| Tuesday, May 17, 2022 |
| Mississippi State holds camp teaching children and adults with special needs how to ride a bike | |
 | Monday was the first day of Mississippi State's annual iCanBike Camp, which teaches children and adults with special needs how to ride a bicycle on their own. The camp returns for its third year at the Sanderson Recreation Center after a break due to COVID-19. "When you learn to ride when you're five or six, it's so huge," says Dr. Gregg Twietmeyer of Mississippi State's Department of Kinesiology. "It's the first real step of independence out in the world. We think we can ride to the 7-Eleven and get a Slurpee." But it's a privilege not everyone has, especially for those growing up with special needs. "Stats from the University of Michigan show 80% of (the special needs) population will never learn how to ride without this kind of intervention," he says. That's why Dr. Twietmeyer partnered with the nonprofit charity I Can Shine to hold the iCanBike Camp. Led by MSU grad students and featuring about 20 MSU undergrad volunteers, the 2022 camp has 10 riders attending. "The idea was to teach the kids that when you teach somebody to ride, or somebody to play, or throw or jump or kick or swim, you're affecting the whole person," he says. "It's not just about their body. It's about their whole selves." "It's like anything in life," Dr. Twietmeyer says. "Sometimes you think, 'That's just not going to be me.' And then you have an intervention like this and you realize, 'Yeah, I can do this. I just needed a little help.'" |
| Khmaladze named outstanding grad at MSU-Meridian | |
 | For many in Mississippi and around the world, COVID-19 brought heartbreak and loss. For one Mississippi State-Meridian graduate student, however, the pandemic brought an opportunity for growth and personal achievement. Grounded from traveling due to COVID restrictions, Mariam Khmaladze, a native of the Republic of Georgia, spent her spare time knocking out two important personal goals. The first was to return to school, so she enrolled as a Master of Business Administration student. "I had been thinking about going back to earn my MBA for a while and when the GMAT was waived at State because of the pandemic, I thought this would be the perfect time," she said. As a result of her hard work and dedication, Khmaladze recently was selected Outstanding Graduate Student for the Division of Business at the MSU-Meridian campus and was recognized at spring commencement last Thursday at the MSU Riley Center. Now a credit analyst II at Citizens National Bank, Khmaladze went to work at the financial institution after earning her undergraduate degree in business at MSU-Meridian where she also was recognized as 2018 Outstanding Undergraduate Student, as well as the recipient of the university's premier Spirit of State Award. "I honestly never thought I would end up in banking since all my work experience has been in retail and my minor was in marketing," she said. "But when I got the opportunity through connections I'd made at MSU-Meridian, I jumped on it." |
| School news: MSU's Robertson named season champ at debate group's national competition | |
 | Mississippi State's Speech and Debate Council members claimed five individual national titles from the recent International Public Debate Association National Championship in Abilene, Texas, and placed second nationally out of more than 100 teams, the highest finish in the program's history. In IPDA competition, debaters receive awards both for their performance at the championship tournament and for overall season-long performance. For the season, seven MSU debaters finished ranked in the top 10 nationally of their respective events, including five season-long national championships. This marks the third consecutive year that MSU's Mia Robertson, of Starkville, has been named a season-long national champion, claiming the varsity division title. Her past achievements include capturing the junior varsity division in 2020 and the varsity division in 2021. “Their coach Brett Harvey and I are extremely proud of the efforts of the students this year,” said Cheryl Chambers, council adviser and an instructor in MSU’s Department of Communication. “We went back and forth between online and in-person tournaments, which can be very stressful. The students put in so much extra time and energy beyond their studies to excel in this activity, yet they maintained the most mature and optimistic attitudes. We are fortunate to have such an excellent group of intelligent, dedicated and supportive young people.” |
| Monday Profile: Graham overcomes brain tumor, dedicates life of service | |
| Every Monday and Wednesday, 20-year-old Akeah Graham finds herself surrounded by children of all ages leading them in an afterschool program she created that focuses on the arts. After Graham clocks out at her shift as a certified nursing assistant at OCH Regional Medical Center, she heads over to Chandler Park apartments or Sand Hill apartments to inspire the youth through her nonprofit, I Love Me Ministry. "I really just want to help the kids," Graham said. "I want the kids to learn about the arts and what all they can do when it comes to their creativity. I want them to see the leaders and be inspired by us." Throughout her life, Graham has been recognized for her volunteer work with 4-H and other service organizations, and this year has been no exception. She was given an honorable mention by the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service for the 2022 Governor's Initiative for Volunteer Excellence award. "It's nice to be recognized for this, but everything I do is for the kids," Graham said. When Graham was just 13, she had to have brain surgery on a tumor that sat just below her eye and impacted her vision. The surgery has been one of the biggest driving forces in helping Graham decide her career path. For most of her life, Graham has been active in 4-H, and it's played a pivotal role in her becoming a leader today. |
| Engineering firm wants work session with MDEQ over dam | |
| County supervisors were hoping for a revised cost estimate from Mississippi Engineering Group on Monday for needed fixes to the Oktibbeha County Lake Dam. Instead, they got little more than another bill to pay. The board approved, by a 4-1 margin, paying MEG another $254,500 to continue design work to repair the dam, more than two months after supervisors gave the firm the go-ahead March 7 to proceed. The county has already paid MEG $215,437.83 for work related to the dam since July, according to county administrative records. MEG, the parent firm of Flowood-based Pickering Engineering, presented a report to supervisors in February estimating dam fixes at $15 million, nearly double what county engineer Clyde Pritchard told the county in 2020 a full replacement would cost. Supervisors have committed its $9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the project with hopes of obtaining a state match for the work, but they asked MEG in March to look for ways to lower that cost estimate. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Dam Safety Division has to approve the design before work can begin. On Monday, Bill McDonald, chief technical officer with Waggoner Engineering --- which is partnering with MEG on the dam project --- told supervisors the group has met only once with MDEQ since the March 7 vote and had not submitted any designs. In order for that work to proceed, he said, the county would need to amend its contract with MEG, and the group would then need to schedule a work session with the Dam Safety Division to hash out design details. |
| Man pleads guilty to misusing pandemic relief business loan | |
 | A Mississippi man pleaded guilty Monday to a federal wire fraud charge for misusing more than $6 million in business loans through a pandemic relief program, prosecutors said. Rather than use the money for his businesses, Christopher Paul Lick admitted using it for personal investments in the stock market and buying a home valued at more than $1 million, according to a news release from Clay Joyner, the U.S. attorney for northern Mississippi. Lick, 47, of Starkville, filed fraudulent loan applications to banks that were providing loans as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, according to court records. The records show Lick owned and managed four companies, including Aspen River Candle Co., based in Columbus, Mississippi. Joyner said Lick admitted overstating the number of employees and payroll expenses to receive money. Paycheck Protection Program loans were guaranteed by the Small Business Administration under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Lick entered the guilty plea on the day he had once been scheduled to go on trial. He faces up to 30 years in prison, with sentencing set for Aug. 12 before Senior U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson. |
| Mariah Carey tweets tribute to No. 1 fan, a Mississippi journalist who died unexpectedly | |
