| Friday, January 7, 2022 |
| Threefoot Hotel celebrates grand opening | |
 | The Threefoot Hotel is officially open! It's been two months and a few days since the soft-opening late last year and many have already been able to check it out. "All I can say about this hotel is wow.. Wow," Gov. Tate Reeves told everyone at the ribbon cutting. Leaders are proud of Meridian and the progress being made, especially in downtown. They say it has a big impact on the state's economy. "There's some incredible synergy and things going on in Meridian. It's great to be here and be a part of this," 3rd Congressional District Representative Michael Guest said. "This is an exciting day for downtown Meridian and for Mississippi State University to be able to celebrate the renovation of the Threefoot Building," Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum said. "I cannot be more excited to be here and to be part of this great occasion in the history of this great city." "If you show me a city, county and a state working together, good things tend to happen. today is a culmination of a lot of people working together for many years," Gov. Reeves explained. |
| MSU Riley Center announces new season | |
 | The Mississippi State University Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts announces a full slate of new shows for Spring-Summer 2022. The season is made up of unique performances by nationally touring artists including rock, country, big-band, blues, R&B, and jazz music, plus the center's first-ever Broadway touring show, An American in Paris -- The Musical. The announcement coincides with the grand opening of the Threefoot Hotel, A Tribute Portfolio Hotel, housed in the 1920s Art Deco skyscraper-turned-boutique hotel by Marriott. This latest development, combined with other attractions such as the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience and The Mississippi Children's Museum-Meridian to Threefoot Brewing and a host of other restaurants and retail, makes downtown Meridian a destination for locals and visitors alike. "We are thrilled to have been here from the beginning supporting downtown Meridian's rebirth," said Terry Dale Cruse, Associate Vice President and head of Mississippi State University-Meridian Campus. "It feels like we are entering a new golden era in Meridian's history. And it seems only fitting we're presenting An American in Paris, featuring iconic compositions by Gershwin first performed in the 1920s, at the same time that we celebrate the opening of the Threefoot Hotel." |
| MSU Riley Center announces 2022 Spring/Summer Season | |
| The Mississippi State University Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts announces a full slate of new shows for Spring-Summer 2022. The season is made up of unique performances by nationally touring artists including rock, country, big-band, blues, R&B, and jazz music, plus the center's first-ever Broadway touring show, An American in Paris - The Musical. There is also something extra for children and families. The Kennedy Center for Young Audiences on Tour will present Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (The Musical!) during the day for school children and a family show in the evening. The season announcement coincides with the grand opening of the Threefoot Hotel, A Tribute Portfolio Hotel, housed in the 1920s Art Deco skyscraper-turned-boutique hotel by Marriott. This latest development, combined with other attractions such as the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience (The MAX) and Children's Museum-Meridian to Threefoot Brewing and a host of other restaurants and retail, makes downtown Meridian a destination for locals and visitors alike. "We are thrilled to have been here from the beginning supporting downtown Meridian's rebirth," said Dr. Terry Dale Cruse, Associate Vice President and head of Mississippi State University-Meridian Campus. "It feels like we are entering a new golden era in Meridian's history. And it seems only fitting we're presenting An American in Paris, featuring iconic compositions by Gershwin first performed in the 1920s, at the same time that we celebrate the opening of the Threefoot Hotel." |
| SOCSD returning to mask requirement after Christmas break | |
 | When school starts again next week, many students at staff at area public school districts will be required to mask up again. Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District will return to enforcing face masks on its campus to prevent the spread of COVID-19, amid the surge of the omicron variant. The district had abruptly lifted its mask mandate Dec. 13, about a week before Christmas break began. It announced this week that, due to a recent spike in cases across the state and based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mississippi State Department of Health, the requirement will return while students and staff are inside school facilities, including buses. "Initially, when we shifted to only masks recommended, it was after multiple weeks of cases reported below a 1-percent positivity rate," SOCSD Public Information Officer Nicole Thomas said. "After monitoring daily totals from MSDH, the district felt it should require masks until we receive a complete comprehensive report on case numbers in the district." The district will continue to monitor rates of transmission and adjust mask procedures accordingly, Thomas said. |
| 3 suspects charged with murder in 9-year-old's death | |
| Three suspects have been arrested for Wednesday night's fatal shooting of a 9-year-old boy. Starkville Police Department arrested Barron "B-Man" Hubbard, 29, Tabyron "Tayy Tayy" Fisher, 21, and Dellveon "Dez" Lindsey, 19, after lab results proved they were involved in the killing of Lasang Kemp. Each has been charged with murder and six counts of aggravated assault. SPD received calls around 8 p.m. Wednesday about a vehicle being targeted at the corner of Carver and Hiwassee drives where gunfire eventually erupted. The vehicle managed to evade the suspects through the Brookville Garden Apartments area where additional gunfire took place, Police Chief Mark Ballard said at a press conference Thursday. "Both the victim and the suspect were in moving vehicles as there was shooting," Ballard said. A vehicle containing relatives to the initial victim, including Kemp, was leaving out of Santa Anita Drive around 8:30 p.m. More gunfire erupted, with Kemp fatally wounded in the process. He was pronounced dead at OCH Regional Medical Center. Ballard said several law enforcement agencies in the area helped contribute to solving this case, including Oktibbeha County 911, Mississippi State University Police Department, Oktibbeha County Sheriff's Office, U.S. Marshals Task Force, FBI of North Mississippi and Lowndes County Sheriff's Office. |
| GATEWAY TO MERIDIAN: City breaks ground on Sela Ward Parkway revitalization | |
| Meridian, Lauderdale County and state officials gathered across from Meridian Police Department Thursday to break ground on a $4 million revitalization project for the Sela Ward Parkway, a section of 22nd Ave. considered to be the gateway to the city. Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons said the project will include multiple improvements to the thoroughfare into downtown, including paving the road, new lighting and installing sidewalks for pedestrians to move about safely. "We are not just going to be paving this street, we are going to be putting sidewalks on it which is going to create safety," he said. Simmons said the project will not only improve access to downtown Meridian from I-20 but create an avenue that draws motorists from the interstate into downtown. "It's just going to help beautify and cause individuals to want to get off the interstate and come into downtown," he said. Actress and Meridian native Sela Ward, for whom the parkway is named, said the project is not just about improvements to the road. When complete, she said the project would serve as a gateway to downtown Meridian and draw others to her hometown. On Thursday, Simmons said the project was estimated to take about a year to complete, and he looked forward to returning in Spring 2023 to unveil the final product. |
| Orders are pouring in at Coast business after Walter Anderson art featured on HGTV show | |
