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Tributes are pouring in for Grammy-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer Cassandra Wilson of Jackson, whose “sultry, honey-toned voice” brought her international fame. She died Tuesday at age 70.

“Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends and her manager,” the longtime manager, Robert Torre, said in a statement published by WGBO. “Her family and close friends respectfully ask for privacy during this difficult time as they grieve her loss.”

Wilson, who grew up as Cassandra Fowlkes, graduated from Jackson’s Murrah High School.

During her career, she was known for a style that infused her jazz performances with influences of country, folk, blues and pop.

Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Dee Dee Bridgewater shared her condolences, writing on social media: “Cassandra was unique in every way, blessed with a sultry, honey-toned voice. I will miss our occasional phone conversations and rare times in the same space.”

Questlove, the Grammy-winning drummer and producer who leads The Roots, posted online: “Cassandra/The Siren of Sirens/That Voice, That GiftDamn.”

Malcolm White, a longtime Jackson music promoter who once served as director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, was a friend of Wilson’s. He told Mississippi Today she will be remembered as an international icon.

“Her records, performances, her awards will stand the test of time as a giant in the American music field of jazz,” White said.

He noted that even after Wilson found success, she stayed connected to the jazz scene in Jackson.

“I always thought it was cool that she came back and was a part of her home community,” White said. “She could have lived anywhere, you know.”

Jackson Mayor John Horhn said in a statement: “Jackson has lost an extraordinary native daughter, and the world has lost a singular musical voice.”

Horhn added, “She built a remarkable career rooted in jazz, blues, gospel, folk and the many traditions that shape our state’s musical identity. Her work had rare depth of character and a profound understanding of how music moves people, tells stories and connects generations. Through every performance and recording, she carried forward the legacy of jazz, blues and gospel.”

Fellow Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste, former band leader of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” posted a clip on social media of himself interviewing Wilson on a Brazilian talk show. The caption reflected on the time he spent touring with her as a young musician. 

“She sounded like the south,” he wrote. “Her Mississippi heritage was always present in everything no matter how expansive her artistry evolved.”

Born in December 1955, she was inspired by her parents’ love of music. Her father, Herman B. Fowlkes, was a music teacher, guitarist and bassist who loved jazz, while her mother, Mary Fowlkes, was a teacher who loved Motown. Cassandra began taking classical lessons at a young age. By age 6 she began playing piano, and at 12 she started working as a vocalist.

She attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University, earning a degree in mass communications. While in college, she sang with multiple cover bands in Jackson’s local music scene. Alvin Fielder, drummer and founding member of the Black Arts Music Society, encouraged her to sing modern jazz.

She moved to New Orleans in 1981 and performed jazz with Earl Turbington and Ellis Marsalis. She moved to New York City in 1982, where she became a founding member of the jazz collective M-Base. She also signed with an independent German record label in 1986, where she released her first album.

In 1992, she signed with Blue Note Records. She released several albums, including the Grammy-winning albums “New Moon Daughter” in 1997 and “Loverly” in 2009.

Wilson was named Female Jazz Vocalist of the year by Downbeat magazine in 1995-96, received the Miles Davis Prize from the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal in 1999 and was dubbed “America’s best singer” by Time Magazine in 2001.

She received the Mississippi Governor’s Award for Artistic Excellence in Music in 2009 and was added to the Mississippi Blues Trail in 2010. In 2022, she was named a jazz master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mississippi pediatricians are backing fall vaccination recommendations from a coalition of leading medical groups as the nation’s traditional federal vaccine advisory system remains in limbo. 

Historically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its vaccine advisory committee have issued guidance on seasonal immunization. But the vaccine advisory committee is no longer functioning after a federal judge ruled in March that Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. unlawfully altered vaccine policy and improperly replaced all members of the committee.

In August, against advice from medical organizations, President Donald Trump signed an executive order advocating for spacing out childhood measles, mumps and rubella vaccines into three separate visits, and calling on the nation’s health department to present a plan offering this regimen to families.

In the vaccine advisory group’s absence, several major U.S. medical associations released guidance on flu season vaccine recommendations Wednesday. Mississippi pediatricians have voiced support of the coalition’s efforts. 