 | When a Mississippi-raised journalist left his job at the state newspaper in Jackson, his colleagues came together to wish him farewell in the most Dustin Barnes way -- with a cake themed after his icon, pop star Mariah Carey. "Saying Dustin loved Mariah is like saying the ocean is big," said Sam Hall, who was the executive editor at the Clarion Ledger in 2018 when Barnes worked there as the digital director. "He loved her with such an indescribable devotion. He was a super fan." Barnes, who went on to work at the Tennessean in Nashville before most recently becoming a trending editor for USA Today, became a fan in high school when he was going through a rough time, said longtime friend and former colleague Therese Apel. "He heard the song 'Hero' and it made him feel seen," Apel, a Mississippi journalist, told the Sun Herald. But Carey would never have the chance to meet him. Barnes died unexpectedly in his Tennessee home on Wednesday. He was recovering from a heart attack, according to his Facebook page. "It's like someone turned off the sun," Apel said Monday. She's been sharing her memories with Barnes on Facebook. And she isn't the only one. Dozens of tributes to the journalist have been posted to Facebook and Twitter. And Mariah Carey herself joined in. "After reading through the beautiful memories and anecdotes so many have shared about you, I wish I could have had my own conversations with you and experienced your effervescence for myself," she tweeted on Sunday. "Dustin, thank you for your love. I know you feel mine where you are." |
| Former U.S. Attorney: Jackson crime is due to 'no leadership' | |
 | Crime in Mississippi's capital city has been a hot topic for weeks following the shooting at the Mississippi Mudbug Festival at the state fairgrounds, resulting in the injury of five attendees and one death. Since then, numerous state and city officials have spoken out about how the homicide rate in Jackson has more than doubled within the past five years, announcing new funding and programs to bring safety to the downtown areas. During a Monday morning appearance on MidDays with Gerard Gibert, former U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst stated that he believes there is another source for the quickly climbing rate of casualties. "One of the things I've been preaching since I've been U.S. Attorney is one of the reasons we have this lawlessness in the city of Jackson is because we have no leadership," Hurst explained, specifically referring to Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. "When we had the murders at the Mudbug shooting, shootings by 15 and 16-year-olds at the Mudbug Festival, the mayor's response was that everything is safe." Just 48 hours after the shooting at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds, Lumumba held a press conference where he expressed that he believes the city is a safe place to live, a quote he now says has been taken out of context. Over the course of Lumumba's first four years in office, the homicide rate has nearly tripled, going from 35.63 per 100,000 residents in 2017 to 99.5 per 100,000 residents in 2021. "I can tell you that there is not a person in this city besides the mayor that thinks Jackson is safe," Hurst continued. |
| Mayor Lumumba blames state for Jackson's ongoing crime issues | |
| According to Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the state is to blame for the increasing crime numbers in Jackson. He says their lack of support and funding has left crime unaddressed and difficult to combat. "We've asked for millions upon millions of dollars, and the city of Jackson's Police Department has not received any of it," Mayor Lumumba said. Forty-nine homicides in the city of Jackson so far in 2022 leaves many wondering what is going to be done to prevent that number from growing. According to Mayor Lumumba, he's been trying to solve the problem for a while. "We are trying to combat that with every resource we have. We have a number of foundational things that we have to do in order to interrupt those cycles," Mayor Lumumba said. Mayor Lumumba claimed his administration has been asking for help from the state, only for them to say no to several items, including raises for police officers. Now, Mayor Lumumba said he's turning to places other than the state for financial help. "We went to the National League of Cities," said Mayor Lumumba. "The National League of Cities, who has no responsibility like the state does to our residents, has given us nearly a million dollars in order to stand up programming that interrupts the cycle amongst a demographic that we're seeing the greatest, the sharpest rise in violence in our community, and that's amongst some of our younger residents," Mayor Lumumba said. |
| AG Lynn Fitch cites abortion case backlash as reason to seal files related to her father's estate | |
| Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch is citing backlash she's received from her lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to reverse a national right to an abortion as reason to seal records dealing with the probate of the estate of her deceased father. Fitch, a first-term Republican attorney general, and her sister, Lisa Fitch Wavro, are challenging whether their father William O. Fitch, who died in September 2021, was of sound "mental capacity" when he terminated a prenuptial agreement he had with his wife, Aleita Fitch, who is the sisters' stepmother. Because of William Fitch's alleged mental state in January 2021, when the prenuptial was dissolved, the sisters contend they are "the only beneficiaries" of the estate. Fitch recently filed a motion in Marshall County Chancery Court asking the judge to seal "any and all financial-related information of the estate to protect the integrity of these proceedings from attention and media coverage that might hamper resolution of the estate." Fitch says that if her father's case remains public record, she would be subject to "harassment, abuse and even threats to personal safety" -- citing threats she has received as she argues that the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade. William Fitch was a successful north Mississippi businessman who played a significant role in financing his daughter’s first foray into politics, her successful campaign in 2011 for the office of treasurer. |
| How long can consumers keep spending in this economy? | |
| We get new numbers this morning on April retail sales. In March, they were up 0.5%. So far this year, strong retail sales have been driven by consumers who still seem willing to spend-it-up and also by inflation. Keep in mind -- the monthly retail sales figures incorporate the higher prices we've been paying -- for everything from cars to groceries to gasoline. But high inflation could start to put a dent in consumer spending. Consumers are being buffeted by strong and contrary economic winds, said Mark Cohen at Columbia Business School. "Wages are up, unemployment is down," he said. All good, but at the same time, "inflation is wildly up, and there's a tremendous amount of unease." "Sentiment really is turning pretty sour -- it has been for a while," said Kayla Bruun at polling firm Morning Consult. She said consumer surveys show rising financial anxiety about inflation, and a shift in behavior to respond. And rising prices may start to cut in to households' ability to keep up their spending, said Arun Sundaram at CFRA Research. |
| Hope Federal Credit Union CEO Bill Bynum named to Fed Reserve role in New Orleans | |
 | Jackson-based Hope Federal Credit Union CEO Bill Bynum has been appointed to the New Orleans Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He will fill an unexpired term ending Dec. 31, and then to an additional three-year term beginning, Jan. 1, 2023. He is a Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and previously chaired the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Advisory Board. Bynum is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bynum serves on the boards of the Aspen Institute, NAACP Legal and Education Defense Fund and is an advisor to Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and E Pluribus Unum. Hope Federal Credit Union is a Jackson-based credit union that specializes in lending and other financial services to underserved communities. Bynum was recently part of a group that welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris to Greenville as part of a visit to tout President Joe Biden's plan for investing in America's small businesses and communities. "We want to make sure to work with people like those in the Delta and make sure they are not limited by their race or their gender or where they happen to live," Bynum said while introducing Harris. Bynum actually started his business more than 25 years ago in a small space in the E.E. Bass building in Greenville where he introduced Harris. "We opened our first office to help small businesses to create jobs and give a lift to people who need it." |
| Restaurant bill backers battle deficit concerns, knowledge gap | |
