WCBI News at Six 12/14/2020

WCBI News at Six 12/14/2020

Mississippi's top health officials have taken some of the first covid-19 vaccines in the state.

State health officer dr. thomas dobbs and others at the mississippi department of health held a virtual press conference to take their vaccine.

25 thousand doses of the pfizer vaccine were delivered to the state's front line workers in the critical areas of hospitals .

With this particular shot, participants will need to get a second vaccine three weeks the first shot.

The first doses were sent to five hospitals in the state.

The health department is not releasing which facilities received the first vaccines.

Other hospitals will get the vaccine later this week.

Once complete, long-term care facilities will get a delivery.

The state health department says hospitals and i.c.u.'s are packed.

In fact, one thousand 255 people are in hospitals across the state with confirmed or suspected covid-19 symptoms. 301 of those patients are in i.c.u.

After a huge spike in cases last week, health officials are worried the worst is yet to come.

"the critical deficiency right now is absolutely critical care space.

And you're about to see it in the er's too.

So, because not only are you seeing people come in sick, we're having to use er's as accessory icu rooms a lot of times.

So it depends on where the pressure is in the system.

But the best way to help the system is not get covid " the health department's latest numbers show 110 available i.c.u.

Beds in the entire state.

Mississippi's covid- 19 death toll tops 42 hundred.

The state department of health is reporting one thousand 648 new cases and five deaths today.

There are long- term care facility outbreaks.

The hospitalization rate is nine point five percent in the state.

However, mississippi's rolling seven-day average is more than 21 hundred new cases.

In our area, lee county has the most new cases today with 113.

Lowndes county has 76.

Pontotoc has 45, union and webster counties are reporting 43 cases each.

Monroe has 30 and oktibbeha has 29.

As 2.9 million an itawamba county woman has been arrested after officers discovered great danes and other dogs in cages, without food and water.

26-year-old jayla rogers was arrested sunday and is charged with five counts of animal cruelty.

Investigator mike newlin says the sheriff's department got a tip sunday about malnourished and mistreated dogs at a house on joe wheeler brown road.

Newlin says officers found eighteen dogs, most of them great danes, in cages.

Two of the dogs were deceased.

After interviewing rogers, deputies arrested and charged her.

"without the community and without people in the community, we don't know a lot of times these things are going on, we are thankful this call came in because this would have got worse and more animals would have been deceased than just the two that were in the house, a lot of them animals needed immediate medical attention, glad they will be able to get that now, if the community a lot of times don't let us know, we don't know."

A rescue agency took all of the dogs.

Each count of animal cruelty carries up to six months in jail and up to a one thousand dollar fine.

Stinger "mississippis governor says its time to do away with the individual state income tax.

We'll hear from the governor the lt governor and an economic development expert.

That's coming up on wcbi news."

The electoral college has affirmed joe biden as the next president.

The six republican electors for mississippi cast their votes this morning for president trump since he won the state in november.

All 50 states certified their election results ahead of the electoral college voting today.

Biden has more than 270 electoral votes needed to become president.

Experts say president trump's legal challenges won't change the election results.

"it's been officially dead, done and buried since last week when states officially transmitted to archivist and to congress the outcome of their state with more than enough to elect vice- president joe biden as the next president-elect."

Today's vote will be sent to washington where they will be counted by congress on january 6th.

Biden's inauguration is the 20th.

A proposal by mississippi governor tate reeves to do away with the state income tax will likely be debated during the upcoming legislative session.

Wcbi's allie martin has more on the proposal, along with reaction from key players on both sides of the issue.

Governor tate reeves believes phasing out the individual state income tax for mississippi residents is not only good for taxpayers, but also for economic development.

"i believe eliminating the individual income tax is yet another positive step in removing hurdles to convince both businessessinesses and individuals to move back to mississippi."

Reeves says revenues lost by eliminating the income tax would be made up by an even stronger economy.

Reeves points out that the state is 300 million dollars ahead of revenue projections the first five months of this fiscal year.

The fact of the matter is because we kept our economy open and haven't shut down like so many states in the northeast and far west, we are seeing significant economic growth, revenue growth, and i believe if you were to implement it over a period of time, we wouldn't have to raise anybody's taxes, we could just over time eliminate the individual income tax and it's a win win win for everyone."

While lieutenant governor delbert hosemann says he favors income tax reform, he is not sure that eliminating the state income tax is the way to go.

"i'm not going to stand here and tell you that if you do away with the state income tax, it's a one point nine billion dollar debt, i can't see growth covering one point nine billion, that's probably forty percent of the whole budget for the state, so yeah, we're looking at tax reform, but it has to be incremental, reasonable, and i got to have a teacher pay raise, my kids need to be educated, highway patrol needs to be funded.

" standup bridge tupelo based community development foundation recruits businesses and industries to the area.

Cdf president david rumbarger says eliminating the individual income tax would make mississippi even more attractive to out of state businesses.

"it's about talent recruitment and when you have an advantage like tennessee or florida or texas with no state income tax, you begin to wonder, people make choices with their feet, and they will choose where they live and avocation and jobs they take based on cost of living , we have a low cost of living in mississippi, it would be nice to pair it with a low taxation rate."

Under the governor's proposal, the state income tax would be eliminated by 2030.

In tupelo, allie martin, wcbi news lawmakers will start their 2021 session january fifth in jackson.

Stinger weather open summary: a few more weather makers are on the way over the next week but they won't bring us too many issues.

