| Thursday, December 7, 2017 |
| MSU-Meridian's Amber Truhitt follows unwavering path to graduation | |
 | Amber Truhitt credits her eighth grade career discovery class for igniting her passion to become an occupational therapist. As the 21-year-old kinesiology major from Union walks across the stage at Mississippi State University-Meridian's fall commencement on Dec. 7 on the College Park Campus, she will be one step closer to achieving her goal. Not once since that dream began in middle school did Truhitt waver from the path she set for herself. After high school, she attended Meridian Community College before transferring to MSU-Meridian, where she said the rigorous university coursework, along with a semester-long internship, helped her combine what she learned in the classroom with real-world application. In addition to being a university Riley Scholar, Truitt is the only MSU-Meridian student that will be recognized during the Thursday ceremony as a Stephen D. Lee Scholar, an honor bestowed on Mississippi State graduates who earn a 4.0 grade-point average throughout their college career. |
| Aldermen deny rezoning appeal for Green Oaks | |
 | Starkville aldermen have rejected an appeal of the planning and zoning commission's denial to rezone two lots on Hickory Street from residential to commercial properties. In November the commission received a request from Mitchner Rentals, LLC, and Danielle V. Kelly to rezone the lots, located at 2003 and 2005 Hickory St., from R-1 single-family residential to C-2 general business. The lots contain two houses among a strip of eight in Green Oaks that sit along Highway 12. Located on the southeast side of the subdivision, they are directly adjacent to a Chevron convenience station on Highway 12 by the Avenue of Patriots. Commissioners voted 5-1 against the zoning request last month. On Tuesday, aldermen voted 6-1, with Ward 4's Jason Walker opposing due to a specific piece of language in the motion, to deny the request. |
| Starkville Kiwanis hear early learning update | |
 | Members of the Starkville Kiwanis club were brought up to speed on some local early childhood education initiatives Tuesday, when Starkville-Oktibbeha Early Learning Collaborative Executive Director Ellen Goodman spoke at their meeting. Goodman is also the certification manager for the Oktibbeha County Excel By 5 program, and discussed both with the organization, giving a picture of where both currently stand, plans for the future and their roles in the community. She said the Early Learning Collaborative began with 2013 state legislation allotting funds for qualifying communities statewide to operate collaborative. The Starkville-Oktibbeha collaborative includes four classrooms at the Emerson Family School and the ICS Head Start. The Starkville Oktibbeha collaborative is funded for 115 students. It serves to get students who will go into kindergarten the following school year ready for the transition. |
| Milwaukee Tool to invest $33.4 million, create 660 jobs | |
 | Milwaukee Tool is expanding operations at its three Mississippi locations, investing $33.4 million and creating 660 jobs over the next four years. The Mississippi Development Authority is providing $15.35 million in grants. The expansions are planned for the company's plants in Jackson and Greenwood and its distribution center in Olive Branch. Gov. Phil Bryant said in the release issued Wednesday after the announcement at the Jackson facility: "Once again, Milwaukee Tool confirms its commitment to doing business in our state by growing its existing operations and providing hundreds of Mississippians with good, stable jobs." "This is Milwaukee Tool's fourth expansion in Mississippi since 2012," MDA Executive Director Glenn McCullough Jr. said in the release. |
| Jamie Miller will leave Marine Resources for Mississippi Development Authority | |
 | Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Executive Director Jamie Miller, who was picked to rebuild trust in the scandal-ridden agency, is leaving to join the Mississippi Development Authority. According to a release from the Gov. Phil Bryant, Miller will be deputy director for governmental affairs and chief innovation officer. At the MDA, Miller will serve as disaster recovery administrator and oversee state-owned ports, the governor's office said. Miller will coordinate with all Mississippi military installations on behalf of MDA, monitor all Base Realignment and Closure activity and work with the Mississippi Military Communities Council. He will also coordinate all university and federal research center relations on behalf of MDA, serve as liaison to the Delta Regional Authority and Appalachian Regional Commission, oversee statewide benchmarks and project performance initiatives, in addition to other administrative and strategic initiatives as assigned. |
| For second year in a row, U.S. Army Corps chooses Vicksburg as best place to work | |
 | The Vicksburg District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been recognized for the second consecutive year as the best place to work in the Corps, according the 2017 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The survey is used to measure employees' perceptions whether the characteristics of successful organizations are present in their agencies. The Vicksburg District is one of 41 Corps districts worldwide and one of six districts in the Corps' Mississippi Valley Division. It has 1,000 employees. Greg Raimondo, Vicksburg District director of public relations, said the survey is mailed randomly to federal employees. This year, according to the survey's website, 485,000 federal employees participated in the survey. |