 | A $48 billion aid package for restaurants and other pandemic-ravaged businesses the Senate is expected to take up this month faces steep hurdles, from Republicans concerned about lack of offsets to senators in both parties unaware of the measure. CQ Roll Call asked 14 senators about the bill late last week, and most were unfamiliar with the details, if they even knew the measure existed. Of those, eight were senators whose offices did not respond to requests for comment or provide a definitive stance on the measure when CQ Roll Call last month contacted 70 senators who supported at least one of a handful of stand-alone bills that were used as the basis for the new package. The other six were not previously contacted because they hadn't co-sponsored any of the stand-alone bills. "I have not heard a thing about it," Utah Republican Mitt Romney said, noting he'd take a look at the bill but that it's "highly unlikely" he would support it. Told the Senate could vote as soon as next week on a $48 billion small-business aid bill, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin III raised his eyebrows at the mention of the price tag in apparent shock. That underscores the massive education campaign the bill's authors, Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairman Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., have in front of them as they try to find 60 senators who will vote for the legislation, which is the minimum needed to overcome a likely GOP filibuster. But the bigger obstacle Cardin and Wicker face is finding enough Republicans to support $48 billion in new spending, only $5 billion of which is offset. |
| China Competitiveness Bill Faces Hurdles as Time Runs Short | |
 | Disagreements over legislation designed to boost U.S. competitiveness against China are clouding its prospects in Congress, as lawmakers enter a period of make-or-break negotiations. Many lawmakers say the sprawling, complex package -- which even includes a section on kitchen sinks -- remains likely to pass this year. But squabbles are emerging over proposed national-security reviews of outbound U.S. foreign investments; waivers of tariffs on Chinese imports; and curbs on the sale of counterfeit goods online, among other provisions. The flashpoints are worrying those who support the bill's central goal of boosting U.S. high-tech research and manufacturing to counter advancements by China and other commercial rivals. The legislation would expand federal investment in technologies such as quantum computing and dedicate $52 billion in new subsidies to rebuild semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., which has been eclipsed by Taiwan and other overseas competitors. "If they delay too much, America loses out," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo last week, referring to U.S. lawmakers. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said of the legislation: "How the U.S. intends to develop and strengthen its competitiveness is its own business, but we are firmly against the U.S. making an issue out of China and perceiving it as an imaginary enemy." The November elections are also looming, limiting time for lawmakers to hammer out a compromise between House and Senate versions as political pressures mount. Some Republicans are urging their colleagues to take their time. "Although I hope to see significant progress soon, we should not rush the conference process to meet arbitrary and politically motivated deadlines," said Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee. |
| Hyde-Smith encourages Miss. Ag producers to access new USDA relief program | |
 | U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) today encouraged commodity and specialty crop producers in Mississippi to learn more about a new U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency relief program for losses incurred in 2020 and 2021. The USDA on Monday announced it established a new Emergency Relief Program (ERP) within the Farm Service Agency (FSA) to begin the distribution of approximately $6.0 billion nationally to offset crop yield and value losses related to natural disasters. The USDA estimates Mississippi producers will receive $80 million in ERP payments. "I strongly encourage producers who experienced losses associated with natural disasters over the past two years, including excessive rain and flooding, to learn more about the new Emergency Relief Program," said Hyde-Smith, who serves on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. "Congress appropriated this funding to ensure farmers and their operations remain viable following catastrophic weather conditions." Of significance to Mississippi, Hyde-Smith pointed out that the USDA estimates its largest ERP payments for commodities like corn, soybeans, cotton, and rice. The debut of the ERP represents the first installment from the $10 billion in emergency relief funding appropriated last September for 2020 and 2021 crop production losses. The USDA will continue providing support to ranchers through the Emergency Livestock Relief Program announced in March, and will initiate Phase 2 for ERP at a later date. |
| Nearly 43,000 people died on US roads last year, agency says | |
| Nearly 43,000 people were killed on U.S. roads last year, the highest number in 16 years as Americans returned to the highways after the pandemic forced many to stay at home. The 10.5% jump over 2020 numbers was the largest percentage increase since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began its fatality data collection system in 1975. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said America faces a crisis on its roads. The safety administration urged state and local governments, drivers and safety advocates to join in an effort to reverse the rising death trend. Preliminary figures released Tuesday by the agency show that 42,915 people died in traffic crashes last year, up from 38,824 in 2020. Final figures will be released in the fall. Americans drove about 325 billion miles last year, 11.2% higher than in 2020, which contributed to the increase. Nearly 118 people died in U.S. traffic crashes every day last year, according to the agency's figures. The Governors Highway Safety Association, a group of state traffic safety officials, blamed the increase on dangerous behavior such as speeding, driving while impaired by alcohol and drugs, and distracted driving, as well as "roads designed for speed instead of safety." Fatalities involving at least one big truck were up 13%, while motorcycle deaths were up 9% and deaths of bicyclists rose 5%. |
| Biden-Bezos feud escalates | |
 | A simmering feud between President Biden and Jeff Bezos has spilled into the open after the Amazon founder went on the offensive to criticize the White House's approach to inflation and taxing wealthy corporations. Biden has frequently used Amazon as a foil as he pushes for higher taxes on the richest Americans and big companies to help fund his economic agenda, and he recently vocally backed unionization efforts at the company. But Bezos's tweets accusing the president of "misdirection" and of risking worse inflation with his economic proposals, and the White House's sharp response, marked an escalation in what has become an increasingly adversarial relationship. "It doesn't require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the President is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share," deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement. "It's also unsurprising that this tweet comes after the President met with labor organizers, including Amazon employees," Bates added. Bezos shot back on Monday afternoon, accusing the White House of trying to change the topic and again hitting its economic policy. While tackling inflation has vexed the White House, a public spat with Amazon is one the administration would seem to welcome. Biden has used the tech and retail giant as a consistent foil. |
| Supreme Court sides with Sen. Ted Cruz in campaign finance case | |
 | The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority sided with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday, ruling that a federal ban on outsiders repaying a candidate's campaign loan to himself after an election violates the constitutional guarantee of free speech. The vote was 6-to-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion. Cruz challenged a federal law that has been on the books for 20 years. It bars federal candidates from raising more than $250,000 after an election to repay loans that the candidate made to his own campaign. Roberts' majority opinion pointed to previous decisions holding that the First Amendment guarantee of free speech safeguards the ability of a candidate to use personal funds to finance his own campaign. Those personal funds, Roberts said, include a bank loan guaranteed by the candidate. To put a limit on money raised to repay such a personal loan after an election, Roberts said, would burden a candidate's core political speech. Campaign reform advocate Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, reacted with dismay, asserting that, "the money is going directly into the pocket of the officeholder, so its not really a campaign contribution, it's a financial gift." But Roberts, addressing fears of influence peddling, said, "influence and access embody a central feature of democracy -- that constituents support candidates who share their beliefs and interests, and candidates who are elected can be expected to be responsive to those concerns." |
