| Tuesday, April 12, 2022 |
| MSU guidebook directs insect control for profit | |
 | Tucker Miller has a list of row crop producers who depend on him to manage insects in their fields, and every year brings a different pest challenge that threatens crop profitability. Miller, an independent crop consultant with Miller Entomological Service Inc. in Drew, Mississippi, said there is always uncertainty in insect matters. "We try to be on top of the situation by scouting and looking for the insects that usually appear at certain times of the crop growth stage," Miller said. "We work closely with the Extension Service because they have test plots across the state and on a lot of my clients' farms," he said. "They use these plots to develop thresholds for insect control and to test the effectiveness of different chemicals labeled for insect control." For insect control, the Mississippi State University Extension Service offers the "Insect Control Guide," available in printed form and online. This document includes a wealth of information on different pests, chemical control and when to trigger a pest treatment. The research-backed data is a primary tool for Mississippi farmers navigating their way to a successful harvest. Insect control got a lot harder in 2021 when farm chemical costs increased almost fourfold by the end of the year. Higher than usual input costs can compress profit margins. At MSU's Row Crop Short Course held in December, specialists updated participants on the insect scene from 2021 and advised on decision-making criteria for 2022. |
| MSU summer camps to offer fun, educational activities for students | |
| Mississippi State University's (MSU) camps will be in full force this summer, with a variety of enriching activities planned for elementary through high school students. Camps offered include accounting, architecture and design, arts and sciences, engineering, sports, theater, veterinary and many more. In addition to camps, www.summercamps.msstate.edu is a resource for those planning or attending summer conferences. Information on amenities, lodging, dining, parking and transit, recreation and meeting spaces also is on the site, as well as related university policies, including the Minors Protection Policy. MSU's Office of Guest and Conference Services offers a clearinghouse of summer camp information and may be contacted at summercamps@msstate.edu. |
| Ukraine troops trained on the Coast, then went to defend their homeland against Russia | |
 | As Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would begin its invasion on Ukraine in February, Ukrainian armed forces were on the Mississippi Coast for training and have since returned home to defend their country. The troops from Ukraine completed training at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County. The group enrolled in the U.S. Special Operations Command's previously scheduled training program long before Russia's invasion on Feb. 24. The training included patrol craft operations, communications and maintenance, said John F. Kirby, Pentagon press secretary. While in Mississippi, the small group of international security force personnel took part in tactical training in small crafts along the Pearl River and worked with unmanned aircraft. The group graduated alongside military professionals from the Bahamas, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Jamaica, Latvia, Mauritania, Mauritius, Poland, the Republic of Korea and Romania on March 3. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met with the group via videoconference Sunday morning. Austin thanked the troops for their service and for their courage, noting the skill with which the Ukrainian armed forces are fighting to defend their nation from Russia's unprovoked invasion, Kirby said. Austin pledged to them continued U.S. support for Ukraine, providing and coordinating additional security assistance. |
| Mississippi gov signs bill expanding inmates' work release | |
 | Mississippi will expand a work release program for nonviolent inmates from one county to three counties. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed House Bill 586 on Friday, and it will become law July 1. "Dignified work has the potential to offer new beginnings," Reeves said Monday in a statement announcing his signing. The Rankin County sheriff was already authorized to let inmates work outside the county jail during the final year of their sentences. The new law says the sheriffs in Harrison County and Lee County also can create a program. Each sheriff can choose up to 25 inmates to participate, and inmates choose whether to do so. While working outside jail, each inmate can earn money and must have a bank account. They can use some of the money for "incidental expenses." Up to 25% of what they earn can help to pay fines, restitution, fees or support of dependents. They may keep using the accounts and any remaining money after they are released. |
| Crypto Industry Helps Write, and Pass, Its Own Agenda in State Capitols | |
