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Stennis Space Center earns honors

Mississippi Power Co. has designated Stennis Space Center as a Project Ready technology park, the first such certification in Mississippi. The designation was presented Friday by power company officials.

Mississippi Power launched the Project Ready Certified Site Program to help identify locations that are ready to go and relatively risk-free for businesses. Sites must meet criteria in such areas as infrastructure, utilities and transportation.

Paul Sakuma/The Associated Press This holiday season’s biggest entertainment blockbuster likely will be a sequel to a popular franchise, with jarring depictions of war and an intricate story of good versus evil. It could easily rake in more than last year’s record $155 million opening weekend for “The Dark Knight.” But this blockbuster is not a movie. It is “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” a video game that Activision Blizzard Inc. is releasing Tuesday. Fans worldwide are expected to spend at least half a billion dollars on the game in the first week.

Tax breaks lure Pixel Magic to open studio

Pixel Magic, which creates digital visual effects for film and television, announced Friday that it will open a Louisiana studio.

The studio will be located at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise center in Lafayette. Officials said the company will create 12 jobs within the first year and 40 jobs within three years.

Pixel Magic has worked on films like “Marley & Me,” “Get Smart” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Company vice president Ray Scalice said Pixel Magic chose Louisiana because of its variety of locations, the growth of the film industry in the state and its lucrative tax breaks for film production and digital media.

Stocks post modest advance

Investors added to the week’s strong gains in the stock market after finding some positives in a surprisingly weak jobs report. Stock indexes posted a modest advance in light trading Friday after the Labor Department said the nation’s unemployment rate topped 10 percent in October for the first time since 1983, but also that the pace of job losses slowed. The rise in joblessness, while not welcome news for the economy, reassured some investors that the Federal Reserve will have to hold interest rates low for some time.

— Staff and wire reports