| Thursday, January 2, 2025 |
| Education: A fresh perspective: Student-led farm cultivates learning, builds community | |
 | Mississippi State University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences recently planted the first seeds on its new experiential student farm. Located near the A.B. McKay Enology Laboratory and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station's R.R. Foil Plant Science Research Center, the farm is immersing students in sustainable agriculture, design education and modern food production, preparing them for diverse careers through hands-on learning and community engagement. "At Mississippi State, we're creating opportunities for students to engage with the land, connect with the food web that sustains us locally and globally, and make farming and food cultivation part of their everyday lives. By fostering hands-on learning and access to resources, we're empowering students to cultivate their own food and understand the vital connections between soil health and food security," said Scott Willard, CALS dean and MAFES director. The developing farm supports multiple programs, including horticulture, landscape architecture, and nutrition. Future plans include working with MSU Dining Services partner Aramark to bring fresh, student-grown produce to campus dining and donating produce to Bully's Pantry to support university students facing food insecurity. |
| Education: Nancy Link, MSU collaboration combats equine laminitis in pleasure and work horses | |
| A strategic collaboration between Nancy Link and Mississippi State University's College of Veterinary Medicine will facilitate the construction of a state-of-the-art research facility and the recruitment of top faculty to advance pioneering research in the prevention and treatment of laminitis, a painful hoof disease that can lead to euthanasia for affected horses. An exceptionally generous gift from Link will fund the construction and operation of the Nancy Fair Link Laminitis Research Center. The Link Center will be located at the MSU CVM. "My horses are a passion in my life. It is heartbreaking to experience their suffering from laminitis. The mission of my partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine at Mississippi State University is to develop treatment and to work to find a cure for this dreadful disease," Link said. "This significant and magnificent gift from Nancy Link will rapidly advance the reputation of MSU's College of Veterinary Medicine as a national and international leader in this important area of research," said MSU President Mark E. Keenum. "This gift will in the full measure of time save horses and has the potential to change the long-term fate of both pleasure and work horses afflicted with this disease. We are grateful for Nancy's tremendous gift that provides the catalyst for this enhanced research." The Link Center will employ two tenured faculty chairs, one early-career faculty member, staff and graduate students. |
| Mississippi's agriculture industry worth $9 billion | |
 | Amid industry and environmental obstacles, Mississippi's agriculture industry remains vibrant in 2024. Poultry is again the largest part of Mississippi's agricultural industry with a value of $3.8 billion, up 10.5% from 2023. Forestry holds second place with a $1.5 billion value, roughly the same as last year. Soybeans and Livestock ranked third and fourth, worth $1.3 billion and $578 million, respectively. These commodities make up about 80% of the value of Mississippi's $9 billion agriculture industry. Josh Maples, an agricultural economist with the Mississippi State University (MSU) Extension Service, credits a rebound in broiler chicken production in 2024 with a stronger showing than last year. "It is not out of the question that the industry could hit a $4 billion value of production total sometime in the next five years," Maples said. Other areas of agricultural promise exist. Hay is valued at $171 million, up 13%. Rice production value is $168 million, a gain of 20%. That increase was due to a rise in acreage. The state's specialty crops are worth $115 million, an increase of 2%. Peanut producers harvested 25,500 acres, 30% more than last year. The crop has a value of $24.5 million, up 11% from 2023. |
| Forestry regains No. 2 agricultural commodity spot in Mississippi | |
| Although prices for timber were lower in 2024, harvest on the state's forest land was up about 8%. Officials with the Mississippi State University (MSU) Extension Service said this gave forestry an expected value of $1.5 billion, similar to what it had in 2023. Because soybeans saw a fairly significant decrease in price, forestry regained the No. 2 agricultural commodity spot in Mississippi. Poultry continues to hold the top spot with an anticipated value of $3.8 billion, and soybeans holds No. 3 with a $1.3 billion estimated 2024 value. These figures are tabulated annually by agricultural economists with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Eric McConnell, associate professor of forest business in the MSU Department of Forestry and Forest and Wildlife Research Center, said forestry was expected to harvest 36.6 million tons in 2024. The final number in 2023 was 33.8 million tons. Forestry is big business in the state, generating an estimated 84,000 jobs and $4.5 billion in income. |
| Education: MSU's Forest and Wildlife Research Center acquires coastal learning laboratory, protects vital forestland | |
| The Forest and Wildlife Research Center, or FWRC, at Mississippi State has acquired 14,071 acres of coastal forestland to establish the Wolf River Coastal Forest Research and Education Center, protecting a vital coastal area in perpetuity. Made possible through a partnership with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Mississippi Forestry Commission, Weyerhaeuser, U.S. Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, the FWRC will manage the bottomland hardwood and upland forests -- part of the Coastal Headwaters Protection Initiative in Harrison and Hancock Counties along the Wolf River, which distributes into the Bay of St. Louis. Wes Burger, dean of MSU's College of Forest Resources and FWRC director, emphasized the university's commitment to continuing the stewardship legacy of Weyerhaeuser, the land's previous owner. The property will provide an outdoor learning lab for teaching, research and outreach programs while ensuring this ecologically vulnerable land remains a permanent part of Mississippi's coastal conservation estate. "This property protects over 10 miles of the Wolf River's main stem and 100 miles of tributaries, preserving water quality, aquatic habitats and the Bay of St. Louis's marine life and fisheries," Burger said. |
| Officials confirm bird flu in chickens from Copiah County commercial breeder | |
 | A second case of bird flu in a flock of Mississippi chickens has been confirmed, this time at a commercial breeder's facility in Copiah County. The Mississippi Board of Animal Health (MBAH) was notified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Veterinary Services Laboratory that the herd of broilers tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza. The update comes just over a week after a group of poultry in Greene County were depopulated after contracting the disease. Samples from the Copiah County flock were tested at the Mississippi Veterinary Research & Diagnostic Laboratory and confirmed at the APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. The state veterinarian has quarantined the affected premises, and birds on the property have been killed to prevent the spread of the disease. Birds from the flock have not entered the food system. The MBAH is working closely with federal animal health officials in Mississippi on a joint incident response. The MBAH is also actively working with the poultry industry to increase the monitoring of flocks statewide. According to officials, bird flu does not present a food safety risk to humans. Poultry and eggs are safe to eat when handled and cooked properly. The public health risk associated with avian influenza in birds remains low. |
| Education: Local students named Mississippi State Luckyday Scholars honored in pinning ceremony | |
| Mississippi State recently honored a new cohort of Luckyday Scholars with a pinning ceremony featuring MSU President Mark E. Keenum and the Board of the Luckyday Foundation. Luckyday Scholars include Presley Kratzer, a sophomore accounting major from Shuqualak; Laynie Dodson, a freshman agriculture education, leadership and communication major from Nettleton; Madeline Montgomery, a freshman biochemistry major from Starkville; Noah Brand, a freshman biological sciences major from West Point and Danis Hollingshed, a freshman computer science major from Crawford. Established by the late Frank Rogers Day, the Jackson-based Luckyday Foundation provides scholarship funding of up to $6,000 per year for a total of up to $24,000 over four years to each student selected for the program. Luckyday Scholars are exemplary students with the goal of becoming college graduates who possess invaluable leadership skills, a strong work ethic and a commitment to community stewardship. Applicants must have a minimum 3.5 high school GPA and participate in an intensive application process. |
| Surprise: Wife helps retired veterinarian get Mississippi State bachelor's degree 60 years later | |