 | A local art shop in Ocean Springs is shipping Walter Anderson prints across the U.S. and as far away as Canada and Germany after a piece was featured on "Hometown," a popular HGTV show. Erin Napier, along with husband Ben, helps homeowners renovate historic properties for sale in Laurel, and visited Realizations Ltd. with a camera crew last summer to learn how to make a silkscreen print with Anderson's iconic designs, shop manager Mary Jo McCollins told the Sun Herald on Thursday. Napier was taught by Carolyn Anderson, Walter Anderson's daughter-in-law, who has been making block prints -- and more recently silkscreen prints -- with his designs for 50 years. The finished piece, "Man o War," was featured in the bathroom of the Rappleye-Ruiz house, the star of the Jan. 2 episode. Since the show aired on HGTV, McCollins said business hasn't stopped during what is traditionally a slow season at the store. "The orders are just bananas," McCollins said. Realizations shipped 93 orders via UPS on Wednesday, and McCollins said that doesn't include local orders. The shop typically closes its storefront after Christmas for deep cleaning and inventory, but you can still buy a block print or silkscreen print online, McCollins said. Be patient, she said, as employees work to get orders shipped and filled. |
| US jobless rate sinks to 3.9% as many more people find jobs | |
 | U.S. employers added a modest 199,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell sharply, at a time when businesses are struggling to fill jobs with many Americans remaining reluctant to return to the workforce. At the same time, Friday's jobs report from the Labor Department showed that the nation's unemployment rate fell from 4.2% to a healthy 3.9%, evidence that many more people found jobs last month. Indeed, despite the slight hiring gain reported by businesses, 651,000 more people said they were employed in December compared with November. Wages also rose sharply, a sign that companies are competing fiercely to fill their open jobs. A record-high wave of quitting, as many workers seek better jobs, is also fueling pay raises. Overall, the report pointed to a still-solid job market. Consumer spending and business purchases of machinery and equipment likely propelled the economy to a robust annual growth rate of roughly 7% in the final three months of 2021. Americans' confidence in the economy rose slightly in December, according to the Conference Board, suggesting that spending probably remained healthy through year's end. The data for the jobs report reflects the state of the economy in early December, before the spike in COVID infections began to disrupt the economy later last month. |
| The economy is in good shape. Why are people feeling down about it? | |
 | There are quite a few pretty positive signs in this economy right now. Jobless claims are at multidecade lows. Jobs are offering signing bonuses. Consumers are continuing to buy things. But ask individual Americans what they think about how the economy is doing, and the picture isn't as rosy. Recent surveys by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for instance, are finding that a growing number of people say they're financially worse off now than they were a year ago. And the number of people who say things are going to get better over the next year is shrinking. That disconnect starts with inflation. Tim Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon, said higher prices make people nervous about the economy. "It feels like something's wrong," he said. That's because most people just aren't used to seeing prices rise like they have this year. "We haven't had an outbreak of inflation like this since the 1980s," Duy said. "That's something that caught a lot of people by surprise." But people's personal perception of how much inflation there is tends not to be very accurate. "We do know that people tend to perceive inflation higher than the actual inflation," said Nan Li, a senior economist with the International Monetary Fund. "People have a harder time putting rising prices in the context of the broader economy," said economics professor Betsey Stevenson at the University of Michigan. |
| Mississippi House OKs congressional remap amid objections | |
| The Republican-controlled Mississippi House on Thursday approved a plan to redraw the state's four congressional districts. The 76-42 vote was mostly along party lines, with Republicans and one independent in favor and Democrats and one independent opposed. The Republican-controlled Senate will also have to approve a plan, and no date has been set for that vote. The proposal was unveiled last month. It expands the territory of the state's only majority-Black U.S. House district because the 2020 Census showed the district -- the 2nd -- lost population during the previous decade. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson has held the 2nd District seat since wining a 1993 special election. The district stretches through the Delta and into the city of Jackson. Democratic Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez on Thursday offered the NAACP plan as an alternative to the one proposed by the Republican-led redistricting committee. Johnson argued the plan from the redistricting committee makes the 2nd District take in 40% of the geographical area of the state. "That cannot be considered compact," Johnson said. "I would not agree," responded House Speaker Pro Tempore Jason White, a Republican from West. The House rejected the plan offered by Johnson before approving the one from the committee. |
| Mississippi House approves congressional districts, sends bill to Senate | |
 | The Mississippi House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill to redraw the state's four congressional districts, the first legislative action in the decennial redistricting process. The vote was split 76-42 in favor of the Republicans. The House will send the bill to the Senate, where it is expected to pass. The Senate is in recess until Monday. Gov. Tate Reeves would then sign it into or law or veto it. Reeves has previously said he approves of the new congressional maps. The bill preserves the current power structure in Mississippi, keeping three seats for Republicans and one for lone Democrat Bennie Thompson, D-Bolton. For the first time since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, Mississippi's redistricting will go on without federal oversight after a 2013 Supreme Court decision ended the requirement certain states get federal approval for redistricting changes. A federal judge drew the congressional districts in 2002 because legislators could not agree on a map, and again in 2011 because legislators felt they didn't have enough time to do it during session. The second and third congressional districts see significant changes. The 3rd District, represented by Michael Guest, R-Rankin, is ceding the entire southwest corner to Thompson's 2nd District. Under the approved plan, Jackson is the only municipality in Mississippi that will be represented by two different members of Congress. "I think it's a good thing that we have two different congressmen who represent Jackson and Madison County," House Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Jason White, R-West, said on the floor when presenting the bill. |
| House Republicans pass redistricting plan that creates sprawling majority-Black congressional district | |
| The 2nd Congressional District will meander the almost length of the state along the Mississippi River under the congressional redistricting plan approved 76-42 Thursday by Republicans in the House of Representatives. The plan approved Thursday was created by a joint redistricting committee composed of legislators appointed by Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn and Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. The House plan is likely to be taken up next week in the Senate. If it passes there, it will be sent to Gov. Tate Reeves, who can sign it into law or veto it. House Democrats, who oppose the plan, said it created a district too large for incumbent 2nd District U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson -- or anyone -- to adequately represent. The proposed district would move a large portion of southwest Mississippi from the 3rd to 2nd District. Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader from Natchez, a city that would be affected, offered an alternative plan that would have moved all of Hinds County and a portion of southern Madison County from the 3rd to the 2nd but left southwest Mississippi in the 3rd. The alternative offered by Johnson and the Democrats was defeated along party lines. The plan offered by the Republican leadership was passed along party lines. Johnson said the plan offered by the Republican leadership "certainly is not compact. The district is almost 300 miles long, takes up nearly half the state. It is almost impossible for one congressman to represent the district." |
| Medical Marijuana bill expected to be considered by Mississippi Legislature next week | |