| Christian nationalism is shaping a Pa. primary -- and a GOP shift | |
 | The Thursday Night Group started in early 2021. A few church friends frustrated over vaccine and mask mandates would meet every week to gripe over what they saw as their lost freedoms. Soon, they said, meetings included "constitutional classes" and members were going to see a "constitutional life coach." Someone made hats that said: "Make the Constitution Great Again." Four or five people grew to 30 or 40. They quickly became the Thursday Night Patriots and talked about rumors that the coronavirus vaccine seemed to be causing cancer, which are baseless, and their beliefs that President Biden's election was suspect and that racism was being overblown in public schools. They began using a curriculum for studying the Constitution that emphasized self-defense, free enterprise and above all the belief that America was founded to be -- and should remain -- a Christian country. On a Thursday night in late April they did a straw poll for the state's biggest political contest, the race for governor. The tally in the Poconos borough that night was overwhelming: state Sen. Doug Mastriano, 17. The other seven GOP candidates together: 13. Mastriano is a longtime Army colonel, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" marcher, 2020 election denier and Trump endorsee. He leads the polls going into Tuesday's GOP gubernatorial primary, proof of the rising intensity of Christian nationalism that has rooted itself firmly in the Republican Party. Along with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (who urged Americans to "put on the full armor of God" to fight coronavirus restrictions and anti-racism education in schools) and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (who said aiding migrants is "Satanic"), Mastriano represents a brand of conservative Christian politics that is different from Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority of the 1980s or George W. Bush's Compassionate Conservatism of the 2000s, and has gained momentum since the presidency of Donald Trump. |
| AP Exclusive: Black Lives Matter has $42 million in assets | |
| The foundation started by organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement is still worth tens of millions of dollars, after spending more than $37 million on grants, real estate, consultants, and other expenses, according to tax documents filed with the IRS. In a new, 63-page Form 990 shared exclusively with The Associated Press, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc. reports that it invested $32 million in stocks from the $90 million it received as donations amid racial justice protests in 2020. That investment is expected to become an endowment to ensure the foundation's work continues in the future, organizers say. It ended its last fiscal year -- from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 -- with nearly $42 million in net assets. The foundation had an operating budget of about $4 million, according to a board member. "It comes across as an early startup nonprofit, without substantial governance structure in place, that got a huge windfall," said Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting at Ohio State University who focuses on nonprofit organizations and their financial statements. "People are going to be quick to assume that mismatch reflects intent," he added. "Whether there's anything improper here, that is another question. But whether they set themselves up for being criticized, I think that certainly is the case because they didn't plug a bunch of those gaps." |
| FDA and Abbott reach deal to reopen shuttered infant formula plant | |
 | Abbott Nutrition, the infant formula manufacturer at the center of nationwide shortages, announced on Monday it had reached a deal with the FDA on steps for the company to reopen a currently shuttered processing plant. The infant formula processing plant in Sturgis, Mich., was shut down in February and several brands recalled after the FDA opened an investigation into a bacterial outbreak at the facility. As POLITICO reported, a whistleblower flagged concerns last October about food safety violations at the Michigan Abbott plant to senior FDA officials, including then-acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock. Four infants who became ill triggered the FDA investigation. Two babies died. The FDA confirmed the deal, subject to court approval, in a statement, saying Abbott had "agreed to take corrective actions" after an FDA inspection of the Michigan plant. The agency said infant formula products at the plant had been "adulterated because they were made under insanitary conditions and in violation of current good manufacturing practice requirements." Abbott said in a statement that after FDA approval, the company could restart the site within two weeks and product could be back on shelves in six to eight weeks. Administration officials have cautioned it could take months for any Abbott formula from the plant to reach consumers. Abbott said it will continue to import formula from its FDA-registered facility in Ireland. |
| UFOs Are 'Potential National Security Threat,' Congressman Warns at Hearing | |
| A Congressional panel on Tuesday opened a hearing on unidentified flying objects for the first time in more than half a century. The House Intelligence Committee's subcommittee on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and counterproliferation heard testimony from defense officials on reports of "unidentified aerial phenomena" and the risks they pose to national security. "You need to show us, Congress and the American public, whose imaginations you have captured, you are willing to follow the facts where they lead," said Rep. André Carson (D., Ind.), the chairman of the subcommittee on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and counterproliferation, who is leading the panel. Mr. Carson said defense officials need to continue investigating these mysterious flying objects in the event they may pose a national security threat. "This hearing and oversight work has a simple idea at its core: aerial phenomena are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way," he said. "UAPs are unexplained, that's true, but they are real. They need to be investigated and many threats they pose need to be mitigated." The hearing comes after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report last year reviewing dozens of reports of mysterious flying objects that occurred between 2004 and 2021. |
| Conspiracy theorists flock to bird flu, spreading falsehoods | |
| Brad Moline, a fourth-generation Iowa turkey farmer, saw this happen before. In 2015, a virulent avian flu outbreak nearly wiped out his flock. Barns once filled with chattering birds were suddenly silent. Employees were anguished by having to kill sickened animals. The family business, started in 1924, was at serious risk. His business recovered, but now the virus is back, again imperiling the nation's poultry farms. And this time, there's another pernicious force at work: a potent wave of misinformation that claims the bird flu isn't real. "You just want to beat your head against the wall," Moline said of the Facebook groups in which people insist the flu is fake or, maybe, a bioweapon. "I understand the frustration with how COVID was handled. I understand the lack of trust in the media today. I get it. But this is real." While it poses little risk to humans, the global outbreak has led farmers to cull millions of birds and threatens to add to already rising food prices. It's also spawning fantastical claims similar to the ones that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring how conspiracy theories often emerge at times of uncertainty, and how the internet and a deepening distrust of science and institutions fuel their spread. While the details may vary, the conspiracy theories about avian flu all speak to a distrust of authority and institutions, and a suspicion that millions of doctors, scientists, veterinarians, journalists and elected officials around the world can no longer be trusted. |
| Hospitals seek new hires to fill vacant positions | |
 | Hospitals across Mississippi are searching for staff to fill the rising number of job vacancies in the healthcare industry. The state's largest hospital is holding walk-in job interviews to fill these gaps. The University of Mississippi Medical Center is meeting with aspiring nurses and other residents who want to work in the healthcare field to alleviate the hospital's staffing shortages. In years past, the center would have around 30 vacancies for nurses at a given time, but the pandemic exacerbated burnout among workers. Now there are around 200 open positions, says Adrienne Murray who helps with nurse hirings at UMMC. "The operating room is extremely difficult to hire into, you just don't have a lot of experienced nurses out there," says Murray. "We do hire nurse grads into almost all of our areas, but the challenge we're coming in to is having enough preceptors to train them." At the height of the pandemic, hospital officials sounded the alarm on staffing shortages. They said there were enough beds to care for patients, but not enough nurses to care for them. Abigail May is a current student at UMMC and will graduate at the end of the month. She's one of the dozens who interviewed and has accepted a position as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit. May says "There definitely is a nursing shortage, but one thing that I like about UMMC is that we all work as a team. No one gets left behind. So I'm nervous and excited to be able to make a difference in my patients' lives. I'm a little nervous because I'm brand new starting off in the ICU, but I know that my fellow nurses and my respiratory therapist and physicians will all have my back and make sure that I don't stumble along the way." |