| John Lewis says he may not attend Mississippi Civil Rights Museum opening if Trump there | |
 | Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said Wednesday he is reconsidering whether to attend this weekend's opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum after the White House announced President Trump will be there. "It's going to be very difficult for me to be there and be on the same platform with him," Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Lewis was scheduled to speak at the museum opening on Saturday in Jackson, Miss. However, he told the newspaper that Trump's attendance would be inappropriate, citing his response to an August white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in which Trump said there was blame on "both sides" for violence that ensued. "I think his presence would make a mockery of everything that people tried to do to redeem the soul of America and to make this country better," Lewis said. |
| Museum backers want to keep focus on Mississippi history, not President Trump | |
| The unveiling of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum has for years been a planned reconciliation, of sorts, for a state with a battered history of racial violence and hatred. But the day now incites mixed feelings as Secret Service agents and speechwriters advance the museum grounds this week in anticipation of President Donald Trump's visit. The museum's concept, set to be unveiled on Saturday, the weekend of the state's bicentennial, is to finally center truth in the teachings of the state's past. The overdue justice has been the museum's grand appeal, and taxpayer dollars funding the project -- the only funding structure for a museum of its kind in America -- has been its selling point. |
| Coast lawmakers say PERS isn't doing as well as employees think it is | |
| Lawmakers who bring up the Public Employees Retirement System do so at their own peril, members of the Coast delegation said, but they say it needs to be brought up anyway. "We have to have that conversation," Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, told the crowd at the Pre-Legislative Briefing hosted by the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce. "When Sen. Tindell filed a bill, he got death threats. That's crazy. In his case, he was trying to tweak it, to make it better able to do what Sen. (Michael) Watson was saying, extend it." Watson and Wiggins told the 200 or so people at the Golden Nugget earlier this week that part of the problem is PERS officials paint too rosy a picture of the state of the retirement fund. A report by the Hoover Institution said most public pension plans are underfunded. And, it said, state and local governments are underestimating the amount of money it would take to stop the problem from growing. |
| Southaven moves for new restaurant tax plan for upcoming legislative session | |
 | The City of Southaven will again ask the Mississippi Legislature to re-instate a restaurant tourism tax plan similar to the Penny for the Parks program that ended earlier in June when legislators would not approve an extension. Southaven aldermen at their Tuesday meeting voted a resolution that will ask the Legislature to support a 10-year plan to again add a one-percent tax to gross restaurant sales at Southaven eateries with the proceeds earmarked for tourism, parks and recreation promotion in the state's third-largest city. Legislators refused to extend the "Penny" plan in the last session and many later alluded to city officials that their opposition came mostly due to the DeSoto County delegation not supporting their local tax plans for their districts. Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite stated again Tuesday night that many lawmakers have now come to the city asking the proposal be brought to them again, with the expectation that it would now be supported in Jackson. |
| Agencies coordinate to battle opioid crisis | |
 | State officials are hoping a new multi-agency media campaign will curb Mississippi's number of opioid overdose deaths that have climbed to more than 250 for the current year. In 2016 there were 211 reported deaths, though officials say they believe the numbers for last year and the current year are actually higher than the official death total attributed to opioids. The Stand Up Mississippi campaign was announced Wednesday during a news conference at the state Capitol. The campaign will aim to improve the perception of people dealing with drug addiction, develop policies to provide prevention and treatment and try to enhance statewide partnerships in dealing with opioids. |
| Opioid campaign: Mississippi working to stop epidemic, 'but it's not enough' | |
 | Across the state, Mississippians will start seeing billboards, advertisements online, in print and on the radio about the dangerous affects of opioids and encouraging folks struggling with addiction to get treatment. The campaign, named "Stand Up, Mississippi," is just one part of Mississippi's State Targeted Opioid Prescription Project, funded through a $3.58 million federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant awarded to the state in April. "This year began our efforts to inform the public, to educate on the issues and dangers of opioid abuse," said Steve Parker, deputy director Mississippi Board of Pharmacy. "A lot is being done, but it's not enough." |
