| Monday, March 17, 2025 |
| MSU enters sweet partnership with Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida | |
 | Mississippi State University's Agricultural Autonomy Institute, or AAI, is a new partner with the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida or SCGC. The kick-off meeting, held on campus this past week, marked the start of a research project to develop technology-based solutions for streamlining sugar cane harvesting procedures. SCGC is funding the project at $985,000 -- AAI's largest award to date. The cooperative includes 39 member-growers covering 80,000 acres in Florida's Everglades Agricultural Area, which produces over 400,000 tons of raw sugar each year and supplies sugar to more than nine million people. Under the agreement, a team of scientists from AAI and the university's Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, or MAFES, will produce a novel AI-based system to automate and synchronize conventional sugar cane harvesting machinery. SCGC already has delivered a harvester, tractor and loading wagons to campus for work to begin. The partnership traces back to a 2023 visit to SCGC's headquarters by an MSU team including agricultural and biological engineering Assistant Professors Hussein Gharakhani and Wes Lowe, and department head and AAI Director Alex Thomasson. |
| Spring, summer Adapted Swim Camps at MSU help individuals with special needs | |
 | Mississippi State's Department of Kinesiology hosts its Adapted Swim Camp to teach children and adults with special needs the foundations of swimming and water safety. The spring camp takes place Monday through Friday, with the summer camp May 19-23. Both camps will be held in MSU's Sanderson Center, 225 Bailey Howell Drive. Under the direction of Associate Professor of Kinesiology Gregg Twietmeyer, certified adapted swim instructors along with MSU student volunteers will help participants develop confidence and learn valuable life skills in the pool with an emphasis on water safety. The camp requires swimmers to attend one 45-minute or 60-minute session per day over a five-day period, depending on age. "The Mississippi State Adapted Swim Camp is an example of what kinesiology -- the study of physical activity -- is all about," said Twietmeyer. "In the camp, we teach swimming and water safety skills to people with special needs. In turn, parents are put at ease, campers learn the joy of play and our volunteers learn the centrality of physical activity to human health and well-being. Skilled movement is an essential aspect of human flourishing, which means everyone should have access to it. The MSU Adapted Swim Camp helps make that happen." |
| 'Rolling Stone better watch out' for new local music magazine | |
| Music may have the power to unite people and start important conversations generally, but two local music enthusiasts have taken that philosophy to a new level. Natalie Staggers, a senior communications major at Mississippi State University, and Reagan Bussey, her former coworker at the WMSV radio station on MSU's campus, have started Queue magazine and radio station – helping music lovers discover new artists, explore different genres and stay up to date on local music events. "It really started as a passion project," Staggers told The Dispatch on Monday. "It wasn't anything that we wanted to make this a career right now. We both just wanted to write ... and we wanted to make our own platform to do it." Staggers and Bussey met in spring 2022, on Staggers' first day working at the WMSV radio station. Bussey was assigned to train Staggers, and though she was initially reluctant about the task, Staggers' t-shirt quickly melted the ice. "I came in for my first training shift, and I walked in with a Queen shirt on, and she went, 'oh my God, Queen is my favorite band,'" Staggers said. "And we immediately sat down and just hit it off and started talking about music." |
| Ask The Dispatch: Your questions answered about where to vote on April 1 | |
| In the upcoming April 1 primary, voters in Columbus and Starkville may find their polling place is different from the last city election thanks to new ward boundaries. This year's municipal election will be the first since both cities approved new ward maps to account for population shifts recorded in the 2020 census. As a result, several precincts in both cities have been reassigned. Because the 2020 census showed a greater deviation in ward lines, both Starkville and Columbus were required to draw new maps before the election this year. Starkville approved new ward boundaries in 2022, incorporating the areas annexed by the city in 2021. That annexation added 2.3 square miles and about 1,400 residents to the city. All but two wards in Starkville will have different polling places this year. To avoid confusion on election day, City Clerk Lesa Hardin encouraged residents to check on their precinct early. "Call the city clerk's office, and then we can look them up through the (statewide election management system) or they need to call the circuit clerk's office," she said. "We can pull them up in there, and it will tell us what ward they're in and where their voting precinct is." Ward 2 and 3 residents will continue voting at the Sportsplex as they did in the last election, but all other wards will have new precincts this year. Ward 1 residents will also vote at the Sportsplex. Ward 4 and Ward 7 residents will vote at City Hall. The voting precinct for Ward 5 is Fire Station 1, and the new location for Ward 6 voters is Fire Station 3. |
| At least 32 dead in massive US storm after new fatalities reported in Kansas and Mississippi | |
 | Violent tornadoes ripped through parts of the U.S., wiping out schools and toppling semitractor-trailers in several states, part of a monster storm that has killed at least 32 people as more severe weather was expected late Saturday. The number of fatalities increased after the Kansas Highway Patrol reported eight people died in a highway pileup caused by a dust storm in Sherman County on Friday. At least 50 vehicles were involved. In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that six people died in three counties and three more people were missing. There were 29 injuries across the state, he added in a nighttime post on the social platform X. Bailey Dillon, 24, and her fiance, Caleb Barnes, watched a massive twister from their front porch in Tylertown, Mississippi, away as it struck an area about half a mile (0.8 km) near Paradise Ranch RV Park. They drove over afterward to see if anyone needed help and recorded video of snapped trees, leveled buildings and overturned vehicles. "The amount of damage was catastrophic," Dillon said. "It was a large amount of cabins, RVs, campers that were just flipped over -- everything was destroyed." Paradise Ranch said via Facebook that all staff and guests were safe and accounted for, but Dillon said the damage extended beyond the RV park itself. "Homes and everything were destroyed all around it," she said. "Schools and buildings are just completely gone." |
| Gov. Reeves issues state of emergency following Saturday's severe storms | |
 | Gov. Tate Reeves has issued a state of emergency in response to Saturday's severe storms that left six people dead. Multiple tornadoes were reported across the state on Saturday, impacting 21 counties. Six people were killed, including one in Covington County, two in Jefferson Davis County, and three in Walthall County. Additionally, three people are missing: two from Covington and one from Walthall, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency reports. "I'm heartbroken by the destruction and loss of life caused by these storms," Reeves said. "The state of Mississippi will continue to utilize every available resource to support our fellow Mississippians in need. We are committed to helping them rebuild." "Please join me in praying for the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones during this difficult time," he continued. Preliminary MEMA reports show that 29 people were injured in the storms on March 14 and March 15, with 15 in Covington County, two in Jefferson Davis, two in Pike, and 10 in Walthall. |