“The bottom line is we recommend that all children and adults ages 6 months and up get their fall flu vaccine,” said Dr. Anita Henderson, a Hattiesburg pediatrician and former president of the Mississippi chapter for the American Academy of Pediatrics. “And then for the pediatric population in particular, it’s really important to protect your baby against RSV,” or respiratory syncytial virus. 

Henderson said the lack of national leadership is “100% contributing to the problem” of declining childhood vaccination rates across the country. Only 10 states have kindergarten vaccination rates above 95%, the threshold needed to prevent outbreaks of measles, a highly contagious and life-threatening virus. Mississippi is one of those states, but vaccination rates in the state fell nearly half a percentage point during the 2025-26 school year. 

Henderson’s message to parents is to seek the advice of their physicians and tune out the noise of influencers on social media taking advantage of an increasingly politicized issue. 

“Nothing has changed as far as what your pediatrician is recommending,” Henderson said. “We will continue to follow evidence-based medicine and science. We are pediatricians, we’re not politicians.”

Recommendations from four major medical associations – American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America – include:

• Annual flu vaccines for adults and children 6 months and older; 

• One-time RSV antibody shots for newborns, as well as RSV vaccines for adults 75 and older and those who are immunocompromised; 

• Annual Covid-19 vaccines for adults 19 and older, especially those who are at an increased risk for severe disease. 

Before the Trump administration’s overhaul of the CDC and federal childhood vaccine policies, Mississippi’s childhood vaccine rates have been declining for the past three years. In 2023, the state started granting religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements. 

Overall, Mississippi’s rates are still high compared to the rest of the nation. But eight counties have fallen below a measles vaccine coverage rate of 95% among kindergartners. Those counties include Franklin, George, Jackson, Lincoln, Pontotoc, Tate, Tishomingo and Webster. 

This fall, doctors say parents should pay attention to RSV, a leading cause of infant hospitalizations that can cause long-term consequences, such as lung damage and asthma. Additionally, severe cases of the flu can cause long-term consequences, including organ damage and heightened risk of heart attacks and strokes. People often forget how dangerous the flu can be, said Dr. Patricia Tibbs, president of the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

Despite what she calls an uphill battle to keep vaccine rates up, Tibbs said it’s “been so awesome to watch” the way that medical organizations have banded together so quickly to fill a void left by more than a year of disruptions to federal infrastructure. She hopes that the groups’ recommendations hold the same weight for parents that recommendations from the CDC historically have.

“Let us not go back to the dark ages when these vaccine-preventable illnesses were killing children,” Tibbs said.

Veteran educator Bonita Coleman is the new temporary superintendent of Canton Public School District. 

Coleman comes to the district after more than three decades of working in schools in Mississippi and Maryland. Most recently, she served as superintendent of Ocean Springs School District for a decade before retiring in 2023. 

According to a Canton schools press release, Coleman’s tenure in Ocean Springs was “characterized by a disciplined focus on student achievement, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, fiscal stewardship, safety, and continuous improvement.”

She previously worked in the Clinton and Jackson school districts, led instructional development and early childhood education at the Mississippi Department of Education and served as a professor at Tougaloo College and Jackson State University — both her alma maters. 

“It is an honor to be selected to serve the students and families of Canton Public School District,” Coleman said in a statement. “I look forward to working with leaders and teachers to continue to assess Canton Public Schools’ organizational needs and maintain a strong focus on teaching and learning and operational efficiency.”

The district celebrated Coleman’s hire on Wednesday, immediately after announcing the departure of interim Superintendent Dwight Luckett. Luckett led the district for more than a year, after an initial commitment of five months. He was Canton’s district superintendent from 2006 to 2014. He also served as interim superintendent in 2018.

He gave the school board three weeks’ notice that he was leaving, the release said.

Beverly Luckett, the district’s spokesperson and Luckett’s wife, said Coleman’s appointment is temporary, and the district continues to search for a permanent superintendent. The last permanent superintendent left the district in July 2025.

The district serves roughly 3,100 students, the majority of whom are Black, and is rated a C by the Mississippi Department of Education’s standards. 

CLEVELAND – Most Mississippi residents who spoke on Tuesday at the first public hearing on redistricting in the Delta criticized what they saw as a Republican push for power at the expense of Black representation, while some others said they support swift action to redraw electoral maps. 

