| Wednesday, February 21, 2024 |
| New MSU athletic branding taking hold | |
 | One of Zac Selmon's first priorities upon taking over as Mississippi State athletic director was ensuring the school and its sports teams had an easily recognizable and identifiable brand. Just more than a year into his tenure, Selmon has begun phasing out the long-standing "Banner M" logo, which features an arced white banner reading "STATE" on top of a maroon block M. The "State script" is now being recognized as MSU's official logo and was seen on the Bulldogs' football helmets in 2023 as well as at midfield at Davis Wade Stadium. The "Interlocking MSU" is used as a throwback logo, while the "M over S" remains the primary insignia for baseball. Speaking at a Columbus Rotary Club meeting Tuesday at the Lion Hills Center, Selmon said recruits, current student-athletes and other community members have provided positive feedback on the change, which has translated to apparel sales. "It's a classic look. It's a sharp look," Selmon said. "You'll see it more on some of our uniforms that we've rolled out. Uniforms, we order so far in advance, it takes time to catch up. We'll continue to do new things. Some things are more immediate, we can adjust, but we have to look at it as, we want to make sure we tell our story, have brand identification that is uniform, but also be smart financially." |
| MSU Athletic Director discusses sports, player empowerment | |
 | Mississippi State University Athletic Director Zac Selmon spoke to the Rotary Club in Columbus to discuss sports and player empowerment. The Oklahoma native covered each Bulldog sport with the public. Selmon said the biggest challenge in college sports is "Name Image and Likeness." NIL refers to a college athlete's form of compensation based on their identity and brand. Selmon said the SEC and Big Ten commissioners announced a working group to explore ideas on structure and develop boundaries around collegiate earnings. He believed challenges could be resolved at the ground level. "We know what's best for our business versus a courtroom; A set of state laws in a different state outside of our footprint. There are a lot of major things that our congress is trying to tackle. Especially, right now. You've got a war going on. You've got a presidential election. I think for us it's like, 'Okay, we've got to fix our own house.' I think you'll see more control coming from the conference as far as 'Hey, these are some steps based upon feedback from coaches that are living it; student athletes that are doing it," said Selmon. |
| MSU installs SEC's largest on-campus solar facility | |
 | Mississippi State University is achieving two significant milestones with the construction of the largest on-campus solar facility in the SEC and the nearly completed transition from fluorescent to LED lighting in all campus facilities, both of which are in MSU's 30-year Renewable Energy Efficiency Project. Executive Director of Campus Services Saunders Ramsey explained that while the energy contribution of the solar facility seems small, it is significant when you consider how much energy the campus uses. "When you're using as much as we are, for a four-acre site like that to produce 2% is a pretty big deal," Ramsey said. Ramsey said that the great thing about the lighting upgrade is that it will begin saving MSU money on electricity immediately and will eventually pay for itself. "You know, it is an energy win, it's a climate win, but we're a public institution responsible for public dollars and it's also a financial win," Ramsey said. Yong Fu is a TVA-endowed MSU professor at the ECE who operates a small energy farm of solar panels and wind turbines on the roof of Simrall Electrical & Computer Engineering Building. Fu said that he sees potential for a variety of student learning opportunities with the new solar farm based on his experiences working with students at the Simrall facility. The facility can benefit electrical engineering students in providing them with hands-on experience, applying what they've learned in the classroom with solar energy at a larger scale. "So before they graduate, they have all this knowledge that will enhance the competition in the job market," Fu said. |
| 'We would not accept being second-class citizens;' First Black MSU graduates discuss desegregation | |
| "I was born and raised in Starkville, right over the hill," native of the Needmore community, Harvest Collier, said. "In fact, on Spring Street, I sit on the front porch of my mom's house. I can see the rim of the football stadium and on Saturday evenings I recall hearing the crowd – and the cowbells – but I knew nothing about them." Collier, along with Colonel Robert Barnes, Doug Milton, Linda Milton and Vernon White, made up "Ring Your Bell and Tell Your Tale: Stories from MSU's First Black Graduates," a panel discussion about the university's first Black student experiences Friday afternoon. "The environment here was totally strange to me, despite the fact that I suppose you could climb to the top of the football stadium and look west, you can see my mom's house. But I'd never come to campus – I had no sense of what it was like, growing up and living in a totally segregated environment," Collier said, who entered MSU in 1968. "So, you can imagine the cultural change that I had to figure out in arriving here." The panel was a culmination of the project "Ring Your Bell and Tell Your Tale: The History of Black Students at Mississippi State University, 1965 to 1975," which aimed to capture the experiences of Black students through interviews, the review of primary documents and the analysis of The Reflector articles produced following MSU's integration in 1965. The yearlong effort between alumni and university faculty will produce a scholarly book, documentaries, websites and a soundtrack. |
| Miskelly Furniture eyeing old Vowell's spot | |
| All that's apparently keeping Miskelly Furniture from opening a location in the old Vowell's Marketplace is whether the city and county will abate a developer's property taxes. Roy Oswalt, through his company 44 Properties, purchased the property on Highway 12 after the grocery store closed in November 2021. Renovations divided it into three retail spaces, with Ace Hardware and Starkville's second Dollar Tree signing leases for the two smaller spaces, attorney Julie Brown, who was representing Oswalt, told Starkville aldermen at their Tuesday evening meeting. Miskelly, a furniture store based in Pearl, is interested in the 35,000 square-foot anchor space but needs a lower rent point to sign the dotted line, Brown said. "They could have gone to Oxford, Tupelo or Columbus. But they picked Starkville," she said. "But, of course, they're like everybody else. They've got a budget, and they need to make it work." Originally, Corner Market planned to locate in the old Vowell's but backed out last year. Brown said Tuesday it was because renovations, particularly the HVAC system, weren't complete in a suitable time frame. |
| Supervisors seeking ways to buy new road equipment | |
| Oktibbeha County Road Manager Victor Collins has a long list of equipment purchases he wants to keep up with the county's road maintenance. It's up to the board of supervisors to find out how to pay for some or all of it. To do so, supervisors on Tuesday heard from William Norris of Government Consultants and Troy Johnson of the law firm Butler Snow and scheduled a financial workshop with them and Lynn Norris, also of Government Consultants, following the board's next meeting on March 4. Both Norris and Johnson said the options range from a general obligation bond, a five-year note or a simple lease agreement. "What'll help us make the decision of what y'all need to do is what y'all are going to buy," Johnson told the board. Collins told The Dispatch that if he got every piece of equipment on his wish list, it would cost the county about $3 million. |
| Casino revenue down again on the Mississippi Coast, and even bigger trouble is lurking in Alabama | |
 | Competition from neighboring states is affecting Mississippi, Atlantic City and other regions, and the American Gaming Association said the challenge will grow as more states expand casinos and legalize sports betting. The AGA released its annual State of the States report Tuesday, showing commercial casino revenue was up 10 percent for the year across the country to a record high $66.5 billion. Revenue was down 3 percent in Mississippi in 2023, in part because of the expansion from Arkansas, said David Forman, vice president of research at the AGA. While Coast casinos are posting higher revenue than before COVID -- something Atlantic City hasn't achieved -- 2023 was the second year of declining revenues in South Mississippi and for casinos across the state. The year didn't start any more encouraging. The January report shows an $8.5 million drop in casino revenue on the Coast compared to January 2023 and a $21.7 million decline across the state. "I think Atlantic City is similar to a lot of other markets across the country that are being impacted by cross border and regional competition," Forman said. "New Jersey is now entirely surrounded by states with a fair amount of gambling and a a fair amount of gambling options that have expanded over the past few years," he said. The same could be said for Mississippi if legislators in Alabama are successful in getting a referendum on the November ballot to let voters decide if they want casinos, online sports betting and a lottery. The measure passed the House 70-32 and has moved to the Alabama Senate. |
| U.S. casinos won $66.5B in 2023, their best year ever as gamblers showed no economic fear | |
 | America's commercial casinos won $66.5 billion from gamblers in 2023, the industry's best year ever, according to figures released by its national trade association Tuesday. The American Gaming Association said that total was 10% higher than in 2022, which itself was a record-setting year. When revenue figures from tribal-owned casinos are released separately later this year, they are expected to show that overall casino gambling brought in close to $110 billion to U.S. casino operators in 2023. That all happened in a year in which inflation, while receding, still kept things like grocery and energy costs higher than they had been. "From the traditional casino experience to online options, American adults' demand for gaming is at an all-time high," said Bill Miller, the association's president and CEO. Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at New Jersey's Stockton University, which studies the gambling industry, said sports betting is still new enough that it may prove attractive even to those watching their budgets. "As a form of entertainment, legal sports betting might be a new and novel experience for many patrons, and with its relatively low cost of entry, may be attractive to them even if their discretionary spending budget is limited," she said. Sports betting generated $10.92 billion in revenue, up 44.5%. Americans legally wagered $119.84 billion on sports, up 27.8% from the previous year. |
