| Wednesday, April 27, 2022 |
| MSU national championship license plate approved | |
 | Mississippi State baseball fans soon will be able to show their support of the team's 2021 national championship season with a special license plate. Gov. Tate Reeves recently signed a bill creating the affinity plate and authorizing MSU to work with the Mississippi Department of Revenue on its design. When the application process begins, vehicle owners may submit tag requests to their local county tax collector. Applicants will pay a $50 fee in addition to their standard tag's cost, of which $44 will be distributed to the Mississippi State University Foundation. A $1 portion of the fee will support the Mississippi Burn Care Fund. "We would like to sincerely thank Gov. Reeves for signing the bill, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Josh Harkins for authoring the legislation and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Philip Gunn and the rest of the state's legislative leadership for supporting the measure, which will greatly benefit MSU," said MSU President Dr. Mark E. Keenum. For more information on Mississippi license plates, visit www.dor.ms.gov/tags-and-titles. |
| Mississippi governor approves MSU National Championship license plates | |
 | Mississippi State baseball fans will soon be able to show their support of the team's 2021 National Championship season with a special license plate. Governor Tate Reeves (R-Miss.) recently signed a bill creating the affinity plate and authorizing MSU to work with the Mississippi Department of Revenue on its design. Vehicle owners can submit tag requests to their local county tax collector when the application begins. Applicants will pay a $50 fee in addition to their standard tag's cost, of which $44 will be distributed to the Mississippi State University Foundation. A $1.00 portion of the fee will support the Mississippi Burn Care Fund. "This is another opportunity for our Bulldog family to celebrate our national championship run in a way that will give back to the university," added Director of Athletics John Cohen. |
| Biosecurity efforts keep avian influenza at bay | |
 | Keeping buffalo wings on menus is a supply chain issue that goes all the way back to procedures farm workers follow to protect the health of commercially grown chickens. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, avian influenza or bird flu is a disease caused by viruses naturally spread among wild aquatic birds worldwide. Although it rarely affects humans, it can infect backyard chicken flocks and commercial poultry operations. When bird flu is diagnosed, the usual response is eradication of the entire flock and surveillance of nearby flocks. There are many strains of avian influenza. Highly pathogenic avian influenza -- or HPAI -- causes severe disease and mortality rates up to 100 percent in infected poultry. Poultry with low pathogenic avian influenza may not show clinical signs, but the disease can change into the more severe strains and spread rapidly. National Public Radio reports that a highly pathogenic bird flu virus has spread to at least 24 states less than two months after the first outbreak was reported in a commercial flock. Jonathan Moon, research coordinator for the Mississippi State University Department of Poultry Science and researcher with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, said HPAI has not yet been detected in Mississippi. Despite the fact that there have been no reported HPAI cases in the state to date, Moon said, Mississippi producers and backyard flock owners must remain vigilant to avoid avian influenza. |
| Mississippi's Main Street coordinator addresses Lunch & Learn crowd | |
 | Mississippi's Main Street coordinator paid a visit to the Queen City Tuesday to share his thoughts on how Meridian can continue to grow and improve its culture while preserving the tradition of the city. Thomas Gregory was the guest speaker for the Lunch and Learn event hosted by the Meridian Architectural Trust. He said there's a renewed enthusiasm in the community that has created positive energy locally and across the state. "Downtown Meridian has a lot of wonderful assets, including the MAX, the Threefoot Building, which just opened as well as the MSU Riley Center," said Gregory. "It takes a lot of hard work to see that preservation work come to fruition, so we just encourage people to continue to support the Main Street program and come together and work as a community to continue to move that ball forward." The Meridian Architectural Trust is using lunch sessions to educate people about the organization's mission of preserving buildings and the city's unique story. |
| Pole signs steadily come down as May 5 deadline approaches | |
| Every day as residents and visitors alike drive up and down Highway 12, a large sign from local business Strange Brew Coffeehouse displays short expressions or idioms. Most are congratulatory or generally funny. Others poke fun at a visiting opponent for a Mississippi State sports team. Come next week, that all will change. Due to an ordinance first approved more than a decade ago, signs such as the notorious one at Strange Brew will no longer be positioned high in the air, with all pole signs in the city having to be removed by a May 5 deadline. The only signs that will be allowed on Highway 12, as well as other parts of the city like Highway 182, will be monument signs -- ground signs supported totally by a solid base of masonry, brick or other material that can only be eight feet tall. Although owner Strange Brew Shane Reed has voiced adamant disapproval to aldermen and on social media for removing his sign to the Starkville Board of Aldermen, the board voted in October that the ordinance will have no exceptions. The city passed the ordinance in 2011, setting a May 5, 2022, deadline for compliance. Other business owners are trying to make the best of the new rule. Dave Hood, owner of Dave's Dark Horse Tavern on Highway 182, said his sign will be taken down next month. Hood previously expressed his concern about the ordinance's rules to the board in December, saying he would have to share his allowed monument sign with next-door business Red Roof Inn, but he told The Dispatch on Monday he believes the ordinance will ultimately beautify the city. |
| 'You have destroyed a family': Man arrested after ATV wreck leaves girl dead, brothers injured | |
| An Oktibbeha County wreck involving an ATV left one child dead, two other children injured, and a 44-year-old man behind bars. According to a news release from the Oktibbeha County Sheriff's Office, the fatal wreck happened Saturday evening, April 23, on Williams Road. There, deputies found three children. All three had been riding the ATV. Medics airlifted one child to the hospital and another child suffered only minor injuries. The third child was pronounced dead at the scene. Oktibbeha County Coroner Michael Hunt confirmed the child's name as Paisley "Gabby" Frazier, 9. According to the sheriff's office, the ATV was struck from behind. Officers arrested Willis Miller, 44, of Starkville, on two counts of aggravated DUI. "God. He gave her to us, but I didn't expect it to happen like this," her grandmother Jannie Thompson said. Thompson said she hopes no one suffers the pain she and her family feel. She also pleads with everyone to stay off the roads when drunk. "You have destroyed a family," she directed at Miller. "You've destroyed a community. You've destroyed a village. You have done so much damage because you chose to make bad choices, to drink and to drive, and to take away the life of a 9-year-old that had so much promise." The other two victims, her brothers, are both going to be okay. The 1-year-old brother was released from the hospital and the 13-year-old brother remains in a Jackson hospital in stable condition. |