 | When the 2022 legislative session gaveled in on Tuesday, lawmakers were met with a plethora of important issues to discuss before they Sine Die, perhaps none more debated than medical marijuana. Next week, lawmakers are expected to take up the proposed medical marijuana bill that would establish a program in Mississippi. State Senator Kevin Blackwell (R), the primary drafter of the bill in the state Senate, spoke with Y'all Politics about what is expected to transpire as earlier as next week. "I hope we get to it, I believe we will and I believe we'll do it early," Senator Blackwell remarked. "I'm looking forward to it and it's something we need to get done." A draft of the medical marijuana legislation began circulating in September and lawmakers have had the chance to review this bill for the last few of months. "Since it's been out there for, well, several months, lawmakers have had access to the bill. I hope there's not too much discussion or efforts to make amendments," Senator Blackwell said. "It would be my desire to get it passed as is and I know Representative [Lee] Yancey feels the same way on the House side. It's kind of hard when you work on a bill that long and you got people coming in at the last minute wanting to cherry-pick little items." "The interesting part of all this is that if we pass this bill next week, there will still be time for legislators to introduce bills that would affect the medical cannabis program this session," Blackwell said. |
| As 2022 Legislative Session Begins, Medical Marijuana Close To Floor Vote | |
| With a supportive majority across both the House and Senate, only Gov. Tate Reeves' opposition threatens Mississippi's medical marijuana plan.Medical marijuana, income tax reform, legislative redistricting, teacher pay, the rebuilding of the ballot initiative process and more than $1.6 billion in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act waiting for appropriation are high on the agenda of the 2022 Mississippi legislative session. As they returned on Jan. 4, lawmakers faced a massive slate of priorities and a limited window in which to accomplish them. Of all the priorities in the near future for the short session, none has been more comprehensively discussed, tweaked, debated and recalibrated than the state's long-awaited medical-marijuana plan. With a supportive majority across both the House and Senate, only Gov. Tate Reeves' opposition threatens the plan's adoption. Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Kevin Blackwell, who is the architect of the medical-marijuana bill on the Senate side, had a final meeting with Gov. Reeves to come to an agreement on the bill's last details. Reeves' opposition to the plan has evolved from vague distaste to the promise of a veto if the bill approves medical-marijuana recipients for the currently planned amount of marijuana. In an interview with the Mississippi Free Press, Blackwell described the meeting as cordial, but acknowledged that neither party was inclined to budge on the biggest issues. "I thought it went well. (The governor) was receptive, appreciative of the meeting. Hopefully we moved the bar a little bit closer to an agreement," Blackwell said. "He was non-committal, so they're going to think about what we said and get back with us." |
| Procurement board approves demolition, stabilization contract for Sun-n-Sand | |
| The Mississippi Public Procurement Review Board approved a $4.375 million contract to demolish the Sun-n-Sand Motor Hotel in Jackson at its monthly meeting Wednesday. The state acquired the property in 2019 and announced that it intended to demolish the historic property for use as a parking lot for state employees. In January 2020, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History designated the Sun-n-Sand as a Mississippi Historic Landmark but approved the demolition of the structure. The state will preserve the hotel's iconic sign and ballroom as part of the contract. The contract includes stabilization of the ballroom structure, which will be retained as meeting space. Shafer-Zahner-Zahner, PLLC of Starkville will execute the contract, which includes demolition, paving and landscaping of the parking lot. The contract had to be brought to the PRRB since professional fees for the contract exceeded the statutory limit of $250,000, coming in at $318,195. |
| State names new deputy, director of Homeland Security office | |
| A former assistant U.S. attorney for the state's southern district on Thursday was named the new director of the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security, and the former Homeland Security operations director has been appointed deputy director. Baxter Kruger, the new director, prosecuted criminal matters ranging from violent crimes to white-collar crimes when he worked for the Southern District of Mississippi, Criminal Division, according to a Department of Public Safety press release. James Brinson, the new deputy director, previously served as the operations director of the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security and has 17 years of related experience, department officials said. Kruger serves as a Judge Advocate for the Mississippi Army National Guard. As a soldier, Kruger served in combat arms and as an attorney, deploying to the Middle East with the 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team and as part of the U.S. COVID-19 Task Force. He earned his juris doctorate in 2015 from Mississippi College School of Law and bachelor's degree in 2010 from the University of Mississippi. |
| Federal officials stepping in to prevent Jackson homicides | |
| During this past calendar year, Jackson was named America's deadliest major city with a homicide rate of 99.5 per 100,000 residents. That rate easily surpassed the likes of New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and Baltimore. The second-highest rate was Louisville, Kentucky with 76.4 per 100,000 residents. To work towards reducing deadly crime in Jackson, local and federal law enforcement officials have brought a new initiative to Mississippi's capital city. The "Violent Gun Reduction and Interdiction Program" was announced on Thursday. "As we all know, homicides in the city of Jackson have increased to record levels in the past two years. We're seeing businesses robbed at gunpoint, cars taken at gunpoint, disputes handled by gunfire," Southern District U.S. Attorney Darren LaMarca said in a video statement. "This initiative will address the perpetrators of this violence, and it will be led by the FBI." LaMarca and company have wasted no time as he has already reported that 13 individuals have cases pending or have been indicted in the federal system. The last time the city of Jackson accepted federal help in trying to put a stop to crime was in 2019 with the Project EJECT initiative that resulted in nearly 100 arrests. |
| Higher interest rates likely to factor into fiscal policymaking | |
 | Long-term interest rates on government debt have spiked since the start of the new year, a phenomenon that usually occurs when investors expect robust economic growth, hotter inflation or both. And some market analysts say there's room for rates to run higher --- never a good sign for U.S. debt forecasts and the appetite of fiscal hawks for more deficit spending. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which influences lending rates throughout the economy, hit 1.78 percent this week as Federal Reserve minutes showed central bankers might unwind their unprecedented monetary policy stimulus faster than expected, and Friday's jobs report didn't do anything to blunt those expectations. Yields haven't been this high since January 2020 and are up from around 1.5 percent a week ago, an indicator that federal borrowing costs are on the rise. Despite a COVID-19 variant causing more than a half-million new cases daily and even closing down some schools again, omicron is considered less severe than prior virus iterations and market participants are looking beyond the recent wave to a continued economic revival. Recognizing that inflation is no longer "transitory" the Fed is responding with actions to try to cool down the price rises that have hit consumers' wallets over the past year. While inflation is expected to subside somewhat from recent highs, investors' forecast of the average consumer price index rise over the next five years is hovering around 2.8 percent -- down from mid-November, though higher than before Christmas amid omicron fears. Inflation and higher interest rates usually go hand in hand as investors sell off fixed income holdings in search of greater returns; when bond prices drop, yields rise. |
| Biden, in Shift, Prepares Americans to See Covid-19 as Part of Life | |
