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Gov. Tate Reeves reopens tattoo parlors, casinos
JOHN FITZHUGH / SUN HERALD FILE
A worker wipes down one of the slot machines before the ribbon cutting at the Island View Casino Resort’s new nonsmoking casino in Gulfport on Thursday, June 21, 2018.
Gov. Tate Reeves continued to reopen Mississippi businesses on Friday by announcing that tattoo parlors and casinos can resume operations.
The state is still under the governor’s “Safer-at-Home” order until May 25, which limits in-person gatherings and retail business and restaurants’ operating capacity, but Reeves amended it to allow for additional businesses to open.
A week ago Reeves allowed restaurants to reopen at limited capacity, as well as gyms, salons and barbershops. Similar to salons, tattoo parlors can reopen immediately but are subject to strict guidelines including a requirement that customers wear a mask at all times, and facilities must be deep cleaned and sanitized prior to reopening. Businesses must limit traffic inside the building to one customer per employee, and screen employees for symptoms daily. Tattoos and piercings around the mouth are not permitted.
“Dance studies” are also permitted to open now under the same limitations placed on gyms, according to the order.
Reeves said he worked with the Mississippi Gaming Commission and Mississippi Department of Health to set a date for casinos to reopen, May 21.
“It will not be at full capacity and there will be social distancing rules in place, but it is progress,” he said.
Additionally, under this latest executive order restaurants that do not serve alcohol can now operate 24 hours a day. Restaurants that do serve alcohol must close by 10 p.m.
Reeves apologized for identifying businesses as essential or nonessential at all, telling reporters during his daily press conference that it was a mistake to do so.
The latest executive order “… is an effort to affirm that there is no such thing as a nonessential business to those workers who rely on its paycheck for food and shelter,” Reeves said.
The Safer-At-Home order is set to expire at 8 a.m. on May 25.
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A tour of Mississippi: Old Capitol
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Forget Exercise—These Mice Got Ripped With Gene Therapy
Trying to hack fitness is a multi-million-dollar industry; we’ve all seen at least one ad featuring a purported miracle product that claims it can make people lose weight and look great—without even trying. From low-effort exercise machines to strange-ingredient diets to fat-burning belts and bands, there’s no shortage of attempts to make it easy to be fit.
A gene therapy trial performed on mice may foreshadow yet another way to hack fitness. In a study done by a team at Washington University in St. Louis’ medical school, mice quickly built muscle mass and reduced obesity after receiving the therapy, even while eating a diet high in fat and not exercising. The results were published last week in a paper in Science Advances.
Sound appealing? Here’s how it worked.
The gene targeted was FST, which is responsible for making a protein called follistatin. In humans and most other mammals, follistatin helps grow muscle and control metabolism by blocking a protein called myostatin, which acts to restrain muscle growth and ensure muscles don’t get too big.
The researchers injected eight-week-old mice with a virus carrying a healthy FST gene (gene therapy involves adding healthy copies of a gene to cells, usually using a virus as a deliveryman).
Over a period of 18 weeks, or about 4 months, the team observed that the muscle mass of the treated mice more than doubled, as did their strength level. They also experienced reduced damage related to osteoarthritis, less inflammation in their joints, and had healthier hearts and blood vessels than mice that didn’t receive the gene therapy—even though all the mice ate the same high-fat diet and did the same amount of exercise.
Going into the study, the researchers worried the muscle growth catalyzed by the gene therapy could harm the heart, mainly through thickening of the heart’s walls. Surprisingly, though, heart function and cardiovascular health of the treated mice actually improved. In subsequent studies, the team will continue to monitor the treatment’s effect on the heart, as complications could emerge over time.
Talk about a fitness hack; imagine being able to build muscle and maintain a healthy metabolism while lounging on the couch eating burgers and fries. There have been similar studies to replicate the effects of exercise by commandeering the genetic instructions that control the way cells interact with proteins; though various “exercise pills” have successfully mimicked the effects of regular cardiovascular activity in mice, scientists still don’t fully understand how, at a molecular level, exercise has the effects it does on the human body.
This may change in the next couple years, though; a National Institutes of Health consortium called the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity is in the midst of an in-depth study on the molecular effects of exercise on tissues and organs in 3,000 people.
