| Friday, May 8, 2026 |
| Vasey out, Fisackerly in as LINK CEO | |
 | Less than two months into his tenure as CEO, the Golden Triangle Development LINK has parted ways with Iian Vasey. Meryl Fisackerly was appointed CEO, effective immediately, following Vasey stepping down from the role, according to a LINK Executive Committee press release issued Thursday afternoon. Fisackerly, previously the chief operations officer for the LINK, has worked for the region's industrial recruitment arm for seven years. She served as interim following Joe Max Higgins' firing last August. She had applied for the CEO position before the LINK hired Vasey. "Meryl has had a successful tenure at the LINK and has built strong, meaningful relationships across the region," Board Chairman Bain Nickels said in the press release. "She understands our communities, our assets, and our partners well, and we are confident in her ability to lead this organization going forward." Vasey joined the LINK in March after stints in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Corpus Christi, Texas, and Klamath Falls, Oregon. |
| Survivors of Mississippi tornadoes crawled under furniture and held onto their kids | |
 | Anunciata Schwebel could only watch in horror on FaceTime while her friend and tenant slunk into a bathtub to take cover from one of several tornadoes that slammed into Mississippi just after sunset Wednesday. Her friend screamed that the windows were breaking. Schwebel could see on her screen the devastation to the cluster of cottages she owned in the town of Purvis --- walls and roofs ripped away, her tenants huddled in their bathrooms. "We could see a line of people sitting in their tubs," Schwebel said Thursday. "We thought people were dead." Yet, for a second time in less than a month, a big burst of tornadoes caused no deaths. Authorities estimated that 500 homes were damaged across five counties Wednesday and said at least 17 people were injured. The powerful storms spawned at least three tornadoes across the bottom half of Mississippi that could be seen on weather radar, meteorologists said, possibly more. Survivors told stories of crawling under furniture while winds tore off the roof and of hiding in a closet, holding on to a child. At Coaltown Baptist Church in Purvis, members hunkered down in a hallway, singing and praying until the storm passed. |
| Mississippians feel the strain as gas and grocery prices continue to climb | |
 | Mississippians are facing mounting financial pressure as gas and grocery prices continue to rise across the state. AAA reports the average price of gas in Mississippi is $3.89, and some residents now spend more than $200 each week on groceries. For many, the cost of basic necessities is stretching budgets thinner than ever. Jessica Davenport, a military veteran, said the long commute to work and her children's activities have forced her to create a tighter budget. She uses premium gas, which has become increasingly expensive. "It used to cost me $40 to fill up maybe, now it's $60 for sure. And I don't live in Jackson, I live in Clinton," Davenport said. "So my life is a journey. I'm always like commuting everywhere constantly." Davenport said she has started couponing more often and is more mindful of avoiding food waste. "We should coupon anyway," said Davenport. "But I have to be more conscious of the way I spend and not waste food. I have to get my family unit to be on board planning for the week or plan for them. Now I spend at least $250 every time I go to the grocery store." Economic experts say the pressure reaches far beyond household changes. I |
| Prices are up, but Mother's Day still means brunch | |
 | Economist Michael Swanson offers a tip for this Mother's Day: "If you really want to show mom that TLC, you can whip up a buffet at home for a lot less money" than going out for that classic brunch, says Swanson, who tracks food prices as the chief agricultural economist at Wells Fargo. His daughters apparently know this too: Their plan for Sunday is an egg bake for mom at home, with dad on flower-buying duty. But they are in the minority, even as the cost of going out to eat is rising twice as fast as the cost of groceries. Mother's Day is by far the busiest day of the year for U.S. restaurants overall. It's also one of the biggest days for florists, right after Valentine's Day, and for greeting-card sellers. And although rising gas prices have Americans feeling anxious about the economy, that's not stopping them from opening their hearts -- and wallets -- for their moms this Sunday. Spending on this Mother's Day might soar to a record $38 billion, increasing a whopping 11% from last year, according to a forecast by the National Retail Federation. |
| Iran hawks erupt over terms of Trump's peace proposal | |
 | The reported terms of a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the Iran war spurred a swift backlash from allies of President Trump who have cheered on his fight against the Islamic Republic. Prominent conservative media figures and pro-Israel advocates spoke out against the deal, which would end Iran's nuclear enrichment for a limited period and keep the regime in place, with U.S. sanctions scaled back over time. The proposal followed a surprise announcement by Trump on Tuesday to end Project Freedom, a military operation that began the previous day to free commercial ships stuck in the Persian Gulf. Fox News broadcaster Mark Levin, who Trump has praised for defending the Iran war against MAGA critics, said the deal would be "disastrous" for Iranians and for the Israeli government. Levin said he was inclined to believe the report in Axios laying out the terms was "largely fake." However, neither Trump nor the White House has pushed back against the report. The U.S. is awaiting Iran's response to its proposal. Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that Tehran has a week to reach a peace deal. |
