Jackson Free Press

Speaker Philip Gunn has appointed Rep. John Read, R-Gautier, as the new Chairman of Appropriations in the House of Representatives.

“John has more experience and knowledge of the appropriations process than anyone in the House of Representatives,” Speaker Philip Gunn said in a press release. “He has 25 years of legislative experience. He has been a member of the Appropriations Committee for more than 20 years and has served as the Vice-Chairman of Appropriations for eight of those years."

“He has also served in various other leadership roles during his legislative career, including Chairman of the Fees and Salaries Committee, Chairman of the Conservation and Water Resources Committee, and Vice-Chairman of the Rules Committee, one of the most powerful committees in the House,” Gunn said in a release. “John has served well in all of these roles and has proven himself to be a competent leader. His resume and his record of service make it clear that he is very qualified to be the Chairman, and I believe he will do an excellent job.”

Rep. Read currently serves on the following committees in the following roles:

• Conservation and Water Resources - Chair
• Rules - Vice-Chair
• Appropriations
• Gaming
• Ports, Harbors and Airports
• Public Property

It looks like the University of Mississippi’s football program isn’t out of the woods with the NCAA. The university was charged with 28 violations—13 in football and the rest in track and field and women’s basketball.

While the school tried to deflect that most of the violations happened under the watch of former head coach Houston Nutt, the investigation revealed that nine of the 13 violations happened under current head coach Hugh Freeze.

It looked like the NCAA investigation would soon end, but the school got hit again, this time during April on the first night of the 2016 NFL Draft.

A video of former Rebels offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil smoking a bong attached to a gas mask leaked right before the draft started. The most damning part of the night, at least as far as the university is concerned, happened after Tunsil was drafted, when texts of the player asking for money to pay rent and bills for his family were leaked.

In May, the school imposed a reduction of 11 scholarships from 2015 to 2018 and other small penalties. UM asked the NCAA to not have the school meet with the Committee on Infractions this summer to give them time to look into the Tunsil text messages from draft night.

ESPN later reported that the text messages were real, but the school was still looking into them to see if they had been altered before they were released. The UM staff member in question, Barney Farrar, denied that Tunsil had ever asked him for money.

Since the days after the draft, the story has died down, and the focus started to shift to the start of the upcoming season. That is, until today.

Yahoo! Sports columnist Pat Forde has reported that sources have told him that the NCAA is talking to players at other schools, discussing their Rebels recruitment.

The schools in question happen to be rival Southeastern Conference and West Division foes Auburn University, Mississippi State University and possibly one other SEC West school, Forde said. The players have been given immunity from possible NCAA sanctions for their truthful testimony.

It is easy to say that rival schools or the players who are bitter because UM didn’t offer them a scholarship will say anything to hurt the Rebels. Until the full details of this new investigation are known, the NCAA could possibly be working on new violations or just chasing their tail.

In reality, it doesn’t hurt for the NCAA to do its due diligence and investigate everything with the Rebels football program. If the organization finds nothing, the Rebels can tout that they have cleaned up their program. If the NCAA does find more violations, it can justify bringing the hammer down.

The timing is tough for Freeze and the Rebels, who will have to answer questions about a new investigation a little more than a week before the new season begins. …

While the Olympics mainly banned just the Russian track and field team and a few other sports from the games because of a doping scandal, that wasn’t the case for the Paralympics. The International Paralympic Committee banned the entire Russian team from the 2016 games. No one on the International Olympic Committee was willing to go as far as a full ban.

On Tuesday, Aug. 23, the Court for Arbitration for Sports upheld the ban. That meant that the 267 qualification spots the Russian team held were returned to the IPC, which had the authority to redistribute the spots to any athlete in any sport.

The ban and redistribution of spots opened the door for Joseph “Joey” Brinson of Florence, Miss. to compete in the 2016 Rio Paralympics in wheelchair fencing. Brinson was a member of the 2012 Paralympic team.