 | As Covid-19 cases climb across the U.S., President Biden and his administration are preparing Americans to accept the virus as a part of daily life, in a break from a year ago when he took office with a pledge to rein in the pandemic and months later said the nation was "closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus." The recalibration of Mr. Biden's message comes as the country braces for another round of disruptions wrought by the pandemic. A growing number of schools temporarily have returned to virtual instruction and many businesses are strained by staffing shortages, in both cases due to infections triggered by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. Nearly 1,700 U.S. flights were canceled Wednesday, the 11th straight day of more than 1,000 cancellations, and many states warned that ongoing testing shortages will make it harder to return people to work and school. Mr. Biden and his top aides have sought to cut through the disorder, even as the surge in cases has left many Americans confused by evolving state and local requirements for masks and for schools. White House officials have dismissed the need for lockdowns and urged schools to remain open. Vish Viswanath, a professor of health communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention need to give more context to the public when issuing recommendations. He said many Covid-19 recommendations and guidelines have been confusing to people because the administration hasn't sufficiently explained its reasoning up front. "You have to give credit to the American public," he said. "They can appreciate that science and evidence is changing." |
| GOP governors play down Omicron 'hysteria' while also asking for help | |
 | Republican governors are downplaying the rapid explosion of new Covid infections -- but they still want Joe Biden's help stopping it. Governors in Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina have all recently made it clear: No shutdowns and no vaccine mandates. Gov. Ron DeSantis this week criticized some states that tried to staunch the spread of omicron infections, saying, "If you look at what's going on in other states, they are letting hysteria drive them." Yet DeSantis, as well as Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, called on the Biden administration to do more to get the new, highly contagious variant under control. So have Arkansas's Asa Hutchinson and New Hampshire's Chris Sununu, though both have warned of the dangers of the new variant. DeSantis this week asked the federal government for more antibody treatments and hammered the White House for not providing promised at-home testing kits. DeSantis's criticism this week is part of balancing act for him and other Republican governors as they navigate an ongoing public health crisis, their future political aspirations and constituents exhausted after facing almost two years of life in a pandemic. While some voters may be indifferent, the elected officials still acknowledge that something must be done to help vulnerable populations. |
| Frustrated They Can't Get Covid-19 Tests, Americans Go About Their Lives | |
| As soaring demand makes lab-based and at-home tests hard to come by, many people are forsaking tests, leaving them unable to determine whether they are infected and potentially exposing others. Those who manage to get at-home rapid tests rarely report the results to health departments, often because the means to do so is cumbersome or nonexistent. As a result, public-health officials lack the full picture of the virus's spread when the Omicron variant is raging. Throughout the pandemic, testing volume in the U.S. has fallen short of the level public-health specialists recommend, said Atul Grover, executive director of the Research and Action Institute at the Association of American Medical Colleges. During the current surge, in which test positivity rates have reached double digits in many areas, the gap is even greater, he said. Across the country, people are contending with hourslong waits at some testing sites. Some governments are rushing to reopen mass-testing sites that they closed when case counts were lower. Many are struggling to refresh supplies of at-home rapid tests. "We're two years into this pandemic and we're seeing the same challenges we saw in the winter and spring of 2020," said Thomas Denny, chief operating officer of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. "It's like the perfect storm again." |
| Moderna CEO warns people may need fourth Covid shot as efficacy of boosters likely to decline over time | |
| Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel on Thursday said the efficacy of boosters against Covid-19 will likely decline over time, and people may need a fourth shot in the fall to increase their protection. Bancel said people who received their boosters last fall will likely have enough protection to get them through the winter, when new infections surge as people gather indoors to escape the cold. However, Bancel said the efficacy of boosters will probably decline over the course of several months, similar to what happened with the first two doses. The Moderna chief was interviewed by Goldman Sachs during the investment bank's health-care CEO conference. "I will be surprised when we get that data in the coming weeks that it's holding nicely over time -- I would expect that it's not going to hold great," Bancel said, referring to the strength of the booster shots. An unprecedented surge of infections from the highly contagious omicron variant is currently spreading worldwide. In the U.S., the seven-day average is now more than 574,000 new cases daily, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. "We have been saying that we believe first this virus is not going away," Bancel said. "We're going to have to live with it." Booster shots are playing an increasingly important role in public health strategies to control the virus. |
| COVID-19 boosters offer 'potent' protection against omicron, study says, recommending Pfizer and Moderna | |
 | New evidence underscores the importance of boosters against omicron, with an mRNA vaccine booster offering the best protection against the fast-spreading variant. People who got either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna two-dose COVID-19 vaccine series and then a booster achieved "potent" neutralization against omicron, a paper published Thursday in the journal Cell found. The initial two-dose vaccine regime does not produce antibodies capable of fully recognizing and neutralizing the omicron variant, researchers at the Ragon Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard found. They noted that while omicron is better at getting past vaccine-created immunity, people who have breakthrough cases do have milder disease, which could be because their initial vaccination helped create long-term immunity, the researchers postulated. "Even if antibodies can't keep us from getting infected with omicron, other aspects of the immune response may keep us from becoming very sick," said Alejandro Balazs, who investigates how to engineer immunity against infectious diseases at the Ragon Institute and is the paper's senior author. The mechanism behind the findings is still being worked out, the researchers said. |
| Supreme Court hears arguments over Biden's vaccine rules for businesses, health-care workers | |
 | The Supreme Court is holding a special session Friday to consider challenges to the Biden administration's most significant intervention to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and its public health impacts -- vaccine policies that cover about 100 million American workers. The justices will hear hours of arguments over a vaccine-or-test requirement for workers at the country's largest companies, and a separate vaccine mandate for health-care personnel at facilities that receive federal Medicaid and Medicare funds. White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday said the policies are "critical to our nation's covid-19 response." "Unvaccinated Americans continue to face a real threat of severe illness and death -- including from omicron," Psaki said in a statement, referring to the highly transmissible coronavirus variant fueling a steep increase in infections. "The need and the urgency for these policies is greater than ever, and we are confident in the legal authority for both policies." Washington lawyer Scott A. Keller, representing the National Federation of Independent Business, told the justices Friday that the vaccine or test requirements directed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were an unprecedented imposition by the federal government on private workplaces. Technically, the court is not deciding the legality of the administration's initiatives, only whether they may be implemented while lawsuits challenging them continue. In a highly unusual move, the court scheduled a public hearing to consider the emergency requests -- and daily case counts have risen dramatically since then. But if the conservative court sides with challengers, it will have the practical effect of halting Biden's most ambitious plans to increase the nation's vaccination rate by means other than exhortation. |
| Companies preparing for vaccine mandate | |