| Reporter barred from Mississippi mental health task force meetings | |
| During Mississippi's mental health task force's third meeting since Attorney General Jim Hood created it last summer, a security guard stood by the elevators at the Walter Sillers State Office Building in downtown Jackson, asking folks attempting to enter if they were "on the task force." That's because members of the public and press have been barred from attending the gatherings, which take place on the 13th floor -- in the press room. The meetings, in which attendees are split into several subcommittees, are designed to address issues within the state's multi-pronged mental health system. They met Wednesday for nearly four hours. Building officials said the public cannot visit the public, taxpayer-funded offices in the Sillers building -- including the governor's office and Medicaid -- unless they have an appointment. |
| Rep. Gregg Harper aims to reform sexual harassment in Congress | |
| Mississippi congressman Gregg Harper now has a key role in addressing a culture of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. Harper chairs the House Administration Committee, which oversees the body's day-to-day to operations. That committee will hold a hearing on preventing sexual harassment in Congress on Thursday morning. In an interview in his congressional office in the Rayburn Building, Harper told Mississippi Today that he's been working on the issue nonstop in recent weeks. In November, during a previous hearing of Harper's committee, two female members of Congress accused at least two unnamed congressmen of sexual harassment. Harper, a Republican who represents the 3rd Congressional District, which cuts across the state from southwest Mississippi to Meridian, said much of his focus has been on getting his arms around the scope of the problem in the House. |
| Shutdown looms as House GOP scrambles for votes on funding bill | |
 | The House is set to vote on a short-term funding measure Thursday to keep the federal government open for another two weeks, even as GOP leaders are still scrambling to round up the votes to pass the measure. Right now, Speaker Paul Ryan and other House Republican leaders believe they'll have the votes to pass a "continuing resolution" that funds federal agencies until Dec. 22, but they're also ready for a floor fight this afternoon, GOP sources said. President Donald Trump will meet with the "Big Four" congressional leaders -- Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer -- at the White House Thursday afternoon in a bid to jumpstart negotiations over a two-year budget deal. |
| New ransom tactics are 'unstoppable,' as North Carolina county discovers | |
 | Hackers are growing much more adept at getting people to open email infected with worms, as the network operators of Mecklenburg County government in North Carolina are the latest to discover. Practically any infected email can look like it's from a trusted friend or coworker. New techniques that a researcher unveiled this week show how hackers can strip away any sign that an email is fake, and make it "virtually unstoppable" by normal safeguards such as spam filters on email servers. A German security researcher, Sabri Haddouche, discovered the latest tactics used by cybercriminals, announcing them on a website Tuesday that shows a collection of vicious bugs used to bypass the hurdles set up on more than 30 widely used email clients, like Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft Outlook 2016. |
| Class-action lawsuit accuses judge, Corinth of running 'debtor's prison' | |
| The Southern Poverty Law Center and the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law filed a federal class-action lawsuit Tuesday against the City of Corinth and a municipal court judge for operating what they call a "modern-day debtor's prison." "Despite being told repeatedly by the Mississippi Supreme Court and the Mississippi Judicial College to stop locking up Mississippians who are too poor to pay their fines in large lump sums and are not able to buy their way out of jail by paying a pre-determined amount of money bail, a disturbing number of judges in Mississippi defiantly refuse to comply with the law," said Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law. |
| USM professor: President Trump recognizing Jerusalem as Israeli capital 'reckless,' 'dangerous' | |
 | President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel Wednesday. He was joined by Vice President Mike Pence to make the announcement, calling it long overdue. The president also announced he's directing the State Department to begin preparations to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The announcements change decades of U.S. foreign policy. Trump acknowledged that his decision might ignite tensions in the Middle East, but said he intends to do everything in his power to help forge a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. One University of Southern Mississippi professor is calling the Trump decision "strong," but "reckless." Edward Sayre, chair and associate professor in the Department of Political Science, International Development and International Affairs at USM, said it could further destabilize parts of the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. |
