Tuesday, August 5, 2014   
 
MSU Researchers Talk Safety Measures While Studying Diseases
With the deadly Ebola virus fresh on many people's minds, how do researchers stay safe while studying different types of diseases? Some Mississippi State University researchers are looking to develop new methods for treating infectious diseases. "The goal is to try to develop better treatments, or better vaccines, or better methods to cure these infections," said Dr. Stephen Pruett, an MSU researcher. "The infections range from food-borne diseases to flu, to salmonella, streptococcus pneumoniae, which causes most of the cases of pneumonia worldwide." While the university doesn't work with diseases as dangerous as Ebola, researchers still have precautions in place to keep from getting sick.
 
Mississippi State's Carew speaks to Rotary about Rural Medical Scholars
It may happen during the summer, and it may bring high school students to campus, but Bonnie Carew doesn't want anyone to refer to the Rural Medical Scholars program she directs at Mississippi State University as a summer camp. "(These high school students) take seven college credits in a five-week term," Carew said. "It can be a really heavy load. They are actually admitted to MSU under the special program for academically talented students. I don't have a camp. I have college students." She discussed the program and its work at the Starkville Rotary Club's Monday meeting. (Subscriber-only content.)
 
Sierra Club Ends Opposition to Southern Co. Clean-Coal Plant in Mississippi
The Sierra Club is ending its opposition to Southern Co.'s $5.5 billion clean-coal power plant in Kemper County, Miss., after six years of legal wrangling. The Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club -- one of the nation's oldest environmental organizations -- has been against the Kemper power project from its early days, calling it an expensive project using unproven coal-gasification technology. In return for Sierra Club dropping its complaints, the utility has agreed to burn less coal in Mississippi and Alabama, among other concessions. Even though the Kemper plant won't be in service until mid-2015, it has been mired in cost overruns that have resulted in rate increases for consumers and more than $1.5 billion in charges against earnings for company shareholders.
 
State Party Chairmen Chart Path Forward
The chairmen of Mississippi Democratic and Republican parties are laying out their platforms heading into two crucial elections. But the ongoing Republican Senate run-off is a lingering cloud over both parties. Speaking at the Stennis Institute-Capitol Press Corps luncheon in Jackson yesterday, Rickey Cole, the chairman of the Democratic party, said they will focus on Medicaid expansion, raising the minimum wage, and outreach to rural areas to turn around their declining influence. Joe Nosef, who heads the Republican Party, says their approach will be to build on track record in office and present a clear choice between the two parties.
 
McDaniel files long-awaited challenge
Chris McDaniel ended weeks of speculation Monday by announcing he had filed a challenge to the results of the June 24 Republican U.S. Senate runoff he lost to incumbent Thad Cochran. McDaniel said he is asking for a public hearing before the state Republican Executive Committee to present evidence that will prove he, not the six-term Cochran, won the bruising primary election. "The facts are on our side. The law is on our side," said McDaniel, speaking at a news conference outside the Jackson office of his attorney, Mitch Tyner, attended by scores of excited supporters. The event was hit with a summer thunderstorm near its end.
 
McDaniel seeks to show 'pattern of conduct' that stole election
Chris McDaniel on Monday filed his long-awaited challenge of the June 24 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, saying he's found enough illegal and questionable votes that the state Republican Party should declare him the winner. McDaniel's challenge seeks to show a "pattern of conduct," through a three-ring binder of allegations that includes press stories, people's social media posts, polling of voters after the primary and lists and affidavits about questionable votes. The Cochran campaign has called allegations of vote buying or other fraud "baseless" and said numbers of questionable votes are small -- around 1,000 -- and within normal percentages of human error for an election.
 
McDaniel challenges GOP Senate primary loss
The tea party-backed lawmaker defeated by U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi's Republican primary said Monday that he has formally challenged the election's outcome with the state GOP. State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed the challenge with the Mississippi GOP state executive committee over Cochran's June 24 runoff victory, McDaniel attorney Mitch Tyner said during a news conference. Certified results show Cochran won by 7,667 votes, or 51 percent. While Mississippi courts have ordered some new local elections, there has been no court-ordered do-over of a statewide election in at least the past six decades of records reviewed by The Associated Press.
 