 | The Supreme Court will hear arguments today on two separate cases by challengers to the Biden administration's vaccine mandate. The vaccine and testing mandates require businesses with more than 100 employees to either get fully vaccinated or provide negative COVID-19 test results weekly. According to the administration, the mandate will cover some 84 million workers. But business and religious groups, along with some GOP-led states, are challenging the mandate, arguing that the mandate is an overstep in authority. At the 300-worker Affordable Furniture plant in Houlka, CEO Jim Sneed said he's waiting to see what the court decides. He, and many others, are banking on the court's 6-3 conservative majority to put a stay on the mandate. "It's going to be a difficult thing to control, let alone enforce," Sneed said. The mandate would have the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration oversee implementation and enforcement of the mandate. Enforcement would be accomplished through complaints, warnings and escalating fines. Tupelo-based Renasant Bank has some 2,500 employees in seven Southeastern states. "We're waiting for the final Supreme Court determination on the regulation, but in the event it becomes enforced, we will be prepared to comply on Jan. 10 and will see the imposed OSHA emergency temporary standards for companies with more than 100 employees," said John Oxford, Renasant's senior vice president and director of marketing. |
| Dick Cheney: an unlikely bridge to partisan Congress divide | |
| On a somber day of remembrance at the U.S. Capitol, it was the most unlikely of receiving lines: Democrats lining the floor of the House, waiting for their chance to greet Dick Cheney. Yet there he stood, the former Republican vice president that Democrats have fiercely opposed and frequently reviled, sharing warm moments after the House held a moment of silence to commemorate the deadly violence of one year ago in a building where he once served. That Cheney was the catalyst for rare bonhomie between Republicans and Democrats was a clear measure of how far his party has veered from the traditional GOP orthodoxy into the decidedly unorthodox grip of former President Donald Trump. Cheney and his daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. were the only two Republicans to attend a pro forma session of the House on the anniversary of last year's riot at the Capitol. They sat together in the front row on the Republican side of the chamber as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thanked the U.S. Capitol Police for defending them on Jan. 6 and allowing Congress to "defeat the insurrection." Republican leaders were absent. The former vice president, who served in leadership in the House as a congressman from Wyoming in the 1980s, took note. "Well, it's not a leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years," Cheney told reporters afterward. |
| Far from Washington, McConnell accuses Democrats of exploiting Jan. 6th anniversary | |
 | As congressional Democrats spent Thursday in Washington solemnly, and at times angrily, recalling the chaos and violence that enveloped the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mitch McConnell was more than 600 miles away. The Kentuckian's absence from the anniversary of the insurrection was explained by a case of serendipitous timing. The funeral for a former Republican colleague, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, began at 2 p.m. in Atlanta, almost precisely the same time the first rioter broke through a window and climbed inside the Capitol building one year ago. McConnell's feelings about Jan. 6th and the events that precipitated it have taken a winding journey over the last year as he's sought to balance unity among his 50-member caucus against an aggressive Democratic agenda with his private disdain for former President Donald Trump. But it was clear that on Thursday, the Senate Republican leader was content to be far from the string of floor speeches and vigils that recalled the harrowing scenes of senators scurrying down hallways and staffers barricading themselves inside offices, many fearing for their safety -- if not their very lives -- from the approaching roaming mob. McConnell's only remarks on the day came early in the morning through a statement. While he recognized the severity of the event as "dark" and "antithetical to the rule of law" and heralded law enforcement's "brave" actions in protecting lawmakers, he also leveled a partisan broadside against the opposing party. Democrats, he charged, were using the anniversary to further their long-term political wishlist. |
| The facts of a fair US election have only gotten stronger since Capitol attack | |
| President Joe Biden denounced Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election in a forceful speech from the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall, the same setting where pro-Trump rioters passed through as they disrupted the certification of presidential election one year earlier. He referred to Trump as the "defeated former president" who could not accept the facts of his loss despite overwhelming evidence. Biden reeled off a list of facts to show officials at all levels of government -- judges, battleground state governors, U.S. senators and Trump's own attorney general -- concluding the election was secure. He pointed out that Trump and Republicans had no problem accepting the results of down-ballot races that favored them. Fourteen months after Election Day, the election results are even more certain: Biden won. Voter fraud in the 2020 election -- as predicted -- was minimal. Despite evidence showing voter fraud rarely occurred, some Republican politicians have proposed new policies designed to prevent fraud or investigate allegations. Democrats say these efforts are intended to discourage voting. Trump's rhetoric is also inspiring candidates who support him to run for secretary of state, a post that in most states oversees and enforces election procedures. "It is not clear how these candidates would run elections if they win, but the fact that they campaign on a claim that is demonstrably false is dangerous," said Thessalia Merivaki, a professor of American politics at Mississippi State University. "It can empower state legislatures to further restrict access to voting, as well as empower bad faith actors to continue harassing and targeting poll workers and election officials, who are doing their best to make democracy work with limited resources and support." |
| Making weather forecasts is hard. Getting people to understand them is even harder | |
 | Louis Uccellini retired at the beginning of the month as director of the National Weather Service, the federal agency responsible for issuing forecasts and warnings. His departure ends a nine-year tenure when the weather -- especially extreme weather -- began upending the lives of greater numbers of Americans. Uccellini spent a great deal of his time as director on improving technology at the weather service. But the agency's biggest challenge is effective messaging about the weather, especially extreme events, Uccellini says. Even now, people don't really understand what forecasts are telling them. A 20% chance of rain, for example, is often seen as a low probability event when it actually means 20% of a city's area will see rain. "People often want us to tell them it's going to rain in your backyard over your tomato plant at 5:20 pm. We can't give that precision of information," says Marshall Shepherd, the head of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia. "The atmosphere is just a nonlinear, complex, fluid system that you're trying to predict. It's basically like trying to take a beach ball up in Minnesota, putting it in the Mississippi River, and trying to predict exactly where that beach ball is going to be downstream in three to five days." Shepherd says these kinds of misconceptions fuel doubt within the public. As a result, people often ignore forecasts about serious weather threats and fail to get out of harm's way in time, Uccellini says. |
| USM's Chen and O'Brien Nominated for Carnegie Fellows | |
| Zibei Chen and Thomas O'Brien, professors in The University of Southern Mississippi College of Education and Human Sciences have been selected as nominees for the 2022 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows. Offered through the Carnegie Corporation of New York, fellows receive grants of up to $200,000 that allow them to devote significant time to research, writing and publishing in the humanities and social sciences. To support emerging and established scholars from across the country, the program allows public institutions of higher education and private colleges or universities to nominate a maximum of two scholars annually -- one junior and one senior scholar. Winners are notified in early April. "We are proud to have Dr. Chen and Dr. O'Brien representing our university in the competitive application process for the prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program," said Trent Gould, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences. "Their expertise and research are wonderful examples of the high-caliber research being conducted in our college, research that makes a life-changing impact in education, social work and beyond." Chen, assistant professor in the School of Social Work, will serve as USM's junior scholar nominee. O'Brien, professor in the School of Education, will serve as USM's senior scholar nominee. |