 | The debate took less than four minutes. In the Florida House last month, legislators swiftly gave final approval to a bill that makes it easier to buy and sell cryptocurrency, eliminating a threat from a law intended to curb money laundering. One of the few pauses in the action came when two House members stood up to thank crypto industry "stakeholders" for teaming with state officials to write a draft of the bill. Shortly afterward, the House voted unanimously to pass the measure. The Senate followed, sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature after 75 seconds of deliberations. Florida's warm embrace of the cryptocurrency agenda is just the tip of an aggressive industry-led push to position states as crypto-friendly beachheads. Across the nation, crypto executives and lobbyists are helping to draft bills to benefit the fast-growing industry, then pushing lawmakers to adopt these made-to-order laws, before moving rapidly to profit from the legislative victories. The effort is part of an emerging national strategy by the crypto industry, in the absence so far of comprehensive federal regulatory demands, to work state by state to engineer a more friendly legal system. Not all legislative proposals have come to fruition. In Mississippi, Josh Harkins, a Republican state senator, proposed several crypto bills this year, including one exempting digital tokens from securities laws. He said he had gotten the idea from a lobbyist, Daniel Harrison, who was hoping to start a local blockchain trade association. The bills died in committee in February. Mr. Harkins said he planned to revive them this summer. |
| Biden to visit Iowa ethanol plant as officials hit road to tout rural aid efforts | |
 | President Joe Biden will speak at an Iowa ethanol plant Tuesday as part of the White House pitch that his administration is delivering tangible results for rural America. Biden's trip comes a day after the White House announced that cabinet members and senior administration officials will fan out across the U.S. in April to tout the benefits of a 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the availability of billions of dollars for the nation's small towns, tribal and local governments, and community organizations. The president will visit the POET bioprocessing plant near Menlo, Iowa. Biden is under pressure from the ethanol industry to reinstate a Trump administration policy that allowed the sale of E15, a 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline mix, from June through September. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu held a video press conference Monday to outline what the administration calls a rural infrastructure tour, where officials will make announcements of $2 billion in awards and boost awareness of the law that provides $550 billion in new funding. The White House also issued what it called a Rural Playbook, with fact sheets and details from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, EPA and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Transportation on available infrastructure funding. |
| Inflation rose at fastest pace since 1981 in March as consumer prices jumped 8.5% annually | |
 | Consumer prices climbed further into the stratosphere in March and the only consolation is that the painful bout of skyrocketing costs may have peaked. Inflation hit a fresh 40-year high as continuing surges in gasoline, food and rent costs more than offset moderating prices for used cars. The consumer price index leaped 8.5% annually, the fastest pace since December 1981, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. That increase is up from 7.9% in February and inflation now has notched new 40-year highs for five straight months. Prices rose 1.2% from their February level, the sharpest monthly increase since September 2005. Gasoline prices were the chief culprit, jumping 18.3% and accounting for more than half the overall rise in costs. Average unleaded gas set a record $4.33 a gallon last month before easing to $4.11 by Monday, according to AAA. Pump prices were up 48% from a year earlier. Both Wells Fargo and Barclays reckon inflation likely peaked in March. A fading pandemic should help ease supply snarls and labor shortages this year, economists have said. But don't celebrate quite yet. "The descent in inflation is going to be painfully slow," says Wells Fargo economist Sam Bullard. And the war could extend the supply troubles and outsized price gains longer than anticipated, says Barclays economist Pooja Sriram. Barclays estimates yearly inflation will still be 6.4% in June and 4.4% at the end of the year. |
| Kevin McCarthy warns against impeaching Biden for 'political purposes' | |
 | House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declined to throw his support behind impeaching President Biden, a move that several of his House Republican colleagues have called for, warning against doing so for "political purposes." McCarthy vowed that Republicans will focus on "holding this administration accountable" if they win the House majority in the 2022 midterms, and he left the door open to impeachment if they find that laws were broken. "One thing we learned that the Democrats did is they -- they used impeachment for political reason," McCarthy told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday after she asked if he would move to impeach Biden. "We believe in the rule of law," McCarthy continued. "We're not going to pick and choose just because somebody has power. We're going to uphold the law. At any time, if someone breaks the law and the ramification becomes impeachment, we would move towards that. But we're not going to use it for political purposes." The Republican minority leader, who is aiming to become Speaker if his party wins the House majority, has promised a wave of oversight actions and investigations probing the Biden administration. Republicans say they plan to investigate the messy troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the origins of COVID-19, and the administration's handing of the migration surge and security at the U.S.-Mexico border, among other topics. |
| As U.S. cases tick up, the new White House Covid czar says it's not a moment to be 'excessively concerned.' | |