| Governor Reeves line-item vetoes $50 million earmark for UMMC | |
 | Late Tuesday, Governor Tate Reeves announced via social media that he had partially vetoed Senate Bill 3010, an appropriation bill for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). Reeves did not veto the entire bill, choosing only to veto Section 24, lines 153-214 in SB 3010. In his message, Governor Reeves indicates that this UMMC line-item appropriation veto will be the first of a few to be rolled out in the days ahead. Tuesday's veto pertains to $50 million appropriated from the State Treasury to the credit of the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund for UMMC. The stated purpose was for the completion of capital improvements to the patient care facilities and operating suites of the Adult Hospital at the University of Mississippi Medical Center as allowable under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Governor Reeves took issue with the special earmark. "Today I vetoed a $50 million set aside in a special earmark for facility improvements in UMMC's adult hospital building. I think it's important to give clarity on why I did," Reeves wrote on Facebook. The Governor says that UMMC's teaching center is largely funded by the state, yet the hospital is not. With all the health care challenges in the state, Governor Reeves says he does not think that more building improvements are the best expenditure of $50 million of the people’s money. “That money would be better served in one of the programs that I recently signed to incentivize more training around the state for doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals,” the Governor writes. “After all, throughout COVID, we always had adequate bed capacity for patients. The central challenge was always the hospitals’ inability to properly staff the beds.” |
| Lawmakers and advocates question Governor's latest veto involving expungements and voting rights | |
| One of the Governor's latest vetoes is sparking questions about what the current law does or doesn't already allow. The right to vote, not everyone has it. Mississippi has 22 disenfranchising crimes that take that right away. But more than half of those are eligible to be expunged. And attorneys say no one's on the same page about what comes next. Paloma Wu says they've had people walk out of expungement clinics at the Mississippi Center for Justice when they realize there's a gray area on whether that expungement comes with the restoration of voting rights. "I mean, people want to know, it looks like from the statute, the way it's worded, I go back to the place I was before, before this crime that disenfranchise me, I could vote," said Paloma Wu, Mississippi Center for Justice Deputy Director of Impact Litigation. "So it looks like from the statute, I can vote, and all the cautious people are just looking to the lawyers or to the legislature and saying, is that right, am I good? Silence." Lawmakers were trying to fill that silence with Senate Bill 2536. "We came up with a bill that we think was essentially just clean up language that allowed those folks to get their right to vote back," described Sen. Jeremy England. "But in order to do so, number one, they couldn't have another felony or another disenfranchising crime on their record, they had to meet all the criteria to be an eligible voter in the state of Mississippi, and they had to re-register to vote. So there really wasn't an automatic process in my mind with this bill." Governor Tate Reeves did call it automatic in his tweet about the veto. He argued in his veto message that it's "not an attempt to "clarify" existing law, but rather an attempt to affect a significant and unwise change to Mississippi's voting laws." |
| Lawmakers spent public money on private schools. Does it violate the Mississippi Constitution? | |
| This past session the Mississippi Legislature gave $10 million to K-12 private schools even though the state constitution appears to be one of the few in the nation to prohibit the practice of providing public money to private schools. Mississippi is among the 37 states that have so-called "Blaine Amendment" constitutional provisions that ban the expenditure of public funds for private, religious schools. But Mississippi takes that provision a step further: its 1890 Constitution appears to prohibit the expenditure of public funds at any private school. "No religious or other sect or sects shall ever control any part of the school or other educational funds of this state; nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school," Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution reads. Despite the language, the Legislature in recent years has both appropriated funds to private schools and provided tax credits to those who contribute to private schools. During the recently completed session, the Legislature appropriated $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to private schools. The legislation created a debate in both the House and Senate with a bipartisan group of senators stopping the proposal until leadership was able to garner the votes to pass it. Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Chair John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, told his colleagues who were opposed to the public funds going to private schools that the private schools had been impacted by COVID-19 and needed help to improve their infrastructure with the federal funds. "We want to make sure they have some ability to improve their conditions," he said. |
| Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann meets with Coast officials | |
| Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann met with several Coast officials to discuss the 2022 legislative session. Hosemann says the most important topic discussed at the briefing was the American Rescue Plan Act. The state dedicated $750 million in ARPA funds to water and sewer infrastructure for cities, counties, and rural water associations. Cities and counties which received more than $1 million from the federal government can receive a 1 to 1 matching grant of state ARPA funds for water and sewer infrastructure. Cities who received less than one million are eligible for a two to one match from the state. Overall, this year's legislative session was the largest Hosemann has ever seen. "We did everything from medical marijuana to equal pay from teacher pay raise to infrastructure. I mean you can't think of just about anything the Legislature didn't address this year. There has never been a year like there was this year." |
| Mother, son plead guilty in Mississippi welfare misspending | |
