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In Mississippi
USM celebrates private gifts totaling $22 million
Southern Miss said last week that alumni and friends of the university continue to demonstrate remarkable generosity, with private gifts through the USM Foundation and USM Athletic Foundation totaling $22 million for the 2025 fiscal year.
Of that total, $12.5 million was contributed through the USM Foundation and $9.5 million was given to the USM Athletic Foundation. Private giving to the USM Athletic Foundation also fueled scholarships, facilities and programs that enhance the student-athlete experience.
“Private giving is one of many indicators of tangible momentum at Southern Miss. Alumni and friends of the University continue to believe in our mission and are investing in students and programs that prepare our students to be ready for life,” said University President Dr. Joseph S. Paul.
National News & Foreign Policy
1. Trump staying out of shutdown talks, so far
According to The Hill, “President Trump, whom Democrats say is the only Republican leader who can break the government funding stalemate, has stayed out of the fray on Capitol Hill, leaving lawmakers in both parties pessimistic about reaching a deal until he engages in serious talks.”
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on Friday that he will stick with his plan of forcing Senate Democrats to keep voting on a House-passed seven-week resolution to fund the government, but the measure has already failed four times and has little chance of picking up new support,” The Hill reported. “Thune is betting that it’s only a matter time before eight Democrats vote for the House bill, giving it the 60 it needs to advance to Trump’s desk, but that wager is looking more and more like a long shot.”
The Hill continued, “Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says any deal to reopen the government lies with Trump, not Thune or Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).”
“The bottom line on that is we need the president to be involved. Johnson and a whole lot of his caucus don’t like the ACA, don’t want to do the extensions. A lot of Republican senators in the Senate do but they’re not enough. Thune is not enough,” Schumer said, per The Hill.
2. SCOTUS returns with key cases on tap
As the New York Times reports, “When the nine justices of the Supreme Court return to their raised mahogany bench each year on the first Monday of October, it typically marks the end of a three-month stretch of rest and reflection. But this summer’s traditional recess was anything but a cooling-off period.”
“Instead, the justices churned through emergency requests from the Trump administration that sharply divided the court along ideological lines, in a reflection of how much President Trump’s agenda has consumed their calendar,” NYT reported.
NYT went on to report, “The president’s policies will have an even more central role in the term that begins on Monday, after the justices agreed to take three cases with broad consequences for his agenda. In November, they will hear arguments about the legality of Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, a centerpiece of his trade strategy. In December, they will consider Mr. Trump’s efforts to wrest control of independent agencies, and in January, his attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board.”
Sports
1. Fisk wins Sanderson Farms Championship
Steven Fisk won the 2025 Sanderson Farms Championship, the only PGA event hosted in the state of Mississippi. It’s his first PGA Tour victory.
“I came out today with an attitude that nothing was going to stop me,” Fisk said during his Golf Channel interview on the 18th green. “I just felt like I’d be standing right here, right now, before the round started. I know I’m good enough. I thought I could do it.”
The win gives Fisk a two-year exemption through 2027, after it took him five years to get to the tour. His winnings for the victory topped $1 million.
2. JSU puts up over 700 yards in win
Jackson State is celebrating after piling up over 700 yards of total offense on Saturday night in a 57-24 over Alabama A&M at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in the Gulf Coast Challenge in Mobile.
The school said Jackson State football (4-1, 2-0 SWAC) finished with 702 yards of total offense on 80 plays, including 388 rushing yards while also adding 314 passing yards.
The total was the largest for Jackson State since amassing 638 yards against Mississippi Valley State in 2022, and is the third consecutive week the offense has totaled 500 yards or more (all wins).
Markets & Business
1. Futures rise to open week
CNBC reports that stock futures rose Monday “after a sizable regional bank merger spurred enthusiasm a bigger M&A wave is on the way and as AMD shares surged on a partnership with OpenAI. The market continued to grind higher even as a government shutdown dragged on into a second week.”
“Investors shrugged off worries about the shutdown after lawmakers once again failed to reach a deal on funding to keep the government open. The shutdown delayed the release of key economic data — including the September jobs report — which was originally due Friday,” CNBC reported.
CNBC added, “Despite the data blackout, several Federal Reserve officials are slated to speak this week, including Fed Governor Stephen Miran on Wednesday and Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday.”
2. Musk investing billions in Memphis xAI project
The Wall Street Journal reports that for Elon Musk, “ground zero of the artificial intelligence arms race is a 114-acre tract of grass and swamp on the state line of Tennessee and Mississippi.”
“This once-sleepy plot of land, filled with groves of water-rooted tupelo trees at its western edge, is now part of a growing empire Musk is accumulating in the Deep South, just a few miles from Elvis Presley’s homestead at Graceland,” WSJ reported. “Labor crews hired by Musk’s xAI were excavating power equipment on the site—a defunct energy plant just over the state line in Mississippi—and preparing to build a new plant capable of generating over a gigawatt of electricity, enough to power around 800,000 homes. Engineering permits show that Musk plans to route transmission lines that will connect the new power plant to a million-square-foot data center that is also under development just north of the border, in Tennessee.”
WSJ continued, “Memphis is the front line of Musk’s costly foray into the AI wars. His artificial intelligence company, xAI, has already built one massive data center here in the Bluff City that it calls the world’s largest supercomputer.”
Magnolia Tribune