| The new White House Covid-19 response coordinator, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, said Monday that while there had been a recent uptick in new U.S. coronavirus cases, he was not overly concerned. "We've got to watch this very carefully -- obviously, I never like to see infections rising -- I think we've got to be careful," Dr. Jha said on the "Today" show. "But I don't think this is a moment where we have to be excessively concerned." Dr. Jha, a public health expert, made several media appearances on Monday, his first official day according to the White House, and he pointed to low hospitalization numbers across the United States. The vast majority of the country has low community levels of Covid-19, according to calculations performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that are designed to assess the number of new cases in a community and the strain on its hospitals, a point also made on Sunday by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden's top pandemic adviser. "Right now that is showing an uptick, but not showing substantial changes in what we should be doing," Dr. Jha said on CNN, referring to the C.D.C. framework. "And I think the C.D.C. policy is right on this." Dr. Jha's tenure begins as a highly transmissible Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2, has become the dominant version among new U.S. cases. As of Sunday, the United States was averaging more than 31,000 cases a day, an increase of 3 percent over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database, just a fraction of the height of the Omicron winter surge. |
| Russian war worsens fertilizer crunch, risking food supplies | |
| Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn't bad weather, pests or blight -- the traditional agricultural curses -- but fertilizer: It costs too much. Despite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion. The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer. Kariuki used to spend 20,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $175, to fertilize her entire farm. Now, she would need to spend five times as much. Continuing to work the land, she said, would yield nothing but losses. Higher fertilizer prices are making the world's food supply more expensive and less abundant, as farmers skimp on nutrients for their crops and get lower yields. While the ripples will be felt by grocery shoppers in wealthy countries, the squeeze on food supplies will land hardest on families in poorer countries. It could hardly come at a worse time: The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said last week that its world food-price index in March reached the highest level since it started in 1990. The fertilizer crunch threatens to further limit worldwide food supplies, already constrained by the disruption of crucial grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia. The loss of those affordable supplies of wheat, barley and other grains raises the prospect of food shortages and political instability in Middle Eastern, African and some Asian countries where millions rely on subsidized bread and cheap noodles. |
| Putin vows Russia will press Ukraine invasion till goals met | |
| President Vladimir Putin vowed Tuesday that Russia's bloody offensive in Ukraine would continue until its goals are fulfilled, and insisted the campaign was going as planned, despite a major withdrawal in the face of stiff Ukrainian opposition and significant losses. Russian troops, thwarted in their push toward Ukraine's capital, are now focusing on the eastern Donbas region, where Ukraine said Tuesday it was investigating a claim that a poisonous substance had been dropped on its troops. It was not clear what the substance might be, but Western officials warned that any use of chemical weapons by Russia would be a serious escalation of the already devastating war. Russia invaded on Feb. 24, with the goal, according to Western officials, of taking Kyiv, toppling the government and installing a Moscow-friendly one. In the six weeks since, Russia's ground campaign stalled, its forces suffered losses that may number in the thousands and it stands accused of killing civilians and other atrocities. The Russian leader spoke at the Vostochny space launch facility in the country's Far East, during his first known foray outside Moscow since the war began. He also said that foreign powers wouldn't succeed in isolating Russia. |
| Ole Miss recognizes achievements in research, learning, service and scholarship at Celebration of Services | |
 | The University of Mississippi Division of Diversity and Community Engagement will recognize outstanding accomplishments in community-engaged research, learning, service and scholarship Tuesday (April 12) during its annual Celebration of Service Awards. The program begins at 2 p.m. in the Johnson Commons Ballroom. Honors to be presented include the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, the Excellence in Community Engagement Award and the new Community Engaged Partnership Fund. "This year's Celebration of Service shines a spotlight on individuals who exemplify the value of selfless service, elevates a yearslong program that moves towards bridging the trauma and complexity our local history with the beauty of our potential," said Cade Smith, assistant vice chancellor for community engagement. "It also celebrates partnerships who are taking the next steps in building more resilient and trust-filled relationships between the University of Mississippi and communities and organizations beyond campus." Sullivan Awards recipients are Madison Alliston, a junior public policy leadership major from Hattiesburg, as the student awardee; Premalatha Balachandran, a senior research scientist at the UM National Center for Natural Products Research, staff; and Ryan Upshaw, assistant dean for student life, diversity and inclusion at Millsaps College, alumni. |
