| Monday, March 25, 2024 |
| Hall endows MSU mechanical engineering school | |
 | Mississippi State's Department of Mechanical Engineering is becoming a named academic school with a cornerstone endowment gift from alumnus Michael W. Hall and his wife Valarie. The Michael W. Hall School of Mechanical Engineering's namesake originally hails from Pontotoc County, Mississippi and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is a 1995 MSU mechanical engineering graduate of the Bagley College of Engineering. He is the former managing principal of Mas Energy LLC, founder and CEO of Shady Grove Road Investments, LLC and a 2022 Distinguished Fellow for the Bagley College. "Students, faculty and industry partners will benefit significantly from this generous gift from the Halls to our great university," said MSU President Mark E. Keenum. "Mr. Hall is one of many distinguished and highly successful alumni who have graduated from our mechanical engineering department, and we are grateful he and Valarie understand the many benefits of investing in our students and the future of mechanical engineering at Mississippi State." The Hall's total collective giving at MSU stands at $18.9 million and includes the recent $16.5 million investment announced last year that supports multiple endowments within mechanical engineering to fund advancement in faculty, staff and graduate student support, student-industry partnerships, and student scholarships, among other areas. |
| Panelists offer advice for women seeking degrees in male-dominated fields | |
 | It's time to stop molding women to fit the confines of male-dominated career fields, Dana Morin said Thursday. That starts with the career fields appreciating the diversity women have to offer. "I deeply feel that we need to stop training women to fit into the fields," Morin told an audience at The Mississippi University for Women. "I think the more we can be educating other people ... about what it's like to be a woman, the easier that's going to become." Morin, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology in Mississippi State University's Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, shared her insight during a panel about empowering women through advanced degrees hosted by MUW's Gordy Honors College and The W's Council on Family Relations. On the panel, Morin joined Beth Baker, an associate professor for MSU's Extension Service, and Dana Miles, a chemical engineer in the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Unit. The women shared their experiences working and advancing in traditionally male-dominated fields. They discussed challenges they've faced as women in science, technology, mathematics and science (STEM) fields, how access for women in those areas has changed over time and what efforts can be made to further that effort. |
| Mississippi State to host solar eclipse viewing event | |
 | Mississippi State University (MSU) in Starkville will host a solar eclipse viewing event on April 8. The event is free and open to the public. The viewing event will be on the MSU Drill Field, and proper eyewear will be available at no cost on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at noon. Maximum eclipse, which in Starkville will be approximately 90% coverage, occurs at 1:56 p.m., though the eclipse will be visible between 12:37 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. The next solar eclipse that may be seen from North America will occur in 2045. In case of rain or heavy cloud coverage, demonstrations and a live watch feed will be available in the theater of the Bost building. "This is a once in a generation event, so come to the Drill Field to see it with your fellow Bulldogs," said Angelle Tanner, an MSU associate professor of astrophysics who is helping coordinate the viewing event. "Wearing proper eyewear is of the utmost importance. Do not look at the sun at any time during the eclipse without eclipse glasses. NO EXCEPTIONS." |
| Solar eclipse viewing event on MSU Drill Field offers fun, education for rare celestial occurrence | |
| Mississippi State University will host a solar eclipse viewing event on April 8, giving the MSU community a chance to view a once-in-a-generation event. Free and open to the public on the MSU Drill Field, proper eyewear will be available at no cost on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at noon. Maximum eclipse, which in Starkville will be approximately 90% coverage, occurs at 1:56 p.m., though the eclipse will be visible between 12:37–3:15 p.m. The next solar eclipse that may be seen from North America will occur in 2045. In case of rain or heavy cloud coverage, demonstrations and a live watch feed will be available in the theater of the Bost building. Follow MSU College of Arts and Sciences social media for updates -- on X @MSUArtsSciences, on Instagram @msuartssciences, and on Facebook @MSU College of Arts and Sciences. Look for the hashtag #hailstateeclipse. In preparation for the event, Donna Pierce, an MSU associate professor of astrophysics, will lead a public lecture on the scientific uniqueness of solar eclipses, what scientists are able to learn during an event of this nature, and what the public can expect during the 2024 eclipse. The free presentation will be held April 3 in Old Main Academic Center, Room 1205 from 5-7 p.m. MSU physics instructor Bob Swanson -- who has created a list of short YouTube videos that help explain how an eclipse works -- will provide entertainment. Visit 4-H Eclipse Activities -- YouTube for more on Swanson's videos. |
| ERDC computer scientist earns Black Engineer of the Year Award | |
 | Victoria "Vickey" Moore began her career at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center more than 24 years ago as a computer scientist with a master's degree from Mississippi State University. Today, she is the associate technical director of the Engineered Resilient Systems Research and Development Area in the Information Technology Lab. Moore was recently chosen to receive a Black Engineer of the Year Award – awards that recognize African American scientists and engineers around the country who are shaping the future of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Moore was awarded the Modern-Day Technology Leader Award and said she felt honored to be thought of as a technology leader, yet humbled and grateful. "The award recognizes me; however, the team that I have worked with is world-class and achieving this award would not have been possible without them," said Moore. "Without a doubt, the award is added assurance that our daily work choices and efforts are positively impacting ERDC's mission in a way that merits national recognition." "As a project manager, she led a $5 million annual research effort on a systematic study in ground mobility testing and evaluation, ground mobility modeling, and vehicle performance analysis, to support the U.S. military," said David Pittman, director of the ERDC. "Vickey's efforts have enabled ERDC to deliver trusted digital capabilities to accelerate solutions to complex challenges within DOD and USACE." |
| MCM-Meridian hosts coding competition | |
| The Mississippi Children's Museum-Meridian hosted its first-ever CS Wonder Coding Competition in early March, sparking excitement and innovation in the hearts and minds of young learners. MCM's first CS Wonder Coding Competition brought together 10 teams in Jackson and six teams in Meridian, representing a total of 15 schools from across the state. In Jackson, approximately 50 students and teachers participated in the competition, while Meridian showcased talents from 31 participants. At MCM-Meridian, Henderson Ward Stewart Elementary School from Starkville clinched first place and a Spirit award for their collaborative efforts. Newton County Elementary secured second place, and Southeast Lauderdale claimed third place, demonstrating the diverse coding talents across the region. CS Wonder partnered with Mississippi State University's Department of Cyber Education and Central Creativity for the competition, offering mentorship and leveraging their expertise on the judging panel. The program is made possible thanks to a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services "We are thrilled by the success of the inaugural CS Wonder Coding Competition. It's inspiring to witness the enthusiasm and talent of these young minds as they embrace the world of coding and robotics," said Susan Garrard, MCM President/CEO. |
| Standing up to hate: Traveling cattle car exhibit tells stories of Holocaust survivors | |
| Slivers of light shine through the cracks between the wooden boards of the walls, providing the only light in the narrow space of the train car. Black painted footprints cover the floor. Each set is different. Some appear to be the bottoms of high heels. Others, representing children, are only a few inches long. The Hate Ends Now Cattle Car, a traveling exhibit created by the nonprofit Shadowlight, stood behind the Bost Extension Center on the Mississippi State University campus on Friday afternoon. The replica cattle car displayed pieces of Holocaust history in a presentation projected on the walls, including two survivors' stories of being brought to a concentration camp. "There were 100 people in (each cattle car) without access to facilities," Hate Ends Now CEO Todd Cohn told The Dispatch. "No food. No water. In the winter, they froze. In the summer, they overheated. And they were shipped off to one of tens of thousands of different work camps, labor camps, ghettos, or to one of six different sites of industrial murder. But it didn't start with the cattle car. It did start with everyday people like you and me not standing up to hate." Hillel, the Jewish Student Association at Mississippi State University, co-sponsored the cattle car event on campus. Students from the organization were present throughout the day, helping to promote the event and bring in groups of participants into the car. Adam Nathan, president of Hillel, said he sees the message of Hate Ends Now as a "call to action" against hatred in all forms. He also called the exhibit "particularly moving" right now due to the "rise in anti-semitism and Holocaust denial." |
| Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity hosts basketball tournament | |
 | While March Madness is underway, there was a basketball tournament in Starkville for good cause. The Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity at Mississippi State University held its third annual Greek basketball tournament to raise money for the Brickfire Mentoring Program. This is an afterschool program that allows MSU students to mentor kids. The fraternity was able to host the tournament through sponsors within the community. The Chapter Corresponding Secretary, Noah George, said besides the basketball tournament, they always want to ensure their involvement within the Brickfire Mentoring Program. "We are just really thankful we have a lot of guys that work in Brickfire including the current treasurer then a lot of mentors," George said. "It is just a blessing to be out there with those kids to mentor them, just be with them, and show them care and love so that's why we do this. That's why we put it on and that's why we raise the money we do and it just all goes to them to get a better experience in Brickfire." |