| This metro Whataburger will be like none other | |
 | A new Whataburger is coming to the area, and it will be different than any other. Madison developer Bridgforth Rutledge confirmed this week that Whataburger is going to move into the building previously occupied by Back Yard Burger off Grandview Boulevard. As with anything else in Madison, Whataburger will be subject to how Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler wants things to look. In this case, Hawkins Butler doesn't want Whataburger to have its iconic orange sign. "It will be the only Whataburger in the United States that is not orange," Hawkins Butler said. Rutledge said it will have an all-white "Whataburger" sign out front and all of the outdoor signage will be all white. That is in line with many of the businesses already in place in the same area. It is notable that just around the corner from where Whataburger will be located, Hobby Lobby has a large orange sign on top of its big-box store. The new Whataburger won't quite be the only one without orange in the U.S., however. There is at least one other in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that has a white sign against a red, brick building. However, the Madison location will definitely be one of the few without orange signage. This will be the 13th Whataburger in Mississippi with locations already in Jackson, Flowood, Brandon, Richland and Ridgeland in the area. |
| America’s farmers are getting older | |
| America's farmers are getting older, according to the USDA's Census of Agriculture report. In 2022, they were just over 58 on average, which is a half-year increase since the last census was taken in 2017. So what's keeping young people out? For one, American farms are getting bigger and harder to buy, noted Sarah Low at the University of Illinois. "There's definitely a connection between commodity agriculture and barriers to entry," she said. Agricultural markets and U.S. farm policy reward producers that grow lots of one or two commodity crops. That's hard to pull off if you're starting from scratch, Low said. "You need to convince people to lease you land," she said. "You need to acquire that very expensive capital machinery." Even for young people set to inherit large farms, there's the burden of student loans, a shortage of rural housing and child care. "If we don't have people to come in and steward those farms, that really makes it hard for rural communities to have thriving economies," said Erin Foster West with the National Young Farmers Coalition. |
| Speaker Jason White says House will work to scrap, rewrite public education funding formula | |
| First-year House Speaker Jason White said his intention this year is to "scrap" and "rewrite" the formula that funds Mississippi's public schools. The speaker's blunt statement about the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which has been in place since 1997, signals the continuation of a decades-long debate that has gripped the state's lawmakers for decades. "We are going to pass that probably in the next two weeks in the House," White told SuperTalk on Monday of a House plan to rewrite the funding formula. White did not say in the interview whether the House's proposed rewrite will include an objective formula to determine the amount of money needed for a school district to provide an adequate education -- a point of consternation and legislative debate over the years. In the 2010s, White was among the House Republicans who tried to rewrite MAEP to remove any objective funding formula. Instead, the legislative leadership wanted lawmakers to determine the amount of money local school districts needed each year. White has long said MAEP is too complicated. But the concept behind MAEP is simple: Through an objective formula, a base student cost for schools is developed. The state provides school districts with a certain percentage of that base student cost for each student enrolled. The state provides more of the base student cost for poorer districts and less for more affluent districts. |
| House leaders want lawmakers, not an objective formula, to determine 'full funding' for public schools | |
| House leaders filed a bill Tuesday that would ditch the objective formula that has for decades determined the funding level for Mississippi's public schools and instead leave it to lawmakers to annually determine how much to give schools. The bill, which would scrap the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), is sponsored by House Education Chair Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, and is supported by first-year House Speaker Jason White. Roberson on Tuesday did not rule out the possibility that the House leadership's final version could include an objective funding formula to determine what is known as the base student cost. The current MAEP, which Roberson and other members of the House leadership are trying to rewrite, uses a formula to ascertain the base student cost to provide an adequate education for each child and provides that amount of money for each student. Local school districts are required to pay a portion of that base student cost -- no more than 27%. MAEP provides more state funding for poor districts than for more affluent districts. While Roberson did not rule out the possibility of an objective formula being added to the bill, he said, "I would contend the current formula is not objective." Even though MAEP was passed in 1997 with bipartisan support, some Republicans have been longtime critics, arguing the state could not afford it and that the program was too complex. |
| Over 2K bills filed into Mississippi Legislature by Tuesday deadline | |
 | Just short of two months into the 2024 legislative session as of Tuesday morning, Mississippi legislators had filed 2,085 pieces of legislation, including bills and constitutional amendments looking to reform, add to, repeal or create state laws. Earlier this year, Republican and Democratic leadership set several priorities for the new session, including making changes to the Public Employment Retirement System of Mississippi, increasing workforce development and labor participation, expanding health insurance coverage to the working poor and possibly changing the funding formula for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. The deadline for lawmakers to file bills with the Senate and House was midnight Tuesday morning. Earlier this year, Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann spoke publicly about his support to reform the state's public retirement system, which is currently $25 billion in debt, and serves 118,301 retirees. As of Tuesday morning, about 20 bills had been uploaded onto the Legislature's website, but none sought to change the funding formula. Of the proposed laws several would establish the ability for current members to receive early benefits five years before retirement, and others would give county and city attorneys, as well as bus drivers for public schools the chance to join PERS as members and eventually receive benefits. Several other bills would also take away retirement benefits from those convicted of felonies until terms of their sentences are carried out. |
| House panel holds hearing on previously taboo topic: benefits of Mississippi Medicaid expansion | |
| Experts told a panel of lawmakers Tuesday that expanding Mississippi Medicaid would bring a large influx of federal dollars -- costing the state nothing for the first two years and little in the years after. In providing health coverage to poor, working uninsured Mississippians, it would also boost the economy, generate thousands of jobs and help struggling hospitals. It's nothing that experts, health providers and economists haven't been saying for years -- but it's the first time in recent years House Republicans have offered them a platform to speak. The House Medicaid Committee heard from speakers from the Hilltop Institute, a nonpartisan research group that partnered with the Center for Mississippi Health Policy on several Medicaid economics reports. "I thought it was an excellent presentation by the Hilltop Institute ... We are seeking information right now to make the best policy decisions that we can," Medicaid Chairwoman Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, said. The hearing marks a sea change for the Mississippi Legislature. Republican legislative leaders are for the first time in a decade at least considering Medicaid expansion. Mississippi remains one of only 10 states not to expand the federal-state program to cover hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who cannot afford private insurance. The issue has been a political third rail for Republicans in Mississippi. GOP state leaders, including former House Speaker Philip Gunn, blocked even serious discussion or hearings on the issue in recent years. |
| 'Obamacare Sucks': Governor Reeves shares Trump message, comes out swinging against Medicaid expansion | |
| News broke last week that Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann backed legislation to fully expand Medicaid up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The announcement sparked question of how Governor Tate Reeves, who has opposed Medicaid expansion, would respond. On Tuesday, the public received its answer. Governor Reeves reminded Mississippians his position has not changed. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Reeves noted that Democrats, and some Republicans, "want Obamacare's Medicaid Expansion." The framing of Reeves' message is clear – Republican elected officials can stand with him and former President Donald Trump, or they can stand with former President Barack Obama and Democrats on the issue. Governor Reeves withstood an onslaught of attack ads and media critiques during the 2023 campaign for his opposition to Medicaid expansion. It was for naught. When the dust settled, Reeves emerged the winner. Experts have estimated that expansion could add between 200,000 and 400,000 Mississippians to the Medicaid rolls, while increasing the state's portion of the cost to over $1.7 billion annually. Since passage in 2010, Republican leadership has resisted calls to embrace Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. The word from Hosemann could mark a major shift for a supermajority Republican Legislature that has been reluctant to add able-bodied adults to the welfare program. The dispute between Reeves and Hosemann over whether to expand Medicaid could derail other legislative priorities. |
