| Wednesday, March 11, 2026 |
| MSU's food science, culinology students cooking up success at national competition | |
 | Two student teams from Mississippi State's Department of Biochemistry, Nutrition and Health Promotion have advanced to the finals of the Research Chefs Association's National Innovation Competition, set this week in Westminster, Colorado. "I've been a member of the RCA since 1998 and even served on the board of directors," said 1993 MSU poultry science graduate Amanda Bushong, adjunct instructor of food science and culinology and the teams' academic advisor. "The network and community built at this event set our students up for both personal and professional success." Participants are evaluated on a detailed written product proposal and their live culinary execution. Judges assess concept originality, market viability, nutrition targets and technical formulation, as well as taste, presentation, organization and food safety Teams also are scored on how effectively their product maintains quality, flavor and texture when translated from a fresh preparation to a commercially processed version, reflecting the competition's emphasis on both culinary arts and food science. MSU offers one of only 17 culinology programs worldwide. Wes Schilling, Reed Family Endowed Professor and director of MSU's Food Science Innovation Hub, said opportunities like this strengthen students' career prospects. |
| MSU-Meridian PA faculty bring anatomy to life for high schoolers | |
 | Mississippi State University-Meridian physician assistant faculty recently brought anatomy to life for Southeast Lauderdale High School students using life-sized high-resolution digital representations of real human bodies. The tour was one of three scheduled for this spring that will introduce approximately 50 high schoolers to Anatomage, an interactive 3D platform used to explore human anatomy in detail using digitized cadavers, and inform them of the innovative healthcare programs offered at the university's downtown Meridian campus. "Part of the MSU-Meridian PA initiative is to engage our community and to educate future providers," said Pamela Vayda, department head and program director. "We want to get them excited about what's happening here." Students also took part in hands-on interactive activities with current PA students, explored other programs within the School of Health Professions and learned about MSU-Meridian's Master of Science in Nursing program. These lessons are crucial to high school students' current curriculum. The recent event focused on the body's lymphatic system, while an upcoming tour with Lamar High School students will explore the cardiovascular system and those at Enterprise High School will experience a comprehensive look at human anatomy. |
| Governor Reeves doesn't rule out special session to tackle teacher pay raise, expanded education freedom | |
 | At the end of a press conference Tuesday, Governor Tate Reeves (R) took questions on teacher pay raises, the state Public Employees Retirement System, and the future of the movement to provide parents in Mississippi with greater education freedom. He did not rule out a special session to address at least two of those matters. On the issue of a teacher pay raise, Reeves said, "I think that's something that they deserve, and I think it's something that we will be successful getting that across the finish line sooner rather than later I hope." When asked if Reeves would consider holding a special session to get a teacher pay raise this year, he said he has not traditionally used special session powers "very often." "But I'll also tell you this, I'm in year seven. I don't have much time left and so on items that are incredibly important to me like rewarding our teachers, like getting more options for our kids, those are the kind of things that I am very, very interested in the Legislature getting across the finish line," Reeves said. The governor did add that there is still time in the session to get those things done, saying that nothing is dead in the Capitol until it is "dead, dead, dead." |
| Hyde-Smith wins GOP nomination, Colom secures Democratic nod in U.S. Senate race | |
| We now know who will be on the ballot for Mississippi's lone U.S. Senate seat up for grabs this year. Incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith earned the Republican nomination and will face off against Democrat nominee after each won their respective primaries on Tuesday. It took a grand total of 36 minutes after the polls closed for Hyde-Smith to be declared the winner of the GOP primary. Hyde-Smith was challenged by Ocean Springs doctor Sarah Adlakha, who spent much of her time on the campaign trail speaking out about her opponent's contributions from lobbying groups. Not long after Hyde-Smith was declared the Republican nominee, Colom was tabbed the Democratic challenger seeking the long-held Republican seat. Colom, a Columbus-based district attorney, defeated Albert Littell and Priscilla Till. Hyde-Smith, Colom, and independent Ty Pinkins will face off in the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The seat has been red since 1978. |
| Guest, Chiaradio secure nominations unopposed in Mississippi District 3 | |
 | Voters in Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District will see a familiar name and a new challenger on the ballot this November. U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican, will face Democrat Michael Chiaradio in the Nov. 3 general election for Mississippi's 3rd congressional district. Both candidates advanced out of the Tuesday, March 10 primary election without opposition, automatically securing their party's nominations. Guest, who was first elected in 2018, is looking to secure his fifth term representing Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives. Members of the U.S. House serve two-year terms. Before being elected to the U.S. House, Guest served as district attorney for Mississippi's 20th Circuit Court District, which includes Rankin and Scott counties. A Republican from Brandon, Guest currently serves on the House Homeland Security Committee and chairs the House Ethics Committee. Chiaradio, meanwhile, is a political newcomer. A farmer and entrepreneur from Shubuta, Mississippi, Chiaradio's campaign centers on "intelligent public investment that will drive economic competitiveness in rural economies, reinvigorate American industry, and directly benefit the American people," according to his campaign website. |