| Starkville in running for USA Today's Best Small Town in the South | |
| A Mississippi college town could be named "Best Small Town in the South". Starkville is currently in the running for this title in USA Today's 10 Best Reader's Choice Awards. The town is currently first on the leaderboard, up against 20 other small towns across the South. You can vote at 10best.usatoday.com/awards/travel/best-small-town-in-the-south-2024. Voting ends at noon on April 1 and the winner will be announced on April 10. |
| Income tax cuts unlikely to pass this legislative session | |
 | Even though several Republican lawmakers ran on promises to hammer home further personal income tax cuts during the state elections, interest to bring forth legislation this year may have been put on the back burner. Several lawmakers told the Clarion Ledger earlier this week that a significant income tax cut bill being requested to be written before the Monday deadline is not likely to happen as the Senate and House of Representatives continue to lobby and advance other legislation such as Medicaid expansion, K-12 education funding and election reform bills, to name a few. In 2022, the Mississippi Legislature passed House Bill 531, the largest personal income tax cut in state history. That cut began being phased in July 1, 2022, lowering individual income taxes from 5% to 4.7%. In 2025, the cut will phase the tax down to 4.4% and then again in 2026 to 4%. In November, State Economist Corey Miller told the Joint Legislative Budget Committee that the state economy is expected to grow more than projections at the beginning of the 2023 indicated, but slower future economic growth, combined with the effects of additional decreases in the individual income tax rates, should also lead to a slowdown in general fund revenue growth. Miller told the Clarion Ledger Monday that as of the past fiscal year, personal income tax contributed $2.5 billion to the state general fund, which lawmakers use as a funding source for various appropriations, funding and general bills. |
| Senate panel mulls PERS board overhaul, halt of increases | |
| The North Pike School District will have to pay an additional $700,000 in employee pension costs because of an increase being imposed by the board of the state's public employee retirement system, Superintendent Jay Smith recently told the Senate Government Structure Committee. Smith said he might have to leave vacant teacher posts unfilled to cover the cost. Officials with governmental entities across the state have voiced similar concerns of possible staff reductions and reductions in services. Besides being the superintendent of the North Pike School District, Smith, a 33-year career educator, is a member of the Public Employees Retirement System Board. He voted to increase the amount governmental entities contribute to the public pension plan, despite the negative impact the increase might have on his school district Smith, elected to the board by public education employees, said he and other PERS board members voted for the increase because they take an oath to maintain the financial stability of the program that about 360,000 Mississippians depend on for current or future retirement benefits. PERS board Chairwoman Kimberly Hanna, chief financial officer and clerk for the city of Tupelo, agreed even though the increase will cost her employer, the city of Tupelo, $2 million a year. "We have a sworn duty as fiduciaries to make the best decision for the plan, for all members," Hanna said. "... I have to take that city clerk, CFO hat off when I am at the PERS board meetings and make those difficult decisions sometimes." |
| McRae: Mississippi's finances are strong | |
| The state of Mississippi is on a strong financial footing with a solid credit rating, a healthy bond situation and a rainy day fund at it statutory max, State Treasurer David McRae told Meridian business leaders Thursday. McRae, who was elected to his second term in office last year, was this year's keynote speaker at the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation's annual summit. Financially, he said, Mississippi is doing quite well. "The bond agencies in New York see us as a legitimate economic powerhouse ready to go forward into the future," he said. The state treasurer's office is the smallest office in state government, McRae said, with a total workforce of just 36 people. Despite its size, however, the agency's impact is felt in every corner of the government. The state treasurer plays a part in everything from paychecks to bond funds, he said, and is vital to keeping the state's services up and running. Mississippi's is on strong financial footing, McRae said, and companies are taking note. Recent economic development projects such as a $10 billion investment from Amazon to build two data centers in central Mississippi and a $2.5 billion aluminum mill near Columbus are just two examples of industries choosing to do business in the Magnolia State. One area of state government that is not as attractive is the Public Employee Retirement System, or PERS, which is the state retirement system for most government employees throughout the state. As state treasurer, McRae sits on the 10-member PERS board. McRae said PERS has two main issues. The first is the system's current obligations, he said, which the state is obligated to pay. Employees currently paying into PERS are doing so with a contractural agreement that the system will provide a certain level of benefits once they retire, and that will have to happen, he said. "You will get paid your benefits no matter what," he said. |
| Online sports betting bill still alive at State Capitol | |
| Several of you have probably filled out a bracket for this year's March Madness. And some of you may have placed your bets at a state casino. It's a time of year that highlights the state's lack of mobile online sports betting. But there's a chance that could change. "It's the kind of thing that people start looking at, maybe I haven't bet before but I would like to now," said Jay McDaniel, Executive Director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission. "And they maybe come to realize they can't do it legally unless they go to one of our casinos to do it." But it could be as simple as pulling up an app on your phone if House Bill 774 passes this legislative session. Some of the casinos have a mobile component now, but you have to be on the premises to use it which results in money crossing the state lines. "We had a 20 million wagered on March Madness last year," noted McDaniel. "20 million has kind of been our numbers that's wagered. I look at our surrounding states that have mobile and what they have wagered it is significantly more than that." And there's no secret that others are placing the bets on the black market, not just in Mississippi. "The American Gaming Association I believe estimates about $2.7 billion to be bet on March Madness. That's legally. The number estimated illegally is many times that number," McDaniel said. |
| House minority leader bludgeons Senate over Medicaid plan: 'Might as well not expand' | |
| Lawmakers in the Senate came out with a dimmed version of Medicaid expansion earlier this week, and some House leaders weren't too thrilled to hear about it. House Minority Leader Robert Johnson took exception with his cross-chamber counterparts completely gutting an approved House bill that would have expanded Medicaid with a tentative work requirement up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) and instead replacing it with one that only goes up to 99 percent with a strict work requirement. On Thursday, the Democrat from Natchez said the Senate plan not only would not help enough people but it would be bound for a courtroom as it somewhat mirrors a Georgia plan that has been subject to two years' worth of litigation. "The Senate plan looks a lot like the Georgia plan that is in litigation right now. The Georgia plan that serves 3,500 people in a state as large as Georgia, so it just doesn't make much sense to me," Johnson said during an appearance on MidDays with Gerard Gibert. "If all we're going to get is the Senate plan, then we might as well not expand Medicaid." "I think the Senate's approach is, 'We're going to be as draconian as we can about where we start, and so when we go into that room to talk to the House, where we're going to be is somehow, we are negotiating from one end and they're negotiating from the other end,'" Johnson concluded. "That's the way the legislature works." |
| Mississippi Democrats participate in county conventions | |
 | Mississippi Democrats have taken the next step in selecting delegates for their state and national conventions later this year. Saturday, all 82 counties across Mississippi hosted county conventions. County Democratic executive committees and delegates to the congressional district conventions were elected. The Jones County convention was held in Laurel. Forty-one delegates attended, representing all five supervisor districts in the county. "On April 27,, we'll have our congressional district convention at the Imperial Palace Casino in Biloxi, and then on May 25, we'll have our state convention in Jackson at the Jackson Convention Center," said Rickey Cole, chairman, of the 4th Congressional District Democratic Committee. On Aug. 19, Democratic Party members from across the country will meet in Chicago for the party's national convention. |
| Jackson faces lawsuits over employees crashing city-owned vehicles | |
 | The City of Jackson is facing at least 24 lawsuits due to city employees being involved in vehicular crashes with city-owned vehicles, with one striking and killing a pedestrian. After submitting a Freedom of Information Act request, the Clarion Ledger reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of an investigation into the city's approximately 135 current lawsuits. Of the 24 vehicular lawsuits, 17 involve city employees from various department. Five of the lawsuits involve officers from the Jackson Police Department crashing police vehicles into citizens' cars; two involve firefighters in the Jackson Fire Department crashing firetrucks into citizens' cars. If the city is dealing with approximately 135 lawsuits, according to past statements by City Attorney Drew Martin, that means just over 17% of the lawsuits are related to employees crashing city-owned vehicles. Each of the lawsuits surround suing the city for counts of negligence -- though some have other counts -- alleging the city is liable for vehicular crashes caused by city employees driving city-owned vehicles. One lawsuit, filed in the Hinds County Circuit Court on May 12, 2023, involves a "Dr. Omari." Safiya Omari is Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba's chief of staff. City Spokesperson Melissa Payne confirmed in a Thursday phone interview that Omari was involved in the crash. Payne said Omari did not want to provide a comment on the incident for this story. |