| Cyber Hackers Target Mississippi Universities' Canvas Systems | |
 | Canvas, the tool many universities use for students to complete and submit assignments, is down at colleges and universities across Mississippi and throughout the United States. A cyber criminal group is claiming credit and demanding a ransom. As final exams began Thursday at Mississippi State University, The Reflector reported that students began receiving a message from a hacker group called ShinyHunters, claiming they had infiltrated university data on their Canvas pages. Other targeted Mississippi universities include Delta State University, the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, East Mississippi Community College, Southwest Mississippi Community College, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi College and Mississippi Valley State University. The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, a statewide public residential high school, was also on the list of schools the group says it targeted, as well as some state agencies and other entities. |
| Mississippi State is affected by cyberattack that hits Canvas system used by thousands of schools as final exams loom | |
| Mississippi State University is among thousands of schools and universities affected Thursday during a cyberattack, creating chaos as students tried to study for finals and underscoring education's dependence on technology. Chance Roberts, a senior at Mississippi State University, said he was answering one of the last questions on an exam when an alert about the hacking group named ShinyHunters popped up. Roberts said he tried to log out and refresh the page, but that didn't work. Then a friend of his, who was also taking an online exam, texted him asking about the notification. "That's when I realized it wasn't just a personal issue. It was more of an internal issue with the whole system," Roberts said. ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Instructure, the company behind the learning management system Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft. Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to a other attacks, including one aimed at Live Nation's Ticketmaster subsidiary. |
| Canvas operating after cybersecurity breach; U. of Tennessee 'monitoring updates' from Instructure | |
| Canvas is accessible to students less than two hours after the University of Tennessee postponed all exams for Friday, May 8 due to a security threat to Instructure. "Based on what Instructure has found to date, the data involved appears to include personal information," the Office of Innovative Technology said in a statement accessible to students on Canvas. "At this time, Instructure has found no indication that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved, and the university does not store this information in Canvas." OIT said the university is continuing to monitor updates provided by Instructure. Students are now able to access courses and resources on Canvas despite Friday exams remaining postponed. The university has given no update regarding the status of upcoming exams following Canvas being back in operation. |
| Funding for U. of Kentucky program helping low-income parents ends, workers laid off | |
 | The University of Kentucky is gutting its arm of a statewide program that helped low-income parents facing mental health or family challenges because funding for the program has ended. The end of UK's Targeted Assessment Program also means layoffs for 36 employees, according to a termination notice sent to staff on April 29, from Dr. Carl Leukefeld, the program's principal investigator and faculty member of UK College of Medicine. The program's associate director, 30 targeted assessment specialists and five community-based service managers will be terminated, and their positions will be "eliminated" on June 30, the notice said. Grant funds have ended for that program, as well as for a statewide HIV/AIDS services initiative called the Kentucky Income Reinvestment Program, according to Jay Blanton, a spokesperson for UK. Its staff of 61 people will also be terminated on June 30. |
| U. of Missouri System Canvas pages inaccessible after nationwide hack | |
 | Instructure, commonly referred to as Canvas, experienced a cyberattack Thursday afternoon. The webpage displayed a popup advising affected schools of a May 12 deadline to negotiate a settlement. ShinyHunters, the group behind the attack, threatened to leak stolen data, including emails, student ID numbers and messages from the site if a settlement is not met. In the Canvas popup, there was a suspicious link claiming to be a "visit us" site for ShinyHunters and a list of the affected schools. UM System's IT department advises against clicking on unknown links and to be "wary of unusual sources." The cyberattack comes days before finals week for Mizzou students and is the second such attack this week. "We are aware that the Canvas online learning management system is down, as it is for universities across the nation," said Christopher Ave, director of media relations and public affairs for Mizzou. He added the university will work with Canvas to restore access "as soon as possible" for those impacted. |
| Cornell Is Investigating Confrontation Between President and Students | |