| One of this fall's graduates at Mississippi State University never imagined he would receive the MSU undergraduate degree he worked on 60 years ago. Dr. John G. "Rusty" Thornton took his last class at MSU in 1965 before transferring to Auburn University to complete his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. After transferring and earning additional credits at Auburn, he was eligible to finalize his MSU bachelor's degree; however, an $85 graduation fee was financially prohibitive for the young husband and father who was continuing his studies. A native of Oxford, Thornton first enrolled at MSU in 1962. He couldn't resist returning to his hometown and attending the University of Mississippi for the 1963 school year since his high school sweetheart and the love of his life was there. After Rusty and Stephanie Thornton married in 1964, he returned with his bride to MSU where he completed the pre-veterinary curriculum. MSU's DVM program in the College of Veterinary Medicine didn't launch its inaugural class until the mid-1970s. However, the transfer program was in place earlier for those aspiring to become veterinarians, and Thornton graduated from Auburn with his DVM in 1969. Fast forward nearly 60 years from his MSU enrollment---after retiring from a long and successful veterinary career in Helena, Arkansas, and returning to Oxford, Thornton occasionally had mentioned his regret about not tying up that Mississippi State diploma. This gave Stephanie an idea, and she called MSU to see if there was any possible way to make him an official Bulldog alumnus. |
| Wife helps retired veterinarian get Mississippi State bachelor's degree 60 years later | |
 | One of this fall's graduates at Mississippi State University never imagined he would receive the MSU undergraduate degree he worked on 60 years ago. Dr. John G. "Rusty" Thornton took his last class at MSU in 1965 before transferring to Auburn University to complete his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. After transferring and earning additional credits at Auburn, he was eligible to finalize his MSU bachelor's degree; however, an $85 graduation fee was financially prohibitive for the young husband and father who was continuing his studies. Fast forward nearly 60 years from his MSU enrollment---after retiring from a long and successful veterinary career in Helena, Arkansas, and returning to Oxford, Thornton occasionally had mentioned his regret about not tying up that Mississippi State diploma. This gave Stephanie an idea, and she called MSU to see if there was any possible way to make him an official Bulldog alumnus. She was connected to Associate Dean Jack Smith in MSU's College of Veterinary Medicine who worked with Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Peter Ryan. The first step was to search university archival files for Thornton's student record, review his credit hours and go over his other transcripts. "When I saw his transcript, I knew we were going to be able to award the degree," Ryan said. "He had completed the credit hours and earned the degree but had not transferred all his hours back to MSU to make it official." |
| What does 2025 hold for interest rates, inflation and the American consumer? | |
| Mississippi State University's Brian Blank and a colleague write for The Conversation: Heading into 2024, we said the U.S. economy would likely continue growing, in spite of pundits' forecast that a recession would strike. The past year showcased strong economic growth, moderating inflation, and efficiency gains, leading most economists and the financial press to stop expecting a downturn. But what economists call "soft landings" -- when an economy slows just enough to curb inflation, but not enough to cause a recession -- are only soft until they aren't. As we turn to 2025, we're optimistic the economy will keep growing. But that's not without some caveats. Here are the key questions and risks we're watching as the U.S. rings in the new year. |
| Oktibbeha Year in Review: 2024: Cameras' role in public safety considered, highway revitalization begins, OCH going up for sale | |
| Starkville weighs the role of security cameras in public safety. Revival of Highway 182 begins. Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District responds slowly to allegations against a teacher. County supervisors again pursue OCH Regional Medical Center. Oktibbeha County saw its share of wins, losses, preparation for the future and difficult discussions in 2024. Here are some of the year's top stories. After being presented in August with a feasibility study from Raymond James Financial Services, county supervisors voted in September to move forward with requesting proposals to sell OCH Regional Medical Center to a private health care system. That RFP is still in development. Oktibbeha County has attempted to sell the hospital once previously in 2017, but voters petitioned against it, forcing a referendum and voting against the facility's sale. But this year, no petitions were submitted by the public to prevent the sale. Instead, the sale was publicly endorsed by representatives of both Mississippi State University and the Greater Starkville Development Partnership at a September public hearing. No members of the public spoke in opposition to the sale, though some hospital employees asked to be remembered as the administration goes through the process. |
| Starkville man jailed after assaulting woman with knife | |
| An Oktibbeha County man has been arrested on felony charges after attacking a woman Friday evening. Starkville police responded Dec. 27 around 7:40 p.m. to a 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance in progress at University Hills Mobile Home Park, located at 1033 Highway 182 East. The responding officers found a female suffering from physical injuries and knife cuts. The victim speaks Spanish as her first language. Bilingual officers were called to the scene and were able to communicate directly with the victim, allowing officers to quickly gather critical information about the incident. Alfonsso Garcia, 53, of Starkville, was detained at the scene and charged with aggravated domestic violence. Garcia remains incarcerated in the Oktibbeha County Jail on a $25,000 bond. |
| Big decisions await Legislature in 2025 | |
| The Mississippi Legislature's 2025 session kicks off next Tuesday, January 7th. These are the issues likely to dominate public debate. ... Last year, the big push among legislative leaders in education was the creation of a new funding formula. The old MAEP formula was tossed on the ash heap of history for a new "student-centered" model. Expect some tweaks this coming session, including an examination of whether the property tax cap should be increased to permit local districts to raise property taxes to meet the obligations of the new formula. Expect more conversations about improving options for families this year, too. Speaker Jason White has made clear his commitment to expanded school choice. Don't be surprised if four different proposals percolate this session, all with varying degrees of traction. According to the PERS board, the state's public retirement system has $25 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities and is deeply underwater. The Legislature has affixed some bandaids to the problem, with some supplemental funding and some changes to process, but the systemic threats all remain. There really are only two solutions: increase funding and change the system for new enrollees to stop the bleeding. PERS has proposed a new category of beneficiaries (Tier 5), but modeling of that proposal proves insufficient to put the program back on sustainable footing. Expect additional conversation around bold reforms for new enrollees this year. But with all of the other priorities on the table, don't be surprised if this can get kicked a little further down the road. |
| School choice, education funding on lawmakers agendas in 2025 | |
 | Education funding, access to different public schools and steering public education dollars toward private schools are again likely to make headlines in the Mississippi Legislature in 2025. Front and center will be a focus on key lawmakers' agenda to loosen how students move from one school to another and how education dollars are spent. Senate and House Education Committee chairmen are also considering a teacher pay raise. Since taking office as the House's top lawmaker in the 2024 Session, Speaker Jason White, R-West, has pushed for putting a dollar figure on the cost to educate each student in public schools, allow that money to follow them to any public school and ultimately allow use of that money for private education. As for a bill to specifically designate public school dollars toward private education, House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Dist. 37, said he isn't fully convinced it's a good idea. His counterpart in the Senate, Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, said his committee is also likely to consider a similar bill on portability. "(I'm not moving on that legislation forward) until I can get some assurances that we're not throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater," Roberson said. "I want to make certain that we do it right ... We do have a large number of Republicans that are interested in continuing that conversation. ... We're not going to undo some of the positive things that we've got going on in our public schools currently." |
| Will online sports betting come to Mississippi in 2025? One key lawmaker still on the fence | |
 | Whether the Mississippi Legislature passes a bill to establish online sports betting anywhere in the magnolia state in 2025 is still up in the air. At the same time, one of the key players in that process won't have an official opinion on the matter until they see an online sports betting bill filed. Senate Gaming Committee Chairman Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, told the Clarion Ledger in December he has no plan to file an online sports betting bill in the 2025 Session unless the Mississippi Gaming Commission asks him to. "Of course, any Senate member can file a bill on that topic if he or she wants to and then we'll look at it," Blount said. "The House has been outspoken in wanting to expand gaming in the state, so I don't know what the House may do, but I'll have to wait and see if there's a Senate bill or not to consider." Mississippi Gaming Commission Executive Director Jay McDaniel said the commission has no intention of asking lawmakers to file such a bill or any other piece of legislation. The commission does not normally recommend bills, he said. "I don't believe the commission would take a position on supporting it," McDaniel said. "We would rely on whether it be the Senate committee or the House Gaming Committee to introduce a measure like that ... Obviously, we want the bill to be crafted in a way that works best for the state." |