| USM Partners with University of the West Indies-Barbados to Address the Threat of Sargassum to Caribbean Waters, Islands | |
| The work of The University of Southern Mississippi marine research scientists goes far beyond their "backyard" in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Jim Franks, a fisheries biologist, and Dr. Donald Johnson, a physical oceanographer, are both Senior Research Scientists in USM's Center for Fisheries Research and Development (CFRD). The Center is working with the University of the West Indies in Barbados to better understand the ongoing threat of pelagic Sargassum to the Caribbean islands and on both sides of the tropical Atlantic. Pelagic Sargassum is a floating marine macroalgae that occurs in the North Atlantic Ocean. It commonly occurs and is described by Franks as "a critically important floating marine habit." But the vast amount of this algae that has shown up in the Caribbean Sea and along island shorelines since 2011 is overwhelming -- think, mounds on the shore that are six feet high at times -- and as it degrades, it creates an air quality issue for the people who live and visit there -- the sulfurous material reeks of that distinctive rotten egg smell. The research is being funded by a grant to USM from the UWI under the leadership of marine fisheries scientist Dr. Hazel Oxenford, a faculty member in the UWI Center for Resource Management and Environmental Studies. |
| USM grad student tuned into guitarfish | |
 | University of Southern Mississippi graduate student Bryan L. Huerta Beltrán hopes his research on guitarfish will strike just the right chord in grant funding provided by the Save our Seas Foundation. Beltrán, a native of Mexico City, Mexico, is pursuing a master's degree while working under the advisement of USM ecology and organismal Professor Nicole Phillips. His research involves guitarfish from the genus Pseudobatos that are found in the Mexican Exclusive Economic Zone, which includes the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Beltrán notes that currently eight of the nine described Pseudobatos guitarfishes in the world are recorded in the Mexican EEZ, but to date it is unknown which species are commonly traded at Mexican markets for a variety of purposes – such as for food consumption or medicinal purposes. Complicating matters, identifying these guitarfish species by looking only at morphological characteristics can prove difficult because several guitarfish look alike. This is particularly challenging in countries like Mexico because multiple species can be found in one location. "That's where my work will come in handy because I'm building a genetic reference library of the eight guitarfish species found in Mexico to be able to reliably identify which species are traded at markets in Mexico," said Beltrán. |
| LSU history professor awarded prestigious Guggenheim fellowship | |
 | Decades of experience as a longtime professor and published history author was rewarded with a prestigious fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Louisiana State University history professor Suzanne Marchand was named last week as a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in the Intellectual & Cultural History discipline. Marchand was one of 180 fellows chosen from 2,500 applicants screened on the basis of past achievement and exceptional promise in their respective fields. "Dr. Marchand is an exceptional cultural historian whom we are honored to have on the faculty at LSU," LSU Vice President of Research & Economic Development Samuel Bentley said in a statement. "We are thrilled that her scholarship is being recognized by the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and extend our most heartfelt congratulations to her." Marchand earned the status of Boyd Professor, the most prestigious distinction awarded by the LSU Board of Supervisors, in 2014 as the member of LSU faculty who "attained national or international distinction for outstanding teaching, research or other creative achievement". She became the 11th LSU professor to be named as a Guggenheim Fellow, following Benjamin Kahan, an English and Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies professor who received the distinction in 2020. |
| U. of Tennessee's new out-of-state space research center launches in Rocket City, Alabama | |
 | The University of Tennessee is taking its space research across state borders and opening a new office in one of the United States' premier cities for innovation. The UT Space Institute Huntsville Research Center in Alabama will connect UT students and faculty with federal agencies and industry leaders. Undergraduate and graduate students will have the opportunity to research and develop technology alongside aerospace professionals and faculty in a real-world setting. "Our faculty are doing fundamental research in laboratories, but the research doesn't just stay there," UT Chancellor Donde Plowman said at the announcement. "Our faculty are taking what they've learned, discoveries they've made in their labs where they solve problems, and they're really working hard at making lives better here in Alabama, Tennessee, and around the world." Huntsville, Alabama, known as "Rocket City" because it is a historic home to America's space program, continues to be the center for rocket-propulsion research in NASA and the Army. Home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, U.S. Army post Redstone Arsenal and the second-largest research center in the nation Cummings Research Park, the space and science technology hub has more engineers per capita than any other city in the U.S. And Huntsville is only 60 miles south of UT's Space Institute in Tullahoma, Tennessee, the university's research and innovation center for aerospace engineering and more. Several of its 2,700 alumni have become astronauts, chief scientists and engineering managers. |