| Harris announced as new U.S. Magistrate Judge | |
| The judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi are proud to announce that on March 1, Andrew S. Harris of Madison succeeded F. Keith Ball, also of Madison, as U. S. Magistrate Judge in the Northern Division at Jackson. Mr. Harris is a long-time resident of Mississippi where he has lived for the last 37 years. He received his B.A. from Millsaps College in 2007 and his J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law, where he graduated first in his class. While in law school, Harris received numerous awards, including the William Prentice "Pete" Mitchell Award in Ethics and the Mississippi Law Journal Award presented to the third-year student who most contributed to the betterment of the publication. Before taking the federal bench, Harris served as a term law clerk for Judge Daniel P. Jordan III and subsequently worked with Jones Walker LLP in Jackson as an associate and later as a partner. In his law practice, Harris represented closely held businesses, publicly traded companies, and entrepreneurs on a broad array of complex commercial matters, including those involving intellectual property, trademark, copyright and patent infringement. His work was recognized by the Mississippi Bar in 2020 when he received the annual Young Lawyer of Mississippi Award. He has also been awarded many other honors by professional organizations and publications. |
| Worries about potential China-Taiwan conflict spur state legislation | |
 | Fears of possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait are spurring state-level legislation aimed to identify and mitigate the potential local impact of hostilities. Since the beginning of the year, lawmakers in Arizona, Nebraska and Illinois have introduced versions of the Pacific Conflict Stress Test Act -- bills that impose checklists of potential local vulnerabilities in supply chains and infrastructure security if Beijing eventually uses force to "reunify" with Taiwan. It's an attempt to address fears that China could pair aggression against Taiwan with acts against the U.S., for example by hacking water systems or the electrical grid. Those bills are the brainchild of Michael Lucci, founder of the hawkish nonprofit advocacy group State Armor which is lobbying states to enact laws aimed to insulate them from potentially malign Chinese influence. The organization does not receive corporate funding, Lucci said, and is a bipartisan nonprofit focused on "protecting America and its citizens from Communist China." Even the most pessimistic analysts say a cross-Strait conflict with China isn't imminent. Still, warnings from the Chinese government and from U.S. military officials suggest it's a real possibility. And state-level infrastructure could be a target. FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional hearing in January that "China's hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities." |
| 'You Can't Do That!' Lawmakers' Kids Confront Them Over TikTok Crackdown | |
 | As members of Congress consider a crackdown on TikTok, many have faced lobbying from some of their most vocal constituents: their own children. "She was initially up in arms about the whole thing, 'you can't do that,'" says Rep. Josh Gottheimer, (D., N.J.) of his daughter. The 14-year-old was worried her friends would be mad about her dad's actions. He voted with the majority of the House earlier this month to force TikTok to divest from its Chinese-controlled parent Bytedance or be banned in the U.S. Now the matter has moved over to Senators -- who also have to contend with their in-house critics. "My kids are really tough bargainers, they're not quick to accept my arguments," says Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.), who has four teenagers at home. (Young wants TikTok to separate from China, but doesn't like that the House bill mentions TikTok by name.) Across the U.S., most teenagers don't follow the daily ins-and-outs of Congress, and that generally even goes for children of lawmakers. Sure, elected officials try to keep their kids up on what mom or dad is doing in Washington, but let's face it, a subcommittee-oversight markup isn't the most scintillating event in a teen's day. Yet, TikTok has their attention. It is directly in the wheelhouse of young people, with some anxious about losing their favorite source of entertainment. Michigan Democrat, Rep. Hillary Scholten was in the middle-school pickup line when one of her son's friends asked, "Are you the one who's banning TikTok?" The ban or forced sale of one of the most popular social media apps in the U.S. would be unprecedented---but many lawmakers say it is necessary for national security, given TikTok's parent ByteDance is based in China and could be subject to data requests from that government. |
| Biden signs $1.2 trillion funding package after Senate's early-morning passage ended shutdown threat | |
 | President Joe Biden on Saturday signed a $1.2 trillion package of spending bills after Congress had passed the long overdue legislation just hours earlier, ending the threat of a partial government shutdown. "This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted," Biden said in a statement. "But it rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border. ... That's good news for the American people." It took lawmakers six months into the current budget year to get near the finish line on government funding, the process slowed by conservatives who pushed for more policy mandates and steeper spending cuts than a Democratic-led Senate or White House would consider. The impasse required several short-term spending bills to keep agencies funded. The White House said Biden signed the legislation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was spending the weekend. It had cleared the Senate by a 74-24 vote shortly after funding had expired for the agencies at midnight. The first package of full-year spending bills, which funded the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and the Interior, among others, cleared Congress two weeks ago with just hours to spare before funding expired for those agencies. The second covered the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, as well as other aspects of general government. When combining the two packages, discretionary spending for the budget year will come to about $1.66 trillion. That does not include programs such as Social Security and Medicare, or financing the country's rising debt. |
| 16 States Sue Biden Administration Over Gas Permit Pause | |
 | Louisiana and 15 other Republican-led states sued the Biden administration on Thursday over its decision to temporarily stop approving new permits for facilities that export liquefied natural gas. The lawsuit contends that the Biden administration acted illegally when it decided in January to pause the approvals so it could study how gas exports affect climate change, the economy and national security. Filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, the lawsuit asks a judge to end the pause, arguing that the White House had flouted the regulatory process and instead taken action "by fiat." "There is no legal basis for the pause," Elizabeth B. Murrill, the attorney general of Louisiana, which led the legal challenge, said in an interview. "I'm not sure the American people feel the pain of this particular decision yet, but it is part of a larger plan by this administration to destroy the fossil fuel industry," Ms. Murrill said. The decision has drawn the ire of the oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats. In addition to Louisiana, the states challenging the pause are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. The states argued that a decision of such magnitude should have gone through a regulatory process, in which states, the industry and others could have offered public comments and had an opportunity to shape a decision. |
| McDaniel disagrees with Trump on Capitol riot, says Biden won 2020 | |
 | Former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said she disagrees with former President Donald Trump's depictions of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and his calls to pardon those convicted in connection with the Capitol riot. "I want to be very clear: The violence that happened on January 6 is unacceptable. It doesn't represent our country. It certainly does not represent my party," McDaniel told NBC on Sunday, adding, "If you attacked our Capitol and you have been convicted, then that should stay." Trump has said part of his day-one agenda -- if he's reelected to another term -- would be to free those convicted of crimes tied to insurrection. In contrast with the former president, who has previously called Jan. 6 "a beautiful day," McDaniel said the violent attack was "a dark day in our history." "There's nothing to be proud of about that day," McDaniel told NBC. "There's nothing that we can look back and say, 'this was good.'" McDaniel, who resigned from her role as RNC chair earlier this month, is joining NBC News as a political analyst. Asked why she hasn't publicly disagreed with Trump's remarks sooner, McDaniel said she had to "take one for the whole team" as RNC chair. "Now I get to be a little bit more myself," McDaniel said Sunday. The former GOP leader announced her resignation from the RNC late last month, following months of tension with Trump and his reelection campaign. The RNC replaced McDaniel earlier this month with Michael Whatley, Trump's pick and former chair of the North Carolina state GOP. Lara Trump, the former president's daughter-in-law, will serve as the committee's co-chair. |
| Trump asked if U.S. was better off in his last year. In many ways, the answer is no. | |
 | Donald Trump posed an all-but-shouted query on his social media platform last week, echoing a talking point that has recently become popular in Republican circles: "ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?" The clear implication from Trump and his allies is that the country was thriving in 2020 when he was president in a way that it is not now under President Biden. But the reality is far more complicated. Four years ago this week, the stock market was collapsing -- hitting its worst week since the Great Recession of 2008 -- as the country spiraled into a years-long pandemic that claimed more than 1 million American lives, cratered the economy, upended daily life and, arguably, helped cost Trump a second term in the White House. The third week of March 2020 -- four years before Trump sent his query -- reveals a nation that was on the precipice of crisis, and a leader exhibiting the full panoply of characteristics that his supporters love and his detractors revile. But three years after Trump left office, polls show that some of the voters who helped oust him are looking back on his administration more favorably now, either forgetting or willing to look past much of the chaos and mayhem that characterized his presidency. In interviews, some speak of his first term with a sense of gauzy nostalgia and rate his performance better than Biden's. Trump and his campaign seem to be posing the question in a less literal and more emotional way: Do you, the voter, feel better off under Biden than you did under Trump? |
