In 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea. The hijackers shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American tourist in a wheelchair, and pushed him overboard, before surrendering on Oct. 9.
In 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea. The hijackers shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American tourist in a wheelchair, and pushed him overboard, before surrendering on Oct. 9.
In this file photo from March 2023, Amory residents stand next to the remains of the scoreboard at Amory High School's baseball field the morning following an EF-3 tornado that devastated the community. A community meeting was held last week to discuss plans for a rebuild of the school's baseball and softball facilities.
Amory School District Superintendent Brian Jones gives updates about district improvements during last week's town hall meeting at Amory Middle School in Amory, Miss.
AMORY – School officials in Amory are still working through the details necessary to rebuild Amory High School's baseball and softball facilities, both of which were destroyed as the result of March 24, 2023’s EF-3 tornado, forcing the Panthers and Lady Panthers to play last season on the road.
The school district does not own the property the two complexes were on and is working with the City of Amory towards a potential land swap. However, a previous Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant associated with the property requires approval through the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C.
During a community town hall late last month, Amory School Board President Jimmy Ann Ray said district officials believe the land swap will happen, but she doesn't know when the federal agency will approve it.
"How long are you willing to wait for Washington? Is it a year? Is it two years? What's that wait time?," asked Beth Rock.
Ray said the school district hasn't set a deadline, and school board member Leslie Wise said school district officials have reached out to several elected officials about the matter.
Amory School District Superintendent Brian Jones said city officials submitted the request to Washington, D.C., and it's out of the district's control.
"To answer your question about the timeline, I really don't know to say when our cutoff is to move to the next point," Jones said. "I want to give it at least another month."
He said one of the first meetings after the tornado was with the school’s baseball and softball coaches to discuss the rebuild.
"We met with architects to discuss plans and we knew both were under a LWCF grant," Jones said. "We did not know, at the time, the guidelines of the grant stated the school district could only use the facility 10% of the time and that it must be open to the public."
The school had a small lease in place approved by the National Park Service, according to board attorney Sam Griffie.
After meeting with Department of Wildlife and Fisheries officials, it was recommended the district not build anything on the land since it doesn't have ownership.
"They stated we could never get out from under the grant," Jones said. "The district then began to look at other options. We decided to clear the land behind East Amory Elementary School to have as a backup plan for facilities."
The cost to complete that project was $46,000, which was paid by the district. A cost analysis on to rebuild both facilities was $12 million-plus, Jones said.
He said at the time the land was cleared, district officials were told the fields could not go back to where they were, and it was the only option. However, the option of the land swap came available.
"When we were talking about building behind East Amory, even when we thought that was our only option, it was still really important for us to believe the best place to place these fields was on the campus of the high school ideally," Wise said. "Even before we realized how absurdly expensive it would be to build behind East Amory, we thought it was worth a few more months' wait before we found out the land swap was possible, and now we 100% think it's possible and it was worth the wait."
After evaluating school district-owned property, nothing was suitable to accommodate both fields. District officials began researching more about the LWCF grant to see if there was a possibility to go back.
"We were told a land swap with the city could be possible, and we started that avenue. FEMA will work with us to go back to the same location, but a new location would be a capped project, meaning no payment on new utilities or site work," Jones said. "FEMA would not place temporary facilities on land the school district does not own."
Leo Wood of Broaddus & Associates said insurance is the starting point for reimbursements, and FEMA is the last resort for funding. He estimated FEMA will reimburse $2.7 million towards needs of the new fields, including architectural fees and surveys.
The district has since worked with the city of Amory and paid for all surveys on the potential land swap and the tribal council to make sure it could take place. All paperwork and surveys are completed and have been submitted to the city.
Proposed options
Local business owner Robert Tomey said he developed the nearby Pea Patch fields and asked if that space could be used for the baseball and softball fields.
"I don't think there's grant money against the Pea Patch, and there's not that much money in the Pea Patch compared to what you're talking about and you could start all over there," he said.
Ray said she's unsure if the space would accommodate high school sports' regulations.
The city is also exploring the potential of using Carlos Moore Field for the high school's baseball team to host home games.
"One problem we've got is with Title IX, even if the city provided Carlos Moore, we would legally have to provide an equal field for the girls' softball, and there's not one," Wise said.
Derrick Maranto said there were multiple locations evaluated in the process of figuring out where another field could go, and Carlos Moore Field was the best option for baseball.
"Both the city and school looked at Title IX and really the only other field that was offered was Tiger Adams for both of them to take place," he said.
Maranto added the possibility of Carlos Moore Field is contingent on BNSF allowing the use of property it owns next to the field.