McDaniel: Declare me the winner
Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) demanded that the state Republican Party overturn Sen. Thad Cochran's June primary victory and declare him the winner in a Monday press conference. "They asked us to put up or shut up. Here we are. Here we are with the evidence," McDaniel declared before yielding the podium to his lawyer, who said that the state party should overturn the election's results because of allegations of crossover voting from Democrats, many of them African-American. Cochran won the June 24 runoff election by 7,667 votes. After the press conference, Cochran's campaign said they had hired the firm of Butler Snow to represent them in the election contest, but said they remain confident in their outright victory and slammed McDaniel for continuing to drag out the contest.
 
Mississippi tea party hopeful McDaniel challenges Senate primary results
Mississippi's bizarre Republican Senate race just keeps going, as tea party challenger Chris McDaniel on Monday formally challenged the runoff election he lost more than a month ago. McDaniel, the tea party favorite, lost the race by more than 7,000 votes to Sen. Thad Cochran, after the GOP incumbent engaged in a controversial strategy to recruit Democratic and African-American voters to the polls. A prolonged and bitter fight is a scenario GOP leaders in Mississippi and Washington have tried to avoid as Democrats increasingly eye the Magnolia State as a fractured battleground where they could make gains in the November election.
 
Chris McDaniel challenges Mississippi Senate runoff
Nearly six weeks after he lost the Mississippi Republican Senate runoff, state Sen. Chris McDaniel announced at a news conference Monday that he will formally challenge the results of the vote. McDaniel attorney Mitch Tyner claims that more than 15,000 ballots were cast by ineligible voters. McDaniel and Tyner appeared outside the lawyer's office for an afternoon news conference in Jackson, with a raucous crowd of supporters gathered to cheer the announcement. As they spoke, a thunderstorm passed overhead. Asked whether any Cochran supporters should go to jail, Tyner said: "If I had the choice, yes."
 
Tea Party's Senate hopes fade
A dismal primary cycle for Tea Party Republicans will likely get more disappointing this week with uphill races in Kansas and Tennessee. On Tuesday, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) is the favorite to win reelection against radiologist Milton Wolf, though conservatives have certainly dinged the three-term incumbent. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is a far more comfortable bet in his Tuesday contest. "We spent a ton of financial and human resources in Mississippi, and so got to these races about three weeks later than we expected to and with diminished coffers," Kevin Broughton, spokesman for the Tea Party Express, told The Hill previously.
 
Taking a Bullet, Gaining a Cause: James S. Brady Dies at 73
James S. Brady, the White House press secretary who was wounded in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan and then became a symbol of the fight for gun control, championing tighter regulations from his wheelchair, died on Monday in Alexandria, Va. He was 73. His family confirmed the death but did not specify a cause. On the rainy afternoon of March 30, 1981, Mr. Brady was struck in a hail of bullets fired by John W. Hinckley Jr., a mentally troubled college dropout who had hoped that shooting the president would impress the actress Jodie Foster, on whom he had a fixation. Mr. Hinckley raised his handgun as Reagan stepped out of a hotel in Washington after giving a speech.
 
Drug given to American Ebola patients is produced in Kentucky using tobacco plants
The drug being credited with potentially saving the lives of two American missionaries infected with the deadly Ebola virus was produced in Owensboro. The serum wasn't manufactured but grown -- in a greenhouse full of genetically modified tobacco plants. Kentucky BioProcessing, acquired by Reynolds American in January, conducts contract research and development for San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, said David Howard, spokesman for RAI Ser vices, a subsidiary of Reynolds American. "In the last week, Kentucky BioProcessing complied with a request from Emory University and Samaritan's Purse to provide a very limited amount (of the compound) to Emory, and KPB has done that," Howard said.
 