| Thompson fends off challenger to win Mississippi primary | |
 | Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is projected to win his primary race, fending off a long-shot challenge from 34-year-old antitrust lawyer Evan Turnage, according to Decision Desk HQ. Thompson, the 78-year-old civil rights leader, has represented Mississippi's 2nd Congressional District for more than 30 years. He is expected to prevail in November's general election. The Mississippi Democrat serves as the ranking member on the powerful House Homeland Security Committee. He was also tapped in 2021 to chair the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, whose 18-month probe concluded that President Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election results, culminating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Thompson faced a generational challenge in the primary, with Turnage joining a wave of Democrats seeking to oust older members of Congress. The primary challenger campaigned on a message of economic populism, focusing on holding corporations accountable, addressing the high cost of living and expanding voting rights. |
| Trump's pick advances in race to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene | |
 | Elections in the South on Tuesday showed the power of President Donald Trump's endorsement and the political strength of a senior Democratic congressman who easily beat back a younger challenger. In Georgia, voters narrowed a crowded field in a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican who abruptly resigned from her U.S. House seat after clashing with Trump and arguing he had veered from his "America First" promises. Clay Fuller, Trump's favored candidate, and a Democrat advanced to an April 7 runoff after no candidate received a majority of the vote. More than a dozen candidates competed to succeed Greene and represent Georgia's deep-red 14th District. The big question: Could Trump unify the party behind his pick, Clay Fuller, a district attorney in northwest Georgia? Fuller had more than a third of the vote Tuesday night with most of the vote counted, easily beating his top Republican rival, former state representative Colton Moore. Moore trailed with about 12 percent of the vote. Local Republicans said they saw notable support on the ground for Moore leading up to the election. But more voters sided with Trump in the end. |
| John Thune says he's ready to take the filibuster heat | |
 | Conservatives are putting John Thune in a political pressure cooker as they try to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass a controversial elections bill. The majority leader is making it clear he's willing to take the heat. Thune is at the center of a relentless pile-on from prominent figures in the GOP's MAGA wing who want Senate Republicans to force a "talking filibuster" to smoke out and ultimately defeat Democratic opposition to the bill known as the SAVE America Act -- a tactic Thune believes doesn't have enough support from his members. President Donald Trump declared the bill his "No. 1 priority" going into the midterms Monday, and House Republicans are vowing to gum up their own chamber in a bid to squeeze the Senate GOP. An intense online campaign reached a crescendo this week with tech mogul Elon Musk joining online calls to remove Thune as leader. Thune, confident of his support from fellow Republican senators, brushed off the criticism in an interview Tuesday. "It just kind of comes with the territory," he said. "You just roll with it, you know. It's the times in which we live." |
| Senate Democrats' calls for public Iran hearings grow louder | |
 | Senate Democrats stepped up pressure on Republicans to conduct public hearings on the conduct of the Iran war, but senior GOP senators were noncommittal on whether they would do so. The partisan tension comes as the Pentagon announced Tuesday that approximately 140 troops have been injured since the U.S. and Israeli strikes began on Feb. 28, in addition to seven U.S. military combat deaths due to Iranian strikes. Iranian deaths exceed 1,000 by most estimates, including perhaps 175 killed in what all signs suggest was an errant U.S. missile strike on an elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab. If American culpability in the strike is confirmed, the accident would be among the deadliest civilian casualty events in U.S. military history. Meanwhile, Iran has all but cut off the flow of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the world's oil shipments normally transit, driving up energy prices and sending shock waves through the global economy. President Donald Trump has offered varied and sometimes conflicting explanations for the reason for the war and the endgame. Republicans were lukewarm at best about the need for hearings. The chairmen of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations panels -- Republican Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Jim Risch of Idaho, respectively -- wouldn't commit to hearings when questioned by reporters on Tuesday. |
| Trump keeps telling America he's winning in Iran. He's less clear in explaining how the war ends | |