During the town hall, Jamie Rock asked about where the high school baseball team will practice, and Jones said on the current field. The field doesn't have restrooms or water, and Jones said the district can't build anything since it doesn't own the land.
It was noted facilities used by the school's football program are on school-owned property.
Meeting additional needs
Besides the athletics fields, Jones addressed Amory High School's auditorium and other repairs during the town hall.
"On day one, we hired a structural engineer to come and give a brief analysis on the auditorium," he said. "Insurance was onsite after the tornado to look at the auditorium. After several months of communication, insurance claimed the auditorium was fixable, but we, as a district and Broaddus & Associates, agreed that the project was a total wash and needed to be torn down and rebuilt."
He said the school district's insurance company provided engineers to do a more thorough review, which took several months to complete and yielded their ruling that the auditorium is repairable.
"We have hired structural engineers through our architects to do a rebuttal of their findings. This is in the works as we speak tonight. FEMA states that if 50.1% is damaged, then FEMA is on the same page as us to tear it down and rebuild," he said. "This has to be a detailed scope of work for a rebuild and a complete redo to meet the 50.1% threshold by FEMA. This process may take up to another year to complete."
The school district provided a 2,400-square-foot modular unit for the drama and band programs costing $8,000 per month, which is being reimbursed by FEMA.
There was also an update about a dome at West Amory Elementary School, which will replace the school's gym. Wood said a letter of intent was submitted to FEMA for a dome at AHS.
"They don't have funding at this time, but a round of funding always comes out in the fall. We turned that in last year, and West Amory got funded. If they have enough money in the coffers, there could be funding for the high school," he said.
Jones also updated attendees on completed projects, which included AHS' gym, football field and soccer fieldhouse and lighting; re-roofing of the gym and band hall; windows and canopies at AHS, West Amory Elementary School and Amory Middle School; and fencing at East and West Amory elementary schools.
The re-roofing at AHS is projected to be completed in mid-October.
Students walk around the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, Miss., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024.
Condoms and other sexual wellness items are made available to students at the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, Miss., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024.
OXFORD — It's hard to miss the overflowing bowl of condoms at the entrance of the gym.
Some University of Mississippi students walking past after their workout snicker and point, and the few who step forward to consider grabbing a condom rethink it when their friends catch up, laughter trailing behind them. Almost no one actually reaches in to take one.
Though officials say they refill the bowl multiple times a day, and condoms are available at multiple places on campus, Ole Miss students say the disinterest is indicative of changing attitudes.
Fewer young people are having sex, but the teens and young adults who are sexually active aren't using condoms as regularly, if at all. And people ages 15 to 24 made up half of new chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases in 2022.
The downward trend in condom usage is due to a few things: medical advancements like long-term birth control options and drugs that prevent sexually transmitted infections; a fading fear of contracting HIV; and widely varying degrees of sex education in high schools.
Is this the end of condoms? Not exactly. But it does have some public health experts thinking about how to help younger generations have safe sex, be aware of their options — condoms included — and get tested for STIs regularly.
"Old condom ads were meant to scare you, and all of us were scared for the longest time," said Dr. Joseph Cherabie, medical director of the St. Louis HIV Prevention Training Center. "Now we're trying to move away from that and focus more on what works for you."
Downtown Oxford was thrumming the day before the first football game of the season. The fall semester had just started.
Lines of college students with tequila-soda breath waited to be let in dim bars with loud music. Hands wandered, drifting into back pockets of jeans, and they leaned on one another.
It's likely that many of those students didn't use a condom, said Magan Perry, president of the college's Public Health Student Association.
"Using a condom is just a big, 'uh, no,'" the senior said.
Young women often have to initiate using condoms with men, she said, adding that she's heard of men who tell a sexual partner they'll just buy emergency contraception the next day instead.
"I've had friends who go home with a guy and say they're not having sex unless they use a condom, and immediately the reaction is either a reluctant, 'OK, fine,' or 'If you don't trust me, then I shouldn't even be here,'" Perry said. "They're like, 'Well, I'm not dirty, so why would I use them?'"
Women have long had the onus of preventing pregnancy or STIs, Cherabie said, and buying condoms or emergency contraceptives — which are often in a locked cabinet or behind a counter — can be an uncomfortable experience and "inserts a certain amount of shame."
Annie Loomis, 25, a student at the University of Washington, said dating apps and casual sex are making it hard for people to know what a "healthy sexual relationship" looks like when it comes to intimacy and respect.
"If you say, 'Hey, I want you to wear a condom' and they say, 'no, I don't,' you're not having sex. It should be that simple," Loomis said. "But it's not."