| Pence makes his final break from the Trumpism he once championed | |
| Hours after announcing he wouldn't endorse Donald Trump for president, Mike Pence huddled privately in Dallas with Texas moneymen such as Ross Perot Jr. and the billionaire conservative Harlan Crow. The former vice president had traveled there to warm up possible donors for his nonprofit policy shop aimed at advancing conservative ideals, according to a person familiar with his itinerary and granted anonymity to speak freely. It was a return to form for a man who has long prized conservatism over the populism of Trump, even if he accommodated its rise. "A lot of people like to think of him as the little sycophant in the corner, and the one example everybody still goes back to is when he watches Trump take a drink out of a water bottle and he does the same thing," said Mike Murphy, Pence's longtime friend and a former Republican member of the Indiana House of Representatives. "But there is a solid core to Pence that is inviolable, and he allows the edges to be kind of smoothed, but at the core there are certain lines he won't allow to be crossed." Long before he became Trump's hype man, Pence was an Indiana governor who sided with what he called "the Reagan agenda." In April of 2016, the last time he opted not to endorse Trump, he backed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in Indiana's decisive GOP May primary, mentioning Cruz's advocacy of "less government, less taxes, traditional values and a strong military." Eight years later, almost to the month, Pence again embraced Reaganism over Trumpism, spurning his former running mate -- a move without precedent in American political history. |
| Mifepristone access is coming before the US Supreme Court. How safe is this abortion pill? | |
| The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a case Tuesday that could impact how women get access to mifepristone, one of the two pills used in the most common type of abortion in the nation. The central dispute in the case is whether the Food and Drug Administration overlooked serious safety problems when it made mifepristone easier to obtain, including through mail-order pharmacies. Legal briefs filed with the court describe the pill's safety in vastly different terms: Medical professionals call it "among the safest medications" ever approved by the FDA, while the Christian conservative group suing the agency attributes "tens of thousands" of "emergency complications" to the drug. Earlier this year, a medical journal retracted two studies that claimed to show the harms of mifepristone. The studies were cited in the pivotal Texas court ruling that brought the matter before the Supreme Court. The publisher cited conflicts of interest by the authors and flaws in their research, although the studies' lead author called the retractions a baseless attack. Since 2000, roughly 6 million patients have taken mifepristone, according to the FDA. A 2021 review of agency records looking for deaths that were likely related to the drug identified 13, or .00027% of patients. Medical organizations supporting mifepristone's availability say the drug's safety -- given the rate of deaths -- compares to "ibuprofen, which more than 30 million Americans take in any given day." |
| Breyer critiques conservatives' textualism ideology: 'It doesn't work very well' | |
 | Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer critiqued textualism, the judicial ideology held by most of the conservatives on the court, on Sunday, saying the perspective is stuck in the past. Textualism is the belief that the Constitution should be read as written by the founders instead of through its intentions shaped by time, which is what most of the court's liberals -- including Breyer before his retirement in 2022 -- believe. Breyer said in an NBC "Meet the Press" interview with Kristen Welker on Sunday that he understands that textualism is "attractive" to justices and simple to understand, but carries drawbacks. "It'll stop the judges from doing what they want. They'll be bound by the text," he said. "You say, 'Sounds good.' Sounds good, but it doesn't work very well, in my opinion. And that's why I've spent a year and a half trying to explain why." The justice argued that textualists ignore the context of history and the changes to the country over time that have shaped how the Constitution should be interpreted. "Go back to 1788, '89, '87. Go back even to just after the Civil War, when we have the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment," he said. "You remember? You don't remember. And I'm not even that old. But there were about half the population of this country that really weren't represented in the political process, right? But they're now part of the political process, as they should be." "Life is complex, life changes. And we want to maintain insofar as we can -- everybody does -- certain key moral political values: democracy, human rights, equality, rule of law, etc. To try to do that in an ever-changing world." |
| Music flows through MUW library for concert series | |
| Usually, the library is a quiet spot. But on the MUW campus, it was filled with music. Mississippi University for Women's Department of Music and the Fant Library collaborated for the Music in the Library Concert Series. The monthly event is a day concert inside the library that includes performances by students and guest artists. It featured a variety of music from piano and other instruments, along with modern and classical compositions. The professor for Music at MUW, Valentin Bogdan, said the series was inspired by former professor, Joe Alexander who passed away last summer. "The library is a bastion of knowledge. It's trying out new things and what would be better than having a concert and having new music and having folks listen to music maybe that they haven't heard before? Dr. Bonnie Camp, who is one of our W alumnae, gave us this beautiful piano that we performed on today. We didn't have a piano when we first started. So, it was mostly instrumental," said Bogdan. |
| Ole Miss celebrates certificate program's first graduates | |
| The University of Mississippi's (UM) risk management and insurance program recently celebrated graduates in its certificate program from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The Insurance Certificate and Internship program, which launched in the fall of 2023, graduated 17 students from four Mississippi HBCUs: Alcorn State University (ASU), Jackson State University (JSU), Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) and Tougaloo College. The graduates, who have completed eight weeks of online coursework and in-person professional development in Oxford and Washington, D.C., will intern with industry employers. The university's Center for Insurance Transformation partnered with the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, known as The Council and five insurance brokers to make the program a reality. Jeff Rodriguez, president and CEO of Brown & Riding Insurance Services Co. of Dallas, is among several industry partners excited to see the certificate program come to fruition. "My hope is that this is just a foundation to scale the program to a larger level," Rodriguez said. |
| Interim leader of Alcorn State is named school's new president | |
| The interim president of Mississippi's Alcorn State University has been elevated to the post permanently. The Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning on Thursday named Tracy M. Cook to serve as the school's 21st president. Cook had served as interim president of the historically Black university since July 2023, when he replaced Ontario S. Wooden, who resigned after only a few months on the job. Cook will assume the new role on April 1. "This decision was made in the long-term best interests of Alcorn State University and its students, faculty, staff, and alumni," said Dr. Alfred McNair, president of the Board of Trustees. "There was an obvious desire and call from the Alcorn family for Dr. Cook to be named to this role, and we are putting our full faith and confidence behind this decision. He is the right person to lead Alcorn State University." Cook has more than 25 years of administrative experience in education, having served in the Jefferson and Claiborne County School Districts as a teacher, athletic director, principal, and superintendent. He returned to his alma mater as chief of staff in 2015, and then stepped into the role of vice president for student affairs and enrollment management. |
| Some Coast police pass on helping with MS Black Spring Break enforcement this year | |
 | Thousands of visitors are expected in South Mississippi April 11 to 14 for Mississippi Black Spring Break, but police officers who usually help patrol along Biloxi Beach are staying away. The police department provided details March 5 to the new events committee that reviews applications for large public events in the city. At that time, seven police officers from other cities agreed to help, said Community Development Director Jerry Creel. "It's now dwindled down to one," said Creel, whose department oversees event applications. That doesn't mean there won't be a big law enforcement presence this year. Highway Patrol will send officers to patrol U.S. 90, Creel said, and county deputies also will assist. The city generally hires a dozen or more event officers for spring break, and "it's costly," said Biloxi Police Chief John Miller. His department doesn't have trouble hiring these extra police for any other events in Biloxi, he said. "Not a lot of people want to come work spring break," he said. The event brings tourists and business to South Mississippi each spring, but it also has brought problems. Miller warned the city after last year's spring break that police protection would be an issue if the Biloxi Council didn't take action. One person was shot and killed during last year's spring break. Five more were shot and injured in Biloxi, including a Biloxi Police officer. Seven were charged with aggravated assault, the majority on police officers, Miller told the council after the 2023 event. |
| Alabama colleges, students weigh options after Gov. Kay Ivey signs DEI bill into law | |