 | Facing jittery global markets and drooping poll numbers since launching a war on Iran, President Donald Trump has cycled from calls for "unconditional surrender" to sounding amenable to an end state in which Iran trades one hard-line ayatollah for another. Shifting comments from the Republican president and his top aides are adding to the precariousness of the 12-day-old conflict, which is impacting nearly every corner of the Middle East and causing economic tremors around the globe. With neither side budging, the war is now on an unpredictable path -- one in which a credible endgame is still unclear. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday told reporters it's up to Trump "whether it's the beginning, the middle or the end" of the war. Trump, during the course of one speech at a House Republican gathering on Monday, went from calling the war a "short-term excursion" that could end soon to proclaiming "we haven't won enough." The vacillation has fueled criticism from those who say Trump lacks a clear goal. "They didn't have a plan," Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told reporters. "They have no timeline. And because of that, they have no exit strategy." |
| How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran's Response to War | |
 | On Feb. 18, as President Trump weighed whether to launch military attacks on Iran, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, told an interviewer he was not concerned that the looming war might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in energy markets. Even during the Israeli and U.S. strikes against Iran last June, Mr. Wright said, there had been little disruption in the markets. "Oil prices blipped up and then went back down," he said. Some of Mr. Trump's other advisers shared similar views in private, dismissing warnings that -- the second time around -- Iran might wage economic warfare by closing shipping lanes carrying roughly 20 percent of the world's oil supply. The extent of that miscalculation was laid bare in recent days, as Iran threatened to fire at commercial oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point through which all ships must pass on their way out of the Persian Gulf. In response to the Iranian threats, commercial shipping has come to a standstill in the Gulf, oil prices have spiked, and the Trump administration has scrambled to find ways to tamp down an economic crisis that has triggered higher gasoline prices for Americans. The episode is emblematic of how much Mr. Trump and his advisers misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that the government in Tehran sees as an existential threat. |
| Republicans Grow Nervous Over Iran War, Gas Prices | |
 | Republican lawmakers showed signs Tuesday they were getting nervous about the course of the Iran war and the economic impact on voters ahead of the November elections. In comments Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Republicans voiced concern that rising gasoline prices could become a significant problem for the party heading into the midterms. Republicans are trying to hold on to a razor-thin majority in the House and preserve their edge in the Senate as well. "Things in Iran are certainly exacerbating things" on gasoline prices, said Sen. John Boozman (R., Ark.). "I am worried about them. That's something that makes a huge difference with our economy." Others warned that higher fuel costs could quickly translate into broader voter concerns about the cost of living. "Gas drives the affordability issue," said Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.). Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a leading GOP opponent of American intervention overseas who has often clashed with President Trump, said on Fox Business that if oil prices stay high, "I think you're going to see a disastrous election." On Tuesday, senators coming out of a briefing on the Iran war said administration officials in the briefing also didn't give them a dollar estimate or timeline for a possible supplemental funding request. There were also signs that some Republicans were frustrated by what they saw as a lack of clarity from the administration on where the war is headed. |
| State board approves xAI permit, Southaven community left with 'dread' | |
| Despite repeated cries from Southaven residents about noise, unchecked air emissions, and opaque operations of the xAI gas turbine facility in north Mississippi, the state permit board voted unanimously Tuesday to allow the company to expand its footprint. Shannon Samsa, a Southaven resident with a master's degree in physician assistant studies, said after the hearing she felt "dread" about the prospect of dozens of new turbines emerging at the nearby generator station. "Every single system and person who's supposed to protect us has failed to do so," said Samsa, a community organizer who made the three-hour drive Tuesday morning to attend the hearing in downtown Jackson. The permit board's decision comes three weeks after the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality held a town hall in Southaven to invite feedback on xAI's application to build 41 permanent turbines. Dozens of residents and advocates -- both from north Mississippi as well as Memphis, Tennessee -- spoke out against the proposed permit. No one there spoke in favor of the facility. Emails obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center suggest Mississippi officials were in a hurry to approve xAI's permit application. |
| Clarksdale officials consider data center proposal | |
