When Insider called the home of Robert Gray — Mississippi's new Democratic nominee for governor — to ask a follow-up question, his roommate answered the phone.

It was his mom.

She asked who was speaking, cupped the phone, and called out his name.

Gray is a 46-year-old truck driver.

In August, he won 79 of Mississippi's 82 counties to become the nominee.

He didn't campaign. He didn't even tell his mom he was running.

Yet he managed to beat two candidates who actually spent money on campaigns and made their names known in the months leading up to the primary. Some have said Gray won because his name was first on the ballot.

His mother's first indication that her son was running came when she saw his name on the ballot. After voting for her son, she called to make sure it was him.

When Gray took that call, he was working on his truck — too busy that day to even vote for himself.

He will run against Mississippi's current governor, Republican Phil Bryant, a huge favorite who has more than $2.8 million to spend on his campaign.

"People complain about our governor," Gray told The New York Times. "I'm basically going to do the opposite of what he's doing."

Gray's platform

The first thing Gray wants to do in office is expand Medicaid, then start a lottery and work on bringing better benefits to state employees like police officers and teachers. He said his experience as a truck driver gave him a unique perspective as someone who "understands the mechanics of the economy."

He said a lot of people had told him he reminded them of flamboyant GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Gray appreciates the comparison but says he differs from Trump on immigration.

"He thinks that getting rid of people is going to make our country better," he said. "But it's not."

Ouida Meruvia, the communications director for the Mississippi Democratic Party, said she had never met a candidate like Gray — someone who, like Trump, seems to have no special interest.

He's Mississippi's very own populist candidate.

Can he win?

Probably not. But at least one political professional in the state believes.

Meruvia told Insider: "Mr. Gray can win the general election."

She said people in Mississippi didn't like Bryant, whose favorability rating has previously reached 41% and who was rated the most "blah" governor in the nation by the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight.

Like many Republican governors, Bryant has refused to expand Medicaid. In a state ranked the poorest in the nation, Gray's stance on that issue could get some votes.

"Our governor is trying to hold back the state," Gray said, adding that Mississippians "know our state could be doing a lot better."

"They see the opportunities that are out there, and our governor is trying to keep us from those opportunities," he said.

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JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) - A professor was shot and killed on Monday at Delta State University in Mississippi, a county coroner said, and the school remained locked down after reports of an active shooter on campus.

The university, located in Cleveland, Mississippi, confirmed a fatality on its Twitter account and asked those on campus to stay inside and away from windows.

The Bolivar County Coroner said the shooting victim was Ethan Schmidt, a history professor at Delta State.

The suspect remained on the loose, the Clarion-Ledger newspaper reported, citing the Cleveland Police Department.

The suspect is believed to have been involved in another fatal shooting in a Gautier, Mississippi home that left one woman dead, the Sun Herald reported.

The person of interest in the Gautier shooting is Shannon Lamb, 45, who works in Delta State's social sciences department.

A representative for the university's communications office said it had no further comment.

More than 4,000 students are enrolled in the public university, located 120 miles (193 km) northwest of Jackson.

(Reporting by Therese Apel; Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins and Suzannah Gonzales; Editing by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert)

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JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) - A Mississippi college professor was shot and killed in his campus office on Monday, and police said a fellow teacher was "a person of interest" in the shooting.

Authorities said they were searching for geography and social science instructor Shannon Lamb in connection with the killing of Ethan Schmidt, an assistant professor of American history.

Lamb was also a suspect in the killing of a woman in Mississippi earlier on Monday, police said.

The shooting left students and staff at the Cleveland, Mississippi, school on edge for several hours as police locked down the campus and searched buildings following reports of active gunfire.

Cleveland Police Chief Charles “Buster” Bingham told an afternoon news conference that authorities did not believe Lamb was still on the campus, which is near the Arkansas-Mississippi state line.