| U. of Missouri is tracking bird flu in the state. Here's what it has learned | |
 | Bird flu is taking a toll on poultry flocks in Missouri and around the country, and the University of Missouri is tracking its progression. The impact is being felt by producers and consumers and certainly the infected birds. The Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine tracks cases and alerts veterinary officials to confirmed cases. Avian influenza spreads easily from flock to flock, but doesn't easily spread from birds to humans, said Daniel Shaw, MU professor emeritus of veterinary pathology. It's important to track bird flu, Shaw said. "I think the most important reason is poultry is a pretty large industry in the state," Shaw said. "Missouri is in the top-10 poultry producers in the country." It's also big in egg production and turkeys, he said. So far this year, bird flu has struck nearly 17 million birds in 23 states. During the last outbreak in 2015, the virus struck an estimated 50 million birds and caused $3 billion in economic losses to the industry. Consumers will see the effects of bird flu at the grocery store, Shaw said. "You really notice it in the price of eggs," Shaw said. |
| Some Colleges Reinstate Mask Mandates Just Weeks After Removing Them | |
 | Other colleges stopped requiring masks recently, after students returned from spring break. Many institutions made the change in March, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said most people in the United States could stop wearing masks indoors if they lived in areas with low to medium risk. Last week, however, Georgetown University temporarily reinstated an indoor mask requirement on its main and medical-center campuses. Georgetown's leaders had moved the university to a mask-optional policy about two weeks earlier. Last week's announcement cited a "significant increase" in the number of Covid cases. "These circumstances present a challenge, but we have learned to adjust our mitigation measures to respond to changing conditions throughout the pandemic," wrote the university's chief public-health officer, Ranit Mishori, in a message to the campus. Rice University, in Texas, also brought back a masking requirement last week, after reporting about 145 new cases over the previous few days -- most of them among undergraduates. The policy requires everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a face covering in classrooms, with the exception of instructors who are delivering lectures. In Philadelphia, all colleges will need to reimpose mask mandates in public indoor areas starting on April 18, according to a Monday announcement by the city's health commissioner. The guidance applies to all indoor public spaces, making Philadelphia the first major American city to reinstate a mandate, after rolling it back on March 2. |
| Reversing course on COVID-19 mask mandates | |
 | Two years into the pandemic, colleges are still fine-tuning their COVID-19 mitigation policies, changing course as needed to keep students safe and case counts low. In the latest pivot, some colleges are reinstating mask mandates -- just as coronavirus cases begin to increase on campus. Over the last week, colleges across the country -- including American University and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Columbia University in New York; and Rice University in Texas, to name a few -- have reinstated mask mandates to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on campus. Many of the colleges making such changes already have vaccine and booster mandates. he reversal comes amid changing public policies nationwide. Many cities are dropping mask mandates, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently rolled back recommendations to wear face coverings indoors, at least among those living in areas designated low to medium risk according to local data. The uptick in COVID-19 cases at colleges comes, for some, on the heels of spring break. "Many of these colleges had spring break about two weeks ago. And there are some that are just having it now," said Gerri Taylor, co-chair of the American College Health Association's COVID-19 task force. "I think we're going to see rolling surges that will hit certain colleges based on their spring break schedule, or based on any unmasked, unvaccinated indoor events." |
| Princeton says it won't censor webpage criticizing professor | |