| The city of Clarksdale is in discussion with a company interested in building a large data center in the Delta town. During a contentious meeting Monday night, the Board of Commissioners and mayor considered a proposal to rezone an area from commercial and agricultural use to light industrial, as well as a list of stipulations for a potential data center project. Those stipulations included a $5 million impact fee paid to the city, along with guarantees about water usage and property setbacks. Currently, there are no concrete plans for the site. The land being considered is 648 acres between the Sunflower River, U.S. 278, Tallahatchie Street and the Roundyard neighborhood. The board ultimately tabled the discussion without making a decision about the proposal. Data centers are facing increased community pushback in Mississippi and across the country. As the AI boom spurs unprecedented investment into building the physical infrastructure needed, residents say they are concerned about water and power usage, the relatively few jobs created and a lack of transparency about the projects. However, the projects have spurred demand in the construction industry and are projected to add millions of dollars in new tax revenue to local governments. |
| 'Go ask Rich': Southern Miss community recognizes late employee known as 'The Walking Blueprint' | |
 | Richard Gaines knew the ins and outs and the ups and downs of the University of Southern Mississippi's campus. "When anyone wanted to know anything about a leak here or what happened here, they would say, 'Go ask Rich,'" Gaines's grandson Walter Massey said. Southern Miss was known as Mississippi Normal College when Gaines visited in 1916. "It was a small campus then, so there were pipes that connected all of the buildings," Massey said. During that visit, Gaines was offered a job at the historic powerhouse, where the boiler was fired to generate heat throughout the campus. Gaines would later take on roles such as firefighter, carpenter, and plumber. "Their entire family worked at the university in some capacity," Dr. Eddie Holloway said. But, Gaines' most notable talent was his memory of the campus's underground layout, which earned him the title of "The Walking Blueprint" before his planned retirement in 1961. "It dawned on the administration that nobody knew how these pipes worked," Massey said. "So, they asked him to stay on another year and hired some professional engineers to draw some professional blueprints." A plaque was placed at the powerhouse Tuesday in honor of Gaines. |
| State Auditor Shad White speaks to students at alma mater Northeast Jones High School | |
| Mississippi State Auditor Shad White visited students at Northeast Jones High School Tuesday morning. He told the kids about his role for the state and gave them advice on navigating their future. This particular visit was special for White. He returned to his alma mater to speak to students of multiple leader-based organizations on campus. "I was sitting in their shoes, in those seats not that long ago, so we talked about my pathway from being here to being state auditor," White said. White spoke to dozens of students in an effort to help build up the future leaders. "I thought he had some good points that he shared with them from life experiences he's experienced and the amazing things that he's done since he graduated from Northeast Jones," said Superintendent Dr. B.R. Jones. Jones taught White in the ninth grade. He said this event was important for students to engage with a state official who walked the same halls. White graduated from Northeast Jones High School in 2004. |
| The 'key' metric U. of Tennessee chancellor wants to improve | |
 | Along with building out research space in planned innovation districts, Chancellor Donde Plowman is setting her sights on one metric as "the key" to improving the University of Tennessee at Knoxville's student experience and national rankings positions through 2030. She's focusing on the six-year graduation rate, a figure encapsulating the number of students who finish their degrees even if it takes a little longer. Since she started as UT chancellor in 2019, the rate has remained stagnant in the mid-70% range with a marginal increase as of 2025. By contrast, she's led UT in raising the retention rate to a historic 92.4% and increasing the four-year graduation rate by 13% to 66.8% as of 2025. "Everything we are going to do to move the six-year rate also moves the four-year and five-year graduation rates," she said during the UT System Board of Trustees meeting Feb. 27. "When you improve the retention rate, six years later the six-year graduation rate has gone up." Another related key metric she's watching is the six-year graduation rate for students receiving Pell Grants, which are federal grants for students with lower economic status. This figure hasn't risen more than a percentage point since 2019, with the most recent rate at 62.8%. |
| Oklahoma Senate passes bill limiting college access for some students, critics say | |
| The Oklahoma Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would bar some immigrant students from being able to pay in-state college tuition rates. Critics warned the change could make college unaffordable for some of those students. Sen. Brenda Stanley, R-Midwest City, said Senate Bill 1633 aligns state law with a federal court ruling that prohibits students without legal immigration status from paying in-state tuition rates to attend Oklahoma college and universities. Current law allows students who live in Oklahoma for two years with a parent or guardian, graduate from an Oklahoma public or private high school and meet college admission standards to receive in-state tuition if they can show legal status or residency. The Trump administration's Department of Justice challenged the existing state law in the U.S. District Court last year. After Oklahoma's attorney general sided with the Trump administration, a judge rescinded the law. Sen. Michael Brooks-Jimenez, D-Oklahoma City, called the measure "a mean, ugly thing," and said it would triple the tuition for the impacted students. He said the issue is still being litigated and should be decided in the courts. |
| New COMO AI meetups offer hands-on tech learning for Columbia | |