Our area looks to remain in a zone between winter weather and severe weather.

Seasonably cool air will continue into early next week.

Monday night: clouds & stars.

Lows in the upper 20s.

Northerly winds 2-7 mph.

Tuesday: a mix of clouds & sun.

Dry during the daylight hours with rain developing during the evening.

Highs in the low 50s.

Easterly winds 4-10 mph.

Tuesday night: areas of rain.

Lows around 40.

Wednesday: morning rain then turning mostly cloudy.

Highs in the 40s.

Northwesterly winds around 10 mph.

Total rainfall in the 1/4" to 1/2" range.

Wednesday night: partly to mostly cloudy.

Lows in the upper 20s.

Thursday: turning mostly sunny.

Highs in the upper 40s.

Thursday night: clear and cold.

Lows in the mid 20s.

Friday: mostly sunny.

Highs in the 50s.

Weekend: mostly cloudy with rain developing saturday afternoon and evening.

Highs in the 50s.

Mostly cloudy skies continue sunday along with highs in the 50s.

Follow @wcbiweather on facebook, twitter, instagram, and the wcbi news app summary: a few more weather makers are on the way over the next week but they won't bring us too many issues.

Our area looks to remain in a zone between winter weather and severe weather.

Seasonably cool air will continue into early next week.

Monday night: clouds & stars.

Lows in the upper 20s.

Northerly winds 2-7 mph.

Tuesday: a mix of clouds & sun.

Dry during the daylight hours with rain developing during the evening.

Highs in the low 50s.

Easterly winds 4-10 mph.

Tuesday night: areas of rain.

Lows around 40.

Wednesday: morning rain then turning mostly cloudy.

Highs in the 40s.

Northwesterly winds around 10 mph.

Total rainfall in the 1/4" to 1/2" range.

Wednesday night: partly to mostly cloudy.

Lows in the upper 20s.

Thursday: turning mostly sunny.

Highs in the upper 40s.

The annual lowndes county christmas bike drive is a little different this year.

Organizer lt.

Rhonda sanders says the community benefit committee has partnered with the lowndes county sheriff's department to raffle off a car.

Each raffle ticket is $25 and the proceeds will go to pay for the bicycles.

The organization's normal fundraising event was impacted by the covid-19 pandemic.

But that's not the only thing affected by the virus.... sanders says this year's need is greater than ever when it comes to area children having at least one gift on christmas.

"so we had a donor that lives here in lowndes county, liz travels, she decided, she had bought her a new car, and she donated her car to the benefit committee, and we decided we were going to raffle that car off and give it to someone who's needy that needed the car.

So, if you don't need the extra car, what you can do is buy a raffle ticket and donate the car to someone in your community or in your church that needs a car."

The raffle winner will be drawn on december 19th at 12 o'clock.

You can purchase raffle tickets from the lowndes county sheriff's department or from any of the community benefit committee members.

Stinger mississippi state with one regular season game remaining this season..

Next in sports mike leach on his offenses progression spx open ???take even though saturday's 24-10 loss dropped mike leach's bunch to 2- 7 on the season... the bulldogs still could possibly make a bowl game... they'll wrap up the season saturday for one final regular season contest against missouri... points wise it seemed the bulldogs were back in their offensive woes... but leach says they've played hard recently and are trending in the right direction as a young team... 00-05 leach says: we've played really hard and during var degrees some teams have more people that can participate more than other but we played hard till the end of the last three or four.

Any times you play young guys its tough for the present and better for the future and it's a roller coaster.

The game is on sec network alternate channel... ole miss football will finally return to the gridiron this saturay when the rebels take on ed orgeron and the lsu tigers... his team coming off a massive upset win over the florida gators... it will have been three weeks since lane kiffin's club played in a game... their last matchup was against state in the egg bowl... their game against a&m was cancelled due to covid-19... all signs point towars this weekend's game in baton rouge being played... and lane says there are good and bad components that come with this amount of time off... 00-05 kiffin says: it's not ideal but we'll have fresh legs that part is good.

We don't have everyone yet because of the covid guys trickling back in.

Some were abck today and some will come back tomorrow.

We have a chance to finish the season with a winning record in all sec games which will be exciting for our first year especially considering the fact that we let a couple slip away that we should've won.

Kickoff is at 230 saturday while the bulldogs fell to dayton saturday in a double overtime thriller... ben howland has been beyond pleased with the progression of sophomore guard iverson molinar from year one to year two... he says the only player hes seen make that big of a leap in that span... russell westbrook going back to his u-c-l-a days..

He's put up 18 points... 4 rebounds and 4 assists per game this year... that type of jump doesn't happen with luck... the guard has been working incredibly hard to continue on his road to becoming a pro hooper... "i was training three times a day.

I actually went back to san diego and worked out with my uncle.

He played 13 years professionally overseas so he knows what i had to do to become one of the best players here in the sec.

I'm still working on that.

That's one of my goals.

I'm still working on becoming the best i can be."

In the nba, a couple former bulldogs getting their first taste of the league with preseason basketball underway.

Columbus native robert woodard gets his first professional bucket for the sacramento kings with a reverse baseline layup..

Also, we've seen this before!

Reggie perry!

Making an and 1 layup for the brooklyn nets!

Perry finished the game with 5 points and 7 rebounds.

Woodard had 4 points and 3 rebounds as well!

When we return...chief meteorologist keith gibson will have a last look at your forecast.

You are watching wcbi news at six.