Tuesday’s hearing was the third in a slate of public hearings intended for Mississippians to share their views on redistricting with a Republican-dominated joint House and Senate committee. It was the first hearing in the majority-Black district of Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson.  

Thompson is the state’s only Black member of Congress and only Democrat. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Louisiana v. Callais redistricting case in May, which weakened the Voting Rights Act, Thompson has been the target of calls from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and some Republican state legislators and other leaders to redraw Mississippi’s electoral maps.

Thompson did not appear to be in attendance on Tuesday evening in an auditorium at Delta State University in Cleveland, but several Democratic state lawmakers who represent the Delta but were not chosen to serve on the joint committee spoke at the hearing. The Democratic officials said partisan redistricting would split areas with shared cultural and economic interests, and cause “mass confusion” for voters

Democratic Rep. Willie Bailey of Greenville, who is not on the joint committee, told audience members that the committee had already made up its mind, and that the hearings would not stop the Republican dominated and majority-white Legislature from dismantling majority-Black districts.

“I’m glad to see all of you, but nothing you say tonight will become part of any plan. Nothing,” Bailey said. “There is no time for all the foolishness that we’re doing tonight. Now, they’re up here listening to you, but that’s as far as it’s going. It’s going no further than this room.”

The Callais decision removed protection for majority minority districts and cleared the way for Republican-controlled state legislatures to redraw political lines in their favor.  

Michael Carr, an attorney who has previously run for Bolivar County district attorney as a Democrat, said the Callais decision does not create mandatory redistricting for any state other than Louisiana, and that Republicans are falsely making it seem as though Mississippi has to redraw its lines. 

“You’ve got the governor, you’ve got the House, you’ve got the Senate, you’ve got three out of four congressional districts. What else do you want?” Carr said. “What they’re doing with suggesting redrawing these lines is diluting our voice, disproportionately taking our power away.” 

Republican leaders believe that when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Callais decision, it ended the practice of allowing race to be considered in drawing political maps. 

Susan Spiller, president of the Leflore County Republican Women, said lawmakers are right to redraw lines drawn before Callais, because considering race in drawing electoral maps harkens back to a Mississippi that no longer exists. 

“I’m asking this committee to redraw Mississippi’s districts based on traditional, race-neutral criteria,” Spiller said. “It is not 1965. It is 2026. It’s time for one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all of us.”

The legislative joint committee is holding public hearings across the state, and the full Legislature is expected to convene in a special session this fall to redraw at least state legislative maps. That wouldn’t impact this November’s federal election, but Mississippi lawmakers are likely to target Thompson’s seat with redistricting before he’s up for reelection again in 2028.

Resident Nathan Duff said no elected official should take the Delta for granted, as the region faces unique challenges that require adequate representation.

“The Delta is not simply another region in Mississippi. Our economy is different, our history different, our population trends are different,” Duff said. “The challenges confronting hospitals, schools, municipalities and agricultural communities are different than the rest of Mississippi.” 

Effie Burt said Republicans are engaged in a power grab aimed at diluting Black political power.

“What you’re doing is wrong, unnecessary, biased and is racist,” Burt said. “You’re trying to take away our voting strength that was achieved decades ago.”

Burt then broke out into song, singing “We Shall Overcome,” a gospel song associated with the Civil Rights Movement. 

Tuesday’s hearing came days after a hearing in Southaven where speakers skewed much more toward supporting efforts to redistrict in Republicans’ favor. DeSoto County has been the venue of an ongoing legal battle over redistricting and debate over race and representation. 

Rep. Rodney Hall represents Southaven and is the first Black Republican to serve in the Mississippi House since Reconstruction. Hall, who serves on the joint committee, told Mississippi Today after the hearing that the public’s participation in the redistricting process matters to lawmakers and would influence the outcome. 

“Emotions are understandably high because Mississippi has a history we cannot, and should not, ignore. But our future does not have to be bound by our past. The Mississippi of today is not returning to poll taxes, at-large legislative districts, or the tactics of another era,” Hall said. “This is our opportunity to face our history honestly, learn from it, and move forward together with fair, race-neutral maps that reflect our highest American ideals: equal citizenship, equal opportunity, and a government accountable to every voter.”

