Today Gov. Phil Bryant signs the state’s newly passed education legislation into law. The law allows for the growth of charter schools in the state, and this change concerns legislators who contend that these schools will decrease the quality of the state’s public education system and leave failing schools with fewer options. Other lawmakers contend that charter schools...
Tag Archives: Meghan Holmes
This week the Supreme Court will hear the case of farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman. The Indiana man faces over $70,000 in fines for planting soybeans containing genes belonging to megacorporation Monsanto without legally purchasing them. The company manufactures and subsequently patents soybean varieties known as Roundup Ready (weed and disease resistant), and farmers who use...
Today Mississippi senators face a deadline to reauthorize the state’s Medicaid program. The House of Representatives initially failed to pass the measure last week as Democrats challenged the exclusion of a Medicaid expansion included as part of the Affordable Care Act. Similar arguments continue in the Senate, with Democrats asserting that the expansion makes fiscal...
The beginning of 2013 marks a renewed commitment on the part of United Auto Workers (UAW) to organize Nissan’s manufacturing plant in Canton. The efforts began last summer and continue to receive mixed reactions from employees. Mississippi is a right-to-work state, and lawmakers appear hesitant to endorse any union efforts at the plant, despite increasing complaints...
The inauguration represents a metaphorical starting line for the Obama administration. In reality, the re-elected president takes the oath proposing new gun control legislation, while pressing fiscal policy looms in large part as a result of consistent congressional delay. Media describes Congress as “polarized” and “divided” with little hope of substantive change...
I hesitate to write a column concerning the racial incident on campus this past week, but ultimately I feel compelled to add my opinion to the discussion, despite the abundance of more qualified analyses that already exist. The events of last Tuesday will forever remain somewhat unclear and inevitably influenced by individual perspective, but that does not mean they can...
This week vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan promotes his budget plan around the country. The Romney-Ryan budget promises to reduce the national debt while also both consolidating and lowering existing individual income tax rates from six brackets into 10 and 25 percent categories. The plan offsets these cuts by increasing the age at which Americans receive Social Security...
Bill Nye is in the news this week following the release of an online video in which he criticizes the teaching of creationism, calling on parents to “question their beliefs” before passing the philosophy on to children. Nye is known as “the Science Guy” in middle school classrooms everywhere, and his foray into the evolution debate comes as a surprise...
On Sept. 17, the Mississippi State Department of Health reported 29 new cases of West Nile virus, bringing the state’s yearly total to 169 cases and four deaths. The virus has spread across a large portion of the state, though no cases have been confirmed in Lafayette County. As both the rate of infection and media exposure steadily increase, along with the emergence...