He finished 14th at the 2014 Paralympics in Category B saber. Brinson has competed in saber. foil and epee for the U.S. team, and has medaled in all three events during his career.

He is also a four-time Wheelchair World Championship member. Brinson was selected to compete in Category B men’s individual saber competition at the 2016 Rio games.

Brinson was trying to earn his spot on the U.S. Paralympic team before he received his spot due to the redistribution of Russian spots. His silver medal in the Pan American Wheelchair championships in May kept him just short of the team.

Instead of silver, Brinson needed gold to earn a spot on the team and qualify for Rio. In April he earned gold at the Wheelchair National Championships.

Brinson is ranked No. 1 in the nation in men’s saber and ranked 17th in the world in Category B men’s saber. Being able to represent his country again in the Paralympic games came as a late 40th birthday present for the athlete, who celebrated his birthday on Aug. 22.

Joining Brinson in Rio will be 17-year-old Lauryn DeLuca of Parma, Ohio, as the two U.S. Paralympic fencers. DeLuca qualified for the games by winning gold in Category A women’s epee at the Pan American Wheelchair championships.

The Paralympics are set to begin on Sept. 7 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Wheelchair fencing will be held on Sept. 12-16.

On Aug. 2, The Palette Cafe at the Mississippi Museum of Art closed for a revamping of sorts. But it wasn't the decor.

For the last couple of weeks, the museum's culinary curator and executive chef, Nick Wallace, has been working with restaurant staff members to create a menu "inspired by Mississippi foodways traditions, local ingredients, and the art on the Museum walls," a blog post on the website says. "His artistic appreciation and culinary prowess will now be fused in forthcoming menus that draw explicit connections between the narratives depicted by Mississippi visual artists and the storytelling that informs his own culinary creations."

Today, Aug. 25, the museum has announced the unveiling of the new menu. Here are some highlights:

Tomato pie: It's a classic Southern dish, but Wallace and his culinary team have added their own elements to it. The Palette Cafe's has baby sage, kale, sage, basil-whipped cheese and peppery olive oil.

Juke joint burger: For many people, nothing is better than a really good burger. Like the blues, this burger has soul. It's got Swiss cheese, a Hereford beef patty, lettuce, tomato, pickled onions and a homemade steak sauce, and it's all piled on an egg bun. And like any good burger, fries come on the side.

Vegan skillet: Vegans need love, too, right? Wallace had that in mind when he created the vegan skillet. It has caviar couscous, baby kale, confit tomatoes, pickled onions, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, wheat germ, oats, cauliflower, red quinoa, flaxseeds and tomatoes.

See more here.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2016/aug/25/26626/

The Republican nominee for president chose Mississippi's solidly Democratic and majority-black capital city tonight to call the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, a "bigot."

At a rally in the Mississippi Coliseum (with many empty seats) Donald Trump said Clinton is a "bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings. She's going to do nothing for African Americans and Hispanics."

Clinton has strong support among the nation's African American voters and, to date, Trump has very little. Polls routinely show black support for Trump in the single digits. And Trump has long offended many black voters, such as by pushing falsehoods and stereotypes against black Americans.

Trump is also struggling with Latino voters after calling for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and rhetoric about Mexicans being rapists and murderers.

Trump also told the audience—which appeared to be at least 95 percent white— that "the Democratic Party has taken votes of African Americans for granted, and they've done nothing to deserve it."

Pastor Mark Burns, who is African American, spoke early in the rally both pushing the rumor that Clinton is in bad health—which her doctor adamantly denies—and saying that "all lives matter" when it comes to race, as the crowd chanted, "USA! USA!."

At the rally, Trump also continued his fiery rhetoric against undocumented immigrants.

At the end of the rally, Trump walked out with Gov. Phil Bryant to the song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Bryant, who has endorsed Trump, is a staunch supporter of House Bill 1523, which many people consider anti-LGBT.

— Reporting at the Mississippi Coliseum by Arielle Dreher