OurTupelo

The state fire marshal is investigating a long-troubled unit at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, which could result in the unit’s closure if conditions don’t improve.

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney confirmed to Mississippi Today that deputies with the state fire marshal’s office, a division of his agency, were at Parchman’s Unit 29 on Thursday. The probe comes after prisoners in Unit 29 had to endure freezing temperatures without heat last month after a winter storm knocked out power, and officials struggled to fix the problem.

“They had no heat at all and had inmates in there,” Chaney said.

When asked what specific issues deputies were investigating, Chaney cited the winter storm response, fire code violations and “other problems.” Chaney said investigators have been formally looking into the issues “for at least 10 days,” but declined to say whether the probe is part of a broader investigation into Parchman, a prison in rural Sunflower County that has about 1,900 prisoners.

A prisoner in Parchman’s Unit 29, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, told Mississippi Today that he saw two fire marshal officers with computer tablets recording throughout his building. A prisoner down the hall from him was told by a warden to pack up his belongings to transfer to another unit, the man said.

Unit 29 has been the subject of scrutiny from state and federal officials for years, with poor conditions and violence prompting outcry and litigation.

At the end of December 2020, riots broke out in Units 29 and 30, prompting the Mississippi Highway Patrol and multiple sheriff’s deputies to be called. Cellphone video from the inside showed fights and fires. By the time law enforcement quelled the violence, at least five prisoners were dead at Parchman and other correctional facilities. 

Pictures and footage have also emerged of run-down living areas cited in a 2022 Justice Department report finding that conditions at Parchman are unconstitutional . 

Gov. Tate Reeves vowed in his first State of the State address to shut Unit 29 down, but to date, it has remained open, with plans by Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain to make renovations and bring closed parts back online. 

Mark Lampton, a senior attorney with the Mississippi Insurance Department, told Mississippi Today deputies were at Unit 29 “gathering the facts and deciding” whether closing the unit would be justified, he said.

“So yes, it could happen, but we’re not saying anything is going to happen until we have all the facts,” he said.

Lampton said the fire marshal’s office had already found that Parchman violated fire codes, and the agency sent prison officials a letter asking if they’ve corrected the problem or have a plan for doing so in the future.

“My understanding is that there’s been no response,” Lampton said. “We try to go through a process and give people a chance, but we end up having to close a building down.”

A Mississippi Department of Corrections spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an interview, House Corrections Committee Chairwoman Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, called for Unit 29 to be closed.

“Unit 29 has been uninhabitable for years. This is nothing new. There are holes in the ceiling. When it rains, water comes in. It’s got black mold. It had no heat during the ice storm and inmates had to build fires to stay warm. There was no fire alarm in the building that went off,” Currie said. “Now that we have a building that has had a fire in it, it’s past time that this building be shut down.”

In January, after temperatures plunged below freezing in an ice storm, Cain said a tree limb fell on a power line and took out power at the facility. Currie said prison officials told her they failed to check the generators at the prison before the ice storm.

Mississippi Today also obtained text messages from a Parchman guard, who wrote: “Most of their stuff doesn’t work. What does work is rigged up. They don’t have a maintenance team that actually knows what they are doing.”

The prisoner who spoke with Mississippi Today said he awoke during the storm to the lights flickering. He said that later, a fire was set down the hall from his cell. He said prisoners were trying to get the attention of correctional officers after the power went out.

Chaney said his agency has the “statutory authority” to close Unit 29 down, but would do so only as a last resort. He said he would prefer to work with the attorney general’s office and Cain to fix the unit, but a potential conflict with the corrections commissioner was also a concern.

“Once we pull the trigger on closing that unit down, let’s say that we’ve said you’ve got to close it down and the commissioner says no,” Chaney said. “Then you’ve got a real problem.”

Chaney did not offer a timeline for the investigation into Unit 29, but said it is ongoing.

As of 2024, Unit 29 housed about 700 people, according to records from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Mississippi Today reporters Mina Corpuz and Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report.

Claims filed from damages caused by Winter Storm Fern have tallied over $107 million in losses, the Mississippi Insurance Department said Thursday.

“I expect that number to continue to climb as reporting continues,” Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said in a press release.

That total comes from over 12,000 claims filed in the state after the late January storm. More than 10,000 of those are for residential property, and 55% of the filed claims have been closed, amounting to over $60 million in payments, the department said.

At its peak, the number of power outages in the state totaled over 180,000. The actual count, though, is likely much higher as it didn’t include outages from city-run utilities such as in Holly Springs, according to Chris Brown, the Northern District public service commissioner. At least 30 people have died in connection with the storm, state emergency officials said.

In terms of overall damages to the state, which would include impacts to roads and government buildings, the number is likely at least $400 million, state senators estimated earlier this month.

On Feb. 18, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency announced that 18 counties were eligible for federal grants to support debris removal and repair public facilities. The state is still waiting to hear if it will be eligible for federal individual assistance, which would assist affected residents with direct payments.