| Legislature passes prior authorization reform for medical procedures, drugs | |
| The Legislature has overwhelmingly passed a bill to regulate how insurance companies decide which prescription drugs and medical procedures to cover for a consumer -- a process called prior authorization. The Senate passed the proposal unanimously earlier this month, but the House had amended the Senate bill and sent it back. The Senate on Tuesday agreed to the House's changes. The proposal now heads to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who vetoed a similar measure last year, for consideration. "The bill that we have will be a great improvement for the process," Senate Insurance Committee Chairman Walter Michel said. "It's great for the medical community, it's great for the patient, and it's an improvement for the insurance companies as well because they have a defined timetable to provide the prior authorization." Prior authorization is when physicians have to seek approval from an insurance company before the company will cover a prescribed procedure, service or medication that is not an emergency. If an insurance organization denies a prior authorization claim, a consumer could be forced to pay for a prescription or medical procedure out of pocket. Insurance companies typically believe prior authorization helps ensure doctors provide only medically necessary services. Doctors argue the process is typically handled by clerical insurance staffers ill-equipped to understand medical procedures. The bipartisan proposal would require insurance companies to create a "portal" or website by January 2025 for doctors to submit prior authorization applications. |
| Legislature passes bill that would require prior authorization for some prescriptions, procedures if governor signs | |
| The Mississippi Legislature on Thursday passed a bill on prior authorization for medical procedures, and it has now been sent to the governor's desk for final consideration. Both chambers in the past few weeks have voted to pass the bill into law with overwhelming support. If signed by the governor, the law will go into effect July 1, creating online portals and a standard timeline for insurance companies to give authorization for certain prescriptions and procedures. In the 2023 session, the bill passed through both chambers, but was vetoed by Gov. Tate Reeves because he wanted the law to be regulated by the Mississippi Insurance Department and not the Mississippi Department of Health, as well as wanting the bill involved in the state's overall health plan. State Sen. Walter Michel, R-Madison, who authored the bill, told the Clarion Ledger he has worked to accommodate the governor's request over the last year and was glad the bill passed after a few amendments were made by the House earlier this month. "The bill that we have is a great improvement for this process," Michel said. "It's great for the medical community. It's great for the patient, and it's an improvement for the insurance companies as well because they have a defined timetable at which they are to provide the prior authorization." |
| Officer misconduct database among criminal justice bills before Legislature | |
| Members of the Rankin County "Goon Squad" who inflicted decades of terror on residents would be among those listed in a public database of law enforcement misconduct, under proposed legislation. It's one of over 300 bills relating to the criminal justice system that have been filed during the 2024 session of the Mississippi Legislature, which could affect policing, courts, jails, prisons, post-incarceration and more. House Bill 828 by Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, called the "Trust in Law Enforcement Act," would require the Department of Public Safety to create and maintain a database of officer misconduct incidents and publish it online by Jan. 1, 2025. Multiple House members are listed as co-authors of the bill: Reps. Kabir Karriem, D-Columbus; Cheik Taylor, D-Starkville; Rickey Thompson, D-Shannon; Bo Brown, D-Jackson; Robert Sanders, D-Cleveland; Jeffrey Hulum III, D-Gulfport; Oscar Denton, D-Vicksburg; Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez; Keith Jackson, D-Preston; and Fabian Nelson, D-Byram. The bill has been referred to the House's Judiciary B and Appropriations A committees. |
| 'It's just an old place': Senate bill would shutter most of Parchman prison | |
| Mississippi's oldest and infamous State Penitentiary at Parchman could be forced to shut down by 2028, sending its thousands of inmates and staff to other prisons and reimagining some of the space to be used for other needs. Senate Bill 2353 by Sen. Juan Barnett proposes phasing down the use of the 123-year-old prison starting this summer. "It's just an old place," Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, told Mississippi Today. "I don't want to keep spending millions of taxpayers' dollars on something that can't ever be fixed." He estimated the effort could cost about $150 million -- cheaper than putting money into a prison that's beyond repair and, according to the bill, savings could be redirected to paying correctional officers and addressing officer turnover. Years of neglect and a lack of funding have led to deteriorating infrastructure, decrepit conditions and violence, a 2020 investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica found. The bill directs Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain to develop a plan to shut down Parchman and submit it to the Legislature by Jan. 1, 2025. Part of the phase down plan could mean contracting with the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, the Tutweiler prison run by private contractor CoreCivic, to house people from Parchman, according to the bill. The Tutwiler facility would be renamed the "Northwest Mississippi Correctional Facility." |
| Former Speaker Gunn Joins Balch Policy Advisors' Government Relations Practice | |
| Philip Gunn, the former Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, has a new job in the private sector. On Tuesday, it was announced that Gunn has joined Balch Policy Advisors, LLC, a subsidiary of Balch & Bingham, in its Jackson, Mississippi office in the firm's Public Policy & Government Relations Practice. Gunn served 20 years in the Mississippi Legislature, including 12 years as Speaker of the House -- the first Republican to hold the chamber's gavel since Reconstruction. During his tenure as Speaker, Gunn led the effort to change the state's flag while championing the largest tax cut in state history, providing historic teach pay raises, and implementing workforce development programs such as adding career coaches in public high schools. Gunn also helped secure key corporate investments in the state, leading to the creation of new jobs. According to a release from the firm announcing the former Speaker's hiring, Gunn, who earned his J.D. from the University of Mississippi Law School, will provide counsel on effectively engaging with local, state and federal government officials, within and outside of Mississippi, and to offer strategic guidance on navigating regulatory hurdles. |
| Election security threats in the US are growing. Federal funding to address them isn't | |
| With election season already underway, some state election officials are expressing frustration that Congress has yet to allocate federal money they have come to rely on to help cover the costs of securing their systems from attacks, updating equipment and training staff. Election officials face a long list of challenges this year, including potential cyberattacks waged by foreign governments, criminal ransomware gangs attacking computer systems and the persistence of election misinformation that has led to harassment of election officials and undermined public confidence. During its recent meeting, the National Association of Secretaries of State passed a resolution calling on Congress to provide sufficient money to help officials address cybersecurity threats. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, also a Republican, said he would welcome federal assistance for cybersecurity needs if there was flexibility on how states spent it. "I don't necessarily mind a partnership there with some funding, as long as states are the ones that have the ability to spend those dollars -- because what happens in Mississippi may be a little bit different than Minnesota or Maine or California," Watson said. |
| After the chaos of 2020, states are preparing for election challenges -- and threats | |
| If 2020 was any indication, real and perceived threats to this year's election will likely result in legal challenges. Potentially, those threats could create risks to the physical safety of election officials and poll workers. Already, election officials across the country have been laying the groundwork to boost confidence in the results come November. Two federal agencies primarily work on elections: the Federal Election Commission, which deals with campaign finance, and the Election Assistance Commission, which handles administration. A big part of the EAC's work is identifying best practices in running elections. Some of those practices were shared at the 2024 Elections Summit at the University of Maryland, where dozens of state and local election officials joined with federal officials and academics to discuss how to protect the upcoming vote. n addition to providing training and resources, the agency serves as the conduit for federal funds that support state election offices. The EAC has funneled close to $1 billion to the states since 2018, according to Chair Christy McCormick. Money filters down to local election authorities, she said, which spent it on "hardening offices and putting cameras on the machines. We're talking about security for the poll workers, we're talking about cybersecurity, getting the right kinds of software and tracking devices." But many local officials who attended the event see that kind of influx of federal cash as a thing of the past. |
| District 4 congressional Republican candidates in Pine Belt | |
 | All three Republican candidates were in the Pine Belt to discuss their views on different topics at a meeting for the Forrest-Lamar Republican Women. The incumbent is Mike Ezell. Vying to keep his seat, the former Jackson County sheriff said he wants to continue what he started in Washington. We asked him about his plans to help South Mississippi. "Number one is the big Eagle One project that's going on out here in Lamar and Forrest County," said Ezell. "That is vital. Job creation, by trying to do away with some of the red tape that goes on and comes out of Washington DC. To try to promote good growth good things like that that helped the community. And we also want to work very well with our local government so that they know they've got a voice up in Washington." Among his challengers is Michael McGill, a retired U.S. Army Veteran. Candidate Carl Boyanton is a businessman whose focus is to promote and preserve conservative values. "My background is business, so I believe in bringing business to all of the fourth district because to help get people out of welfare and Medicaid stuff, you know you supply a good job that has benefits and stuff, and that helps lift people up," said Boyanton. "You know, when you give them welfare or Medicaid, you know, it keeps them down, so we need to do better." |