| Chris Roberts begins first day as Auburn University president | |
| In 1993, Chris Roberts stepped on Auburn University's campus for the first time as an interviewee to join the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering as an assistant professor. During the interview process, he said, he was handed the Auburn Creed, and as he read it later that night, fell in love with the University and the culture defined by the words in the Creed. Now, nearly 29 years later, Roberts begins his first day as the president of Auburn University. "Having spent 28, almost 29 years on campus in a variety of different leadership roles has given me a rich appreciation for the Auburn culture and how to do ambitious things here," Roberts said. "And that we as an institution have great potential for greatness." His very first meeting on his first day, he said, was to meet with student leadership. "I wanted that to be my first meeting because I want the students to know full well, that this is why we're here," he said. "For our students." As president Roberts said he hopes to do three things in particular -- one, provide transformative student life experiences that allow them to succeed in their academic work, and in life; two, ensure that the work students and faculty are doing is embedded in the spirit of improving people's lives and improving society; three, help to define the on-campus culture of excellence and innovation. |
| Chris Roberts has a busy first day as the 21st president of Auburn University | |
 | Who did Auburn University's new president meet on his first day on the job? Everybody. Chris Roberts, the dean of Auburn's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, officially replaced Jay Gogue on Monday to become the university's 21st president. After posting a video message to the Auburn family, Roberts started the day meeting with student leadership ("some brilliant people, some brilliant minds") from across campus. Then he went on Zoom to speak with about 400 members of the Alabama Cooperative Extensive System ("a real gem"). Then it was onward to greet the University Senate, the Administrative and Professional Assembly, and the Staff Council. Next, he had lunch with Public Safety and the Fire Department ("really devoted individuals"). He met with graduate students, and then he met with the deans. Close to the end of the day, he sat in his roomy new office near a yet-to-be filled bookshelf and declared it all "amazing," a word he uses a lot. "It's been an amazing day," he said, "and it's just reinforced to me what I already knew about Auburn and the things that have caused me to love this place." Roberts said that he and his wife, Tracy, will soon be moving into the president's mansion and following the example that Gogue and his wife Susie set there. "The Gogues were amazing ambassadors to the university and generous in opening their home to the campus," Roberts said. "...I hope to continue that tradition of some great events where we can use our home to let people know we appreciate them." |
| U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville comes out on top in productivity funding | |
| State data shows the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville has by far gained the most dollars -- well more than three times the amount of any other school -- in a funding model that's been championed as a way to prioritize student success and program completion. In the same model, four community colleges have hit their loss limit under rules for what's known as productivity-based funding. For the past five years, state-supported universities and colleges have gotten a productivity funding recommendation based on a formula that heavily weighs "effectiveness," which includes credentials awarded. Schools seeing year-over-year increases in their total "productivity index" are recommended for funding boosts, while declines result in losses. UA-Fayetteville has gained a cumulative total of $36.9 million in added productivity-based funding dollars compared with an initial baseline of fiscal 2018 funding. No other state college or university has seen cumulative gains greater than $10.8 million, according to a Democrat-Gazette analysis of productivity funding data provided by the state Division of Higher Education. Setting aside UA-Fayetteville, the state's other nine four-year universities have, on average, seen $3.7 million in cumulative productivity-based gains. While almost all universities have seen gains, six out of 22 two-year colleges have seen cumulative losses compared with their 2018 baseline. The president of a two-year college in northeast Arkansas said in a phone interview that productivity index calculations skew in favor of enrollment, thereby hurting community colleges that see greater fluctuations in their student numbers because of economic factors. "They're still measuring community colleges with a university yardstick," said James Shemwell, president of Arkansas Northeastern College. |
| U. of Arkansas, Coke work on 10-year deal to serve campus | |
| The University of Arkansas plans to enter into a 10-year agreement with Coca-Cola to provide beverages on campus, including at Razorback games, according to an announcement Monday. The UA and Coca-Cola Bottling Co. are in contract negotiations that would finalize the deal. The Coca-Cola agreement would begin July 1 and would run through 2032. The UA posted a notice of its intent to award the beverage pouring rights Monday. The university requested bids in March. Pepsi and the UA agreed to a 10-year beverage pouring rights agreement in 2012. Coca-Cola products were previously served on the UA campus, including at sporting events, for at least 40 years. Fans of either soda product were passionately split over the change in 2012. Beverage pouring rights cover on-campus vending machines and soda fountains. Gatorade, which is bottled by Pepsi, would retain rights to be served to athletes during competition. Separate rights are in place for alcoholic drinks that are served at sporting events. The past agreement with Pepsi stated that terms of the deal represented the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville's "determination of the Fair Market Value of the Sponsorship Rights and Benefits provided." In addition, terms of the past deal with Pepsi also included at least $2.3 million to UA in vending license payments, a potential sales bonus paid to UA, and in-kind product support. |
| U. of Florida to hire new food provider | |
| University of Florida Business Services announced recently it will break off its 13-year contract with Aramark to hire Chartwells Higher Education to handle all on-campus food services, including catering, residential, retail and athletic dining. The new provider is set to take over July 1. The transition means 949 Aramark workers, including 515 students, will be laid off in late June. Each will be given the opportunity to interview for a position earning equal or better wages than what they earn now, UF business affairs communications manager AnaLee Rodriguez wrote in an email to The Alligator. It is unclear if all Aramark positions will be offered with Chartwells. Contract negotiations between Chartwells and UF have not been finalized, but UF has advertised renovations and expanded local partnerships under Chartwells. A document obtained by Food Justice Coalition members and shared with The Alligator details Chartwells' proposal. It contains data about Gen Z's dining tendencies from its analytics partner, E15. The proposal, which has not been officially approved, shows the Broward Dining Center may transform into "1853: A Florida Food Hall Experience." Gator Corner Dining Center could become the "Gator Den" and serve fresh produce and protein from local farms including Traders Hill Farms, Frog Song Organics and Fisher Farms. Chartwells hopes to bring a teaching kitchen to campus, which would focus on educational food classes and nutrition literacy. Ronan Hart, a 21-year-old UF history senior and Food Justice Coalition organizer, said the change is a win for their cause. "Aramark is gone, which is a pretty big part of what we were asking for," Hart said. "We don't want to overlook that." |
| Full-time online M.B.A. enrollment surpasses in-person programs | |
