JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi judge has removed one of the attorneys representing retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre in a state civil lawsuit that seeks to recover welfare money that was supposed to help some of the poorest residents in the U.S. but went to projects pushed by wealthy and well-connected people.

Favre is still represented by other lawyers in the case that the Mississippi Department of Human Services filed in 2022 against him and more than three dozen other people, groups and companies.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Faye Peterson wrote Thursday in her removal order that one of Favre’s New York-based attorneys, Daniel Koevary, had violated rules for Mississippi civil court procedures by repeatedly demanding hearings “for matters unrelated to and not within the jurisdiction of this Court to resolve.” Peterson also wrote that she deemed the behavior “an attempt to manufacture discord.”

The Associated Press sent email messages to Koevary on Friday and Monday asking for his reaction to Peterson’s decision.

Mississippi Auditor Shad White said in 2020 that Favre, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member who lives in Mississippi, had improperly received $1.1 million in speaking fees from a nonprofit organization that spent welfare money with approval from the Mississippi Department of Human Services. The welfare money was to go toward a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi. Favre agreed to lead fundraising efforts for the facility at his alma mater, where his daughter started playing on the volleyball team in 2017.

Favre repaid $500,000 to the state in May 2020 and $600,000 in October 2021, White said in a court filing in February that Favre still owes $729,790 because interest caused growth in the original amount he owed.

Favre is not facing any criminal charges. Former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis and others have pleaded guilty to misspending money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

White has said more than $77 million of welfare money was misspent from 2016 to 2019, including $160,000 for drug rehab for a former pro wrestler

Read original article by clicking here.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Donald Trump named Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate on Monday, choosing a onetime critic who became a loyal ally and is now the first millennial to join a major-party ticket at a time of deep concern about the advanced age of America’s political leaders.

“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.

The 39-year-old Vance rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” He was elected to the Senate in 2022 and has become one of the staunchest champions of the former president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, particularly on trade, foreign policy and immigration.

But he is largely untested in national politics and is joining the Trump ticket at an extraordinary moment. An attempted assassination of Trump at a rally Saturday has shaken the campaign, bringing new attention to the nation’s coarse political rhetoric and reinforcing the importance of those who are one heartbeat away from the presidency.

Vance himself faced criticism in the wake of the shooting for a post on X that suggested President Joe Biden was to blame for the violence.

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance wrote. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Law enforcement has not yet specified a motivation for the shooting. Still, the pick is sure to energize Trump’s loyal base. Vance has become a fixture on the conservative media circuit and frequently spars with reporters on Capitol Hill, helping establish him as the kind of leader who could carry Trump’s mantle into the future, beginning with the next presidential election in 2028.

But the pick also means that two white men will now lead the Republican ticket at a time when Trump has sought

Read original article by clicking here.

Delta State University has launched a new program to help STEM teachers in the Delta.

The Collaborative for Rural STEM Education program provides resources and professional development. Its funding comes from a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

This year’s program has 22 teachers from 12 districts, including Clarksdale Municipal School District and the Holmes County and Sunflower County Consolidated school districts.

Each teacher receives specialized training and resources based on a needs assessment. They’ll also receive support throughout the year and stipends for travel and lodging each summer.

“The need for STEM teachers in the Delta is crucial due to their relevance in today’s society and

workforce,” project director Jessica Hardy  said in a statement.

Teachers and instructors spoke highly of the program and its potential.

“The power of this program is in the growth of teachers and their capacity to develop and enhance not only STEM content, but also STEM dispositions and skills in students,” said faculty instructor Daphne Smith, 

Said Yazoo County Middle School teacher Melanie Hardy: “I am honored to have been selected to study alongside so many outstanding Mississippi Delta educators, and I look forward to implementing all of the resources provided by the CRSE into my middle school math and science classes.”

The program will run throughout the year until summer 2025. 

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

Delta State University has launched a new program to help STEM teachers in the Delta.

The Collaborative for Rural STEM Education program provides resources and professional development. Its funding comes from a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

This year’s program has 22 teachers from 12 districts, including Clarksdale Municipal School District and the Holmes County and Sunflower County Consolidated school districts.

Each teacher receives specialized training and resources based on a needs assessment. They’ll also receive support throughout the year and stipends for travel and lodging each summer.

“The need for STEM teachers in the Delta is crucial due to their relevance in today’s society and

workforce,” project director Jessica Hardy  said in a statement.

Teachers and instructors spoke highly of the program and its potential.

“The power of this program is in the growth of teachers and their capacity to develop and enhance not only STEM content, but also STEM dispositions and skills in students,” said faculty instructor Daphne Smith, 

Said Yazoo County Middle School teacher Melanie Hardy: “I am honored to have been selected to study alongside so many outstanding Mississippi Delta educators, and I look forward to implementing all of the resources provided by the CRSE into my middle school math and science classes.”

The program will run throughout the year until summer 2025. 

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

Had Donald Trump tilted his head the other way, the bullet that clipped his ear would have killed him.  America was half an inch away from a major civil crisis.

We don’t yet know the full details of this assassination attempt, but it is clear that Donald J Trump has been demonized by his opponents for years.

