Tag: Mississippi

Indiana Issues Cease and Desist Order Against BlackRock, Alleging Misleading ESG Statements

Just the News
Diego Morales

Indiana’s state securities regulator issued a cease and desist order against BlackRock Thursday, accusing the investment giant of fraudulent actions related to its ESG products and offerings. The company denies the allegations.

According to the Indiana Securities Division, BlackRock has repeatedly made false and misleading statements to Indiana investors with regards to the company’s ESG products. Indiana accuses BlackRock of pushing ESG factors on portfolio companies and informing clients they would see better long-term returns on their investments through ESG-backed funds. Though, according to the order, there was little to no evidence to substantiate the claim.

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Biden Rule Extending Title IX to Trans Students Blocked in More GOP States

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Girls Basketball

A federal judge in Louisiana has temporarily blocked four more states from expanding the Biden administration’s new Title IX policy to protect LGBTQ+ students.

The Biden administration’s new Title IX policy outlined federal protections for LGBTQ+ students and victims of sexual assault while expanding the definition of sexual harassment for schools and universities. The new Title IX provisions collide with Louisiana’s “Women’s Safety and Protection Act” which requires individuals to use the bathroom based on their sex, prohibiting transgender people from using bathrooms and other close-quartered facilities corresponding with their gender identity, according to the court documents.

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Commentary: More Public Charter Schools are Needed Nationwide

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School in class

Parents, children, and supporters of school choice have cause to celebrate this National Charter Schools Week.

Charter schools earned the top two spots on a list of the best high schools in America, according to a recent report by U.S. News & World Report. And, of the top 100 public high schools, charter schools claimed 19 spots—10 in Arizona alone—despite accounting for only 8% of all public schools in the country.

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Democrats, Liberals Criticize ‘Election Deniers’ but Face Allegations of Election Irregularities

Just the News
Al Gore and Hillary Clinton (composite image)

While Democrats and liberals criticize Republicans, conservatives, and others who are concerned about election integrity, smearing them with the pejorative label “election deniers,” many allegations regarding election irregularities are now being made against Democrats.

Since the 2020 presidential election, former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have raised concerns about election irregularities and are often called “election deniers” by Democrats and the media. However, many Democrats have been accused or found guilty of election crimes, sometimes by members of their own party.

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Former Mississippi Governor Points to Success of Legislation Leading State’s Fourth-Graders to Become Top Reading and Math Achievers

Susan Berry, PhD

Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) is celebrating the “comeback story” of his state’s fourth graders, who ranked on 2022 national test scores as the nation’s top performers in reading, and second in math, following the enactment of literacy legislation he spearheaded that saved the state from its “dead-last ranking in the United States.”

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Nearly Half of U.S. States Now Have Measures Limiting Transgender Surgery for Minors, but Lawsuits Abound

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At least 20 states have either restricted or banned transgender procedures for minors, with many of them facing lawsuits and temporary blocks by courts as a result, while future litigation is possible in states considering adopting such laws. 

The states that have enacted legislation against such procedures are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia – essentially all conservative-leaning.

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Mississippi Governor Signs Series of ‘Pro-Mom, Pro-Life’ Bills to Strengthen Adoption, Pregnancy Care Centers, and Foster Care

Susan Berry, PhD

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signed multiple pieces of legislation Wednesday that provide support for mothers and babies, particularly in the areas of adoption, foster care, pregnancy care centers, and parental rights.

“The legislation strengthens Mississippi’s adoption system, increases support for pregnancy resource centers, establishes a foster parents bill of rights, creates a task force focused on improving adoption and foster care systems, improves the Department of Child Protection Services, and gives the agency the largest budget in its history,” a summary of the measures provided by Reeve’s office states.

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17 State Attorneys General Declare Support for Florida Trans Guidance

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by Eric Lendrum   On April 7th, an amicus brief was filed in favor of Florida’s current ban on using state funds to support “transgender” treatments, with 17 state attorneys general voicing their support for the law. According to the Daily Caller, the brief’s filing was part of an ongoing legal battle in the state of Florida, where far-left, pro-transgender activists have teamed up with several pseudo-medical organizations to file a lawsuit against the law. The groups involved include the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The law in question states that Medicaid funds cannot be used to cover any transgender operations, including sex change surgery, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers. The 17 states that have filed in support of Florida are: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. In their filing, the AGs argue that the organizations involved in the lawsuit have “prioritized politics over science.” “The amici States submit this brief in support of Florida’s right to regulate medicine and determine appropriate treatments for Medicaid coverage,” the brief states. “Moreover, there is particular reason to…

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Commentary: Sunshine Might Be Free but Solar Power Is Not Cheap

RealClearWire

Mississippi residents are consistently told that renewable energy sources, like solar panels, are now the lowest-cost ways to generate electricity, but these claims are based on creative accounting gimmicks that only examine a small portion of the expenses incurred to integrate solar onto the grid while excluding many others.