The killing was the latest in a series of shootings on U.S. college campuses in recent weeks, including deadly incidents at Sacramento City College in California, Texas Southern University and Georgia's Savannah State University.

Bingham would not comment on Lamb's possible connection to Schmidt.

Colleagues said they had no idea about a possible motive. "We're all clueless," said professor Charles Westmoreland, who taught history with Schmidt. "It's been a terrible day."

Westmoreland was teaching when he heard multiple shots coming from Schmidt's office. A swift and orderly evacuation followed, he said.

Lamb was also being sought in an earlier shooting in Gautier, a town 300 miles (480 km) south of Delta State on the Mississippi Gulf coast.

Gautier police detective Matt Hoggatt said Lamb, 45, was wanted in connection with the death of Amy Prentiss, 41, with whom he shared a home.

He said Lamb was last seen driving a black 2011 Dodge Avenger with license plates from Stone County in south Mississippi.

Local media reported that Lamb called Gautier police to report the killing.

Lamb's Facebook page had numerous photos of Prentiss, whom he called his "Sweet Baby Angel,” in one photo post.

After receiving his doctorate in July, Lamb wrote he had “tried to maintain a relationship with the best girl in the whole wide world. (Amy Prentiss).”

Delta State officials said no students were injured in the campus shooting, which occurred in Jobe Hall, which houses the Division of Social Sciences and History. 

'DEVASTATED'

"I couldn't have asked for a greater friend and colleague," Westmoreland said of Schmidt. "He was warm and friendly to everyone and extremely involved in campus life."

Schmidt was married with three children, he said.

“My colleagues and I are devastated by all of the news,” added Garry Jennings, a Delta State political science professor.

Schmidt, 39, was an excellent scholar and gifted teacher who went “beyond the call of duty” in his teaching, Jennings said in an email to Reuters. He was working with Schmidt on a program on Native Americans in November.

All classes at Delta State were canceled on Monday, as well as Tuesday, when events had been planned to commemorate the university's 90th anniversary.

The slain professor earned a doctorate in early American history and Native American history from the University of Kansas and taught for six years at Texas Tech University before joining the faculty at Delta State, according to his school biography.

More than 4,000 students are enrolled in the public university, 120 miles (195 km) northwest of Jackson, Mississippi.

(Reporting by Therese Apel; Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and David Adams in Miami; Writing by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Editing by Eric Beech and Peter Cooney)

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A cave-in outside a newly opened IHOP in Meridian, Mississippi swallowed several vehicles early Sunday morning. 

Witnesses reported hearing a large 'boom', then local business experienced a loss of electricity. 

The hole was originally believed to be a sinkhole, but Meridian public safety director Buck Roberts told The Meridian Star that it was more likely a collapsed drain.

“You can call it what you want, a cave-in or whatever, but it is not a sinkhole,” Roberts said.

No one was in the vehicles when they went under and no injuries were reported. 

Here is a video of the scene:

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Republicans drew the short straw Friday in Mississippi. Seriously.

To break a tie from a Nov. 3 state House election, 20-year Democratic incumbent Bo Eaton and Republican challenger Mark Tullos met in the governor's crowded conference room on the 19th floor of a state office building to carry out the archaic procedure prescribed in state law — they drew straws.

Eaton, listed first on the ballot, reached into a red canvas bag and pulled out one of two silver-plated business card boxes engraved with the word "Mississippi."

Tullos pulled out the other padded box, and the two men opened them.

Eaton's box held the winner — a 3-inch green plastic straw. Tullos' had a 2-inch red straw.

With his victory, Eaton blocks the GOP from having a supermajority in the House, a three-fifths margin that would have allowed Republicans, in theory, to make multimillion-dollar decisions about taxes without seeking help from Democrats.

"There's always happiness in a good crop year," Eaton, a farmer from Taylorsville, said after winning.

Tullos showed no emotion. He shook hands with Eaton and left the room without speaking to reporters.

