Repairs to the USS Fitzgerald at Ingalls continue.

Some of the top stories we discussed on this April 17th Edition of "Gulf Coast Mornings with Kelly Bennett and Uncle Henry":

The complexity of repair and restoration work to the Navy's collision-damaged USS Fitzgerald is moving along at Ingalls shipyard. The efforts have been going on for more than a year. Yesterday, the warship left dry dock and was launched into the water for mooring pier-side for further work and modernization. Seven sailors were killed and the ship damaged to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars when it collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan in June 2017.

Mississippi has lost its claim to the cheapest gas prices in the country. Triple A says pump prices in Alabama are now about a penny lower than what Mississippi motorists are paying. The auto club says Mississippi's average price, almost two-52 a gallon, is up six and a half cents in the past week. And we're paying 21-cents more for gas than we were a month ago.

Bigger paychecks will be awaiting teachers and assistant teachers in Mississippi after July 1st rolls around. Governor Phil Bryant took to Twitter yesterday, posting a photo of himself signing legislation that provides a 15-hundred-dollar annual pay increase. He stated in the message that "Good teachers can change the trajectory of a student's life forever." The additional money will boost the average pay of a teacher in the state to just over 46-thousand-dollars a year, an amount still about five-thousand-dollars shy of the Southeastern average for instructors. 

Tiger Woods may have won big at the Sunday conclusion of the Masters Golf Tournament, but so did a Florida man who laid down a bet at a Biloxi casino on Tiger to win another green jacket. Harrah's Gulf Coast Casino released a video of Chhuch T., his last name not provided, smiling ear-to-ear after placing a seven-thousand-dollar wager despite 14-1 odds of Woods actually winning. The Cambodian native received a 98-thousand-dollar payout, the largest since sports betting began at the casino last August.

A North Carolina man says he almost lost his winning lottery ticket to a gust of wind. John Hepburn told North Carolina lottery officials that he typically puts his lottery tickets in his car door and sometimes they get blown out by the wind. That's exactly what happened to the tickets he bought for a drawing last week. One of those tickets happened to be worth nearly half a million dollars. He plans to use the cash to pay off his mortgage and buy something for his grandchildren.

It's possible to 3D-print a human heart using a patient's own cells. Israeli scientists recently accomplished the feat, reported Monday in the journal Advanced Science. It's not a full human-size heart, it's closer to the size of a rabbit's. But it is a complete heart, with blood vessels, ventricles and chambers. The fact it was grown from a patient's own cells reduced the risk of a transplant failing, researchers say. 

The Justice Department is concerned about the 26-billion-dollar merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. Reports say Justice Department officials have told both companies that the deal in its current arrangement may not be approved. Lawmakers and consumer groups have pushed for the merger to be scrapped because it would cut the number of nationwide wireless carriers from four to three.  

The American flag is staying on a California city's police cars. Laguna Beach recently started repainting its police cars with the American flag running through the word police. People reportedly confused the cars with federal vehicles and others have called the design too aggressive. The city council voted Tuesday to keep the paint job.  

Easter is jelly bean time … Can you guess the most popular jelly bean flavor in America? Believe it or not, according to a survey by CandyStore.com, it’s buttered popcorn flavor.

Here are the Top 5:

  1. Buttered popcorn
  2. Cinnamon
  3. Black licorice
  4. Cherry
  5. Watermelon


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