Dacula, Georgia — In September 2019, David Hobbs was arrested in an alley in his hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, for breaking into a backyard shed.
Unfortunately, at the time he was dressed as the comic book character “Captain America.” So of course, the next day pictures of the handcuffed superhero went viral. Cable networks and newspapers around the world made him their laughingstock.
“I truly felt as if my life was over,” the 41-year-old Hobbs told CBS News. “All these people were talking about me, making fun of me, and I’m like, man, what an embarrassment I am to my family.”
Aside from family, Hobbs says one of the few people not laughing was his childhood friend Trey Lewis.
“After I got my mind around the details of it, I mean it was just sadness,” Lewis said. “I mean, obviously, this was drug-induced.”
He was right about that. Hobbs had been an addict his entire adult life. Fortunately, his old friend Lewis, who Hobbs hadn’t seen in 20 years, now owned Good Landing Recovery, a treatment program based in Dacula, Georgia.
“I came here with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and half a cigarette,” Hobbs recently told a group of program participants. “That’s all I had when I got to rehab.”
Lance let Hobbs complete the program for free, and that proved to be a success. Hobbs has now been five years sober.
Which is why Hobbs now looks back at the infamous picture of his arrest fondly. The worst day of his life has become his best day.
“What was meant to destroy me actually was the steppingstone to rebuilding me,” Hobbs said. “…If you still have breath in your lungs and you’re still alive, there’s a chance. You can turn it around.”
Steve Hartman is a CBS News correspondent. He brings viewers moving stories from the unique people he meets in his weekly award-winning feature segment “On the Road.”
The Rebels are coming off their first 11-win season and aiming high again, this time for the newly expanded College Football Playoff. They’re enjoying the program’s highest preseason ranking since 1970. Furman is coming off back-to-back 10-win seasons and won the 2023 Southern Conference championship. The Paladins return only seven starters, though.
KEY MATCHUP
An Ole Miss defense that stocked up in the transfer portal against an offense that lost its starting quarterback, top running back and the four offensive linemen who played the most snaps. The Ole Miss transfer group includes former Texas A&M defensive lineman Walter Nolan, ex-Florida defensive end Princely Umanmielen, former Alabama cornerback Trey Amos and Arkansas transfer linebacker Chris Paul Jr.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Furman: All-SoCon bandit Luke Clark had 53 tackles last season and led the team with six sacks. He’s picked to repeat for all-conference honors.
Ole Miss: RBs Ulysses Bentley IV and Henry Parrish Jr. will get their chances to shine with star Quinshon Judkins now at Ohio State. Bentley ran for 540 yards last season while Parrish returns for his second stint at Ole Miss after leading the Miami Hurricanes in rushing each of the past two seasons. Miami of Ohio transfer Rashad Amos was a 1,000-yard rusher last season.
FACTS & FIGURES
An Ole Miss win would mark No. 300 on the field at Vaught-Hemingway, not counting victories that were later vacated by the NCAA. … The Rebels are 21-2 at home since 2021, with two 7-0 seasons. … Furman finished last season ranked in the top seven in the FCS polls, its highest final ranking since 2005. … A Furman defense that ranked 11th in the FCS allowing just 18.2 points per game returns only four of its top 15 tacklers. … Furman won the only previous meeting 7-2 on Nov. 14, 1924, in Greenville, South Carolina.
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi poultry processing plant has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor that requires it to pay $164,814 in fines and put in place enhanced safety measures following the death of a 16-year-old boy at the facility.
The agreement, announced Friday in a news release, comes after an investigation of Mar-Jac Poultry by the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration into the death of an underaged worker who was pulled into a machine as they cleaned it July 14, 2023.
“Tragically, a teenage boy died needlessly before Mar-Jac Poultry took required steps to protect its workers,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer in Atlanta. “This settlement demands the company commit to a safer workplace environment and take tangible actions to protect their employees from well-known hazards. Enhanced supervision and increased training can go a long way toward minimizing risks faced by workers in meat processing facilities.”
“Mar-Jac was aware of these safety problems for years and had been warned and fined by OSHA, yet did nothing. Hopefully, Mar-Jac will follow through this time so that no other worker is killed in such a senseless manner,” Jim Reeves, an attorney for the victim’s family, told WHLT-TV.
The victim’s family sued Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC, and Onin Staffing earlier this year. The lawsuit alleges that Perez was killed due to Mar-Jac ignoring safety regulations and not turning off machinery during sanitation. The suit also claims Onin Staffing was negligent in illegally assigning the 16-year-old to work at the plant.
Headquartered in Gainesville, Georgia, Mar-Jac Poultry has raised live birds for poultry production since 1954 at facilities in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi for food service customers in the U.S and abroad, the DOL’s news release said.
A telephone call Friday to the company seeking comment about the settlement was not answered.
GLOSTER, Miss. (AP) — This southern Mississippi town’s expansive wood pellet plant was so close to Shelia Mae Dobbins’ home that she sometimes heard company loudspeakers. She says industrial residues coated her truck and she no longer enjoys spending time in the air outdoors.
Dobbins feels her life — and health — were better before 2016, when United Kingdom energy giant Drax opened a facility able to compress 450,000 tons of wood chips annually in the majority Black town of Gloster, Mississippi. To her, it’s no coincidence federal regulators find residents are exposed to unwanted air particles and they experience asthma more than most of the country.
Her asthma and diabetes were once under control, but since a 2017 diagnosis of heart and lung disease, Dobbins has frequently lived at the end of a breathing tube connected to an oxygen cannister.
“Something is going on. And it’s all around the plant,” said the 59-year-old widow who raised two children here. “Nobody asked us could they bring that plant there.”
Shelia Mae Dobbins holds part of her oxygen tube inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Shelia Mae Dobbins walks with her oxygen tube inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Wood pellet production skyrocketed across the U.S. South. It helped feed demand in the European Union for renewable energy, as those coutries sought to replace fossil fuels such as coal. But many residents near plants — often African Americans in poor, rural swaths — find the process left their air dustier and people sicker.
Billions of dollars are available for these projects under President Joe Biden’s signature law combating climate change. The administration is weighing whether to open up tax credits for companies to burn wood pellets for energy.
Shelia Mae Dobbins cries as she talks about her health inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
As producers expand west, environmentalists want the government to stop incentivizing what they call a misguided attempt to curb carbon emissions that pollute communities of color while presently warming the atmosphere.
Despite hefty pollution fines against industry players and one major producer’s recent bankruptcy, supporters say the multibillion-dollar market is experiencing growing pains. In wood pellets, they see an innovative long-term solution to the climate crisis that brings revenue necessary for forest owners to maintain plantations.
Birds fly past a pile of wood used to make pellets during a tour of a Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Biomass boom
After the European Union classified biomass as renewable energy in 2009, the Southeast’s annual wood pellet capacity increased from about 300,000 tons to more than 7.3 million tons by 2017, according to research led by a University of Missouri team.
