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Mississippi’s government said health and safety problems in the foster care system are not being intentionally ignored as the state’s attorneys continue their efforts to dismiss federal oversight over its child welfare system. 

In a Tuesday court filing, lawyers from Mississippi’s Attorney General’s Office and the private law firm Baker Donelson said the issues that a court-appointed monitor identified in a recent report do not violate the U.S. Constitution. 

The monitoring is federally required by the 22-year-old Olivia Y. v. Barbour lawsuit — in which lawyers representing Mississippi foster children have repeatedly said the state’s child welfare efforts are systematically dangerous. 

In 2018, lawyers representing both the state and foster children in Mississippi agreed to an independent monitoring program that would annually examine over 100 safety measures. The agreement says the state government can dismiss the monitoring after it has met all the safety measures for at least a year. 

In the latest report, published in July, the independent monitor found the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services had only met 22 of the applicable 107 measures, ranging from maltreatment in state care to placing children in unlicensed homes.

Mississippi’s lawyers questioned how the monitor went about creating the report in their Tuesday filing. They said Gov. Tate Reeves and department Commissioner Andrea Sanders have not deliberately caused these safety problems. 

The lawyers argue that Mississippi’s child welfare department has worked with the state Legislature to solve these problems and that should be enough to show the state is meeting its constitutional responsibility. 

“They have identified risks, marshaled resources, enacted legislation, rebuilt staffing, modernized technology, and restructured MDCPS to protect children’s personal security and reasonably safe living conditions,” the state’s attorneys wrote in their filing. 

Marcia Lowry, the lead lawyer representing Mississippi foster children, said Wednesday that the 2018 agreement was a legal contract, one that Mississippi’s government had not yet met the standards required to end. She said lawyers for the state knew they would be measured by the agreement rather than the Constitution when they signed onto it. 

“That’s how the case is supposed to end,” Lowry said. “It’s not supposed to end by the state now saying ‘We’ve done a bunch of different things, and we think that satisfies the constitutional standard.’” 

Lawyers for the department also said the required safety measures were “aspirational” metrics and they couldn’t be used to show Mississippi’s government wasn’t trying to address foster children’s safety. 

The 2018 agreement says the monitoring is intended to “maintain the child welfare infrastructure, standards, and outcomes that Defendants must meet within specified timeframes statewide.” Lowry said all the lawyers knew that these safety standards were enforceable when they signed the contract and the “aspirational” goals were not optional. 

“We entered into this because this is what we thought they could and should agree to get to, what they should get to over a period of time,” she said. “This is what the state agreed to.”

Clint Pentecost, the Baker Donelson lawyer who submitted the late Tuesday filing, did not answer a phone call or return a voicemail from Mississippi Today by publication time. MaryAsa Lee, spokesperson for Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, did not respond to an email.

The Olivia Y. lawsuit has lingered in the legal system for decades while Mississippi children continue to enter and exit the state’s child welfare system. Zoey Tether spent some of her teenage years in Mississippi’s foster care system, cycling through at least 10 foster care placements until the state found her a permanent home. She said at one of those placements, the adults responsible for her gave her so much medication that she could barely stay awake. 

Now 21 years old and living in Pontotoc County, she’s gotten to know other Missisisppi former foster children. She said they all have plenty of stories like hers, where they feared for their well-being as the state said it would keep them safe. 

“Where are these reasonably safe places?” Tether asked when told about the state’s filing. “One out of 10 is not reasonable.”

She said whether intentional or not, the consequences of unsafe living conditions are carried by people like her — kids who often have no choice over where they end up. For a state agency charged with those responsibilities, Tether said it’s hard for her to even think about allowing any margin of error. 

“What you miss is children and their lives,” she said.

Chief U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden will decide what happens next in the lawsuit. Lawyers for the state asked Ozerden to either end federal foster care oversight or hold a hearing for the case, one where each side could present more evidence. Lowry said she and the other lawyers would be prepared for a hearing if Ozerden opts for one. 

Anna Hu contributed reporting to this story from Pontotoc.

A second man was denied bond Wednesday in connection with the killing of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother of four who was found last month hanging from a tree in west Jackson. 

Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney announced the arrest of Earnest Lloyd Jr., 25,  Tuesday at the Jackson City Council meeting. She said the Jackson Police Department is seeking help from the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest at least one other person. 

