, the former chair and CEO of Mississippi’s Mississippi River Authority – the agency that runs that river – testified Thursday in support of the $7.

, the former chair and CEO of Mississippi’s Mississippi River Authority – the agency that runs that river – testified Thursday in support of the $7.3 million contract for the work. He’s among dozens of top Mississippi politicians that are under investigation by Congress for their connections to the Mississippi Enterprise Partnership, a nonprofit organization that operates largely without public recognition.

Mullen said he had little contact with the Mississippi River Authority, whose mission is to keep the Mississippi River safe. He said he thinks the deal on the river is one of the best ways the state can do that.

“The people of this country, whether it’s business, government or politics, can do the right thing,” Mullen said. “This is the first time in 50-some years that this has been done.”

The Senate Finance Committee’s three-member oversight panel began its investigation last month when it received a complaint from a lawmaker’s staff asking questions about a number of Mississippi leaders. The panel said it received more than 60 such complaints about the matter.

Mullen was a member of the board of MPP for nearly two decades until earlier this year when he resigned from the organization. He said he believes the MPP board knew about his connections to the agency, but never reported them in a timely manner to the state.

The panel’s investigation, which is ongoing, is not limited to Mississippi politicians. It’s looking into whether the state treasurer violated conflict of interest laws by using his position to benefit MPP and its employees.A new study published today in Nature Communications shows that the first star to go supernova in our Milky Way galaxy did so at an amazing distance, roughly 150,000 light-years from Earth. The study further provides the first direct evidence for this supernova’s outburst.

Astronomers have discovered that one star in our galaxy exploded explosively – in a few weeks, all of our galaxy’s stars went out with it – and we’re learning about it on the basis of detailed observations with space-based instruments. The new observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile will help us better understand how supernova explosions happen, as well as the star that exploded in the aftermath of this giant explosion.

“A supernova is a powerful explosion that can throw out a lot of material,” explains lead author of the study, Kyoungjoo Lee, of the University of Chicago. “This study of this supernova shows us