 | In a watershed moment for graduate-level business education, more full-time M.B.A. students were enrolled in online programs than residential ones during the 2020–21 academic year. According to data from the Association to Advance Collegiate Business Schools (AACSB), the leading business school accreditation agency, 45,038 students were enrolled in online programs last year, while 43,740 were in person. The shift to online classes during the pandemic expedited the growth in online M.B.A.s, but trends have been pointing in that direction for years. AACSB data show that the number of accredited business schools offering fully online M.B.A. programs increased by 54 percent between the 2012–13 and 2016–17 academic years, and another 85 percent between then and 2021–22. "The growth has been slow and steady," said Sean Gallagher, executive director of Northeastern University's Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy. "The pandemic and the shift to online work and learning just took this trend that was already in place and accelerated it." It helps that employers have become more accepting of online M.B.A. programs in recent years. A study released last December by the Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy found that 71 percent of employers now view business degrees acquired online as equal to or better than traditional programs in quality. That's up 10 percent from 2019. "Today, a strong majority of employers will welcome your online M.B.A.," Gallagher said. "But it would have been a minority just seven or eight years ago." |
| Post-pandemic, four years of college steadily loses its appeal | |
| Xander Miller, 18, will graduate from Hastings High School in Hastings, Minnesota, this June, and he has big plans for his future. Rather than attend Minnesota State or get a liberal arts degree like his older brother, Miller is enrolled in Dakota County Technical College with a guaranteed job through Waste Management's apprentice program. "I did have plans to go to a four-year school," he said. However, "it didn't seem valuable enough to me to offset the cost." Miller will instead start as a part-time technician and then transition into a full-time employee complete with tools and a tuition reimbursement. More than two years into the pandemic, nearly three-quarters, or 73%, of high schoolers think a direct path to a career is essential in postsecondary education, according to a survey of high school students. The likelihood of attending a four-year school sank from 71% to 51% in the past two years, ECMC Group found. High schoolers are putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, the report said. ECMC Group, a nonprofit aimed at helping students find success, polled more than 5,300 high school students five times since February 2020. ow, some 42% say their ideal postsecondary plans would require three years of college or less, while 31% said it should last two years or less. |
| If 'Roe' Falls, More Female Students Could Face the 'Motherhood Penalty' | |
 | With the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, college students in large swaths of the country are likely to lose access to abortion in their states. A draft of an opinion leaked earlier this month suggested that a majority of justices support the move to strike down the legal precedent that established abortion access as a constitutional right (along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 precedent that upheld Roe). Doing so would pave the way for roughly half of all states to outlaw the procedure. Wealthier students, who are more likely to have the money to drive or fly to states where abortion is still legal, will not feel the effects of those laws as acutely as poorer students. For them, this monumental change in the law could be extreme. Should Roe be invalidated, new burdens on poorer women could mean the difference between graduating and dropping out. A new, unpublished study by researchers at Tulane and Stanford Universities provides a glimpse at why. The researchers examined how often women from low socioeconomic backgrounds take breaks from completing their degrees and why they take those breaks. They found that poorer women are more likely to take breaks from college than their wealthier female peers and more likely to take breaks than men from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The most cited reason: child-care responsibilities. The researchers suggested that the "motherhood penalty," a term that is usually used to describe an experience that women have in the work force, also applies to their college careers, especially for women from low socioeconomic backgrounds. |
| Students demand institutions take a stand on abortion | |
| When Politico reported earlier this month that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing constitutional protection of abortion rights, Sarah Rosen, a rising junior at Washington University in St. Louis, saw her worst fears becoming reality. "I was shocked, horrified and dismayed," Rosen said. "But I also wasn't that surprised, because with the way that the court is stacked and the way that the justices on the court have gone about this issue, it was kind of inevitable." Rosen is an executive board member of the Planned Parenthood Generation Action organization at WashU, where the stakes are especially high, because Missouri is one of 13 states that have so-called trigger laws that would outlaw abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe. Rosen and her organization were already advocating to keep abortion legal in Missouri, where the procedure is currently allowed up to the 22nd week of pregnancy. But the leaked draft opinion spurred the group into overdrive. On May 6 Rosen helped organize a rally on campus, which drew more than 300 students, she said. Across the country, students are protesting to keep abortion legal. Students from the University of Texas at Austin marched to the Texas state capitol in support of abortion rights. At Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, another state with abortion trigger laws, senior Neha Dudipala said she and other students of the Generation Action for Planned Parenthood chapter knew Roe v. Wade was going to fall. |
| New NSF program hopes to rev the nation's 'engines' of innovation | |
| The world was ready for a better surgical adhesive. But Pittsburgh wasn't. So a decade after its founding Cohera Medical, a promising startup based on an invention by University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) chemical engineer Eric Beckman, left town for what its owners considered a more favorable location for biomedical innovation -- Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. This month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) rolled out a huge new funding program aimed at halting that type of exodus. Its goal is to help communities far from the country's best known high-tech meccas build their capacity to turn research by local scientists into new companies and well-paying jobs that will bolster the regional economy. The initiative, called Regional Innovation Engines, or NSF Engines, will offer the largest cash awards in the foundation's history -- $160 million over 10 years -- to each of five regions hoping to create their own versions of Silicon Valley. A key measure of success, say experts in the field, will be whether companies like Cohera can find everything they need to prosper without having to flee their birthplaces. "We spin out a dozen companies a year," says Evan Facher, vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship at Pitt, whose medical center is one of the top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "But they don't stay. They go to Boston or San Francisco because we can't nurture them." Although NSF's primary role is to support the best nonmedical academic research, it has also pioneered programs with a more applied bent. They include the Small Business Innovation Research program, begun in 1977, and the Innovation Corps, launched in 2011 for academics interested in becoming entrepreneurs. Its Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research was the first program to tackle the uneven geographic distribution of federal research dollars. But the new innovation engines program, announced on 3 May, will "far surpass anything NSF has ever done before in this arena," Facher says. |
| What services should conservative government provide? | |
 | Syndicated columnist Bill Crawford writes: A conservative proposition: State government should only provide the services our people need and only tax enough to cover costs for these needs. Many folks will unpack this proposition in different ways. Some will confuse "need" with "want." Conservatives will want to severely limit the needs government should cover. Let's shine a little light on this. The 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives states tremendous power to meet the needs of their citizens. The Mississippi Constitution says our state government exists "solely for the good of the whole" and emphasizes the importance of public "safety and happiness." So, our state government has the constitutional power and the constitutional purpose to provide services Mississippians need. Now "the whole" means all the people, not some of the people or just the people in power. Balancing the needs of the poor and the rich, the old and the young, the Coast and the Hills, etc., for the "good of the whole" is the great challenge of state government and a dilemma for conservative leadership. Compromise -- the seeking of balance -- may be the heart and soul of a democratic republic like ours, but has become a dirty word in today's politics. Yet, conservatives cannot abandon this tenet if our constitutional form of government is to survive. ... Community colleges and universities have needs. But there is no constitutional requirement that the state address them, other than "happiness" and "the good of the whole." However, one of our great hurdles in economic development comes from our low educational achievement level. We need more college graduates and more of them to stay in Mississippi. Good schools can supply our colleges and universities with more well-prepared students. |