| US Supreme Court won't hear lawsuit tied to contentious 2014 Senate race in Mississippi | |
| The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will not consider a dispute over a lawsuit filed by the family of a Mississippi lawyer who took his own life after he was arrested and accused of providing information to people who snuck into a nursing home and photographed the ailing wife of a U.S. senator during a contentious election. Rose Cochran's image appeared briefly online during the 2014 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, in a video that accused Sen. Thad Cochran of having an affair while his wife was bedridden with dementia -- an accusation that Cochran denied. Cochran died in 2019. The primary exacerbated rifts between establishment Republicans who supported Cochran and tea party activists, including lawyer Mark Mayfield, who backed Cochran's Republican primary challenger, state lawmaker Chris McDaniel. In 2017, Mayfield's survivors sued Madison Mayor Hawkins-Butler and others, saying the defendants were part of a network of Cochran supporters who pushed Mayfield to suicide in June 2014. Mayfield died by gunfire, and police said he left a suicide note, days after Cochran defeated McDaniel in a primary runoff and before the felony charge against Mayfield could be prosecuted. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves dismissed the lawsuit in 2021, writing that Mayfield's relatives did not prove the city of Madison improperly retaliated against Mayfield for constitutionally protected speech or political activity. A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Reeves' ruling in July. In a split decision in August, the full appeals court said it would not reconsider the Mayfield family's appeal. Two other people who supported McDaniel in 2014, John Mary and Clayton Kelly, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy. |
| Supreme Court declines to undo sanctions on pro-Trump 2020 campaign lawyers | |
 | The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to undo sanctions against several lawyers allied with former President Trump for filing a meritless lawsuit challenging Michigan's 2020 presidential election results. Lawyers Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and others brought the lawsuit against Michigan state officials and Detroit in November 2020, one of dozens of suits filed in an attempt to prove election results were illegitimate in states where Trump had lost. The efforts failed across the board and no evidence of widespread fraud was uncovered. After dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker, of the Eastern District of Michigan, ordered sanctions for the Trump-aligned lawyers, describing the lawsuit as a "historic and profound abuse of the judicial process." "Sanctions are required to deter the filing of future frivolous lawsuits designed primarily to spread the narrative that our election processes are rigged and our democratic institutions cannot be trusted," Parker wrote in the 110-page opinion. The Trump lawyers were ordered to pay back attorneys' fees accumulated by Michigan state officials and Detroit in seeking the sanctions -- and to take legal education classes. Parker also referred her decision to disciplinary authorities where each attorney is admitted for "investigation and possible suspension or disbarment." |
| 'We will not be complicit in this': Hill staffers challenge their bosses on Gaza | |
 | Around 75 Capitol Hill staffers, federal workers and activists gathered in a bar last week in the hopes that actions -- even symbolic ones -- might speak louder than words. Or, perhaps more accurately, silence. Congressional Staff for a Ceasefire Now, an underground group of Hill aides advocating for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, organized a fundraiser to support aid agencies operating in Gaza. But raising a few thousand dollars wasn't the real reason why they filled the back room of the Busboys and Poets in Mount Vernon Triangle. The staffers came as a rebuke to their bosses, who they cast as accepting an ongoing genocide by failing to speak out in opposition. "We have an obligation to stand up and to label ourselves [as congressional staff] and be honest," said one of the organizers, an aide to a House Democrat, who spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation. "We will not be complicit in this, and we are determined to make whatever difference we can. And if that means putting our jobs on the line to do so, so be it." One aide to a Senate Democrat, who spoke anonymously to avoid retaliation, said she was disappointed that her boss, whom she normally sees eye-to-eye with on issues, hadn't yet demanded an Israeli cease-fire. "We, as staff, have been feeling pretty helpless," she said. "I really love the work I do, which is not foreign policy related, but it has felt morally dissonant to be working in the Senate and be working in my office when there's been such little action." The group has been criticized for taking a quasi-public stance --- taking pains to keep its members anonymous for fear of losing their jobs --- against their bosses. The job of a staffer, or any federal bureaucrat, is ultimately to implement the will of the elected official they work for; Speaker Mike Johnson notably said federal agency workers who staged a walkout in January should be fired. |
| Anne Neuberger, a Top White House Cyber Official, Sees the 'Promise and Peril' in AI | |
 | When Anne Neuberger stepped into the newly created role of deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology on the White House's National Security Council at the start of the Biden administration, she was already one of the government's most experienced cyber veterans. Neuberger spent a decade at the National Security Agency, serving as its first chief risk officer, and then assistant deputy director of operations, and then leading the newly created cybersecurity directorate. Just weeks after she started at the White House, the May 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident forever realigned the US government's focus on online criminal actors. In the nearly three years since, her office at the National Security Council has helped drive both the Biden administration's major executive order on cybersecurity as well as its recent executive order on artificial intelligence. Ahead of her trip last week to the Munich Security Conference, Neuberger spoke with WIRED about the emerging technology issues that are top of mind in her office today, from the broadband needs of John Deere tractors to how Hamas' attack in Israel identified the new national security threat posed by traffic cameras, to security concerns about software patches for autonomous vehicles, advancements in threats from AI, the push for quantum-resistant cryptography, and next steps in the fight against ransomware attacks. |
| It's an election year, and Biden's team is signaling a more aggressive posture toward the press | |
| Occupants of the White House have grumbled over news coverage practically since the place was built. Now it's Joe Biden's turn: With a reelection campaign underway, there are signs that those behind the president are starting to more aggressively and publicly challenge how he is portrayed. Within the past two weeks, an administration aide sent an unusual letter to the White House Correspondents' Association complaining about coverage of a special counsel's report on Biden's handling of classified documents. In addition, the president's campaign objected to its perception that negative stories about Biden's age got more attention than remarks by Donald Trump about the NATO alliance. It's not quite "enemy of the people" territory. But it is noticeable. "It is a strategy," said Frank Sesno, a professor at George Washington University and former CNN Washington bureau chief. "It does several things at once. It makes the press a foil, which is a popular pattern for politicians of all stripes." It can also distract voters from bad news. And while some newsrooms quickly dismiss the criticism, he says, others may pause and think twice about what they write. The criticism comes amid the backdrop of unhappiness among some journalists about how much Biden is made available for questions -- an issue that surfaced again when Biden turned down an opportunity to appear before tens of millions of Americans in an interview during the Super Bowl pregame show. |
| Haley vows not to drop out, calls Trump 'meaner and more offensive by the day' | |
 | Nikki Haley cast herself on Tuesday as a steadfast candidate of last resort to Donald Trump, maintaining she won't drop out "until the American people close the door." Delivering what her team billed as a "state of the race speech," a defiant Haley vowed to remain in the race even as she polls far behind Trump in upcoming primaries across the map. Without offering any electoral strategy for her path forward, Haley described her candidacy as a battle for something "bigger than myself." And she cried as she invoked her husband's military service, describing how he couldn't be with her because he is deployed, and that America was worth fighting for. Haley's speech served as something of a raison d'être for a candidate who lost decisively to Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire and is verging on a blowout loss in South Carolina. She pledged to continue on despite calls from high-level GOP leaders for her to end her presidential bid and support him as the party's likely nominee. Instead, Haley unleashed a torrent of criticism against the former president, calling him a "bully" who's "getting meaner and more offensive by the day." She argued that Trump is "completely distracted" from the campaign as he splits his time in courtrooms. She repeated her oft-used refrains that Trump has "gotten more unstable and unhinged." And the former U.N. ambassador painted Trump as weak on national security, bashing him for "inviting" Russian President Vladimir Putin to "invade NATO countries." She said she will be "campaigning every day until the last person votes." |
| The future of disinformation -- this time in Mississippi | |