| Determined husband-and-wife team earns doctorates from Southern Miss | |
 | Call it craziness, or call it stubbornness. But you should also call it "impressive" when referring to the accomplishments of husband-and-wife graduate students Rick and Angie Walker, who will receive their doctoral degrees during the University of Southern Mississippi's Fall 2017 Commencement on Friday. The couple, both employed by the U.S. Navy, managed to juggle demanding, full-time jobs and two teenagers at home with a rigorous doctoral program in Human Capital Development through the university's Gulf Park campus in Long Beach. But why did they decide to chase such a lofty goal at the same time? |
| Meridian Community College to graduate record fall class on Friday | |
| Meridian Community College is scheduled to graduate a record fall class of 293 students at 3 p.m. Friday at the Temple Theater. MCC Dean of Student Services Soraya Welden said the previous record of 247 was established in 2011. The number is 70 higher than the 2016 fall class, Welden said. The commencement follows pinning ceremonies for its Licensed Practical Nurse and Associated Degree Nursing programs scheduled at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., respectively. MCC holds three commencement programs each school year in December, May and August. The spring commencement in May is traditionally the biggest, according to the school, but Welden said in long times past the 293 graduating Friday would have been "a goodly number even for the spring." In the aggregate, MCC has been more recently averaging about 900 graduates for the entire school year. |
| Student projects aim to make UGA sustainable | |
 | Student projects next year could have bats once again soaring above the University of Georgia campus, grow medicinal herbs at the university's UGArden, help launch mobile farmers markets and estimate the material and energy needs of greenspaces on the UGA campus. UGA's Office of Sustainability announced its latest round of campus sustainability grants Wednesday, and those were among this semester's entries. The office and the grants are funded by a $3 per semester fee UGA students overwhelmingly voted to impose upon themselves to create the office in 2010. Students submitted 28 grant proposals this semester and a panel of judges picked 10 winners who will get grants averaging $4,000 to complete or launch their projects. Other projects aim to help protect Monarch butterflies, buy small plastic recycling machines and try to track and manage pollution that flows into UGA's Lake Herrick. |
| Congressman seeks pledge LSU med school will stay in Shreveport | |
 | U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham wants any deal renegotiating management of north Louisiana's safety-net hospitals to include promises LSU will maintain its medical school in the region. The Republican congressman from northeast Louisiana sent Gov. John Bel Edwards a letter Wednesday requesting the language be included in any contracts for a new company to manage the hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe. Abraham graduated from the LSU medical school in Shreveport. Edwards has repeatedly pledged support for keeping the school in Shreveport and reiterated that Wednesday. |
| Despite rainy debut, food truck park brings new dining options to A&M students | |
 | Wednesday's cold, wet weather may not have been conducive to grabbing an ice pop or an ice cream snack, but Texas A&M senior Ian Weber remained optimistic. Weber, bundled up in a thick peacoat, worked the window at Frio's Gourmet Pops truck for the grand opening of the Wayside Food Park in College Station, and while sales weren't brisk thanks to the December chill, he wasn't deterred. "I'm excited," he said as he prepared a gingerbread and graham cracker ice cream treat for serving. "I think this food truck park was a good idea." The Wayside Food Park, located in Northgate in the 200 block of University Drive, features as many as 10 food trucks offering a wide variety of edibles to hungry Aggies. While Wednesday's first official day got off to a slow start as the weather put a damper on foot traffic off the edge of Texas A&M's campus, the grills remained hot, the freezers stayed crisp and food truck owners and employees kept smiling. |
| Museums will be here for long time | |
| The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal's Bobby Harrison writes: "The Two Museums Project, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, has been the ultimate feel good story for our sometimes beleaguered state. The two projects, the dream of many for so long, were combined into one bill in the 2011 session and signed into law by former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour. The intent of the legislation was for both museums to open on the periphery of downtown Jackson at the end of 2017 as the culmination of Mississippi's bicentennial celebration of statehood. That intent will be fulfilled Saturday with a much-anticipated opening ceremony." |
SPORTS
| Joe Moorhead has personal ties to coaching hires at Mississippi State | |