Federal energy statistics show about three dozen southern wood pellet manufacturing facilities account for nearly 80% of annual U.S. capacity. Most pellets are used for commercial-scale energy overseas.
The market brought hope for revitalization to small, disadvantaged communities. But interviews with residents of towns with large Black populations, from Gaston, North Carolina, to Uniontown, Alabama, surfaced complaints of truck traffic, air pollution and noise from pellet plants.
Dan Caston, an employee of Drax leads a tour of their plant in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Dan Caston, an employee of Drax, shows some of the wood pellets their plant produces in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Gloster has become the poster child for such tensions. In 2020, Mississippi’s environmental agency fined Drax $2.5 million for violating air emissions limits. Gloster is exposed to more particulate matter than much of the U.S. and adults have higher asthma rates than 80% of the country, according to an Environmental Protection Agency mapping tool. Median household income is about $22,000; the poverty rate is triple the national level.
Spokesperson Michelli Martin said Drax in 2021 installed pollution controls, including incinerators to decrease carbon emissions. An environmental consulting firm found “no adverse effects to human health” and that “no modeled pollutant from the facility exceeded” acceptable levels, Martin said.
The company recently committed to annual town halls and announced a $250,000 Gloster Community Fund to “improve quality of life.”
But critics aren’t swayed by showings of corporate goodwill they say don’t account for poor air. Krystal Martin, of the Greater Greener Gloster Project, returned to her hometown after her 75-year-old mother was diagnosed with lung and heart problems.
“You don’t really know you’re dealing with air pollution until most people have breathed and inhaled it for so long that they end up sick,” she said.
Krystal Martin, a Gloster native, shows pamphlets to residents Myrtis Woodard and Shelia Mae Dobbins, right, during a community meeting she organized regarding health complaints against the Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Krystal Martin, a Gloster native, shows pamphlets during a community meeting she organized regarding health complaints against the Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Brown University assistant epidemiology professor Erica Walker is studying health impacts of industrial pollutants on Gloster residents. Walker said fine particulate matter can travel deep into lungs and reach the bloodstream.
“It can also circulate to other parts of our body, leading to body-wide inflammation,” she said.
A man crosses the street in downtown Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Subsidies for an upstart industry
Environmentalists are calling on Biden to stop aiding an industry they believe runs counter to his green energy goals. At the annual United Nations climate conference, The Dogwood Alliance urged attendees to phase out wood pellets.
Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet producer — had already received subsidies through the 2018 farm bill signed by former President Donald Trump, according to Sheila Korth, a former policy analyst with nonpartisan watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense.
But Korth said the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act made tax credits available to companies that create pellets for countries in Europe and Asia.
Elizabeth Woodworth, interim executive director of the US Industrial Pellet Association, said the money is a small part of lRA allocations and noted emerging technologies require government subsidies. The industry argues that replanting of trees will eventually absorb carbon produced by burning pellets.
“We need every single technology we can get our hands on to mitigate climate change,” Woodworth said. “Bioenergy is a part of that.”
Scientific studies have found firing wood pellets puts more carbon immediately into the atmosphere than coal. Pollution from biomass-based facilities is nearly three times higher than that of other energy sectors, according to a 2023 paper in the journal Renewable Energy.
In a 2018 letter, hundreds of scientists warned the EU that the “additional carbon load” from burning wood pellets means “permanent damages” including glacial melting.
A resident crosses the street for a community meeting regarding health complaints against Drax in Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Expansion plans and more burning?
Drax — with plants operating in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi — is heading west.
The corporation signed an agreement in February with Golden State Natural Resources to identify biomass from California’s forests. The public-private venture hopes to build two plants by year’s end and produce up to 1 million tons of wood pellets annually. Another Drax project in Washington would produce 500,000 tons a year.
The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Rita Frost, who fought plants in the South, said the deal will endanger California’s low-income Latino communities much like she says the industry threatened Black southern towns.
“It’s an environmental justice problem that should not be repeated in California,” Frost said.
An employee walks toward a pile of lumber to be used during a tour of a Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
But a key federal decision could draw more companies into pellet combustion — not just production.
The White House is looking into whether biomass facilities should receive tax credits meant for zero-emission electricity generators. The Treasury Department is weighing whether biomass’ potential long-term carbon neutrality is sufficient even if its production increases emissions in the short term.
Spokesperson Michael Martinez said they are “carefully considering public comments” and “working to issue final rules that will increase energy security and clean energy supply as effectively as possible.”
Some environmentalists doubt the energy alternative is ultimately carbon neutral. The Southern Environmental Law Center fears the credits could be the incentive needed for the U.S. to join Europe in scaling up the burning of pellets.
“The threat here is really the growth of biomass energy production in the U.S. itself,” said senior attorney Heather Hillaker. “Which obviously will add to the total carbon and climate harms of this industry globally.”
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Pollard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Watson reported from San Diego. Contributing were video journalist Terry Chea from San Francisco and reporter Matthew Daly from Washington, D.C.
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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi should work quickly to fulfill the court-ordered redrawing of some legislative districts to ensure more equitable representation for Black residents, attorneys for voting rights groups said in a new court filing Friday.
The attorneys also said it’s important to hold special elections in the reconfigured state House and Senate districts on Nov. 5 — the same day as the general election for federal offices and some state judicial posts.
Having special legislative elections in 2025 “would burden election administrators and voters and would likely lead to low turnout if not outright confusion,” wrote the attorneys for the Mississippi NAACP and several Black residents in a lawsuit challenging the composition of state House and Senate districts drawn in 2022.
Attorneys for the all Republican state Board of Election Commissioners said in court papers filed Wednesday that redrawing some legislative districts in time for this November’s election is impossible because of tight deadlines to prepare ballots.
Three federal judges on July 2 ordered Mississippi legislators to reconfigure some districts, finding that the current ones dilute the power of Black voters in three parts of the state. The judges said they want new districts to be drawn before the next regular legislative session begins in January.
Mississippi held state House and Senate elections in 2023. Redrawing some districts would create the need for special elections to fill seats for the rest of the four-year term.
The judges ordered legislators to draw majority-Black Senate districts in and around DeSoto County in the northwestern corner of the state and in and around Hattiesburg in the south, and a new majority-Black House district in Chickasaw and Monroe counties in the northeastern part of the state.
The order does not create additional districts. Rather, it requires legislators to adjust the boundaries of existing ones. Multiple districts could be affected.
Legislative and congressional districts are updated after each census to reflect population changes from the previous decade. Mississippi’s population is about 59% white and 38% Black.
In the legislative redistricting plan adopted in 2022 and used in the 2023 elections, 15 of the 52 Senate districts and 42 of the 122 House districts are majority-Black. Those are 29% of Senate districts and 34% of House districts.
Historical voting patterns in Mississippi show that districts with higher populations of white residents tend to lean toward Republicans and that districts with higher populations of Black residents tend to lean toward Democrats.
