism, fishers and shrimpers, and energy-sector workers suffered large losses in the aftermath of the spill. BP has paid close to $27...

U.S. crude oil production fell at least 135,000 barrels of oil per day in January 2015 compared to December 2014 according to the EIA (Figure 1). Bakken Shale production fell the most of any play or jurisdiction losing 37,000 barrels per day in North Dakota and 4,000 barrels per day in Montana for a total of 41,000 barrels of oil per day (Figure 2). Production in California, the offshore Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and Wyoming also declined significantly. Figure 3 shows Bakken production based on DrillingInfo data. The 42,000 barrels of oil per day drop in January production is completely...

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Senate staffer is facing a federal charge after court documents say he bought drugs from China with the intent to exchange them for sexual favors. Senate staffer Fred W. Pagan is facing the federal charge of possession with intent to distribute after court documents say he shipped drugs in from China. Pagan is a staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi.

A baker's dozen — twelve plus one — is the number of candidates seeking to fill the seat of the late U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee who died of brain cancer in February. The special election to fill Nunnelee's seat is May 12, less than a month away and the jockeying has begun to court votes in DeSoto County, Mississippi's fastest growing county and a population that makes up nearly one-fourth or 23 percent of all voters in the First Congressional District. The list of candidates, in alphabetical order, is as follows: Boyce Adams, Sam Adcock, Nancy Collins, Edward Holliday, Starner...

Gov. Phil Bryant said Mississippi should enforce the laws when it comes to immigration. President Barack Obama's executive actions that would implement major changes to the country's immigration policies suffered a major blow after a federal judge ordered Obama's programs halted Tuesday. (SNIP) "I think we should enforce the law," Bryant, a Republican, said. "I think we should join with immigration and enforcement services and say we are going to enforce the law if you are here illegally."

I’ve long been a fan of the adage that the worst thing you can give someone is exactly what they’ve asked for. In the last few days, there has been a minor storm brewing over SB 2161 – the bill in Mississippi designed to address Common Core. The bill passed with overwhelming support in the Mississippi Legislature in an election year. Last week, Governor Phil Bryant had some misgivings about the bill and signaled that he might (might) veto. Wingnut nation piled on both on blogs and in closed door Facebook chat rooms urging him to do that. (SNIP) Of...

Gov. Phil Bryant late Thursday afternoon ended any suspense over whether his signature would go on a Common Core bill supporters said was designed to kill use of the education standards in Mississippi. Bryant disagreed, and Thursday put his veto on Senate Bill 2161, saying the measure did not kill Common Core but merely created a commission to study it. He wants it dead and pledged to continuing seeking its demise. (SNIP) Chris McDaniel, who narrowly lost a runoff bid against Thad Cochran for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination, is chairman of United Conservatives Fund. While commending Bryant for his...

Two of the country’s most powerful and politically influential labor unions are backing President Obama in the recent court challenge to his 2014 executive action on illegal immigration, saying they support the president’s effort because "undocumented workers" need more workplace protection and their participation helps the U.S. economy. The AFL-CIO and the National Education Association on Monday each filed so-called amicus briefs in a federal appeals court case in which Texas and 26 other states are challenges the president’s 2014 memorandum on illegal immigration. The memorandum essentially expands work authorization and delayed-deportation programs for illegal immigrants. And it provides similar...

Easter Sunday is sort of like the Super Bowl for preachers. It’s all but guaranteed the pews will be packed and that presented a challenge to Roderick Richardson, the pastor of The Word Center Church in Jackson, Miss. The non-denominational church has a membership of about 1,200 people – but only 275 can fit in the sanctuary. And the preacher estimated they could have as many as 1,500 people show up for Easter Sunday. http://www.thewordcity.com/ So last January Pastor Richardson started scouting out a new location for his growing church. And it wasn’t long before he found a solution –...

Federal authorities are investigating the grisly discovery of the body of a man found hanging by a bed sheet Thursday morning... Local officers were searching for Otis James Byrd, a 54-year-old black man, who vanished on March 2. ....it remained unclear whether the death was a homicide or a suicide, but he confirmed that the man "had a bed sheet tied around his neck." ....Byrd spent just over 25 years in prison for the Feb. 1980 murder of Lucille Trim in Claiborne County, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections records cited by the Clarion-Ledger newspaper. The records show he robbed...

The hanging death of an African-American man who had been missing since early this month and was found Thursday by local authorities in Mississippi has drawn the scrutiny of the FBI and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. The sheriff's office in Claiborne County, Mississippi had organized a search for the man, who had been missing since March 2 and reported missing March 8. Authorities found the body hanging from a tree in the woods behind the residence where he had been living. It is unclear if it is a suicide, or if the man was killed by someone.