The committee is encouraging the public to participate in future hearings. The public can offer comments at any of the seven remaining public hearings, or submit written comments to Ted Booth, the committee’s attorney, at ted.booth@peer.ms.gov.

Below is the schedule of the future planned redistricting hearings. Each will start at 6 p.m. 

• Sept. 8 at Alcorn State University in Natchez. 
• Sept.10 at Meridian Community College in Meridian. 
• Sept. 17 at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. 
• Sept. 22 at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport.
• Oct. 1 at the state Capitol in Jackson.

Leaders of the northern Mississippi city of Senatobia fired their embattled police chief late Tuesday, days after Mississippi Today, Verite News and The New York Times reported that he had routinely used degrading language and racist slurs against Black people in his text messages.

Chief Harold Vanderford, known as Hal, had submitted a resignation letter earlier in the day, but the city’s Board of Aldermen voted to reject it and moved to terminate him instead. 

Vanderford’s department has been heavily scrutinized in the wake of a white officer’s fatal shooting of Kohen Wiley, a Black toddler, after police officers responded to a shoplifting call at the local Walmart in June.

“We did not accept Vanderford’s resignation and fired him,” Alderman Chris McConnell said, adding that the decision had been unanimous. Vanderford and a department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In recent days, Vanderford had not responded to multiple phone calls and written messages from reporters, including notes left at his home and office.

Until the city leadership appoints a permanent replacement, the department will be led by Lt. Angelica Maze, McConnell said.

In late August, reporters for Mississippi Today, Verite News and The New York Times revealed that Vanderford had used a racist slur more than a dozen times in a series of 10 text conversations dating to last summer. One day before Vanderford’s termination, the outlets published the uncensored messages along with the steps they had taken to verify them.

Vanderford took the helm of the department last October, and the racist messages continued after his appointment. In one text message, Vanderford described having a “racist moment.” In another, he wrote that he “almost beat a nigger and white woman’s ass a few minutes ago.” He also wrote that he had been saying the slur loudly many times at home, and hoped his neighbors had heard him.

Five of Vanderford’s acquaintances confirmed that the phone number associated with the messages belonged to the chief.

On Monday, Demetrius Garrett, an at-large alderman, told reporters that he had no hesitation in saying that he would move to immediately terminate Vanderford, “if these allegations are true.” Garrett ultimately made the motion to terminate Vanderford on Tuesday.

Senatobia’s aldermen had met with Vanderford twice in closed-door sessions after the revelations about his text messages.

After the first session on Aug. 25, a statement attributed to the mayor and the board of aldermen expressed confidence in the chief after he “voluntarily and willingly” appeared before city leaders and provided “sincere” responses to their questions. That statement did not elaborate on the questions posed to Vanderford or the specifics of his responses.

McConnell issued a clarification soon after, saying he believed Vanderford should address the citizens of Senatobia. He disavowed the city’s statement, saying it had not been voted upon by the Board of Aldermen even though it was attributed to them.

Garrett said the same thing about the statement Monday. He added that he had personally asked the mayor to resign from his position, too. “We need a mayor that cares about the people,” Garrett said, adding that when a city doesn’t have such a mayor, “you land yourself in situations like this.”

Mayor Greg Graves hasn’t responded to numerous requests for comment from reporters in the last month.

Vanderford has said nothing about the June shooting publicly, and Kohen’s family said Vanderford hadn’t offered condolences privately, either. The city’s Board of Aldermen placed the officer involved, Sgt. Hunter Foster, on leave two days after the shooting, which remains under investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Since Vanderford took over as chief, Foster has separately faced at least two complaints that he used racially offensive language with co-workers, Mississippi Today reported in July and August. In the months leading up to the shooting, Foster referred to a Black officer as a “Black motherfucker” and directed another derogatory remark toward a white co-worker who has a daughter with a Black woman, according to internal department complaints.

There’s no indication that Vanderford took any disciplinary action against Foster, who was allowed to remain on patrol. 

At age 79, civil rights veteran Hezekiah Watkins would do it all over again.

As a teenager, Watkins became the youngest of the Freedom Riders, an interracial group of activists who challenged racial segregation on interstate buses and bus facilities in the South. 