Lawsuits in several states have challenged the composition of congressional or state legislative districts drawn after the 2020 census.
The Biden administration’s new Title IX rule expanding protections for LGBTQ+ students has been temporarily blocked in four states after a federal judge in Louisiana found that it overstepped the Education Department’s authority.
In a preliminary injunction granted Thursday, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty called the new rule an “abuse of power” and a “threat to democracy.” His order blocks the rule in Louisiana, which filed a challenge to the rule in April, and in Mississippi, Montana and Idaho, which joined the suit.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to the order.
The Louisiana case is among at least seven backed by more than 20 Republican-led states fighting Biden’s rule. The rule, set to take hold in August, expands Title IX civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students, expands the definition of sexual harassment at schools and colleges, and adds safeguards for victims.
Doughty, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, is the first judge to block the rule. It deals a major blow to the new protections, which were praised by civil rights advocates but drew backlash from opponents who say they undermine the spirit of Title IX, a 1972 law barring sex discrimination in education.
Louisiana is among several Republican states with laws requiring people to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their sex assigned at birth, restricting transgender students from using facilities that align with their gender identity. President Biden’s rule clashes with those laws and claimed to supersede them.
The Louisiana lawsuit argued that the new rule would force schools across the four states to pay millions of dollars to update their facilities. In his decision, the judge called it an “invasion of state sovereignty” and concluded that the states were likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
His order says the rule likely violates free speech laws by requiring schools to use pronouns requested by students. It also questions whether the Biden administration has legal authority to expand Title IX to LGBTQ+ students.
“The Court finds that the term ‘sex discrimination’ only included discrimination against biological males and females at the time of enactment,” Doughty wrote in his order.
The judge expressed concern that the rule could require schools to allow transgender women and girls to compete on female sports teams. Several Republican states have laws forbidding transgender girls from competing on girls teams.
The Biden administration has proposed a separate rule that would forbid such blanket bans, but it said the newly finalized rule does not apply to athletics. Still, Doughty said it could be interpreted to apply to sports.
“The Final Rule applies to sex discrimination in any educational ‘program’ or ‘activity’ receiving Federal financial assistance,” he wrote. “The terms ‘program’ or ‘activity’ are not defined but could feasibly include sports teams for recipient schools.”
Judges in at least six other cases are weighing whether to put a similar hold on Biden’s rule. The Defense of Freedom Institute, a right-leaning nonprofit that backed the Louisiana lawsuit, applauded Doughty’s order.
“We are confident that other courts and states will soon follow,” said Bob Eitel, president of the nonprofit and a Trump administration education official.
Biden issued the new rule after dismantling another one created by Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos. That rule narrowed the definition of sexual harassment and added protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.
On social media Thursday, DeVos called the Louisiana decision a victory, saying Biden’s “anti-woman radical rewrite of Title IX is not just crazy but it’s also illegal.”
Tate Taylor got his start in his home state of Mississippi as a Hollywood production assistant alongside actor Octavia Spencer. Now, as a director and producer of big budget projects, Taylor is on a mission to bring big screen business back home.
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ATLANTA – Powerful storms packing hurricane-force winds killed at least one woman Friday in Florida as a week of deadly severe weather continued in the South, where uprooted trees crashed onto homes and knocked out electricity to thousands in several states.
City officials in Tallahassee said wind gusts of 80 to 100 mph (128 to 161 kph), speeds that exceed hurricane intensity, were reported in Florida’s capital city. Images posted on social media showed mangled metal and other debris from damaged buildings littering some areas.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency for 12 counties in the northern part of the state affected by the storm.
A statement on the Tallahassee government’s website said crews were scrambling to repair 100 broken power poles while half the homes and businesses were left without electricity in a city of 200,000 people. It said the National Weather Service was assessing paths of three potential tornadoes.
“Our area experienced catastrophic wind damage,” Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey said on the social platform X.
Crews have told customers in the dark that the restoration may take days. City officials expect the work to restore power will go through the weekend.
City spokesperson Alison Faris told The Tallahassee Democrat that the extent of the damage has made restoration hard-going because crews are focused on fixing the transmission infrastructure before they can start work on the distribution of power that energizes homes and businesses.
“Transmission first and then we restore circuits which impacts distribution,” Faris told the Democrat. “All hands are on the transmission. We should start seeing some circuits repaired here shortly.”
The first wave of more than 215 personnel from 20 utilities in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina has arrived to help crews as they work to repair the electric system.
The sheriff’s office for Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, said in a Facebook post Friday that a woman was killed when a tree fell onto her family’s home.
The storm that struck Tallahassee early Friday also knocked two chimneys from apartment buildings at a complex where fallen trees covered a row of cars. Fencing was left bent at the baseball stadium of Florida State University, where classes were canceled Friday.
DeSantis said on social media Friday that the state Division of Emergency Management was working with local officials to “do everything possible to return life to normalcy for our residents as quickly as possible.”
The woman killed in Florida was at least the fifth death caused by severe weather in the U.S. this week. A powerful tornado that ripped through a small Oklahoma town on Monday left one person dead, and storms on Wednesday were blamed for killing two people in Tennessee and one person in North Carolina.
An estimated 201,000 homes and businesses from Mississippi to North Carolina were blacked out Friday afternoon, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. Most of those outages were in Florida, where lights and air conditioning were out for nearly 142,000 customers.
In Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson, authorities on Friday were asking residents to conserve and boil water as a precaution after a power outage at one of its major water treatment plants. JXN Water, the local water utility, said customers could expect reduced water pressure as workers assessed damage from overnight storms.
“It will take many hours for the system to recover and some places may take longer,” Ted Henifin, the water system’s manager, said in a statement.
Other parts of the South were cleaning up from storm damage inflicted earlier in the week. In the rural farming community of Vidalia, Georgia, and surrounding Toombs County, officials said a tornado left a path of destruction roughly 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) long Thursday afternoon.
About 10 houses had trees crash onto or through their roofs and crews worked through the night to remove about 50 downed trees that were blocking roads, said Lynn Moore, emergency management director for Toombs County. A dozen car wrecks were reported as the storm passed, Moore said, but nobody in the county was reported injured.
“We’re fortunate that it wasn’t stronger than it was,” Moore said.
Also Thursday, the weather service reported a hurricane-force wind gust of 76 mph (122 kph) in Autauga County, Alabama. And one person was injured in Rankin County, Mississippi, after a tree fell crashing onto a home, according to weather service damage reports.
Since Monday, 39 states have been under threat of severe weather. On Wednesday and Thursday, about 220 million people were under some sort of severe weather risk, said Matthew Elliott, a Storm Prediction Center forecaster.
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UMiss for PalestineFrat boys calling a Black woman a monkey… Who would’ve imagined that sight at a Palestine protest? It was supposed to be a peaceful gathering (aren’t they all?) at the University of Mississippi or Ole Miss, Students gathered to voice their concerns against Israel’s actions in Gaza and urge transparency regarding the university’s ties to the conflict. Instead, acts of #fatshaming, #degredation, #racism and #AmericanFlags clashed with the movement for peace.