| Two Mississippi banks approved for a $26 billion merger | |
 | Two Mississippi banks, Renasant Corporation of Tupelo and The First Bancshares of Hattiesburg have announced Monday that they have received all necessary regulatory approvals to complete the proposed merger of The First with and into Renasant, according to a statement. "We're excited to have received regulatory approval to move forward with the merger between The First and Renasant," said Mitch Waycaster, Renasant CEO and Executive Vice Chairman, in the statement. "We believe this merger creates a transformative partnership between two great organizations with shared values and a commitment to serving our customers and communities." Renasant and The First expect to close the merger on April 1, 2025, subject to the satisfaction of other closing conditions. The combination will result in a financial institution with approximately $26 billion in assets and more than 250 locations throughout the Southeast, as well as offering factoring and asset-based lending on a nationwide basis. |
| Trump is overhauling the government. What could it mean for South Mississippi aerospace and defense? | |
 | The Trump administration's plans to overhaul the federal government are thrilling some state leaders, who say the steps coming into view will boost South Mississippi's economies of aerospace and defense. Those goals are also unnerving some of the region's thousands of federal government employees, who do not know the fate of their agencies or if they will be fired. It is still not clear how a wave of new federal actions in President Trump's second term will affect South Mississippi. But clues are emerging. Some state leaders say a Republican push to increase defense spending could create more work for government contractors from Ingalls Shipbuilding to small cybersecurity companies. They also say commercial companies that operate at the Stennis Space Center could start testing more technology there to support the Department of Defense. Others are uneasy. The Trump administration is looking hard at federal agencies to eliminate what it has called fraud and waste. NASA cut several top roles this week in the first step of a plan some employees fear could end in deeper cuts. More cuts reportedly started last week at the Department of Defense. Stennis, the Seabee base and the Keesler Air Force base help drive South Mississippi's economy and employ thousands of people. Defense contributes about $9 billion to Mississippi's economy each year. |
| Consumers and Businesses Send Distress Signal as Economic Fear Sets In | |
 | Consumers are starting to freak out. Dan Armstrong, a building manager and part-time security guard in Braintree, Mass., started getting spooked about three weeks ago, when talk of mass layoffs and higher prices began dominating conversations with friends and colleagues who had never brought the subject up before. They started swapping tips on where to find the best deals for frozen food and gasoline. On Friday morning, Armstrong, 63 years old, canceled his daughter's high-school class trip to Spain to free up cash. The trip was going to cost him $322 a month until the trip in spring 2026. President Trump's stop-and-start trade wars and other rapid-fire policy changes are making Americans feel gloomy about the economy. Their 401(k)s are down, and their expectations for inflation are up. Now they are paring back spending on extras such as vacations and home-improvement projects. Bleak sentiment about the economy can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nervous consumers tend to cut back, which weighs on spending and economic growth. While economists have been marking down their estimates for the economy, they still expect it to grow. "The consumer drives the U.S. economy," said Rebecca Patterson, an economist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Where the consumer goes the economy goes." |
| State politics: Some Senate, House priorities are still alive in Legislature | |
 | As far as legislative priorities stated by both House Speaker Jason White, R-West, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, some things are still alive in the Legislature, and some have died by the hands of the political process. As the week quickly moves, the Legislature will come even closer to its most important deadline, March 29, when final proposals for general bills and constitutional amendments will be due. By then, even more of this year's top priorities could be dead and gone. At this point, four major initiatives proposed by the lieutenant governor and House speaker are dead unless they choose and successfully get a two-thirds majority in their chamber to suspend the Legislature's rules and revive those bills. Those that are totally dead as of Friday are state retirement system benefits reforms, ballot initiative restoration, suffrage restoration for some nonviolent felony holders and an education reform that would have allowed students to more easily transfer between school districts. Other priorities such as income tax cuts are very much still alive and some hang by a thread. |
| Mississippi lawmakers struggle to reach tax agreement as federal cuts loom | |
| House and Senate negotiations over proposals to drastically overhaul Mississippi's tax code appear to be at a standstill as lawmakers weigh the impact federal spending cuts could have on one of the nation's poorest and most federally-dependent states. With only weeks left in the 2025 session, lawmakers are pushing different proposals behind the scenes to see if Mississippi can pull off an experiment that no other state has accomplished: Eliminating an income tax after having it on the books for more than a century. The negotiations, which House Speaker Jason White said "appeared to have stalled" last week, are unfolding as the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress are floating massive spending cuts. Mississippi relies on the federal government for revenue more than almost any other state, with more than 40% of its annual budget coming from federal dollars. Deep federal spending cuts alongside the elimination or drastic reduction of the state income tax could reduce Mississippi's ability to fund services, experts told Mississippi Today. While the state's top politicians debate whether Mississippi, a state that has failed to fix its high poverty rate and whose agencies continue to deal with costly lawsuits and federal investigations, national experts have cautioned that drastic tax cuts alongside a reduction in federal funding could cripple the state economy if lawmakers aren't prudent. |
| Tax cuts stalled. At issue are different philosophies on fixing state retirement system | |
| If lawmakers don't pass specific reforms to the state's public retirement system, Senate leadership will not consider cutting taxes this year, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told the Clarion Ledger. Both Hosemann and House Speaker Jason White, R-West, said late last week negotiations between the House and Senate "stalled" over tax cuts as the legislature looms closer toward legislative deadlines and the end of the session on April 6. "Those talks kind of cooled last week with the Senate, talking about what they couched as their final offer," White told the Clarion Ledger. "I don't feel like we're anywhere close to that." At the heart of the stall appears to be benefit reforms or increased funding for the Public Employment Retirement System of Mississippi, or PERS. Hosemann, on one end of the table, wants the House to revisit a new set of benefits, called Tier 5, for future retirees, while White wants to pump more annual funding into the system to address $25 billion in PERS liabilities, or future debt. |