 | The University of Missouri's Robert J. Trulaske Sr. College of Business will host a new monthly networking event focused on artificial intelligence and technology. COMO AI by Trulaske will debut March 12 at Shakespeare's Pizza Downtown. The kickoff event is scheduled for 5-7:30 p.m. The series is free and open to the public, according to a community announcement. It is organized by the Center for Transformative Technology (C4TT) at Trulaske. The events will aim to provide a collaborative space for AI enthusiasts in the Columbia area, according to the announcement. Attendees will have the opportunity to develop practical AI skills, listen to guest speakers and network with others interested in the field. Each meetup will include discussions on how AI is influencing business and technology. |
| Despite Affordability Fears, Net Tuition Price Continues to Trend Downward | |
 | New research from Phil Levine, an economist and college cost transparency advocate, shows that the net price of four-year tuition continues to drop or remain steady for all but the highest-income students. Levine's research used net-price calculators as well as proprietary data from his own cost-estimator tool, MyinTuition. He found that, in general, students across all income brackets are paying less for college, adjusted for inflation, than they did six years ago at all types of institutions. In some cases, those drops were especially high, including for low- and middle-income students at the nation's wealthiest private colleges; their average net price dropped 28.1 percent and 30.8 percent, respectively. Net cost for the highest-income students has also declined across institution types, although much more modestly. Sticker prices themselves have decreased since 2019–20 after adjusting for inflation. The study found that despite their higher sticker prices, private institutions with large endowments offer the most affordable net prices for low-income students, typically averaging around $5,000 annually. Levine noted, however, that these institutions tend to enroll small numbers of low-income students. "While there may still be room to improve affordability, if anything the evidence suggests that college has, for the most part, become more affordable in the last decade," Levine wrote in the report's conclusion. "These findings should not be read as minimizing the financial strain many families experience but rather as evidence that those strains are not being driven by rising college net prices." |
| The Bipartisan Appeal of Growing Talent Amid the AI Boom | |
| Although the Trump administration and its allies have spent the past year waging partisan campus culture wars, a bipartisan group says battles over DEI and so-called woke ideology are distracting policymakers from the urgent need to modernize the workforce in an age of rapid technological advancement. On Wednesday, the Bipartisan Policy Center published the report "A Nation at Risk to a Nation at Work: The Case for a National Talent Strategy," which offers a blueprint for how the federal government can work with education leaders, employers, local governments and other sectors to develop a robust domestic talent pipeline prepared to meet current workforce needs. The strategy is the work of the Commission on the American Workforce, which BPC established in February 2025 in response to outdated laws governing higher education and scattered approaches to preparing students for a job market that's undergoing major transformation amid the rising influence of artificial intelligence. |
| AI Isn't Lightening Workloads. It's Making Them More Intense. | |
| One of the great hopes for artificial intelligence -- at least, among workers -- is that it will ease workloads, freeing people up for more high-level, creative pursuits. So far, the opposite is happening, new data show. In fact, AI is increasing the speed, density and complexity of work rather than reducing it, according to an analysis of 164,000 workers' digital work activity. The data, from workforce analytics and productivity-tracking software company ActivTrak, covers more than 443 million hours of work across 1,111 employers, making it one of the biggest studies of AI's effects on work habits to date. Examining AI users' digital activity 180 days before and after they began using such tools on the job, ActivTrak found AI intensified activity across nearly every category: The time they spent on email, messaging and chat apps more than doubled, while their use of business-management tools, such as human-resources or accounting software, rose 94%. Meanwhile, the amount of time AI users devoted to focused, uninterrupted work -- the kind of concentration often required for figuring out complex problems, writing formulas, creating and strategizing -- fell 9%, compared with nearly no change for nonusers. "It's not that AI doesn't create efficiency," said Gabriela Mauch, ActivTrak's chief customer officer and head of its productivity lab. "It's that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing other work, and that's where the creep is likely to happen." |
| Their Colleges Have Teamed Up to Boost Enrollment. Here's What They've Learned. | |
 | Collaboration is not a novel concept for colleges. They share research grants and library collections. They're part of professional associations and athletic conferences. But historically, they've always competed when it comes to a core piece of their business: enrollment. That's shifting, though. Colleges are running out of new funnels for students -- especially traditional-age learners -- and many are simultaneously facing shrinking government funding and tighter budgets. Riding out the storm alone, they're realizing, could be catastrophic. Colleges collaborate "around things that are important," said Matt Trainum, vice president for networks and strategic partnerships at the Council of Independent Colleges. "The topic of enrollment has become more important." Collaboration is a spectrum: complete independence on one end, mergers and acquisitions on the other, and "shared ground" in the middle, Trainum said. He and three college presidents dug into what those middle-ground collaborations can look like -- and what they've learned from them -- during a virtual Chronicle event this week. |