Source: ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Getty
What began as a demonstration for justice quickly descended into a horrifying display of hate and deep-rooted issues of race that still plague our nation. Many say those systemic issues remain alive and well at Ole Miss, especially based on how its students behave. No arrests made, and the air is filled with “Lock her up,” and “F*ck Joe Biden” chants. It’s a sickening display like the ones that haunted that land for generations.
The Independent shares that the Black woman seen in the videos bravely held her own against the verbal abuse. Black women continue to be a face for change in real life.
The University of Mississippi, known for its long history of racial injustice, is predominantly white. African-American students only make up 10% of its population, according to the latest enrollment statistics.
Among the chaos, one moment stood out: a white man making monkey noises at a Black woman. In the now-viral videos, you can see horrid views of disgusting young white men waving money around in the woman’s face. Unsurprisingly, the whole time they’re sporting their #Trump paraphernalia with smiles on their faces.
Mississippi Leaders Show Approval Of Racist Counter-Protestors At UMiss for Palestine Demonstration
To make matters worse, local politicians condoned and encouraged this behavior.
The counter-protesters came prepared to intimidate. Waving American and Trump flags, they sang the national anthem to drown out the voices of those pleading for Palestine, recalling the resistant echoes of the civil rights struggle in the US South six decades ago.
“The behavior witnessed today was not only abhorrent but also entirely unacceptable,” stated the University of Mississippi’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “It is deeply disheartening to witness such blatant disregard for the principles of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression,” the organization wrote in a statement posted to Instagram.
On the global stage, protests like those at the University of Mississippi are part of a larger outcry against the treatment of Palestinians, seen in numerous cities worldwide as a plea for humanitarian relief and a cessation of violence in conflict zones like Gaza.
The demonstration lasted less than an hour before police and campus security disbanded for safety reasons, such as flying water bottles. Protests aim to highlight injustices and seek change. Yet, as seen at Ole Miss, they can sometimes expose injustices from within the campus walls.
UMiss For Palestine Issues A Statement In Response To Ole Miss Counter Protestors
UMiss for Palestine, the student group behind the protest, voiced their frustrations.
“We were confronted by counter-protesters who engaged in blind reactionism that had little to do with the genocide we were protesting as well as our demands.” Their call for peace was met with aggression, undermining the very essence of their protest.
It’s no surprise that racist gestures, which one could naively hope were relics of the past, could fester in the same country with leaders like this. When students of color cannot protest without facing racial vilification, it paints a clear picture of the current surrounding culture. Kids are the future.
We must ask ourselves; how can we move forward when the echoes of our darkest hours are still so loud? How can we stand for international justice when we cannot even secure peace and respect within our own borders?
The events at the University of Mississippi are a grim reminder that the fight for justice is far from over, both at home and abroad.
At least 11 people — including 10 University of South Carolina students and a bus driver — were injured when a charter bus crashed in southern Mississippi Friday afternoon on the way to New Orleans for a fraternity formal, according to the university.Video of the aftermath of the crash above“The University of South Carolina was informed tonight of an accident in Mississippi involving a charter bus carrying USC fraternity members and their guests traveling to an event in New Orleans,” the university said in a statement to CNN.The bus was carrying 56 students when it crashed around 3 p.m. on Interstate 10 in Hancock County, according to a news release from the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Nine students were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, while the bus driver and another student were airlifted in critical condition.The driver lost control of the bus after one of its tires blew out, Bay St. Louis police Chief Toby Schwartz told CNN affiliate WLOX.“According to what students said, she stood on that steering wheel with every ounce of energy to keep that steering wheel straight,” Schwartz said of the driver.At one point, the wheels on one side of the bus lifted into the air, causing the bus to lean on one side. When the bus came back down on all wheels, the front windshield shattered and the driver was ejected, according to Schwartz.But the bus kept moving. The bus traveled “out of control” for half a mile on the interstate, Schwartz said.In what Schwartz described as a “heroic action,” a student grabbed ahold of the wheel and regained control of the bus, bringing it to a stop.“Because of the bus driver’s quick actions, and then the students’ quick actions, right now we don’t have any fatalities,” Schwartz said.The crash remains under investigation by Mississippi Highway Patrol.“USC is working closely with local authorities on the scene to obtain updates on our students and to assist in whatever capacity we can,” the university said. “Our thoughts go out to the students involved in the accident and those affected by it.”
At least 11 people — including 10 University of South Carolina students and a bus driver — were injured when a charter bus crashed in southern Mississippi Friday afternoon on the way to New Orleans for a fraternity formal, according to the university.
Video of the aftermath of the crash above
“The University of South Carolina was informed tonight of an accident in Mississippi involving a charter bus carrying USC fraternity members and their guests traveling to an event in New Orleans,” the university said in a statement to CNN.
The bus was carrying 56 students when it crashed around 3 p.m. on Interstate 10 in Hancock County, according to a news release from the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Nine students were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, while the bus driver and another student were airlifted in critical condition.
The driver lost control of the bus after one of its tires blew out, Bay St. Louis police Chief Toby Schwartz told CNN affiliate WLOX.
“According to what students said, she stood on that steering wheel with every ounce of energy to keep that steering wheel straight,” Schwartz said of the driver.
At one point, the wheels on one side of the bus lifted into the air, causing the bus to lean on one side. When the bus came back down on all wheels, the front windshield shattered and the driver was ejected, according to Schwartz.
But the bus kept moving. The bus traveled “out of control” for half a mile on the interstate, Schwartz said.
In what Schwartz described as a “heroic action,” a student grabbed ahold of the wheel and regained control of the bus, bringing it to a stop.
“Because of the bus driver’s quick actions, and then the students’ quick actions, right now we don’t have any fatalities,” Schwartz said.
The crash remains under investigation by Mississippi Highway Patrol.
“USC is working closely with local authorities on the scene to obtain updates on our students and to assist in whatever capacity we can,” the university said. “Our thoughts go out to the students involved in the accident and those affected by it.”
Former Rankin County deputy Brett McAlpin, the fifth member of the Mississippi “Goon Squad” that admitted to torturing two Black men, has been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison. Kirk Burkhalter, a New York Law School professor, joins CBS News with a look at the case’s sentencing phase.
