Unemployment remains flat. AG weighs in on xAI: Mississippi Marketplace
By Katherine Lin | Originally published by Mississippi Today
Unemployment in Mississippi remained unchanged through May, following a national trend. It has held at around 3.8% for the past year.
Nonfarm payroll employment for the state was at a 10-year high at 1,195,400, but more or less unchanged from a year ago and month over month.
Gov. Tate Reeves celebrated the nonfarm employment number.
“Our state continues to rack up win after win because our economic development strategy is working. Mississippi has more jobs than ever before, and companies are investing billions of billions in our state,” Reeves said.
Mississippi AG wants to join DOJ in siding with xAI
The Department of Justice sided with xAI in a lawsuit filed by the NAACP over xAI’s operation of mobile gas turbines in Southaven.
The NAACP says that xAI needs an air permit for the turbines under the federal Clean Air Act and asked the court to stop the turbines from operating until they are fully permitted. In filings, the DOJ said that xAI’s artificial intelligence model, Grok, is vital for national security and has been used in the Iran war. A statement from Reeves in support of dismissal was included in the DOJ’s filing.
On Tuesday, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked the court to let her file a brief in support of xAI. Fitch said that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said that permits were not required and that decision should stand because states have “primary responsibility” when it comes to air pollution control.
Fitch said that granting the NAACP’s request to halt xAI’s turbines would “imperil massive economic benefits to the state and its citizens, cast uncertainty on thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment and tax revenue, and threaten the state’s ability to attract future projects that benefit its residents.”
Other news:
- Keytronics, an electronics manufacturer, announced an $8.89-million expansion at its Corinth facility. The investment will create 376 jobs.
- Gould Industries, a Canadian recycled plastics manufacturer, is investing $14 million to set up its first U.S. industrial site in Summit. The new facility is expected to create 65 jobs.
- Area Development, a trade publication covering site selection, awarded Mississippi a Golden Shovel Award for states with a population of less than 3 million people. The publication said it gave the award to Mississippi due to “a surge of warehousing, advanced manufacturing, and energy infrastructure investment that reflects the state’s growing competitiveness in logistics-driven industries.”
What I’ve been reading:
- A new report commissioned for Louisiana’s Public Service Commission found that Entergy Louisiana’s plans to buy a new power plant are driven primarily by demand from Meta’s data center and would cost ratepayers about $8 a month. Entergy responded by saying that Meta is paying for grid maintenance and upgrade costs and will reduce costs for ratepayers in the long term. Here’s a story from Mississippi Today’s environmental reporter, Alex Rozier, on what we know and don’t know about Entergy and Amazon’s deal in our state.
- A paper from Columbia University says that rising electricity prices are the result of a confluence of infrastructure, supply chain issues, policy and demand growth (including from data centers).
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