If the muscle-building gene therapy eventually reaches a point where it can be used in humans, though, the research team isn’t viewing it as a quick-fix health hack. Rather, it would be used to help get people with conditions like muscular dystrophy or severe obesity to a baseline from which they could adopt tried-and-true muscle-building practices like weight lifting or physical therapy.
“In cases of severe obesity or muscle loss, it is extremely difficult—if not impossible—to lose weight or improve muscle strength through normal exercise and diet,” said Farshid Guilak, orthopedic surgery professor and director of research at Shriners Hospitals for Children in St. Louis. “The goal of this study was to show the importance of muscle strength in overriding many of the harmful effects of obesity on the joint.”
If every condition, process, and trait in our bodies is tightly linked to our genes, it’s conceivable that almost any aspect of our health could be manipulated using gene therapy and related tools. Maybe one day there will indeed be a pill we can take or a shot we can get to give us svelte, muscular bodies without any of the effort.
The fact that this would ruin the pleasure and satisfaction of a good workout is another conversation—and one not everybody would be interested in having. But even if genetic or chemical exercise-replacement tools become safe to use in humans in the foreseeable future, they’ll likely be limited, at least at first, to those who need them due to debilitating health conditions.
That said—for the time being, keep hitting the treadmill, the weight room, or your other off-the-couch, effort-intensive workout of choice.
Image Credit: Aberro Creative from Pixabay
Saturday’s Weather Outlook
SATURDAY: Good Saturday morning everyone! Temperatures are in the upper 60s this morning across the area. We will be mostly cloudy through around mid-morning, then becoming sunny with a high near 85! We will keep a slight 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly between 1pm and 4pm in the forecast for the afternoon. Light southeast wind will become south 5 to 10 mph. Tonight, will be mostly cloudy, with a low around 66.
SUNDAY: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 85. South wind 5 to 10 mph. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
SUNDAY NIGHT: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 65. South southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Reeves and legislative leaders, at bitter odds last week, pat each other on the back over small business relief program
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
House speaker Philip Gunn, from left, and Gov. Tate Reeves listen as Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann speaks at the start of Gov. Tate Reeves’ COVID-19 press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 7, 2020.
Before the House and Senate negotiators signed an agreement late Wednesday night to provide $300 million in grants to small businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, they allowed Gov. Tate Reeves’ chief legal counsel David Maron time to review the bill.
The governor’s staff being involved in the negotiating process of the deal is notable considering that a week earlier, the Legislature and governor engaged in a heated public debate over who had the authority to appropriate the funds.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and House Speaker Philip Gunn, who argued successfully a week earlier it was the Legislature and not the governor who had authority to appropriate the federal funds, said on Thursday that the governor’s staff was involved during the final days as legislative leaders hammered out the program.
The $300 million program for small businesses was created with a portion of the $1.25 billion in federal funds Mississippi received to help pay costs associated with the coronavirus.
In his own press conference on Thursday, Reeves praised legislators for passing the proposal. He suggested he would soon sign the bill into law, though he said he needed time to study it.
“I appreciate the legislative leadership and the work they have done,” Reeves said. “My priority from day one has been the quick release of these funds to get them to the people who need them… I am happy it can happen soon. It will never happen as quick as I would like, but I know we are through the first stage of the negotiations process. I am grateful to everyone who got involved.”
One of Reeves’ previous arguments for why he should have sole discretion to disburse the funds was that he could do so much quicker than legislators who would be hamstrung by the burdensome legislative process.
But now the ball is in the governor’s court. The program will be administered by the Mississippi Development Authority, which he oversees. MDA must develop a process to allow small businesses, defined as having fewer than 50 employees, to apply to receive grants of between $1,500 and $25,000 to cover their coronavirus-related costs. These are businesses that were forced to close or closed voluntarily because of the pandemic.
About 30,000 small businesses that were forced to close will receive checks of $2,000. The companies receiving the direct checks can also apply for the MDA grants.
Leaders would not say Thursday how quickly the payments would go out, but the direct checks should go out much quicker since the businesses do not have to apply for them.
Legislators and Reeves both agreed that helping small businesses forced to close because of the pandemic should be the first priority in how to spend the federal funds.