| Legislature will have to address judicial, legislative redistricting next year | |
| Mississippi lawmakers next year will have to put together two complex jigsaw puzzles when they gather under the Capitol dome for their 2025 session. State lawmakers will be required to redraw Mississippi's 23 Circuit Court and 20 Chancery Court districts and comply with a federal court order to redraw some of their own legislative districts, as well. "It's going to be very, very difficult to do this," Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby told Mississippi Today. Kirby, a Republican from Pearl and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said that Senate leadership plans to comply with an order from a federal three-judge panel who ruled earlier this year the Legislature must create new state Senate and House maps with Black-majority districts and conduct special elections in 2025 under those newly created districts. The Mississippi Conference of the NAACP and Black voters from across the state filed a federal lawsuit against the state last year arguing the legislative districts that were drawn in 2022 by the state Legislature diluted Black voting strength. "None of us are happy we're having to do this," Kirby said. |
| Kitchens, Beam deliver parting shot to tort reform, riling business community | |
| In November, Mississippi Supreme Court Justices Jim Kitchens and Dawn Beam were defeated in their bids for re-election. Weeks later, the pair joined a bare five-member majority to uphold an eye-popping $10 million in punitive damages and award an additional $4.5 million in attorneys' fees to the family of Paul Minor. The size, circumstances, and cast of characters in the case harken back to an era of "jackpot justice" that made Mississippi a judicial hellscape for business, and made a cabal of trial lawyers, Minor included, extremely wealthy. Tort reform became a central theme in former Governor Haley Barbour's 2003 successful campaign. The Legislature passed a package of restrictions in 2004 aimed to slow the exploitation of our courts and the undermining of the state's business climate. Now Barbour and a bevy of business organizations are sounding the alarm about how the Supreme Court's December decision in USAA v. Minor threatens to erode tort reform. The case at issue stemmed from a "wind versus water" dispute following Hurricane Katrina. Nearly six months after Katrina, the Minors informed USAA of their homeowners claim. USAA insured the Minors' home only for wind damage. It contended, on the back of an evaluation by an independent engineer, that most of the damage to the coastal property had been caused by storm surge not covered by the wind policy. The implications of the Supreme Court’s December decision in favor of the Minors is far more significant than a one-off, lingering Katrina dispute. That’s because the majority ignored the plain language of Mississippi’s punitive damage statute to justify the eight-figure sum. |
| Medicaid expansion: What are its chances in 2025? | |
| Arguably the biggest issue of the 2024 legislative session, Medicaid expansion is likely to come up again next year. But did the historic 2024 session create the momentum needed for it to cross the finish line in 2025, or was it merely a one-off? The two most influential lawmakers for this issue in the Senate, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, and Senate Medicaid Chair Kevin Blackwell, both told Mississippi Today they would not consider an expansion plan that didn't include a work requirement. Hosemann, who said he was disappointed with the way expansion died last year, confirmed in an emailed statement that he would push for an expansion bill next session as long as it had a work requirement in it. Blackwell declined to comment whether he would push the issue next year. A work requirement is more likely to be approved by the federal government this year than last, since President-elect Donald Trump will be in office and approved work requirements in his last term. Still, the Trump administration only ever approved work requirements in states that had expansion – as a means of limiting it – and never in states seeking to expand Medicaid for the first time. That means the Senate is banking on the president making an unprecedented move for Mississippi. |
| Mississippi's top doc: 'dereliction of duty' to follow Louisiana's vaccine promotion prohibition | |
 | Louisiana's department of health recently prohibited its public health workers from advertising or promoting the COVID-19, flu and the Mpox vaccines, as reported by NPR and WWNO. Employees of that state's health department are also not allowed to distribute press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get these vaccines. They were even told in three separate meetings that they are not allowed to put up signs at the department's clinics stating vaccines are available on site. The state health officer of Mississippi, Dr. Dan Edney, expressed concern for Louisiana's public health workers. "It's disappointing for them to be put under that type of pressure," he said. "As a practicing physician in Mississippi for 34 plus years, I've been promoting flu shots since the early 1990s. I know as a clinician how important flu vaccinations are to reduce the severity of flu, to reduce the number of our flu days, to reduce the number of our flu hospitalizations." He says the flu can be devastating for vulnerable populations, especially the very young, the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. "Vaccines are one of the greatest achievements that we have made in modern medicine," Dr. Edney said. "It saves millions of lives every year. They are highly regulated, intensely studied, and very safe and effective." |
| Health department's budget request prioritizes training doctors, increasing health insurance coverage | |
| New programs to train early-career doctors and help Mississippians enroll in health insurance are at the top of the state Department of Health's budget wish list this year. The agency tasked with overseeing public health in the state is asking for $4.8 million in additional state funding, a 4% increase over last year's budget appropriation. The department hopes to use funding increases to start three new medical residency programs across the state. The programs will be located in south central Mississippi, Meridian and the Delta and focus on internal and family medicine, obstetric care and rural training. The Office of Mississippi Physician Workforce, which the Legislature moved from UMMC to the State Department of Health last year, will oversee the programs. The office was created by the Legislature in 2012 and has assisted with the creation or supported 19 accredited graduate medical education programs in Mississippi, said health department spokesperson Greg Flynn. State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney said he is "begging for some help with inflationary pressure" on the department's operations budget at the State Board of Health meeting Oct. 9, but additional funding for operations was not included in the budget request. "They're (lawmakers) making it pretty clear to me that they're not really interested in putting more money in (operations) to run the agency, and I understand that," he said. |
| Wicker confirmed as chair of Senate Armed Services Committee | |
| U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has officially been elevated to the chair position of a key Senate committee as a new Congress is set to convene. Beginning January 3, the 119th Congress will convene in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Wicker will take the reins as the chair of the Armed Services Committee – considered a critical position in the Senate. He will be the first Mississippi official to hold the position since the late John Stennis did so during the Vietnam War. After the Republican Party earned a majority during the November elections, Wicker takes the place of Rep. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) as the top committee member. The move was confirmed in a press release from incoming Senate majority leader Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Wicker has served in the U.S. Senate since 2007, adding another term to his tenure after defeating Democratic challenger Ty Pinkins in the 2024 general election. Amidst a GOP-controlled Congress and Republican president-elect Donald Trump regaining the White House, the Pontotoc native will be considered one of the most influential officials in Washington D.C. |
| Biden to award Liz Cheney and others with Presidential Citizens Medal | |
 | President Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 individuals at the White House on Thursday, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has been an outspoken critic of President-elect Trump and some of his allies. The medal is awarded to U.S. citizens who have "performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens," the White House said in announcing the recipients. Cheney will be honored for her service in Congress and on the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and for speaking out about the importance of democracy. Cheney campaigned with Vice President Harris ahead of November's election. Biden has spoken with aides about the prospect of a pardon for Cheney and other Trump critics to protect them against potential politically motivated charges. Biden will also give the medal to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who served as chair of the Jan. 6 committee, former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.). |
| Rep. Bennie Thompson to receive Presidential Citizens Medal from Biden | |