| Big names, big money getting involved in Mississippi municipal elections | |
| Gubernatorial hopefuls both past and present are getting involved in Mississippi's mayoral elections this year with campaign cash for prospective Republican and Democratic candidates. Tommy Duff, a Mississippi billionaire eyeing a potential run for the governor's office, formed a political action committee, or PAC, in December, and PAC Director Jordan Russell told the Clarion Ledger last week the team has sent out checks to GOP mayoral campaigns throughout the state. When asked how this related to Duff's political ambitions, Russell said Duff simply wants to support conservatives. At the same time, the 2023 Democratic candidate for governor, Brandon Presley, has funneled about $25,000 toward Democratic mayoral candidates in the past few months. Presley's organization, the Save Our State PAC, was formed in mid-2024 with the goal of supporting Democratic candidates. Both Presley and Duff have identified candidates in Gulfport and Horn Lake, with both of them, as well as the state GOP and Democratic Party focusing on a few other cities such Brookhaven, Jackson and Yazoo City. According to Dallas Breen, executive director at the Stennis Institute, in years past it hasn't been as common for big money to come into the state for mayoral or local elections than in other states. However, Breen said with political angling by some and a more bottom-up approach to building political infrastructure in Mississippi, that attitude has appeared to shift, especially as more folks on the local level become aware and engaged in party politics. |
| Legislature sends paid family leave bill to governor | |
| Mississippi women who work in government don't get a single day of paid time off after giving birth or adopting a child. That's about to change. A bill that cleared the Legislature Friday will give six weeks of paid family leave to primary caregivers who are state employees. It now heads to the governor to be signed into law. "This is a great day for Mississippi," said Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, author of the bill. "We're placing the value on mothers and children in a post-Roe vs. Wade society. And it's time we put our money where our mouths are." House Bill 1063 will apply to state employees who adopt or give birth to a child and are the primary caregiver for that child. It applies to employees working for state government agencies but does not include public school teachers. The policy has garnered wide support from leadership in both chambers. Speaker of the House Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have championed it. Attorney General Lynn Fitch has also publicly spoken out in support of it. Proponents say it acts as a recruitment and retention tool for the public sector, which tends to pay less than the private sector. |
| Weekly protests outside Rep Trent Kelly's office grow in size and message | |
| "Honk if you support Ukraine," a large sign read on Friday afternoon outside of U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly's office on Seventh Street North. Passing cars often beeped their horns, triggering waves and greetings from a group of more than 30 protestors that accompanied it. Weekly protests outside of the office of Mississippi's Republican 1st District congressman, organized by Annis Cox of Columbus, have started to grow over the past two weeks, both in participation and messages. The group, she said, had more than doubled since the previous week, coming together to voice their frustrations with the federal government. Cindy Buob was one of the protestors in front of Kelly's office Friday. She told The Dispatch she was there to protest some of the "erratic" moves she has seen lately from the federal government, including the alienation of America from its allies with the use of tariffs and other political moves. Buob said she wants her representatives to more actively "stand up to Trump." Still, one of her chief concerns, she said, is possible cuts to cancer research. She carried a sign that read, "Do NOT cut cancer research." Fred Kinder, who has been a part of the weekly Friday protests since they started on Feb. 28, said he believes the number of participants has grown as people have become more discouraged with moves from the federal government. |
| 'Full of despair': Senate Dems look to regroup after losing shutdown fight | |
 | Senate Democrats are bracing for a painful post-mortem as they try to avoid a September rerun of their latest government funding defeat. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and nine of his members helped get a House GOP-authored government funding bill to the finish line, saying a vote to advance legislation they loathed was the least bad option. The alternative, they argued, was allowing a shutdown that could empower President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to accelerate their slashing of the federal bureaucracy. This was the first time since the start of Trump's second administration that the party had real leverage to fight the president, as Republicans needed Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster. Democrats could have refused to put up those votes to avert a shutdown, but Schumer folded instead. This gambit is now raising internal questions about how Democrats will handle the next shutdown deadline at the end of September -- and how they can avoid the same result. Schumer's strategy exposed major fissures within the party, marking for many of his members a disappointing retreat. It's also raised questions among some Democrats about whether it's time for the New Yorker to step aside -- though no senators have publicly embraced those calls. |
| 'Manufacturing superpower': Trump team eyes overhaul of US economy | |
 | President Donald Trump and top aides have signaled a major overhaul of the U.S. economy -- one that would be backed by industry executives, and partly fueled by nostalgia and trade retaliation, as Democratic lawmakers warn economic hardship looms. As the United States and Canada this week engaged in a tit for tat triggered by Trump's 25 percent tariffs on most items produced by America's northern neighbor, the president and his aides used words such as "rebuild," "manufacturing superpower" and "re-industrialize" to describe his vision for the U.S. economy. The top White House spokesperson this week suggested Canada had been shifted from economic ally status to "competitor." The Biden administration made moves aimed at shifting the U.S. economy into new sectors, including artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, microchip production, climate-related industries, advanced medical research and others. While Trump in his second term has taken his own steps on AI and microchips, his administration appears to be looking backward as much as toward the future. To hear the 47th chief executive and some of his top lieutenants describe it, Trump's economic vision includes costly new factories across the country -- and American workers eager to return to life on the assembly line. Their words suggest a vision, and the policies to bring it about, that amounts to one part nostalgia for America's past -- before multiple administrations tried steering the economy headlong into the information age -- and one part anger with its top trading partners. |
| Trump administration ramps up rhetoric targeting the courts amid mounting legal setbacks | |