If pregnancy risk has been the driving factor for condom usage among heterosexual couples, the fear of contracting HIV was the motivation for condom use among men who have sex with men.
But as that fear has subsided, so has condom use, according to a recent study that focused on a population of HIV-negative men who have sex with men.
Grindr, a popular gay dating app, even lists condom use under "kinks" instead of "health." Things like that make Steven Goodreau, an HIV expert at the University of Washington who led the study, worry that the change in attitudes toward condoms is trickling down to younger generations.
Goodreau believes the promotion of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a drug that prevents HIV, is overshadowing condoms as a prevention strategy. A strategic plan for federal HIV research through 2025 doesn't mention condoms, and neither does the national Ending the HIV Epidemic plan.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that condoms are still an effective tool that can be used "alongside newer prevention strategies."
"We know that condom use has declined among some groups, but they still have an important role to play in STI prevention," said Dr. Bradley Stoner, director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention. "Condoms can be accessed without navigating the health care system, can be used on-demand, are generally affordable and most importantly – they are effective at preventing HIV and STIs when used consistently and correctly."
Pleasure — for both men and women — has long been an undeniable factor for the lack of condom use, according to Dr. Cynthia Graham, a member of the Kinsey Institute team that studies condoms.
But more so, advances in medicine have expanded the options for both STI and pregnancy prevention.
Young cisgender women have been turning to contraceptive implants like intrauterine devices and birth control pills to keep from getting pregnant. And researchers say that once women are in committed relationships or have one sexual partner for a significant amount of time, they often switch to longer-term birth control methods.
Ole Miss junior Madeline Webb said she and her partner seem like outliers — they have been seeing each other for four years, but still use condoms. They also share the responsibility of buying condoms.
"People see condoms as an inconvenience … but they do serve a purpose even if you're on birth control because there is always a chance of an STD," Webb said.
A new drug on the market could mean even more STI prevention options for men and possibly women.
Doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis, or doxy PEP, can be taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex and can help prevent chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. It has to be prescribed by a doctor. Trials are still being conducted for women, but the drug is gaining traction among men who have sex with men and transgender women.
With widespread uptake, the drug has the potential to make a significant impact in STI prevention strategies.
"When PrEP came out, everyone was excited because it was one less thing to worry about in terms of HIV acquisition," Cherabie said. "With another thing on board that can help decrease our likelihood of getting other STIs, on top of not having to worry about HIV, it gives our community and patients a little less anxiety about their sex lives."
And in just a decade, PrEP has become a main preventive measure against HIV and other STIs for men who have sex with men – though it is disproportionately used by white men.
Condom use now is "pretty much a thing of the past" for men who have sex with men compared to the 1980s and early 1990s during the AIDS epidemic, said Andres Acosta Ardilla, a community outreach director at an Orlando-based nonprofit primary care clinic that focuses on Latinos with HIV.
"Part of what we have to talk about is that there is something enticing about having condomless sex," Acosta Ardilla said. "And we have to, as people who are working in public health, plan for the fact that people will choose to have condomless sex."
Despite the relentless Southern sun, a handful of people representing various student organizations sat at tables in the heart of Ole Miss' campus. Students walked past and grabbed buttons, wristbands and fidget toys. One table offered gold-packaged condoms – for cups to prevent drinks from being spiked.
Actual condoms are noticeably absent. They're also absent in the state's public schools.
Condom demonstrations are banned in Mississippi classrooms, and school districts can provide abstinence-only or "abstinence-plus" sexual education — both of which can involve discussing condoms and contraceptives.
Focus on the Family, a Christian organization that advocates for teaching abstinence until marriage, is concerned that comprehensive sex education "exposes students to explicit materials." Abstinence-centered education is "age-appropriate" and keeps students safe and healthy, Focus on the Family analyst Jeff Johnston said in an emailed statement.
But Josh McCawley, deputy director of Teen Health Mississippi, an organization that works with youth to increase access to health resources, said the effects are clear.
"The obvious consequence is the rise of sexually transmitted infections, which is what we're seeing right now, which can be a burden on the health care system," he said, "but also there could be long-term consequences for young people in terms of thinking about what it means to be healthy and how to protect themselves, and that goes beyond a person's sexual health."
The latest CDC data from 2022 shows Mississippi has the highest teen birth rate in the country.
Scott Clements, who oversees health information for the state education department, was hesitant to criticize Mississippi's sex education standards because they're "legislatively mandated."
"If the legislature wants to make changes to this, we will certainly follow their lead," he added — though attempts to pass more advanced sexual education standards have died repeatedly in the Mississippi statehouse over the past eight years.
