| Friday, August 14, 2026 |
| Oppressive heat, high humidity grip much of the US as students start a new school year | |
 | A late summer heat wave has gripped much of the United States in a sweaty headlock and forecasters say it won't let go anytime soon. Roughly 97 million people from the central Plains to the Southeast face heat advisories. Dangerous temperatures are expected in more than a dozen states in the Southern Plains and lower Mississippi Valley through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. Some places could hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius), forecasters said. But the combination of soaring temperatures and high humidity could make it feel as hot as 115 F (46 C) in portions of the Southeast. That heat dome effect is created by high-pressure systems sitting above a region, trapping heat and humidity closer to the ground. And there will be little nighttime relief, with overnight lows predicted to remain in the 70s in many places, forecasters said. The heat wave is coinciding with the start of the new school year in much of the country, forcing discussions about how to keep students comfortable on buses, in classrooms and even on school playground equipment. Young athletes and professionals preparing for a new football season also are having to take precautions against overheating. |
| Mississippi cattle farmers cope with heat wave, drought concerns | |
 | The ongoing heat wave is creating compounding challenges for Mississippi cattle farmers, from drying pastures to falling pond levels, with potential effects stretching beyond this summer. Bob Robinson, a third-generation farmer at Robinson Farms in Brandon, in operation since 1907, said cattle need three things during periods of extreme heat. "Cows, this time of year especially, need shade, they need clean water and they need grass or forage," Robinson said. Robinson said every pasture on his farm has shade and water access, but rising temperatures and drying ground force adjustments to feeding plans. Andy Berry of the Mississippi Cattlemen's Association said heat pulls moisture from the ground and lowers pond levels, a concern in parts of the state still recovering from earlier drought conditions. "If it's hot and we don't have any rain, the grass isn't growing, hay isn't being made. And so that's going to put us in a shortage this winter," Berry said. Berry added that nighttime temperatures are as much a concern as daytime highs. |
| Senator McLendon introduces Don't Sharia Mississippi Act | |
 | State Senator Michael McLendon will introduce the "Don't Sharia Mississippi Act" during the upcoming 2027 Legislative Session, a six-part legislative agenda designed to strengthen and expand upon Mississippi's older foreign-law protections first enacted in 2015. The 2015 legislation prohibited Mississippi courts and other legal authorities from enforcing foreign law when doing so would violate constitutional rights. McLendon's new legislative package would go further by expressly identifying Sharia law and addressing its potential enforcement or influence in Mississippi courts, government, criminal activity, residential developments, courtroom security, and taxpayer-funded school-choice programs. "I'm hopeful Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann, who campaigns as a conservative, will let these bills come out of committee and give the Mississippi Senate a vote," McLendon said. "No double referrals. No procedural tricks. No sending them somewhere to quietly die. If Senate leadership believes Sharia law has no place in Mississippi, put these bills on the floor and let every senator vote." |
| Benoit officials back appointment of Muslim attorney to municipal judge seat | |
| A Mississippi Delta city's mayor and board of aldermen are backing the appointment of a Muslim judge to a municipal court seat. Assma Ali, a Ridgeland-based immigration attorney, was sworn in as a municipal judge in the small town of Benoit, which has a population just shy of 350 people. Her appointment sparked online rumors, hateful commentary, and even alleged threats. But despite all the outside noise, Benoit officials are standing behind the decision to add her to the bench. "Ali is an American born citizen. Ali is a graduate of Mississippi Christian University School of Law (formerly Mississippi College School of Law). Ali successfully passed the Mississippi Bar. Ali is a licensed Attorney in the State of Mississippi and is in good standing with said Bar," a portion of a joint statement by Benoit Mayor Linda Carter and the board of aldermen reads. While most of the harsh rhetoric surrounding Ali's appointment has come from the political right, one notable Mississippi Republican is calling on the public to refrain casting aspersions. Mike Hurst, who chairs the Mississippi Republican Party, said he respects the wishes of Benoit's leadership and will judge Ali based on how she operates from the bench, rather than her appearance or religion. |
| Federal judge denies injunction sought in DeSoto County over new judicial subdistricts | |
| U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock denied a preliminary injunction on Thursday that was being sought by a group off DeSoto County residents to block the creation of new judicial subdistricts as approved by the Mississippi Legislature. The plaintiffs in the case, which include Robert Foster, Katie Ligon, Kirby Cater, and John T. Williams, filed the challenge to the new subdistricts in the wake of the Callais v. Louisiana ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. That ruling determined racial gerrymandering to be unconstitutional as it had been practiced under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The defendants in the matter are the State of Mississippi and the Board of Election Commissioners. Judge Aycock's order on Thursday stated that halting the creation of the new subdistricts now is too close to the election date, writing that "the Court finds that there is a significant risk of voter confusion if the subdistrict were struck down at this time." |