The fight isn't over. Tullos, an attorney from Raleigh, said before the drawing that if he lost, he intended to ask the House to seat him in January as the winner because he questions whether votes were counted fairly. He had already filed an appeal by Friday.

Eaton had said he would accept the result of the drawing, no matter what happened. He chuckled when he was asked if he had a strategy for choosing a box from the bag.

"I'm a Southern Baptist, but I have a little bit of Presbyterian — about a quarter's worth of Presbyterian," Eaton said in his slow drawl. "So whatever will be, will be."

Certified returns show each candidate received 4,589 votes in the district in south central Mississippi, a part of the state known for oil wells and watermelon fields.

A Tullos victory would have given Republicans 74 seats in the 122-member House. They already have a supermajority in the 52-member state Senate, and Gov. Phil Bryant is Republican.

Democrats in the current term have blocked Republicans' efforts to pass hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of tax cuts, arguing instead that Mississippi needs to put more money into chronically underfunded schools. Without a supermajority, Republicans will at least need to court a few Democrats to make changes to tax laws.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 24 states have laws that say a tied legislative election is decided by drawing straws or by flipping a coin.

In Alaska in 2006, a coin flip broke the tie in a Democratic primary for a state House seat. An Alaska Mint medallion was used, with a walrus on the "heads" side and the State of Alaska seal — the fancy crest on paper, not the kind of seal that swims — on the "tails" side. Incumbent Rep. Carl Moses called "heads." He lost the flip, and the primary, to challenger Bryce Edgmon, who is still in the House today.

In New Mexico, the current Senate minority whip, Republican William Payne of Albuquerque, won his first primary with a coin toss in 1996.

Connecticut rewrote its law in 2007 to eliminate the use of chance, such as a coin toss, to break a tie in a legislative primary. The change came a year after a coin toss decided the winner of a Democratic primary for a state House seat.

A game of chance can be used to decide other types of elections, as well. In a portion of Daviess County, Kentucky, in 2012, a coin toss broke a 21-21 tie in a local liquor election. The alcohol opponents won, and Graham Precinct remained dry.

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) is bringing attention to "environmental justice" in the aftermath of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.

The disaster in Flint, which was discussed in a congressional hearing Wednesday, is not the only public health problem involving lead-tainted water.

Recently, Mississippi state officials notified local authorities in Jackson that 22% of water samples taken from homes in the city last June contained slightly higher amounts of lead than what the federal government deems safe.

That notification from the state came six months after the initial testing took place, The Clarion-Ledger reported, but the water is still deemed safe to drink. Jackson Director of Public Works Kishia Powell told The Clarion-Ledger the city needs to take additional compliance measures with regards to the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“I’m heartened that Jackson city officials are taking the right steps to fix the problem, including repeated testing and openness with the results, so families can stay informed,’’ Clinton said in a statement. “As the emergency in Flint, Michigan, has made clear, cities and states must treat these situations with the utmost seriousness and do everything in their power to ensure that families — especially children — have access to safe, clean drinking water. We as a nation must make urgent investments to modernize our utilities and infrastructure, to keep families and communities safe and healthy.”

Unsafe levels of lead have also been reported in Sebring, Ohio, a town of roughly 8,000 residents. In that situation as well, months passed between when the state was made aware of the lead levels and the residents were notified of the situation. There is a health advisory for pregnant women and children advising them not to drink the water, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

In Flint, Jackson, and Sebring, corrosive water leached lead from aging pipes.

"I think every single American should be outraged," Clinton said of Flint during a Democratic debate in mid-January. "We've had a city in the United States of America where the population, which is poor in many ways and majority African-American, has been drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water. And the governor of that state (Rick Snyder - R) acted as though he didn't really care."

Clinton, who sent aides to meet with Flint officials last month, is now incorporating the issue more heavily into her campaign, even writing an op-ed for MSNBC on the subject last weekend.