A bill that would create a disaster recovery loan program passed in the Senate and is being discussed in the House State Affairs and Appropriations committees. Another proposal, which would lend money from the state to utilities affected by the storm, passed the House on Wednesday. Lawmakers are also reviewing a bill that would send $20 million to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to support its disaster response.

The insurance department said anyone needing assistance with filing a claim can call its consumer services division at 1-800-562-2957 or 601-359-2453, or email consumer@mid.ms.gov. The department also offered the following advice around filing claims:

• Prepare to file an insurance claim by gathering all relevant policy numbers.
• File your claim as soon as possible. Your policy may require that you make the notification within a
  certain time period.
• Be aware that if a widespread disaster has occurred, the company may set up special procedures.
• Be sure you cooperate fully with the insurance company. Ask what documents, forms and data you will
  need to file a claim. Keep a record of all conversations with insurance companies, creditors or relief
  agencies.
• If your home is damaged to the extent you can’t live there, ask your insurance company if you have
  coverage for additional living expenses.
• Take photographs/video of the damage. Inventory your home for damaged or lost items before your
  adjustor arrives. This will speed up your claim process.
• Make the repairs necessary to prevent further damage to your property (cover broken windows, leaking
  roofs and damaged walls).
• Don’t have permanent repairs made until your insurance company has inspected the property and you
  have reached an agreement on the cost of repairs. Be prepared to provide the claims adjuster with
  records of any improvements you made before the damage.
• Maintain any damaged personal property for the adjuster to inspect.
• Ask the adjuster for an itemized explanation of the claim settlement offer.
• Be patient and assist claims adjusters assigned to your case. Small losses may be settled quickly;
  extensive claims will take longer.
• Save all receipts, including those from the temporary repairs covered by your insurance policy.

Officials in Washington County have been unable to locate more than 100 pieces of DNA evidence tied to a rape and manslaughter appeal, despite a judge ordering them to do so in mid-September. 

Instead, they say an assistant district attorney of Mississippi’s 4th Circuit Court District, which includes Greenville, was the last person to possess the evidence. Officials in the district attorney’s office say that’s not true.

Regardless of blame, the evidence is key to whether King Brown Jr., who was convicted in 2005, will remain incarcerated in the Marshall County Correctional Facility. He has been incarcerated for more than 20 years.

In affidavits filed Feb. 18 in Washington County Circuit Court, employees of the circuit clerk’s office described receiving verbal confirmation in September of some of the evidence being at the county district attorney’s office. In their affidavits, Washington County Circuit Clerk Barbara Esters-Parker and two deputies said an employee of the district attorney’s office previously acknowledged being the last to see and possess some of the evidence.

But an unsigned statement from the district attorney’s office sent Tuesday to Mississippi Today says no one at the district attorney’s office “has ever possessed, viewed or handled any of the exhibits and/or physical evidence” since the 2005 trial.

The DNA evidence, ranging from a sexual assault kit to fingernail scrapings, is tied to the 2002 killing of R.W., a 6 year-old girl in Greenville. She was found dead in a garbage bin that belonged to her grandmother’s neighbors — the family of King Brown Jr., who was convicted in 2005 of raping and killing R.W. 

Jacob Howard and Adnan Sultan, Brown’s attorneys who are appealing his convictions, have argued that if the DNA evidence is lost, their client’s charges should be dismissed and his convictions vacated. Howard and Sultan declined to comment on the latest court filings.

On Sept. 16, Circuit Judge Richard Smith ordered the circuit court employees to ship the evidence to Bode Technology for modern DNA testing.

Instead of DNA evidence, the prosecution’s case against Brown had hinged on microscopic hair comparison, which has since been discredited in FBI guidance for having “no scientific support” and low accuracy in identifying perpetrators.

In her recent affidavit, Esters-Parker wrote that on Sept. 19, a district attorney’s office employee named Carla confirmed by phone that Assistant District Attorney Austin Frye, the lead prosecutor on Brown’s case, had a box labeled “King Brown.” Esters-Parker and two deputies were aware of a box with evidence that had been stored in a black garbage can in the Youth Court Storage Room as recently as Aug. 29, 2023.

In a separate affidavit, Deputy Circuit Court Clerk Cynthia Lakes said Frye denied he had the box of evidence when she and another deputy clerk arrived to pick it up the following Monday. The box was open and contained documents, but none of the bags of evidence Carla had described, Lakes’ statement read.

Lakes also wrote about Frye and District Attorney Dewayne Richardson visiting the evidence overflow room in July, and that Richardson said one of her colleagues directed him to the evidence. Lakes wrote that Richardson later misidentified LaTonya Tucker as the deputy clerk who assisted him and then said he couldn’t remember the circuit court employee’s name.

The circuit clerk staff, with the help of maintenance workers, searched the youth court storage spaces two more times, but to no avail.