| Redistricting ruling leaves Mississippi lawmakers searching for new guidelines | |
 | Mississippi lawmakers have begun the redistricting process, but the recent U.S. Supreme Court's Callais ruling has left them uncertain about which federal guidelines still apply and how the state's new voting maps should be drawn. The ruling's removal of race‑based requirements has set off a contentious debate at the Capitol over what principles should guide the next set of boundaries. During a hearing Monday, members of the House Select Committee on Redistricting heard testimony from Dallas Breen, executive director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development. Breen said lawmakers must answer several key questions before deciding how to reshape districts. "Where is the population changing? Are they moving in state? Where are they moving in state? Where are we seeing that shift," said Breen. "Where is the most activity happening? How should committees of interest be considered, the legal risks, and can you improve transparency?" Republican lawmakers say they want to approach redistricting without using race to draw lines. Democrats say that race in Mississippi is deeply tied to economic power, local cultural factors and political affiliation, making it inseparable from fair representation. |
| Daylight saving time battle pits Senate GOP against Trump | |
 | President Trump is renewing pressure on Senate Republicans to pass a House-approved bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but the effort is running into stiff opposition from GOP senators whose states would be plunged into early-morning darkness during the winter. Trump, in a Wednesday post on Truth Social, said "people are sick and tired of having to change their clocks twice a year," claiming it "costs Millions of Dollars" and could be "bad for your health in the anxiety it creates." Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) spoke out against the proposal during a recent interview with "The Hugh Hewitt Show." "You have to think through the second-order implications of what permanent daylight savings would mean," he said. "It may sound great in the summer months, and it may sound great if you live in Florida and you like to play golf, but if you live in Bentonville, Ark., the sun wouldn't come up in the depths of winter until well after 8 o'clock, maybe even 8:30." Cotton noted that Congress made daylight saving time permanent in 1973 and then quickly reversed the action after seeing the practical effects. "You can simply learn the lesson of history. Congress did this once before," he said. |
| Trump Orders Navy to Restore Older Tech on Aircraft Carriers, Costing Billions | |
 | President Trump has directed the Navy to tear out a complex system for launching jet fighters from its aircraft carriers and instead go back to using steam catapults, a move Navy officials have fought for years and will likely cost billions of dollars. U.S. officials say Trump signed a national security memorandum Thursday directing the change, which would involve removing the electromagnetic catapult system used by the ships in the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers. By doing so, Trump is making good on a promise he made almost 10 years ago to go back to the steam system after hearing a sailor praise it while visiting a ship during his first term. The order marks Trump's latest foray into the design and development of military programs. He inserted himself into negotiations for the Air Force One and the F-35 jet fighter programs, directed design changes to the Constellation-class frigate and championed the creation of Trump-class battleships. Replacing the electromagnetic catapults with steam will be a complex endeavor that will likely cost billions of dollars, according to Bryan Clark, a naval expert with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank. Clark said early data from the Navy shows that the Ford costs about $100 million less a year to operate compared with a Nimitz-class ship. |
| Rogue AI Agents Are Alarming Researchers More Than Ever | |
| The rogue agents inside the servers at OpenAI broke through sometime on June 26. For more than a month, some undisclosed number of them had been coordinating on a secret message board that they had set up without the knowledge of their human creators. Through hundreds of thousands of messages sent over two months, the rogue agents discovered they could take over a software system also on OpenAI's servers. Within eight days, the sheer volume of the agents' activity crashed the system all together. OpenAI's human employees took away the agents' control. Four days later, the bots started another secret messaging board, and ultimately hacked into Hugging Face, a company that hosts AI models on its platforms. The Hugging Face hack was first disclosed to the public on July 16. But last week OpenAI gave a detailed account of exactly how it had occurred, providing fresh insight into the extent of the breach. The revelations came on top of a string of other hacks and security incidents over the last few weeks that have amplified concerns about the safety of the most advanced AI models, according to interviews with more than a dozen safety researchers, including three current employees at the labs, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. |
| House lawmakers visit Vatican to discuss AI -- and meet the pope | |
 | A bipartisan House delegation met with top Vatican officials on Wednesday to discuss artificial intelligence during a visit that briefly included Pope Leo XIV, according to two people with knowledge of the trip granted anonymity to disclose details of the private meetings. The delegation's visit, which has not been previously reported, included eight lawmakers and was coordinated by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the person said. Committee member Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) and California Rep. Ro Khanna, the panel's top Democrat, led the trip. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment. In an interview confirming the visit, Khanna said the topics of discussion included religious freedom, AI's economic and geopolitical risks, as well as broader ethical and existential implications. It centered on two key principles: human dignity and equality. |