Ole Miss, Tulane on Princeton Review's list of 'Best Party Schools', Auburn tops list of 'Jock Schools'
The Princeton Review's annual survey of the nation's colleges and universities is out and it paints a pretty clear picture of southern schools: Heavy on partying, light on studying. Ole Miss and Tulane made the list of top 20 "Party Schools," joined by other southern stalwarts Florida, Florida State and Georgia. Syracuse took the top spot. Unsurprisingly, southern schools also dominated the list of "Jock Schools," with Auburn at #1, followed by Missouri (4), Florida State (6), Florida (11), Tennessee (17) and South Carolina (18). Ole Miss was the runner-up to Monmouth University in New Jersey on the "study the least" list.
 
USM, MGCCC enter concurrent enrollment agreement
he University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College have entered a concurrent enrollment agreement in seven degree programs. On Monday, Southern Miss President Rodney D. Bennett and MGCCC President Mary Graham signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing that students may apply for concurrent enrollment in the designated programs at USM's Gulf Park campus in Long Beach. Specific details regarding admissions and tuition processes have not been finalized, but more information will be available in the coming months, according to Southern Miss Chief Communications Officer Jim Coll.
 
USM-Gulf Coast, MGCCC will allow concurrent enrollment
The University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College on Monday signed an agreement that will let some students enroll in both schools at the same time. "Students will have the ability to co-enroll in their choice of seven academic programs," said USM President Rodney Bennett shortly before he and MGCCC President Graham Mary S. Graham signed the agreement. Those programs are business administration, biological sciences, marine biology, psychology, child and family studies, entertainment industry and paralegal studies. Graham said the partnership pushes her school toward goals set out in its 2020 strategic plan, which focuses on teaching and learning, student success, community partnership and innovation.
 
Gulf of Mexico dead zone not shrinking as hoped, researchers find
It was with mixed emotions that Nancy Rabalais and other scientists headed to the Gulf of Mexico for the annual mapping of the low-oxygen area known commonly as the "dead zone." It was the 30th year Rabalais led the crew to conduct research on the nature and extent of this low-oxygen area, and the team didn't find much improvement. "The social and political will to make changes in the watershed just isn't there," said Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie. "After this long, I wouldn't say I'm frustrated, but I'm disappointed in the lack of action."
 
U. of Arkansas Raises $113.3M, Surpasses Goal
The University of Arkansas eclipsed its fundraising goal, and for the fourth consecutive year, raised more than $100 million dollars in private gifts, in fiscal year 2014. The university raised $113.3 million from July 1, 2013, through June 30 to beat its goal of $108 million. The total was up from $108.4 million raised last year, and $108.1 million raised in 2012, but below the $121.3 million the university raised in 2011. According to numbers provided by the university, the largest amount of funds, $36.2 million, came from corporations.
 
UGA researchers get grant for educational software
University of Georgia researchers have received a grant to develop new science education software for elementary school children. The university says the program will help students learn how the body works and how to make good dietary and exercise choices. UGA says the five-year, $1.3 million grant is part of the Science Education Partnership Award, or SEPA, program funded by the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs at the National Institutes of Health.
 
Citing Reitz Union ruling, feds to monitor Florida election changes
Gov. Rick Scott's office and campaign are attacking as "blatantly political" a letter from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announcing that the Justice Department is monitoring changes to Florida's election laws. Holder wrote to Scott on July 21 expressing concerns about elections laws and procedures that "have restricted voter participation and limited access." Among the instances cited in Holder's letter was Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner's rejection this year of a request to use the University of Florida Reitz Union as an early voting location. Democrats allege that Scott and the Legislature are attempting to suppress more liberal-leaning voters on campus.
 
Texas A&M could be in the running to mass-produce Ebola treatment
There's no standardized treatment for the Ebola virus, but Texas A&M could play a key role in producing one. The two Americans with Ebola have been given an experimental drug and are improving. Nancy Writebol left Liberia for the U.S. Monday night. Dr. Kent Brantly arrived at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta over the weekend. If the treatment is successful, it could be mass-produced at the Texas A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing, one of three places in the country able to standardize a treatment for a virus such as Ebola, said Scott Lillibridge, assistant dean and professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health.
 