“There are a lot more Flints out there – overwhelmingly low-income communities of color where pollution, toxic chemicals and staggering neglect adds to families’ burdens," she wrote. "Environmental justice can’t just be a slogan — it has to be a central goal. Cities are full of lead paint in low-income housing, lead embedded in the very soil from the days of leaded gasoline. Already, African-American children are twice as likely to suffer from asthma as white children — and climate change will put vulnerable populations at even greater risk."

But at least one political science professor thinks it's really just a big political ploy for southern minority votes. Clinton is coming off of a historically close win in Iowa over her competitor, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I).

“It is the political thing to do,’’ Rickey Hill, chairman of the political science department at Jackson State University, told The Clarion-Ledger. “She has declared some months ago that she saw the Southern primary states as being her firewall in the event that Bernie Sanders did well and even won some of these northeastern, mid-western and western primaries ... She’s trying to get ahead of Sanders … around these issues involving black lives in urban centers."

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A federal appeals court has reversed a stay that had blocked the state of Mississippi from carrying out executions.

The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a lower court judge ruled incorrectly in August when he blocked the state from executing prisoners.

The opinion by Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod rejects arguments by death row prisoners that Mississippi's failure to use a particular kind of drug specified by state law violates their rights. Mississippi and other states can't easily buy such drugs anymore because manufacturers won't sell them for executions.

Elrod notes the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld as constitutional Oklahoma's plan to use the drugs that Mississippi now plans to use.

She also rejected arguments that Mississippi's execution protocols are so egregious as to "shock the conscience."

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A Mississippi policeman who worked in an anti-narcotics squad was killed on Saturday and three other officers were wounded in a shootout with a suspect during a standoff in the northeastern corner of the state, according to local officials.

The suspect was also killed in the exchange early Saturday morning in a rural area of Tishomingo County near Iuka, about 118 miles east of Memphis, Tennessee, according to County Coroner Mack Wilemon.

James Lee Tartt, 44, of Grenada, a state narcotics bureau officer, was killed, Wilemon said. A married father of two and a 22-year law enforcement veteran, he had won a Bureau of Narcotics agent of the year award in 2011, and had unsuccessfully run for Grenada County sheriff last year.

The suspect killed was Charles Lee Lambert, 45, Wilemon said. Both were white. The three other officers were hospitalized and their conditions were not immediately known, Wilemon said.

In a statement on Saturday, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant asked residents to pray for Tartt's family.

"This is a tragic reminder that their willingness to serve can exact the highest price," Bryant said, referring to the state's law enforcement officers.

A representative for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, which includes the Bureau of Narcotics, was not immediately available for comment. The department's Facebook page showed a sign of mourning - with the state in black with a blue line across it.

Tartt's death follows other shootings of police officers in Mississippi in the past year, including two Hattiesburg officers killed last May, and a Clarksdale officer shot in the head and left in a critical condition after responding to a robbery this month.

Saturday's shooting developed out of a hostage situation in a home on Friday afternoon, Wilemon said. Officials told reporters on the scene on Friday night that the suspect had taken his wife and child hostage, and witnesses said he later released them, the Clarion-Ledger paper said.

Tartt and the wounded officers were part of a SWAT team that stormed the house, Wilemon said.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Editing by Nerys Avery)

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The best treatment for a disease is to not get it in the first place. That's why we put ourselves through checkups and vaccines, and keep an eye on our personal habits. But some states are better at this preventive care than others.

In a new America's Health Rankings report from the United Health Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on improving healthcare, the group outlines the states with the best — and the worst — preventive care.

To get its numbers, the group looked at three main areas:

• Access to healthcare, measured by the percentage of adults who had healthcare coverage, annual dental visits, and a personal doctor.
• Rates of immunizations among children, teens, and adults.
• Access to chronic-disease-prevention methods, measured by the percentage of adults who had their cholesterol checked, had a colorectal cancer screening, or were told they had high blood pressure.