| Breakfast Club to brew up tech ideas | |
| A new monthly networking group will bring entrepreneurs, investors and technology enthusiasts together in Oxford to share ideas and explore opportunities for developing new businesses. The Oxford Breakfast Club will hold its first meeting at 9 a.m. on Aug. 22 at mTrade, located at 200 South Lamar Court. The group will meet one Saturday each month, with breakfast provided by mTrade. Led by mTrade CEO Bill Rayburn, the club is not an mTrade initiative but is intended to provide a welcoming environment where participants can discuss and refine ideas, particularly those involving application software and agricultural technology. The effort grew from discussions with Sen. Nicole Boyd about "growing our own" companies and jobs locally. Organizers also plan to draw on mTrade leadership, community members and colleagues from Mississippi State University as mentors and resources. |
| Southern Miss alumna Keisha Green earns Southeast Emmy Award | |
| For Keisha Green, earning a Southeast Emmy Award is more than a career milestone. It is a reminder of the journey that began at The University of Southern Mississippi and the experiences that helped shape her career in television. Green earned a bachelor's degree in the School of Media and Communication's broadcast journalism program and a minor in marketing in 2020. She recently received a Southeast Emmy Award for her work as producer of The Best of Late Night with Rita Brent and currently serves as a creative services producer for Gray Media, primarily working with WLBT and Fox40 while also assisting with projects for WLOO. Green traces much of her success back to her time at Southern Miss. Through Southern Miss TV, leadership in the Southern Miss Association of Black Journalists and opportunities to create original media projects, she gained the confidence to pursue a career in television. |
| William Carey University welcomes students back as on-campus living continues to grow | |
 | William Carey University welcomed students back to campus Thursday as freshmen and transfer students moved into the residence halls, kicking off a busy weekend of orientation and activities. Move-in day brought an all-hands-on-deck effort, with firefighters and other city leaders helping students and their families unload belongings and get settled into the dorms. The university says the number of students living on campus has continued to grow, with residence halls nearly full this year. "We are at capacity. I think we may have one bed left, and that shows how much William Carey University is growing, and we are excited. I mean, it's a great problem to have," William Carey University Dean of Students, Dr. Delores McNair, said. The growth has also led to changes across campus. University leaders say they have invested in spaces where students live, learn and spend time outside the classroom. As more students arrive for the new school year, Carey leaders say the growth is helping shape the university's campus community and its relationship with Hattiesburg. "We want to make sure that our students know that when they come to Hattiesburg, they found a second home and that they are welcome to get their academic journey started here, but also welcome to stay here once they graduate," McNair said. |
| Defunding of student loan repayment program another hit to teachers amid state's staffing shortage | |
| The email this summer came as a shock to Alanna Lawrence. For the past two years, Lawrence and her husband, Jeremy, had received $9,000 each toward their student loans, thanks to a state-funded program that helps teachers pay off their debt. They teach in the Vicksburg-Warren School District, which the State Board of Education has designated an area critically short of teachers. They were expecting $6,000 more each this year. But, they learned from the email, for the first time since the state Legislature created the Winter-Reed Teacher Loan Repayment Program in 2021, educators such as Lawrence will receive no assistance -- even as Mississippi continues to grapple with a teacher shortage. Lawrence said defunding the program sends a confusing message to the state's educators. "They say how much they appreciate us," she said. "But the actions aren't matching up." The Winter-Reed program provides up to three annual loan payments toward participating teachers' student debt. Teachers who work in critical geographic shortage areas can receive $6,000 in the third year. Teachers who work in noncritical shortage areas can receive a third-year award of $3,500. |
| Particle accelerators, nuclear reactors: LSU scientists join federal 'Genesis Mission' AI push | |
 | A colorless industrial building sits off Jefferson Highway in Baton Rouge, easy to miss. Cars pass outside while, behind the nondescript walls, a vast network of wires, pipes and computer equipment hums lowly. In a massive ring overlooking and encircling the experiments taking place down below, electrons race just under the speed of light. They shoot out the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. The contraption is called a synchrotron, and it is helping discover how the universe works at the most essential level. "We have light that comes from God, I call it," LSU physics professor Phillip Sprunger said. The light produced by this particle accelerator is used to study all manner of scientific "black boxes." How to detect cancer earlier, how to extract critical materials from U.S. soil --- all those leaps in scientific discovery 10 years down the line can first be seen here at LSU's Louisiana Light Source, Sprunger explained. Now, Sprunger is thinking about how artificial intelligence can hasten and enhance those discoveries. Across the country, hundreds of scientists in laboratories and specialized research sites are asking similar questions about how to inject AI into their research. The federal government announced in July it had selected 278 projects and dedicated over $5 billion to the expansive Genesis Mission, an initiative launched by President Donald Trump last year to "harness AI for science." |