“I will guarantee you, there are actually more arrests to come in this incident,” Brackney said at the meeting.

Last week, police charged Jarques Ratliff, 51, with Fortune’s killing. He pleaded not guilty and remains in custody after being denied bond. His attorney said a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Fortune’s death became national news, as the story of a Black woman found hanging harkened back to Mississippi’s dark history of racist terror lynchings. Both Lloyd and Ratliff are also Black.

On Aug. 3, Fortune’s body was found hanging from a tree outside a vacant house on the 500 block of Road of Remembrance.

Christy Spivey, Fortune’s mother, was at the meeting when the police chief announced the latest arrest. She and her husband traveled from Kentucky to be in Jackson this week to attend the court dates of the two suspects and to visit Fortune’s children. 

She held a press conference with Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes before the Tuesday council meeting. Stokes is trying to schedule a meeting with the U.S. Attorney and the FBI.

“You know, she didn’t have a lot to give, she was struggling,” Spivey said at the press conference. “But she would do anything to help anybody.”

Spivey told Mississippi Today that the recent arrests, after a “brutal silence,” have given her hope that authorities are now more aggressively seeking justice for her daughter. She said the family is anxious about any additional arrests.

Spivey also visited the crime scene for the first time on Tuesday. 

“It was hard, but I felt like I owed it to Tasia,” she said.

Spivey described seeing cardinals flying, and she took pictures of her daughter’s memorial, a small mound of flowers, balloons, teddy bears and pinwheels surrounding a framed picture of her.

The trial began Wednesday for two former Capitol Police officers charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of a 25-year-old Jackson man, with prosecutors and defense attorneys arguing over whether the shooting was in self-defense.

Steven Frederick Jr. and Michael Lamar Rhinewalt, who are both white, were part of the crime suppression Flex Unit of the Capitol Police involved in the death of a Black man, Jaylen Lewis, on Sept. 25, 2022. 

The officers stopped Lewis’ vehicle after a traffic violation and fatally shot him a few seconds later, according to testimony. Frederick, who is the son-in-law of Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, and Rhinewalt have pleaded not guilty to the criminal charge.

In his opening statement to the jury, Special Assistant Attorney General Luke Williamson said Lewis’ death was “not a justified killing. It was not self-defense. We will ask that you find the defendants guilty of manslaughter.”

Defense lawyer Merrida Coxwell Jr. told the jury of nine Black and three white members that officers blocked Lewis in with their car and called on him to show his hands. “Suddenly and without warning, Jaylen Lewis slammed into the back of the police car behind and came right at the officers,” he said.

In response to the 707-horsepower engine Cherokee heading toward them, Coxwell said Rhinewalt shot Lewis in self-defense. The earlier indictment concluded that was “not a reasonable belief under the circumstances.”

At the time of the fatal shooting, Frederick and Rhinewalt were conducting a narcotics operation when they saw a white Jeep Grand Cherokee turn north on West Street in Jackson driven by Lewis, who had a female passenger.

After the officers saw the Cherokee run a red light at Stonewall Street, they turned on their police lights and pulled Lewis over and blocked him from going forward with his car.

Lewis wound up reversing his car and bumping into the police cruiser behind his vehicle. 

After this, Frederick and Rhinewalt opened fire into the Cherokee, fatally shooting Lewis in the head, according to the lawsuit. 

In Lewis’ car, officers found Glock pistols, an assault weapon and bags of marijuana, Coxwell said. “We’re not trying to paint a negative picture, but it’s the truth.”

Lewis decided to run “probably because of the drugs and weapons,” Coxwell said. “That’s never a safe thing to do with officers standing in front of you.”

Lt. Kevin Swinney of Capitol Police testified he was present when the shooting took place. He said he didn’t see where Frederick and Rhinewalt were standing when they fired their guns.

Asked if the officers had done anything that fell outside police practice, Swinney replied no. If they had, Gilbert asked, “you would have reported it, right?”

Swinney responded yes. “I ain’t going to jail for nobody.”

Capt. Dennis Weaver of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation testified that the passenger in Lewis’ vehicle, Selena Hayes, told agents that she yelled out, “Stop, stop, stop” when Lewis tried to speed off.

Speaking of Frederick, Coxwell asked Weaver: “As best you could tell, he was telling the truth?”

Weaver replied yes.