| One of the strangest glimpses into the future of information warfare might be what's happening in Jackson, Miss., where a man named Ramzu Yunus is trying to launch an independent nation for people of African descent on Facebook. His secessionist movement -- while very local and very fringe -- already has the backing of an intricate, global cross-platform propaganda network called the Russophere. Last year, Yunus tried to drum up support for a similar separatist movement in Detroit, and has touted support from Russia on his Facebook page. In Texas, a different Russian influence campaign is amplifying calls for a "Texas secession" and an imminent "civil war" over the border crisis. What might seem from the outside like an eccentric group of grassroots campaigns is a new front for a global pro-Russia disinformation operation -- one that extends to the developing world as well, according to a new report by UK-based AI intelligence group Logically. Nick Backovic, one of the report's lead researchers, said Yunus' blatant pro-Russia claims and focus on reaching untapped U.S. audiences with anti-West messaging is an "easily replicable framework" that could "snowball" and potentially destabilize populations across the country. Like the African campaigns, Yunus' American campaigns are racially loaded: They try to pit people of African descent against the U.S. government. There's a very deep history of the Soviet Union exploiting American racial tensions for its own advantage, fomenting separatism in a nation deeply divided over civil rights. |
| Shock, anger, confusion grip Alabama after court ruling on embryos | |
 | Alabama doctors are puzzled over whether they will have to make changes to in vitro fertilization procedures. Couples have crammed into online support groups wondering if they should transfer frozen embryos out of state. And attorneys are warning that divorce settlements that call for frozen embryos to be destroyed may now be void. Throughout Alabama, there is widespread shock, anger and confusion over how to proceed after the state Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are people, a potentially far-reaching decision that could upend women's reproductive health care in a state that already has one of the nation's strictest abortion laws. "Women who actually know what happened, they feel under attack and almost powerless," said AshLeigh Meyer Dunham, a Birmingham mother who conceived a child through in vitro fertilization and is a partner in a law firm that specializes in assisted reproductive technology cases. "Under the current Alabama ruling, patients nor physicians nor IVF labs are going to be willing to have frozen embryos," said Mamie McLean, a physician at one of the state's largest fertility clinics, Alabama Fertility Specialists. McLean blasted the ruling, saying it was not "grounded in medicine." "Unfortunately, this has become a political debate, but in reality this is a medical debate, and how we are able to practice medical care as physicians," McLean said. |
| Studies show few Mississippi community college students transfer to four-year schools, fewer earn bachelor's | |
 | Relatively few community college students in Mississippi transfer to four-year institutions and even fewer earn bachelor's degrees within six years of their enrollment in community college, according to the results of a new national study. The studies -- conducted by Columbia University's Community College Research Center, the Aspen Institute's College Excellence Program, and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center -- "use national-level data ... from the National Student Clearinghouse to derive and analyze transfer metrics for both community colleges and four-year institutions," lead study author Tatiana Velasco-Rodriguez said. According to the studies, which were released Feb. 7, Mississippi community colleges see only 14% of their students transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor's degrees within six years. That 14% of bachelor's degree earners account for fewer than half of the Mississippi community college students who transfer to four-year institutions. While Mississippi as a whole sees only 14% of its community college students transfer and receive bachelor's degrees within six years, community colleges in Northeast Mississippi seem to have better numbers. Northeast Mississippi Community College sees about 17% of its students graduate from in-state four-year institutions within three years of them leaving NEMCC, according to numbers provided by Michelle Baragona, NEMCC's vice president of instruction. Meanwhile, Itawamba Community College saw about 19% of its students who enrolled in 2015 (the same cohort as in the studies) transfer and earn bachelor's degrees from four-year institutions, ICC's dean of advising Mande Miller wrote in an email. |
| Department of Education data finds teacher vacancies continue to rise in Mississippi | |
 | Mississippi's chronic teacher shortage continued to grow this year despite recent legislative efforts to increase retention and recruitment. That's according to data included in the annual Mississippi Department of Education's Educator Survey, and experts say more needs to be done to encourage teachers to stay. Teaching vacancies grew by 7% across the state in comparison to the 2022-2023 school year, representing just under 2,800 open positions. But even amid a continued rise in vacancies, MDE data shows they're not distributed evenly by neither region nor grade level. At more than 800 vacancies each, elementary and high schools more than doubled the open teaching positions at Mississippi middle schools. STEM courses like general sciences, biology, chemistry and math also saw high-single to double digit increases over last year. Toren Ballard, executive director of K-12 Education Policy at Mississippi First, says state officials need to do more to convince teachers to stay. "I think the biggest takeaway from this data is that the positive effects of the 2022 teacher pay raise are starting to wear off," he told MPB News. Courtney Van Cleve, executive director of educator continuum at MDE, says the data is a good jumping off point to better understand the vacancies -- and that certain programs have been expanded to try and help address them on a large scale. "With elementary education, in terms of recruitment, we've been working with our Mississippi universities to offer increased pathways for individuals intending to become elementary teachers," she told MPB News, adding the agency has also approved alternate pathway programs where teachers can obtain certification in subjects other than those they currently teach. |
| Auburn University to unveil Aubie statue on Saturday, Feb. 24 | |
| Auburn University announced Tuesday that it will unveil a bronze statue of Aubie the Tiger on Saturday, Feb. 24. The unveiling will take place at the Harold D. Melton Student Center front entrance with President Christopher Roberts, Bobby Woodard, the Auburn Senior Vice President for Student Affairs and other leaders of the university attending. This announcement comes shortly after Aubie won his 11th UCA National Championship in January. Aubie was originally created as a cartoon character by Birmingham Post-Herald artist Phil Neel in 1959 and he appeared in costume for the first time in 1979. The Aubie statue was a $300,000 project, funded completely by donations and created by sculptor Alison Caswell at Firebird Bronze Foundry in Troutsdale, Oregon. In the past, Caswell created bronze likenesses of mascots including the Oregon Duck, Michigan State University's Sparty and Buc-ee the Beaver.The statue will be sculpted through a process called lost wax casting that will use a colored patina to bring Aubie to life. The project was approved in April of 2023 by the Auburn University Board of Trustees. |
| New Joro spider study at UGA shows spider adapts easy to urban life and is on the move | |
 | A new study at the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology shows that the invasive Joro spider can easily adapt to busy urban areas. The study bolsters the prediction that the Joro will spread to vast areas throughout the United States from their original foothold in Georgia. "There really is no stopping them. It's getting everybody's attention and that's a good thing and a bad thing," said Andy Davis, an assistant research scientist in ecology, who authored the paper that was recently published in Athropoda, a journal for peer-reviewed scientific articles. The Joro spider, native to eastern Asia, was first discovered in the Athens area in 2014, and since that time it has spread into Tennessee, both Carolinas and Alabama. The carnivorous female Joro has a mature body glazed with yellow, green and red coloration that is over an inch long with metallic-looking legs protruding from its thorax. It weaves a wide haphazard web to trap and kill its prey. This new study on the Joro was conducted by Davis and three of his ecology students − Kade Stewart, Caitlin Phelan and Alexa Schultz. "They did a lot of the grunt work. They were on the sides of roads collecting the spiders and looking at their behavior," Davis said. The three students were engaging with a creature that often scares people. "After a few attempts you get used to it and it became fun, honestly," the Loganville Christian Academy graduate said. "You learn to appreciate other field researchers. It's not simple and easy work, and there is a lot of trial and error to figure out the best way to do things." |
| Indiana Bill Threatens Faculty Members Who Don't Provide 'Intellectual Diversity' | |
 | In an echo of last year, state lawmakers in different parts of the country are pushing bills that would diminish tenure protections and target diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Indiana's Republican-dominated state Senate wants to do both at once. Earlier this month it passed a bill that takes aim at both tenure and DEI in public colleges and universities, tying them together with language that shifts focus from racial or other notions of diversity toward what it calls "intellectual diversity." Senate Bill 202, now being debated in the majority-Republican state House of Representatives, defines that term as "multiple, divergent, and varied scholarly perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues." The legislation would leave it to boards of trustees to determine what intellectual diversity means for individual faculty members' disciplines, to gauge whether those faculty members have delivered it and to decide how much they should be punished if they fail to do so. Many of these trustees are appointed by the governor, currently Republican Eric Holcomb. Critics have said this means the bill would subject "hiring, tenure, and promotion" -- and even employment after earning tenure -- to "reviews that judge faculty based on political criteria." The bill's lead author is state senator Spencer Deery, a Republican who served more than a decade as deputy chief of staff at Purdue University, including under former governor and Purdue president Mitch Daniels. In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, he framed the legislation as part of efforts to increase college attendance, noting there's a perception that higher education discourages conservative views. |