| Congress Can Prevent Another Jan. 6 Crisis | |
| Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat who served as Senate majority leader from 2001-03, and Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican who served as Senate majority leader from 1996-2001, write in The Wall Street Journal: The counting of electoral votes after a presidential election was an uneventful ritual for generations: Congress would convene a joint session, tally the votes, and declare a winner. There weren't meant to be any surprises; after all, the voters had already spoken. Yet this process has become increasingly controversial over the past 20 years, never more so than on Jan. 6, 2021, when certain members of Congress objected to the votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Misleading interpretations of the law that governs the vote tally -- the Electoral Count Act of 1887 -- swirled, leading some to demand that Vice President Mike Pence, whose role was simply to preside over the proceedings, reverse the results. Thankfully, Mr. Pence upheld the rule of law and performed his ministerial responsibility. Nowhere does the Constitution give Congress or the vice president the authority to toss out election results. But last year's events made clear that in this hyperpolarized time, the Electoral Count Act is convoluted and ambiguous enough to be vulnerable to abuse. A bipartisan group of senators is working to update the law, which was cobbled together in the wake of the disputed 1876 election to prevent -- or settle -- such disputes. This bipartisan momentum is promising. ... As former Senate majority leaders, we know firsthand how hard it is to reach bipartisan agreement on important matters. But despite competing policy agendas, Democrats and Republicans largely agree that the Electoral Count Act came dangerously close to failing and plunging the country into crisis last January. This year is the time to fix it, before the 2024 campaign begins. |
SPORTS
| Diamond Dawg Gameday: North Alabama | |
| Mississippi State returns home to host North Alabama in midweek non-conference action beginning at 6 p.m. CT on Tuesday, May 17, at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville. The contest will be available on SEC Network+ with Bart Gregory and Charlie Winfield set to provide viewers a unique experience as they announce the game from Winfield's rig located in right-centerfield. 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 enters the week with a 25-27 overall record through 52 games, including a 16-9 record in non-conference play. The Dawgs are 7-0 this season in midweek contests at home. Mississippi State and North Alabama will meet for the 10th time on Tuesday in Starkville. The Diamond Dawgs own a 7-2 record over the Lions in the all-time series. The series between State and North Alabama dates back to the 1986 season when the Diamond Dawgs won by a score of 7-0 in Starkville. Mississippi State has won four of the last five meetings. Last season, Mississippi State hosted North Alabama and came away with an 18-1 victory over the Lions at Dudy Noble Field on March 24. North Alabama enters the midweek with a 12-37 overall record and a 7-15 mark in non-conference games this season. The Lions have won three straight entering Tuesday's game and are 1-24 in road games on the campaign. The Lions are led by Mike Keehn in his 34th overall year and 14th as head coach at North Alabama. Keehn is the longest tenured coach in any sport in the history of UNA athletics and announced recently that he will be retiring at the end of this season. |
| Bulldog Baseball Broadcast To Be Hosted From Lounge | |
| For decades, Charlie Winfield has compiled memory after memory at Dudy Noble Field from his outfield rig. On Tuesday night, the Mississippi State broadcaster will add to the list when his spot pulls double duty as an announcing location. Winfield, along with his fellow longtime Bulldog and broadcasting partner Bart Gregory, will provide viewers a unique experience as they announce MSU's Tuesday night game against North Alabama from Winfield's rig located in right-centerfield. The 6 p.m. game will air on SEC Network+. The broadcast marks the first time an announcing team has set up in a Dudy Noble Field outfield lounge spot since the park opened in its current form in 2019. For both Winfield and Gregory, it'll be a broadcast with extraordinary meaning given the two men's ties to Mississippi State. Winfield has called Mississippi State sporting events since 2012. Gregory's MSU broadcasting career dates back to 2000. The two have become Bulldog baseball regulars on SEC Network+ broadcasts in recent times and have taken pride in a casual announcing style that will fit seamlessly with the setting of Tuesday night's coverage. "Our goal every time we get on the air is to just sound like two guys that are just talking about baseball," Gregory said. "Being in the outfield in this atmosphere, it just lends itself to that." |
| What Mississippi State women's basketball offense will look like | |
| Changes at the helm for Mississippi State women's basketball have become the norm over the last three seasons, but point guard Myah Taylor remained a constant amidst change. She started all 81 games played the last three seasons and averaged 34.6 minutes the previous two, serving as the team's facilitator and quarterback of the offense. But her recent decision to transfer to Ole Miss following the hiring of Sam Purcell puts Mississippi State in a new spot. Purcell doesn't have a prototypical point guard on his first roster. Anastasia Hayes is returning and is a ball-dominant guard, but her ability to score separates her from Taylor. A plethora of guards have come in through the portal, but most played off the ball at their previous stops or haven't played enough to show a defined role. For Purcell, he doesn't view it as a concern because he wants fluidity in what his team does. "My biggest thing is getting the best pieces that will make the best team," Purcell said. "At that point, as you can imagine, then I will put a style of play that ultimately is going to help us win. That's the ultimate key in all of this." "Everybody wants to run fast," Purcell says. "Everybody wants to press. But if you don't have those pieces, what are you going to do as a coach? Are you just going to be married to a system that you don't have the players that can play? Or are you smart enough and willing enough to adapt?" |
| How Mizzou gave Jack Abraham 'full clarity' in his recruiting process | |
 | Jack Abraham's college football career was supposed to end in 2020. He was a redshirt senior, starting for Southern Miss and already renowned as one of the most accurate passers in the nation. But, Abraham just kept finding more years. He kept getting more years of eligibility. In 2020, the pandemic spotted him an extra year. In 2021, he ended up earning a medical hardship waiver. That's led him to 2022, where Abraham will finally, after two years of fighting off injuries and a pandemic, have an opportunity to earn a starting quarterback job in the Southeastern Conference. "It's been a crazy journey, there's no doubt about it," Abraham said. "I don't know if anybody else had a journey that I've had." Abraham's journey began in 2016 as a three-star freshman quarterback at Louisiana Tech. By the time it's all said and done, barring any more granted years of eligibility, he'll have played seven years of college football. Most of those years were spent in Hattiesburg, where he earned the starting job for three seasons. When COVID-19 granted him another year, he aimed high. He aimed for the SEC. Abraham got his chance to play at the highest level of college football in Starkville. He participated in the spring game but had a concussion take away his chance to play. That concussion held him out for the entire season, and Abraham didn't know if he would get an opportunity to play again. The NCAA granted him a medical hardship waiver, and he had an extra year of eligibility. Abraham's recruitment originally came down to Ole Miss, where his dad once walked on to play football, and Austin Peay. Missouri entered the picture late, but it was a revelation for Abraham. Perhaps the waiver from the NCAA was a sign he was meant to play in the SEC after all. |
| Tennessee football will open 2023 season against Virginia at Nissan Stadium | |