| Trump visa policy leads to fewer international students at US colleges, report concludes | |
| A decline in international students at American universities is attributable, in part, to Trump administration immigration policies, according to a new analysis, and that loss could cost the U.S. more than $3 billion, including $23 million for Louisiana alone. The Association of International Educators based its economic impact calculations on data colleges provided in response to an Institute of International Education survey. It estimates there are 111,000 fewer international students heading into this academic year than in 2024-25, before President Donald Trump began his second term in office. The analysis projects the count of international students for the 2026-27 could drop as low as 1.05 million, down from nearly 1.18 million enrolled in 2024-25. "This downturn reflects the convergence of several headwinds: declining application volumes, persistent visa appointment bottlenecks and newly restrictive immigration policy changes," the association said in its analysis. Louisiana's universities have seen a small but noticeable decline in international graduate student enrollment since Trump took office. The Southern University System count fell from 208 in fall 2024 to 113 in fall 2025, and the University of Louisiana System saw a drop from 924 to 916 in the same time period. LSU spokeswoman Meg Sunstrom has not responded to a request for LSU's data. |
| SC students statewide now eligible for scholarship allowing a debt-free degree | |
| High school seniors across South Carolina are newly eligible for scholarships enabling them to earn a college degree with little-to-no debt under a partnership approved in the state budget. An $18.7 million commitment by the Legislature will expand Meeting Street Scholarships to 32 counties, promising low-income students statewide with above-average grades up to $40,000 each toward their college education. Nearly 3,000 students in the Class of 2027 could attend college with the scholarship that fills gaps not covered by other aid -- up to $10,000 annually for four years for students who keep at least a B average. State funding will pay for an estimated 2,300 of the scholarships awarded next year. "It's an unbelievable thing," said Ben Navarro, the Charleston businessman and philanthropist who founded the scholarship program. "It's not limited to numbers. It's not a beauty contest. It's none of those things," he said Thursday during a virtual news conference from the Center for Intentionality student center that he provided to the College of Charleston. The scholarship offers a path to success, he said, for any student who demonstrates financial need by qualifying for a federal Pell Grant and the ability to do well in school by receiving a lottery-funded LIFE or Palmetto Fellows scholarship: "That's basically it." |
| Republicans Want Colleges to Emphasize Western Civ. UT-Austin Plans to Do Just That. | |
 | The University of Texas at Austin unveiled plans Thursday for a sweeping makeover of its undergraduate core curriculum, replacing a sprawling system of hundreds of course options with a more prescriptive menu organized around foundational texts, broad fields of study, and what the university calls the "fundamental questions and themes" of human life. The proposal, detailed by President Jim Davis during a meeting of the university system's Board of Regents, would reduce the number of credit hours in the core curriculum, from 42 to 36. Some core credit designations are slated to be replaced with categories such as "Western Civilization," "Masterworks of Literature," "Great Questions of Human Life," "Principles of American Politics," and "Computer Science & AI." That plan is laid out in a much-anticipated report, also released Thursday, from a 22-member faculty task force whose members Davis selected in the fall to "identify gaps in quality, rigor, or intellectual cohesion" in UT-Austin's core and propose solutions. Administrators hope to implement the new curriculum by the fall of 2028. The goal, Davis told regents, is to "wipe the slate clean and rewrite the core from the ground up," noting that the existing system "has devolved over time into a haphazard grab bag of classes." |
| UT-Austin overhauling core classes but hasn't detailed how new center relates to the courses | |
| Future UT-Austin students would have fewer classes to choose from to meet graduation requirements under a proposal university leaders presented Thursday. The plan to remake the flagship campus' core curriculum replaces the sprawling menu of classes students can now take to meet core requirements with a more structured core curriculum organized around the humanities, social sciences and science, technology, engineering and math. But how the overhaul connects to UT-Austin's new Center for the Humanities remains unclear. A report from a 22-member faculty task force appointed by UT-Austin President Jim Davis proposes 12 requirements across the core areas, compared with the current 10. Recommendations include creating a "Texas 40: Great Thinkers" list for courses on great questions of human life and three separate 40-author lists for British, American and world literature courses. Great questions courses would have to draw at least two-thirds of their content from the thinkers list. The taskforce also recommended UT-Austin offer a small-class option for every core requirement over time, prioritize in-person teaching and limit fully online core classes. |