| A professor at Princeton University has defended his right to call a Black student group a "small local terrorist organization" since he did so publicly in 2020. Now the professor's supporters are asking the university to stop denouncing him, characterizing the lasting criticism as "ongoing retaliation." The university has refused to grant this request. And some see the request itself as hypocritical. "It's astonishing to me that a tenured professor who is not being punished in any way can receive an outpouring of support from numerous national groups demanding the intervention of top officials in order to banish mere criticism of a professor," John Wilson, an independent scholar of free expression, wrote in a recent essay for the American Association of University Professors' "Academe" blog. "And it's remarkable how often 'free speech' can be invoked to demand censorship." Some history: in July 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, classicist Joshua Katz, Cotsen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton, wrote a "declaration of independence" in Quillette. The essay criticized a series of demands that a group of Princeton professors had sent to senior administrators earlier that month, urging the university to be more actively antiracist. One specific faculty demand was that Princeton apologize to the Black Justice League, a former student group. Katz's essay took aim at the faculty letter in general, but his commentary on the Black Justice League upset many at Princeton. |
| At University of Virginia, Mike Pence event reignites a debate over free speech | |
 | An upcoming speech by former vice president Mike Pence at the University of Virginia has reignited a debate over free speech on the Charlottesville campus. The response to the event has been intense. Tickets were quickly snapped up, with nearly 500 people on a standby list to get one. Some posters for the event were defaced, and others mocking it were taped up. An editorial in a campus newspaper said the university should not give a platform to Pence, equating "hateful rhetoric" to violence. That sparked outrage over "cancel culture," limits on free speech and concerns about censorship. At an event last week called, "What Should We Do About Free Speech at UVA?" panelists spoke to an audience of about 100 students, professors, alumni and others, with the university president emphasizing that protection of free speech should be about principles rather than politics. Pence is expected to speak at the university on Tuesday as part of a national tour on college campuses sponsored by the Young America's Foundation. At earlier stops, according to news reports, he has hailed the work of the Trump administration, while also decrying President Biden and what Pence called an "all-encompassing assault on culture and values" by the "woke left." His appearances have drawn some protests. The debate over the appearance is especially complicated at U-Va., where the question of free speech is intricately bound up in both the foundations of the school and its recent past. Thomas Jefferson, who founded the university, wrote to "follow truth." And not five years ago, white supremacists marched with torches on the campus, an act protected by the First Amendment. |
| People denied 'sole' right to alter state constitution | |
 | Syndicated columnist Bill Crawford writes: The Mississippi Constitution gives the people of this state "the inherent, sole, and exclusive right ... to alter and abolish their constitution and form of government whenever they deem it necessary to their safety and happiness." But it doesn't say how. Long ago several constitutional conventions were held to change or re-write the constitution. Late 20th Century efforts to hold another such convention failed. In 1992 the problem was addressed somewhat. The Legislature adopted and the people approved Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 616 creating a ballot initiative process to amend their Constitution. That lasted until May 14, 2021, when the Mississippi Supreme Court threw out the successful initiative on medical marijuana and scuttled the entire initiative process. The problem was language that specifically linked the process to five congressional districts. After the 2000 Census the number of districts had fallen to four. After the court ruled, everybody said the process should be fixed. And all it would take was to change the language from five districts to four. But Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Philip Gunn, and their legislative minions had different thoughts. |
SPORTS
| MSU-UAB Game Time Adjusted Due to Inclement Weather | |
| Due to the threat of inclement weather increasing further into Tuesday evening, Mississippi State baseball's midweek contest versus UAB has been moved up one hour to a 5 p.m. CT first pitch on Tuesday, April 12, at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network+. Tuesday's game will also be carried on the Mississippi State Sports Network powered by LEARFIELD along with a live audio stream via HailState.com/plus. |
| Mississippi State Men's Golf Dominates Day One of Mossy Oak Collegiate | |
| The Mississippi State men's golf team came out in full force during the 2022 Mossy Oak Collegiate. The Bulldogs took their home course to their advantage and will head into the final day of competition at 12-under overall with three players in the top-12. Due to darkness, the second round of competition was suspended. The Bulldogs completed 34 holes beforehand, tacking on 36 birdies in total. MSU maintained dominance after a 5-under first round performance and are 7-under thus far into the second round. "I'm obviously really pleased with our guys play today," head coach Dusty Smith said after day one of competition at Mossy Oak. "I thought Ford Clegg, Hunter Logan, and Benjamin Nelson did a great job in the first round. Just to see the guys competing hard on their home golf course, protecting home turf, and just enjoying the day is really fun to watch." Mississippi State will resume second round play at 8:00 a.m. CT with continuous play to be followed to head into the third and final round of the 2022 Mossy Oak Collegiate. "We're excited for the opportunity tomorrow," Smith stated. "We've got a lot of golf left to play, and we're looking forward to it." |
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