He celebrated his birthday at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on Tuesday. A crowd of visitors and staff from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History gathered in the center gallery. Under the glow of the museum’s light sculpture, he recounted how his journey as an activist began with a case of mistaken identity.

Watkins was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but raised in Jackson. At age 13, he became obsessed with the Freedom Riders.

In 1961, despite warnings from a pastor and his mother, Watkins and a friend went to the Greyhound bus station in Jackson to watch the Freedom Riders demonstrate. 

The boys began playing, and Watkins’ friend shoved him inside the bus station. Two police officers grabbed him. When asked, he said his birthplace was Milwaukee. The police took this to mean he was an activist from out-of-state, and they arrested him.

“I was not a Freedom Rider,” he said. “I was just a nosy little Black boy trying to navigate his way through this racist town.”

Watkins and other Freedom Riders were put on death row, where normally inmates sentenced to death were housed at the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. There, he endured days of horrible abuse. 

“It was unbelievable to me, because I’m 13. I don’t know anything about the prison system. I don’t know anything about Parchman prison. I don’t know nothing,” he said.

Watkins said he later learned that then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sent attorneys to check on the condition of the Freedom Riders. Those attorneys visited Parchman, where they discovered a 13-year-old was being held on death row.

President John F. Kennedy called Gov. Ross Barnett to ask if a child was being held at Parchman, which the governor denied. The next day, one of the governor’s aides told him there was, and that he had lied to the president. Gov. Barnett ordered for Watkins to be released to Jackson police.

At this point, Watkins’ mother and community had been searching for him. His mother thought she’d be picking up his remains. When they reunited, she cried out to God in thanks, and they tearfully embraced. His mother had to sign several documents designed to limit his activities. They went home, where Watkins said his mother “beat the hallelujah out of me.”

That fall, activist Pastor James Bevel tried to recruit Watkins into the movement. Watkins initially wanted nothing more to do with it, but Bevel won him and his mother over. 

Bevel took Watkins to downtown Jackson, which opened the teen’s eyes to the realities of racial hatred in Mississippi. 

“I knew there was a difference in communities – churches, schools, and you know all of those things. I was aware of that, but I was not aware of how much we was hated by being Black,” he said.

“By being exposed, my mind was made up that I got to do something.”

Watkins went on to become the youngest Freedom Rider, participating in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964 and getting arrested over 100 times.

Decades later, he’s still dealing with the trauma from his experiences, but he doesn’t let it get him down. He said he’s thankful to be alive, and to be “in my right mind.”

“There were so many Freedom Riders who are not with us today. There are so many Freedom Riders who are with us today, but that trauma has torn apart” these individuals, he said.

Watkins works at the Two Mississippi Museums, where he shares his story with people of all generations. He worked with writer Andrea Ledwell to create his autobiography, which was published in 2019. In 2023, he returned to Parchman for the unveiling of a historic marker.

Watkins received an official apology from the city of Jackson in January 2026 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In March, a street in Jackson was named after him.

He implored the audience at Tuesday’s gallery talk to get out and vote.

When asked what he wanted people to take away from his story, he said, “that you’re never too young or too old to get involved in any situation. Whether it’s being a Freedom Rider or just a concerned citizen, if you see something, say something.”

After Watkins finished his talk and answered questions, the audience sang him “Happy Birthday.”

Two people from out of state accused of threatening to kill or hurt witnesses in the Nolan Wells death investigation appeared in federal court in Mississippi this week.

California resident Joseph Alfredo Vasquez Dumarce and Illinois resident Edward James Porter were indicted Monday and are scheduled to stand trial this fall in Gulfport. Both are charged with a felony that has a maximum sentence of five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. 

Both pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors have argued for Dumarce and Porter to remain in detention. 

Porter’s trial is scheduled for Oct. 5 with U.S. District Judge Taylor McNeel. Dumarce’s trial is set for Nov. 2 before U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden.

Jackson County Chancery Judge Ashlee Cole, one of the targets of Dumarce’s alleged threats, attended the hearing. Dumarce, 27, allegedly threatened to bomb her office, writing in social media messages and comments that the judge should “ask god for forgiveness,” according to court records.

Dumarce, who is from Sacramento, also is accused of threatening Cole’s children, including her stepson Warren Hudson. 