Ty Parker, crime scene analyst for MBI, identified two bullet holes in the front windshield of Lewis’ car and another two bullet holes on the driver’s side window.

She testified there was no sign that any of the weapons inside Lewis’ car were fired. All three guns were loaded, she said.

Just before the shooting, Chauncey Webster, a Capitol Police officer who was riding with Swinney, said the Cherokee “backed into us hard,” and he heard gunfire ring out.

Asked where Frederick and Rhinewalt were standing, he replied, “I wasn’t focused on that. I was trying not to get shot.”

The trial resumes Thursday.

In 2022, the state Legislature expanded the jurisdiction of Capitol Police beyond the Capitol and other government buildings in downtown Jackson. Within that year, officers shot at least four people.

A month before Lewis was killed, Rhinewalt and former Flex Unit officer Jeffery Walker opened fire on a car, striking a passenger in the head. That victim, Sherita Harris, survived but now has “permanent neurological and facial injuries,” according to her lawsuit.

A grand jury indicted Rhinewalt and Walker for aggravated assault in that case. According to a lawsuit filed against them in the case, no weapon was recovered from the car.

In March 2023, Frederick totaled his Capitol Police Ford vehicle, and flunked the DUI field test with a 0.15 score, nearly twice the legal limit of 0.8. Five months later he dodged conviction when a state trooper failed to appear for the court hearing. The judge dismissed the DUI charge.

Frederick resigned three days after the wreck “to prevent termination,” according to his certification records. A year and a half after the incident he wrecked another patrol vehicle, this time as a deputy for Scott County.

“Jaylen does not brandish a weapon, reach for a weapon, make any violent gestures, threaten anyone, or take any other actions that could be reasonably perceived as endangering officers or others,” according to a lawsuit filed by Lewis’ mother, Arkela Lewis.

U.S. District Judge Kristi H. Johnson has dismissed the Mississippi Department of Public Safety from the lawsuit, which remains pending against the former officers. Frederick and Rhinewalt have asked for it  to be dismissed.

In an interview outside the courthouse, Arkela Lewis said hearing all the justifications for killing her son angers her. Any time an officer kills someone, “It’s always self-defense,” she said. “It’s something I have already been prepared for.”

She said she is far from optimistic the officers will be convicted. “I’ve been praying and leaving it in God’s hands. That’s all I can do.”

Update, 9/23/2026: This story has been updated with additional details about the trial.

Carl Boyanton, an independent candidate running for the 4th Congressional District, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell, accepted more money from campaign donors than the law allows. 

Boyanton, a business owner, filed the report against Ezell in June and focuses on seven members of the Chouest family, which owns shipbuilding company Edison Chouest Offshore. They donated to Ezell, who chairs the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. The federal government eventually awarded the company a $950 million contract.  

“This is a classic pay-to-play scheme where special interests and billionaires think they can buy a Mississippi Congressman,” Boyanton said in a statement. “South Mississippians deserve a representative who answers to them, not to wealthy campaign donors or defense contractors seeking special favors.”

Josh Gregory, Ezell’s campaign manager, said in a statement that the campaign complies with federal campaign finance law. 

“While Mr. Boyanton’s allegations are obviously a political stunt, making a false statement to a federal agency, such as the FEC, is illegal and we will be reporting him for doing that,” Gregory said. “In the meantime, voters will have their say when they defeat him for the fourth time on November 3.”

The complaint centers on a joint fundraising committee called the Ezell Victory Fund, which Ezell’s campaign formed with the National Republican Congressional Committee and his leadership PAC, New Sheriff PAC.

The complaint alleges that seven members of the Chouest family, in August 2025, each gave $3,500 to Ezell’s primary campaign and $3,500 to his general election campaign, maxing out the $7,000-per-cycle limit an individual can give directly to a candidate, totaling $49,000. 

The family also donated another $150,000 to the joint fundraising committee: $10,000 each from five family members and $50,000 each from Gary and Carolyn Chouest.

The complaint argues that when the Ezell Victory Fund later transferred $47,625 of that money to Ezell’s campaign committee on Sept. 18, 2025, it amounted to funneling additional Chouest family money to the campaign beyond federal limits. 

But it’s unclear if what Boyanton is alleging actually took place because FEC records don’t typically show a donor-by-donor breakdown when a joint fundraising committee transfers a lump sum into a candidate’s personal fundraising committee. 