The statement to Mississippi Today from the district attorney’s office tells a different story: The circuit clerk’s office confirmed in writing that they had the evidence from Brown’s trial. Then, when Richardson stopped by alone, a deputy clerk confirmed that the office had the evidence, the statement read. According to the statement, neither Richardson nor any of his staff “viewed nor possessed nor handled” the evidence.

The district attorney’s office would welcome a hearing and investigation into the lost evidence, the statement notes. But as of Wednesday, neither the presiding judge nor the district attorney’s office has filed additional orders or motions.

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

In every generation, a song, a slogan or a slang comes along that becomes more like a cultural anthem. I am a proverbial lover of a myriad genre of music. Being a musician/organist/arranger/singer/recording artist for almost 70 years, I am always enthralled when something new catches my attention.

Whether it’s gospel, classical, blues, a love ballad, traditional, transposition, hymns or freedom songs, I am supportive of artists who can take lyrics and make them come alive through the gift of heartfelt music.

For the past several months, the chart topping rendition of “Boots on the Ground – Where Them Fans At?” by Douglas Furtick, under the stage name 803Fresh has taken different cultures by storm, myself included.

I am sure I am “preaching to the choir,” but allow me to share some historical context.

Historically and traditionally, this familiar term was a recent addition to English, gaining traction during the Vietnam War in 1955 and resurging during the wars in Iraq in March 2003 and Afghanistan in October 2001. It refers to active ground troops in a military campaign, physically present and fighting in a war zone.

Back in the Day during the Civil Rights Movement, the definition was expanded to take on a different connotation. It became more and more familiar in relation to a call to action to march to the courthouses to try to register and to vote, as well as a call to other communities that help was needed. As an example, when a community called for help on a given day to march or to protest racism, selective buying campaigns, discrimination in obtaining the right to not only register, but to vote, the call was sent that help was needed – “Boots on the Ground.”

Winter, spring, summer or fall, all they had to do was call and we would be there. Whether it was in Meridian, Vicksburg, Canton, Carthage, Port Gibson, Fayette, Biloxi, Natchez, Alabama, Georgia, we borrowed cars, rented buses to go because our fellow activists needed help.

Where them fans at is more than a catch phrase. It has a certain kind of cadence that brings out our inherent ability to be able to move to the rhythm. We also used fans – old church fans, fans from the local funeral homes, fans from the “dime” store –  to keep us cool as we marched in 100-degree weather.

As I look at the landscape of America today and how rapidly the national political machine is putting into place laws, unqualified heads of departments, executive orders to roll back many of the gains that we have struggled all our lives to gain, I worry that if we don’t put those “Boots on the Ground,” we will witness in our generation up close and personal more accelerated poverty, soup lines, blatant denial of health care and much more to come that we can’t even conceptualize.

As we witness the dehumanization of tearing families apart, food rotting in warehouses, mass job loss, a critical lack and loss of health care, erratic decisions, open season on snatching men, women, boys and girls who have been in this country for years, a lack of decency in this administration, I am very troubled.

How willing are we to put our “Boots on the Ground” to recommit going to the polls and voting in every election? It was in my lifetime that I could NOT vote.

A few months ago, I heard a report that over 8 million African Americans did not vote in 2024. How can that be? Did we forget so soon that in many of our lifetimes, many in MY generation were killed for trying to get the right to vote? How can we forget the lynchings, the bombings, the burnings, the shootings, the assassinations, the jailing the beatings and many other atrocities that our people faced?

I cannot count the calls that I have had since November 2024, asking me,“Ms. Flonzie, what happened?” My answer was and still is a simple one: First stop crying and remember we were warned of all the things that could happen. Having said that, we are witnessing “promises made, promises being kept.” Now what?

During this Black History Month celebration, please allow me to encourage the readers who may have lost hope to remember the struggle and sufferings of Wharlest Jackson, George Metcalfe, Vernon Dahmer, George Raymond, Armelia Boynton, John Lewis, the four little girls in Birmingham, Viola Liuzzo, the Rev. James Reed, Dr. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Emmett Till, Annie Devine, the Rev. Jessie Jackson, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney and thousands more and then lace up those boots and march to the polls. 

And, oh yes, don’t forget them fans It’s hot out here, in more ways than one.

You will need them!!!

Bio: Flonzie Brown Wright is the first African American female elected to public office in the state of Mississippi. On Nov. 5, 1968, she won the position of election commissioner in Madison County. She is president and CEO of FBW & Associates, Inc., a marketing consulting firm and is the founder of the Flonzie B. Wright Scholarship Foundation, a foundation which has provided more than $50,000 in scholarship dollars to students and other enhancements to encourage students to stay in school. 

A judge left a Hinds County courtroom nearly four years ago dissatisfied after accepting a guilty plea from Mississippi’s disgraced former welfare director John Davis for his part in a sprawling scheme to misspend money intended to help some of the state’s poorest residents.