| High Donation Levels Are a Vote of Confidence in Higher Ed, Report Says | |
 | Donations to colleges and universities reached the second-highest level on record last year, with a growing share coming from big gifts that can run into the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. The $58 billion given to colleges from July 2022 to June 2023 was topped only by 2022, according to an annual report released on Wednesday by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. The report, which is based on a CASE survey, documents the year before the Israel-Hamas war broke out. Recently, high-profile donors have drawn attention for their criticism of colleges' responses to the war, and a handful have pledged to withdraw their support. The number of individual donors to higher education is declining, according to Chase McNamee, a research fellow for the Tzedakah Lab at Columbia University's Teachers College and director of campaign operations and advancement for the University of Denver. But gift size is increasing. In 2023, according to CASE's report, there were 11 donations of $100 million or more. Those major gifts accounted for 3.9 percent of total donations, a share that more than doubled from 2022. "Gifts at this level tend to be the outcome of years of engagement and interaction," Cunningham said. "They're often referred to as transformational gifts, because of the profound impact they can have today and for the longer term." She also said that research has found philanthropic giving to be closely tied to the performance of the stock market, which was weak in 2022 but improved in 2023. |
| Another Bountiful Year of Big (and Small) Donations | |
| Higher education institutions in the U.S. took in $58 billion in philanthropic support during fiscal year 2023, according to the latest Voluntary Support of Education survey by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. This is the second-highest level of donations made in a single year, falling only 2.6 percent behind the record-shattering $59.5 billion raised in fiscal year 2022. CASE officials say the survey's results show "a pretty remarkable and astonishing level of philanthropic giving," which demonstrates continued philanthropic support to the postsecondary sector despite a growing debate in the U.S. over the value of higher education. Sue Cunningham, president and CEO of CASE, said that the level of support "should be a source of celebration and pride." She added, "Recent headlines too frequently cast a negative light on the value of institutions of higher education. However, the trust demonstrated by this level of philanthropy tells a different story." Amir Pasic, dean of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, said he was encouraged by the growth in mega donors, or those who contributed gifts totaling $100 million or more. There were 11 such gifts in 2023, which accounted for 3.9 percent of total support. That's more than double the 1.8 percent of funds collected through seven mega donations in 2022. "Related to this is the finding that gifts of over $1 million accounted for over half the giving totals for the surveyed institutions," he said in an emailed statement. "Given the commentary on the role of growing wealth in society, it is of great value to have this data on how philanthropy flows to our colleges and universities." |
| Employers don't practice what they preach on skills-based hiring, report finds | |
| Skills-based hiring appears to be lagging behind well-meaning ambitions, with most companies not yet making changes to drop degree requirements or increase their share of workers without degrees, according to a Feb. 14 report from The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School. Among companies that announced policy changes, about 45% appeared to make a change in name only and had no meaningful difference in hiring behavior, even after removing degree requirements from their postings. "The skills-based hiring movement has gained momentum, as more and more employers committed to stripping degree requirements from their postings, replacing the proxy of a college degree with actual evaluations of candidate skill," the report reads. "An initial flurry of high-profile pronouncements by private-sector and government employers alike has become a blizzard. But do these proclamations result in a real increase in access for workers?" Overall, Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School estimated that the small shift translated to new opportunities for about 97,000 workers out of 77 million yearly hires -- or fewer than 1 in 700 hires in 2023. Beyond that, the progress didn't occur uniformly across the companies that adopted skills-based policies. Instead, nearly all of the changes in hiring occurred among 37% of companies that removed degree requirements. |
| Colleges overlook the potential of students who didn't finish their degree, study says | |
| A new study detailing how California colleges often overlook the value of students who drop out explains what colleges can do to help these students, called "comebackers," complete their degree successfully. Instead of simplifying the return for these students, colleges often complicate the process and create obstacles, according to a report, "From Setback to Success: Meeting Comebacker Students Where They Are" by California Competes, a nonpartisan policy and research organization. "If you didn't make it, it's your fault. If you want to come back, good luck to you," said Su Jin Jez, CEO of California Competes, about the convoluted process that comebackers go through to re-enroll in college. Overlooking these students has major implications, not just for students themselves but for the state's economy, the report states. Students without a degree or certificate may not be able to make progress in the workplace, and in turn, employers won't be able to find qualified workers. Jez said reaching these students can stimulate economic growth. The report urges colleges to offer more flexibility in classes, do more to encourage students to return and reframe how comebackers are viewed. The report also recommends offering extra support to comebackers who struggle academically. Many of those who left on academic probation said that they were not offered help and that the term itself made them feel like they weren't cut out for college. |
| At Harvard, Some Wonder What It Will Take to Stop the Spiral | |
 | When 70 university presidents gathered for a summit at the end of January, the topic on everyone's mind was the crisis at Harvard. The hosts of the summit treated the university, battered by accusations of coddling antisemitism, as a business-school case study on leadership in higher education, complete with a slide presentation on its plummeting reputation. The killer slide: "Boeing & Tesla Have Similar Levels of Negative Buzz as Harvard." In other words, Harvard, a centuries-old symbol of academic excellence, was generating as much negative attention as an airplane manufacturer that had a door panel drop from the sky and a car company with a mercurial chief executive and multiple recalls. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale's School of Management, organized the summit. "Despite near 400 years of history, the value of brand equity is nowhere near as permanent as Harvard trustees think it is," he said in an interview. "There used to be a term in the industry of something being the Cadillac of the industry. Well, Cadillac itself is, you know, sadly not the Cadillac of the industry anymore." Many of the presidents attending the summit saw the erosion of Harvard's brand as a problem not only for the school, but also by extension for the entire enterprise of higher education. If Harvard could not protect itself, then what about every other institution? |
| Nearly 153,000 borrowers get student loans canceled under new Biden plan | |
 | An email went out this morning to some student loan borrowers basically saying, you're debt free. On Wednesday, the federal Education Department zeroed out loan balances for nearly 153,000 borrowers. They are people who borrowed $12,000 or less, have been paying their student loans for at least 10 years, and enrolled in the Biden administration's new repayment plan called SAVE launched last summer. "We're providing debt relief to people who need it the most," said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Wednesday in an interview on NPR's Morning Edition. "We're also addressing the root cause of the issue, which is, the cost of college is out of control," Cardona said. The Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan has become a key vehicle for President Biden and Secretary Cardona since the Supreme Court last year struck down the administration's plan to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loan debt. Republican lawmakers have tried to stop the SAVE plan, arguing that it is outside of the administration's authority and criticizing the president for campaigning for votes with the new policy. Wednesday's debt cancellation announcement comes after a shaky rollout of the new FAFSA application resulting in a delay of student aid award letters, along with people unable to fill out the form. |
| College admissions face new turmoil after Biden's Education Department fumble | |
| President Joe Biden's attempt at making it easier for tens of millions of families to access federal aid for college has turned into a government technology blunder reminiscent of the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov. The Biden administration has spent three years working to implement a bipartisan law Congress passed in December 2020 that overhauled the federal financial aid formula and mandated a new, simpler Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. But repeated delays with the project are now coming to a head: The Education Department is unable to process new FAFSAs on time, forcing millions of families to wait weeks, if not months, longer than usual to receive their financial aid packages this spring. The turmoil has already prompted dozens of colleges -- including major state university systems -- to postpone their typical May 1 deadline for students to commit to their institutions, and many are concerned that more delays are coming. "This is equivalent at some level to the IRS not being able to collect tax returns on April 15," said David Bergeron, a former senior Education Department official who served across multiple administrations. "For people whose kids are in high school today or starting college in the fall, this is a basic operation of government that they just assumed would move along as expected." |