 | Alabama students and educators are still weighing the impacts of a new ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public colleges. Gov. Kay Ivey signed SB129, known as the "divisive concepts" bill, into law March 20. The law becomes effective Oct. 1, 2024. "Alabama lawmakers passed legislation that turns back the clock on the progress in the past 70 years to support students, faculty, and staff from a diverse range of backgrounds," Paulette Granberry Russell, CEO of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said in a statement to AL.com. The wide-ranging legislation asks for sweeping changes or cancellations to state agencies and public colleges that currently fund DEI offices and programming. Auburn University and the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa and Birmingham campuses support more than $3 million each in DEI budgets. Civil rights groups, professional organizations and educators say the law could have a negative impact on student wellbeing, employee retention and hiring, and even research and business opportunities. "We're watching very carefully because there's going to be this short-term impact but also long-term impact," said Heidi Tseu, associate vice president for national engagement at the American Council on Education. "And certainly the concern is that this is a chilling effect on student opportunities." It is not clear yet whether Alabama's law will force some state colleges, which support a combined $16 million in diversity spending, to lay off staff. |
| Congress approves funds for air traffic control tower at Auburn University Regional Airport | |
 | An approval for funding legislation from the United States Congress has paved the way for an air traffic control tower at the Auburn University Regional Airport. AU Regional Airport received $7.2 million from the U.S. Congress a few weeks ago for construction of an air traffic control tower at the airport. According to an AU news release, the tower will bring enhanced safety measures and operational efficiency to the airport while alleviating air traffic congestion. The control tower will provide oversight of air traffic to facilitate a safe airspace. "This project will significantly increase safety at the airport, which is the top priority," Bill Hutto, executive director of the Auburn University Regional Airport, said. "It also will make the airport more efficient for our many users, ranging from education to economic development. We thank Congressman Rogers for his continued support of aviation initiatives in our community." The airport has seen record levels of operations due to the number of flight training students at Auburn University and the continued increase in business, military and recreational travelers to the Auburn-Opelika area. In 2023, the airport was second in number of operations in the state of Alabama, behind the Birmingham International Airport. |
| U. of Florida Investigates Whether Professors 'Interfered' With Western-Civ Center | |
 | The University of Florida is investigating whether a half-dozen professors in its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences "interfered" with a Western-civilization center's ability to establish its curriculum "or otherwise fulfill its mission," according to an internal email obtained by The Chronicle. At least one department chair was also asked by the dean's office to sign a letter affirming that his department believes the center's curriculum "will provide a unique opportunity for students ... and will complement our department's offerings nicely." The Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education, which focuses on teaching students the Western canon and fostering civil discourse, has been a focus of tension on campus since it was approved by Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature, in 2022. A little-known organization called the Council on Public University Reform hired a lobbyist to advocate for the center's formation, The Chronicle reported last year. Some faculty members have expressed concerns about the center, pointing to its supposed rightward tilt and its potential replication of existing departments. John F. Stinneford, the center's inaugural director, previously told The Chronicle that the center is nonpartisan and that it would build upon "existing strengths" at the university. Ben Sasse, the university's president and a former Republican U.S. senator, also vouched for the center as "an important part of the UF community." Yet it appears that the university's administration doesn't believe the center is receiving a proper welcome. Earlier this month, the chairs and graduate coordinators for the anthropology, English, and history departments received notices of a "Management Directed Investigation," according to Churchill Roberts, a professor in the College of Journalism and Communications who leads the faculty union's grievance committee. |
| Early Action: Future U. of Florida students may know their acceptance status earlier | |
 | The University of Florida announced Thursday that it will adopt an Early Action plan for potential first-year students on its applications, starting this year. Early Action will be added to the university's admissions process by offering early admission decisions for potential students. Students who submit their applications by Nov. 1, 2024, and all other required materials by the deadline, will be notified of their admission status on Jan. 24, 2025. "The University of Florida draws elite students, and this initiative is an important opportunity for our university and our students," said UF President Ben Sasse in a news release. "Not only will it help UF attract the best minds, but it will also identify and reward students who are bold enough and determined enough to challenge themselves here in our rigorous academic environment." Early Action will be implemented in time for students wishing to come to the university during the fall 2025 semester, a news release said. Potential students also can apply by Jan 15, 2025, the regular admission deadline, and submit all required materials by the materials deadline. These students will be notified on March 14, 2025, of a decision, the news release said. "Early Action will provide more certainty to selected students by notifying them of admission decisions earlier," said Mary Parker, UF vice president for enrollment management, in a news release. "We appreciate how stressful it can be to plan for college. This plan will help reduce stress for aspiring Gators and their families; allowing more time to prepare for their time at UF -- such as looking into housing and financial aid options." |
| UGA students honored after saving lives of family who wrecked into a Georgia creek | |
 | The University of Georgia this week honored five students who heroically jumped into action to save a woman and two children after the woman's car veered into a creek in rural Burke County. While on their way to Savannah to enjoy St. Patrick's Day, Jane McArdle, Molly McCollum, Eleanor Cart, Clarke Jones and Kaitlyn Iannace, all first-year students at UGA, witnessed an SUV veer off the road and into Briar Creek in Sardis on March 15. Without hesitation, the five students turned their car around to help. Two of the women quickly entered the water to get the victims to safety while the others gathered supplies and communicated with emergency responders. "I am so proud of these heroic students and their exemplary act of courage and teamwork," said UGA President Jere W. Morehead, who presented the students with an official proclamation emphasizing the university's gratitude for their teamwork and bravery. "They represent the very best of the University of Georgia." Clarke, a trained lifeguard, performed CPR on one of the children who was unresponsive during the rescue. "We're just so happy we were in the right place at the right time," Clarke said. In a release by the Sardis Police Department, the students were commended for their selfless courage. |
| Sweeping, Confusing, and Inconsistent: How Colleges Have Actually Responded to DEI Bans | |
| After Texas acted last year to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at public colleges statewide, students like Kaitie Tolman were eager to offer the programming their institutions no longer could. The path to doing so seemed clear: Senate Bill 17, which took effect January 1, exempted student groups from its provisions, which included the banning of DEI offices and employees. But Tolman, a fifth-year student at the University of Houston and former president of the LGBTQ student organization GLOBAL, quickly learned that students' hopes to take up the defunct programs wouldn't be so simple. When Tolman and her peers tried to determine what exactly was being eliminated on their campus, they were met with vague email responses from administrators and a couple of confusing meetings. Everyone they talked to reassured the students that they would help in any way they could. But when Tolman asked for specific details, like how to organize an LGBTQ graduation ceremony, many said they weren't able to help out of fear of legal repercussions, she said. Tolman and her peers aren't the only ones left in the dark about the consequences of anti-DEI legislation. Since last year, eight states have passed laws curtailing the type of diversity initiatives state-funded colleges can offer. Yet public knowledge of the laws' on-the-ground effects has largely been limited to sporadic local news coverage, and sometimes filtered through politically distorted channels. To assess how colleges have changed in response to these new laws, The Chronicle surveyed public colleges in two states that have enacted them: Texas and Florida. |
| Texas A&M students give back to the community during The Big Event | |
 | Some other towns in Texas may be uncomfortable with having college-aged strangers come to their house to do chores, but Bryan and College Station residents look forward to the event every year. The Big Event is the largest single-day student-led service event in the nation where, for one day, tens of thousands of A&M students come together to complete service projects for residents. These projects could include yard work, window washing or painting. Through service-oriented activities, The Big Event promotes campus and community unity as students come together to express their gratitude and support from the surrounding community. For 2024, over 16,500 volunteers signed up to assist 2,250 residents. One resident who signed up for assistance was Glynna Nickle, who moved to College Station in 2019. "Then, in early 2021, I moved here to a house in Bryan and I really like Bryan," Nickle said. "I used to work for A&M for a couple years and now I work at the Legends Event Center over in Midtown Park." Having worked with students before, Nickle said she has some experience with students and their eagerness to get involved or help out in the community. "I really like our student community," she said. "I really enjoyed meeting with them and hanging out with them. They're just really fun to talk to." After seeing her neighbors receive help from students for The Big Event, Nickle said she was inspired to do the same and is hoping to get work done on her garden. |