Representatives for SEC alumni groups in town to check out Aggieland
Representatives from alumni associations of the 14 Southeastern Conference schools are in Aggieland this week for the annual Alumni Professionals of the SEC conference. The event, which began Monday and concludes Wednesday morning, brings together 120 SEC alumni who will take part in networking activities and educational sessions, as well as receive campus tours and check out the Aggie nightlife. Attendees will be officially welcomed Tuesday morning with a keynote address from E.D. "Dean" Gage, former interim president of Texas A&M University who was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1991. This is the first year the event has been hosted at Texas A&M.
 
Colleges Plan on Big Jump in Fundraising Next Year
Colleges and universities are aggressively planning to increase donations by a median 16 percent in their 2015 fiscal year, according to a new survey of 335 chief advancement officers in education. Nearly 60 percent of the survey's respondents, most of whom were from American colleges and universities, plus a few Canadian participants, said they are aiming for an increase of 10 percent or more in giving next year. More than one in four are planning for a more than 25-percent jump in donations in fiscal 2015, which began July 1 for most colleges and universities.
 
CHARLIE MITCHELL (OPINION): 'Fully funding' public schools remains an unsolved riddle
Longtime Mississippi journalist Charlie Mitchell writes: "The late state Sen. Grey Ferris, an author of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, had a pat answer whenever he heard someone say that generous funding of Mississippi's public schools wouldn't fix what's broken. 'How do we know?' Ferris would say. 'We've never tried.' ...The riddle of how to fund and how much to fund K-12 schools is a contentious issue every year. There will be more players with different angles in the next cycle. A plan that makes everybody happy remains elusive."


SPORTS
 
Stadium expansion coincides with expectations for Mississippi State
Piece by piece, brick by brick, Mississippi State's football future is coming together. Jay Hughes is watching the whole spectacle. Hughes, a senior safety from Hattiesburg, has been an interested spectator throughout the last year as MSU's expansion of Davis Wade Stadium has taken shape. Now that the expansion is less than a month from being unveiled when MSU plays host to Southern Miss on Aug. 30, Hughes can't hide his excitement. "I ride by there every day just to look at it," said Hughes, who missed nearly the entire 2013 season after an Achilles' tendon injury in the first quarter of the season opener. "It looks like a castle. To know we're going to get to play there ... It's amazing."
 
Football on the farm: Bulldogs switch up practice location
Mississippi State's first opponent isn't listed on its schedule. It doesn't have an offense or defense. But it'll test the toughness of the Bulldogs unlike any other. MSU moved practice to fields by the veterinary school on Monday. It's known to the coaches and players as "The Farm." It will combat the will of the Bulldogs for the next 13 practices until Aug. 14. "Play ball is over," MSU offensive lineman Jamaal Clayborn said. "It's time to get down to business." In his second year in the program, Clayborn already understands what the business trip to The Farm" entails. "No trees. Nothing but Mississippi heat and humidity," senior defensive lineman Preston Smith said. "It's just nothing but heat and shoulder pads."
 
Battle-tested: Bulldogs banking on seven veteran receivers
The burning question entering last season was whether Mississippi State's passing game would suffer with the loss of five wide receivers. A crop of young wideouts were thrown onto the field in 2013 under the guidance of new receivers coach Billy Gonzales and produced one of the most prolific years in school history catching the football. The Bulldogs set new offensive records with 244.5 passing yards per game and aired it out for 3,178 yards on the year. And MSU has its top seven wide receivers back this fall.
 
Prescott leads talented group of quarterbacks at Mississippi State
It was an ordinary practice, cool for early August. And with morning meetings, afternoon meetings and workouts scheduled leading up to the practice, Mississippi State's position players slowly trickled out of the team's Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex on Saturday afternoon. Well, every player except one. Sprinting out ahead of the rest of MSU's position players, junior quarterback Dak Prescott was the first player on the field late Saturday. It was a common gesture, one repeated on practice fields throughout the country as leaders and team captains look to lead their teams by example. But the message was clear: Prescott will set the tone for the 2014 Bulldogs. It was a perfect snapshot of what Prescott -- and the quarterback position -- will mean to the Bulldogs when the new season opens on Aug. 30.
 