| An 'influencer' degree? Colleges bet on content creator major as critics question its value | |
| Ask a teen what they want to be when they grow up, and there's a fair chance being an influencer is on their list. Digital media and the people who star in it have been cultural mainstays for teens' entire lives, so creating social media, video or podcast content seems a natural, albeit nontraditional, career path. And now they can earn a college degree in that very field. Arizona State University recently launched a new bachelor's degree in content creation, offered through its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The curriculum overlaps with that of ASU's mass communication and media studies degree, with the major departure being a slate of specialized electives on podcasting, studio production and on-camera presence. ASU's announcement was met with swift criticism from many sides -- from people who feel content creation is not a legitimate profession to those who question the value of a college degree in launching a social media career. But the ASU program is not the first of its kind. Universities, eager to compete for a shrinking student population, are rolling out new majors intended to prepare students for today's careers. Whether they lead to jobs can be up for debate. |
| The Academic-Integrity Council Can't Keep Up With AI | |
| When Lindsay Waldrop signed on as chair of Chapman University's academic-integrity committee for the 2025-26 school year, she imagined the role might be a slog. After all, she was the only volunteer for the position. What she didn't expect was a time commitment so demanding that it barred her from completing research -- and the emotional toll of a heightened caseload that left her exhausted after most work days. The culprit? Artificial-intelligence use, driving a 400% increase in academic-integrity cases at Chapman since the pandemic. Waldrop said she saw lots of confusion among students about whether and how they were allowed to -- or supposed to -- use AI, as well as anxiety among professors who thought they'd caught AI cheating but didn't know how to prove it. "I didn't have a lot of answers for that as chair of that committee," she said, "because I don't think there are a lot of answers right now." She isn't alone. AI cases have overwhelmed academic-integrity committees at colleges across the country, leaving professors and administrators scrambling over how to prove -- and punish -- misuse. |
| Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit alleging antisemitism at Harvard University | |
| A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students. The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns said President Donald Trump's administration failed to prove an ongoing violation of federal civil rights laws. The judge said the lawsuit, filed in March, mostly focuses on incidents that took place in the 2023-24 academic year, with a few from March 2025. The cases were "too isolated and episodic" to prove a persistent civil rights violation at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the judge said. The lawsuit accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations that roiled the campus after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. The Trump administration argued Harvard officials did nothing as Jewish students were "harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon." |
| DOJ Declares 3 Race-Based STEM Programs Unconstitutional | |
 | The National Science Foundation can no longer administer three programs meant to boost racial and ethnic diversity in science, technology, engineering and math fields after the Department of Justice ruled that they were unconstitutionally considering race or gender. The decision, issued Wednesday, calls for the termination of long-running programs that aim to help students from underrepresented backgrounds earn STEM degrees, build capacity for STEM education at Hispanic-serving institutions and diversify STEM faculty. The opinion also claimed there are unconstitutional aspects of two other programs, which can continue as long as the sex-specific elements are removed. Together, the three discontinued programs accounted for about $104 million of the $938 million that Congress most recently allocated to the National Science Foundation for STEM education. The DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel said the NSF can still use the money on other initiatives related to STEM education. The NSF has spent decades trying to attract more women and racial minorities to STEM careers, but the agency shifted its priorities in spring 2025 to align with the Trump administration. |
SPORTS
| Legendary LSU coach and leader Skip Bertman dies at 88 | |
| J. Stanley "Skip'' Bertman, who transformed college baseball from a casual spring pastime to a highly competitive, money-making, big-time sport at LSU and across the Southeastern Conference, has died. LSU Sports Information Director Michael Bonnette confirmed the news to The Advocate. Bertman was 88. Hired in 1984, Bertman coached LSU to five NCAA championships in a 10-year period between 1991 and 2000, and guided the Tigers to 11 College World Series appearances during his 18-year tenure as LSU baseball coach. His title teams were in 1991, '93, '96, '97, and 2000. He retired with an 870-330-3 record, which didn't approach that of some of his peers, but no one coached more national champion teams since the NCAA put a cap on scholarships. That leveled the field from the handful of schools (Southern Cal, Texas, Arizona State, and Miami, where Bertman played and coached) that loaded up on baseball grants-in-aid while most NCAA programs were little more than low-pressure afterthoughts. Ironically, he would eventually turn down multiple overtures to coach at giants Miami and Texas to stay with the Tiger program he had built to the zenith of the sport. |
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