“Even with the questions that have been asked, this court is still not understanding what actually took place and more importantly, what would’ve caused you to perform these particular acts,” Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten said to Davis by the end of his plea hearing in September 2022.

Davis finished his seventh day of testimony Wednesday in a federal criminal trial of his alleged co-conspirator, former pro wrestler, Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. 

Davis agreed to aid the government in its prosecution of other alleged members of the sprawling welfare fraud scheme. He had been described as a star witness for the prosecution against DiBiase, to whom Davis had pushed $3 million in welfare contracts. 

Jurors rubbed their faces, closed their eyes and rocked back and forth in their chairs Wednesday as the former welfare director’s tale unraveled. One yawned. 

On Tuesday, Davis testified he and DiBiase took their legitimate work – a leadership development training program called Law of 16 – all the way up to Congress. By Wednesday, Davis admitted he ordered nonprofit organizations to pay DiBiase $250,000 up front and, after seeing no work product, ordered them to award the ex-WWE wrestler an additional $1 million.

When asked if it was inappropriate to make cash advance payments, Davis responded, “If it’s not legal, it’s inappropriate.”

To elicit this testimony from Davis, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Meynardie had to ask Davis specific yes or no questions – a process Meynardie noted was done “rather tediously.” 

Davis was repeatedly interrupted by objections from DiBiase’s defense, and those objections were often followed by long discussions at the judge’s bench muffled by blaring white noise. 

DiBiase’s case is the only to reach a criminal trial in a scandal in which officials frittered away tens of millions of dollars from a federal welfare grant. Seven people, including Davis, have pleaded guilty.

DiBiase is facing 13 criminal counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, theft of federal funds and money laundering.

On Tuesday, the defense introduced a large whiteboard, asking Davis – who was chosen to lead the welfare agency by then-Gov. Phil Bryant in 2016 – to help create an organizational chart of the state’s welfare delivery system during his tenure, with the governor on top, followed by MDHS and its various officers, nonprofit organizations and other agency contractors.

From black string tied underneath the whiteboard, the defense hung a card labeled “independent contractors” – a category intended to represent DiBiase. His lawyers meant for it to show the jury how far removed DiBiase was from the people accountable for welfare spending.

Over several days of testimony, prosecutors made Davis answer why he used affectionate language in text messages with DiBiase (the defense noted he talked like that with other employees) and whether he planned to retire to a compound with DiBiase’s family. During defense questioning, the former director told of how he conducted his work with DiBiase in plain view of state and federal officials and repeatedly agreed he’d always “tried to do the right thing.”

Citing contradictions, DiBiase’s lawyer Eric Herschmann tried to argue that the prosecution had elicited false testimony from Davis. The attorney took issue with a previous line of questioning by the prosecution that asserted Davis had “hidden” DiBiase’s contracts from MDHS’s lawyers and alleged that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the jury. 

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves considered the argument, but he ultimately brushed it aside. 

“It’s literally all over the place with this particular witness,” the judge said, referencing Davis, without jurors present Wednesday.

Davis’ apparent waffling could be summed up by testimony from the next witness to take the stand Wednesday.

“This guy had two separate personalities,” said Weylan Shannon Lott, who goes by his middle name and was hired by Davis under the title of director of leadership and employee development.

Lott, a retired National Guard member, met Davis before he took the helm of DHS, when Lott was a graduate student and Davis was an adjunct professor at Belhaven University. Lott testified he observed an unsettling shift in Davis’ demeanor after he became director of the agency.

Some jurors laughed at Lott’s quippy testimony. He recalled when DiBiase was hired – not as an employee of DHS, but a high-paid contractor for a separate nonprofit grantee of the department – under a nebulous title along the lines of “director of sustainable change.”

After Davis left the agency in 2019, Lott said he never saw DiBiase in the office again. 

“The only sustainable change I ever saw was the day those two walked out of the building,” Lott said. 

Lott, who told prosecutors he had over 25 years of experience “leading soldiers,” was critical of DiBiase’s Law of 16 program. 

“This was very, very elementary-at-best, training level stuff,” he said. “Stuff that with a good Google search in about 30 minutes you could put together. It was not deep. It was not emotionally stimulating that would cause change to action within any organization.”

But Davis was the “chief cheerleader” of the Law of 16, Lott said, to the point that if someone didn’t take it as seriously as the director wanted, he’d order them out of the room. Davis even fired one employee for checking his phone during one of the sessions, WLBT reported.

“He knew better than to pull that with me,” Lott said. 

That is, until Lott said he questioned Davis’ desire to remodel the executive floor of MDHS’s offices in the City Centre building in downtown Jackson. He said Davis sent him to meet with a construction company that wanted $250,000 up front. 

When Lott attempted to tell Davis he did not think this was legal, he said Davis shouted at him: “‘Why are you and all your military buddies always accusing me of doing something illegal?’” 

