Mississippi governor OKs inland casino rebuilding after Katrina News
Mississippi governor OKs inland casino rebuilding after Katrina

[JURIST] Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour [official profile] Monday signed legislation to let the 13 hotel-casinos destroyed by Hurricane Katrina [JURIST report] to be rebuilt 800 feet inland, despite opposition from religious conservatives. The law was approved in a special legislative session [JURIST report] where the Mississippi Legislature [official website] convened to specifically work on the aftermath of the hurricane's devastation. The legislation was passed to provide safety for the casinos and provide jobs for displaced Mississippi workers, 14,000 of whom worked for the coast casinos prior to the hurricane. Mississippi legalized casinos in 1990, but under the Mississippi Gaming Control Act [text] the casinos were only allowed to be built on either the Mississippi River of the Gulf of Mexico. The new law, which will allow the casinos to be rebuilt as mega-resorts, will not affect river casinos. Some casino companies such as Harrah's Entertainment Inc. [corporate website] the world's largest gambling company, have already announced their plans to build a new hotel-casino. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.