When these hidden expenses are accounted for, it becomes obvious that solar is much more expensive than Mississippi’s existing coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants and that adding more solar will increase electricity prices for the families and businesses that rely upon it. One of the most common ways of estimating the cost of generating electricity from different types of power plants is a metric called the Levelized Cost of Energy, or LCOE.

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Sens. Ron Johnson, Roger Wicker Introduce Senate ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act’

Susan Berry, PhD

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) and Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker (R) led 45 of their Republican colleagues in introducing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a measure that would permanently prohibit federal funding for abortion.

Johnson and Wicker introduced the legislation Wednesday, a measure that would establish a “permanent prohibition on federal funding for abortion, replacing the current restrictions with a single, government-wide standard,” said a press release from Johnson’s office.

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Commentary: Republicans Can Thank the Federal Government’s Bungled 2020 Census for Their Razor-Thin House Majority

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Republicans will soon take control of the House of Representatives, but with a margin so narrow it may prove difficult to achieve their legislative and oversight objectives. That margin might have been larger, were it not for egregious errors made by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census.

Come January, House membership will consist of 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans. A party must hold 218 of those seats to control the House. Thus, Republicans will have only a four-seat majority. That extremely narrow majority means that GOP leadership can lose any vote on any issue if only four Republicans defect and the Democrats stay united in opposition.

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Tennessee’s Skrmetti Among the GOP Attorneys General Pressing NAAG to Return $280 Million

RealClearWire

A dozen Republican state attorneys general are fed up with what they view as the leftward drift and self-dealing of their nonpartisan national association and are asking the organization to change its ways and return roughly $280 million in assets to the states.

The National Association of Attorneys General was created in 1907 as a bipartisan forum for all state and territory attorneys general. Over the last year, several of the group’s Republican members have asserted that NAAG has become a partisan litigation machine that improperly benefits from the many tort settlements it helps to engineer.

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Georgia Among the 20 States Freed from Federal Transgender Sports, Bathroom Guidance

The Center Square

A federal judge in Tennessee ruled in favor of Tennessee, Georgia, and 18 other states in their effort to block federal guidelines on transgender athletes and school locker rooms.

The lawsuit, brought by Tennessee, challenged guidance from the United States Department of Education and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that would allow athletes who were marked as males on their birth certificates to compete in girls and women’s sports. The federal guidance also would have prohibited student shower and locker room access from being determined by birth gender and provided guidance on required pronoun use.

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21 States Join Lawsuit to End Federal Mask Mandate on Airplanes, Public Transportation

The Center Square

Twenty-one states have filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s continued mask mandate on public transportation, including on airplanes.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody are leading the effort. Moody filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida along with 20 other attorneys general. DeSantis said the mask mandate was misguided and heavy-handed.

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Tennessee House Sponsor Bids Adieu to His Proposed Interstate Compact Legislation

Laura Baigert

Legislation that would have entered Tennessee into an interstate compact with Arkansas and Mississippi for the greater Memphis region was bid adieu Tuesday by the sponsor during a House committee meeting.

State Rep. Kevin Vaughan (R-Collierville), at the start of the House Commerce Committee he chairs, announced amidst the status of the 12 bills on the calendar, he wanted to say some words over his HB1989, “Before I bid it adieu.”

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In Presenting Bill for Interstate Compact with Arkansas and Tennessee, Mississippi Senator Omits Unelected Quasi-Governmental Entity’s Broad Powers Including Eminent Domain, Passes Senate Unanimously

Laura Baigert

During his presentations of a bill that would enter the state of Mississippi into an interstate compact with Arkansas and Tennessee, the Senate sponsor completely omitted that, if passed, the law would create an unelected quasi-governmental entity with very broad powers, including eminent domain. The bill went on to pass the state Senate unanimously on February 3.

SB2716, sponsored by Republican Senator David Parker (R-DeSoto), is a 17-page document that creates the RegionSmart Development District (District) and the RegionSmart Development Agency of the Greater Memphis Region (RegionSmart Development).