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Sentencing has concluded for the six white former officers in Mississippi who pleaded guilty to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two Black men.High-ranking Former deputy Brett McAlpin, 53, was the fifth former law enforcement officer sentenced this week by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee after pleading guilty to the attack, which involved beatings, repeated uses of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth. The final member of the group, 32-year-old former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield, was given a sentence of about 10 years on Thursday afternoon.McAlpin on Thursday wore a jumpsuit turned inside out to conceal the name of the jail where he is detained, and he nodded to his family in the courtroom. He offered an apology before the judge sentenced him.”This was all wrong, very wrong. It’s not how people should treat each other and even more so, it’s not how law enforcement should treat people,” said McAlpin, who did not look at the victims as he spoke. “I’m really sorry for being a part of something that made law enforcement look so bad.”Lee sentenced Christian Dedmon, 29, to 40 years and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17.5 years on Wednesday. He gave about 20 years to Hunter Elward, 31, and 17.5 years to Jeffrey Middleton, 46, on Tuesday. All but Hartfield served with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office outside Mississippi’s capital city, where some called themselves “The Goon Squad.”McAlpin was the fourth highest-ranking officer at the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, a probation officer said in court. Arguing for a lengthy sentence, federal prosecutor Christopher Perras said McAlpin was not technically a member of the Goon Squad but “molded the men into the goons they became.”Parker told investigators that McAlpin, who was off duty and not in uniform during the attack, functioned like a “mafia don” as he instructed the officers throughout the evening. Prosecutors said other deputies often tried to impress McAlpin, and Opdyke’s attorney said Wednesday that his client saw McAlpin as a father figure.The younger deputies who were already sentenced tried to wrap their heads around how they had started off “wanting to be good law enforcement officers and turned into monsters,” Perras said Thursday.”How did these deputies learn to treat another human being this way? Your honor, the answer is sitting right there,” Perras said as he turned and pointed at McAlpin.In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.The officers invented false charges against the victims, planting a gun and drugs at the scene of their crime, and stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what federal prosecutors said was meant to be a “mock execution.”In a statement read by his attorney Thursday, Jenkins said he “felt like a slave” and was “left to die like a dog.””If those who are in charge of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office can participate in these kinds of torture, God help us all. And God help Rankin County,” Jenkins said.Lee handed down prison terms near the top of the sentencing guidelines for all of the culprits, except for Hartfield.The terror began Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies asking if they were “available for a mission.””No bad mugshots,” Dedmon texted — a green light, according to prosecutors, to use excessive force on parts of the body that wouldn’t appear in a booking photo.Dedmon also brought Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property during their illegal entry.Once inside, the officers mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. They handcuffed them and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess.After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup. The deputies agreed to plant drugs, and false charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest men of the group, threatened to kill the other officers if they spoke up, prosecutors said. In court Thursday, McAlpin’s attorney Aafram Sellers said only Middleton threatened to kill the other officers.Sellers also questioned probation officer Allie Whitten on the stand about details submitted to the judge. When federal investigators interviewed the neighbor who called McAlpin, that person reported seeing “trashy” people at the house who were both white and Black, Sellers said. That called into question whether the episode started on the basis of race, he argued.Federal prosecutors said the neighbor referred to people at the home as “those people” and “thugs.” The information included in the charging documents, which the officers did not dispute when they pleaded guilty, revealed some of them used racial taunts and epithets throughout the episode.The majority-white Rankin County is just east of Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers shouted at Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say.Attorneys for several of the deputies said their clients became ensnared in a culture of corruption that was not only permitted, but encouraged by leaders within the sheriff’s office.Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised changes. Jenkins and Parker called for his resignation and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department. Last November, Bailey was reelected without opposition to another four-year term.
A fifth former sheriff’s deputy in Mississippi was sentenced Thursday to more than 27 years in prison for breaking into a home with a group of law enforcement officers as they tortured two Black men, an act the judge called “egregious and despicable.”
Former deputy Brett McAlpin, 53, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee after pleading guilty to the attack, which involved beatings, repeated uses of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth. The sixth and final member of the group, 32-year-old former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield is set to be sentenced Thursday afternoon.
The judge sentenced Christian Dedmon, 29, to 40 years and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17.5 years on Wednesday. He gave nearly 20 years to Hunter Elward, 31, and 17.5 years to Jeffrey Middleton, 46, on Tuesday. All but Hartfield served with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department outside Mississippi’s capital city, where some called themselves “The Goon Squad.”
In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
The officers invented false charges against the victims, planting a gun and illegal drugs at the scene of their crime, and stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what federal prosecutors said was meant to be a “mock execution.”
For each of the deputies sentenced so far, Lee has handed down prison terms near the top of the sentencing guidelines.
The terror began Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person in Rankin County complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies asking if they were “available for a mission.”
“No bad mugshots,” Dedmon texted — a green light, according to prosecutors, to use excessive force on parts of the body that wouldn’t appear in a booking photo.
Dedmon also brought Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property during their illegal entry.
Once inside, the officers mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. They handcuffed them and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess, and Hartfield guarded the bathroom door to make sure the men didn’t escape.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup. McAlpin pressured Parker to go along with it, asking him to keep quiet in exchange for his freedom. The deputies agreed to plant drugs, and false charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest men of the group, threatened to kill the other officers if they spoke up, prosecutors said in charging documents. In court Thursday, McAlpin’s attorney Aafram Sellers said only Middleton threatened to kill the other officers.
Sellers also questioned probation officer Allie Whitten on the stand about details in a pre-sentence report submitted to the judge. When federal investigators interviewed the neighbor who called McAlpin, that person reported seeing “trashy” people at the house who were both white and Black, Sellers said. That called into question whether the episode started on the basis of race, he argued.
Federal prosecutors said the neighbor referred to people at the home as “those people” and “thugs.” The information included in the charging documents, which the officers did not dispute when they pleaded guilty, revealed some of them used racial taunts and epithets throughout the episode.
The majority-white Rankin County is just east of Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers shouted at Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say.
Opdyke was the first to admit what they did, his attorney Jeff Reynolds said Wednesday. On April 12, Opdyke showed investigators a WhatsApp text thread where the officers discussed their plan and what happened. Had he thrown his phone in a river, as some of the other officers did, investigators might not have discovered the encrypted messages.
Attorneys for several of the deputies said their clients became ensnared in a culture of corruption that was not only permitted, but encouraged by leaders within the sheriff’s office.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised changes. Jenkins and Parker called for his resignation and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department. Last November, Bailey was reelected without opposition, to another four-year term.