 | A mother and son who ran a nonprofit group and an education company in Mississippi pleaded guilty Tuesday to state charges of misusing public money that was intended to help some of the poorest people in the nation. Nancy New and Zachary New acknowledged spending welfare grant money on lavish gifts that included first-class airfare for John Davis, executive director of the state Department of Human Services from 2016 to 2019. Nancy New, 69, and Zachary New, 39, agreed to testify against others in what the state auditor has called Mississippi's largest public corruption case in the past two decades. Davis is among those facing state charges. Federal and state prosecutors said after Tuesday's court session that they have not ruled out bringing charges against other people, but two state judges have issued orders prohibiting those involved in the cases from discussing them publicly. "We will not tolerate the powerful preying on the weak," Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens said. Auditor Shad White said his office continues to work with federal and state prosecutors. "We will provide anything that they need, we will get anything that they need as they make decisions about how this case goes forward," White said. |
| Blue Cross is sitting on a huge pile of money. In some states, consumers would get it back. | |
| As the stalemate between the state's largest hospital and its largest insurer drags on, some of the most gravely ill Mississippians are reaping the consequences, forced to delay needed care, travel out of state and leave doctors with whom they've built relationships over years. Blue Cross of Mississippi is refusing to pay UMMC more for its services. Meanwhile, the for-profit mutual insurance company is sitting on an enormous reserve of money, a Mississippi Today investigation shows, hiding its top leaders' compensation amounts and transferring its members' power to longstanding company executives. Most policyholders caught in the middle of the insurer's dispute with UMMC are unaware that they have signed away their right to participate in the board's decisions and are surprised to learn that Blue Cross holds a surplus of hundreds of millions of dollars. Financial records show the company has accumulated far more than what regulators require to protect consumers, and perhaps the largest such surplus by percentage of any Blue Cross company in the country. The value of the company's surplus stands at about $750 million, about eight times the level that would trigger regulators to take action and about four times the level Blue Cross sets as the floor for companies with its trademark. "That is extraordinarily high for a company of that size," said Brendan Bridgeland, an attorney and director of the Boston-based Center for Insurance Research, which advocates on behalf of insurance consumers. "It seems like (policyholders) are probably paying more than they should for their health insurance." |
| Kay Ivey Races to the Right in Alabama | |
 | Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama was never a moderate Republican. But in 2018, when she ran for her first full term, she artfully dipped into conservative talking points in a mild manner. Four years later, as she runs for re-election, she's again airing ads with music suitable for 1990s family sitcoms. The message, however, is far different. In one ad, Ivey claims that "the left teaches kids to hate America." Later, she boasts that she ended "transgender sports" in Alabama schools. In another ad, she falsely accuses President Biden of "shipping illegal immigrants" into the country, warning that "we're all going to have to learn Spanish." Facing pressure from her right, Ivey has shed her image as a traditional salt-of-the-earth Alabama conservative -- leading the charge on restrictive abortion laws and protecting Confederate monuments -- and transformed into a Trump-era culture warrior. Her election-year shift demonstrates how even in the Deep South, Republicans whose loyalty to the party is unquestioned are tilting to the right and making red states even redder. "Politics is about doing what people like. Statesmanship is about doing what's right," said Mike Ball, a longtime Republican state representative who is retiring. "But before you get to be a statesman, you have to be a politician." "I do think this campaign has moved her rhetoric too far -- or a long way -- to the right," he added, though he still believes that Ivey is the best choice in the May 24 primary, which will head to a runoff if no one receives more than 50 percent of the vote. |
| Russia Stops Gas Flow to Poland, Bulgaria, Deepening Economic Conflict With Europe | |
 | Russia said it halted gas flows to Poland and Bulgaria over their refusal to pay on Moscow's new terms, a major escalation in its standoff with Europe over the war in Ukraine. European officials denounced the move, which threatens the continent's energy supply, as blackmail by Russia. European officials and analysts see Moscow's move as a way to exert further pressure on Europe, which, before the war in Ukraine, sourced some 40% of its gas from Russia. With the demand to be paid in rubles, the Kremlin also seeks to bolster its beleaguered currency and force Europe to stay engaged with its domestic banking system, which has otherwise been cut off from much of the world by Western sanctions. Analysts at energy consulting firm Rystad said that "Russia has fired the first shot back at the West," wielding energy as a weapon. In a possible foreshadowing of how the gas situation could escalate, Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said Wednesday that Moscow should expand the measures against other unfriendly countries. In the event of a full shutdown of Russian gas flows, European countries such as Germany would need to ration energy and close factories, according to analysts. The country's leading economic think tank said in a group report earlier in April that Germany would enter a sharp recession if Russian natural-gas deliveries are cut off. |
| The pope may pray for Putin -- but he's clinging to neutrality on Ukraine | |
| When Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council just weeks after the Kremlin rolled tanks into Ukraine, around 140 diplomats walked out. One of the few that stayed: The envoy from the Holy See. The Holy See's decision typified what some in the West see as an exasperating tendency by the neutral sovereign entity to sit on the fence rather than naming and shaming Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has used the powerful Russian Orthodox Church's imprimatur to help legitimize his brutal, revanchist war in Ukraine. Across several intergovernmental organizations, the sovereign territory has repeatedly abstained on votes condemning Russia's aggression, even before the invasion of Ukraine. Instead, Pope Francis has chosen to deplore the war with vivid but non-specific rhetoric. He branded it a "sacrilegious war" and referred to a "potentate caught up in anachronistic claims of national interest." But he has avoided naming Vladimir Putin and Russia. Nor has he mentioned the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a key backer of Putin who has sanctioned the invasion as a "holy war." And notably, Francis has opposed sending arms to Ukraine, saying a rearming will drive a new "balance of terror." For Francis, the dilemma is whether to use his moral standing to explicitly denounce Russia or hold back in the hope of creating space for mediation. One possible constructive role, for instance, might be to engage the Russian Orthodox Church on conflict resolution options. The church's motivations, often rooted in faith and not politics, can be hard for the secular world to understand. "A pope always hopes that any individual will experience personal conversion," said Victor Gaetan, author of "God's Diplomats, Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy, and America's Armageddon." But while he may be measuring his words in public, Francis is not sitting idle. He is tapping diplomatic channels behind the scenes. |