“I have said that Wall Street will be fine, but it is Main Street that I am worried about,” Reeves said.
Legislators, who overwhelmingly approved the bill late Wednesday night, agreed.
“When Mississippi’s economy is thriving, it is because our small businesses are thriving,” Hosemann said. “This crisis has hit our small businesses hard. We need to support them now by pushing this money the federal government provided the state down to them as quickly as possible.”
After wrapping up work on the small business program, the Legislature recessed until May 26. When they come back, they will resume the work that had been underway before the coronavirus hit, but they will also consider other areas where they believe the federal funds should be spent, such as helping local governments and hospitals. They also are focused on trying to improve distance learning for public school students in the state.
Reeves said on Thursday he will remain in talks with legislative leadership about how the rest of the federal funds should be spent.
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A tour of Mississippi: Fort Massachusetts
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Feds: Mississippi must replace all misspent or stolen welfare money with state funds
Anna Wolfe
Mississippi Community Education Center’s downtown Jackson office, branded as Families First, was funded with millions of welfare dollars but filled its food pantry with donated food and on the day of the nonprofit founder’s arrest, the shelves were lined almost exclusively with canned corn and green beans.
Once it identifies exactly how many millions of federal dollars Mississippi misused within its welfare program over the last several years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will require the state to use its own funds to replace them.
A state audit conducted on behalf of the federal government and published in early May officially questioned $94 million in Mississippi Department of Human Services spending mostly from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, including many purchases the auditor called absurd. Other purchases may have helped needy families but the auditor could not obtain documentation to discern whether they were legal expenditures.
The audit only examined spending in fiscal year 2019 and any earlier purchases the office may have identified in the course of the audit, such as though a contract that spanned multiple years. Officials have not determined the number of dollars that were misspent or stolen.
In early February, the auditor’s office arrested six people connected to the scheme, in which they allege former agency employees and officers from an educational services nonprofit embezzled more than $4.15 million. The investigation, which now includes the FBI, is ongoing.
“There are several ongoing federal and state investigations, which will likely mean a lengthy process before we can make our determination; however, we are eager to come to a final penalty resolution and ensure that the state replaces any misused federal TANF funds with its own state funds,” the federal agency said in a statement to Mississippi Today.
Allocating its own money to the welfare program will be a new exercise for the state, which is among the most reliant on federal dollars to perform services for its people.
Mississippi receives $86.5 million federal dollars each year from the TANF block grant program; the funding hasn’t increased since its creation in 1996. States must spend a certain number of state dollars, about $21.7 million in Mississippi in 2018, to draw down the funds.
Mississippi does not historically spend separate state funds for TANF-specific programs for its grant match, but reports its existing investment in college scholarships — which go more often to middle class families — as a TANF expense.
Mississippi Department of Human Services has commissioned a more thorough forensic audit to determine where it misspent every dollar. In order to replace the funds, the department said it will issue demand letters to recoup the property and funds from the improper recipients, primarily the nonprofit at the center of the scheme, Mississippi Community Education Center, and another nonprofit Family Resource Center of North Mississippi. “If we’re still not able to recoup at that time, we will pursue all legal options available to us,” Human Services spokesperson Danny Blanton said in an email.
The following is the full statement from the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ communication office to Mississippi Today:
We are aware that the Mississippi state audit has identified extensive fraudulent activity conducted by the programs designed to serve its most vulnerable citizens. It is critical that federal TANF funds are only used for allowable program costs intended to provide services to disadvantaged families. The next step for the Department of Health and Human Services is to determine the amount of the fraudulent and misused federal funds by the state program. This will allow HHS to proceed to the subsequent process of imposing a penalty against the state of Mississippi for misuse of TANF funds.
There are several ongoing federal and state investigations, which will likely mean a lengthy process before we can make our determination; however, we are eager to come to a final penalty resolution and ensure that the state replaces any misused federal TANF funds with its own state funds. While the specific audit concerned findings for 2019, any misuse of funds in prior years identified through investigations will also be the subject of penalty action.
We expect to work with the Mississippi Department of Human Services to help the state improve the way it oversees and monitors its program. Also, we use the audit process, as well as technical assistance to ensure that changes are in place to help prevent this sort of problem from happening in the future. This may involve additional monitoring if that proves necessary.