A third former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy has each been sentenced for his part in the racist torture of two Black men by a group of white officers who called themselves the “Goon Squad.” Daniel Opdyke was sentenced Wednesday to 17.5 years in federal prison.Opdyke, 28, cried profusely as he spoke in court before the judge announced his sentence. Turning to look at the two victims, he said his isolation behind bars has given him time to reflect on “how I transformed into the monster I became that night.””The weight of my actions and the harm I’ve caused will haunt me every day,” Opdyke told them. “I wish I could take away your suffering.”All six of the former officers pleaded guilty last year to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing the Black men with a stun gun, a sex toy and other objects. Christian Dedmon, 29, also faced a lengthy prison term at his sentencing, set for Wednesday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. The last two will be sentenced on Thursday.On Tuesday, Lee gave a nearly 20-year prison sentence to 31-year-old Hunter Elward and a 17.5-year sentence to 46-year-old Jeffrey Middleton. They, like Opdyke and Dedmon, worked as Rankin County sheriff’s deputies during the attack.Another former deputy, Brett McAlpin, 53, and a former Richland police officer, Joshua Hartfield, 32, are set for sentencing Thursday.Last March, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.The former officers stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in a “mock execution” that went awry.In a statement Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the “heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.”Before Lee sentenced Elward and Middleton, he called their actions “egregious and despicable.”The terror began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person in Rankin County complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies who were so willing to use excessive force they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”Once inside, they handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy.After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup that included planting drugs and a gun. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.The majority-white Rankin County is just east of the state capital, Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers repeatedly shouted racial slurs at Jenkins and Parker, telling them to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say.Opdyke was the officer who first went to the government and told them what happened, his attorney Jeff Reynolds said Wednesday. Opdyke came forward on April 12, showing investigators the WhatsApp text thread where the officers discussed their plan and what happened. He was able to do so because he didn’t throw his phone in a river, as some of the other officers did. Had he done so, investigators might not have discovered the encrypted messages.Dedmon and Opdyke, like Elward, also are being sentenced after pleading guilty to their roles in an assault on a white man on Dec. 4, 2022 — weeks before Jenkins and Parker were tortured. Prosecutors revealed the victim’s identity Tuesday as Alan Schmidt. Reynolds said Opdyke held Schmidt down until Dedmon arrived, but didn’t beat him or sexually assault him.According to a statement from Schmidt that prosecutors read in court, Dedmon accused him of possessing stolen property during a traffic stop that night. Schmidt said he was handcuffed, pulled from his vehicle and beaten until he “started to see spots.”Prosecutors said Elward and Opdyke failed to intervene as Dedmon punched and kicked him, used a Taser on him, and fired his gun into the air to threaten him, and then sexually assaulted him.Schmidt said Dedmon forced him to his knees, pulled out his “private part” and hit him in the face with it, trying to insert it into his mouth. Dedmon then grabbed Schmidt’s genitals and rubbed against his body as he screamed for them to stop, Schmidt said.”What sick individual does this? He has so much power over us already, so to act this way, he must be truly sick in this head,” Schmidt wrote in his statement.Elward and Middlelton were emotional as they apologized in court on Tuesday. Elward’s attorney, Joe Hollomon, said his client first witnessed Rankin County deputies turn a blind eye to misconduct in 2017.”Hunter (Elward) was initiated into a culture of corruption at the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office,” Hollomon said.Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised to change the department. Jenkins and Parker have called for his resignation, and they have filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
A third former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy has each been sentenced for his part in the racist torture of two Black men by a group of white officers who called themselves the “Goon Squad.” Daniel Opdyke was sentenced Wednesday to 17.5 years in federal prison.
Opdyke, 28, cried profusely as he spoke in court before the judge announced his sentence. Turning to look at the two victims, he said his isolation behind bars has given him time to reflect on “how I transformed into the monster I became that night.”
“The weight of my actions and the harm I’ve caused will haunt me every day,” Opdyke told them. “I wish I could take away your suffering.”
All six of the former officers pleaded guilty last year to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing the Black men with a stun gun, a sex toy and other objects. Christian Dedmon, 29, also faced a lengthy prison term at his sentencing, set for Wednesday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. The last two will be sentenced on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Lee gave a nearly 20-year prison sentence to 31-year-old Hunter Elward and a 17.5-year sentence to 46-year-old Jeffrey Middleton. They, like Opdyke and Dedmon, worked as Rankin County sheriff’s deputies during the attack.
Another former deputy, Brett McAlpin, 53, and a former Richland police officer, Joshua Hartfield, 32, are set for sentencing Thursday.
Last March, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
The former officers stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in a “mock execution” that went awry.
In a statement Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the “heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.”
Before Lee sentenced Elward and Middleton, he called their actions “egregious and despicable.”
The terror began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person in Rankin County complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies who were so willing to use excessive force they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”
Once inside, they handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup that included planting drugs and a gun. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
The majority-white Rankin County is just east of the state capital, Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers repeatedly shouted racial slurs at Jenkins and Parker, telling them to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say.
Opdyke was the officer who first went to the government and told them what happened, his attorney Jeff Reynolds said Wednesday. Opdyke came forward on April 12, showing investigators the WhatsApp text thread where the officers discussed their plan and what happened. He was able to do so because he didn’t throw his phone in a river, as some of the other officers did. Had he done so, investigators might not have discovered the encrypted messages.
Dedmon and Opdyke, like Elward, also are being sentenced after pleading guilty to their roles in an assault on a white man on Dec. 4, 2022 — weeks before Jenkins and Parker were tortured. Prosecutors revealed the victim’s identity Tuesday as Alan Schmidt. Reynolds said Opdyke held Schmidt down until Dedmon arrived, but didn’t beat him or sexually assault him.
According to a statement from Schmidt that prosecutors read in court, Dedmon accused him of possessing stolen property during a traffic stop that night. Schmidt said he was handcuffed, pulled from his vehicle and beaten until he “started to see spots.”
Prosecutors said Elward and Opdyke failed to intervene as Dedmon punched and kicked him, used a Taser on him, and fired his gun into the air to threaten him, and then sexually assaulted him.
Schmidt said Dedmon forced him to his knees, pulled out his “private part” and hit him in the face with it, trying to insert it into his mouth. Dedmon then grabbed Schmidt’s genitals and rubbed against his body as he screamed for them to stop, Schmidt said.
“What sick individual does this? He has so much power over us already, so to act this way, he must be truly sick in this head,” Schmidt wrote in his statement.
Elward and Middlelton were emotional as they apologized in court on Tuesday. Elward’s attorney, Joe Hollomon, said his client first witnessed Rankin County deputies turn a blind eye to misconduct in 2017.
“Hunter (Elward) was initiated into a culture of corruption at the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office,” Hollomon said.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised to change the department. Jenkins and Parker have called for his resignation, and they have filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
A voter casts their ballots at a polling location at the Museum of Contemporary Art on March, 5 in Arlington, Virginia. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
Before Americans pick a president in November, they get to pick the candidates in a series of primaries and caucuses.
It’s a wonky process that has evolved over the course of the country’s history and continues to evolve today. Here’s what to know:
What is a primary?: It’s an election to select candidates, usually for a particular political party, to appear on the general election ballot. Primaries award delegates, and candidates must reach a magic number of delegates to win the nomination and appear on the general election ballot in November.
Who can vote in a presidential primary? It varies by state. Primaries are generally conducted in polling places like any other election. But some states have “open primaries,” meaning any registered voter can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary. Other states have “closed primaries,” meaning only people registered in a particular political party – usually Republicans or Democrats – can vote in that party’s primary. Others offer voting day registration, which essentially opens the primaries to most registered voters.