| No booze, no worries: For sixth year, Spring Break to be booze free on Gulf Shores beaches | |
 | Six years ago on March 17, 2016, a spring breaker from Texas launched a football over large crowd of revelers and into the direction of police officers. It landed on a police cruiser. The student was all smiles. He gave high fives to those cheering him in a viral video that still exists in cyberspace. He was later arrested. The incident underscored the problems of that year's spring break, in which large gatherings of college-aged students on the beaches prompted the city of Gulf Shores to call an emergency meeting and institute a sweeping ban of alcoholic beverages on the city's beaches during the duration of the break. "I remember it to this day that we observed a giant rogue party out there," said Grant Brown, director of recreation and cultural affairs with Gulf Shores. "We had five to six police officers trying to gain control. It was a dangerous situation for law enforcement and for the kids out there. It's dangerous, in general, for beachgoers to be exposed to that. So what was the year there was an emergency council meeting called and this ordinance was passed." That ordinance still exists to this day, though annual resolutions are needed to set the dates when alcohol is banned from the beaches. For the sixth year in a row, the City Council will move in that direction and will vote Monday to implement an alcohol possession ban on all beachfront property within the city limits. The ban does not apply to the beachfront houses and condos, but it does encompass all of the beach area roughly south of the sand dunes. |
| Steps to curb sexual misconduct on college campuses on schedule, Louisiana education leaders say | |
 | Louisiana colleges and universities are well underway in implementing policies that stem from four new state laws sparked by sexual misconduct complaints at LSU, higher education officials said Thursday. All four measures were approved during the 2021 regular legislative session. They followed a report by an independent law firm that said LSU failed to address widespread sexual harassment and abuse complaints. The laws include new reporting requirements, legally defined sexual assault and other attacks under the term "power-based violence," allow college leaders to fire or discipline employees who fail to report sex crimes and require colleges and universities to publish quarterly security reports, including campus crime statistics. The update was provided during a meeting of the Louisiana Board of Regents, which oversee colleges statewide. One of the laws changed the rules governing memorandums of understanding -- knowns as MOUs -- between campuses and local law enforcement. Breakdowns in those agreements were one of the problems that surfaced during a review of incidents at LSU. The new rules require police to sign those pacts. |
| 'The Data Is Kind of Useless': U. of Florida Stops Updating Its Covid-19 Dashboard | |
 | Online dashboards publicizing aggregate Covid-19 testing results have been fixtures across higher education for more than a year. But one public university is discontinuing its public-facing dashboard. The University of Florida's dashboard stopped reporting new numbers after December 31. The old data will remain online, according to a note on the website. Of the more than 1,900 colleges that have reported coronavirus numbers to The New York Times, Florida has had the most cases, according to data last updated in May 2021. Because the university does not require students and employees to be tested for the coronavirus, and because many people now take rapid tests at home, the results of which they may not report to the university, Florida's numbers aren't an accurate count of how many people have the coronavirus in the campus community, said Michael Lauzardo, an assistant professor of infectious diseases who leads the university's testing program. "The data is kind of useless," he said. The program's staff didn't want to publish numbers that aren't representative and helpful, and the gist of what's happening is already clear: "Everyone knows that there's a lot of cases happening right now." At this stage of the pandemic, moreover, having exact numbers doesn't change public-health recommendations, Lauzardo said. |
| She resigned from Memphis law school over lack of Black leaders -- now she's interim dean at U. of Arkansas' law school | |
| Alena Allen has been named interim dean for the University of Arkansas School of Law, replacing Margaret Sova McCabe, who, after stepping down last year, has become a senior adviser for strategic projects. The university announced Thursday that a search for the next UA law school dean will begin later this year, with Allen's appointment effective starting last Saturday. Allen, 43, joined UA in June after working as a faculty member at the University of Memphis Humphreys School of Law. At the Memphis law school, honors for Allen included awards for service and scholarship. The law school's class of 2013 also named Allen as Professor of the Year. Last April, Allen's plans to resign garnered headlines. She stated in a letter reported on by the Memphis Flyer and other news outlets that she was leaving because the university bypassed Black candidates for leadership roles despite faculty members favoring those candidates. Allen's letter to the university stated that she had been promoted, but she cited her experiences as a Black faculty member in the resignation letter, as reported by the Memphis Flyer. Her letter stated, in part: "If Black Lives Matter, then Black candidates should matter. If Black Lives Matter, then the feelings of Black faculty should matter." In explaining her choice to move to Fayetteville, Allen, in a phone interview Thursday, referred by name to the UA School of Law's previous deans, as well as her "fantastic experience" in 2016 working at UA as a visiting professor. |
| U. of Texas asks faculty to move spring 2022 classes online due to surge in COVID-19 cases | |
| University of Texas administrators are asking faculty to teach classes online for the first two weeks of the spring semester amid a spike of COVID-19 cases among students and staff. UT President Jay Hartzell said in a message to the UT community Tuesday evening that he hoped more students could return to in-person classes once the surge in cases subsides. Hartzell said faculty still will have the option to teach classes in a hybrid format with in-person and virtual options. Classes start Jan. 18. "Although severe illness and resulting hospitalizations appear less prevalent with this variant, we expect conditions in our community to be challenging during the next month," Hartzell said. "Considering the spike in cases, increased hospitalizations, and current and expected staff shortages in local hospitals and in some functional areas of campus, our university's COVID-19 Executive Committee determined short-term changes are needed as we start the spring semester." Classes that were planned to be in-person or hybrid will shift back to that format on Jan. 31. UT officials also are encouraging people to avoid gathering in confined spaces and hold events outdoors or online until Jan. 31. In response to the surge in cases driven by the highly contagious omicron variant, other universities in the state, including Texas State University and Huston-Tillotson University, have made temporary plans for virtual classes, while others have pushed back the start date of the spring semester. |
| Curriculum Incentive Plan at U. of Memphis Prompts Political Backlash | |
 | Congressional Republicans representing Tennessee are harshly criticizing a University of Memphis plan to offer financial grants to faculty members who include equity and social justice in their course curricula. The $3,000 grants would be given to faculty members interested in redesigning their course curriculums to advance "the tenets and charge of the University's commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice," according to information about the grant emailed to faculty members by university administrators and obtained by The Washington Free Beacon. The lawmakers say the grants are a waste of taxpayer money by the public institution. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn said the grant program puts taxpayer dollars toward "a woke social justice agenda." "The University should be encouraging their students to be independent thinkers, expanding their worldview, learning how to be lifelong learners and respectful of all," Blackburn said in a statement to Fox News. "Leadership at the University of Memphis should be ashamed for bribing professors to advance this useless teaching," U.S. Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee told The Washington Free Beacon. "Students are better prepared for professional careers if they learn the three R's -- reading, writing, and arithmetic -- instead of woke activism." A University of Memphis spokesman did not respond to repeated requests for comment. |