Read all of our coverage on Mississippi welfare here.
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John Fourcade has endured 23 surgeries, but, nearing 60, he has his memories
New Orleans Saints
John Fourcade, at his induction into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.
This was January, 1990, and John Fourcade was the crown prince of New Orleans. Rex, King of Carnival, had nothing on him. The former Ole Miss star and New Orleans native had come off the bench to lead his hometown New Orleans Saints to three straight victories to end the 1989 season.
Replacing Bobby Hebert as the starter at quarterback, Fourcade threw for 302 yards and two touchdowns as the Saints stunned the then-mighty Buffalo Bills. The next week, Fourcade threw for three more touchdowns, drawing Monday night raves from Al Michaels and Frank Gifford, as the Saints defeated the Philadelphia Eagles. In the season finale, Fourcade threw for nearly 300 yards and two more touchdowns and the Saints torched Indianapolis.
Rick Cleveland
Fourcade’s unlikely storyline put Cinderella’s to shame. Undrafted out of Ole Miss, he had played in the Canadian Football League, the USFL and the Arena Football League before getting a chance with the Saints.
And I know what you’re thinking: Where is he going with this? This was more than 30 years ago and Fourcade’s Saints career flamed out quickly after that. Well, the truth is, I’ve been waiting to tell this story for more than 30 years, so bear with me. Remember, this was January of 1990 and New Orleans was hosting the Super Bowl. John Fourcade was the toast of the town – and he knew it.
John Fourcade’s official 1990 NFL playing card.
“I had waited a long, long time for what was happening,” Fourcade said Wednesday afternoon during a stop in Jackson. “I had been cut in Canada, cut in the NFL, played in every league known to man. Now I was in the NFL, with my hometown team, playing well and I was milking it for all it was worth.”
So, the NFL Commissioner’s Super Bowl party was on Thursday night. And Fourcade was the toast of that party, too. He double-dated that night – a blonde on one arm and a brunette on the other. Both looked like runway models. But they had to share John that night. Everyone wanted shake his hand, slap his back, get his autograph and buy him a free drink.
“Yeah, I remember all right, at least some of it,” Fourcade said. “By the end of that party I was feeling no pain. And we didn’t quit when the party ended. We kept going.”
There was just one problem, Fourcade was supposed to speak early the next morning at a New Orleans inner city school. What’s more, he was sharing the podium with President Ronald Reagan who was in town for the Super Bowl.
New Orleans Saints
John Fourcade played behind Bobby Hebert before getting his shot in the spotlight.
“I overslept,” Fourcade said. “Hell, they said they called me several times but I never heard my phone.”
Finally, a friend banged loudly on his door, and roused him. “You gotta drive me,” Fourcade told him. “No way I can drive.”
So Fourcade arrived at the school, disheveled and bleary-eyed. He was hustled backstage where he was introduced to Reagan, who shook hands with Fourcade and said, “Nice to meet you, young man, but you don’t look much like a quarterback.”
To which Fourcade answered, “Nice to meet you, too, but you don’t look much like a president.”
Reagan guffawed at that, much to Fourcade’s relief. The Secret Service agents did not crack a smile.
“I didn’t even think before I said it,” Fourcade said. “I couldn’t think. I could barely focus.”
•••
Ole Miss athletics
John Fourcade holds the ball aloft as he scores for the winning touchdown against Mississippi State in 1981.
Fourcade, one of the most mercurial athletes in Mississippi’s proud college football history, will turn 60 this October. He probably would not make the list of the 10 best quarterbacks I ever covered. This is not to say he couldn’t play, because he surely could. He accounted for 6,700 yards of offense at Ole Miss. He broke most of Archie Manning’s college records and some of Fourcade’s records stood until Eli Manning broke those.
Fourcade surely would be at or near the top of my list of the toughest football players. I covered him at Ole Miss and then with the Saints. He endured some brutal beatings both places. At Ole Miss, Fourcade operated Steve Sloan’s veer offense, which pretty much insured he would get smashed on nearly every play.
“They hit me if I handed off, hit me if I pitched, hit me if I ran with it and hit me when I threw it,” Fourcade said. “You play quarterback in the veer, you get clobbered. It’s guaranteed.”