| The new populist president railed against the judiciary as they blocked his aggressive moves to restructure his country's government and economy. This was in Mexico, where former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador eventually pushed through changes that required every judge in his country to be elected rather than appointed. The reforms, and the promise of more by his successor, caused markets to lose confidence in his country's reliability as a place to invest, which led its currency to weaken. It was one in a series of assaults that populists around the globe have launched on the courts in recent years, and legal observers now wonder if the United States could be next. As the courts deliver a series of setbacks to his dramatic attempt to change the federal government without congressional approval, President Donald Trump's supporters are echoing some of the rhetoric and actions that elsewhere have preceded attacks on the judiciary. Despite the rhetoric, the Trump administration has so far not openly defied a court order, and the dozens of cases filed against its actions have followed a regular legal course. His administration has made no moves to seek removal of justices or push judicial reforms through the Republican-controlled Congress. |
| 'That's a lie': Judges around US calling out Trump admin for underwhelming defense | |
 | Sham documents. Cherry-picked data. Flimsy logic. Those were the recent condemnations of three federal judges in courtrooms sprawled across the country as they separately critiqued Trump administration explanations for some of the president's expansive efforts to remake the federal government. Judges tasked with the initial review of the more than 100 legal challenges to those efforts are not just considering the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's actions. Some are also calling out the administration when they think government lawyers have been playing fast and loose with the facts. Their criticism could become an issue if any of the challenges reach the Supreme Court. During the first Trump administration, the court blocked the Commerce Department from including a question about citizenship on the 2020 census after finding the agency hadn't been forthcoming about its motivation. "Reasoned decisionmaking under the Administrative Procedure Act calls for an explanation for agency action," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 5-4 majority. "What was provided here was more of a distraction." The administration will have many more chances to make its case as litigation continues and could find a more receptive audience for Trump's expansive view of presidential authority among the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority. |
| Judges Become Targets in Combative Political Environment | |
| Having taken the White House and captured the Congress, President Trump's movement is unleashing its fury on the one branch of government it doesn't fully control: the judiciary. As more judges have blocked or slowed some of Trump's initiatives, the president's surrogates have been increasingly strident in their responses, casting adverse rulings as not only incorrect but also illegitimate. Trump's aggressive assertions of presidential power, and the speed with which he has imposed his agenda, have put judges on the hot seat. More than 100 lawsuits challenging Trump initiatives are moving through the courts. Adding to the tensions, Trump's challengers frequently have asked judges to temporarily block his moves at the outset, to avert what they have argued are irreparable harms they would suffer while their cases spend months or years working through the legal system. The attacks haven't distinguished between judges appointed by Democratic presidents or Republican ones. Instead, the central criterion: whether a judge has been an impediment to Trump, even at an early stage of a case while legal arguments are far from a final resolution. Judges say the blowback won't influence their rulings. But they fear that the messages from on high are whipping up threats and potentially violence against judges and their families. |
| Trump signs order to dismantle 7 federal agencies focused on media, libraries, homelessness | |
 | President Trump on Friday signed an executive order that aims to eliminate seven federal agencies, including ones that focus on media, libraries, museums and ending homelessness. The president directed the government entities to "be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law," insisting they "reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel." It ordered the heads of each entity to submit a report to the Office of Management and Budget confirming full compliance within seven days. The president targeted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the parent company of Voice of America (VOA), as well as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an agency that supports libraries, archives and museums in every state. He also dismantled the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which aims to prevent and end homelessness in the U.S.; the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an agency focused on preventing, minimizing and resolving work stoppages and labor disputes; the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which aims to expand economic opportunity for underserved communities; and the Minority Business Development Agency, which promotes growth of minority-owned businesses. |
| 'Beyond My Wildest Dreams': The Architect of Project 2025 Is Ready for His Victory Lap | |
| A year ago, Paul Dans was chief architect of what was shaping up to be the blueprint for Donald Trump's second term. Eight months ago, he was sent into MAGA exile. Dans was the director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation when, midway through the 2024 presidential campaign, he and his program started to become a huge political liability for Trump. Democrats warned of Project 2025's "radical" agenda, saying it would mean a ban on abortion, elimination of LGBTQ+ rights, and complete presidential power over federal agencies along with the elimination of some of them, including the Department of Education. At the Democratic National Convention, Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson held up a giant-size replica of the 900-page Project 2025 book and quipped, "You ever see a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time? Here it is." Conservatives began blaming Heritage and Project 2025 for hurting Trump's election chances. Trump himself repeatedly contended he hadn't even read Project 2025, claiming on Truth Social that he had "no idea who is behind it." Now Dans, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and works as a lawyer and government relations consultant, is letting bygones be bygones and says he's delighted with the extent to which Project 2025 has, in fact, become the Trump administration's playbook. This week, in his first in-depth interview since Trump returned to the presidency, Dans effectively confirmed what Democrats were saying all along and Trump himself denied: There really is almost no difference between Project 2025 and what Trump was planning all along and is now implementing. |
| Inside Elon Musk's 'Digital Coup' | |