| President Joe Biden is bestowing the second highest civilian medal on Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson --- the lawmakers who led the congressional investigation into the violent Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot by Donald Trump's supporters, and who Trump has said should be jailed. Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony Thursday at the White House, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president's longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn. Cheney, who was a Republican representative from Wyoming, and Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that probed the insurrection. Cheney later said she would vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race even campaigned with her, raising Trump's ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted. Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he takes office. The Presidential Citizens Medal, created by President Richard Nixon in 1969, is the country's second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. |
| Religious landscape of new Congress features noticeable partisan differences | |
 | The religious makeup of the 119th Congress will be little changed from the previous term, although with some pronounced differences between the two parties, according to an analysis of biographical data collected and compiled by CQ Roll Call. On average, Congress will continue to be much more religious than the nation as a whole, with around 95 percent of lawmakers across both the Senate and House identifying with a religious faith. The rest either are nonreligious, did not specify a religion or did not share their faith affiliation. In contrast, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center earlier this year found just under 70 percent of Americans affiliating with a religious faith. "Congress represents America as it looked 20 or 30 years ago, not the way it looks today," said Ryan Burge, a professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University who has written on religion in politics. "Incumbency advantage keeps people in office that were elected... some of them in the '80s, in the '90s, when America was overwhelmingly a religious country." Burge said. "In some ways, it's just kind of like it's a good snapshot of the generational difference in American religiosity." Protestant Christians, from across the denominational spectrum, continue to make up the majority of religious adherents in Congress in either party, with small deviations. Slightly more Episcopalians and Methodists are Democrats, and while Baptists overall lean Republican. The largest single Christian denomination continues to be Roman Catholicism. Democrats account for a larger share, with 83 Catholics across both chambers, compared with the GOP's 68. The GOP, however, is home to a wider variety of Christian denominations, including several evangelical and Pentecostal traditions not found among Democrats. |
| For Jimmy Carter, faith was inseparable from politics and life | |
 | In his inaugural address in January 1977, President Jimmy Carter spoke just four sentences before quoting from scripture. He chose an admonition from the prophet Micah in the Old Testament: "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." The reading served as both a rebuke and a promise, and it helped set the tone for his administration. As the first president elected since the Watergate scandal, Carter had chosen a biblical passage that spotlighted justice and humility, two ingredients absent from the administration of President Richard M. Nixon, who resigned in disgrace. The inclusion of that scripture verse at the beginning of his speech also emphasized Carter's personal faith as an unshakable force in his life that would guide his decisions and his leadership. Raised as an evangelical Baptist, Carter would turn to his faith countless times during his years in office in times of crisis and as he sought to pursue his political agenda, say scholars and religious leaders who knew him and studied his role in public life. The faith that served Carter in political office would come to define many of his works, projects and teachings in the decades following his presidential term. But much earlier, it was those same beliefs that had set him apart from other politicians and put him on the path to the presidency. |
| Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States | |
| E. Stanly Godbold, Jr., a professor emeritus of history at Mississippi State University and preeminent Carter biographer, writes in The Dispatch: To take the measure of Jimmy Carter as a man, a President, and the creator -- along with his marriage partner -- of a legacy that will surely endure for many generations to come, would require many more words than possible in a brief memorial account. Once we recover from the sheer grief of the loss of a man who gave his life and career to being a compassionate Christian whose tolerance for all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, social standing, or any of the myriad conditions and misinformed labels that separate humans from their fellows, we can appreciate the legacy of one of the greatest peacemakers and humanitarians of the post-World War II world. Indefatigable in his determination to do as much as he could for as many people as he could for as long as he could, he embraced that challenge from his youthful days at the U.S. Naval Academy through a long life that almost encompassed a full century. |
| As Trump's return looms, chief justice warns against defying courts | |
 | With Donald Trump's re-inauguration as president less than three weeks away, Chief Justice John Roberts is warning against calls to resist or defy the Supreme Court's decisions. Roberts made no direct reference to the president-elect, but with Trump vowing to swiftly enact dozens of sweeping policy moves of questionable legality, he seemed to be on the receiving end of the chief justice's admonition in his year-end report released Tuesday. "Every Administration suffers defeats in the court system -- sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics. Nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed," Roberts wrote in the annual message. "Within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected." Roberts did not name any recent officeholders or specific episodes. However, following a Trump-appointed judge's decision last year revoking approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, a couple of Democratic lawmakers and one Republican urged the Biden administration to ignore the decision. The White House rejected those suggestions and instead won a Supreme Court stay allowing the pill to remain on the market. Biden also faced criticism and accusations of defiance for his attempts to preserve his student-debt forgiveness policies after the Supreme Court ruled that he'd overstepped his legal authority in trying to provide relief to former students struggling with large loans. |
| The Visas Dividing MAGA World Help Power the U.S. Tech Industry | |
 | Behind the uproar over the H-1B visa is a simple fact: America's tech industry is hooked on imported labor. The program was at the center of a fight that broke out between President-elect Donald Trump's supporters over the holidays. Elon Musk and other tech executives defended H-1B visas as crucial to the success of U.S. businesses. Other stalwarts in the MAGA movement said tech companies should be forced to hire American workers. Amazon.com, Google and Tesla are among the biggest users of the visas, which let companies bring foreign workers to the U.S. on a temporary basis. The workers overwhelmingly come from India and fill jobs in such fields as software development, computer science and engineering. Created by Congress in 1990, the H-1B program is the main pathway to the U.S. for highly skilled foreign workers. Visa holders can eventually become eligible to apply for green cards, which would let them stay in the country indefinitely. The program is vastly oversubscribed, with new visas capped at 85,000 a year. Companies file hundreds of thousands of petitions for the visas a year. A lottery system helps decide who gets in. Employees of universities and other nonprofits are generally exempt from the cap. Data from the Labor Department helps explain why demand is so high. In October, there were twice as many job openings as unemployed workers in the "professional and business services" sector, which includes most tech fields. |
| Dual-credit students in Mississippi go to college at nation's highest rate | |
| Mississippi high school students who take dual-credit courses go to college at the nation's highest rate, according to a recent report. It's generally true that students who take college classes while in high school attend college at higher rates than their peers. Earlier this year, a study from the Community College Research Center at Teacher's College, Columbia University found that nationally, 81% of dual-credit students go to college. In Mississippi, that number shoots up to 93%, meaning the vast majority of the state's high school students who take college classes enroll in a two- or four-year university. "When we did this ranking, boom, right to the top it went," said John Fink, a senior research associate and program lead at the research center who co-authored the study. State officials say there's likely no silver bullet for the high rate at which Mississippi's dual-credit students enroll in college. Here, "dual credit" means a course that students can take for both high school and college credit. It's different from "dual enrollment," which refers to a high school student who is also enrolled at a community college. "It reduces time to completion on the post-secondary level," said Kell Smith, Mississippi Community College Board's executive director. "It potentially reduces debt because students are taking classes at the community college while they're still in high school, and it also just exposes high school students to what post-secondary course work is like." |
| Getting past the bathroom scale: New Year resolutions should be about overall wellness, says expert | |