Federal rules require a joint fundraising committee to divide each donor’s contribution among its participating committees so that no individual’s total contribution to any one committee, whether given directly or through a joint account, exceeds that donor’s limit for that committee.

Even if Ezell violated the law, he is unlikely to face penalties anytime soon because the FEC, which is supposed to regulate campaign finances, doesn’t even have enough confirmed members to meet, let alone consider complaints, according to a recent report from the New York Times. 

Boyanton also alleges that the contractor and Ezell broke the law because contractors who receive money from Congress are prohibited from directly donating money to candidates and committees. 

But federal law does not prohibit individuals who have an ownership stake in a contractor company from making individual donations. 

Ezell, Boyanton and Democratic nominee Jeffrey Hulum will compete against each other during the general election on Nov. 3.

So, here we are, three weeks into the college football season, and some Mississippi football fans are asking themselves: Could we be looking at another 2014 season?

Remember? For nearly two months, Mississippi was the talk of college football. Ole Miss began the season ranked 18th and rose to as high as No. 3. Mississippi State began the season unranked and rose to No. 1. No. 1! The Bulldogs stayed there for five weeks. Five weeks! For two weeks in October, State was ranked No. 1 and Ole Miss No. 3. Poor ol’ Mississippi was the toast of college football. We were living a dream.

If you remember that, you remember this: And then we woke up. LSU burst the Rebels’ bubble, beating Ole Miss 10-7 at Baton Rouge on Oct. 25, after the Rebs led into the fourth quarter. Alabama – isn’t it always Alabama? – knocked off the previously 9-0 Bulldogs 25-20 on Nov. 15. It wasn’t that close.

Those 2014 Bulldogs, led by St. Dak Prescott, would wind up ranked No. 11 in January with a 10-3 record. Those Rebels, after losing to TCU 42-3 in the Peach Bowl, would wind up 9-4 and dropped all the way to 17th in the final Associated Press poll.

Flash forward to today. Ole Miss, 3-0, has risen to No. 4 after vanquishing LSU 32-24 last Saturday night in Oxford. You could make the case the Rebels should be higher. Who else in the country has already defeated two nationally ranked teams? Nobody, that’s who. State, 3-0, has broken into the AP poll at No. 24 after back-to-back road victories over Minnesota and South Carolina.

Who knows how either will finish? Both face so many football landmines, beginning with this Saturday when Ole Miss goes to No. 21 Florida and State hosts No. 19 Missouri. Later, Ole Miss still must play five more ranked teams, including State. After Missouri, State still faces Alabama (currently No. 8), LSU (currently No. 10), somehow unranked Oklahoma, and No. 1 Texas, all in the month of October. It doesn’t seem fair.

So, in answer to the question asked in the first paragraph of this column: No, I don’t believe we are looking at another 2014 season. The schedules are too brutal, too early. I don’t think we’ll see the two Mississippi teams both ranked among the top teams in college football. I don’t think Ole Miss or State will rise to No. 1 –  and certainly not for a five-week run.

But the possibility is there. These are two really good college football teams, with the most important ingredient a team needs to make a championship run. That is, each has a quarterback who can step up when it matters most and win games.

Last Saturday began with Ole Miss coach Pete Golding speaking the truth on ESPN “College Gameday.” Said Golding, “If you ain’t got a quarterback, you’re screwed. I don’t care what level it is.”

Both State and Ole Miss are far from screwed. Trinidad Chambliss and Kamario Taylor are remarkably talented; both seemed to have that “it” factor all great quarterbacks have.

Quick aside: When I was packing up my backpack in the Vaught-Hemingway press box in the wee hours of Sunday morning, one of the dozen or so national writers covering the game stopped and told me, “You need to book your tickets to New York for the second weekend in December.” 

I asked why, and he said, “You are probably going to have two finalists for the Heisman: Trinidad and Kamario.”

That is a possibility if both can remain healthy through the SEC football’s version of the Bataan Death March. Both showed why on Saturday.

Taylor, just a sophomore, went first: Down 16-0 before nearly 80,000 howling fans, he threw for four touchdowns to rally State to a 41-34 road victory over South Carolina. Then came Chambliss: After LSU rallied from a 24-7 halftime deficit to tie the score, Chambliss drove the Rebels 75 yards for the winning touchdown and scored it himself on a 14-yard scamper. 