 | Cornell University's trustees announced on Thursday that they would investigate an April 30 incident in which the president, Michael Kotlikoff, bumped into students with his car after a debate over the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In an email to the campus on Thursday, the university said that an "ad hoc special committee" had been established to oversee the investigation of the events of that night. It said that Dr. Kotlikoff had recused himself from the investigation and "any related university decisions connected to the matter." The event highlighted the lingering tensions on college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war, even as the large-scale protests from the spring of 2024 have dissipated. |
| Hackers Target Canvas -- Again | |
 | One day after Instructure said it had resolved a data breach to its learning management system, Canvas, the hackers are at it again. On Thursday, students and faculty who use Canvas for course delivery reported receiving a message from the criminal extortion group ShinyHunters, which earlier this week claimed to have compromised the personal identifying information of 275 million people across 9,000 institutions, including students, teachers and staff. "ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again). Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some 'security patches,'" read a message multiple Canvas users received when they tried to log in to the platform on Thursday. The group had previously given Instructure until Wednesday to pay a ransom, threatening to leak all the data if the company didn't pay by the deadline. But according to ShinyHunters -- which is also linked to recent data breaches at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton and Harvard Universities -- Instructure didn't respond to those demands in time. |
| Massive Canvas data breach hits colleges across California and nation, crippling student work | |
 | A cybersecurity breach at the company behind the Canvas learning management system used widely across higher education institutions grew into a widespread outage Thursday that left students and faculty at dozens of California campuses locked out of an essential platform used to access coursework, readings and assignments during finals preparations. In California, the effects of the breach rippled across the state's largest public and private institutions within hours Thursday. Messages sent to campus communities at the University of California, California State University, Stanford University and the Los Angeles Community College District said students, staff and faculty were affected. USC also said it was working with affected students. As of Thursday evening, none of the California colleges indicated they knew of private student, faculty or staff data that was compromised. |
| Study Explores AI-Written Admissions Essays | |
| Admissions offices have been contending with essays generated by artificial intelligence for more than three and a half years now; according to a 2024 survey, about half of college applicants use AI to brainstorm their college essay and one in five use it to create a first draft. A recent study by researchers at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon Universities dug deeper into which students are using AI in their essays and how it impacts the content and effectiveness of those essays. The study analyzed tens of thousands of essays submitted to an unnamed selective institution over four years, starting before the introduction of generative AI tools. The researchers found that lower-income students -- represented in this study by those who received an application fee waiver -- were more likely to use AI in their essays, as were students who were ultimately rejected from the college. |
| DOGE's Termination of Humanities Grants Is Ruled Unconstitutional | |
| A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration's cancellation of more than 1,400 previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities violated the Constitution, while also creating a broad "chilling effect." The ruling, issued by Judge Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court in Manhattan, addressed two lawsuits brought by scholarly groups and individual grant recipients. The plaintiffs had argued that the cuts, carried out by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, violated the First Amendment and, by singling out work relating to particular groups, the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. In her 143-page ruling, Judge McMahon ordered the agency to rescind the cuts while saying the plaintiffs had suffered "irreparable injury." "The injury is not limited to the loss of money," Judge McMahon said. "It includes the disruption of protected expression, the interruption of ongoing research and publication, the cancellation or suspension of humanities programming, and the chilling effect caused by the government's use of viewpoint-based and unauthorized criteria to terminate federal grants." |
SPORTS
| Baseball: Chance, Valincius Carry No. 11 MSU To Series-Opening Win | |