| A Vulnerability in Proctoring Software Should Worry Colleges, Experts Say | |
| A vulnerability detected last year in an online-proctoring software used by more than 2,000 American colleges is raising new alarm bells for experts, who say that too many institutions --- eager to assure the academic integrity of online assessments --- have failed to evaluate those platforms and weigh the risk of cyberattacks. "Security experts and cybersecurity experts have been talking about this being a concern" with online proctoring, "but it really hasn't been reflected in the general conversation," said Calli Schroeder, a privacy lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. And that's "detrimental." Computest, a Dutch cybersecurity-consulting company, ran tests on one such provider, Proctorio, last June, and found a vulnerability -- now fixed -- within the software's browser extension. As Computest's head of security research, Daan Keuper, explained it, if attackers had lured someone who had the extension installed to an attacker-owned website -- perhaps through email or Instagram messaging -- they could have enabled the extension and exploited that vulnerability, allowing them to open email, take screenshots, and activate the user's webcam, among other things. or some experts and faculty members, the news of the vulnerability isn't surprising. "It was just a matter of time," said Chris Gilliard, a visiting research fellow at Harvard and an advocate for digital privacy. Online-proctoring software itself, he believes, is essentially "malware" to begin with. Nonetheless, the discovery has left those observers even more skeptical that students are secure when using these tools. |
| Fewer High School Graduates Go Straight to College | |
| The share of high school students enrolling directly in college continues to fall, data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show. College enrollment by the high school Class of 2020 showed an "unprecedented" decline of between four and 10 percentage points depending on the high school category, according to the finalized version of the High School Benchmarks report released last month. Prospects for the graduating Class of 2021 don't appear much better; preliminary data from the clearinghouse show freshman enrollment declined 2.7 percent from last fall -- 13.1 percent since 2019 -- across all sectors except private nonprofit four-year institutions, which increased 2.5 percent over last fall. Overall postsecondary enrollment for fall 2021 is running 2.6 percent below 2020's level, for a total 5.8 percent drop since 2019. Continued enrollment losses among traditional college-age students, aged 18 to 24, remain "concerning," the center noted. According to the latest High School Benchmarks report, the enrollment decline among 2020 high school graduates disproportionately affected students from low-income schools, who enrolled at a rate of 49 percent; by comparison, 65 percent of higher-income high school graduates immediately enrolled in college. Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, noted that some low-income students may be deterred from going to college by the physical risks of COVID-19, while others have had a hard time finding jobs during the pandemic, leaving them unable to afford college. |
| Medical schools see record enrollment increase among Black students | |
| Sabrina Lima said her mom, a nurse, inspired her to pursue a career as a doctor. "I've been on medical missionary trips with her, so seeing her in medicine -- she's this amazing woman," she said. "I just love how she serves others, and I want to serve people in a similar way." Lima, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, began classes at the Tufts Medical School in the fall. She is part of a small group of Black students pursuing careers as physicians, though that number is increasing as schools adopt new procedures to attract and reduce barriers for students of color. Among Tufts' 195-member class of 2025, Lima is one of 26 students who identify as Black or African American -- a major jump from nine the year before. And across the country, the number of first-year Black students is up 21%, an unprecedented spike since 2020. "We have never seen such an increase within a short amount of time," said Norma Poll-Hunter, who leads workforce diversity efforts at the Association of Medical Colleges. She points to research that shows, across all races, patients are more likely to report satisfaction with their care when their doctors look like them. But only 5% of the country's doctors are Black, according to the association's latest data, released in 2019. "When Black physicians, male physicians are working with Black male patients, we see better outcomes in preventative care or on cardiac care," Poll-Hunter said. "We've also seen that in terms of infant mortality, as well." To address health disparities afflicting Black people, Poll-Hunter said more medical schools are looking beyond test scores, waiving application fees, allowing more students to interview remotely and looking more seriously at the role of unconscious bias in their admissions procedures. |
SPORTS
| What to watch for as Mississippi State men take on Ole Miss in Oxford | |
| It's been a while since the Mississippi State men's basketball team last took the court. The Bulldogs last played Dec. 29, beating Arkansas 81-68 to get off to a 1-0 start in Southeastern Conference play. They were scheduled to take on Missouri on the road Wednesday, but the contest was postponed Monday because of COVID-19 issues within the Tigers' program. So it will have been nearly 10 days since Mississippi State (10-3, 1-0 SEC) last played by the time the Bulldogs face Ole Miss (8-5, 0-1 SEC) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Oxford. Perhaps the biggest factor in Saturday night's game is simply who will be available for the Rebels. Ole Miss had just nine scholarship players and 10 players overall at its disposal in Wednesday's loss to Tennessee. Players and coaches have been in and out of COVID-19 protocols lately for the Rebels, making it hard to discern who will be available on any given night. But head coach Kermit Davis insisted before the contest his team would face the Volunteers even with seven scholarship players. (Any fewer, and a team can refuse to play, triggering a no contest per the SEC's new COVID policy.) Forward Robert Allen, who averages 6.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, was among the players missing as Ole Miss battled Tennessee to overtime in Knoxville before falling 66-60. Leading scorer Jarkel Joiner also did not play because of a back injury. If Joiner, who averages 14.8 points per contest, can't go Saturday, Mississippi State will be at a considerable advantage. |
| Mississippi State men's basketball looking to carry momentum against Ole Miss after unwanted time off | |
| Ben Howland has been as adamant as any coach in the nation when it comes to advocating for the COVID-19 vaccine. He has encouraged fans to get it and has ensured his entire team is vaccinated and boosted if eligible -- which is notable with the NCAA shifting its use of "fully vaccinated" to include the booster shot as well. Mississippi State is on a four-game winning streak. As students get closer to returning to campus, Howland has made it a point of emphasis with his players to be aware of how to handle their social lives. The omicron variant is proving to be not deadly but highly transmissible. And positive cases would mean losing players or pausing play -- something Howland didn't want after his team's SEC-opening win against Arkansas on Dec 29. "I'm liking how we're doing right now," Howland said postgame. "We're trying to keep everybody healthy." Instead, his team got nearly 10 days off as MSU's Jan. 5 game at Missouri was postponed due to cases within Missouri's program. Saturday, Mississippi State returns to action as the team travels to Oxford to take on Ole Miss. If Mississippi State wants a look at how to come off an extended break in SEC play, it can look at its neighbor. Ole Miss had about two weeks away from the court due to positive cases within its program. It returned to action on Wednesday, shorthanded and on the road against No. 18 Tennessee. |
| Rebounding, steals fueling Mississippi State men's basketball's success | |