MSU's Devon Bell impressed by competition at punter
Devon Bell may have thought is life would get easier once he moved exclusively to kickoffs and punter. That changed when freshman Logan Cooke arrived on campus at Mississippi State this season. "He's really good. He can hit some really, really good balls," Bell said. "I think once he starts playing in the SEC, he will be the best punter in the SEC."
 
Bulldogs return energy to practice fields
The Mississippi State football team returned to the field Monday for its first full-pad practice of fall camp. With high expectation for the 2014 season, sophomore quarterback Damian Williams said the speed and intensity of camp has remained higher than in previous seasons. "We're an older group so everyone is a lot more confident and everyone knows the playbook more," Williams said. "(Camp) has been great. The speed has been great, and everything has been going a lot faster than last year." Williams, who was a Southern Miss commit before committing with the Bulldogs in January 2013, said he and the team are eager for the 2014 season opener against the Golden Eagles.
 
Mississippi State women's basketball team begins trek to Europe
Members of the Mississippi State women's basketball team will provide a daily blog in The Dispatch to keep fans updated on what they're doing on their trip to France and Belgium this week.
 
DirecTV reaches deal to carry SEC Network
DirecTV has reached a deal with ESPN to carry the SEC Network when it launches. The announced agreement Monday means the network will be available in 87 million households when it goes on the air on Aug. 14. DirecTV has about 20 million customers in the United States. ESPN had already announced deals with other major satellite and cable providers, including Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and Comcast Cable.
 
Kollmeyer leaves Itawamba Community College to join SEC Network
Will Kollmeyer is headed to the SEC. After 10 years at Itawamba Community College, the former TV sports anchor is returning to his roots, having accepted a job as broadcaster of Ole Miss athletics for the newly formed SEC Network. Kollmeyer was director of sports information and media relations at ICC, where he also did radio play-by-play for the school's various sports teams. "I've enjoyed my 10 years at ICC, but this has been a lifelong dream of mine to do play-by-play at the Division I level," Kollmeyer said in a press release.
 
UGA athletic administrators, other employees get boosts in pay
Georgia Athletic Association senior administrators and other employees got boosts in pay heading into a new academic year. The raises came with a university pay freeze no longer in effect and with some taking on added responsibilities after the departure of a key athletic official, athletic director Greg McGarity said. The departure of associate athletic director for internal operations Josh Brooks to become athletic director at Millsaps College in Mississippi meant a redistribution of responsibilities to eight to 10 people in the department, McGarity said, and their salaries increased with that.
 
Growing 'stratification' of NCAA conferences concerns less wealthy Division I colleges
At the American Athletic Conference's football media day in July, Commissioner Michael Aresco sought to assuage any fears that upcoming changes in how the National College Athletic Association is governed could hurt the teams in his league. On August 7, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors will vote to grant a greater level of autonomy to the five high-resource conferences: the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, Atlantic Coast, and Southeastern Conferences. The AAC is not among them. Other institutions and conferences are even more worried that they will, in fact, be left behind completely -- and that the new governance system is, as one Division I college president put it, part of a larger and problematic "stratification of college sports" that will put more distance between the richest programs and the rest.
 
ADAM MINICHINO (OPINION): Time for Mississippi State, Ole Miss to cash in on expectations
The Dispatch's Adam Minichino writes: "Expectations has been a buzzword in the state of Mississippi for the past month. Whether the topic has been Mississippi State, Ole Miss, or MSU vs. Ole Miss, message boards, Twitter, and radio and television broadcasters have been in overdrive to keep up with the anticipation for what could be the state's best college football season in a long time. ...everything about this season has the look and the feel of something big. Now it's time for MSU and Ole Miss to cash in on the expectations."



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