| New Mississippi State football coach Joe Moorhead has officially made two assistant coach hires; he's had personal ties to both of them. Moorhead's second hire, confirmed by Fordham University Tuesday, is Fordham head coach Andrew Breiner, who will be MSU's quarterbacks coach and pass game coordinator. Breiner was Moorhead's offensive coordinator for all four years of Moorhead's head coaching tenure at Fordham and was promoted when Moorhead left to become Penn State's offensive coordinator. The other hire was from the Penn State staff that Moorhead just left in Charles Huff, who is now MSU's assistant head coach, run game coordinator and running backs coach. "Andrew has shown that he is one of the up-and-coming young coaches and we wish him and his family the best moving forward," Fordham Director of Athletics David Roach said in a statement. |
| Mississippi State's Rankin, Simmons, Sweat earn All-SEC honors from coaches | |
| Coming on the heels of The Associated Press All-Southeastern Conference laurels, Mississippi State offensive lineman Martinas Rankin, defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, and defensive end Montez Sweat were named Tuesday to the All-SEC Coaches First Team, the league announced Tuesday. It's the first time since the 2014 season that three Bulldogs have earned first-team honors. It also is the first time in program history MSU has had two first-team selections on the defensive line. |
| Mississippi State's Jeffery Simmons focused on his future | |
| Jeffery Simmons is determined not to let one momentary lapse in judgment define the rest of his life. Simmons has spent the last year-and-a-half at Mississippi State working towards being a model student and teammate. He has maintained a 4.0 grade point average in the classroom and gone throughout the Golden Triangle telling his story to motivate elementary and middle school students. Simmons simply wants to be known more for those actions than the viral video that showed him striking a female in the face on March 24, 2016. "I've put all of that behind me and am focused on what's in front of me," Simmons said. "My future is more important than my past. I've learned from my past and am moving forward." |
| Mississippi State's Victoria Vivians earns SEC Player of the Week honors | |
| Mississippi State senior guard Victoria Vivians was named Tuesday the Southeastern Conference Player of the Week. Vivians averaged 23 points, seven rebounds, three assists, and three steals in victories against Louisiana and Oklahoma State to help No. 6 MSU open the season with eight-straight wins for the second-straight year, and third time in the last four seasons. The honor came on the same day MSU remained No. 3 in this week's USA Today Coaches Poll. The Bulldogs have been ranked for 58-straight weeks in the poll. Vivians shot 48.4 percent from the field and was 14-for-15 from the free-throw (93.3 percent) line last week. MSU will play host to Little Rock at 2 p.m. Sunday. |
| Ole Miss indefinitely disassociates six boosters involved in NCAA infractions case | |
| Ole Miss has disclosed the disassociation terms for some of the boosters involved in the school's NCAA infractions case, which includes the indefinite disassociation of six boosters. In a sanctions summary released by the school Wednesday, Walter Hughes, Arya Keyes, Chan Patel and Michael Strojny along with boosters referred to only as Boosters 9 and 10 in the Committee on Infractions' final ruling in the case last week have been disassociated indefinitely. The identities of Boosters 9 and 10 haven't been revealed yet because of a public records dispute pending in Mississippi Supreme Court. Michael Joe Cannon, owner of Cannon Motors, has been disassociated for the duration of Ole Miss' probation, which runs through Dec. 1, 2020, while Lee Harris, owner of the Oxford-based bar Funkys, and Terry Warren, owner of Rebel Rags, and his business have been disassociated for at least the duration of the probation period. |
| Ole Miss' assistants salary pool nation's 15th-highest in 2017 | |
| Ole Miss' assistant football coaches collectively made one of the nation's 20 highest salaries this season. The Rebels' nine on-field assistants were paid $4,075,000, according to USA Today's assistant salary pool database. The amount ranked 15th nationally and eighth in the SEC. Alabama had the nation's highest pool for assistants at $5,995,000 followed by LSU ($5,915,000), Clemson ($5,725,000), Michigan ($5,645,000) and Florida ($4,997,825). Defensive coordinator Wesley McGriff led the way with a base salary of $1 million while offensive coordinator Phil Longo made $600,000 this season. The base salary for McGriff and Longo, who are in the first of three-year and two-year contracts, respectively, will increase by $100,000 next season. |
| NCAA President Mark Emmert criticizes Tennessee football coaching search | |
 | Tennessee's football coaching search, which reached its 25th day on Wednesday, has become a national punchline. NCAA President Mark Emmert offered some criticism of his own on Wednesday at the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in New York. "When you don't have the board, president and AD in alignment about why you play football, what your goals are, and how you're going to make personnel decisions, ... then you get what happened at UT," Emmert said, according to a tweet from Jason Belzer, a contributor to Forbes. Tennessee's coaching search has been marked by the school backing away from a deal that would have made Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano the coach. News of the hire leaked and was met by blowback from some fans, state politicians, local business owners and donors, and the deal unraveled. After that, several coaches turned away overtures from the Vols. |