Both will need similar performances to win this Saturday. At the Swamp in Gainesville, Ole Miss faces a highly talented, 3-0 Florida team that is a three-point favorite to beat the Rebels. State plays host to a Missouri team that demolished visiting State 49-27 last year. State is a 5.5-point favorite over a Missouri team that is still missing tailback Ahmad Hardy, the Mississippian who ran around, through and over the Bulldogs for 300 yards last season.

For Ole Miss and State to do a 2014 do-over, both would have to win tough games Saturday. And then, it will only get harder.

TUPELO — During breaks between sessions at the Northeast Mississippi Mental Health & Substance Use Recovery Summit, Andy Newsom navigated through the vendor booths, shaking hands and asking about resources. New Orleans-raised Newsom, who stood out among attendees with his head-to-toe Jacksonville Jaguars outfit and colorful tattoos, already knew several of the treatment centers in attendance. One was his former employer, the North Mississippi State Hospital. 

That was a meaningful position, he told Mississippi Today, because it’s the same hospital where he finally “got clean.” 

“I’ve been in treatment 19 times,” Newsom said.  “You would think I would’ve learned. But see, it took what it took.”

The final time he entered a treatment center, his mother checked him in. It was that “gift of desperation” that allowed him to slowly work toward recovery, Newsom said. After becoming fully sober on Nov. 8, 2017, he started working as a peer support counselor for youth and adults with substance use disorders. 

United Way of Northeast Mississippi President Patti Parker started the Health Alliance initiative in 2021, which organized its first summit a year later. The one-day event provides local counselors, social workers and teachers a way to fulfill their mandatory continuing education requirements without having to drive three hours to Jackson. 

Walking through the fifth annual summit at Tupelo’s Huntington Bank Conference Center, Tupelo-based counselor Theresa Triplett is grateful that the gathering exists. She earns most of her 15 hours of continuing education requirements a year through a conference in Biloxi, but she said she appreciates having a conference 10 minutes away from her workplace, versus several hours away. 

“We’re a one-of-kind conference in north Mississippi,” said Terry Baber, director of the Northeast Mississippi Health Alliance. 

Changing responses to addiction

Keynote speaker Christina Dent advocated for health-centered solutions for drug use instead of policies that push for incarceration. She founded the nonprofit organization End it For Good after her perspective on addiction was changed. She and her husband became foster parents in 2015 and then met the child’s birth mother. 

Before attendees seated over black tablecloths, Dent said she realized she had radically misunderstood how to treat addiction after seeing someone struggle with substance use.

“ This was me just with some different experiences and a different path to try to cope with those experiences,” she said.

At the summit, Dent also shared resources and therapies that are currently being studied. One was ibogaine, a psychoactive plant-based compound that some research suggests can rapidly reduce dependence on opioids. Dent said ibogaine helped her friend Juliana Mulligan end an intense opioid addiction after she accessed the treatment, currently illegal in the United States, at a clinic in Guatemala. Earlier in the day, Rep. Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, shared in his legislative update that Mississippi recently became the second state in the country to fund an ibogaine clinical trial. 

During the summit, participants also attended sessions on the complexity of suicide, disability and prevention, and recovering from sexual trauma, among others.

Ishaunna Gully, a consultant from the Jackson-based program Prevention Includes Everyone, was a first-time speaker at the summit. She shared her experiences growing up in Laurel and surviving the domestic violence that led to her becoming a wheelchair user. As her audience listened and reacted to her dramatic story, Gully talked about how mental health and substance use affected her family, from her parents to her romantic partners and herself. 

“ You see the chair, you see the paralysis. You know something happened, you don’t know what,” Gully told her audience. “But how many people walk around all day long, where something is happening within you?”

From conference rooms to community

In future conferences, Baber said he hopes to offer training with Narcan, the brand name of the medicine naloxone, that can reverse opioid overdoses within minutes. 

Baber said he became interested in counseling and treatment for substance use after his brother died from a stroke that may have been related to fentanyl. Now, he hopes to spread knowledge and reduce stigma for substance use disorders. 

He hopes to see more families and members of the public at the summit, but he understands it’s hard to get off work. To reach more people, the Health Alliance plans to host its second “Recovery in the Park” from 2-5 p.m. at Ballard Park this Saturday. 

The family event will feature free food, a petting zoo and face painting, Baber said, and no one will know who is suffering from addiction and who isn’t. 