| Football season has given way to basketball season, and Southeastern Conference play is well underway for the Mississippi State men's basketball team. Each week, The Dispatch will examine three relevant statistics regarding this year's Bulldogs. This week, the focus is on rebounding, steals and 3-point defense as MSU (10-3) gears up to face Ole Miss (8-4) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Oxford. Mississippi State has been outrebounded in just two games. The Bulldogs lost the battle on the boards against Louisville on Nov. 25, 43-35. On Dec. 11, Colorado State collected 33 rebounds to MSU's 31. Mississippi State lost both games. In the 11 in which the Bulldogs came down with more rebounds, they emerged victorious in 10 of them (Dec. 5 against Minnesota being the exception.) It's a sign the Bulldogs' skill at both offensive and defensive rebounding has correlated with winning games. MSU is 16th out of 358 Division I teams in offensive rebounding percentage at 36.3 percent while limiting its opponents to a 22.0 percent mark, 14th best in the nation. The Bulldogs are eighth in the country in rebounding margin, averaging 38.8 rebounds per game to their opponents' 27.9 -- the third-fewest opponent rebounds in the entire country. Several reasons might explain Mississippi State's success on the glass. For one, Ben Howland's bunch plays at one of the slowest tempos in the country, ranking No. 321. The Bulldogs' average height is toward the top, checking in at No. 65; tall players who know intrinsically how to rebound or have been coached well can always help. |
| Mississippi State women's basketball overcomes shorthanded roster to beat Alabama | |
| The circumstances were against Mississippi State women's basketball once more. On Sunday, after a sudden schedule change, the Bulldogs needed to fly for an impromptu matchup with No. 1 South Carolina. And on Thursday, Mississippi State learned forward Rickea Jackson, the team's leading scorer, would miss the game against Alabama. The Bulldogs lost against the top-ranged team in the country. But at Coleman Coliseum on Thursday, interim coach Doug Novak's team came away with a 65-62 victory, gutting out a key absence and several assistant coaches missing to win their first SEC game of the season. With under 30 seconds to play, Alabama (10-4, 1-2 SEC) had a route back into the contest. Leading by seven, Mississippi State (10-4, 1-1) turned the ball over. And after a 3-pointer for Megan Abrams, JerKaila Jordan turned the ball over again. Suddenly in a bind, there was Myah Taylor. She had left the game in the third quarter with an ankle injury, and despite returning midway through the fourth, the senior was in clear discomfort. Yet Taylor closed down Jamya Mingo-Young and blocked the Alabama guard's long-distance attempt, icing a game that seemed to be an uphill battle when the ball tipped off. |
| Short-handed Mississippi State women earn road victory over Alabama | |
| Despite playing with just eight players, and without leading scorer Rickea Jackson, the Mississippi State women's basketball team earned a hard fought 65-62 win on Thursday night at Alabama. Four players played at least 35 minutes for the Bulldogs (10-4, 1-1 Southeastern Conference), who led most of the way. Anastasia Hayes led the way for Mississippi State, scoring 22 points. "When we needed a play, and it looked like we were on our last leg, they just kept putting their hands on balls, getting a steal and getting a key rebound," interim coach Doug Novak said. "Just amazing." Guards Hayes, Myah Taylor and JerKaila Jordan were crucial on both ends of the floor, creating turnovers and fast-break opportunities while limiting the Crimson Tide's opportunities to get into the paint. Taylor again was a key distributor and defender, and when she went down with an ankle injury late in the third quarter, it looked like she might be done for the night. Instead, she taped it up and got back out on the court, getting a crucial block with 10 seconds to play. "Then, I thought we had lost Myah for the game, but somehow, she comes back, tapes the ankle, and gets two or three more steals," Novak said. "It's an outstanding effort. I'm so proud to be a part of this." Taylor finished with 14 points, 6 assists and a career-high 7 steals. "She shows up everyday... she just never has a weak moment," Novak said. "I've just never seen her take it up to this level. |
| Sans Jackson, Bulldogs pick up first SEC win at Alabama | |
| The Mississippi State women played without SEC leading scorer Rickea Jackson Thursday night but that didn't stop the Bulldogs from picking up a road win. Anastasia Hayes scored 22 points, and MSU knocked off Alabama 65-62 at Coleman Coliseum. Hayes was 9 for 17 from the floor and scored nine points in the last 8 minutes, 33 seconds. A Hayes layup with 1:33 remaining gave the Bulldogs a seven-point lead. Sixteen points from Jerkaila Jordan and 14 from Myah Taylor helpd MSU off-set the 20.7 points a game they get from Jackson. Alabama (10-4, 1-2 SEC) hurt the Bulldogs (10-4, 1-1 SEC) from the 3-point line where it was 10 for 27. MSU, though, was dominant in the paint where it outscored the Tide 40-22. The Bulldogs are at home against Vanderbilt Sunday at 2. |
| Alabama women's basketball falls 65-62 to a shorthanded Mississippi State team | |
 | Alabama women's basketball couldn't take advantage of a shorthanded Mississippi State team as the Crimson Tide fell 65-62 on Thursday at Coleman Coliseum. The game stayed close throughout the second half but the Bulldogs (10-4, 1-1 SEC) managed to keep Alabama at bay. The Crimson Tide (10-5, 1-2 SEC) was led by Hannah Barber, who scored a season-high 19 points behind a 5-for-8 3-point performance. Megan Abrams scored 14 points while Brittany Davis added 11 points and nine rebounds. Jada Rice scored eight points and added nine rebounds. Alabama hasn't been the hottest-shooting team recently, but that seemed to end in the first half against the Bulldogs. Alabama shot 52.4% from the field but an even more impressive 57.1% from 3-point range. The good shooting performance didn't mean that all of the Crimson Tide's offensive struggles ended. Alabama had 11 turnovers, limiting the number of shots it could get up. Mississippi State was without leading scorer Rickea Jackson, who led her team averaging 20.7 points per game. Aislynn Hayes started in her place, scoring four points. Mississippi State never seemed flustered with being short-handed. The Bulldogs saw four players play more than 30 minutes, while two more played more than 20. |
| Men's Tennis Postpones Opening Weekend | |
| Mississippi State men's tennis has postponed its opening weekend of matches due to a combination of positive tests, contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of individuals within the program, consistent with Southeastern Conference COVID-19 management requirements. The Bulldogs were scheduled to open their spring campaign at home in a doubleheader against Tennessee Tech on Jan. 14 and also host Florida State on Jan. 16. No make-up dates have been decided at this time. MSU's next scheduled match is set for Jan. 23 at noon against Middle Tennessee State. For more information on the Bulldog men's tennis program, visit HailState.com or search for "HailStateMT" on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. |
| NCAA updates COVID-19 guidelines for winter sports | |
| The NCAA released its updated COVID-19 guidance for winter sports on Thursday, adjusting its definition of "fully vaccinated" individuals and also updating its suggested protocols following a positive test. "The omicron variant has presented another surge of cases across the country," NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline said. "This guidance was designed to align with the latest public health directives. Given how the pandemic continues to evolve, it's important that staff on member campuses continue to work with their local and state health officials on protocols most suitable for their locations." The NCAA COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group developed its new definition of "fully vaccinated" to account for vaccinations, boosters and other immunity factors. Fully vaccinated individuals now include those within two months of receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, five months of receiving the Pfizer vaccine series or six months of receiving the Moderna vaccine series; and individuals who are beyond the aforementioned timeline and have received the booster vaccine. Individuals within 90 days of a documented COVID-19 infection fall within the equivalent of "fully vaccinated." The other noteworthy change in the newest COVID-19 guidance is quarantine and isolation periods. The NCAA suggests five days of quarantine after a positive test if there are no symptoms or "symptoms are resolving." They also suggest masking around others for five additional days, except during athletic activities following a negative test. Fully vaccinated close contacts do not need to quarantine, but should wear a mask when not participating in athletic activities. |
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