The data for the report was gathered from government reports including Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System reports, the 2014 National Immunization Survey, and other published studies.

Massachusetts outshone every other state in terms of preventing chronic disease and providing the best access to healthcare. Mississippi, on the other had, ranked far below the national average in both these arenas and more.

See how your state compares:

State of preventive care

Beyond ranking all 50 states, the report also broke out the three components, with the lightest color indicating the states that were doing the best in a particular arena. For the most part, there wasn't much variability among the three metrics, with many states falling consistently in the same category.

Here's healthcare access:

And immunizations:Notably, South Dakota did the best job of getting adults to get flu shots, while North Carolina and Rhode Island were best at vaccinating women and men, respectively, for human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted infection that can lead to cancer. Rhode Island is one of only a handful of states to mandate the HPV vaccine, which has been controversial because of concerns that it will promote teen promiscuity.

And finally, here's a look at how states are doing at preventing chronic diseases:

Apart from Utah, which ranked the highest in preventing high blood pressure, Massachusetts managed to top the other 49 states in its efforts preventing chronic disease (characterized as lasting more than three months).

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton notched another win in a key primary state.

Shortly after polls closed in Mississippi on Tuesday night, multiple networks projected that the former secretary of state would win the state's primary.

Clinton likely secured the majority of Mississippi's 36 delegates, putting her even closer to winning the 2,383 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

She quickly thanked her supporters in the state, tweeting a GIF of MSNBC projecting her victory.

Clinton has dominated among African-American voters, who have an outsize influence among Southern states. According to CNN exit polls, Clinton won almost 90% of black voters in Mississippi, who made up the majority of the state's Democratic primary voters.

She has easily defeated rival Bernie Sanders in all of the Southern contests so far, including Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Sanders, a Vermont senator, is hoping to do better in Michigan, the only other state hosting a Democratic primary on Tuesday.

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Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump notched two key wins on Tuesday, further paving his path to his party's nomination.

Not longer after polls closed in Mississippi and Michigan on Tuesday evening, multiple news networks projected that the real-estate developer would win both states.

Trump will likely win the majority of the 99 combined delegates from the two states.

Meanwhile, his rivals are left fighting for the remaining delegates and hoping that they win the two remaining, smaller states to weigh in on the race Tuesday: Idaho and Hawaii. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas scored a victory over Trump in Idaho later in the night.

Trump's Tuesday-night victories do not necessarily come as a surprise, but the ease at which he won both states suggests that he has a clear path to the nomination unless his rivals are able to substantially shake up the race in the coming days.

His three primary opponents — Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Cruz of Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich — are hoping to get enough delegates to stop Trump from securing the 1,237 delegates that he needs to lock up the nomination and avoid a fight at the convention.

Rubio and Kasich, whose campaigns have lagged in recent contests, are hoping to turn around their campaigns by winning their home states next week. Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all states, giving the winner of either contest a significant bump in the delegate race.

But over the weekend, Cruz won in Maine and Kansas, boosting his argument that he — and not Rubio — is the most legitimate candidate to defeat Trump. Rubio has won only in Minnesota and Puerto Rico, and was near the bottom of the pack in the first two Tuesday-night contests.

After the Michigan and Mississippi races were called, Trump held a press conference to celebrate his wins. During the conference, he suggested that he was ready to face off one-on-one against Cruz.

"Ted is gonna have a hard time when he gets to certain states," Trump said.

"They didn't do well," he added of his GOP foes. "There's only one person who did well tonight: Donald Trump."

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Ted Cruz pulled off an upset win Tuesday in Idaho's Republican presidential primary.

NBC and Fox News both projected Tuesday night that the Texas senator would take the state.

With about 44% of the state's precincts reporting, Cruz had a 41.7% to 29% lead over Trump. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was in third with 18.4% of the vote.

Earlier in the evening, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump won primaries in Michigan and Mississippi, further paving the real-estate mogul's path to the nomination.