| College graduations around the Pine Belt: What to know about the ceremonies | |
 | Colleges and universities in the Pine Belt area will honor graduates with in-person graduation ceremonies. University of Southern Mississippi, William Carey University, Jones College and Pearl River Community College plan to host ceremonies. The University of Southern Mississippi has campuses in Hattiesburg and Long Beach, as well as several locations on the Gulf Coast for marine science. Four graduation ceremonies will celebrate the class of 2022. Here is the schedule for commencement ceremonies: Graduate commencement: May 12, 6 p.m., Bernard Reed Green Coliseum on campus, 112 M.K. Turk Circle, Hattiesburg. Undergraduate commencement for all schools except the College of Arts and Sciences: May 13, 9 a.m., Bernard Reed Green Coliseum on campus, 112 M.K. Turk Circle, Hattiesburg. College of Arts and Sciences undergraduate commencement: May 13, 2 p.m., Bernard Reed Green Coliseum on campus, 112 M.K. Turk Circle, Hattiesburg. Coast-based undergraduate and graduate commencement: May 14, 3 p.m., Mississippi Coast Coliseum, 2350 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. There will be no commencement speakers, a university spokesperson said. Tickets are required to attend, and they will be distributed through the gradates. |
| USM graduate students earn Mississippi Professional Educators Scholarships | |
 | Two University of Southern Mississippi doctoral candidates, Jennifer Cottrell and Jana Chao, have been awarded $1,000 graduate scholarships from the Mississippi Professional Educators. Jennifer Cottrell is an academic success advisor and peer tutor at USM. A resident of Lumberton, Miss., Cottrell earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Special Education at USM and her Master of Education degree in Curriculum and Instruction in Autism Spectrum Disorder from Arizona State University. A member of MPE since 2008, she is currently pursuing a doctorate in Special Education at USM. Chao is a computer science teacher at Eastside Elementary in Clinton, Miss. A National Board Certified Teacher and Clinton resident, Chao earned her Bachelor of Science degree from William Carey University and her Master's degree from Delta State University. A member of MPE since 2020, she is currently pursuing a doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of Southern Mississippi. MPE awards up to 20 scholarships every year in the amount of $1,000 each to MPE members who wish to pursue graduate-level studies at a college or university in Mississippi. |
| TVA's robot dog gives Golden Triangle students a look at the future of robotics and engineering | |
 | Tuesday morning, the Tennessee Valley Authority put on a demonstration featuring one of its new Boston Dynamics robot dogs for students at East Mississippi Community College. EMCC joined Heritage Academy and Caledonia as the latest school to get a visit from "Spot." Spot is one of the six state-of-the-art robot dogs TVA bought in 2021. TVA says the goal of these demonstrations is to inspire the next generation of mechanical engineers and computer scientists by giving students an up-close look at the latest in robotics and machine learning. "It's always been that, 'Gasp,' says Cody Smith, the data specialist trained to operate Spot. "You always hear that shock and awe (when they bring the robot out)." Equipped with artificial intelligence, a thermal imaging camera and a LIDAR system, Spot can travel a predetermined route on his own, navigating around obstacles, even going up and down stairs. "We could have Spot sit at the plant and then someone wakes him up, he goes and looks, he does the inspection and then no one has to go to the plant unless there's a problem," Smith says, describing one of the uses for the robot. But the robot's primary job is to operate in hazardous environments. TVA says it is still at the testing and evaluation stage with the robot dogs and hasn't been able to put them in daily use yet. In the meantime, the robots are being used to inspire students and get them interested in fields like technology, robotics and engineering. |
| Writer, reporter, mentor: Student endowment named for late columnist Cecil Hurt | |
 | His words helped a generation of University of Alabama and sports fans alike understand, process or cope with the drama that unfolded in the field. Now, his legacy will assist scores of future sports journalists in helping their audiences do the same. The Cecil Hurt Endowed Support Fund for Excellence in Sports Media, established by friends and family of the late sports columnist, will prioritize support for UA students and initiatives related to the sports media field. Having already raised more than $15,000 since Hurt, who for The Tuscaloosa News from 1982 until his death in November at age 62, those who helped establish the fund said they hope that it will not only carry on the memory of Hurt, but that it will make a difference in the lives of students who choose to pursue a career path similar to Hurt's. Among those students who benefitted from Hurt's knowledge and patience was Hannah Saad, who in 2019 was on staff of The Crimson White, the University of Alabama's student-run news publication, and a student in UA's College of Communication & Information Sciences. In a bustling ballroom-turned-media center in the lead up to the Crimson Tide's national championship tilt against Clemson University, a game that ultimately saw then-No. 2 Clemson defeat top-ranked Alabama 44-16, Saad found herself sitting across a table from the Tuscaloosa-based legend. "Here we are in a room full of national personalities and national media outlets and here Cecil was, taking the time to talk one-on-one with a student journalist," Saad recalls. "He supported a lot of student journalists. It stuck with me that he took the time to talk with me, not only for journalism but also travel advice and even advice about taking care of dogs. In addition, the fund will bring visibility to Hurt's legacy through the establishment of an annual Cecil Hurt Award. This award will be given to an outstanding rising senior at UA whose studies are focused in the area of sports communication. |
| Requirement, dashboard increasing student aid applications | |
| Fifty-two percent of Alabama high school seniors have completed their Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a new requirement for graduation this year. That's an increase from 50% in all of 2021 and a number that will likely increase as students and schools get nudges from state education leaders, thanks in part to a new software system that can track applications by school and student and flag incomplete or incorrect information. The Alabama Commission on Higher Education's contract with technology company Oracle includes a dashboard where the public can track FAFSA rates by school. The dashboard allows ACHE or the Alabama State Department of Education to contact local schools with low application rates to see if they're having particular challenges or need additional help getting students to fill out FAFSA, ACHE Executive Director Jim Purcell said. He described the effort as a combination of technology and boots-on-the-ground career coaches. The Alabama State Board of Education in 2021 required graduating high school students to complete the FAFSA. At the time, policymakers said Alabama students were leaving more than $60 million per year in free aid on the table. Gov. Kay Ivey has set a goal of adding 500,000 credentialed workers to the workforce by 2025, which if accomplished would bring the level of work-age Alabamians with post high school training or degrees from about 43% in 2016 to 60%. Two-thirds of new jobs in the state require a bachelor's degree or higher, Purcell said. |