 | As America's most decorated civil servants sipped cocktails in the presidential ballroom of the Capital Hilton, worrying about their table assignments and wondering where they fell in the pecking order between US senator and UAE ambassador, Elon Musk sat staring at his phone, laughing. Few of the guests at the Alfalfa Club banquet in Washington, DC, on January 25 knew what he knew: that a crew of senior executives and young Musk loyalists was preparing to occupy the top offices of a nearby federal building. Under guard, they would sleep on mattresses lined with body temperature and breath rate sensors as they raced to refactor the nation's code base -- or, better yet, scrap it altogether. In Musk's mind, Washington needed to be debugged, hard-forked, sunset. His strike teams of young engineers would burrow into the government's byzantine bureaucratic systems and delete what they saw fit. They'd help Trump slash the budget to the bone. In the days and weeks that followed, DOGE hit one part of the federal government after another. "This is a digital coup," one USAID source told WIRED at the time. Along the way, DOGE also gained access to untold terabytes of data. Trump had given Musk and his operatives carte blanche to tap any unclassified system they pleased. What did DOGE want with this kind of information? None of it seemed relevant to Musk's stated aim of identifying waste and fraud, multiple government finance, IT, and security specialists told WIRED. But in treating the US government itself as a giant dataset, the experts said, DOGE could help the Trump administration accomplish another goal: to gather much of what the government knows about a given individual, whether a civil servant or an undocumented immigrant, in one easily searchable place. |
| The Unintended Consequences of Trump's Firing Spree | |
| At Veterans Affairs facilities in Detroit and Denver, staff reductions have led to canceled health programs and left homeless veterans without their dedicated coordinator to help them find an apartment and line up a deposit. In Alabama, job cuts at the Education Department have slowed efforts to get disabled children access to classrooms. And in California, Yosemite National Park paused new reservations for more than 500 campsites during peak summer months because of staffing uncertainty. An unprecedented effort to shrink the federal labor force is impeding work at government sites across the country and spawning unintended consequences for services Americans rely on. Managers say essential staff have been cut, and that the administration hasn't followed detailed rules on how to enact widespread layoffs. So far, many cuts haven't taken into account workers' performance or the necessity of their roles. In many parts of the country, the Trump administration's job cuts have hit services and constituencies that Trump pledged to protect. Chief among them is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which plans to cut about 70,000 positions and has already laid off thousands. The agency employs about 470,000 people. Fewer VA staff are handling veterans' claims that will get them treatment for military-service injuries and mental health conditions, two current employees said. This has already resulted in veterans waiting longer to get treatment in North Texas, one said. |
| Here's what you need to know about St. Patrick's Day | |
| If it's March, and it's green, it must be St. Patrick's Day. The day honoring the patron saint of Ireland is a global celebration of Irish heritage. And nowhere is that more so than in the United States, where parades take place in cities around the country and all kinds of foods and drinks are given an emerald hue. In fact, it was among Irish American communities that the day became the celebration it is, from its roots as a more solemn day with a religious observance in Ireland. But even in America, it was about more than a chance to dye a river green (looking at you, Chicago) or just bust out a favorite piece of green clothing, it was about putting down roots and claiming a piece of the country's calendar. Being able to mark a holiday, and have others mark it, is a way of "putting down roots, showing that you've made it in American culture," says Leigh Schmidt, professor in the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. "You've made your claim on that American calendar, in American civic life, by having these holidays widely recognized." The spread of St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the U.S. was a way for Irish immigrant communities, who in the 19th century faced discrimination and opposition, to stake that ground, he says: "It's a kind of immigrant Irish way of combating nativist antagonism against them." |
| Northeast students are heading south for college | |
| Warm weather, affordability and politics have prompted a teenage migration from the Northeast to the South. Large southern state schools, many in already expanding metro areas, are attracting a geographically diverse student body as Americans are increasingly disillusioned with the value of higher education. "They're seen not only as more fun, but also more accessible," Jeff Selingo, author of college admissions books, told Axios. Many public southern schools have lower tuition rates than their private counterparts, and they prioritize merit scholarships, Selingo said. The more exciting draws? School spirit and football culture. In two decades, 84% more students from the North attended public schools in the South, per a Wall Street Journal analysis last year. It jumped 30% from 2018 to 2022. Politics are also a rising factor in some students' decision. "Students have said to me, 'I don't want to go to a college where everybody's angry at each other and everybody's fighting over everything,'" said Maria Laskaris, a counselor at Top Tier Admissions, a higher education consulting firm. "It's not that they don't want to be challenged. They're looking for a good education, an active and generally happy student body." |
| USM President Joe Paul honored by Mississippi National Guard | |
 | University of Southern Mississippi President Joe Paul has been recognized for outstanding support of the National Guard and Reserve. Friday, Paul was presented the Service Member Patriot Award by the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.. "(The award) recognizes outstanding employers, who are supporting our Guard and Reserve soldiers and airmen, any component of the National Guard and Reserve," said Michael Farve, ESGR Area VI volunteer. "Also, it helps to educate our employers on what rights our soldiers and airmen have." Sawyer Walters, a National Guard member and USM Foundation development officer, nominated Paul for the award. "At the end of the day, I'm the employer and the CEO, but it's really (USM) and we've long supported our National Guardsmen, who are students, who are employees and the Mississippi National Guard, in particular, has played such as dramatic and positive role in the State of Mississippi," Paul said. |
| USDA cuts funding that paid for fresh, local food for schools and food banks | |
| For the last few years, schools and food banks around the country have been able to get fresh produce and meat from small, local farms, thanks to federal funding. But that's about to end. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced it's canceling the two Biden-era programs that paid for all that fresh, local food because it says they "no longer effectuate the goals of the agency." That's more than a billion dollars' worth of contracts for small farmers, ranchers and fishermen. Running a small family farm that turns a profit isn't easy. Emma Johnson's family has owned one for decades -- she's a fourth-generation farmer. She and her husband run Buffalo Ridge Orchard with her parents on 80 acres in Central City, Iowa. "We grow a lot of apples, and we do grow some pears, and then we grow from A to Z all of the different vegetables," Johnson said. Recently, they've been selling about $65,000 worth of their produce to local schools and food banks through these USDA programs. "And this season, we were anticipating for those numbers to grow because the budget had grown," she said. Instead, there's suddenly no budget for those programs, which means Johnson and her family are scrambling to figure out where else they can sell all those fruits and vegetables. |
| How BSU and NPHC build community on campus | |