Of course, in politics you sometimes say negative things about your opponents.  But the rhetoric aimed at Trump has often gone far beyond normal political back-and-forth.  Trump’s opponents have set out to delegitimize him.

After losing to Trump in 2016, Hilary Clinton described him an ‘illegitimate’ president.  Spurious allegations emerged suggesting he was somehow a Russian agent.  Every effort was made to undermine his administration, often from within.

When Trump began to re-emerge as the Republican frontrunner in this election cycle, a number of prosecutors suddenly started to bring cases against him.  Odd, that. 

It seems to me that as in a Banana Republic, he was being persecuted through the courts for political reasons, as much as he was being prosecuted for breaking the law.

Now comes an assassin’s bullet, which narrowly missed Trump but did kill a fifty year old father attending a political rally. 

We don’t yet know what motivated Trump’s would-be assassin, but we do know enough to ask where this growth of political extremism comes from. 

The decline of religion means that politics has become, for many, a substitute belief system. 

“When men choose not to believe in God” my fellow Englishman, GK Chesteron, once observed, “they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

People need a sense of purpose, a framework that explains the world and their place in it.  Without religion, many have adopted a belief system called climate change.  Others a system called intersectionalism.  Their place in the cosmos, they start to imagine, is defined in terms of where they sit in a hierarchy of victimhood. 

Once you think this way, those who share your world view seem virtuous.  Those that don’t become the ‘deplorables’.  Anyone who just happens to have a different point of view is suddenly a moral affront.   Such people must be no platformed. 

Instead of viewing elections a process for deciding who holds office, they are seen as a Manichaen struggle of good against evil.  Once you think this way, the ends begin to justify the means, with calamitous consequences.

Too many Americans are willing to always think the worst of fellow Americans, and it’s not just progressives who look for the worst in conservatives. 

Take what happened in the wake of the attempted assassination.  Many commentators appeared to almost want to find evidence of incompetence, or worse, conspiracy.

An apparent hesitation by Secret Service marksmen in engaging the gunman was somehow sinister, it was suggested.  Commentators without much experience of close personal protection were quick to inform us that the female Secret Service agents could not handle their weapons properly. 

Really?  Why assume the worst?  Why not start from the position that what we witnessed were professionals under intense pressure, making life and death decisions, and doing the best they could? 

I’m an immigrant that looks at America as an outsider.  Born in Britain, and raised in Uganda, I came to America by choice (and good fortune). 

I don’t look about me trying to find fault in my new home.  I see instead an extraordinary country that it is a great privilege to be part of.  I see the most hospitable, friendly, and innovative people on the planet all around me.  I believe so strongly in the things that make America special so much, I even wrote a children’s book about it. 

Each time I meet an American for the first time it never occurs to me to wonder if they vote Republican or Democrat.  To me, they are just American, and all the better for it.

We need to stop looking at each other through the prism of politics.  It’s not good for us, for our politics or for America.

Read original article by clicking here.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—The cover crop that blankets Dan Voss’ farmland from late fall into the spring comforts the Eastern Iowa farmer because he knows heavy spring rain won’t wash away his topsoil. These off-season crops also soak up excess fertilizer. 

But for every Dan Voss, there are a thousand U.S. farmers not growing cover crops or using other conservation practices shown to reduce runoff. 

Other agricultural practices—more tile drainage, more livestock and more fertilizer—are thwarting plans to slash nitrogen and phosphorus washing down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, where excess nutrients threaten wildlife and fishing industries. 

“The agricultural community, we need to get with it,” Voss said.

Cover crops grow on Dan Voss’s land near Palo, Iowa on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo by Nick Rohlman, The Gazette  ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-44769″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Voss-windshield_cred-Nick-Rohlman_The-Gazette-1024×683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px” data-recalc-dims=”1″>Cover crops grow on Dan Voss’s land near Palo, Iowa on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo by Nick Rohlman, The Gazette 

Just one year away from a 2025 deadline to reduce nitrate and phosphorus entering the Gulf by 20%, success seems unlikely.

The Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force, a collaboration of state, federal and tribal agencies charged with controlling fertilizer pollution, told Congress last fall that nitrogen loads in the Mississippi River basin decreased 23% from the baseline period to 2021. 

But the five-year running average—which accounts for extremely wet and dry years more common with climate change—tells a different story. By that measure, nitrogen is only slightly below baseline and well above the 20% target. Phosphorus loads worsened since the baseline period. 

The oxygen-deprived ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf is predicted to be 5,827 square miles this summer, 5% larger than average, according to a forecast last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Two long-time Gulf researchers predict a smaller ‘dead zone’, but only because of warming ocean temperatures, not because of progress reducing nutrients in the Mississippi River basin.

    var pymRunoffGaugeMap

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case of former President Donald Trump in Florida has dismissed the prosecution because of concerns over the appointment of the prosecutor who brought the case.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted the defense motion to dismiss the case on Monday.

Lawyers for Trump had argued that special counsel Jack Smith was illicitly appointed and that his office was improperly funded by the Justice Department.

A spokesperson for Smith and a lawyer for Trump didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Stay up to date with all of Mississippi’s latest news by signing up for our free newsletter here. 

Copyright 2024 SuperTalk Mississippi Media. All rights reserved.

Read original article by clicking here.