| No. 11 Mississippi State wasted little time turning a top-15 Southeastern Conference showdown into a statement Thursday night. Bryce Chance blasted a first-inning grand slam, Tomas Valincius struck out 13 and the Diamond Dawgs powered past No. 6 Auburn 10-3 at Dudy Noble Field to open the weekend series with one of their most complete performances of the season. Mississippi State (38-12, 15-10 SEC) hammered out 16 hits, hit three home runs and never trailed after Chance's early swing gave MSU immediate control. Auburn (33-15, 14-11) managed only four hits and struck out 15 times against Valincius and Jack Bauer. The Bulldogs built the night around a two-out rally in the first inning. Blake Bevis singled, Noah Sullivan followed with another single and Jacob Parker walked to load the bases. Chance then drove a pitch over the wall in left field for his second grand slam of the season, putting State ahead 4-0 before Auburn starter Jake Marciano could escape the inning. That was more than enough for Valincius, who improved to 8-2 after allowing three runs on four hits with no walks over 6 2/3 innings. The left-hander struck out 13, threw 72 of his 112 pitches for strikes and kept Auburn hitless until the fifth inning. |
| No. 11 Mississippi State dominates No. 6 Auburn in series opener | |
| No. 6 Auburn baseball's offensive struggles were too much to overcome, as the Tigers dropped the series opener 10-3 to No. 11 Mississippi State. Auburn starter Jake Marciano struggled in this one, working just two innings while allowing six hits, four runs and one walk. Mississippi State's offense got straight to work in the first, as two singles and a walk, all with two outs, loaded the bases for Bryce Chance. The Bulldogs center fielder left no doubt, launching a grand slam over the left-field wall, marking just his second home run of the year and giving his squad an early 4-0 lead. "They wound up getting those bases loaded and got the big swing right there, but we have to be able to overcome things like that, too. Even if we're used to it or not," Auburn head coach Butch Thompson said. "All-in-all, if you look at the game, we did not get a leadoff man on. We were the puppet tonight, and they were the puppeteer, and I think it was on both sides." |
| NCAA men's, women's basketball tournaments expand to 76 teams | |
| The men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments are expanding to 76 teams, the NCAA announced Thursday. It is the first time the men's tournament has expanded since 2011, and the first time the women's tournament has expanded since 2022. "Expanding the Division I men's and women's basketball championships is the right decision for the student-athletes and programs that will now have access to the greatest events in college sports," said Tim Sands, chair of the Division I board of directors and the president at Virginia Tech. "As NCAA leaders, we are especially excited to provide additional, highly competitive games for fans who look forward to March Madness every year." Movement toward expanding the NCAA tournament has been ongoing for more than three years, as the College Football Playoff expanded and college athletics contended with conference realignment and the growth of the four biggest conferences. In January 2023, the NCAA Division I board of directors approved a transformation committee's recommendation to expand all sports' championship events to include 25% of teams. The men's basketball committee began discussing expanding the field that summer. |
| Fueled by beer ads, March Madness tournaments will expand to 76 teams each starting next season | |
| The magical March Madness cocktail will now include eight more teams, eight more games and more of one other ingredient, too: beer. Maybe wine, too. The NCAA on Thursday announced a long-expected expansion of its men's and women's basketball tournaments to 76 teams each starting next season, explaining that it made the money part work by opening sponsorship opportunities to a long-restricted alcohol category. "I would say that expansion would not have happened without that agreement," said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's senior vice president of basketball. The new, 76-team brackets will jam eight extra games -- for a total of 12 involving 24 teams -- into the front half of the first week of each tournament. It will turn what's now known as the First Four into a bigger affair that will now be called the March Madness Opening Round. Because the added games were unlikely to sell themselves, the first expansion of the men's tournament in 15 years -- when it was bumped to 68 teams, followed by the women in 2022 -- will be bankrolled by around $300 million in extra funding courtesy of new sponsorship opportunities for beer, wine, spirits and hard seltzer that includes more advertising space on CBS, TNT and other partners whose $8.8 billion deal runs through 2032. |
| Congress must secure the future of college sports | |
| NCAA President Charlie Baker writes for The Hill: There is a tremendous amount of change reshaping college sports -- and much of it for good reason. For too long, college sports were too slow to modernize. But in recent years, we have worked to transform our system with tremendous speed. Schools are now directing approximately $1 billion a year in new financial benefits to student-athletes. Division I schools must now provide student-athletes with healthcare, enhanced resources in areas like mental health, and guaranteed scholarships. And on top of all of this, we are focused on continuing to increase the current record-breaking levels of student-athlete participation, scholarship support, and fan interest. But as college sports continue to transform from the inside, other changes risk undermining opportunities for the more than 554,000 student-athletes who together receive more than $4 billion in scholarships annually. The most acute risks facing college sports broadly can be grouped into two categories: the destruction of common-sense eligibility limits, and the threat that student-athletes are broadly forced to become university employees. |
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