| After testing sewage, LSU team detects 'slight uptick' in COVID-19 in East Baton Rouge | |
 | After testing sewage samples, LSU researchers predict an uptick in COVID-19 cases over the next few weeks in East Baton Rouge. According to a team of LSU scientists led by virology professor Gus Kousoulas, the increase in COVID particles marks the first surge detected in Louisiana's capital in months. He said it comes after "almost zero detection in the city of Baton Rouge and zero genome particles of the virus" from February through early spring. Still, he added, the recent numbers are just a "murmur" compared to the surges that overwhelmed hospitals throughout the state in 2021. "Now we are seeing consistently more detection of the virus, from zero particles up to 30,000 particles," he said. "Which is still low compared to the million or two million particles we saw with the Delta surge last year or Omicron surge in January." As some of the final mask mandates drop in Baton Rouge, sewage testing remains the only large-scale method of its kind for tracking the spread of COVID-19 across the city-parish and on campus at LSU. Kousoulas, along with LSU environmental engineering professor John Pardue and others, launched the program in fall 2020 by testing wastewater from around East Baton Rouge at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine's GeneLab. |
| Who could be the next provost at U. of Kentucky? University names 4 candidates for the role | |
 | Candidates for the next provost at the University of Kentucky visited campus this week, hosting open forums with faculty, staff and students. Robert DiPaola, the dean of the College of Medicine and vice president of clinical academic affairs for UK HealthCare, has been the interim provost since July after former Provost David Blackwell stepped down from the position to pursue other job opportunities. The goal is to have a new provost in place by the start of the next school year, according to the provost search website. DiPaola is among the candidates being considered for the position, as well as three others with backgrounds in higher education leadership: Robert Blouin, Cynthia Young and Amy Dittmar. Blouin, the provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2017 to 2021, visited campus last Monday. Blouin stepped down as provost from UNC last year, and currently is the dean of the university's School of Pharmacy. Young is the founding dean of the College of Science at Clemson University, a role she has held since 2017. Dittmar is the senior vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs at the University of Michigan. |
| How U. of Missouri research is looking to make flu vaccines more effective | |
 | If Henry Wan's research succeeds, one day the flu vaccine you receive will be one designed specifically for you. Wan, a virologist at the University of Missouri, is the incoming director of the NextGen Center for Influenza and Emerging Infectious Diseases, scheduled to open later this year on Middlebush Farm, 10 miles south of the main campus. It will include space where extreme hot and cold temperatures can be replicated. "The virus behaves differently in different climates," Wan said. The facility at the new center will mimic the tropical and temperate climates where the flu virus replicates in nature, he said. Wan has appointments in the School of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Engineering at MU. Animal studies are part of Wan's research. "We want animals that mimic how humans transmit the flu and how humans respond to vaccines," Wan said. Pigs are the go-to animals for researchers on both counts, Wan said. A majority of infectious disease outbreaks in humans start in animals, he said. About 8% of the U.S. population gets sick from the flu each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The individualized flu vaccines are a long-term goal and will require more research. Keeping the flu vaccine affordable is important, he said. |
| U. of Missouri professors weigh in on Elon Musk's Twitter buyout | |
 | In roughly 15 years on Twitter, University of Missouri School of Journalism professor Damon Kiesow has blocked a few fellow users. Elon Musk is one of them. "I've got about 30,000 people blocked, so he's not special," Kiesow said. "If you annoy me on Twitter, I block you." With Musk's account blocked, Kiesow has missed the most recent tweets from the billionaire owner of Tesla: an inspirational phrase in Latin, a closer look at rocket engines built for SpaceX's Starship and several interpretations of the concept of free speech. On Monday, Musk struck a deal with Twitter to purchase the company for $44 billion. The company will go private after being on the New York Stock Exchange for nearly a decade. Longtime business journalist and MU professor Martha Steffens broke the deal down. In what's called a "tender offer," Musk sought to privatize the company by purchasing all its outstanding shares of stock. He then incentivized existing shareholders to relinquish their shares by purchasing them above market value. According to Monday's news release from Twitter, current shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash per share -- a purchasing premium of 38%. So, what does this mean exactly? Steffens said that because Twitter will no longer be responsible to shareholders for making a profit, Musk will have a lot of control. This is where his politics could come into play. |
| UC graduate assistants, others, protest for better pay | |
 | Teaching assistants, postdoctoral fellows and academic and student researchers from across the University of California system -- who total some 48,000, on 10 campuses -- staged a mass one-day protest Tuesday, urging administrators to view and treat them as essential academic workers. Each group of workers -- TAs, postdocs, academic researchers and, as of last year, research assistants -- is affiliated with the United Auto Workers, in different bargaining units governed by different union contracts. But as they're all currently in negotiations for their respective contracts and share issues of concern, they've asked the system for a coordinated bargaining table. (The student researchers are negotiating their first contract, following recognition by the system after their strike authorization vote in December.) The system hasn't yet granted the request for coordinated collective bargaining on common issues across workplaces, and that's part of what Tuesday's action was about. But the protests and rallies spanning UC's 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were also about amplifying key contract issues. Tuesday also saw developments in two other public-sector academic labor strikes. American Federation of Teachers–affiliated graduate assistants at the University of Illinois at Chicago ended their weeklong strike over stalled contract negotiations, saying they'd secured a significant pay increase, $2,000 in retroactive pay for the last year of negotiations, strike pay, support for survivors of abuse and more. At Indiana University at Bloomington, where graduate assistants have been on strike for two weeks for both union recognition and collective bargaining powers, there was an emergency faculty town hall. Dozens of faculty members signed a petition calling on the Bloomington Faculty Council to hold a special meeting, in part to discuss a possible vote of no confidence in the provost, Rahul Shrivastav. |