| Riley Strain's family discusses Missouri student's Nashville death: 'Hug your babies' | |
 | Riley Strain believed people looked good in green. His favorite color. So his family wore it Friday evening as they filled a small room at Metro Nashville Police headquarters. At the press gathering, Strain's mother, Michelle Whiteid, his father, Ryan Gilbert, and his stepfather, Chris Whiteid, spoke briefly, extending gratitude to the Nashville community for their help in finding him. Strain's body was found Friday morning as crews from a nearby business in the Nations poked around in the Cumberland River, police Chief John Drake said. He was about 8 miles down stream of where he was last seen downtown. "I want to first thank MNPD, for their efforts," Gilbert said. "They've had a lot of sleepless nights. I can't give them enough thanks." Gilbert thanked volunteers who put up flyers, made phone calls and collected donations for the searches. He thanked his friends and family back home in Missouri for supporting them from afar. Michelle Whiteid fought back tears, giving in only when she spoke. "I ask that you mommas out there hug your babies tight tonight, please." she said. "Please for me. Hug your babies tight tonight." Metro Nashville police said its investigators did not observe foul-play related trauma. Drake said there is "no other evidence that suggests anything other than" that Strain fell into the river accidentally. |
| Ready or not, AI chatbots are here to help with Gen Z's mental health struggles | |
| Download the mental health chatbot Earkick and you're greeted by a bandana-wearing panda who could easily fit into a kids' cartoon. Start talking or typing about anxiety and the app generates the kind of comforting, sympathetic statements therapists are trained to deliver. The panda might then suggest a guided breathing exercise, ways to reframe negative thoughts or stress-management tips. It's all part of a well-established approach used by therapists, but please don't call it therapy, says Earkick co-founder Karin Andrea Stephan. "When people call us a form of therapy, that's OK, but we don't want to go out there and tout it," says Stephan, a former professional musician and self-described serial entrepreneur. "We just don't feel comfortable with that." The question of whether these artificial intelligence -based chatbots are delivering a mental health service or are simply a new form of self-help is critical to the emerging digital health industry -- and its survival. Earkick is one of hundreds of free apps that are being pitched to address a crisis in mental health among teens and young adults. Because they don't explicitly claim to diagnose or treat medical conditions, the apps aren't regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. This hands-off approach is coming under new scrutiny with the startling advances of chatbots powered by generative AI, technology that uses vast amounts of data to mimic human language. Ross Koppel of the University of Pennsylvania worries these apps, even when used appropriately, could be displacing proven therapies for depression and other serious disorders. |
| The 2024 Federal Budget for Colleges, Researchers and Students | |
 | Congress voted late last week to approve a 2024 fiscal year budget for agencies covered by six of its 12 annual appropriations bills, belatedly completing its work nearly halfway into the fiscal year. Members of Congress had approved legislation covering the other six appropriations bills earlier in March. In general, the strict discretionary budget caps Congress approved last year resulted in flat funding for many programs important to colleges and universities, with a small number of exceptions. The table below shows rounded figures for the amounts appropriated by Congress for the 2024 fiscal year, with comparisons to the 2023 appropriated amounts and the budget requested by President Biden more than a year ago. |
| Education Department Botches College Financial Aid. Again. | |
| The disastrous rollout of this year's federal financial aid application hit a new snag Friday, with the Education Department saying that roughly 200,000 of the 1.5 million-plus applications processed and shared with schools and states so far will need to be recalculated. The Education Department, which administers the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, said it had miscalculated the financial need for students who reported their own financial assets in the application. The department mistakenly omitted data on students' investments and cash savings and sent reports that could have led schools and scholarship programs to offer more aid than students might actually qualify for. The latest hiccup could add further delay and uncertainty to an admissions season that is already shaping up to be the most chaotic in recent memory. The application for financial aid, which opens the spigot for billions of dollars in federal, state and institutional scholarships and loans, didn't go live until the end of December. In a typical year, the federal government sends a report of a student's financial data to colleges within days of receiving the application, which then allows schools to package their own aid offers. This year, however, changes to the Fafsa's formula have upended the timeline for families to make college decisions. "We're beyond weary, and there's a general distrust that there won't be more errors found," said Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, an industry group. "It just feels like the hits don't stop coming." |
| 'Another Unforced Error' in the FAFSA Fiasco | |
| The notoriously rocky rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA)keeps getting rockier. On Friday, the Education Department acknowledged that a calculation error by the office of Federal Student Aid led to inaccurate aid estimates on hundreds of thousands of Institutional Student Information Records, or ISIRs, processed in the past few months. "The FAFSA Processing System (FPS) was not including all data fields needed to correctly calculate the Student Aid Index for dependent students who reported assets," the department wrote in an announcement. "This issue resulted in inaccurate ISIRs for dependent students with assets delivered to [institutions] prior to March 21, 2024." The announcement -- buried five paragraphs into an ostensibly positive update about the department's progress on student aid form delivery -- reported that of the 1.5 million FAFSAs currently processed, about 200,000, were affected by the miscalculation, resulting in lower aid estimates for those students. All those forms will need to be reprocessed and re-sent to institutions, almost certainly delaying aid offers even further. Justin Draeger, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, bemoaned the department's latest miscalculation as "another unforced error that will likely cause more processing delays for students." Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana added the latest setback to his long list of FAFSA grievances on Friday, writing in a statement that the department's "blunders are having real consequences for students." |
| Senate Medicaid expansion plan shows generosity to the poor -- but mostly in other states | |
| Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison writes: About once a year, Mississippians are quick to share articles showing that our home state ranks No. 1 for the nation's most charitable citizens. Perhaps the leaders of the Mississippi Senate genuinely want to continue that tradition. But based on reporting about their soon-to-be-announced Medicaid expansion plan, maybe it's fairer to say they'd rather bestow that generosity on citizens of other states. They would rather give federal taxpayer funds to help poor people in other states instead of allowing that money to be used to benefit their own Mississippi neighbors. For more than a decade, the working poor in most other states are getting help through the Medicaid expansion program under the Affordable Care Act. But in Mississippi, because of state leaders' long refusal to expand Medicaid, the working poor are not getting that same help. Senate leaders, based on Mississippi Today's reporting this week, plan to unveil a plan to expand Medicaid to cover those earning up to 99% of the federal poverty level -- or individuals making about $15,000 a year. Also, as a condition, only those Mississippians earning less than $15,000 a year who are also working will be eligible for Medicaid under the Senate bill. The Senate plan is puzzling for several reasons. |
| Pray for legislative works not to be indifferent | |
 | Columnist Bill Crawford writes: During the season of Easter, Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What better time to reflect upon His key teachings -- love God and love each other. Jesus told us that includes enemies, strangers, children, the sick, the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Overlapping the Easter season is our annual season of law making -- the Mississippi Legislature is in session. What better time to reflect upon the tenor of laws being made -- or not made -- in comparison with Jesus' key teachings. Oh, but lawmaking is government work and religion must be kept separate from government. Horse feathers. Jesus' teachings beget the values that reside in the hearts and minds of men and women of good will. These values cannot and should not be walled off from their decisions, whether in government, business, or civic works. "Values are more than potential materials for the legislative law-maker," wrote Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr. in his 1881 book The Common Law. "They serve as critique of proposed measures of lawmaking." Holmes, called "the greatest of our age in the domain of jurisprudence" when he died in 1932, hit the nail on the head. In critiquing the lawmaking of our legislators do we observe therein values commensurate with Jesus' teachings? Yes and no. |
SPORTS
| Carter's Fourth Quarter Leads Mississippi State Over TCU In WBIT Second Round, 68-61 | |
| Behind eight fourth-quarter points from graduate student center Jessika Carter, Mississippi State overcame a late comeback attempt and pushed ahead in final minutes of action to defeat TCU, 68-61, in the WBIT Second Round inside Humphrey Coliseum on Sunday. Mississippi State improves to 23-11 overall this season and advances to the WBIT Quarterfinals next Thursday. Mississippi State awaits its next opponent and site based on the result of No. 1 seed Penn State against No. 5 seed Belmont on Monday. If Belmont prevails, Mississippi State will host the Quarterfinals inside Humphrey Coliseum on Thursday, but if Penn State advances Mississippi State will be on the road. Carter made the fourth quarter her own, turning in eight of the 22 points in the final frame. She also drew a crucial charge in a tie game with just over three minutes remaining and added a pair of free throws that pushed the Bulldogs ahead by four with 2:11 minutes left in regulation. Carter led the team in points, rebounds and blocks with 17 points, eight rebounds and three blocks in 33 minutes, while graduate student guard Lauren Park-Lane added eight points and dished out eight assists in 36 minutes. |
