Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi is updating its laws to include a new state flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust,” six months after legislators ditched the last state flag in the U.S. that had the Confederate battle emblem.

Voters approved the magnolia flag in November after a commission recommended the design.

Legislators must put a description of the new flag into law. Senators on Wednesday voted 38-7 to pass such a bill, a day after the House voted 119-1.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi will fly a new state flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust,” with voters approving the design Tuesday. It replaces a Confederate-themed flag state lawmakers retired months ago as part of the national reckoning over racial injustice.

The magnolia flag was the only design on the general election ballot, and voters were asked to say yes or no. A majority said yes.

WAVELAND, Miss. (AP) — Hurricane Sally, a plodding but powerful storm with winds of 100 mph, crept toward the northern Gulf Coast early Tuesday, with forecasters warning of potentially deadly storm surges, flash floods spurred by up to 2 feet (.61 meters) of rain and the possibility of tornadoes.

Hurricane warnings stretched from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Navarre, Florida, but forecasters — while stressing “significant” uncertainty — kept nudging the predicted track to the east.

WAVELAND, Miss. (AP) — Storm-weary Gulf Coast residents prepared for a new weather onslaught Monday as Tropical Storm Sally churned northward.

Jeffrey Gagnard of Chalmette, Louisiana, was spending Sunday in Mississippi helping his parents prepare their home for Sally — and making sure they safely evacuated ahead of the storm.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The world is settling into a new normal for everyday life amid the coronavirus pandemic: online school classes, intermittent Zoom outages, museums that will only allow about a quarter of their usual visitors.

More than 800,000 people worldwide have perished from the virus and more than 23.5 million have contracted it, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University — figures experts say understate the true toll due to limited testing, missed mild cases and other factors.

JACKSON (Mississippi, US), July 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The 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.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Strong storms pounded the Deep South on Sunday, killing at least six people in south Mississippi and damaging up to 300 homes and other buildings in northern Louisiana.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency director Greg Michel said one person killed was in Walthall County, two were killed in Lawrence County and three were killed in Jefferson Davis County. All three counties are more than an hour’s drive south of Jackson, near the Louisiana state line.

MAGNOLIA, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man was given four death sentences by a jury on Thursday, hours after he spoke in court and blamed the devil for his actions the night eight people were shot to death.

Willie Cory Godbolt, 37, was convicted Tuesday of the May 2017 slayings of eight people. Four of the convictions were for murder, which carry a sentence of life in prison. Four other convictions were for capital murder — a killing committed along with another felony.

MAGNOLIA, Miss. (AP) — Testimony from a Mississippi woman whose son and nephew were two of the eight victims killed in an early morning shooting in 2017 was so emotional that the man accused of killing them was in tears.

The Daily Leader reports that Shayla Edwards took the stand Wednesday and testified that Willie Cory Godbolt, a relative by marriage, had taken her son running through his neighborhood.

“Mama, I learned how to breathe when you’re running,” Edwards said her 11-year-old son Austin excitedly told her a week before Godbolt allegedly shot him to death.

MAGNOLIA, Miss. (AP) — The daughter of a Mississippi man on trial in the shooting deaths of eight people testified Monday that he was abusive and beat her frequently.

My’Khyiah Godbolt took the stand at a courthouse in Magnolia, the Daily Leader newspaper reported, to testify against her father, Willie Cory Godbolt.

Godbolt, 37, is charged with capital murder, accused of fatally shooting eight people, including the deputy who arrived at his in-laws’ home over the Memorial Day in 2017.