| Education Dept. Layoffs Leave Scars Behind the Scenes | |
| Exactly one year has passed since Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced a historic reduction in force, laying off nearly half of her department's staff and declaring it a "significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system." Despite predictions that the Education Department wouldn't be able to carry out many of its statutory responsibilities after losing more than 2,000 employees, the agency remains standing -- at least from a public perspective. Union officials, policy experts and some current staff members, on the other hand, say that several of the agency's key operations have been rendered significantly, or in some cases entirely, dysfunctional. "The machine is just broken in ways that we can't see," said Antoinette Flores, director of higher education accountability and quality at New America, a left-leaning think tank. "You won't know that something has gone wrong until it's too late." Not all of the layoffs have stuck. |
| GSA plan would ban DEI for all federal funding recipients -- including colleges | |
| The Trump administration is taking another stab at banning diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs at colleges, schools and elsewhere, with a proposal that would require all federal funding recipients to certify that they do not have such initiatives. The certification would cover programs the Trump administration calls "discriminatory practices," such as race-based scholarships or programs, "cultural competence" requirements, and "overcoming obstacles" narratives or "diversity statements." Training programs that "create a hostile environment" would likewise be prohibited for entities that get federal funding. The proposal, which comes from the General Services Administration, would also require federal funding recipients to certify that they are not knowingly hiring or recruiting undocumented staff -- in a nod to the administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. The move continues the administration's anti-DEI push, which hit a roadblock in the education sector when federal courts last year blocked the U.S. Department of Education from implementing a similar measure. However, in February, the Trump administration also scored a legal victory in its anti-DEI efforts, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals undid a temporary pause against three major provisions in two executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI practices in education and other sectors. |
| Behind ideological attacks on higher ed, surprising bipartisan reforms are happening | |
| It's rare in an era of partisan division to hear a veteran of the Clinton and Obama presidencies agreeing with a right-leaning economist who worked for George W. Bush. Yet these prominent voices from opposite ends of the political spectrum teamed up to mostly praise a law passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. The purpose of the law: to protect college students from borrowing federal money to enroll in programs that give them little or no financial payoff when they graduate. This new rule is "the greatest step forward in increased accountability" for colleges since the creation more than a decade ago of the federal College Scorecard website, which discloses graduates' earnings by institution. That was the conclusion of Bob Shireman, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation, and Beth Akers, who holds the same title at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, or AEI. The new accountability rule is among a series of measures that the left-leaning advocacy group EdTrust calls the most dramatic changes to higher education policy in nearly two decades. Many were part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA, and will become effective this year. And several could improve protections and lower costs for families and students. |
| Fred Smith's legacy is one of civility, curiosity, and a world-class love of books | |
| Columnist Sid Salter writes: After a long and courageous battle with cancer, Fred Smith -- who concluded his remarkable life and career at Mississippi State University's Mitchell Memorial Library as the Rare Books Coordinator in the Special Collections division -- died at his home in Starkville on Feb. 28. Fred was a genuinely kind man and a great friend to writers and researchers. Like "Red" in The Shawshank Redemption, Fred was a man who knew how to get things, rare and wonderful items. I believe he enjoyed the search more than the final discovery. However, this is not meant as an obituary for Fred; I only want to remind his friends of the Smith family's unique story. ... Taking a cue from the great old Robert Earl Keen song, which held that "the road goes on forever and the party never ends," Fred's great skills took an encore at Mississippi State. He made our library better, and he made the people he interacted with -- colleagues, students, visiting writers, and donors -- better by the sheer weight of his knowledge of and enthusiasm for books. |
SPORTS
| Baseball: No. 3 MSU Rallies With A Seven-Run Seventh To Top Tulane | |