Ole Miss was where he had the first two of his 23 football-related surgeries. Yes, 23, including four on his knees, which have both been replaced. He walks with a decided limp. He’s had several shoulder surgeries, back surgeries, neck surgeries and more.
“I am 59,” he said. “My body is 99.”
There were any number of concussions along the way. Thankfully, Fourcade still has his memory – or memories, lots of those.
Here’s tough: Fourcade had his throwing hand broken before his senior season at Ole Miss. The night before the season opener with Tulane at the Superdome, he sat in his hotel room, a cast on the hand, sick to death he would not play. So, he took a butter knife off his room service plate and cut the cast off. “Wasn’t easy. Took me a while,” he said.
Yes, and the next next morning he told then-Ole Miss coach Steve Sloan he was ready to go. He didn’t start, but he played – and played well – and helped the Rebels to a 19-18 victory.
“I still had three pins in my hand,” Fourcade said. “I had to hide them from the officials.”
He suffered a separated shoulder in the fourth quarter of that Tulane game, but played the entire game the next Saturday, a victory over Memphis.
Fourcade never enjoyed a winning season at Ole Miss. Sloan’s Rebels usually scored enough points to win; they just couldn’t keep the other teams from scoring more.
Yes, Fourcade says, he sometimes wonders what would have happened had he accepted other scholarship offers, such as the one from Bear Bryant at Alabama or Charlie McClendon at LSU. After starting four years at Shaw High School, he was recruited by virtually everyone, including Notre Dame, Oklahoma and all the SEC schools.
“I loved Coach Bear and I was going to Alabama until an assistant coach told me I wouldn’t start there until I was at least a junior,” Fourcade said. “Same thing at LSU. Both were stacked at quarterback. Steve Sloan and David Lee recruited me for Ole Miss and they both said I’d have the chance to start as a freshman. I didn’t want to sit on the bench for two years.”
Ole Miss athletics
Fourcade was 3-1 against Mississippi State and some of the most salty defenses in Mississippi college football history.
Ask Fourcade the highlight of his Ole Miss career and you’ll get a quick answer.
“My last game, no doubt,” he said. “Last play of my last game. I score a touchdown and we beat Mississippi State. Never forget it. You score the winning touchdown to beat your arch-rival on the last play of your college career – how could that not be my best memory?”
Fourcade was 3-1 against State – and those were some terrific Mississippi State defenses, featuring the likes of Johnie Cooks, Tyrone Keyes, Glen Collins, Billy Jackson and so many more.
•••
Fourcade made his first high school start as a 13-year-old ninth-grader. “We ran the veer, same offense we ran at Ole Miss,” he said. “I got beat up. I was a kid. I was playing against grown men that had beards. They almost killed me…”
Fourcade paused for a moment. … “The thing is, I loved it,” he continued. “I just loved to play football.”
He loved it so much he didn’t quit playing when the Saints cut him after the 1990 season. No, he kept throwing and running – and getting dinged – in football’s netherworld. In indoor football, he played for the Miami Hooters, the Milwaukee Mustangs, the Mississippi Fire Dogs and the Mobile Seagulls. He was both quarterback and head coach of the Fire Dogs and the Seagulls.
Ever seen an indoor football game, played on a compressed field surrounded by hockey walls? A better name for it might be demolition football. The collisions are often brutal and often include the walls.
Fourcade didn’t seem to care. He just wanted to play, and when he could play no more, he coached: the Florida Firecats, the Tupelo Fire Ants, the Shreveport-Bossier City Battle Wings, the Fairbanks (yes, Alaska) Grizzlies, the Acadiana Mudbugs, the Rio Grande Valley Magic and the New Mexico Stars in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
He didn’t quit the Stars. They quit on him in 2016, folding after a 5-1 record. For Fourcade, that was enough. And it came 26 years after he shared the podium with President Reagan.
These days, Fourcade is still recovering from his last knee replacement, living on well-earned NFL disability and pension and working part time for ESPN Radio in New Orleans.
“No complaints here,” he told me. “I loved all of it. And, miracle of miracles, I can still get around.”
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Marshall Ramsey: Prison break
Further reading: Mississippi has tested fewer than 1% of staff and inmates for COVID-19.
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