Hudson traveled to Horn Island by boat with Wells and other friends on July 4 and returned to Ocean Springs without Wells. Friends have told investigators that Wells chose to stay behind and said he would get a ride back to the mainland. Wells was found dead July 6 off the barrier island. 

Accompanying Cole at the hearing was attorney Tyler Cox, who is representing Hudson and two of Wells’ other friends and said he plans to file a defamation lawsuit against the Rev. Al Sharpton. The men’s legal team argues that Sharpton falsely accused them of playing a role in Wells’ death. Sharpton denies defaming the men, whose names he did not know, when he asked them to come forward during a virtual prayer vigil. 

Porter, who is from Berwyn, Illinois, outside Chicago, allegedly threatened to kill the father of Bart Edmiston Jr., another friend of Wells, the Sun Herald reported. 

The 32-year-old sent text messages saying he knew where they lived and included their address, according to court records. Porter also allegedly threatened to cut Edmiston’s father up and put him into a suitcase. 

Edmiston, a former high school football teammate of Wells, was at Horn Island the day he went missing. He towed the boat of Wells’ friends back to the mainland after it took on water. In a previous statement, Edmiston denied he had anything to do with Wells’ death and said he plans to sue those spreading misinformation about him. 

Two other out-of-state people have also been charged with making death threats in the Wells case. 

Jacksonville, Florida, resident Brandon Ephraim Washington allegedly sent threatening calls and messages to two witnesses, according to court records. The attorney representing the Edmiston family told the Sun Herald that Bart and his father were the targets of the threats. 

Washington is expected to face prosecution in Wyoming federal court, where the alleged crime happened. Edmiston is attending college in that state.

Michelle Edwards of Cincinnati is accused of calling in bomb threats to the George County Chancery Clerk’s Office and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department on July 23. The sheriff’s office is leading Wells’ death investigation, and George and Jackson counties are both in Chancery Judge Cole’s district.

Edwards used a blocked phone number when she called the clerk’s office 21 times, according to the criminal complaint. During the calls, she allegedly said, “Do not go outside,” “the clock is ticking,” and “die.” 

The lone Democrat on the Mississippi Public Service Commission is looking to spur momentum for allowing SNAP benefits to go toward water utility bills. But the other two members of the PSC, both Republicans, rejected during a meeting Tuesday a resolution to support a change to state policy that he said would be the first of its kind.

Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps, who announced the initiative over the weekend, said he will continue to advocate for the idea, including with a letter to Gov. Tate Reeves.

“There are a lot of people who want to put more money into our (water) systems, but how about we just use the money we already receive?” Stamps asked at Tuesday’s meeting, arguing that the added revenue for water systems would help prevent rate increases and keep bills affordable for customers. “People should be able to pay for the water that comes to their house, no matter the delivery system.”

The commissioner reasoned that SNAP recipients are already using those benefits to buy bottled water, so the state should allow that money to support Mississippi’s public utilities, many of which are struggling to stay afloat financially.

SNAP is a federal assistance program to help low-income families afford food and is operated at the state level through the Mississippi Department of Human Services.

Even with state support, the idea would require federal approval, Stamps acknowledged. But the commissioner said officials he’s heard from around the country back the proposal, and Mississippi should be the place to spearhead it.

“We don’t have to follow Washington, D.C., all the time,” he said, later comparing it to when states created their own laws around abortion and marijuana. “We can spur them into action. If we do this as a state, I don’t believe the federal government is going to come after Mississippi for allowing people who can’t afford a water bill an alternative way to pay.”

Mark Jones, MDHS’ chief communications officer, confirmed to Mississippi Today that such a change in state policy wouldn’t comply with federal law. There is a set list of items allowed to be purchased through SNAP, such as fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products, Jones explained.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers created a temporary program, Low Income Household Water Assistance Program, that filled a similar need helping families pay their water utility bills. But that program expired in 2022, and efforts to reestablish the program since then have stalled in Congress.

After Stamps advocated for a resolution supporting the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, neither Southern District Public Service Commissioner Wayne Carr nor Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown offered any comment, and the item failed.

“We’re going to keep pushing this issue until it’s done,” Stamps said in an interview after the meeting. “We’re not going to stop because people don’t see it.”