Correction, 2/26/2026: This story has been updated to show that John Davis is among the seven people who have pleaded guilty to charges related to welfare spending.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

DAY 8: In trial of ex-wrestler, Mississippi’s former welfare director testifies about appeasing politicians, trying ‘my very best’

Defense for ex-wrestler seeks mistrial in welfare fraud case

DAY 7: Trump faith initiative drove decision to hire wrestler, ex-welfare chief testifies in fraud trial

DAY 6: Wrestler carried out welfare-funded workshops in broad daylight, defense testimony asserts

DAY 5: Welfare director texted wrestler who was his high-paid aide about ‘money bags,’ testimony shows

DAY 4: Feds ask disgraced former welfare director ‘million-dollar question’: Why? Loneliness and love

DAY 3: Wrestler’s multimillion dollar ‘self-help curriculum’ helped crack open a wider welfare scandal

DAY 2: Opening statements in welfare scandal trial paint former director as villain who doled out millions over infatuation

DAY 1: 83 witnesses could enter the ring in Mississippi welfare scandal trial

TRIAL PREVIEW: Ex-WWE wrestler faces feds in first – and potentially only – criminal trial in Mississippi welfare scandal

A controversial flood control project that would transform Jackson’s waterfront is set to move forward after decades of debate over how the project would impact an ecosystem stretching into Louisiana, local officials announced Thursday.

The Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District said the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Adam Telle, selected a proposal to dam and lower the banks of the river near Jackson. “Alternative D1” was one of a few proposals the public weighed in on during U.S. Army Corps of Engineers comment sessions last summer.

The flood control district’s board, comprised of elected officials from Rankin and Hinds counties, is the project’s local government sponsor. The board and the Corps are the agencies in charge of designing and proposing the project. As of Thursday morning, neither the Corps nor Telle had announced the project selection.

During a press conference Thursday, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said the agencies still need to finalize an environmental assessment and then “get a final decision, hopefully this summer.”

“After that, we will begin the intensive design and engineering process to get us ready for construction,” Windham said.

The Corps in 2022 dedicated $221 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for this project, which would only cover a portion of the estimated cost of $873 million to $918 million. The federal government is supposed to pay for 65%, with the rest coming from state and local governments.

Keith Turner, attorney for the flood control district, said he thinks the Corps’ estimate of the project cost is too high. He said he hopes to have a design agreement with the Corps in the next four weeks, and to begin construction by the end of the year or by early 2027.

The news would conclude a decades-long journey among Jackson metro officials to address flooding from the Pearl River, which caused record destruction in 1979. More recently, a 2020 event flooded over 200 structures in Jackson and Flowood, and was the third-highest crest in history.

Since the 1979 flood, which caused over $200 million in damages (the event would cause over $1.2 billion in damages today, the Corps estimates) local officials have worked with the Corps on a number of solutions. In 2011, the late oil businessman and developer John McGowan proposed a flood control and recreational development plan known as “One Lake,” which the local flood control board supported until the Corps rejected the idea in 2024 because of its high cost. Before that, McGowan proposed a “Two Lakes” solution in 1996. Alternative D1 is a scaled-back version of One Lake.

Ever since McGowan presented the idea, opponents — including environmental groups such as Healthy Gulf, Audubon Delta and the Sierra Club, as well as officials from downstream places such as Monticello and Slidell, Louisiana — have panned the idea for its potential to disrupt downstream flow and destroy valuable habitat.

Jackson-area officials on Thursday celebrated the project’s potential to reconnect Jackson with the Pearl River, opening up an array of recreational and economic development opportunities. In additional to providing flood control, the plan would include new riverfront development, parks and trails, its website says.

Jackson Mayor John Horhn said critics of the proposal are “not listening to the science.”

“They’re not listening to the fact that the Corps has vetted this project for more than 25 years,” said Horhn, adding he thinks the development will be the “most transformative project we have seen in the Jackson Metropolitan area, probably in its history.”

Two protesters showed up at the event, shouting that officials were lying about the project’s impacts. Both were detained by Pearl police officers.

What the last Corps study said

Last year, the Corps narrowed a list of proposals to “Alternative D1” and “Alternative E1.” Both proposals included an array of measures: building new levees, elevating the most flood-prone structures, offering voluntary buyouts, and excavating the stream’s banks to widen and lower the river.

E1 would not have included a dam, though. That difference made it a cheaper option than D1, but it also meant it didn’t have the recreational benefits that would come with turning that section of the Pearl River into a lake.

Downstream communities fear the dam would disrupt the Pearl River’s flow once it reaches them, harming both economic and recreational use of the stream. In response, the Corps said last year that neither alternative would impact the Pearl River’s flow once it reaches Monticello, about 80 miles south of Jackson.

The agency admitted that both alternatives would “likely adversely affect” several endangered or threatened species along the Pearl River, including three different types of turtles. D1, though, would affect a wider range of species, including the Gulf sturgeon.

The 2025 study estimated both D1 and E1 would remove 740 acres of forested wetlands. D1 would also remove about 230 acres of riverine habitat, the study said. The Corps’ proposal includes a mitigation plan to compensate for any wetland or habitat losses.