| When students flock to Auburn for their studies, they may be moving hundreds of miles away from home. For Black students who make up only a small fraction of the student body, this culture shock may be especially challenging. The Black Student Union and the National Pan-Hellenic Council offer a space for Black students to build community bonds, excel academically and develop professionally at Auburn. Zach Graham, senior in electrical engineering and president of BSU, explained that BSU seeks to support all students but specifically represents the needs of Black students. Graham is also a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and the former vice president of administration for NPHC and its "Divine Nine" historically Black sororities and fraternities. Through Graham's involvement in both BSU and NPHC, he has found life-long friends and endless opportunities. When Graham reflected back on his first semester at Auburn, he recalled being the only Black person in his dorm and that by the end of the year, a friend of his transferred from Auburn due to having few friends. To Graham, BSU makes Auburn special by helping students establish relationships on campus that encourage them to stay for the duration of their degree. |
| As enrollment in online college grows, students wonder: Why does it cost more? | |
 | Emma Bittner considered getting a master's degree in public health at a university near her home in Austin, Texas. But the in-person program cost tens of thousands of dollars more than she had hoped to spend. So she checked out master's degrees she could pursue remotely, on her laptop, which she was sure would be much cheaper. The price for the same degree online was ... just as much. Or more. "I'm, like, what makes this worth it?" said Bittner, 25. "Why does it cost that much if I don't get meetings face-to-face with the professor or have the experience in person?" Among the surprising answers is that colleges and universities are using online higher education to subsidize everything else they do, a survey of the people who manage these programs finds. And some schools are spending significant amounts on marketing and advertising for it. The result is that 83% of online programs in higher education cost students as much as or more than the in-person versions, according to an annual survey of college online-learning officers. The survey was conducted by Eduventures, an arm of the higher education consulting company Encoura, for the nonprofits Quality Matters and Educause. Bittner's confusion about the price is widespread. Eighty percent of Americans think online learning after high school should cost less than in-person programs, according to a 2024 survey of 1,705 adults by New America. |
| 'I Want to Stand Up for Higher Ed': Protesters Rally Against Education Dept. Cuts | |
 | Dozens of people raised signs and rang cow bells along Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C., on Friday morning as commuters drove by and honked in support. Behind them stood the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education, which fired half its employees this week. Former Education Department staff -- either recently let go or retired -- gathered with teachers and other advocates to protest the mass layoffs announced Tuesday that affected 1,300 employees. Before that, an additional 600 employees had accepted a deferred resignation package offered to all federal employees. People who rely on the department's services have serious doubts that it will continue to maintain them. "It's nowhere near possible that that number of people can continue to perform the tasks at the level they were being performed in the past," said Jordan Matsudaira, a professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University who served as deputy under secretary at the Education Department during the Biden administration. Among the protesters was Lori Stratton, a high-school English teacher in Kansas who came to D.C. for a National Education Association meeting. "I want to stand up for higher ed, and I want to stand up for the cuts they're making in higher ed, specifically in the research programs." Stratton teaches high-school seniors who are worried about delays to their financial aid. |
| Young scientists see career pathways vanish as schools adapt to federal funding cuts | |
| As an infant, Connor Phillips was born three months premature with cerebral palsy. The science that saved his life was the inspiration that led to his role studying brain processes as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health. He had hopes of continuing his work at NIH through a partnership with Brown University, where he was invited to interview for a program that would lead to a doctorate in neuroscience. But training programs at the NIH have been suspended, a casualty of funding cuts by the Trump administration. He is applying to other programs -- and hoping policies putting strains on science might be reversed. "You don't take these jobs that pay worse and have insane hours and are really stressful unless you care about helping others and taking our love for science and translating that into something that can improve people's lives," Phillips said. Reductions to federal support for research at universities and other institutions under President Donald Trump are dimming young scientists' prospects, cutting off pathways to career-building projects and graduate programs. Universities are cutting back offers of admission for graduate students due to the uncertainty. Some American students are looking to institutions overseas. "The only winner out of this is China," said Nicole Lefore, associate director of the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska. |
| Colleges Flag Words Like 'Women' to Comply With DEI Bans | |
 | "Biases." "Racism." "Gender." "Women." Those are just some of the terms colleges and universities are searching for in their databases to ensure compliance with federal DEI bans and similar directives from states and university systems. Robin Goodman, distinguished research professor of English at Florida State University and president of the university's chapter of United Faculty of Florida, said her institution is using a list of keywords to review webpages for DEI language in response to federal and state directives. While not all those terms were scrubbed, the list, which has circulated among faculty, disturbed her. "From my point of view, those words are now dangerous words" that exacerbate a "culture of fear" on campus, she said. She's also mystified by which terms did and didn't make it onto her university's list, noting that the word "woman" is flagged, but not "man" or "sex." Campuses using keyword lists isn't entirely new. Some state laws have pressured colleges to avoid using certain terms in the past, said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. But for most campuses, this is a "new space," as some institutions scramble to comply with federal anti-DEI orders. |
| Legislature wants to add another state agency | |
| Columnist Bill Crawford writes: The latest effort to reduce the overwhelming number of state agencies, boards, and commissions fizzled. So, we're headed up again, not down? Last fall, Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann called for the legislature to formulate a plan to reorganize state government and consolidate several state agencies, boards and commissions. ... After the session started, the Senate unanimously passed SB 2275 to establish a task force that would "make recommendations regarding the reorganization of state agencies to improve governmental efficiency." Double-referred in the House, which appears to have less interest in shrinking government, the bill died in both the State Affairs Committee and the Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee. Passing both the Senate (43 to 8) and House (117 to 2), however, was SB 2573 introduced by Sen. Mike Thompson of Gulfport. The bill creates a new state agency, the Mississippi Department of Tourism. Basically, the bill moves personnel and programs from the Mississippi Development Authority to the new agency. If approved by Gov. Tate Reeves, the new agency will stand up on July 1, 2025, and will begin the journey to grow its bureaucracy. As I wrote in my book, historic efforts to rein in government agencies, boards, and commissions have accomplished little. Rather, growth in Mississippi government resembles kudzu, which spreads rapidly and is difficult to prune. |