Hawaii's Republican caucuses are also on Tuesday, but won't report the results until at least early Wednesday morning.

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A federal judge has overturned Mississippi's ban on allowing same-sex couples to adopt children.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan, in a preliminary injunction issued Thursday, ruled for the couples who had sued, saying the ban is unconstitutional after a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June that effectively legalized gay marriage and benefits for gay couples.

He ordered John Davis, executive director of the Department of Human Services, to stop enforcing it.

"I am overwhelmed with joy," Hattiesburg resident Kathy Garner said. She and her wife, Susan Hrostowski, sued to allow Hrostowski to adopt 16-year-old Hudson Garner. "For us, this has been a long time in the making."

Garner said the couple had contacted their local lawyer and planned to file adoption papers in Forrest County Chancery Court as early as Friday. Hudson, who wrote a first-person account of a Nov. 6 hearing, was more understated Thursday.

"He had a typical 16-year-old response," Kathy Garner said. "He said, 'Cool.' Then he said congratulations. Then he said he was going to take a nap."

Jordan wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling applied to benefits associated with marriage, such as adoption.

"It also seems highly unlikely that the same court that held a state cannot ban gay marriage because it would deny benefits — expressly including the right to adopt — would then conclude that married gay couples can be denied that very same benefit," he wrote.

Rachael Ring, a spokeswoman for Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, noted that Jordan dismissed a number of defendants in the case.

"The district court did direct the Department of Human Services not to discriminate between same-sex and opposite-sex couples in adoption related services provided by that agency," Ring wrote in an email. "We respect the district court's analysis of the law and will consult with the Department of Human Services on what options to take going forward."

Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, expressed confidence that any appeal would be fruitless.

"The ban is effectively over," she said. "DHS will have a very, very hard time convincing a judge on appeal."

The couples were backed by the Campaign for Southern Equality and the Family Equality Council.

Progress for gay rights in Mississippi following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision has been mixed. There have been no reports of clerks refusing marriage licenses, and the state Supreme Court ruled that two women married elsewhere could get a divorce in Mississippi.

But the Legislature is considering a bill that would allow government employees and some private business people to cite their own religious objections to same-sex marriage to deny services to gay or lesbian couples.

The University of California, Los Angeles, found in 2014 that 996 same-sex couples were raising 1,401 children in Mississippi. Census data from 2010 showed that 29 percent of same-sex couples had children at home, the largest share of same-sex households in any state.

Mississippi lawmakers banned adoptions by same-sex couples in 2000. Then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove signed the ban, but said last year he regretted the action.

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On Thursday, even as a sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill worked its way through the Mississippi legislature, the courts delivered a victory for justice: U.S. District Judge Daniel Porter Jordan III, a George W. Bush appointee, overturned Mississippi’s law barring same-sex couples from fostering or adopting children.

Jordan’s decision is the first to expand the central logic of Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that states may not interfere with the “rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage” simply because a couple is gay.

Mississippi was the last state to restrict adoption based on sexual orientation. As of Thursday night, same-sex couples may adopt children in every state in the country.

Jordan’s decision rested exclusively on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^thAmendment. The judge noted that the Obergefell court declined to specify a standard of review for laws targeting gays, such as rational basis (a lenient, forgiving standard) or heightened scrutiny (a more stringent mode of review.) Still, Jordan explained, the majority opinion evinced an obvious “intent for sweeping change”:

[I]t seems clear the Court applied something greater than rational-basis review. Indeed, the majority never discusses the states’ reasons for adopting their bans on gay marriage and never mentions the word “rational.” While it may be hard to discern a precise test, the Court extended its holding to marriage-related benefits—which includes the right to adopt.

Mississippi has not yet announced whether it plans to appeal Jordan’s ruling. If it does, the state faces an obvious uphill climb, given Obergefell’s description of marriage rights as a “unified whole” and the right to “bring of up children” as “a central part” of constitutional liberty.