Critics have also asked why the agency didn’t more seriously consider another option from its study, “Alternative A1.” A1 would have only included the nonstructural measures, meaning no excavation or dam. But the Corps’ study limited A1’s scope, for instance including just one levee in the proposal versus the four in D1 and E1. In doing so, the agency limited the benefits associated with A1, those critics argued.

Moreover, A1 would have cost up to $22 million, the agency estimated. D1 and E1 would cost up to $960 million and $788 million, respectively. The state and local governments would be on the hook for 35% of those costs. For D1, that would mean needing to raise between $306 million and $321 million through state appropriations and local taxes.

Should the project go through, the flood control district would expand to include more homes, mainly in northeast Jackson and Flowood, said Turner, the board attorney. Those homes would then be subject to taxes to help fund the flood control project. For many, though, reduced flood insurance costs would offset those taxes, Turner added.

Candice Wilder, Mississippi Today’s higher education reporter, is among 10 journalists selected for the Ida B. Wells Society’s 2026 investigative reporting fellowship program. 

The six-month fellowship includes a series of training sessions on topics such as public records, data evaluation, web research and fact-checking. The program includes in-person training in Atlanta led by top investigative journalists.

“The higher education beat not only has implications for the lives of students enrolled at colleges and universities across Mississippi — tens of thousands of them at the public universities alone — but it also touches on the state’s workforce and economic future. Candice is on track to learn tools and methods to deepen and enrich her reporting on such an important beat,” said Marquita Brown, Mississippi Today’s education editor. “I look forward to seeing how she puts that learning and those resources to use in her reporting. ”

Wilder, an Ohio native, joined the Mississippi Today team in April 2025 and works in partnership with Open Campus. 

Wilder is a member of Open Campus’s Local Network, a group of newsrooms in 18 places where the nonprofit news organization has helped put reporters on the higher education beat full time. Open Campus and Mississippi Today have partnered together on higher education coverage since 2021.

The Ida B. Wells Society is named in honor of the muckraking Black journalist and activist who was born into slavery in Holly Springs. The journalism organization launched in 2015 with the mission to increase and retain journalists of color in investigative reporting, and its membership is open to journalists of all races and backgrounds.

Emilee Shell tried to reconcile two conflicting messages from the state Legislature as staff and clients from the Jackson women’s addiction recovery residence Grace House filled the Mississippi Capitol.

That January morning was Recovery Day, an event designed to connect politicians with those who have experienced substance use disorder in Mississippi. From the Senate floor, lawmakers clapped for Shell, Grace House’s director, and others in the gallery who were recovering from addiction, saying they were proud of everyone’s journeys.

But that recognition came a month-and-a-half after a council the Legislature had tasked with managing hundreds of millions of opioid settlement dollars submitted its recommendations for the first round of state spending. The council members ranked 127 applications last fall into tiers based on how highly they recommended funding projects that aim to address the opioid epidemic. 

Grace House’s application was scored in the third of five tiers. That application, which asked for $600,000 to expand medical services for people who’ve completed intensive rehab and are starting to live independently, sat below some applications that proposed approaches experts said could be ineffective at preventing more overdoses. 

Shell said the decision was both surprising and expected. She and the Grace House staff were confident its proposal, if funded, would help keep women from relapsing. But Shell saw that in the council’s initial scoring, the majority of money the body recommended in the top two tiers was to organizations with representatives on the council.

“When funding becomes available, it’s like a who’s who popularity contest,” Shell said on Recovery Day.

Across the state, applicant organizations that work to treat and prevent opioid addiction have told Mississippi Today they worry the council did not fairly consider their plans to prevent more overdoses. They pointed to the potential for council member conflicts of interest and how the subcommittee grading wasn’t standardized.

Because of that, Shell said she thinks the state could miss out on funding Grace House and other organizations run by people with decades of experience addressing Mississippi’s addiction crisis — organizations with ideas that could save lives.

“I feel like we were definitely overlooked,” she said. 

Some lawmakers who helped create the advisory council also question the public body’s recommendations. House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, saw the advisory council process play out last fall as a non-voting committee member. As it did, he told Mississippi Today he saw both the amount of work council members put into reviewing the applications and the imperfections of the process.

Creekmore said he plans to spend time during the meeting of House Appropriations, the committee that is expected to review the applications and a body he’s a member of, revisiting lower-tier applications he thinks were scored incorrectly. A bill lawmakers passed last year allows the Legislature to accept or reject any of the advisory council’s recommendations, even those from the lower tiers.

“We can award some deserving people,” he said.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the chair of the council, did not respond to an email asking for her thoughts on lawmakers changing the council’s recommendations. Last fall, her office said the council has some rules to prevent conflicts of interest from influencing committee decisions. 

But this type of legislative intervention could signal that the advisory council process has gone awry, according to Tricia Christensen. An independent drug policy consultant in Tennessee, she said governments across the country task specialized committees with recommending how this lawsuit money should be spent. 