| Nearly 80% of Americans who make New Year's Resolutions focus on health, according to the Pew Research Center. The average weight gain over the holidays is between one to two pounds. Although this amount seems minor, many people resolve to spend the next year losing weight. Josie Bidwell with the University of Mississippi Medical Center says making New Year weight-loss goals can be difficult. "It is going to probably add unnecessary stress to an already more stressful time, which the holidays are," she said. Instead, Bidwell suggests reaching for normal and sustainable health goals. "The good news is that we don't have to wait for December or the holidays or January or any of those things to start putting steps in place to to lose weight if that's what our goal is," she said. "Or walk more or eat more balanced [meals]. Usually what I encourage in particular patients that I'm working with around the holiday season is just weight maintenance." Bidwell says regardless of what a person's weight is, five to nine daily servings of fruits and vegetables and adequate water intake will make one healthier overall. "Then we want to look at all of our other numbers, [how] is our blood pressure doing?" she said. "What's our blood sugar doing? How's our cholesterol? All of those things matter, right? Can we walk up and down stairs without getting short of breath? Those are the things I encourage people to really focus on, because when we put those behaviors in place to achieve all of those things, then weight loss usually accompanies that." |
| Mississippi's Rose Parade float honored with Past President Award | |
| The cheers were loud and the excitement was palpable as Mississippi's "Birthplace of America's Music" float rolled through the five-and-a-half-mile stretch of Colorado Boulevard during Wednesday's Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif. Even after the nearly 40 floats finished, those in attendance continued to cheer on the Magnolia State as the Mississippi float was honored with one of the parade's top awards. Visit Mississippi and all of those who were involved in constructing the state's first Rose Parade float were awarded the Past President Award, which is handed out annually to the most outstanding innovation in the use of non-floral and floral materials. The float donned with 13,000 yellow roses paid homage to Mississippi's music history and specifically honored the late Elvis Presley and B.B. King. Leading the charge for Mississippi's float, which was occupied by a quartet consisting of Poplarville-based country music trio Chapel Hart and local Elvis tribute artist Brandon Bennett, was none other than Jackson State University's Sonic Boom of the South. No stranger to the big stage, previously taking the field during halftime of Super Bowl LVIII, the HBCU marching band received arguably the largest round of applause of the morning. "Man, the Sonic Boom is amazing," ABC's Hannah Storm said as the band marched through with Kevin Neghandi pitching in, "Huge round of applause from the spectators for Jackson State." |
| MVSU launches fundraiser to perform at Trump's inauguration | |
| Mississippi Valley State University's (MVSU) marching band has launched a fundraiser to perform during President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January. MVSU's Mean Green Marching Machine received and accepted an invitation to participate in the 60th Presidential Inauguration Parade on January 20, 2025. It would be the band's second presidential inauguration performance, the last one being for former President Richard Nixon. However, MVSU's band needs about $350,000 to get to the nation's capital. To help generate these funds, organizers launched a GoFundMe to get to Washington. So far, it has raised close to $60,000 as of publication. Though university officials are ecstatic about its marching band performing in January, reaction to the band's upcoming performance has been mixed online. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to show the world how amazing all of you are! Enjoy the experience!" Lisa Soriano, a GoFundMe donor, said online. MVSU's "Mean Green Marching Machine" has about 250 members. The band previously played at NBA games, the Rose Bowl Parade, New Orleans Mardi Gras parades, the National Showband Battle of the Bands, and other major competitions and performances. |
| 'It's surreal': Mississippi state senator was in New Orleans at time of attack | |
| Some Mississippians were in New Orleans to ring in the new year, including Mississippi state Senator Michael McClendon from DeSoto County. His family arrived in the city earlier in the day Tuesday ahead of the Billy Strings concert they attended. They never went down to Bourbon Street but they were staying a block away. "Concert lasted till about 12:15 or 12:30," he recalled. "Took an Uber back. Got here about 1:30. It's just normal New Year's Eve. Everybody having fun... We got in our room and heard sirens at about 3:15. It woke us up. You're in New Orleans. You hear sirens. But I started getting calls and texts at about 6:00 this morning. You alright? You alright? Click the news, the TV on, and I mean, see this tragedy." McClendon was standing on the edge of the yellow crime scene tape that was still blocking Canal Street Wednesday morning when we spoke with him. "People are just walking around like in disbelief and confusion and you know you can see some anger in people's faces also," noted McClendon. "I hurt for the family and the victims... Supposed to be a festive time, then a tragedy like this happens... Puts things in perspective. It's a crazy world we live in." |
| A Mississippi teen saw his friend die in Bourbon Street attack. Then he had to call the girl's mom | |
 | It was up to the teenager, standing on a French Quarter sidewalk early Wednesday surrounded by crime scene tape and tragedy, to call his friend's mother and describe how she died. Zion Parsons, 18, had arrived in New Orleans only a few hours earlier. It was a last-minute trip with his friend, Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, and her cousin. They were on Bourbon Street a little after 3:15 a.m. when the screaming started. A white pickup barreled into the crowd and Parsons jumped into a brick doorway. When he turned around, Dedeaux was lying in the street, her leg twisted above her head. Then there were gunshots. Parsons fled. Hours later, after returning to the scene, calling hospitals, pleading with police officers and stopping in at the French Quarter's police station, he charged his phone and then made the call to Melissa Dedeaux. Dedeaux, 18, was one of 15 people killed early Wednesday when authorities say 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar turned down Bourbon from Canal Street and into the crowd of revelers celebrating the new year. Dedeaux was a smart, outgoing girl, "who never got into trouble," her mother said. She was also a friend of Parsons from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where they both lived. He described her as "a little ball of sunshine." Their trip to New Orleans was a spur of the moment thing, a teenage adventure that didn't include telling parents or any advanced planning. |
| New Orleans terrorist attack: UGA student, hometown friend among those injured | |
 | A University of Georgia student and her friend from her Florida hometown were injured in the New Orleans terrorist attack early Wednesday. Elle Eisele and Steele Idelson -- both 19 and who graduated from the Canterbury School in Fort Myers in 2023 -- were among the more than 30 people injured when a man plowed a pickup through a crowded Bourbon Street. Canterbury School released the following statement Wednesday night: "The Eisele and Idelson families are deeply grateful for the outpouring of thoughts, prayers, and offers of support for our daughters following the tragic attack in New Orleans," it said. Eisele is a student at UGA and Idelson attends San Diego State University. Earlier Wednesday, UGA President Jere Morehead noted in a post to the university's X account that they "have learned that a University of Georgia student was critically injured in the attack and is receiving medical treatment." Morehead noted that he spoke with the student's family, but offered no details on the student's identity. "As we continue to hold the victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers, the university will do everything in its power to support those in our community who have been impacted by this unspeakable event," noted Morehead. |
| U. of Alabama freshman Kareem Badawi among those killed in New Orleans terror attack | |
 | A freshman at the University of Alabama was among those killed in the New Year's Day terror attack in New Orleans. Kareem Badawi was a 2024 graduate of the Episcopal School of Baton Rouge and had this fall started at UA, where he pledged to join the Sigma Chi fraternity. "It is with great sadness and grief, and with hearts satisfied with Allah's decision and destiny, I announce the death of my son," his father, Belal Badawi, posted on Facebook. "We ask Allah Almighty to shower his mercy on him, and give us patience and strength to overcome." "I grieve alongside family and friends of Kareem in their heartbreaking loss," UA president Stuart R. Bell said. "Our staff have been actively engaged in supportive outreach and the Office of Student Care and Well Being is available at 205-348-2461 or bamacares@ua.edu. Please take a moment to pray for those impacted by this tragedy." Another 2024 graduate of the Episcopal School, Parker Vidrine, was critically injured in the French Quarter attack that killed at least 15 people and injured roughly 35. "As an Episcopal community, we are called to support one another during times of great sorrow. I encourage you to hold these alumni, their families, and all who are grieving in your thoughts and prayers," the school posted on social media. |
| U. of Alabama spends $10 million to buy residential property, Strip buildings | |