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Proposed Legislation Would Enter Tennessee into an Interstate Compact, Creating an Unelected Quasi-Governmental Entity with Broad Powers Including Eminent Domain

Laura Baigert

A bill scheduled to be heard by the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday would enter Tennessee into an interstate compact with Arkansas and Mississippi for the greater Memphis region, creating a quasi-governmental and public entity of unelected commissioners that will be vested with very broad powers, including eminent domain and condemnation of any and all rights or property.

If enacted, the legislation would create the RegionSmart Development District (District) and the RegionSmart Development (RegionSmart Development) Agency of the Greater Memphis Region.

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Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi Sue Biden over Minimum Wage Hike for Federal Contractors

The Center Square

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration again Thursday, this time for requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 an hour minimum wage. It’s the 21st lawsuit the attorney general has filed against the administration. Joining him are the attorneys general from Louisiana and Mississippi.

“The president has no authority to overrule Congress, which has sole authority to set the minimum wage and which already rejected a minimum wage increase,” Paxton argues.

Their lawsuit follows one filed last December by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of outdoor adventure guides, Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA), ​​a licensed river outfitter regulated by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, and the Colorado River Outfitters Association (CROA). The CROA, a nonprofit trade association, represents more than 150 independent operators who primarily conduct business on federal lands using special use permits through Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.

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Sixteen States File New Lawsuit Against Federal COVID Vaccination Mandate

The Center Square

Sixteen states again are challenging a federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care workers who work at facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.

Friday’s filing in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana comes after the issuance of final guidance on the mandate from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), arguing the guidance is an action that is reviewable.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled by 5-4 vote Jan. 13 against the original Louisiana challenge to the mandate and a similar Missouri filing.

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Should Roe v Wade Be Overturned, Arizona’s Abortion Restrictions Still Stand

Rachel Alexander
Baby and Father

The U.S. Supreme Court appears very likely to uphold Missouri’s 15-week abortion ban, which will gut a significant portion of Roe v. Wade, leaving much of abortion regulation to the individual states. Roe v. Wade prohibited the states from restricting abortion before fetal viability, around 23 weeks. If the Supreme Court rules for Mississippi in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it is expected that 26 states will then start restricting abortion as early as 15 weeks, including Arizona, which already has an old law on the books.

When Arizona was a territory, a law was passed in 1901 banning abortion. A.R.S. 13-3603 punishes the facilitation of an abortion with two to five years in prison. A woman who attempts to obtain one, whether successful or not, unless necessary to save her life, was penalized by one to five years in prison. That law was repealed this year by the Arizona Legislature. 

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Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen Says Mississippi Shouldn’t Write its Own Abortion Laws Because it Was Once a Confederate State

Chris Butler

U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) this week said states that want to enact pro-life policies, including Mississippi, are on the same level morally as states that legalized slavery more than 160 years ago. Cohen made his remarks on the floor of the U.S. House. He referred to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that recently went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The pending case pertains to the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that banned abortions after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.

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January 6 Commission Chairman Once Sympathized with Black Secessionist Group that Killed Police Officers

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Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the congressional commission investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, has been a vocal critic of an event he deems an insurrection and offered his sympathy to the police officers injured that day. He’s even gone as far as to sue former President Donald Trump for responsibility for the melee.

But as a young African-American alderman in a small Mississippi community in 1971, Thompson placed himself on the opposite side, openly sympathizing with a secessionist group known as the Republic of New Africa and participating in a news conference blaming law enforcement for instigating clashes with the group that led to the killings of a police officer and the wounding of an FBI agent. Thompson’s official biography makes no reference to the separatist RNA.

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Dead, Sick Deer Are Turning up in Mississippi, Biologists Suspect a Viral Infection Called ‘Blue Tongue’

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white tale doe

Authorities in Mississippi said Wednesday they’ve witnessed an increased number of sick or dead deer, and suspect one disease could be the cause, the Associated Press reported.

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks believe that the increased number of dead deer is due to Hemorrhagic Disease, also known as blue tongue, the AP reported. The condition is caused by a virus that is transmitted from deer by small bugs like midges and gnats.

“The virus causes internal hemorrhaging and sometimes rapid death occurs,” Dr. Bronson Strickland, a wildlife specialist at the Mississippi State University Extension, said according to the AP. “The virus may cause ulcers which can disrupt digestion.”