| New top Hog is Chad Morris of SMU | |
| The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville has turned to a coach with deep Texas roots who is known for his high-scoring offenses to turn around its football program. Chad Morris was hired Wednesday as head coach of a Razorbacks football team coming off a 4-8 season that led to declining home attendance and the firing of fifth-year coach Bret Bielema, who had a 29-34 record. Morris, 49, flew to Fayetteville on Wednesday afternoon and met with the Razorbacks and football staff members shortly after. He will be formally introduced at a news conference at 10 a.m. today. "All right, look forward to getting with y'all," Morris said while waving to a small contingent of media shortly after his arrival at Drake Field. |
| New AD Hunter Yurachek says Arkansas football needs to get 'right' | |
| Hunter Yurachek made a promise Wednesday that Arkansas Razorbacks fans will judge him by in the years to come. In his second day on the job as vice chancellor and director of athletics for the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Yurachek said he was attracted to Arkansas by the potential for many sports on campus to compete for national and SEC championships. Then he went straight to the heart of the matter. "We're going to get this football piece right," Yurachek said moments after his introductory news conference with UA Chancellor Joe Steinmetz at the Fowler Family Center. "We're going to get it right. I promise you we're getting that right. If you get that train rolling, the football train rolling, the sky is the limit for this athletic program." |
| Alabama's Jeremy Pruitt mulling offer for Tennessee job, per report | |
 | Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt is weighing an offer from Tennessee to become its next head coach, according to a report Wednesday night from ESPN.com's Chris Low. Details of the potential deal with Pruitt were still being worked out as of Wednesday night, Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports and SI.com reported. Pruitt and fellow defensive coordinators Kevin Steele of Auburn and Mel Tucker of Georgia were considered finalists for the job, which has been open since Tennessee fired Butch Jones on Nov. 12. Pruitt is in his second season as Alabama's defensive coordinator after two years in the same position at Georgia. His first year as a defensive coordinator was in 2013 at Florida State. The Seminoles led the nation in scoring defense that season en route to a national championship. He was a finalist that year for the Broyles Award, given to the nation's top assistant. |
| LSU tops nation in coordinator pay, and it's not even close | |
 | No school pays its coordinators as much as LSU. Defensive coordinator Dave Aranda was the highest paid assistant in college football in 2017, and Matt Canada was the fourth-highest paid and made more than any other offensive coordinator, according to figures released by USA Today. The combined salaries of the two men, $1.8 and $1.5 million respectively, were more than any other school doled out to its coordinators - by a wide margin. Alabama and Clemson were second at $2.5 million. Michigan was next ($2.45M) with Texas A&M ($2.4M) rounding out the top five. The news is not-so surprising. The Advocate reported the pay of LSU's two coordinators in the spring, and many believed they would be the highest paid at their respect positions. The school signed head coach Ed Orgeron to a more modest contract ($3.5M a year) to allow heavy spending on the two coordinator spots. |
| Auburn football assistant coaches the 6th-highest paid nationally | |
 | Auburn's nine assistant coaches earn a combined $4.875 million in annual salary, which is the sixth-highest total in the nation, according to USA Today's annual salary database. Alabama ($5.995 million), LSU ($5.915 million), Clemson ($5.725 million), Michigan ($5.645 million) and Florida ($4,997,825) are the only five schools that pay their assistants more. Defensive coordinator Kevin Steele is Auburn's highest-paid assistant, ranking seventh nationally at $1.2 million per year. The nation's highest-paid assistant coach is LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda, who makes $1.8 million annually. Head coach Gus Malzahn's new deal, which has not been finalized but will reportedly pay him $49 million over seven years, would place him among the top five highest-paid head coaches. |
| Nikki Haley Calls U.S. Presence at South Korea Olympics an 'Open Question' | |
 | The American envoy to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, said on Wednesday that it was an "open question" whether American athletes would be able to attend the Olympics in South Korea in February given the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The Winter Games are to be held Feb. 9-25 in Pyeongchang, a city about 50 miles from the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. Asked on Fox News if athletes from the United States would be able to compete, Ms. Haley said: "There's an open question. I have not heard anything about that, but I do know in the talks that we have -- whether it's Jerusalem or North Korea -- it's about, how do we protect the U.S. citizens in the area?" Tensions have been heating up on the Korean Peninsula after a two-month lull. |
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