| Women's Basketball: Mississippi State outlasts TCU, advances to WBIT quarterfinals | |
| Jessika Carter won't know until Monday night whether she has played her final game at Humphrey Coliseum. But if she has, Mississippi State's star center left everything on the court and nothing to chance. Locked in a battle all afternoon long with Texas Christian's own star post player, Sedona Prince, Carter led the Bulldogs with 17 points and eight rebounds as No. 2 seed MSU used a strong late push to defeat the Horned Frogs 68-61 in the second round of the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament. "It was a fun game today playing against someone like that," Carter said. "I haven't really played against anyone her size and her length this whole season. Just having that matchup, it prepares me for the pros. ... As far as finishing the game, I feel like I just gave my team what I could to win the ball game, no matter if it was on defense or offense." The Bulldogs (23-11), even against a team that could hold its own against them from a size perspective, forced their way into the paint and outscored No. 3 seed TCU 34-16 there. MSU also forced eight Horned Frogs turnovers in the first quarter alone, and only the 3-point shooting of Madison Conner kept TCU (21-14) within an arm's length. "They left their mark, but we're not done," Purcell said. "I don't want to send them off yet because we still have great games ahead of us. If you keep advancing, you get national exposure. ... That's a great chance where our team gets to be on national television. It's huge for recruiting, but also these young women deserve to cut down a net. I don't care what tournament it is. Let's try to get there and make it happen." |
| In WBIT, Jessika Carter is Mississippi State basketball's present. Quanirah Montague is future | |
| When Jessika Carter arrived at Mississippi State, she wasn't the women's basketball star TCU faced on Sunday. The version of Carter who posted 17 points, eight rebounds and three blocks against the Horned Frogs and star Sedona Prince in a 68-61 win at Humphrey Coliseum to advance to the quarterfinals of the WBIT? That's not who Carter was when she got to Starkville, and she didn't need to be. She appeared in 36 games as a freshman in the 2018-19 season under then-coach Vic Schaefer, but Carter didn't start, and she averaged fewer than 11 minutes per game. That's because she was behind program-changing players such as Anriel Howard and Teaira McCowan. "Jess has had a lot of big sisters during her time," coach Sam Purcell said Sunday. Her growth has been evident, capped by her play to lead No. 2 seed Mississippi State (23-11) past No. 3 seed TCU (21-12). However, her lasting legacy on the program was shown in the seven minutes Quanirah Montague took the floor. The freshman forward has been limited this season, appearing in 31 games but not starting any. She averages 2.9 points and 2.4 rebounds in less than seven minutes per game. However, her development was shown in the two points, one assist and one steal she collected against the Horned Frogs. Montague is making strides, highlighted by the midrange jumper she hit. She's a crucial piece as Mississippi State prepares for life without Carter -- who set the program record by appearing in her 150th career game Sunday -- next season. "She's the future for Mississippi State," Carter said. |
| Bulldogs Blast Four Homers In Series-Securing Rout | |
| On the back of four home runs, No. 20/20 Mississippi State run-ruled No. 18/17 Arkansas, 15-7, in five innings on Sunday afternoon, securing the series for State. Madisyn Kennedy started the offensive effort with a two-run homer in the first. Sierra Sacco hit her first career home run, a three-run shot, in the second inning to get State (24-7, 5-4 SEC) out to a 6-0 lead. MSU then scored nine runs, all with two outs, in the fourth inning with four extra-base hits in the frame. "I liked the way we responded," head coach Samantha Ricketts said. "We tried to be a little bit more confident in our game, trying to be more aggressive, which is something our offense does. We know [Arkansas] is a great hitting team, and they were going to score no matter what the score was. It was just kind of staying within ourselves and doing what we do in our normal approach. I thought we did a really good job of answering back, especially early on." Mississippi State returns home for a Thursday-Saturday series with No. 10/10 Florida next week. The Bulldogs host the Gators on national TV on Thursday night at 5 p.m. CT on SEC Network. Friday's first pitch is set for 4 p.m., and the series finale will be played at noon on Saturday. The final two games will air on SEC Network+. |
| 'She had that competitive spirit': Taryne Mowatt-McKinney is pushing the Bulldogs' pitching staff and getting results | |
| Aspen Wesley had a big problem with her changeup -- one that could prove quite costly if it persisted into her fifth and final season at Mississippi State. Other teams could pick up on it easily and knew when it was coming. In other words, Wesley was tipping the pitch, a potentially fatal flaw for someone who has been a big part of the Bulldogs' pitching staff ever since she arrived in Starkville. So after she decided to return for her extra year of eligibility granted to all student-athletes affected by COVID-19, Wesley approached MSU's newly-hired pitching coach, Taryne Mowatt-McKinney. A two-time NCAA champion at Arizona who also played six years of professional softball, Mowatt-McKinney always had an excellent changeup, and she had just the solution for Wesley. Mowatt-McKinney suggested that Wesley make a slight change in the way she gripped her changeup, and Wesley noticed the difference immediately. "It just totally fixed everything," Wesley said. "I even went back home, I watched videos of (Mowatt-McKinney) and how she threw her changeup. She threw it so gracefully and with everything she had to make it look like it was a hard pitch instead of a slow pitch. Watching her and seeing how she did it, I tried to kind of mimic her." It wasn't a major change regarding the ball positioning in Wesley's hand, but she now throws her changeup with a more similar grip to her other pitches. Wesley said Madisyn Kennedy, who has been the Bulldogs' best hitter this year, would always hit her changeup in practice. But Kennedy missed much of the fall while recovering from surgery and would watch practice from behind home plate, and said she could no longer pick out Wesley's new changeup. Wesley's work with Mowatt-McKinney has paid off. |
| No. 19 State Earns Second-Straight Ranked SEC Road Win | |
| No. 19 Mississippi State's match at 33rd-ranked Florida was a fight to right to the finish. It took a third-set tiebreaker on the final court to decide a winner in Sunday's battle between the Bulldogs and Gators. However, Carles Hernandez ultimately came through for MSU and enabled the Bulldogs to capture their second straight ranked SEC road win of the weekend 4-3. State (13-5, 5-2 SEC) also prevailed by the same score at No. 16 South Carolina on Friday and have won four of its last five conference matches, all against ranked opponents. "I'm pleased with our team's resilience and how they worked together this weekend on each court," said head coach Matt Roberts. "Today, we were down a doubles point and only won three first sets, but they hung in there and put themselves in a winnable position on all courts. That's what it's all about." The Bulldogs now return to Starkville for a four-match homestand beginning against rival No. 51 Ole Miss on Friday at 5 p.m. and continuing with a Sunday doubleheader against 28th-ranked Alabama and Troy at noon and 4 p.m. respectively. "We look forward to three home matches at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre on Friday and Sunday," Roberts said. "We hope to have a big crowd and that we can show our fan base how hard our guys are fighting right now." |
| Dawgs Split Sunday Doubleheader | |
| Mississippi State women's tennis split a home doubleheader Sunday at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre. Chris Hooshyar's Bulldogs dropped a 4-0 decision to 18th-ranked Auburn but closed out the afternoon by blanking Mississippi Valley State by the same score. MSU (10-10, 0-6 SEC) won all four singles matches against MVSU 6-0, 6-0 and were up 6-0, 5-0 on the remaining two courts that were abandoned once the match was clinched. Doubles was not played against the 0-13 Delta Devilettes. Maria Rizzolo downed Jacqueline Leflore, Dharani Niroshan notched a win against Naterra Young, Chloé Cirotte claimed a victory versus Toni Carter and Athina Pitta clinched her team-leading third match with a triumph over Zulema Salome. When the match against Auburn (12-7, 6-2 SEC) was clinched, Alexandra Mikhailuk held a 6-4, 2-2 lead over No. 18 Carolyn Ansari on Court 1 and Rizzolo was waged in a war with 74th-ranked Ariana Arseneault. Rizzolo won the opening set 6-1, dropped the second 3-6 and was tied 1-1 in the third when the Tigers prevailed. The Bulldogs hit the road for two consecutive weekends. Up first, State will travel to eighth-ranked Georgia on Friday at 4 p.m. |
| Walsh gives summary of disease management to commissioners, public | |
 | Wildlife Bureau Chief of Staff Russ Walsh gave a summary about disease management as it pertains to supplemental feeding Thursday morning. Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks commissioners and the public had an opportunity to learn more about the role feeding plays in wildlife diseases. The educational session started at 9 a.m. and ended by 9:55 a.m. at Percy Quin State Park and can be watched in its entirety on the MDWFP website. Commissioner Leonard Bentz opened the session by first stating they had challenged their biologists to put together the informative session and made it clear the educational session would be livestreamed. Last year's educational sessions on wild turkeys was recorded and uploaded at a later date but not live streamed. Walsh said the information gathered for the presentation came from colleagues at other wildlife agencies and Universities. When supplemental feeding was first legalized, Walsh said the statute had a provision that required MDWFP to study how it impacts wildlife health and risk of disease. Supplemental feeding was first legalized in 2007. "We are not talking about the feed itself today. It is important to understand we are talking about the mechanism of feeding," Walsh said. Research from Mississippi State University shows deer select for supplemental feeding sites on a weekly basis more frequently than they did food plots. Michigan State conducted similar research and found similar results. "Those animals become habituated which is completely not natural if you look at normal behavior of animals," Walsh said. |