| Third-ranked Mississippi State erupted for seven runs in the seventh inning to rally past Tulane 11–7 Tuesday night in front of the second-largest crowd in Keesler Federal Park history. A crowd of 6,112 watched the Diamond Dawgs erase a five-run deficit and turn a quiet night at the plate into a late offensive explosion as MSU improved to 15-2 on the season. Tulane jumped in front early, scoring twice in the first inning on an RBI single by Jason Wachs and a sacrifice fly from Nolan Nawrocki. Mississippi State answered immediately when Noah Sullivan doubled home Drew Wyers before Reed Stallman followed with an RBI single to tie the game at 2–2 in the bottom of the inning. The Green Wave regained control in the fourth when Nate Johnson blasted a two-run homer to right field, pushing Tulane ahead 4–2. Tulane added three more runs in the seventh, highlighted by RBI hits from Tye Wood and Matthias Haas and a steal of home by Haas, stretching the lead to 7–2. That's when the Bulldogs' offense came alive. |
| Softball: State Enters SEC Play With Historic Start Behind Ammon's No-Hitter | |
| No. 12 Mississippi State swept Southeast Missouri on Tuesday with a pair shutouts to enter SEC play with its best winning percentage on record. The Bulldogs downed the Redhawks by scores of 9-0, in five innings, and 4-0. Leila Ammon got things started by tossing her first career no-hitter and the 27th in program history. Ammon struck out seven over 5.0 innings in Game 1. The second game was a staff effort with Peja Goold getting the start before handing the ball over to Delainey Everett and Alyssa Faircloth. Faircloth earned her four save of the year, striking out five of six hitters she faced. "The pitchers have been a huge part of everything up to this part of the season," head coach Samantha Ricketts said. "Just having a full staff and being able to turn to any of the arms at any point has been really nice. Easing Delainey [Everett] back into these last couple weeks is going to be big for us moving forward. Great starts from both of them. Leila has looked really sharp lately and, with her being a sophomore, is really exciting for us. With her, Peja and Alyssa, we really can start any of them at any time this weekend. Knowing we've got Delainey in relief, we're still trying to piece her piece her back in a little bit too, But I really like what we're seeing from our staff." |
| Men's Basketball: Five Things To Know: State vs. Auburn | |
| Mississippi State men's basketball embarks on its SEC Tournament journey and faces off with Auburn on Wednesday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena, home of the NHL's Nashville Predators. The Bulldogs (13-8, 5-13 SEC) are led by Josh Hubbard and Jayden Epps who have combined to rack up 35.8 points per game which is the State's top scoring duo Jeff Malone paired with Terry Lewis to average 42.0 points per contest in 1982-83. The Hubbard-Epps combo is 1 of 4 SEC pairs along with 1 of 11 major conference duos to have two players with over 1570+ career points. The Tigers (16-15, 7-11 SEC) have dropped 8 of their last 10 games. Keyshawn Hall (20.4 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 2.7 APG), Tahaad Pettiford (15.2 PPG, 3.6 APG, 1.1 SPG), Kevin Overton (13.3 PPG, 1.2 SPG) and KeShawn Murphy (10.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 1.0 BPG) have averaged in double figures for Auburn. State dialed up a memorable 91-85 victory over Auburn during the regular season behind Josh Hubbard's program SEC single-game record 46 points. The Bulldogs erased an 8-point deficit over the game's last 3:45. |
| Win or go home: Bulldogs face Auburn rematch in Nashville | |
| Mississippi State and Auburn are set for a rematch in the SEC Tournament today in a fight to keep postseason hopes alive. For the Bulldogs (13-18, 5-13 SEC), it's all or nothing in Nashville, and their journey starts with an opponent against whom they recorded their most memorable victory of the season. The first Bulldogs-Tigers matchup on Feb. 18 saw All-SEC Third Teamer Josh Hubbard record his best outing as a Bulldog, posting 46 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals, hitting a program record 10 three-pointers while not committing any turnovers in a dramatic 91-85 win over the Tigers. "I'd imagine you can't find a brighter red pen available to circle him on the scouting report for Auburn, considering what he did the first time we played them at home," head coach Chris Jans said. The Bulldogs have won at least one game in every SEC Tournament appearance under Jans. It will likely take four wins in four days for the Bulldogs to make a fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, but regardless of what comes next, the team is trying to make every shot count while they can still take them. The streak isn't the biggest motivator for Jans or the team, but after a difficult campaign, Jans wants the group to find the feeling for themselves as much as anyone else. |
| Report: SEC leaders 'fed up' with status quo, meeting to establish 'real rules and guidance' | |
| In the wake of last week's inconsequential White House roundtable, and with Congress still entrenched in a partisan stalemate, SEC leaders are taking matters into their own hands. According to ESPN insider Heather Dinich, "fed up" SEC presidents and chancellors are scheduled to meet in Nashville this week with an eye on addressing many of college sports' problems around NIL and the transfer portal. "Mississippi State president Mark Keenum said SEC presidents and chancellors are meeting this week in Nashville with hopes of starting to establish some real rules and guidance for the league and others, assuming Congress cannot establish federal legislation quickly enough on NIL," Dinich wrote Tuesday afternoon on X/Twitter. "They aren't expected to make any monumental decisions, but would like to get a framework started before the SEC holds its annual spring meetings in Destin, Fla. They are fed up with the status quo." The SEC will once again take over the streets of Nashville for this week's 2026 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament inside Bridgestone Arena, with first-round play tipping off at 12:30 pm ET Wednesday and the championship game scheduled for 1 pm ET Sunday. But this meeting between league leaders comes after SEC commissioner Greg Sankey admitted Monday that some within the conference have openly suggested seceding from the NCAA, a move Sankey made it clear he's not in support of. Still, Sankey acknowledged the need for further regulation to reign in the Wild West nature of the current free-market world of collegiate athletics. |