Few, however, have looked to reclaim most of the decision-making for themselves when elected officials don’t get the recommendations they want. 

“What’s the point of the process if the ultimate decision power is just going to come in and decide they want to fund this thing anyway?” Christensen asked. 

‘We have the trust of our community’

When Jason McCarty was recovering from addiction in Mississippi, he didn’t initially know who could connect him with what he needed to stay sober, he said. For people in similar circumstances, access to safe housing, steady employment, support from those who’ve experienced addiction and other long-term resources help prevent relapse. 

Now six years sober and the program development strategist at the United Way of the Capital Area, McCarty said that’s a big reason why the organization applied for about $1 million of opioid settlement funds. The proposal seeks to enhance the nonprofit’s 211 phone and text line, which helps connect people to resources like food banks, medical appointments and rental assistance. 

United Way submitted a proposal to employ phone operators with experience addressing addiction and tailor resources specifically for those with opioid use disorder, in addition to expanding its efforts to prevent teen drug dependence.

The state advisory council ranked the application in the lowest of the five tiers. McCarty said he tried reaching out to a committee member about why it scored so low, and he never heard back. 

He was disappointed that unlike some applicant organizations with representatives on the board, United Way didn’t get the opportunity to explain its proposal in front of the scorers.

“Some of the applications basically got to do question-and-answer in the middle of the session,” he said. 

At least one proposal from a smaller agency wasn’t even considered by the council. Leaders for the Corporation For Global Community Development, the nonprofit charity arm of the Jackson Revival Center Church in South Jackson, tried to submit an application requesting $250,000. It wanted to provide outreach, mental health services and other social services to people in underserved parts of Hinds County. 

But the application never showed up on any of the public council drafts that were supposed to list all applicants. Mississippi Today reviewed an email chain that shows the nonprofit submitted its proposal two minutes after the council’s submission deadline. Fitch did not respond to an emailed question asking whether the council received the corporation’s application. 

The council gave applicants only six weeks to finalize dozens of application pages, which smaller organizations said was difficult to accomplish. The committee itself missed a deadline codified in state law last year to appoint all its councilmembers by June 9, which it did about a week later. 

Evelyn Edwards, the corporation’s executive director, said no one from the council ever told her or her staff why the committee members never listed the application. She said omitting the application will delay the organization’s work to reach people in Hinds County struggling with addiction, especially those who are distrustful of other medical systems.

“We have the human capacity,” Edwards said. “We have the trust of our community, that’s number one. They’ll come, they’ll participate in those things.”

Ruby Denson, a nurse practitioner who leads the organization’s current efforts to address addiction and mental illness, said she was also disappointed the advisory council ranked McComb-based clinic Healing Horizons in the third of five tiers. The application asked for $83,000 to make the best treatments for opioid addiction and overdose prevention tools more available in Pike County.

Denson said she’s worked with Laquana Daniels, the psychiatric nurse practitioner from McComb who runs Healing Horizons, and she thinks that organization is as well-equipped to address Pike County’s addiction crisis as any group could be. Denson said because of Daniels’ education and community involvement, Daniels could make a big public health impact with a relatively small amount of money.

“It would definitely benefit her community in that McComb area,” Denson said.

Making changes with those most impacted

Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said he expects his committee to review the advisory council’s opioid settlement recommendations soon after it is finished working on agency budgets. Like Creekmore, he thinks his chamber will review the recommendations of the council to see which projects should be funded.

When making those decisions, Hopson said he’ll be looking for applications that will make strides toward stopping an epidemic that’s killed over 10,000 Mississippians since 2000.

Christensen, the drug policy consultant, said legislative leaders should also consider revisiting the advisory council process that led them to question that body’s decisions. Senators and representatives have taken steps to ensure they can continue adjusting Mississippi’s opioid settlement laws before the end of the regular session. 

She thinks it would be worth using opioid settlement money, including the funds the Legislature and Fitch have designated for general purposes, to help improve that process. If lawmakers make those adjustments, Christensen said she thinks it’s important for lawmakers to get input from Mississippians most affected by the crisis. 

While the state doesn’t have a formal process for Mississippians to testify about legislation, Christensen said it should be on lawmakers to include the voices of those most impacted by the opioid epidemic, who might have effective ideas for improving the advisory council. 

“They shouldn’t just be making these decisions independently behind closed doors,” she said.

A GOP challenger to U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has launched a website accusing the incumbent Republican of using campaign money for personal vacations and alleging that lobbyist contributions have compromised her loyalty to her home state. 

Sarah Adlakha, who is challenging Hyde-Smith in the Republican primary, recently launched SpendingCindy.com. The website, branded as “The Cindy Files,” lists what Adlakha describes as several luxury trips paid for by Hyde-Smith’s campaign account.