If multiple candidates win in party primaries in different states, how is the ultimate presidential candidate determined? Delegates can either be apportioned through awinner-take-all system, meaning the top candidate in a state’s primary gets all of that state’s delegates, or they can be apportioned proportionally to the primary electionresults. Some states have thresholds where every candidate who gets over a certain amount of the vote – say, 20% – may be entitled to delegates. Democrats these days apportion all of their delegates proportionally.
Republican rules this year generally require that states with primaries and caucuses before March 15 apportion delegates proportionally. States with primaries and caucusesafter March 15 may switch to a winner-take-all format.
Waveland, Mississippi — Following his retirement and the death of his wife, 76-year-old Danny Chauvin of Waveland, Mississippi, said he had way too much time on his hands.
Chauvin served in the Army during the Vietnam War and has been treated for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s when he’s alone with his thoughts that he’s the most vulnerable.
“That’s when stuff comes back to you,” Chauvin told CBS News.
But to keep his sanity, he knew he also had to keep busy. But how?
That’s when Chauvin realized one of the things he missed most about his wife was all the little handyman jobs he used to do for her. So, a few months ago, he posted a note on Facebook that read: “If there’s any honey-do jobs that you can’t handle, I’m willing to help.”
“And it spread,” Chauvin said. “It spread like wildfire.”
So now, on a daily basis, and sometimes four times a day, Chauvin fixes the hole in his heart by fixing just about everything else, like putting up a shower, hanging up a porch swing and fixing a closet door.
The price for his services? Nothing. It’s free.
“He showed much kindness to people,” one of his customers told CBS News.
Most of those Chauvin helps are women, many of whom are single or widowed. They call him the “Honey-Do Dude,” and say he is just about the only person they know willing to help with these small jobs. And, obviously, no one is going to match his price point.
In fact, when the work is done, the only thing he takes is a picture with his customers as a reminder that he is not alone in his struggle.
He also revealed his PTSD has improved since he started offering free handyman work.
Not many on-the-ground jobs that offer a salary over $55,000 for just half a year’s work. But that’s the money for those who opt for the rigor of an oil rig, a hot topic on people’s tongues this week.
According to Google, interest in oil rig jobs is having a moment. Searches for oil rig work reached a five-year high, surging particularly especially in the southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Arkansas, which abut the Gulf of Mexico and its 6,000-plus oil and gas structures, or rigs. A few reasons help explain why more people want in on the job despite deadly on-the-clock risks and increased environmental pollution.
Good money; no college required
According to research on the impact of oil and gas job opportunities, most jobs in the industry pay well, especially for those who don’t have college degrees. Entry-level oil work only requires a high school diploma or equivalent, which could be tempting for more than half of all Americans over age 25 who don’t have a college degree. Starting salaries average $55,000 per year, according to ZipRecruiter, while those in management positions could pocket well over $100,000 per year, according to oil industry law firm Arnold & Itkin.
According to Amanda Chuan, a professor in labor relations at Michigan State University, the attractive starting pay especially entices college-aged young men, who account for about 20% of the workforce, and are increasingly facing decisions between enrolling in school and risking years of debt and taking a high starting salary that they could pocket much sooner.
“These are jobs that don’t require a lot of cognizant skill, but you’re paid a lot for the long shifts, living in a camp, being away from home, chemical exposure and high risk of injury,” she said. “It’s extremely exhausting, mentally draining and a lot of people are not willing to do it—so if you are, you’ll make a lot.” It’s a concept called compensating wage differentials, Chuan explained—essentially, paying more for less-desirable work.
Oil rig workers also face pollution hazards, according to the U.S Department of Labor, due to spending a lot of time in confined spaces. Petroleum storage tanks, mud pits, reserve pits and other spaces around an oil wellhead can all come with more exposure to chemicals, flammable vapors or gasses that could cause workers to suffocate.
The cost-of-living crisis, though, is making more people willing to take on the back-breaking work (and fatal risks) of rigs.
According to a report by the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition, renters nationwide are struggling to afford housing, with the lowest-income residents in states like Arizona, Texas and Florida most worried about affording housing.
Boom-bust nature of the industry
Another reason for more labor interest in rigs is just the “boom-bust” nature of the oil industry. During booms, periods of high demand for oil, investors pour in and trigger overproduction, according to the Colorado School of Mines. Busts follow the overproduction, which see lower prices for oil and under-investment by the industry. The bust period of lower prices then triggers more demand for cheap oil, which shifts the price higher again and the cycle continues.
The current boom that finds oil rig workers in hot demand right now is in part due to global wars, like the invasion of Ukraine and the siege on Gaza, which means the country can’t rely on as much oil coming in. “Because our usual supplies for energy are being cut short right now,” Chuan said, “the country is turning more to domestic production of oil.”
The boom-bust nature of the industry also affects changes in labor demand, she said, as “during booms, newspapers report thousands of new high-paying jobs,” but “during busts, many jobs vanish, potentially leaving thousands unemployed.” Severalsuchlayoffs have occurred as the industry cycles through its high and lower value periods, with 2014 and 2020 as some of the biggest years for bust-fueled layoffs.
Chuan explained that the high starting pays and long vacations are meant to compensate for the risks people assume on the job. For younger workers, the particular risk is that “it leads you away from investing in your human capital, or education and transferable skills, that could help you find future employment that does not depend on the boom-bust cycle.”
Half a year of PTO—but 12-hour days
According to Arnold & Itkin’s blog post, many workers face shifts of 14 days on the clock, 21 days off. That means they work for full-day shifts, which can be up to 12 hours long and include night shifts, for two straight weeks. Then they are rewarded with three weeks off. For those who work on offshore rig sites, “two straight weeks at sea can be a harrowing experience for many, although some rigs are equipped with impressive living quarters for the crew.”
Living quarters can include “an onsite gym, theater, indoor sports facilities, computers, and more to occupy the time,” the blog says. That can be essential, as many people are not able to return home on their off time due to travel expenses and logistics and end up staying “on the rig the entire time.”
What would you do on the oil rigs, and what do you risk?
According to Indeed, an oil rig worker’s main responsibility is to extract, store and process oil—relying on lots of equipment. They find themselves at the helms of drills, cranes, forklifts and more to guide pipes into drilling wells. They gain an understanding of chemical levels to prevent the pipes from corroding and track environmental changes that could affect drilling productivity.
On risks, Arnold & Itkin states that oil rig crews experience some of the highest rates of injuries and fatalities in the country. 2008 was a particularly deadly year, with 120 oil and gas workers killed on the job. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 470 oil workers died between 2014 and 2019, over 400 of them on the job and 69 of them from cardiac complications. The death rate has also been increasing: In 2019, the rate of oil worker fatalities was about 12%, compared to about 6% in 2017.
The most common causes of injuries include fires, falls, fatigue, machinery malfunctions, and lack of safety culture on rigs, according to Arnold & Itkin. In one Reddit thread, nearly 100 users shared their most terrifying experiences on oil rigs—describing brutal burns, equipment that maimed people, and witnessing entire coastlines degrade quickly.