| Multiple Tuscaloosa real estate purchases and lease agreements were unanimously approved by the University of Alabama System board of trustees at a special meeting Dec. 19. The properties include a residential building, University Boulevard buildings and mineral rights for a coal company in Jefferson County. Among the purchase agreement authorizations was with the Alabama Department of Mental Health for seven acres of property, including the residential building Clara Verner Tower, at 101 Hackberry Lane in Tuscaloosa. The property is currently leased by developer Stan Pate. The board later approved a lease agreement for a loan for this property to UA's 1831 Foundation. The building has a sale price of $5 million and will be funded with UA's housing reserves. Mike Rogers, assistant vice chancellor for construction management, said the strategic land acquisition is the "last piece to complete the puzzle" for control of real estate on the northern edge of campus along Jack Warner Parkway from Highway 82 to Marrs Spring Road. "The University is committed to providing the same high-quality services and management current residents have come to expect at Clara Verner," said Monica Watts, UA's associate vice president of communications in a statement to AL.com. UA will also acquire buildings at 1402 University Blvd. and 431 Reed St., along the Strip, an area with shops, bars and restaurants frequented by students. |
| The University of Tennessee's housing crunch: Students struggle amid expansion | |
| As the University of Tennessee continues to expand its enrollment, many students are facing challenges finding suitable housing near campus. This shortage has left many scrambling for options, highlighting an urgent issue as the university grows. While new developments like VERVE Knoxville, The Davy and Hub Knoxville promise relief, these projects -- some still under construction -- may not provide immediate solutions for students like Bella Perry and Ella Every, who shared their struggles in securing housing. UT's student population surge has placed immense pressure on Knoxville's housing market. With on-campus housing options limited, many students turn to off-campus rentals, only to encounter skyrocketing prices and a competitive market. Similarly, Bella Perry, a junior studying marketing, shared her experience. "But as for the past few years, it has been hard to find a place," Perry said. "I have had to commute from across the river because everything nearby is either full or way out of my budget. It's been exhausting trying to figure this out." |
| Sen. Lamar Alexander to University of Tennessee grads: 'Make a huge difference to help the most people' | |
 | Over 2,100 students walked across the stage and into the rest of their lives during the University of Tennessee at Knoxville's fall 2024 commencement ceremony. Students graduated Dec. 13 from the flagship Knoxville campus' 14 colleges and schools. Former Tennessee Gov., UT System President and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander delivered a keynote speech and received his own degree, an honorary Doctor of Educational Leadership and Policy degree for his work improving education across the state. He encouraged students to push themselves into public office because it offers a direct route to helping people, Alexander said, offering Bill Frist as an example. Frist was a heart transplant surgeon who served in the U.S. Senate and played an instrumental role in passing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which Alexander said saved 25 million people. "Bill Frist learned that the straightest road to real change to help the most people is public service. He learned what 519,682 Americans who have been elected to public service or who work for those who have also learned," Alexander said. "No one doubts that you can do a lot in private life, from Edison, to Jobs, to Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr. It can make a huge difference, but public service is the most reliable way to make a huge difference to help the most people." It's a stark comparison to those who work to drag us down, he said. |
| 'Micro-agriculture' is how Arkansas's small, urban growers are making the food system more resilient | |
| While farmers continue to face challenges -- from global competition and transportation issues to avian influenza and climate change -- a 'micro-agriculture approach' or backyard gardens can increase access to fresh and nutritious local food as well as create a more resilient food system, advocates say. Amanda Perez, associate professor and state food systems specialist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service, said there are plenty of people with different backgrounds growing food at their homes in Arkansas. When Perez and her husband moved into a suburban house with a flat backyard covered in turf grass they decided to start producing their own food and it has become a family activity. They planted a kitchen garden, fruit trees and other plants. "The thing that happens when you start integrating this type of system in your backyard, is everybody wants to be outside," Perez said. Micro-agriculture is about creating small and sustainable community-focused food systems that can supplement, not replace industrial agriculture. "We have a very, very small number of agricultural producers who are feeding the majority of people and we have the technologies that have supported the system to be able to do that," Perez said. |
| Meet the youngest students at Mizzou: In this lab, both children and teachers are learning new skills | |
 | A few months ago, children in the Child Development Lab on the University of Missouri campus were taking orders, measuring ingredients, cooking and reading menus with a server. A cow was scheduled to visit the lab at the end of the year for a lesson about farming. Learning involves real-life scenarios under the "project construct" curriculum that the director of the Child Development Lab, Miranda Clines, has developed. Clines began her position as the director of the lab in 2022, and she has a hand in everything around the lab. "My role is, well, what isn't my role? It depends on the day and the time of day," Clines said. "Anything from unclogging a toilet and rocking a crying baby, up to chaos manager." The lab is stationed in the basement of Stanley Hall on the University of Missouri campus. Inside, 68 children are divided into four classrooms: blue door (infant/toddler), green door (2-year-olds), yellow door (preschool), red door (preschool). The development lab isn't just a place of learning for children. Undergraduate students have the opportunity to learn from full-time instructors. "The CDL is a place where people can come, they can learn, they can develop, and we can try to further the field of education and human development," Clines said. |
| How Changes in K-12 Schooling Hampered the Preparation of College Students | |
 | Tatania Campbell had always done well in school. But when she started at the University of Virginia, she realized that her education had some gaps. She came to see that her knowledge of history was spotty. And she didn't know how to write the kind of essay her professors expected. Campbell, who plans to graduate in May, is an education major, so her coursework has deepened her understanding of how these gaps developed and why they've endured. Test prep was a major focus. Throughout the year, students at her Houston charter school would take benchmark tests to gauge how they were likely to perform on the year-end state exam. Afterward, instead of moving on to the next unit in, say, English, students would spend time practicing questions like the ones they had missed. She didn't learn how to write an essay, because high-school writing served as practice for producing formulaic responses that would be scored well on standardized tests. "I learned how to write for AP exams in high school," Campbell says. In college, "I had to learn how to write just to write." She figured it out, Campbell says, in a required writing class her first year, through trial and error and getting lots of feedback. In retrospect, Campbell sees how her school designed instruction so that it yielded high test scores that would excite donors and pull in funding. Short-term performance was, across the country, emphasized more than long-term learning. Campbell's schooling exemplifies many of the forces that have shaped the current batch of traditional-age undergraduates. These students, many professors observe, don't seem to be engaging in their academic work in the same ways earlier groups did. |
| Biden signs law mandating colleges report hazing incidents | |
 | President Joe Biden on Tuesday enacted the first federal anti-hazing law, marking the end of a yearslong push by victims' families for more transparency and accountability on college campuses. The Stop Campus Hazing Act, which passed the House of Representatives in September and the Senate this month, requires universities to start collecting hazing statistics to include in regular public reports. The requirements could kick in as soon as next week and affect many campus groups. Under long-standing federal statutes, colleges and universities must disclose crimes that occur on their campuses each year. Yet despite the sometimes violent and fatal nature of hazing, schools have never been required by the federal government to disclose statistics about how often it happens, especially within fraternities and sororities that target their new members. Though nearly every state has an anti-hazing law, the measures vary in scope and impact, according to the advocacy group StopHazing. Earlier attempts to put a federal law on the books have fizzled in Congress. With Biden's enactment of the law Tuesday, many colleges will have to reconcile their existing protocols with the new federal requirements. The law also pushes schools to implement comprehensive hazing prevention programs and identify which student groups are found in violation of anti-hazing rules. |
| Biden Withdraws Proposed Regulations on Student Loans and Trans Athletes | |