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Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich Join SCOTUS Suit to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Rachel Alexander

Both Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich joined separate amicus curiae briefs with other governors and attorneys general in an abortion case out of Missouri that would gut Roe v. Wade by banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Ducey joined 11 other governors led by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to demand that the Supreme Court uphold the state law and undo Roe v. Wade. Brnovich signed on with 23 other attorneys general led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to ask that the court overrule Roe v. Wade because it is “erroneous, inconsistent, uneven, and unreliable.”

Ducey said in a statement, “The Constitution preserves the rights of the states by specifically enumerating the authority granted to the federal government. Unfortunately, almost 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to ignore the Constitution and created policy which has led to the over-politicization of this issue for decades.” 

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Four States to Slash COVID-19 Unemployment Aid Saturday

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Man in gray shirt, standing in a shop

Four states will be cutting pandemic unemployment increases three months early, ending the supplemental $300 in federal aid.

Alaska, Iowa, Missouri, and Mississippi will end pandemic-related unemployment relief on June 12. An additional 21 Republican-led states will slash federal aid before it expires on Sept. 6, according to Business Insider.

Conservatives continue to advocate an end to the increased benefits, saying they are no longer needed now that the pandemic is contained and speculating that the high payouts are discouraging would-be workers from returning.

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21 States Sue Biden Admin for Revoking Keystone XL Permit

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A group of red states sued President Biden and members of his administration on Wednesday over his decision to revoke a key permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, The Hill reported.

The lawsuit is led by Montana and Texas, and backed by 19 other states, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

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Mississippi Becomes First State to Ban Transgender Students from Women’s Sports

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Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law Thursday barring transgender athletes in public schools and colleges from competing in women’s sports.

The bill, SB 2536, is the first of such legislation to be signed into law this year, though similar initiatives have appeared in other states across the country. South Dakota’s Senate sent a similar bill to the desk of Republican Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday.

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Mississippi Judge Orders New Election After Finding 79 Percent of Absentee Ballots Invalid

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A Mississippi judge has ordered a new election in an alderman race after finding 79% of absentee ballots were invalid and evidence of fraud and criminal activity.

Judge Jeff Weill on Monday said that 66 of 84 absentee ballots cast in the June runoff for a city of Aberdeen alderman seat were invalid and should never have been counted. He also said he found evidence of fraud and criminal activity in how absentee ballots were handled, how votes were counted and the actions by some at the polling place, according to WCBI-TV, a CBS affiliate.

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Mississippi Governor Refuses to Participate in Possible Nationwide COVID-19 Lockdown

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Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said his state is “not gonna participate in a nationwide lockdown,” as coronavirus cases surge throughout the nation and some areas have re-issued COVID-19 mandates.

“The fact is, we’re gonna try to work with whomever the president is, but we’re not gonna participate in a nationwide lockdown,” Reeves said in a Thursday press conference, according to Fox News.

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Mississippi Set to Remove Confederate Emblem from its Flag

The Associated Press

Mississippi is on the verge of changing its state flag to erase a Confederate battle emblem that in recent years has become broadly condemned as virulently racist.

The flag’s supporters resisted efforts to change it for decades, but rapid developments in recent weeks have changed dynamics on this issue in the tradition-bound state.

As protests against racial injustice recently spread across the U.S., including Mississippi, leaders from business, religion, education and sports have spoken forcefully against the state flag. They have urged legislators to ditch the 126-year-old banner for one that better reflects the diversity of a state with a 38% Black population.

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Tennessee Officials Charge Fayette County and Mississippi Women with TennCare Fraud

Chris Butler

Tennessee officials have charged two women in separate cases, one from Fayette County and another from Mississippi, with TennCare fraud.

Authorities charged Shuvonda Barnett, 36, of Rossville, with 48 counts of TennCare fraud and two counts of theft of services over $10,000 but under $60,000, according to a Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration press release.

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Commentary: Rigid Lockdowns vs. Relative Freedom

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In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper has adopted the policy premise that anything done in the name of safety from the coronavirus trumps all other interests, including economic, religious, or other health considerations. Despite comparatively low numbers in the Tar Heel state, the ninth most populous state in the United States, and with no evidence of the healthcare system being overwhelmed, North Carolina has been in full lockdown for over a month.

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Missouri and Mississippi File Lawsuits Against China for Unleashing COVID-19 on the World

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The attorneys general of Missouri and Mississippi announced this week that they are filing lawsuits against the Chinese government over its handling of the coronavirus, which first appeared in Wuhan late last year and was allowed to spread to the rest of the world.

Missouri AG Eric Schmitt says that China’s “campaign of deceit” has led to great human suffering across the globe.