A massive fire broke out at Howard Industries in Laurel on Monday, forcing employees to evacuate.

According to a press release from the city of Laurel, the fire began at an outdoor paint booth and spread to adjacent equipment, causing multiple fires at once.

The Laurel Fire Department was the first on the scene. Laurel firefighters received help from multiple city and county fire departments, including the Ellisville and Collins departments, according to the news release. 

No information has been released on possible injuries, and the fire’s cause is undetermined. The fire broke out Monday afternoon and was under control by later that evening, according to reports

Howard Industries, which is based in Laurel and one of the area’s leading employers, is a manufacturer of electrical distribution transformers and technology products.

The large fire could be seen for miles. Smoke from fire at Howard’s manufacturing plant in south Laurel could be seen in Hattiesburg, about 30 miles away, according to the Hattiesburg American newspaper. Images of the large fire were posted on various social media accounts.

“The Laurel Fire Department expresses its appreciation to all departments that assisted in the operation,” the statement read.

College sports has gone so far off the rails I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I prefer to laugh – and I do, each time a coach, athletic director or president at a power conference school talks about their “student-athletes” as if they are anything other than sports mercenaries.

Even when a school or a conference tries to draw a line in the sand – as the Southeastern Conference has tried to do with LSU signing football players right out of NFL camps – some judge in some court says, “You can’t do that.”

It’s a free-for-all in big-time college athletics. No rules, no scruples, no nothing. And, yes, LSU coach Lane Kiffin is the poster child for all the madness. I would call Kiffin the Snidely Whiplash of college athletics, except for the fact that even Snidely, for all his evil ways in the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, occasionally displayed rare moments of self-awareness and shame. Not Kiffin.

Where will higher education finally draw the line? How crazy is it? Let us count the ways:

• At Ole Miss, the quarterback makes more than five times the salary of the university’s chancellor. 
• Many weekend starting pitchers in SEC baseball – traditionally, a non-revenue sport – reportedly make $250,000 or more per year. The salary for Mississippi’s governor is $160,000 a year. 
• Josh Hubbard, the face of Mississippi State’s basketball program, which won five of 18 SEC games last season, makes more money in a year than Mississippi’s governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and state auditor combined. And, yes, Hubbard scored 22 points per game last season, second in the SEC, so you could argue he had a better year than all those others.
• The craziness of college sports doesn’t stop at player compensation. In the Big 10 Conference, which, by the way, now includes 18 universities, teams now travel nearly 2,500 miles to play conference games. The flight from Los Angeles (UCLA and USC) to Piscataway, New Jersey, (Rutgers) takes more than five hours. If they still bused to games, it would be 40 hours nonstop. That’s a long way to go for such an unnatural rivalry.
• It’s not just men’s sports either. At LSU, the women’s basketball roster continues to evolve. In strange ways. Center Kate Koval, from Ukraine, is leaving the program, following the signing of 17-year-old Russian professional Anna Minaeva. LSU coach Kim Mulkey said she believed the two could be teammates and even help end the war between Ukraine and Russia, which has led to the deaths of approximately 150,000 Ukraine soldiers and 17,000 civilians. Koval, whose father serves in the Ukraine military, didn’t see it that way.

We could go on and on and on. And on.…

But here we are. The college football season has already begun with the first full schedule of games coming up this this weekend. There are some good ones, too. Clemson plays at LSU Saturday night in matchup of ranked teams. Louisville plays Ole Miss in Nashville on Sunday night in another high-profile match of ranked teams. We are little more than two weeks away from the long-awaited Sept. 19 match of LSU and Ole Miss at Oxford. Who the heck knows who will be eligible for that one.

Meanwhile, published reports from reputable sources say 15 of the 16 SEC CEOs are considering suspending or even possibly expelling LSU from the league over the signing of professional football players. Never mind that nearly every SEC football player is, by definition, a professional. They are all being paid to play, and a few are making millions.

Normally, I would be uber-excited about the upcoming weekend and all that’s to come later in the fall. But the current state of big-time college athletics, no longer amateur sports in any way, shape or form, has dimmed my enthusiasm considerably. And I’ve got to wonder how many others, passionate about college sports for decades, feel the same way.