| Eliminating the tax on work makes dollars and cents, the spotlight falls on Hosemann | |
| The Magnolia Tribune's Russ Latino writes: Nine states operate without a state income tax. Mississippi should make ten. Collectively, "the nine" kick the heck out of national averages on population growth, economic growth, and even revenue growth to the state -- all while carrying lower overall tax burdens on citizens. Growth, it turns out, is king. In our neck of the woods, Tennessee, Florida and Texas shine without a tax on work, drawing in wealth and massive capital investments. It makes sense. Allowing people to keep what they earn means they have more resources to spend on their families, in their businesses, and across their communities. And people spend their own money better than government -- a core tenet of conservatism. ... The Legislature can eliminate the income tax and drive growth if done responsibly. The only questions left are ones of will and ego. |
| The quiet part out loud: Mississippi political leaders tolerate tax burden on poor | |
| Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison writes: Former Gov. Haley Barbour finally said the quiet part out loud. During a recent speech to the Mississippi State University Stennis Institute of Government and Capitol Press Corps, the former two-term governor and master communicator said taxing groceries was a good thing because everybody has to eat. Barbour reasoned that it is important for all people to have skin in the game -- to pay taxes -- because "otherwise, they will vote to pave the streets with gold if they don't have to pay anything." Various conservative politicians and other policymakers espouse the Barbour philosophy that a tax on food is fair and necessary. To ensure that poor people pay taxes, too, they advocate for a grocery tax that absorbs a much greater percentage of the income of low income families. The quiet part out loud is a reference to the fact that as governor from 2004 until 2012, Barbour blocked legislative efforts to eliminate the grocery tax and offset that lost revenue, at least in part by increasing the tax on cigarettes. Barbour vetoed two bills in 2006: one to eliminate the highest in the nation 7% tax on food and the other to cut in half the levy on groceries. Veto messages are where governors articulate their reasoning for opposing legislation. In neither veto of the grocery tax cut bills did the governor talk about "fairness." |
SPORTS
| Men's Hoops Claims Third Straight NCAA Tournament Bid, Meets Baylor | |
| Mississippi State men's basketball program tucked away its third consecutive NCAA Tournament trip under Chris Jans and will square off with Baylor during Friday's NCAA Tournament Round of 64, as announced Sunday by the NCAA Selection Committee. The Bulldogs, the No. 8 seed in the NCAA East Region, were one of 14 SEC schools which is a single season record for a conference chosen the NCAA's Field of 68. The Maroon and White are joined by SEC regular season champion Auburn, SEC Tournament Champion Florida along with Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt. Mississippi State (21-12, 8-10 SEC) and Baylor (19-14, 10-10 Big 12) will meet in Friday's NCAA Round of 64 from the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. Opposite State-Baylor are No. 1 seed Duke from the Atlantic Coast Conference along with No. 16 seeds American from the Patriot League and Mount St. Mary's from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference who will meet Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio in the NCAA First Four. Sunday's NCAA Round of 32 will tip at a time to be determined. |
| Mississippi State men's basketball selected for third straight NCAA Tournament | |
| For the third time in as many years under head coach Chris Jans, Mississippi State is heading to the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs were selected as a No. 8 seed in the East region, and will face No. 9 seed Baylor in the first round in Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday. "I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to do it three years in a row," Jans said. "That's what we talked about doing when I arrived. We were going to build a team each year to get into March Madness. That was the goal from day one. Certainly the goals have changed. We want to win multiple games now. That's what the charge is. We want more. We don't just want to hear our name called." MSU (21-12) finished 8-10 in Southeastern Conference play for the third year in a row, but in a season where the SEC was as tough as any conference has ever been, the Bulldogs were comfortably in the field of 68. An impressive non-conference slate, highlighted by roads win over SMU and Memphis, helped MSU feel secure about its spot in the postseason. This is the Bulldogs' 14th NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, highlighted by a run to the Final Four in 1996. |
| Chris Jans gets contract extension, raise with Mississippi State basketball in NCAA tournament | |
| Mississippi State basketball is in the NCAA tournament, so third-year coach Chris Jans will receive a contract extension and salary raise. Jans automatically receives a one-year extension and $100,000 raise each time MSU makes the NCAA tournament, according to his Bulldog Club contract obtained by the Clarion Ledger. It will increase his salary to $4.4 million for next season. That salary will keep increasing by $100,000 through March 2028. Then, his salary jumps to $5.45 million through the 2028-29 season and $5.55 million though the 2029-30 season. The No. 8 seed Bulldogs (21-12) will play No. 9 Baylor (19-14) on Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jans has led Mississippi State to three consecutive NCAA tournament appearances for the first time in program history since 2003-05. He joins only three other coaches in SEC history -- John Calipari, Bruce Pearl and Tubby Smith -- to win at least 21 games and reach the NCAA tournament in each of the first three seasons. His 63 MSU wins are the most in program history for a coach through the first three seasons. |
| NCAA Tournament: Greg Sankey's message to SEC teams headed to March Madness | |
 | Commissioner Greg Sankey revealed Saturday during the SEC Tournament he sent a message to league coaches about the upcoming NCAA Tournament. The message: Be flexible and ready to adjust. The league has positioned itself to have as many as 14 bids to March Madness, though, Texas appears to be among the first out as of Saturday afternoon. "Last year, Garth Glissman, our associate commissioner for men's basketball, went through all the foul calls for every team for the first, second, third, fourth round into the Final Four where we had teams in the NCAA tournament," Sankey said. "We put the data in front of our coaches. Higher foul count and higher technical foul count, which means you have to manage yourself physically and mentally. That's part of the message going into next week. Manage yourself physically, emotionally and mentally." |
| How a Football Conference Took Over College Basketball | |