 | The Biden administration on Friday withdrew some of its main outstanding plans to enact significant federal student loan forgiveness and to set rules around the participation of transgender athletes on school sports teams. The regulations were, at one time, among the administration's top education policy priorities, and the decision to pull down the proposed regulations was a tacit acknowledgment that they would go nowhere under the administration of incoming President-elect Donald J. Trump. Criticizing protections for transgender people was a central theme during Mr. Trump's campaign, and he routinely attacked student debt reform. But the move was also designed to insulate both policies against immediate manipulation by the incoming administration. The decision helped ensure that the open proposals could not be quickly rewritten, and that the Trump administration would have to at least start the process of introducing its own regulations from scratch. The Education Department said that it had decided to withdraw the rule related to transgender athletes because of a variety of pending lawsuits on the issue. While the Biden administration had specifically delayed finalizing the rule before the 2024 election to avoid political blowback, it took action to put in place other protections for transgender students, such as expanding Title IX in April to prohibit discrimination and harassment based on gender identity. |
| U.S. Finalizes New Rules For Distance Ed And College Prep Programs | |
 | Colleges will have to submit to the federal government new data on their distance education programs under a batch of new rules the Biden administration finalized Monday. The rules, which will take effect July 1, 2026, will likely be the president's last package of new regulations for colleges and universities before Trump takes office Jan. 20. The new regulations carry out Biden's plan to increase federal oversight of online programs, but the final version doesn't go as far as the president initially intended. After receiving significant pushback from online education lobbyists, the Education Department conceded, backing off a plan to disallow asynchronous options for clock-hour courses or require colleges to take attendance in online classes. The package does, however, still include rules that require colleges to report more data on enrollment in distance education classes, which include those offered online or via correspondence. Higher ed institutions won't have to begin submitting the data until July 1, 2027. The final rule also included technical changes to federal college prep programs known as TRIO. But the department decided not to move forward with a plan to open eligibility to some TRIO programs to undocumented students -- a long-sought goal of some TRIO directors and advocates, as well as higher education associations. |
| Here's How Jimmy Carter Changed Higher Education | |
| Jimmy Carter, who as the 39th president of the United States created the Department of Education, died Sunday. He was 100. As president, he tackled discrimination in intercollegiate athletics, segregation in the nation's public colleges, and fraud in student-aid programs. He sought to reduce student-loan defaults, and he oversaw a sharp increase in spending on student aid. Carter also left a lasting imprint on education policy by expanding federal aid to middle-income students. But his actions also sparked fierce debate over the federal role in education and over who should benefit from federal aid -- fights that persist today. It took Carter almost three years as president to achieve the goal of a free-standing Education Department, partly because he faced pushback from some members of his cabinet and Congress, who didn't want to give up jurisdiction over education programs then under their purview. (At the time, education was buried in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, with programs scattered across several other agencies.) Colleges, meanwhile, were divided on the plan, with some hoping the increased visibility would translate into additional money for education, and others worrying that it would increase government intrusion into academe. More than 40 years later, it appears that both the supporters and skeptics of the department were right. |
| Wicker's key committee chairmanship is nothing new for Mississippi senators | |
| Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison writes: Roger Wicker is continuing a long tradition of Mississippians serving in powerful positions in the U.S. Senate. It was expected when Republicans recaptured the Senate majority in the November general election that Wicker, a Tupelo Republican, would be tabbed to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee. So it was no surprise when incoming Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, confirmed recently that the Republican majority had selected Wicker to chair the influential committee when the new Senate convenes in January. The Armed Services Committee provides oversight of the nation's military and defense apparatus, including playing a key role in setting the budget for the Department of Defense. Wicker had said he wants to continue the tradition of former President Ronald Reagan of peace through strength -- of having a military so powerful that it would deter military action by rival countries. It could be argued, though, that for decades the U.S. military has stood head and shoulders above other militaries in the world. It makes sense that Wicker would chair the important committee. He served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and later in the Air Force Reserves. In addition to his military service, Wicker has another valuable commodity: Senate seniority. |
| Hard debates ahead over Medicaid, highway funds, PERS, and taxes | |
| Columnist Sid Salter writes: As they gather to convene the 2025 regular session of the Mississippi Legislature on Jan.7, state lawmakers face several thorny issues from a political and policy standpoint. In other words, the problems are hard to solve in and of themselves even without considering the political consequences of the solutions they choose. The issue of Medicaid expansion divided the Legislature in 2024. The House and Senate came to loggerheads over expanding Medicaid without a work requirement. The Biden administration would not agree to a work requirement, which former President Trump approved during his first term. With Trump returning to the White House and the GOP controlling the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), lawmakers are likely to await clearer signals from Trump on whether his second administration will enact Medicaid work requirements, cut overall Medicaid spending, or both. In either instance, state Medicaid action will almost certainly follow federal Medicaid action if any change is to take place in Mississippi in 2025. ... Mississippi's Public Employees Retirement System got help in 2024 from the lawmakers, but temporarily so. The future stability of PERS will rely on a significant retooling of the system for future state employees. Even with state officials proclaiming that past and current state employees will receive their promised benefits, any discussion of amending PERS draws fire against lawmakers in the arena of negotiating those necessary changes. |
SPORTS
| Retiring 'Voice of the Diamond Dogs' reflects on long career at the mic | |
| On Feb. 27, 1979, Jim Ellis made his first radio broadcast of a Mississippi State baseball game, a play-by-play account of the Bulldogs' season-opening 5-0 win over Mississippi College. A crowd of 928 spectators turned out for opening day at Dudy Noble Field, and Ellis delivered his description of the game from a makeshift open-air booth behind home plate. Ellis' last broadcast from Dudy Noble Field came on May 18, 2024. The game drew a crowd of 11,551 and Ellis provided his account of the game from the Jim Ellis Broadcast Booth in the state-of-the-art Jim Ellis Broadcast Suite, located in a stadium often referred to as the Carnegie Hall of College Baseball after a $68 million renovation in 2019. A humble man with a humble start to his career, Ellis announced his retirement Wednesday after 46 years at the mic -- broadcasting 55% of MSU games ever played -- as the "Voice of the Diamond Dogs." Ellis, 77, said his decision to retire was based on a couple of factors. "First, I'm not a young man anymore and, to be honest with you, I think I have done about everything I could have possibly wanted to do as a broadcaster," he said. "The other thing is how much has changed in the last few years. What I enjoyed most was the relationships with players and coaches and the people in the industry. Things just aren't the same anymore with all the stuff going on in college athletics. It's broken down the things that made the job so enjoyable to do, with all the player movement and how it affects the coach's ability to coach." |
| 'College Sports' Review: A History of the Fieldhouse | |
| On college campuses during the 19th century, sporting events were becoming increasingly frequent. Most were student-led affairs with few rules. Violence was common. As one Yale student wrote in a poem about an intramural football game, "There were tearing of shirts, and ripping of stitches, / And breaches of peace, and pieces of britches." After years of watching Harvard's annual "Bloody Monday" game, dismayed faculty members banned the sport in 1860, prompting students to stage a mock funeral with a football in a casket. The prohibition lasted only 11 years. In "College Sports: A History," Eric Moyen and John Thelin recount the origins of a host of collegiate athletic activities, including football. The authors trace the evolution of college sports into "a massive commercial enterprise" that involves more than half a million student-athletes on American campuses today. Mr. Moyen, a professor of higher education leadership at Mississippi State University, and Mr. Thelin, a professor emeritus of the history of higher education and public policy at the University of Kentucky, neither praise nor condemn revenue-generating "big-time athletics." Rather, they explain the dynamic relationship between collegiate athletics and academic institutions from the mid-19th century to the present. "College Sports" provides readers with an excellent survey of campus athletics. |
| Bulldogs Open SEC Play Against No. 16/16 Kentucky | |