Nationally, there is no set standard for sex education, according to Michelle Slaybaugh, the director of social impact and strategic communication for the Sexuality Information and Education Council for the United States, which advocates for comprehensive sex ed.
Not every state mandates sex education. Some states emphasize abstinence. Less than half of states require information on contraception.
"There is no definitive way to describe what sex ed looks like from classroom to classroom, even in the same state, even in the same district," Slaybaugh said, "because it will really be determined by who teaches it."
Compare Mississippi to Oregon, which has extensive state standards that require all public school districts to teach medically accurate and comprehensive sexual education. Students in Portland are shown how to put on a condom on a wooden model of a penis starting in middle school and have access to free condoms at most high schools.
Lori Kuykendall of Dallas, who helped write abstinence-focused standards, said condom demonstrations like those in Portland "normalize sexual activity in a classroom full of young people who the majority of are not sexually active." She also points to increasingly easy access to pornography — in which people typically do not wear condoms — is a contributing factor to the decline in condom use among young people.
Jenny Withycombe, the assistant director for health and physical education at Portland Public Schools, acknowledged the standards see pushback in the more conservative and rural parts of Oregon. But the idea is to prepare students for future interactions.
"Our job is to hopefully build the skills so that even if it's been a while since the (condom) demo ... the person has the skills to go seek out that information, whether it's from the health center or other reliable and reputable resources," Withycombe said.
Those standards seem to contribute to a more progressive view of condoms and sex in young adults, said Gavin Leonard, a senior at Reed College in Portland and a former peer advocate for the school's sexual health and relationship program.
Leonard, who grew up in Memphis – not far from Oxford, Mississippi, said his peers at Reed may not consistently use condoms, but, in his experience, better understand the consequences of not doing so. They know their options, and they know how to access them.
Slaybaugh wants that level of education for Mississippi students — and the rest of the country.
"We would never send a soldier into war without training or the resources they need to keep themselves safe," she said. "We would not send them into a battle without a helmet or a bulletproof vest. So why is it OK for us to send young people off to college without the information that they need to protect themselves?"
Airline websites often use data collected from consumers to set fare prices. This can lead to price discrimination, which can increase profits for the company but carry ambiguous effects on consumer welfare.
Jonathan Williams
OXFORD — A University of Mississippi economics professor is working with a North American airline to study the effectiveness of pricing strategies and discrimination, a practice where airlines vary prices for the same product or service based on consumer attributes.
"Price discrimination is useful to firms like airlines because it allows them to charge higher prices to people who are willing to pay more, while also charging lower prices to people who otherwise might not buy at all," said Garrett Scott, assistant professor of economics and the study's principal investigator.
"Ultimately, price discrimination leads to higher profits for the airline and creates consumer surplus for those who get to pay less, but it can lead to lower consumer surplus for the people who have to pay more. It isn't clear ahead of time whether the two positives outweigh the one negative."
The National Science Foundation awarded Scott nearly $200,000 to continue an empirical analysis of airline industry pricing strategies over the next three years.
Scott, assistant professor of economics; Jonathan Williams, professor of economics at University of North Carolina; Andrii Babii, associate professor of economics at UNC; and UNC doctoral candidate Alex Marsh began their research with the airline in 2019. They studied two main pricing strategies: personalized pricing via targeted discounts and auctions for upgraded services and amenities.
A portion of the airline's 2022-23 website traffic data includes detailed consumer information and results of multiple waves of random discounts offered to website visitors. The research team will use the nine-month dataset to investigate the complex relationship between the decision to purchase, pricing, consumer characteristics and their website searches – key components of personalized pricing.
"If someone is repeatedly coming back to the website and they haven't bought yet, well, that might tell the airline that person is very interested and maybe I should increase the price," Scott said. "But it also might be a signal that, hey, just drop the price a little bit and get them on the plane. So, it's not clear exactly. That's kind of the goal of our research: who to target with the discount."
"When they (airlines) have information about us, that's awesome because we can get prices that are better suited for us, but the danger is that the firm can actually take all of the surplus from us and turn it into their profit."
The researchers are dissecting another airline data set from 2018 to 2020.
During that time, the airline offered multiple ways for customers to upgrade an economy class seat to premium seating, including fixed-price purchases at the gate and at check-in and submitting bids over a sliding range tool where winning bids were decided a few days before departure.
"One branch of what we're doing is looking at how should they sell these upgrades," Williams said.
"By that, it means, should I run auctions? Should I offer purchases at check-ins? If you're not careful in terms of how you implement the practice, it can actually render some of your other strategies less effective."
The material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation award no. 2417693.