The website lists expenditures at hotels in several locations, including nearly a dozen Las Vegas trips. Among the hotels named are The Venetian and MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The site characterizes these trips as “vacations” rather than campaign-related travel.

In an accompanying op-ed titled “When Your Senator Works for Lobbyists, Not Mississippi,” Adlakha also alleges Hyde-Smith’s family has accompanied her on many of these trips.

“This isn’t campaign travel,” Adlakha wrote. “This is a U.S. Senator using a campaign account — filled with lobbyist cash — like a personal vacation fund.”

Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, did not directly address Adlakha’s allegations, but he said in a statement to Mississippi Today that the senator is a lifelong Mississippian who “raises funds to support her campaign from donors across the country.” 

“We probably even have a few donors from Sarah’s hometown of Chicago,” Monssen said. “Mississippi is a wonderful place to live. We welcome Sarah and her family, and we’re happy that she decided to register to vote here in August of 2024.”

Federal regulations prohibit congressional candidates from spending campaign donations on personal travel. Candidates have some discretion in how they spend donations, but generally, they can only spend them on campaign-related activities.

Adlakha is a physician who lives in Ocean Springs. According to her website, she moved to Mississippi after completing her medical school residency. Hyde-Smith, who was first appointed to the Senate in 2018 by former Gov. Phil Bryant and later elected to a full term, is seeking reelection this year.

Adlakha and Hyde-Smith will compete in the GOP primary on March 10. Three people are competing in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate: Scott Colom, Albert Littell and Priscilla Till. The party nominees will compete against Ty Pinkins, an independent candidate, on Nov. 3. 

Regularly scheduled clinic appointments and elective procedures at the University of Mississippi Medical Center are canceled through Friday, extending statewide disruptions in health care to more than a week since a cyberattack targeted Mississippi’s only academic medical center.

UMMC is making significant progress in its response to the Feb. 19 cyberattack and restoring systems, the medical center said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.  

“Through diligent, around-the-clock work, UMMC is hopeful that it will be able to resume normal clinic operations as soon as Monday,” the statement read. 

Patients across Mississippi have missed health care appointments and surgeries since the attack, which compromised the health care system’s IT network and forced the medical center to shut down all of its network systems, including its electronic patient health records. Experts have warned the hospital system could face weeks or months of recovery following the attack. 

Jimmie Elaine White of Brandon had a follow-up appointment scheduled for Feb. 19, the same day the cyberattack began, to go over the results of an ultrasound examining a blockage in her carotid artery.

Since then, she has been unable to contact UMMC to reschedule the appointment, leaving her increasingly anxious.

“I’m worried that I’m going to have a stroke,” White said. 

UMMC is one of Mississippi’s largest providers of specialty health care and operates the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, which is equipped to handle the most severe medical emergencies.

All UMMC hospitals and emergency departments in Jackson, Madison County, Holmes County and Grenada remain open, and UMMC will reschedule canceled appointments, it said in a statement. 

Nearby hospitals are stepping in to fill gaps in care caused by the attack.

“We have increased staffing and welcomed patients in our emergency department and clinics to help offset any immediate needs and meet increased demands for health care in our community,” said Baptist Memorial spokesperson Kimberly Alexander. 

The medical center has not yet publicly described how extensive the attack on its computer systems was or if any data was compromised. In a Tuesday interview with SuperTalk Mississippi, medical center Vice Chancellor Dr. LouAnn Woodward confirmed the attacker made financial demands. 

Getting hospital computer systems back up and running after a ransomware attack can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month, but full recovery often takes much longer, said Allan Liska is an intelligence analyst for cyber threat intelligence company Recorded Future.

“It can take six months to a year to fully recover,” said Liska, who is also an expert in ransomware, or malicious software that holds computer systems or data hostage with demands for a payment.

Usually, computer systems that have been infiltrated are rebuilt from scratch, then tested segment by segment while disconnected from the internet to ensure that the attackers are out, Liska said. Once they are confirmed to be secure, the systems are gradually brought back online. 

UMMC has endured security breaches before. After a 2013 report of an incident involving unsecured electronic patient health information, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights investigated UMMC’s cybersecurity policies. The agency determined that UMMC had identified risks and vulnerabilities to its systems as far back as April 2005 but did not undertake significant risk management efforts until after the breach.

UMMC agreed to settle the matter by paying a resolution amount of $2.75 million and adopting a corrective action plan. The Office of Civil Rights closed the matter in 2022 based on documentation of UMMC’s compliance with the terms of the resolution and settlement.

Liska said it’s difficult to evaluate from the outside whether a hospital system has effective defenses against cybersecurity attacks. Attackers are constantly changing their tactics, and even well-prepared organizations can have vulnerabilities, he said. 

“’Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face,’” he said, quoting former professional boxer Mike Tyson. 

Patients with time-sensitive needs including prescription refills can call the automated UMMC Triage Line at 601-815-0000, the medical center said. Patients requiring immediate assistance will be contacted directly to schedule an urgent care clinic visit.