I asked Roberta Kaplan, the attorney behind the Mississippi suit as well as Obergefell’s predecessor, United States v. Windsor, what she made of the ruling.

“I think people can quibble about the various layers of Windsor and Obergefell and the various layers of scrutiny,” she told me. “But what this makes clear is that any fair-minded reading of the recent Supreme Court opinions has to conclude that statutes like the Mississippi adoption ban—which fence gay people and their children off from the rest of society—are unconstitutional.”

SEE ALSO: North Carolina just dealt a massive blow to LGBT rights

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Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant on Tuesday signed into law a measure affording wide protections for actions considered discriminatory by gay rights activists.

The far-reaching law allows people with religious objections to deny wedding services to same-sex couples.

It also clears the way for employers to cite religion in determining workplace policies on dress code, grooming and bathroom and locker access.

Bryant, a Republican, said in a statement that he signed the law "to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions of individuals, organizations and private associations from discriminatory action by state government."

His decision comes amid national protests over a new law barring transgender people in North Carolina from choosing bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Meanwhile, the governors of Georgia and Virginia vetoed similar "religious liberty" bills last week.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) criticized the Mississippi law, which it said is set to take effect in July.

"This is a sad day for the state of Mississippi and for the thousands of Mississippians who can now be turned away from businesses, refused marriage licenses, or denied housing, essential services and needed care based on who they are," said Jennifer Riley-Collins, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein)

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On Tuesday morning, PayPal canceled a project to open a Charlotte operations center and bring another 400 jobs to North Carolina, thanks to a controversial new law that critics say promotes discrimination against gay people in the state.

On Tuesday afternoon, the governor of Mississippi passed a law that allows religious organizations and businesses to refuse service for gay weddings, or to cite believes about sexual orientation and sexual identity when making some employment decisions.

On top of that, the new law also says, point blank: "Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage" ... that is a marriage between a man and a woman. 

Many in the tech industry have been waging a war against states who are rushing to pass similar perceived "anti-gay" laws in response to the Supreme Court ruling last summer that made gay marriage a right in all 50 states.

They don't want to bring employees or visitors to these states and expose them to discrimination, those speaking out say.

But the fight against such legislation has been one step forward, two steps back.

For instance, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, a big employer in Indiana, led pressure that caused the Indiana governor to modify a similar law passed last year, but not repeal it.

A huge litany of tech companies, including Benioff, convinced the Georgia Governor to veto a similar bill by threatening to limit investment in the state if he did sign it.

So far North Carolina hasn't budged, but it might now that it is facing actual repercussions such as PayPal's, among other examples.

With word that Mississippi has gone forward and passed this law, the tech industry is speaking out again.

Benioff is calling on people to contact their own CEOs to make public statements against the law.

 Microsoft's top lawyer, Brad Smith, tweeted out a this condemnation of the law.

 IBM also formally condemned the law:

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Apple on Thursday spoke out about a controversial new law in Mississippi that allows government workers and other service workers to deny goods and services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for "religious" reasons.

House Bill 1523 was signed into law by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant on Tuesday.

Apple provided the following statement to The Clarion Ledger:

“We want Mississippians to know that our stores and our company are open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love.”

Apple added that the new law “empowers discrimination.”

Apple has been vocal in opposing laws that infringe on the rights of the LGBT community. Last year, CEO Tim Cook wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post to call out the “nearly 100 bills [around the US at the time, including in Arkansas and Indiana] designed to enshrine discrimination in state law” by citing personal religious beliefs to refuse service to certain customers.

“The days of segregation and discrimination marked by ‘Whites Only’ signs on shop doors, water fountains and restrooms must remain deep in our past,” Cook said. “We must never return to any semblance of that time. America must be a land of opportunity for everyone.”

Apple is one of several tech companies to come out against the new law in Mississippi. HP, IBM, and Microsoft’s lawyer Brad Smith have also opposed the new laws.

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