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Criminal Justice Reform: Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi Joins the Report and Says, ‘There’s a Better Way to Do It’

Julie Carr

On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Gill chatted with Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi who was in town for the National Conference of State Legislators in Nashville today to talk about his commitment to criminal justice reform.

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Longtime Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran Dead at 81

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by Henry Rodgers   Former Republican Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran died early Thursday morning in Oxford, Miss., at age 81. Cochran was first elected to the Senate in 1978, making him the first Republican to win a statewide election in Mississippi in over 100 years. The Mississippi Republican also served in the House of Representatives for three terms before running for Senate, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reported. Cochran resigned from the Senate in April 2018. In a statement from his successor, Republican Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s office said, Cochran “passed away peacefully early Thursday morning in Oxford,” saying “Cochran’s family extends its gratitude for the support shown to the Senator by Mississippians over the years. The University Of Mississippi, where Cochran graduated from college, sent out a tweet after the news broke, saying “The Ole Miss Family has lost a legend with the passing of a great Mississippian and UM alumnus in former U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. His unwavering service and contributions to the university and the state are part of the lasting legacy he leaves behind.” The Ole Miss Family has lost a legend with the passing of a great Mississippian and UM alumnus in former U.S. Sen. Thad…

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Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant Signs ‘Heartbeat Bill’

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by Henry Rogers   Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a “heartbeat bill” Thursday that will make abortion illegal in the state after a fetal heartbeat is detected. “I am very pro-life, always have been,” Bryant, a Republican, said after signing the legislation. “I think obviously we’ll have some legal challenges on it. We have legal challenges with every pro-life bill that we have ever passed. We anticipate that. We hope that it will get to the Supreme Court and they will uphold it.” Women in Mississippi will no longer be able to have an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy once the law takes effect July 1. Pro-choice group Center for Reproductive Rights called it “blatantly unconstitutional” and threatened to sue the state, Fox News reported. “We will all answer to the good Lord one day. I will say in this instance, ‘I fought for the lives of innocent babies, even under threat of legal action,’” Bryant tweeted Wednesday in response to the group. We will all answer to the good Lord one day. I will say in this instance, “I fought for the lives of innocent babies, even under threat of legal action.” https://t.co/4bHEmCqN74 — Phil Bryant (@PhilBryantMS) March 20, 2019 Several other state legislatures, such as in…

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Commenteary: Why Does Child Care in Massachusetts Cost Four Times What it Does in Mississippi?

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by Max Gulker   In the discussion of the nation’s problem with child care costs, a crucial factor has gone mostly unmentioned. This is one of the most regulated industries. These regulations are driving up costs. Adding more government control of the industry risks making a bad situation even worse. To be sure, costs vary by state. So too do the relevant regulatory regimes. According to data from Child Care Aware, child care for a toddler in a Massachusetts center costs on average a whopping $18,845, or 65 percent on the average single-parent family’s income in the state. Low-cost Mississippi, on the other hand, is $4,670, less than 25 percent of the average single-parent family’s income. Why does child care in Massachusetts cost four times what it does in Mississippi? Indices estimate that the ratio of overall cost of living between the two states is about 1.5, suggesting factors specific to child care account for part of the wide gap. Massachusetts mandates that child-care centers must have one staff member on hand for every three infants. In Mississippi, that staff member can care for five. Massachusetts requires a staff member for every ten preschool-age children. In Mississippi, that number is fourteen.…

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Companies Use Corporate Welfare to Pit Tennessee and Mississippi Against One Another

Chris Butler

One could argue corporations play the Tennessee and Mississippi state governments against one another to get the best corporate welfare deals possible — at the expense of taxpayers in both states. Here’s how it works. Companies wait for Tennessee and Mississippi to pony up their incentives. Company leaders can only accept one of those two deals, of course. Then they set up shop in the state that made the better offer. And sometimes these companies move from Tennessee to Mississippi and vice versa — even if they’re only moving as little as 20 miles away. This has already happened at least twice in the past two years. Two years ago, for instance, Memphis officials handed out $1.2 million in corporate welfare to lure a company, International Distributors USA, away from Olive Branch, Miss., right across the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. At the time, Memphis officials boasted about using public incentives to snag the company away from the Magnolia State, according to The Tennessee Watchdog. This month, something similar happened, but this time it was Mississippi that offered incentives to lure another company, Krone North America, away from Memphis. And Olive Branch, the same city that lost International Distributors USA two years…

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