| The Southeastern Conference has long been known for its maniacal fans, its ginormous athletic budgets and the swankiest facilities in college sports. In the SEC, football is a full-blown religion. Basketball? Not so much. Even as the conference conquered the gridiron over the last two decades, its basketball teams resembled a bunch of tackling dummies. They did next to nothing and were easy to take down. The low point for SEC basketball came in 2016, when just three of the conference's 14 teams qualified for the NCAA tournament. Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, describes it as "one of the more miserable days" of his professional career. "We had only three of our teams selected," he says. "One of those teams was assigned to the first round in Dayton -- and lost." Yet nearly a decade later, the country's foremost football conference is in danger of being recast as a basketball league. For the second straight year, the SEC was forced to watch college football's national championship from home. At the same time, Selection Sunday is shaping up to be one of the best in SEC history. As much progress as SEC hoops have made this decade, a national championship has remained frustratingly out of reach---for now. Winning March Madness takes a healthy dose of luck. But Sankey has no doubt that his teams finally have everything else it takes. "Everyone is talking about the beast of a league we have," Sankey said. |
| Mississippi State women's basketball selected for NCAA Tournament | |
| For the second time in three years under head coach Sam Purcell, Mississippi State is bound for the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs were selected as a No. 9 seed and will play No. 8 seed California in the first round in Los Angeles on Friday. If MSU advances to the second round, it will likely face No. 1 seed USC on Monday. After narrowly missing out on last year's tournament following a late-season slide, MSU (21-11) finished just 7-9 in Southeastern Conference play, but the strength of the SEC, combined with a strong non-conference season, helped the Bulldogs get in. MSU earned a key early-season win over Utah, and its best SEC win was at home against Oklahoma in January. This is the Bulldogs' 13th NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, highlighted by back-to-back trips to the national championship game in 2017 and 2018 under Vic Schaefer. MSU reached the second round in 2023, Purcell's first year in Starkville. The Golden Bears, in their first year in the ACC following the breakup of the Pac-12, are 25-8 overall and 12-6 in ACC play. |
| Softball: No. 19 Bulldogs Win Series At No. 25 Alabama For First Time In Program History | |
| No. 19 Mississippi State will return from Tuscaloosa with a series win for the first time in program history after defeating No. 25 Alabama, 4-3, in comeback fashion on Sunday. "I think this team came in with the mindset that we've been working on all year, and really it started with previous years," head coach Samantha Ricketts said. "It's to prove ourselves right, knowing how good we are and how good we can be. Teams have to play us. We want to come in with a confidence and a swagger, and you see it from [leadoff hitter] Sierra Sacco on. I think we're just not going to be afraid. We're going to come out and compete and know we play our game best when we're attacking, we're aggressive. That's exactly what we did today." Alabama (21-9, 1-2 SEC) took the lead in the bottom of the first, but State (24-5, 5-1 SEC) responded with a three-spot in the top of the third. The Crimson Tide evened the score in the bottom of the third before the defenses tightened up. In the sixth, Alabama intentionally walked Sierra Sacco, who reached base in all but one plate appearance in the series, to face Nadia Barbary. Barbary laced a single into left to score pinch runner Gretta Grassel from third for the winning run. |
| Track & Field: Bulldog Men Tie For Sixth At Indoor Nationals | |
| Mississippi State men's track and field team closed out the NCAA Indoor Championships tied for sixth place, the highest finish and point total in program history. The men scored 23 points between four events, with every competing athlete earning a podium finish. This finish is the highest in program history, with the most recent top ten finish being in 2009, where the men scored 18 points to finish tied for ninth. With less than ten points separating the team from first and third, this was by far the best performance State has put on in program history. Peyton Bair, standout combined events athlete, now adds National Champion to his list of accolades. Bair put up a 6,013 point effort at the NCAA meet to finish first overall in the heptathlon. The day started slowly for the Idaho native, as he ran 8.01 in the 60m hurdles, slower than his personal best. He went to jump 4.87m in the pole vault, finishing seventh in the event. Going into the final race, the 1000m, there was a 2 point difference between Bair and second place. Bair held off the competition in the final event, running 2:46.21 in the 1000m to earn the national champion title. The Bulldogs return to Starkville prepared for the outdoor campaign to begin with the Alumni Bulldog Relays, the first home meet of the season. |
| Anderson signs pro contract with Racing Louisville | |
| Former Mississippi State goalkeeper Maddy Anderson signed a professional contract with Racing Louisville this week, earning a roster spot for the 2025 National Women's Soccer League season. Anderson was a non-roster invitee to the team's spring camp. Anderson is the fifth player from MSU's 2024 SEC championship-winning team to sign a professional contract, joining former Bulldog teammates Macey Hodge and Hannah Johnson in the top flight of women's soccer in the United States. "This is a dream come true," Anderson said. "Ever since I was little, I have wanted to play in the National Women's Soccer League and now Racing Louisville is making that dream a reality. I am very thankful for the opportunity to start my professional career with an amazing club that challenges me to grow both on and off the field." Anderson set program records for shutouts in a season and career, as well as starts and wins. Her 14 shutouts in 2024 led the SEC and ranked her second nationally. "I couldn't be more thrilled to hear the great news about Maddy," Bulldogs head coach Nick Zimmerman said. "She has worked so hard for this moment, and I can't wait to see her continue to pursue her dream." |
| Other states are preparing for the House NIL settlement. But can Florida schools compete? | |
| Florida lawmakers have been hesitant to change laws about compensating student athletes, as college sports enter a turbulent and expensive new era thanks to a landmark NCAA court settlement expected in April. But neighboring states, filled with Florida schools' rivals on the field and court, are off and running. The results of House v. NCAA, the culmination of three antitrust lawsuits targeting restrictions on benefits that players can receive for their work and publicity rights, could allow schools to directly pay student athletes for the first time. And the Sunshine State's neighbors are aggressively moving to get ahead of the decision's mandate. Lawmakers in Arkansas this week passed a bill allowing schools to hold raffles to generate more cash for sports programs. Georgia and Alabama are pursuing legislation that would exempt student athletes from paying income tax to sweeten the pot for players considering colleges in their states. But Florida's Legislature -- one of the first to enact a name, image and likeness policy -- appears unlikely to change its law this year or kick in new funding. Instead, university system leaders are expected to loosen spending regulations to give schools flexibility to pump different revenue streams into athletic programs. |
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