| PERS casts a long shadow over all the difficult tasks faced by Mississippi lawmakers | |
| Columnist Sid Salter writes: Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann recently identified the long-term financial stability of the Mississippi's Public Employees Retirement System as "the major issue" facing lawmakers in the 2024 regular session -- and rightly so. PERS is the public pension defined-benefit system that provides retirement benefits to some 360,000 current and former public employees in the state, including elementary and secondary school teachers and administrators, university and community college faculty, staff and administrators, and other state employees. There are 150,651 active members of PERS (workers still employed). As of FY 2023, the average PERS monthly pension benefit was $2,192 or $26,299 per year. According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, 28% of those funds came from employer contributions, 17% from employee contributions and 55% from investment earnings. ... Since 1989, Mississippi's 174 legislators and the lieutenant governor have enjoyed a preferential state retirement system that is 1.5 times more lucrative than that provided "regular" state employees like schoolteachers or highway workers. Lawmakers are eligible for two pensions that on average can add up to 165 percent of their salaries. The special legislative system -- called the Supplemental Legislative Retirement Plan (SLRP) -- allows legislators to pay into the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) at a rate 50 percent higher than for regular employees. At the same time, the state contributes to the SLRP at a rate 50 percent higher for legislators than it does for regular state employees. "Regular" state employees are only members of PERS while legislators are members of both PERS and SLRP. During the 2024 session, the stakes are higher on PERS and will impact all entities that are responsible for paying the employer portion of the PERS formula. |
SPORTS
| Five Things To Know: State-Ole Miss | |
| Mississippi State men's basketball gears up for another chapter in its storied rivalry as the Bulldogs square off with Ole Miss on Wednesday evening in-front another expected capacity crowd at Humphrey Coliseum. The Bulldogs (17-8, 6-6 SEC) enter the contest on a three-game winning streak featured by wins over Georgia (75-62), Missouri (75-51) and Arkansas (71-67). State and Ole Miss (19-6, 6-6 SEC) head into this week's action in a three-way tie for 7th place with Texas A&M in the SEC standings. State and Ole Miss will face off for the 270th time in a series that dates back to the 1913-14 season. The 270 meetings are tied with Kansas-Missouri along with Cal-Southern Cal for the 12th-most played series in college basketball history. The Bulldogs hold a 149-120 series advantage and will be looking for their fourth win in the last five outings over Ole Miss. Dating back to 2017-18, State has strung together five consecutive victories when dropping the first meeting to earn a season split with the Rebels. The Rebels came away with a tightly contested 86-82 decision over State on 01/30. Both teams had four players register double figures. The Bulldogs were led by 21 points and 7 assists from Josh Hubbard coupled with 16 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists from Cameron Matthews. Dashawn Davis and Shakeel Moore added 15 and 14 points, respectively. Mississippi State is selling single-game tickets for remaining SEC home contests. Visit www.HailState.com/Tickets for more information. |
| Baseball: Mississippi State bats never get going in one-run loss to Austin Peay | |
| Mississippi State's offense had finally broken through against Austin Peay starting pitcher Lyle Miller-Green, and the Bulldogs seemed poised for a big sixth inning. Miller-Green had flummoxed MSU's bats through five innings Tuesday, holding them to just two hits, but with the heart of the Bulldogs' lineup facing him for the third time, Dakota Jordan drew a leadoff walk, Hunter Hines lashed a single through the right side and Bryce Chance lined a base hit of his own to right field, scoring Jordan to at last put MSU on the board. Then the Governors went to the bullpen -- and the Bulldogs never got another hit, wasting an excellent day from the pitching staff in a 3-2 loss at Dudy Noble Field. "I don't know why we're pressing at the plate in week one," head coach Chris Lemonis said. "We're not making people get us out; we're getting ourselves out a lot. We're not controlling the counts. The amount of times we had a 3-2 count tonight and we swung out of the zone at a ball instead of taking the walk, we've been talking about it all week. ... You have to be disciplined, and we're just not showing a lot of discipline right now." The teams will wrap up their two-game midweek series Wednesday . |
| Women's tennis: Bulldogs suffer first home loss, but win two of three weekend matches | |
| Mississippi State kicked off a busy weekend of home matches with a 5-2 win over Louisiana on Friday before splitting a pair of contests on Sunday, falling short against Baylor, 4-1, but defeating Bellarmine by the same score. The Bulldogs dominated the Ragin' Cajuns in doubles, with the No. 3 pairing of Chloé Cirotte and Jayna Clemens winning 6-0 and the No. 2 duo of Dharani Niroshan and Alessia Taglente winning 6-2 to give MSU the opening point. Niroshan made quick work of her singles opponent in a 6-2, 6-2 victory at No. 3, and Clemens put the Bulldogs on the brink of the overall win with a straight-sets victory in her singles match at No. 5. Cirotte fell in straight sets at No. 2 singles, but Athina Pitta finished things off at No. 4 with an easy win in the first set and a tiebreak victory in the second. "It felt really good," Pitta said. "I'd been struggling the past two weeks in singles so it was good that I could play my game and get the win." MSU (8-2) heads south for a Friday doubleheader in the Crescent City, battling Tulane and then New Orleans in its final matches before Southeastern Conference play begins on Mar. 2 at Ole Miss. |
| Mississippi turkey stamp may mean hunters pay more, but the money is for the birds | |
| If a bill introduced in the Mississippi Legislature makes its way to the Governor's desk, turkey hunters may see yet another change in regulations. House Bill 1298 was introduced by Rep. Bill Kinkade, R-Byhalia, chairman of the the House Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Committee. It calls for the creation of a turkey stamp, similar to a federal waterfowl stamp, that would come at a cost of $10 for resident turkey hunters and $100 for non-residents. "I realize the demand on our turkeys is so great," Kinkade said. "Our wildlife is plentiful and it's sought-after. I started asking myself, being an avid turkey hunter, how many turkey hunters are in the state and nobody could answer that." Without knowing how many turkey hunters are in the state, Kinkade said it's difficult for biologists to make management decisions. Kinkade said the bill will not only answer that question, it will provide a dedicated funding source for turkey conservation, developing a long-term management plan and provide revenue to get matching grant funds for turkey conservation. Kinkade said 16 other states have turkey stamps. When it comes to cost, he said other states are similar. "There's a lot of positives to a turkey stamp in this state," Kinkade said. "I think it will be a great program." |
| College Football Playoff approves new 5+7 format | |
| The field for the 12-team College Football Playoff will comprise five conference champions and seven at-large selections after the university presidents who oversee the CFP voted unanimously Tuesday to tweak the format. The move to decrease the number of spots reserved for conference champions from six to five was prompted by realignment and the disassembling of the Pac-12, and has been anticipated for several months. An expected vote last month was delayed at the Pac-12's request. The original plan for the 12-team format was to have the six highest-ranked conference champions, with the top four receiving first-round byes, and six at-large selections. But with one fewer power conference after the Pac-12's demise, the commissioners who manage the CFP recommended to make the change from a 6-6 format to a 5-7. "This is a very logical adjustment for the College Football Playoff based on the evolution of our conference structures since the board first adopted this new format in September 2022," said Mark Keenum, president of Mississippi State University and chair of the CFP Board of Managers. "I know this change will also be well received by student-athletes, coaches and fans. We all will be pleased to see this new format come to life on the field this postseason." |
| College Football Playoff adopts new '5+7' format to allow for more at-large bids | |
| The College Football Playoff officially has a new format. CFP leaders on Tuesday adopted a change to the 12-team expanded playoff model, moving to a "5+7" system that incorporates five automatic qualifying spots for the highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large spots for the next highest-ranked teams. Officials scrapped the original proposal -- 6+6 -- after the latest realignment wave left the Pac-12 at two members, decreasing the AQ spots and increasing the at-large selections. The proposal received the necessary unanimous 11-0 support, ending a drama-filled last few weeks of pushback from the Pac-12. For at least two more years, the Pac-12 retains a voting spot on the 11-member CFP Board of Managers, made up of a university president from the 10 FBS leagues and Notre Dame. Washington State president Kirk Schulz, the conference's representative on the board, delayed a vote on the 5+7 move last month while WSU and Oregon State officials organized a proposal that he presented to board members Tuesday. The Pac-12 is seeking to be considered a power league, with P5 voting rights and revenue distribution, for years beyond 2025, the final year of the CFP's contract with ESPN. It's unclear if a decision has been made on the proposal, but Schulz did not block the format change. "This is a very logical adjustment for the College Football Playoff based on the evolution of our conference structures since the board first adopted this new format in September 2022," said Mark Keenum, Mississippi State president and chair of the CFP Board of Managers. |