According to severalstudies, marine ecosystems and communities who live near waters with rigs face threats from water contamination and dying sea animals. Especially dangerous are seismic airguns, which are towed behind ships and used to shoot blasts of compressed air which are 100,000 times more intense than jet engines, to find oil trapped deep underneath the ocean floor. According to Oceana, an international organization that researches oceans, these blasts are repeated about 6 times a minute almost all day at oil rigs for weeks at a time, and can kill marine animals like sea turtles and fish.
Taxpayers in 14 states could get some financial relief this year thanks to lower individual tax rates enacted in 2024, according to an analysis from the Tax Foundation, a think tank that focuses on taxes.
The reductions represent a continuation of “tax cut fever,” as termed by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The drive to cut state taxes began during the pandemic when many states found themselves flush with tax revenue. With coffers fat, lawmakers sought to provide some relief to their constituents, typically through tax rebates or rate reductions.
The states that are reducing taxes in 2024 tend to be controlled by Republican lawmakers, although there are some Democratic-controlled states that are also jumping on the tax cut bandwagon. Connecticut, for one, is reducing its tax rates for low- and middle-income residents, while keeping its highest marginal rate unchanged.
Lowering tax rates can help make a state more competitive, potentially drawing remote workers and businesses within their borders, noted Manish Bhatt, senior policy analyst with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation.
“The last few years have been incredibly fast-paced in the world of tax rate cuts, and they are to find a competitive edge over either neighboring states or around the country,” Bhatt told CBS MoneyWatch.
That logic begs the question of whether people and businesses are incentivized to move in pursuit of lower tax rates. The evidence is mixed: While some researchers have found that Americans shifted to low-tax states in recent years, it could be that some of those taxpayers moved because they were in search of a new job, better weather or lower housing costs.
Other research has found little evidence that lower tax rates drive migration. For instance, even if people move to lower-tax states, they are often replaced in their higher-tax states by new people moving in, noted the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a 2023 research paper.
Red state tax cuts
Many of the tax cuts will benefit the states’ richest residents, with 12 of the 14 states reducing their top marginal rate, or the tax rate that impacts their highest earners.
Take Arkansas, which is reducing its top marginal rate to 4.4% in 2024, from 4.7% last year. To be sure, the top marginal rate applies to any taxpayer earning more than $24,300, or about 1.1 million residents — a broad base of low-, middle- and high-income earners, according to the Arkansas Advocate.
But about 70% of the tax cut’s benefit will be enjoyed by the 20% richest households in the state, or those earning more than $264,000 annually, the newspaper noted, citing data from ITEP.
In the eyes of Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the cut will help draw people to the state. If you are “a young family looking for a new place to settle down, moving to Arkansas has never been better,” Sanders said when signing the bill to lower tax rates last year, the Arkansas Advocate reported.
There are also longer-term issues that could tarnish the allure of tax cuts. For instance, these tax-cutting states could face a financial pinch when a recession hits — which could lead to hits to essential services, from education to road maintenance.
One such example of a tax cut that backfired occurred in Kansas over a decade ago. In 2012, state lawmakers cut income tax rates for top earners by almost one-third and reduced some business taxes to zero. The idea was that lower taxes would kickstart economic growth.
Instead, the state was forced to slash spending on services, including education, and the state actually underperformed neighboring states economically. Eventually, the tax cuts were reversed.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
After two former Georgia election workers sued Rudy Giuliani for falsely accusing them of committing massive fraud in 2020, his attorney argued that the real culprit in that calumny was The Gateway Pundit. Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit publisher Jim Hoft, who faced a separate defamation lawsuit by the same plaintiffs, was arguing that his website “fairly and accurately reported on the claims made by third parties, such as Trump’s legal team,” which Giuliani led.
This month’s $148 million verdict against Giuliani suggests that jurors were not swayed by his attempt to shift the blame for his baseless allegations. His consolation prize is top billing in my annual list of memorable moments in buck passing, several of which involved the tireless peddler of Donald Trump’s stolen-election fantasy.
‘Really Crazy Stuff.’ That was Rupert Murdoch’s private description of Giuliani’s baroque conspiracy theory, which Fox News nevertheless helped promote. Although the outlet, like Hoft, blamed Giuliani et al. for the tall tale, its frequently credulous coverage of his allegations against Dominion Voting Systems resulted in a $787 million defamation settlement last April.
‘I Relied on Others.’ In October, Jenna Ellis, a member of Giuliani’s “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty to a state charge of aiding and abetting false statements. Even while admitting that she had failed to fact-check the team’s election fraud claims, Ellis tried to mitigate her responsibility, saying, “I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience than I, to provide me with true and reliable information.”
‘There’s Nothing There.’ In January, we learned that President Joe Biden, who had slammed Trump’s “totally irresponsible” handling of classified records, also had retained sensitive material he was not supposed to have. “We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said, taking refuge in the passive voice. “I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there.”
The Mask Slips. In May, after former White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci conceded that face masks had, at best, a modest overall impact on coronavirus transmission during the pandemic, CNN’s Erin Burnett noted that his admission seemed to contradict what Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and other public health officials had been saying for three years. Murthy implausibly blamed ever-shifting science, saying, “Sometimes guidance does evolve over time as you learn more,” which “can be disconcerting.”
‘Concerns Have Been Raised.’ A year ago, the World Journal of Oncologyretracted an eyebrow-raising study claiming that nicotine vapers face about the same cancer risk as cigarette smokers. Blaming the study’s authors, who failed to address post-publication “concerns” about their “methodology,” “data processing,” “statistical analysis,” and “conclusions,” the journal’s editors did not explain why they and their peer reviewers had overlooked these and other glaring deficiencies.
Black-Market Boosters. Nearly three years after New York supposedly legalized recreational marijuana, state-approved stores remain scarce and account for a tiny percentage of sales. Instead of admitting their complicity in this fiasco, state officials are promising a crackdown on the unauthorized vendors who have proliferated because the legal industry is hobbled by heavy taxes, burdensome regulations, and maddening red tape.
‘Percocet via Snapchat.’ At a Republican presidential debate in September, Vivek Ramaswamy blamed deaths from fentanyl disguised as pain pills on “bio-terrorism” abetted by social media. He conveniently overlooked the fact that such hazards are a product of the prohibition policies that he supports, which create a black market where the composition of drugs is uncertain and unpredictable.
‘Floored and Shocked.’ In August, after five of his deputies admitted torturing two men during an unlawful home invasion, Rankin County, Mississippi, Sheriff Bryan Bailey said he was “floored and shocked” by the “horrendous crimes” of “these few individuals.” Yet Bailey’s underlings had been committing similar abuses for nearly two decades, generating multiple complaints and lawsuits. “I’m going to fix this,” he promised while insisting he was oblivious to that pattern of brutality. “I’m going to make everyone a whole lot more accountable.”