 | Tennessee football will play Virginia in its 2023 season opener at Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans, the Nashville Sports Council announced Monday. The game will be played on Sept. 2. Kickoff time will be announced at a later date. UT was scheduled to play at BYU for the 2023 opener, but it will buy out that contract. According to the memorandum of understanding, the first $2 million in net ticket revenue from the game at Nissan Stadium will be designated as UT's buyout to the BYU contract. The next $500,000 will go to Music City Bowl and Nashville Sports Council to pay for the use of Nissan Stadium and other game management expenses. The next $1.5 million will go to Virginia, and the $1.5 million after that to UT. Any remaining net ticket revenue will be shared 80% by UT and 20% by the Nashville Sports Council. "Pivoting to play a marquee non-conference opponent in Nashville made sense for multiple reasons," UT athletics director Danny White said in a school release. "This is a more accessible game for our fanbase. I expect that we will have a much larger contingent of fans in Nashville than would have been able to travel to Utah." It will be UT's first trip to Nissan Stadium since losing to Purdue in the Music City Bowl, 48-45 in overtime, in a controversial ending. An ACC crew officiated that game. But SEC officials will work this game and the Vols will be the home team, according to the memo of understanding. The SEC will retain TV rights to the game. UT will be responsible for all costs associated with game officials and instant replay. |
| Why David Cutcliffe embraced job with SEC after long coaching career | |
| Columnist Blake Toppmeyer writes: David Cutcliffe's job title with the SEC seems plucked from an episode of "The Office." That's what Cutcliffe's son, Chris, told him. The SEC in March hired Cutcliffe as a special assistant to the commissioner for football relations after his more than 40 years in coaching. "It sounds a little bit like Dwight Schrute's title, doesn't it? That's immediately what my son sent me when he saw it," Cutcliffe said when we spoke last week. Schrute, in the popular television sitcom, is the assistant to the regional manager (not to be confused with assistant regional manager). Although Cutcliffe's job is new terrain for the former Duke and Ole Miss coach and longtime Tennessee assistant, he's still trying to affect positive experiences through football and strong relationships. Cutcliffe has conversed with each of the SEC's coaches by phone since joining the league office, and he met with several face-to-face throughout spring practice. His goal is to help foster unity within the conference at a time when college athletics' rapid evolution is causing fractures. "It starts just by building a trust relationship," Cutcliffe said. "It's an interesting time, as we all know, in college football, and I think communication is difficult right now anyway, with as many moving parts that NIL and the transfer portal have brought about. The head football coach is the center of a lot of communication in that regard, whether they want to be or not. Hopefully, I can support them ... as well as supporting and hopefully continuing to grow the Southeastern Conference as the undisputed leader in all of college football." |
| Do you miss The Cliff? Parts of U. of Kentucky's former baseball stadium now have new owners | |
 | Cliff Hagan Stadium was the home of the Kentucky baseball program for nearly 50 years, starting in 1969 and continuing through the 2018 season. Kentucky won 733 games during its nearly five decades of baseball at the venue. But since the Wildcats moved to Kentucky Proud Park in the Barnhart Family Athletics Complex starting with the 2019 season, The Cliff has sat unused. Now, there's a visible overgrowth of grass and weeds within its walls. Kentucky has begun to sell parts of The Cliff and give them a new home. Through University of Kentucky Surplus Property --- which aims to reuse property by making it available to the UK community by donating, selling by auction or recycling --- several baseball-related items from Cliff Hagan Stadium were sold this week through GovDeals, an online marketplace that "provides services to government, educational, and related entities for the sale of surplus assets to the public." The auctions for several Cliff Hagan Stadium and Kentucky baseball-related items ended Thursday night. The iconic scoreboard and videoboard at Cliff Hagan Stadium -- which features a clock face, home and away scoreboard and a Jimmy John's advertisement -- was perhaps the most noteworthy item made available for purchase. The winning bid was $64.00, and with tax and buyer's premium added the total price of the sale was $72.93. There were seven bids for the scoreboard. |
| Jay Wright believes NCAA transfer rule, NIL will make college basketball stronger in time | |
 | Jay Wright says he's never felt this inexperienced in his life. After three decades of coaching men's Division I college basketball, the two-time national champion coach now finds himself in the trenches of retirement after hanging it up at Villanova last month. "I want to sit back and just not be a coach," the 60-year-old Wright told USA TODAY Sports. "I don't know if I'll be able to do it. I started coaching right out of college. I feel so blessed. I grew up a college basketball fan as a kid. I never dreamed of having as much success as I did." Wright is leaving the sport at a critical juncture. The NCAA's adjusted transfer rules last year came right as players became eligible to garner NIL deals and make money on college campuses off their likeness for the first time, creating complex scenarios where coaches have expressed concern with players leaving campus for the wrong reasons. Yet Wright feels optimistic about the long-term future in college basketball, even if the short term is chaotic. "The big picture is the NCAA didn't get out in front of it," Wright said. "Now, everyone's stuck being reactionary, which is not a good position to be in at all. That's going to take some time and it'll be crazy for a little while, we'll need some guard rails to go up. It's (recruiting) just going to have to be done differently. If you look at what Chris Beard did at Texas with transfers, he put a really good team together. John Calipari used to do it with all freshmen and that was really hard." |
| NCAA president Mark Emmert pockets more in 2020 despite pay cut during pandemic | |
| Despite taking a 20% pay cut during a portion of 2020 because of financial concerns connected to the pandemic that included cancelation of the Division I men's basketball tournament, NCAA president Mark Emmert's total compensation for the year increased by just over $80,000 compared to what he made in 2019, according to the association's new federal tax return. The new returns show that Emmert was credited with $2.99 million in total compensation during the 2020 calendar year, including $2.58 million in base salary. As was the case with some football and men's basketball head coaches who took pandemic-related pay reductions during the same time frame, Emmert's escalation in compensation resulted from a raise called for under his contract that ended up being reduced but not negated by the reduction. The NCAA provided the new return and, separately, the explanation of Emmert's increase to USA TODAY Sports on Monday. Revenue and expense data are reported for the fiscal year. And those data included the association reporting nearly $52.5 million in outside legal fees in fiscal 2020-21. That period included its appeal of the Alston antitrust case to the Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled against the NCAA in June 2021. |
| Buck, Aikman excited about 'starting over' with ESPN | |
| It's been two months since Joe Buck jumped from Fox to ESPN. It wasn't until Monday that the gravity of moving into the "Monday Night Football" booth hit him. Buck and Troy Aikman made their first trips to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, to meet with executives and future co-workers who are preparing for the upcoming season. "It literally dropped out of the sky. The more I get around it, Troy and I were just blown away. We were in a conference room an hour ago with 20-plus people from all different parts of the support staff for 'Monday Night Football,' and it was overwhelming. I actually got emotional talking about it," Buck said Monday in his first comments since ESPN signed him and Aikman in March. Aikman had considered pairing Thursday night games on Amazon with a reduced Fox schedule that would allow him to keep working the playoffs and Super Bowl. As trying to put that together became more challenging, ESPN started talking to the Hall of Fame quarterback about moving into the Monday night booth. Aikman said the possibility of coming to ESPN -- where he gets to call prime-time and playoff games and stays in the Super Bowl rotation -- didn't crystalize until after this year's Super Bowl. Once ESPN landed Aikman, conversations began about Buck joining him even though Buck's contract at Fox still had a year remaining. Buck said the parting was amicable, reiterating what Fox said a couple of months ago. |
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