| Harvard hopes to 'make amends' for extensive ties to slavery | |
| Harvard is acknowledging its "extensive entanglements with slavery" since its founding almost 400 years ago, and beginning work toward making amends. The world's wealthiest private university will commit $100 million to various forms of redress after a faculty report found that "much remains to be done" to atone for that history. The committee's 132-page report recommends sharing educational programming with Black and indigenous communities and institutions, as well as potential "reparative efforts" among direct descendants of enslaved people who worked on the university's campus or for its ultimate benefit. In a letter and video message, Lawrence Bacow, Harvard's president since 2018, said those recommendations are "a helpful set of guideposts," but concrete decisions will be made by a committee led by Martha Minow, a professor at Harvard Law School and its former dean. The committee is charged with beginning the process of "moving from recommendations to action." Between 1636 and 1783, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, the report counts at least 70 Black and indigenous people enslaved directly in the service of Harvard presidents and fellows. And in the decades that followed, the authors find, Harvard accepted large gifts from at least eight slave owners in support of its medical and law schools. |
| Dozens More Colleges Can Now Enroll Incarcerated Students With Pell Grants | |
 | The Department of Education on Tuesday made more than 70 institutions newly eligible to participate in its Second Chance Pell Experiment in an effort to make a college education more accessible to incarcerated people. This marks the third round of the Second Chance Pell Experiment, an initiative first launched in 2015 by the Obama-Biden administration to expand Pell Grant access for incarcerated students. There are now 200 institutions approved to participate in the experiment, broadening it to almost all 50 states, ahead of the broader reinstatement of Pell Grant access for incarcerated students starting July 1, 2023. The department hopes this expansion will allow for opportunities "to study the best practices" for implementing next year's reinstatement and "allow for a wider variety of postsecondary education programs that serve a more diverse population," according to a news release. The selected public two- and four-year institutions may begin accessing Pell Grant funds as early as July 1 of this year. Out of the 73 institutions that were added to the Second Chance Pell Experiment, 24 are historically Black institutions and minority-serving institutions. That's intentional, says Margaret diZerega, director of the Unlocking Potential Initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, which has been working closely with the Education Department since it launched this program. The U.S. prison population is disproportionately people of color. |
| Biden tells Congressional Hispanic Caucus he's looking at forgiving some federal student loan debt | |
 | President Biden is looking at different options to forgive an unspecified but substantial amount of federal student loan debt -- a move that would thrill some of his most loyal supporters and financially strapped students nationwide, but is a departure from campaign pledges to provide limited relief. The president shared his plans during a 90-minute White House meeting Monday with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, participants in the exchange tell CBS News. The move could affect more than 43 million borrowers who hold more than $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt, the second-largest debt held by Americans, behind mortgages. Rep. Tony Cardenas, Democrat of California, who attended the meeting, said the president is open to forgiving debt for college students regardless of whether they attended a public or private institution. "The president never mentioned an amount nor did the president say that he was going to wipe out all student debt," Cardenas said. "He did a dialogue with us about the differential between young people who went to public schools or private schools and we CHC members said he should focus on both. And he said, 'Okay, good to know.'" Cardenas said he reiterated to Mr. Biden that the Hispanic Caucus supports executive action that would forgive at least $10,000 in college debt if Congress can't pass legislation doing so. In response, Cardenas said the president "smiled and said, 'You're going to like what I do on that, I'm looking to do something on that and I think you're going to like what I do.'" |
| Travel log: Hiking the Jesus Trail | |
| Mississippi newspaper publisher and columnist Wyatt Emmerich writes: We got into Tel Aviv about 11 p.m. after skirting the eastern border of Ukraine. Normally our flight from Helsinki would have gone directly over Ukraine but the airspace is closed. The plane got as close as 50 miles or so. It was a good thing we got in late because Israel requires in-coming visitors to go directly to a PRC testing center and then quarantine at their hotel for 24 hours or until the test results come in, whichever is shorter. Bear in mind, we already had to get a PRC test 72 hours before departure. Talk about overkill. ... It's kinda nuts what you have to do to travel internationally these days. Security, passport check, luggage, Covid test, more security, more forms, another passport test. It just goes on and on and on. We must have displayed our passports 25 times before finally walking out the doors and hailing a cab. ... The next morning was mild and clear and we headed out with our backpacks and walked along the Tel Aviv beach on the south coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The water was fairly clear and the sand was tan colored with a fair number of submerged rocks in the surf. ... We walked about seven or eight miles and had a nice Mediterranean lunch at an outdoor cafe before catching the bus to Nazareth. |
| Journal of Mississippi History chronicles path to changing state flag | |
 | Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: In any given publication since 1939, The Journal of Mississippi History has been an invaluable record of the institutional memory of the state of Mississippi. But few editions of the scholarly journal have been more valuable to Mississippians than is the current Vol. 84, No. 1 and No. 2 for the Spring and Summer of 2022. The current edition chronicles the strange, often torturous path of the Mississippi Legislature to changing Mississippi's state flag in 2020 and the strong roles played by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History -- the Journal's publisher -- and the broader Mississippi Historical Society (organized in 1858) played in bringing that monumental change to fruition. ... The combination of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, the aftermath of the 2015 Dylann Roof massacre in South Carolina, the support of business and industrial groups, and increasing impatience by the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference with playing games in states with flags reflecting Confederate symbolisms -- along with the express support of the state's most influential religious groups -- paved the way for political success on the issue that had been unlikely only months prior to the legislative votes being taken. Author Jere Nash aptly and fairly tells the story of that political process. |