| CBSB: No. 7 Southern Miss walks it off to defeat Ole Miss 2-1 in midweek thriller | |
| A low-scoring affair between No. 7 Southern Miss and Ole Miss in Hattiesburg ended in dramatic fashion on Tuesday as the Golden Eagles walked it off for a 2-1 win. With runners on first and second and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a Tucker Stockman single to right center field scored William Tonsmiere to lift the black and gold to victory. Prior to the big hit, Rebel head coach Mike Bianco sent closer Landon Koenig to the mound to replace JP Robertson, who had forced a flyout and struck out a batter in the frame. Ahead of Stockman's RBI single, the only scoring in the midweek showdown had come from a pair of solo home runs. Ole Miss right fielder Tristan Bissetta knocked a ball over the center field wall in the top of the fifth. Southern Miss second baseman Kyle Morrison rebutted in the bottom of the fifth with a solo shot of his own. Tuesday's matchup was highlighted by stalwart pitching, with both staffs using multiple arms. The Golden Eagles will now begin Sun Belt action at Arkansas State, with the three-game series beginning Friday at 6 p.m. CT. Ole Miss (15-3) will continue a daunting road stretch at No. 2 Texas in this weekend's SEC opener. The series will begin on Friday at 6:30 p.m. CT. |
| College sports face 'quagmire' of NIL and other thorny issues, LSU officials and senators say | |
 | A top LSU athletics official told members of Congress on Tuesday that one of the main problems facing college sports now that student athletes can be paid is the lack of a central authority over sports programs. "The issue is, we don't have a governing organization that is able to enforce those rules on a consistent basis, because of the evolution of regulations and the judicial decisions and actions over the last several years," said LSU Executive Deputy Athletic Director Julie Cromer. And she said the convergence of a number of difficult, interrelated challenges has created a "quagmire." "What I do think is absolutely critical," she said, "is that we provide an opportunity for some organization or some entity to clarify what the collegiate experience is and to recenter that around education." Her comments came during a roundtable discussion hosted by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy in Washington on Tuesday about reforming college sports. Cassidy said that with "the current chaos of NIL" -- referring to athletes' ability to be paid for their "name, image and likeness" -- the issue is a matter of protecting both student athletes and universities. "It's time for Congress to be involved," Cassidy said. |
| 18 Nebraska football players challenging CSC over rejection of third-party NIL deals worth over $1 million | |
| The College Sports Commission has its first serious challenger. Football players from the University of Nebraska are challenging more than a million dollars of third-party NIL deals rejected by college sports' new enforcement arm, becoming the first group of athletes to significantly advance in the industry's new arbitration process. Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation spoke to Yahoo Sports under condition of anonymity. The College Sports Commission, an entity developed by the power conferences to police aspects of the NCAA's House settlement revenue-sharing concept, does not comment on arbitration matters, CEO Bryan Seeley told reporters Tuesday. Nebraska officials declined comment. Coincidentally on Tuesday, the CSC released a new quarterly batch of data from its clearinghouse, NIL Go, which is charged with approving third-party NIL contracts in an effort to curtail booster and third-party pay that it deems illegitimate. As part of the release, the CSC noted 18 athletes have chosen to pursue arbitration over rejected deals and those cases have been consolidated into one, though it did not provide any more details. During an interview Tuesday after the release of the data, Seeley said cases are typically consolidated if they represent the same issue and are generally affiliated with the same school. That program is Nebraska. |
| NIL enforcement czar: Influx of third-party deals is not what many school leaders expected | |
| The onset of $30 million football rosters funded mostly by companies providing third-party payments to players on behalf of their schools is within the rules but "has not sort of matched" the system some of its founders intended, the head of the College Sports Commission said Tuesday. Bryan Seeley delivered an update on the CSC's progress over the last two months. While he was bullish about the new agency's ability to analyze deals quickly, he said the influx of third-party deals -- contracts that help schools blow past the $20.5 million salary cap they're allowed to pay players directly -- has led to increased review times. The CSC's new numbers, updated through February, included a 65% increase over the preceding two months in the volume of the third-party deals, which are sometimes known as associated deals, among schools in the Power Four conferences. Seeley said those figures led him to believe that most schools are trying to follow the rules by submitting their deals for review to the CSC, which is tasked with making sure they are not simple pay-for-play contracts but have a "valid business purpose" and are priced fairly. |
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