| How prevalent is supplemental feeding in Mississippi? | |
 | Commissioners of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks heard an educational session on supplemental feeding and disease management Thursday morning. MDWFP was able to quantify how prevalent supplemental feeding is in Mississippi. The session looked at how the mechanism of feeding congregates animals unnaturally and the disease risks associated with feeding. The discussion on supplemental feeding and disease management comes after commissioner Leonard Bentz charged the wildlife bureau staff to come up with a summary of research on the topic at the February commission meeting. Bentz and Scott Coopwood were curious about the impact of feeders and disease primarily in relation to Chronic Wasting Disease. One of the more controversial aspects of CWD management is the banning of supplemental feeding. CWD is a 100 percent always fatal disease which is spread by an infectious prion. A higher concentration of deer would in turn pose risk of CWD spread. Since the legalization of supplemental feeding in 2007, the role of feeding in hunting has transformed over time along with regulations becoming looser and looser. Mississippi State University recently conducted fixed wing transects surveys to determine how prevalent supplemental feeding was in the state. A fixed wing transect is where pilots fly a specific cross section of Mississippi to obtain the density of feeders per square mile which is then used to estimate the number of feeders statewide. MSU estimated there were 118,000 feeders statewide and that is likely a conservative estimate. |
| New Millsaps football coach a familiar face for the Majors | |
| Back in January, Millsaps College announced the hiring of new head football coach Brandon Lechtenberg. Lechtenberg is a defensive-minded coach with experience coaching at the high school level, as well as the college level at FBS, FCS, D-II, and D-II programs. Lechtenberg is no stranger to Jackson nor the Majors program. From 2011-2016, he served as defensive coordinator at Millsaps. "The place never left me, I'm met my wife here, my family is kind of from this part of the country, everywhere I've been, I've kind of taken Millsaps with me," he said. "So, when the job opened up, the opportunity to come back here and take over the head coaching job here was a really exciting opportunity for my family. As we get into summertime, as the family gets moved here, I'm excited to get them back into Jackson, and back to a place that we love." During Lechtenberg's tenure as DC, the Majors won two SAA titles (2012 and 2013), and lead the conference in scoring defense, total defense and rushing defense in 2012. He hopes to bring that success back to the Majors as head coach. "Right now, in the spring, we're learning how to work and how to build a championship culture, we're learning the work that goes into a championships, because that is the goal here," he said. "That is the goal, to return SAA Conference championships to Millsaps, and there's going to be a lot of work that goes into that." |
| Peyton Manning returns as professor of practice as he reflects on his 'second chapter' | |
| Peyton Manning made his second appearance as a professor of practice in the College of Communication and Information March 21 to participate in a Q&A session titled "From Tennessee to TV: The Peyton Manning story" led by assistant professor Shannon Scovel. Students submitted questions regarding Manning's experience as a former professional football player and Vol and his current career as a media professional. Manning knew he wanted to take a step to find his way back to UT in an immersive way. When the opportunity arose to become a professor of practice, he knew it would be a challenge but believed "it's good to be uncomfortable." In the session, Manning touched on many topics that were introduced in Scovel's Journalism 175 class this semester. "Peyton brought the concepts that we talked about in class to life," Scovel said. "We've discussed the value of storytelling, the importance of audiences and the creativity needed in today's modern world to be a good journalist, and Peyton's work embodies all of this." Manning learned early on that how you treat the media impacts how you act on the field, reflecting on negative newspaper articles written about the game from that weekend or pressing questions in a post-game interview. He learned from his younger brother Eli Manning that media and athletes run closely together. "I always understood the power of media," Manning said. "Eli would show up to press rooms in New York whether it was a room full like this or just a couple of people -- he never skipped out. I had to show up for interviews, win or lose." The transition from athlete to media journalist wasn't necessarily smooth. As Manning was hyper-focused on football, he wasn't thinking of a career post-NFL retirement. Manning's leadership and work ethic motivated him to try something new in what he calls "the second chapter." In this second chapter, he found his expertise useful in navigating the media landscape, finding the opportunity to connect football to entertainment. |
| LSU coach Kim Mulkey lashes out at Washington Post, threatens legal action | |
| LSU coach Kim Mulkey lashed out at and threatened legal action against The Washington Post on Saturday, saying the paper has spent two years pursuing a "hit piece" about her and that it gave her a deadline to answer questions this past week while the defending national champion Tigers were preparing for the women's NCAA Tournament. "The lengths he has gone to try to put a hit piece together," Mulkey said of award-winning Post reporter Kent Babb, whom she did not mention by name. "After two years of trying to get me to sit with him for an interview, he contacts LSU on Tuesday as we were getting ready for the first-round game of this tournament with more than a dozen questions, demanding a response by Thursday, right before we're scheduled to tip off. Are you kidding me? "This was a ridiculous deadline that LSU and I could not possibly meet, and the reporter knew it," Mulkey continued. "It was just an attempt to prevent me from commenting and an attempt to distract us from this tournament. It ain't going to work, buddy." Babb confirmed to The Associated Press that he is working on a profile of Mulkey, but declined further comment. The Post also declined comment. Babb has been working for The Washington Post for 14 years. Three times, his features have been named best in the nation by The Associated Press Sports Editors. Babb also has written two books: "Across the River: Life, Death, and Football in an American City," and "Not A Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson." |
| More Than 'Caitlin Clark Effect' Driving Women's Basketball Boom | |
| This is not just a Caitlin Clark story. That's what ESPN VP of brand strategy and content insights Flora Kelly said, having studied the data around the Iowa star's ascendency. Yes, Clark has become a dominant force on and off the court: selling out arenas, signing massive brand deals, and becoming the face of college basketball -- men's or women's. But she's also doing so in tandem with a groundswell of interest across women's basketball and women's sports even more broadly. Increased TV time has contributed to the growth, and been a result of it. The same holds for structural changes in how fans watch sports today. Disentangling those interrelated craze propellants is a fool's errand, Kelly added. What came first, the exposure or the audience? remains an unanswerable question. Still, the more-than-Caitlin Clark story offers tantalizing lessons in what makes sports grow in 2024. Clark is far and away the best known player in March Madness this year. But four out of the six most recognizable athletes playing in either tournament are women, according to a recent Seton Hall poll. Even taking Clark out of the picture, Similarweb data shows online search volume about high-profile female players jumped 54% from January to February (compared to a 10% jump for top male athletes). Select TV executives saw this coming before Clark emerged on the scene---and pushed to set the stage for her breakout. Carol Stiff spent more than 30 years at ESPN and for much of that time urged the industry to embrace women's sports. "All I can say is it's about time," said Stiff, now the president of the Women's Sports Network, a 24/7 destination dedicated to the topic. Advertisers played a key role, seeing the value in those properties and demanding more supply in more appealing time slots. |
| President Michael Crow discusses new athletic director, lawsuit involving Arizona State, future of AI | |
| In a meeting with The State Press on Thursday, March 21, Arizona State University President Michael Crow spoke about reforming the athletics department, the importance of faculty compliance with DEI training and the AI systems that the University is implementing. It's been over four months since Ray Anderson resigned from his position as ASU's athletic director, and the University has yet to hire his replacement. Amid other schools like UA firing and hiring a new AD within that time frame, Crow made it clear that the delay in hiring Anderson's successor is more about restructuring the whole athletic department rather than just bringing in a new AD. "We're done with the historical model of athletics being an auxiliary, adjunct enterprise institution where ... the athletic department has borrowed money from the University in support of our athletes," Crow said. "We want ASU athletics to be as much a part of the University as any other part of the University, that is, operating the way everything else operates. We're doing away with a legacy in the design that we think is counterproductive to our success." In the revamping of ASU athletics, Crow described changes to different parts of the department, such as the financial and operational models on which it's built. He said the model would more closely resemble the athletic departments of institutions like Stanford, Vanderbilt and Northwestern. Only after the new system of the department is built will ASU bring in the new AD so they can focus primarily on the success of the teams, coaches and athletes rather than worrying about the "long-term financial structure of the football stadium." |
The Office of Public Affairs provides the Daily News Digest as a general information resource for Mississippi State University stakeholders.
Web links are subject to change. Submit news, questions or comments to Jim Laird.