SPORTS
| Bulldogs Host Southern Miss For Final Midweek | |
| Mississippi State is set to play its final midweek contest on Wednesday, April 27 when the Bulldogs welcome in-state foe Southern Miss to Nusz Park. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. CT and the game will be available on SEC Network+. Two of the last three meetings between the teams have gone to extra innings, and the Bulldogs (29-19, 8-10 SEC) dropped a meeting in Hattiesburg earlier this season. However, State is 9-6 this year when facing teams for the second time, including a recent 4-2 ledger in conference play. Southern Miss (27-18, 7-11 C-USA) lost two of three to UTSA in conference action last weekend and needed to erase an eight-run deficit in the game the Golden Eagles won. They have gone 7-3 since meeting the Bulldogs earlier this month. Admission to all MSU games at Nusz Park is always free. Wednesday is Jeopardy! Night at the ballpark, and fans will be able to compete for prizes by answering questions from the show in between innings. Mississippi State will travel to No. 11 Kentucky for its penultimate SEC series this weekend. Friday and Sunday's games will air on SEC Network+ at 5 p.m. and noon CT, respectively. The Saturday game in Lexington is set to air nationally on SEC Network at 2 p.m. CT. |
| 'I'm a Bulldog for life': Mississippi State basketball's Tolu Smith returning next season | |
| Chris Jans has been Mississippi State's head coach for about a month. As has become routine for new head coaches in college athletics, that month has been spent with a flood of players departing for the transfer portal. But Jans got good news Tuesday afternoon. Tolu Smith is returning next season, the MSU forward announced on social media. "I want to be known as one of the greatest to ever come through the program that I'm loyal to," Smith wrote. "I'm a Bulldog for life." Smith averaged 14.2 points and 6.5 rebounds for the Bulldogs in an injury-riddled season. He appeared in 21 games with a delayed start due to an offseason foot injury. He then tested positive for COVID-19 early in SEC play before suffering a knee injury in late January. "I feel like facing these obstacles has built me into being the man that I am today," Smith wrote. Smith is one of three scholarship players (Cameron Matthews, KeShawn Murphy) from last season's roster still on the team. Eight Bulldogs have entered the transfer portal since Ben Howland was fired from the helm. Iverson Molinar announced Monday he was signing an agent for the NBA Draft and not returning to Mississippi State. Garrison Brooks is out of eligibility. But it's apparent Jans said the right things to get Smith to stay. "Coach Jans and I hit it off from the start," Smith wrote. "He's gritty, and he's eager to coach our team. I love the passion and the drive he has because I feel like I have that same passion and drive. I'm excited to see what he brings to our program." |
| What we learned about Mississippi State after spring football, from Will Rogers to kickers | |
| It's hard to overstate what a full spring season meant for Mike Leach heading into his second season as coach of Mississippi State football. He was hired in 2020 just a couple months prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. He was forced to teach a new team how to run the Air Raid, a repetition-based offense, without an offseason. The season that followed was an ugly 4-7 campaign. Last season, MSU got to show what time and practice meant for this coaching staff's system. Mississippi State took significant strides in all phases besides special teams and finished with a 7-6 record along with four SEC wins. Another spring is in the books for Leach following the Bulldogs final practice and scrimmage Tuesday. Expectations are high for Will Rogers. Leach repeatedly reminded those who criticized Will Rogers last season of the quarterback's youth. When Rogers took the field in a mid-October loss against Alabama, he was a game shy of a full season's worth of career starts. Leach noted that in his push for patience, and it showed in the latter half of the season. Rogers wound up breaking numerous Mississippi State single-season passing records and built a name for himself. There will be few excuses in place for Rogers heading into the 2022 season, and he knows it. "The pressure can build up sometimes, but I try not to hear the outside noise," Rogers said. "Coach Leach says all the time to ignore the noise. That's gonna be my goal for this season, probably just to shut off social media. I don't wanna see the good, the bad. I don't wanna see any of it." |
| Where Mississippi State's prospects could land in NFL Draft | |
| The spotlight is shining at its brightest on Thursday in Las Vegas as the football world turns its attention to the NFL Draft. For Mississippi State, a trio of players are draft hopefuls -- highlighted by left offensive tackle Charles Cross who could be off the board in the first 10 picks. Cross, of Laurel, is hoping to become the first Bulldog taken in the opening round since Johnathan Abram, Jeffery Simmons and Montez Sweat were selected in 2019. If he goes in the first 10 picks, Cross would become the first Bulldog to do so since running back Michael Haddix went to Philadelphia with the eighth pick in 1983. Behind Cross, cornerback Martin Emerson and receiver Makai Polk are hoping to hear their names called. Mock drafts, as they tend to do, fluctuated regarding Cross' landing spot, but longtime New Orleans-based draft analyst and WWL radio host Mike Detillier believes strongly in Cross as a very early pick. "He will go anywhere from the fourth overall pick to the eighth overall pick. He won't get to 10," Detillier said. ESPN's Todd McShay had Cross going at No. 13 to the Houston Texas in an April 19 mock draft. CBS Sports, in a consensus mock draft, had Cross in the same spot. The Texans are in desperate need of protection for young quarterback Davis Mills. If he is going to be the franchise's quarterback moving forward without Deshaun Watson, Mills needs better help at left tackle. Cross -- at 6-5, 307 pounds with a sub-five 40-yard dash -- would be a smart move. |
| Improvements planned for museum | |
| The front entrance and lobby of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in Jackson could see improvements funded by $3.5 million from the Legislature. On the drawing board is a redesign of the front lobby so the ticket booth and gift shop are more prominent and enhancements to the exterior of the front entrance, said Bill Blackwell, executive director of the museum that is located at 1152 Lakeland Drive. Some areas of the building that have not been updated since it opened in 1996 would receive new carpet and a coat of paint and the restrooms would undergo renovations, he said. Wier Boerner Allin Architecture is involved in the plans, Blackwell said. The Legislature allocated $2.5 million during the 2022 session for the museum that celebrates Mississippi's world-class athletes and another $1 million as part of a bond bill in 2020, which will provide a total of $3.5 million for the upgrades. The state Department of Finance and Administration will oversee the funds and improvements, Blackwell said. "It all has to be approved by DFA," he said. |
| Missouri baseball falls apart in final inning against Missouri State | |