| College Football Playoff board approves move to 5+7 model for start of 12-team format | |
| The College Football Playoff Board of Managers on Tuesday voted unanimously to revise the format of the 12-team event to include the five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large bids, finalizing an adjustment from the original "6+6" model. The board, which is made up of 11 chancellors and presidents from each FBS conference plus Notre Dame, met virtually on Tuesday to finalize the adjustment that was introduced to account for the dismantling of the Pac-12 in the latest round of conference realignment. Washington State president Kirk Schulz, the Pac-12 representative on the board, had been the lone holdout on the change during the board's most recent meeting. "This is a very logical adjustment for the College Football Playoff based on the evolution of our conference structures since the board first adopted this new format in September 2022," said Mississippi State president and CFP Board of Managers chair Mark Keenum in a statement. "I know this change will also be well received by student-athletes, coaches and fans. We all will be pleased to see this new format come to life on the field this postseason." In the 12-team format beginning with the 2024 season, the top four conference champions receive a first-round bye, with the No. 5 seed playing No. 12, No. 6 playing No. 11, No. 7 playing No. 10 and No. 8 playing No. 9. The 5-8 seeds will host the first-round games at their respective schools, and the New Year's Six bowls (Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl) will host the quarterfinals and semifinals on a rotation. |
| College Football Playoff Board of Managers unanimously approves 5-7 qualifier format | |
| The College Football Playoff committee unanimously revised the qualifying criteria for the 12-team event Tuesday. The 5+7 format is here. It'll be the five highest ranked conference champions plus the next seven highest ranked teams as determined by the CFP committee. It was all made official Tuesday after meetings. "This is a very logical adjustment for the College Football Playoff based on the evolution of our conference structures since the board first adopted this new format in September 2022," said Dr. Mark Keenum, President of Mississippi State University and Chair of the CFP Board of Managers. "I know this change will also be well received by student-athletes, coaches and fans. We all will be pleased to see this new format come to life on the field this postseason." Under this change, there are modifications from the original 12-team plan. That called for the six highest ranked conference champions, plus the next six highest ranked teams. But, speculation about the 5+7 format began amid realignment. Now, it's official. "Under the 12-team playoff format that begins this fall, the four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and each will receive a first-round bye, while teams seeded five through 12 will play each other in the first round on the home field of the higher-ranked team," the release read. |
| CFP unanimously approves 5+7 model for new 12-team playoff | |
| The College Football Playoff board of managers unanimously approved a model that will guarantee the five highest-ranked conference champions' inclusion in the expanded 12-team field this fall, along with the next seven highest-ranked teams, the CFP announced Tuesday. After months of delay at the behest of the dwindling Pac-12, the decision was made Tuesday morning in a virtual meeting of the 10 FBS commissioners and the Notre Dame president, Rev. John Jenkins. Tuesday's meeting was also an opportunity for Washington State and Oregon State to request continued Power 5 revenue and voting rights in the new CFP contract. For the next two years, the remainder of the CFP's current 12-year contract, Washington State and Oregon State will each continue to receive the full Power 5 revenue distribution, which is $5 million to $6 million per school. They are asking to continue to receive that amount in the next CFP contract, not knowing what their conference affiliation will be. Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, the chair of the CFP board, told ESPN last week that none of the conferences know yet what the revenue distribution will be in the next contract. "None of us do," he said. "There's a lot of work that's going to have to entail on behalf of our commissioners and others to bring some recommendations to the board. They're not there. We're not there. I hear what he's saying, but I don't know you commit to a school." |
| Potential proposals from Big Ten, SEC seek more CFP automatic qualifier spots for the conferences | |
| Washington State president Kirk Schulz says the Pac-12 never planned to "hold up" the College Football Playoff's latest format change for the 2024 and 2025 events, but he is "worried" about modifications to the format starting in 2026, including potential proposals from the Big Ten and SEC that seek for the leagues to be guaranteed multiple automatic qualifier spots. "I worry about any league getting a certain number of automatic berths beyond their champion," said Schulz, a member of the CFP Board of Managers, made up of university presidents from each FBS league and Notre Dame. "I wouldn't be alone in that." In a virtual meeting on Tuesday, CFP presidents adopted a long-expected change to the 12-team expansion format through the necessary unanimous vote, approving a move from a 6+6 model to a 5+7 format for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. The change adds an at-large spot and decreases the automatic qualifying spots from six to five in light of the Pac-12 realignment situation. Schulz delayed a vote on the issue last month in order to pitch a proposal to the board Tuesday seeking for the Pac-12 to retain its revenue and voting rights privileges as a Power Five conference starting with a new contract in 2026. There was "not a lot of support" for the proposal, Schulz said in describing the feedback from presidents. Nonetheless, he voted for the move to change to a 5+7 format. However, he expressed concern for potential format changes that could come in the future. |
| California state senator introduces NIL bill targeting collectives, Title IX transparency | |
| A state senator in California introduced legislation Tuesday that would require donor-funded NIL collectives to share deal information with institutions to bring transparency about gender equity to the space. Sen. Nancy Skinner has played a pivotal role in the fight for college athletes' rights. The Democrat from Berkeley introduced the Fair Pay to Play Act in February 2019, which was later enacted and made California the first state to give athletes the right to monetize their name, image and likeness. Skinner has now introduced Senate Bill 906, which would require collectives and other entities that execute NIL deals to provide information to institutions that the athlete attends. On the list of required information would be the amount of compensation and value of services provided, the athletic team the athlete plays on, the athlete's gender and the total amount of compensation and value of times provided to the athlete each year by sport and gender. The introduction of SB 906 comes after 32 current and former female student-athletes filed a sex discrimination class-action lawsuit against the University of Oregon in December, alleging the university deprives women of equal treatment and benefits, equal athletic aid and equal opportunities to participate in varsity college athletics in violation of Title IX. The lawsuit is believed to be the first Title IX complaint addressing athletes' ability to monetize their brands through NIL. Collectives are not required to publicize their dealmaking, however, most dollars are typically funneled to football and men's and women's basketball. |
| NCAA president Charlie Baker against additional transfer limits | |
| NCAA president Charlie Baker said he is not in favor of rules or federal laws that would place new limits on the way college athletes transfer between schools. During a wide-ranging, hourlong interview with ESPN on Tuesday, Baker harbored no sympathy for the many coaches who have publicly complained about the difficulties they have in maintaining stable rosters in the new college sports environment that carries fewer restrictions on player transfers and allows for name, image and likeness deals that have proved to be incentives for players to consider changing teams. "I've had conversations with a bunch of coaches who didn't ... walk out on their contracts," Baker said. "One of the things I hear from kids when I talk to them about this issue is, 'Coaches walk out on their contracts. What about us?'" Baker said he thinks the rate of transfers in college sports reflects a larger trend of all college students changing schools more frequently than in the past. "Do they transfer more than they did ten years ago? Yes. Do they transfer more than their peers who aren't student-athletes? No," Baker said. "... They actually transfer less than students who aren't student-athletes do, and kids just transfer more because they have more information, more data, and they're more impatient about a lot of things." |
| Tennessee baseball welcomes record crowd to home opener at renovated Lindsey Nelson Stadium | |
 | Two Tennessee baseball fans stood on the first-base line Tuesday. The game had ended, the No. 9 Vols having edged UNC Asheville 3-2. Most people had gone home, but there was still something left to see for this pair. One pointed toward the left-field line, moving his hand in the direction of all the changes at Lindsey Nelson Stadium. They hung out and talked, admiring the newness. Baseball returned to Knoxville for the first time this season as the Vols (3-1) hosted UNC Asheville (0-4) in their home opener. It marked the start of Tony Vitello's seventh season and marked the start of a new era in another sense with a renovated Lindsey Nelson Stadium. "First-class is the right phrase," Vitello said. "We are not done, which is exciting but for now we are going to enjoy this." UT tackled the first phase of a massive ballpark overhaul this offseason. A home opener-record crowd of 4,699 came out to see the Vols and the upgraded facility. Fans were reminded of the newness immediately after entering Lindsey Nelson Stadium. Down the left-field line, a pair of side-by-side metal staircases led fans up to the top of the section to the large standing-room only section, where many would line the railing to watch from a new vantage point. Others turned left to file into four-top tables that angle into the corner where the cross-field wind blew the familiar ballpark food smells. |
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