| The Mississippi State Bulldogs will travel to Lexington, Kentucky for their first SEC contest of the season against No. 16/16 Kentucky. The game is set for 6 p.m. CT on SEC Network+. Kentucky leads the all-time series against Mississippi State 24-32. The two teams matched up twice last season, with each team taking a win. The Bulldogs won the first matchup of the year 77-74 in Rupp Arena. When the Wildcats traveled to Humphrey Coliseum for the team's second matchup, they knocked down the Bulldogs 78-68. The Bulldogs are opening conference play against Kentucky for the first time since the 2001-02 season, where State won 59-54. In the last 10 conference openers, the Bulldogs are 8-2. Under Sam Purcell, Mississippi State is 1-1 in conference openers. State finished their non-conference slate on a five-game win streak and with a 13-1 record overall. This is the best start for Mississippi State since the 2018-19 season, where the Bulldogs ended their season in the Elite Eight. The Bulldogs won their fifth straight last Sunday against the South Carolina State Bulldogs. Six Bulldogs finished the game in double figures: Madina Okot (16), Destiney McPhaul (14), Chandler Prater (14), Terren Ward (12), Eniya Russell (11), and Jerkaila Jordan (10). This was the first time this season State has done such. |
| Refreshed Bulldogs ready to work and start SEC play at No. 16 Kentucky | |
| With a month spent playing away from Humphrey Coliseum including eight-straight games on the road or at a neutral site, Mississippi State's women's basketball team desperately needed a break. The Bulldogs were performing well and finished that road trip 7-1 with the lone loss coming to No. 13 Georgia Tech on the road. Still, the signs of mental and physical fatigue were playing out in the last three games that State played. Sam Purcell's squad left a win at Maryland Eastern-Shore and went back home to their respective families. As they returned home, they went back to work on Sunday afternoon and took down South Carolina State 95-47. "Us being able to go home for Christmas and spend time with our families was a reset in our minds and it was what we needed coming into SEC play," Jerkaila Jordan said. "I was just glad everyone was able to go home and enjoy themselves, but now that we're back at school it's time to go back to work." |
| Mississippi State football welcomes trio of experienced assistants ahead of 2025 campaign | |
| After a 2-10 campaign in the first year of the Jeff Lebby era, Mississippi State is making a trio of staff changes as part of an effort to jumpstart a turnaround in Starkville. Two of the new staffers, Phil Loadholt and Vincent Dancy, come to the Golden Triangle by way of Colorado, where they coached under Deion Sanders in 2024. Loadholt, who played in the NFL from 2009-15, led the Buffaloes offensive line this season, helping guide Colorado to America's No. 4 passing offense. The former Minnesota Viking is no stranger to the Magnolia State, serving as an offensive analyst at Ole Miss from 2020-21, when Lebby was also an assistant under Lane Kiffin. Loadholt and Lebby also coached together for two seasons, from 2022-23, at Oklahoma. Dancy joins the staff as the defensive ends and outside linebackers coach, bringing even more Mississippi flavor. The Shuqualak native has a long football history in the state, playing his college days at Jackson State and serving as the head coach at Mississippi Valley State from 2018-22 before being hired as a defensive quality control coach at Colorado. Dancy's defensive ends played a major role in the Buffaloes leading the Big 12 in both sacks and tackles for loss. The third addition, Paul Rhoads, is a veteran defensive coach with a wealth of head coaching and defensive coordinator experience, including a pair of SEC stops at Auburn (2008) and Arkansas (2016-17). He most recently worked as a defensive assistant coach at Gulf Shores High School in Alabama and will serve as a senior defensive analyst for the Bulldogs. |
| Mississippi State adds former Colorado assistant coaches Loadholt, Dancy to staff | |
| A month after Mississippi State's season ended with an Egg Bowl loss to rival Ole Miss, the Bulldogs are making changes to the coaching staff, hiring Phil Loadholt to coach the offensive line and Vincent Dancy to oversee the defensive ends and outside linebackers. Head coach Jeff Lebby also added Paul Rhoads as a senior defensive analyst. All three additions were announced Monday. Both Loadholt and Dancy were on the staff at Colorado this past year, helping the Buffaloes to their best season since 2016. Loadholt reunites with Lebby after working for him as an offensive analyst at UCF, Ole Miss and Oklahoma, with Lebby as the offensive coordinator at each of those schools. "I'm fired up to reunite with Phil," Lebby said in a news release. "He has great familiarity with our culture and offensive scheme and played a pivotal role in our offensive success at each of our previous stops together. His ability to connect with players because of his background at both the NFL and college levels is second to none. He is quickly becoming one of the best in the game at developing players. I'm excited to see him take our offensive line unit to new heights." Rhoads has an extensive coaching background, including seven seasons as the head coach at Iowa State. "Paul is highly regarded in college football," Lebby said. "He's a ball coach with an extraordinary defensive mind who has a proven history of success over the last three decades. He's seen it all. His knowledge of the game, ability to develop players to the next level and experience game planning and play calling in the toughest conference in the country will make our program better." |
| Lane Kiffin, Manny Diaz both support a college football commissioner | |
| Consider Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin and Duke head coach Manny Diaz among those in favor of a potential full-time college football commissioner to help the sport navigate bumpy waters. Both the Rebels (9-3, 5-3 SEC) and Duke (9-3, 5-3 ACC) -- who play in Thursday's Gator Bowl -- have been impacted by transfer portal departures in the weeks since the regular season ended. The Blue Devils, in particular, have been hit hard, as their top two quarterbacks and starting running back all opted to transfer prior to the bowl game. Heading into their College Football Playoff quarterfinal matchup against Boise State, Penn State head coach James Franklin was asked about his own backup quarterback transferring before their playoff run began, according to the Associated Press. The specific transfer "highlighted some of the frustrating aspects of a new college football world in the Name, Image and Likeness era and the transfer portal, forcing players to make tough decisions at inopportune times" per the Associated Press. "I think one of the most important things that we can do is, let's get a commissioner of college football that is waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night, making decisions that's in the best interest of college football," Franklin said, according to the AP. Kiffin and Diaz were asked about the possibility of a college football commissioner in Wednesday's Gator Bowl press conference. Both were adamant changes of some sort need to be made to the current situation. |
| SEC commissioner Greg Sankey: Sugar Bowl postponement 'in best interest of public safety' | |
| Georgia football and Notre Dame will wait another day to play for a spot in the College Football Playoff semifinals, after an early-morning attack in New Orleans' French Quarter district along Bourbon Street killed 10 people and injured 35. Shortly after Sugar Bowl officials announced the postponement of Wednesday's CFP quarterfinals game to Thursday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey released a statement on the conference's X (formerly Twitter) account. "The decision to postpone tonight's Super Bowl was made in the best interest of public safety," Sankey said in the statement. "Lives were tragically lost last night and we are appreciative that public officials and law enforcement agencies continue to work with great diligence to ensure the safety of the New Orleans community." Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley mentioned the game was postponed for 24 hours during his news conference earlier Wednesday afternoon. "We have been in consultation with ESPN and the College Football Playoff, the Southeastern Conference, the University of Georgia, Notre Dame. All parties agree it's in the best interest of everyone in public safety that we postpone the game for 24 hours. Work is fast about to set up a safe, efficient and fun environment for tomorrow night, Hundley said. |
| Golf goes indoors on prime time with high-tech TGL league | |
| Xander Schauffele is making his season debut twice in the span of seven days at venues separated by a lot more than some 5,000 miles. One is at The Sentry, the season opener on the PGA Tour that starts Thursday on hilly terrain in Maui with endless views of the Pacific Ocean. Schauffele knows what to expect at Kapalua having won the tournament six years ago with a 62 in the final round. The other starts next Tuesday inside a 250,000-square-foot building on the campus of Palm Beach State College, a technological wonder when it comes to golf and a game that will only look familiar because of the players involved. This one makes Schauffele curiously excited. It's the debut of the TMRW Golf League, a six-team league featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy among 24 players -- 13 of them major champions -- in fast-paced, two-hour matches to be televised in prime time on ESPN platforms. "I've been in there twice and played a mock match, and there was still a wow factor -- even the second time around with lights and the stadium and really big screens," said Schauffele, who plays for New York Golf Club. "It's different from what they'll see from a conventional standpoint." It's team golf played indoors in the SoFi Center, a combination of simulator golf and actual shots to a huge putting surface that can rotate 360 degrees to change angles and slopes for different shots. |
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