| Missouri baseball shut out Missouri State for 8⅔ innings but gave up three runs in the bottom of the ninth to lose 3-2 on Tuesday in Springfield. The Tigers shut down the Bears for a majority of the game as their bullpen was rolling. Missouri State had two hits going into the final inning but managed three singles -- two with two outs -- to walk off Missouri. The Tigers (22-16, 5-13 SEC) danced with trouble all game long. In the first four innings they let the Bears (18-18, 3-6 Missouri Valley) load the bases twice, mainly off walks. Missouri avoided giving up runs thanks to a double play and a nearly perfect relief appearance from Carter Rustad. That all went to waste in the ninth. At the start of the ninth, the Tigers led thanks to a two-run homer that Torin Montgomery unleashed in the sixth inning. His fourth home run represented the only offense that a recently dormant Missouri could muster. It gave MU's pitchers a thin margin of error, and eventually, the free passes caught up. Missouri coach Steve Bieser has stressed that he wants to keep as many players as possible fresh throughout the season and typically uses midweek games to do so. He used that approach Tuesday using six different pitchers. It was one too few. |
| NCAA President Mark Emmert stepping down no later than 2023 | |
| NCAA President Mark Emmert is stepping down after 12 tumultuous years leading an association that has become increasingly marginalized while college sports has undergone massive changes and been besieged by political and legal attacks. NCAA Board of Governors Chairman John DeGioia announced the move Tuesday and said it was by mutual agreement. The 69-year-old Emmert will continue to serve in his role until a new president is in place or until June 30, 2023. The move is not entirely a surprise. The NCAA remains the biggest governing body in college athletics, but it is has been under sharp criticism for years as too heavy handed and even out of date with Emmert serving as the prime target. Emmert has guided the NCAA through the most transformative period in the history of the more than 100-year-old organization. During the past decade, athletes have gained more power, benefits and ability to earn money than ever before. Amateurism has been redefined. The announcement comes one year after the board approved a contract extension for Emmert that ran through the 2025, a move that left many in college sports bewildered. Emmert's salary was nearly $3 million in 2021. The NCAA has suffered a series of damaging court losses in the past decade that peaked with last year's 9-0 Supreme Court ruling against the association in an antitrust case. The decision undercut the NCAA's ability to govern college sports and prompted a total overhaul how it operates. |
| NCAA president Mark Emmert steps down -- what comes next? | |
| Mark Emmert's 12-year tenure as the head of the NCAA is coming to a close. Emmert and the NCAA's Board of Governors announced Tuesday that he will be stepping down from his role as president by June 2023, or sooner if his replacement is found before then. Emmert, 69, has spent the entirety of his career in higher education and oversaw a period of dramatic change for college sports during his time with the NCAA. Revenue for the national office and the country's most powerful athletic departments exploded during Emmert's decade in charge. At a far slower pace, the foundational principle of amateurism shrank, eroded largely by legal battles and changing public sentiment. The power of his position seemingly eroded as well during a tenure that ended with criticism for the national office's inability to modernize its outdated rules and its inability to effectively enforce the rules it did have. The degree to which Emmert himself is responsible for any of these changes is open to debate, but the bigger questions about Emmert's time in charge of college sports are about the future. In what shape did he leave the office he's now vacating? And what type of organization will his replacement be asked to lead? NCAA board members are now faced with the unenviable task of conducting a job search without much of a job description to share with their candidates. |
| Coach retirements, NIL create new college basketball world | |
| It wasn't hard to spot Roy Williams during his first year of retirement. He visited arenas across the country for games, including every step of North Carolina's wild ride to the NCAA championship game against Kansas, a matchup of two programs he once coached. But he was cheering from ticketed seats instead of the sideline, a still-strange sight that helps illustrate the massive changes hitting men's college basketball. Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and Jay Wright at Villanova have joined Williams in retirement in roughly 13 months, three Hall of Famers with 10 national championships and more than a century of coaching wisdom now out of the game. Players can now make endorsement deals for money and the transfer portal seemingly hums all the time now, adding more layers for coaches to manage in an already unrelenting 24/7 job. Soon it will be up to the next generation of coaches -- many of them former players – to steer a new game forward through the chaos. "I don't think we should say, 'Woe is me, college basketball' because the three of us left," Williams said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There are some great young coaches out there that are going to adapt to all these changes. They're going to adapt to the different landscape. Everybody's going to have to." There are still members of that old guard. There's 77-year-old Jim Boeheim preparing for his 47th year at Syracuse, while Hall of Famers like Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Kansas' Bill Self and Kentucky's John Calipari all have national titles as well. But those ranks are sure to contract in the coming years. |
| U.S. Is Investigating Whether This University's Athletic Cuts Harmed Black Students | |
| The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil-rights investigation into whether Central Michigan University discriminated against Black students by cutting the men's track-and-field team and planning to replace it with a golf team. While the inquiry had yet to be posted on the department's list of open cases as of Tuesday, a Central Michigan spokeswoman confirmed that officials received a letter from the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, notifying the university of the investigation on Monday. Russell Dinkins, executive director of the Tracksmith Foundation, a group that aims to increase participation in track and field, said he filed the complaint against the university in October because he believes its actions were racially discriminatory. Eliminating track and field and replacing it with golf -- a predominantly white sport -- eliminates opportunities for Black men in college athletics, Dinkins said. Central Michigan is one of several universities that have announced plans to cut their men's track-and-field teams over the past couple of years, because of both financial shortfalls and concerns about compliance with Title IX, the federal gender-equity law. Brown and Clemson Universities, the College of William & Mary, and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities also cut their programs, but the Brown, Clemson, and William & Mary teams were later reinstated following public fallout. Dinkins said that Central Michigan officials haven't shown interest in bringing the program back -- despite calls from alumni, former athletes, and parents. |
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