As a Narcan trainer at the community mental health center Communicare, Newsom goes wherever he can “get a foot in the door,” including into sheriff’s offices. Instead of being questioned about criminal activity, he helps train law enforcement officers in how to administer Narcan. 

“ I used to be the one getting Narcan,” he said. “Now I’m telling people about it.” 

Newsom said he’s made plenty of mistakes since entering recovery, spends more money than he should and has turned his spare bedroom into a shoe closet with nearly 400 pairs of tennis shoes. But he hasn’t gone back to heroin. 

Sporting the  Nike’s Air Max 90 shoes in the Jacksonville Jaguars’ teal and gold, he headed off to talk to the next vendor. 

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.

Two University of Mississippi students died on Monday, sparking an ongoing investigation and a warning against using an herbal substance sold at many gas stations.

The Oxford Police Department on Tuesday shared a news release on social media issued by Lafayette County Metro Narcotics, which said authorities are conducting two investigations into the deaths of the students, who were not named. It also advised avoiding kratom, sold in gas stations across much of Mississippi.

“Law enforcement is currently conducting two separate death investigations,” the statement reads. “At this time, we have no confirmed evidence indicating that the two deaths are connected. However, packaged Kratom sold from a retail store was found during both investigations. Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage everyone to avoid kratom and any other medication or substance that was not prescribed to you or obtained from a trusted, regulated source.”

Despite the warning to avoid the substance, the news release also said authorities had not found information indicating that kratom or any other substance was a contributing factor in either death. Kratom can be legally sold in many parts of Mississippi to people over the age of 21, but more than 30 counties, including Lafayette County, and cities in Mississippi already restrict or ban kratom products.

In a separate statement, Shawnboda Mead, vice-chancellor for student affairs at the University of Mississippi, confirmed both people who died were students. Mead also said the university was not aware of any additional deaths, contradicting social media rumors that suggested otherwise.

“The University is heartbroken by the recent loss of two students and extends our condolences to their families, friends and loved ones during this difficult time,” Mead said. “We are aware that considerable unverified information is circulating on social media and in the community regarding these recent student deaths. The Coroner’s Office has confirmed two student deaths, and University Police are not aware of any additional student deaths.”

Several fraternities and sororities on campus issued announcements warning their members about cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid that does not show up on standard fentanyl test strips, according to the Daily Mississippian, the university’s student newspaper. Many Greek organizations also cancelled social events scheduled for this week in response to the student deaths, the newspaper said.

News of the deaths came on the heels of the University of Mississippi football team’s dramatic victory on Saturday over Louisiana State University, which drew huge crowds to Oxford and prompted a weekend of celebrations on campus and throughout Oxford.

[11:45 AM]

State Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III, who’s represented Harrison County in the state House since 2022, says his experience as a 22-year Army combat veteran, and years of helping feed the neediest Mississippians has taught him about leadership and how to bring communities together. Hulum is the Democratic nominee for the 4th District U.S. House seat in Mississippi, running against incumbent Republican Mike Ezell.

No ransoms were paid to hackers during the cyberattacks that hit the University of Mississippi Medical Center or Institutes of Higher Learning this year, officials confirmed to Mississippi Today. 

“No state taxpayer dollars were used” to pay the perpetrators of either attack, said Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and the chair of the Senate Universities and Colleges Committee.

A cyberattack struck the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning offices on Sep. 7, temporarily rendering the Mississippi Office of Student Financial Aid unable to process student applications and payments. IHL officials are working with federal law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals to determine what happened and whether confidential or sensitive data was accessed or compromised.

IHL spokesperson John Sewell said the agency did not pay a ransom connected to the attack. He said he could not yet share an update on the agency’s recovery process. 

In February, a ransomware attack targeted the University of Mississippi Medical Center, compromising the health care system’s IT network and leading officials to shut down affected systems to contain the threat. As a result, the state’s only academic medical center closed clinics across the state and canceled elective procedures for nine days. IHL oversees the state’s public universities, including UMMC. 

Ransomware, or malicious software that holds computer systems or data hostage in demand for payment, has increasingly targeted healthcare organizations with the aim of garnering large payouts by disrupting critical infrastructure. 

Marc Rolph, a spokesperson for UMMC, said Friday the medical center did not pay a ransom to the hackers. 

Officials told Mississippi Today in April the medical center was conducting a detailed forensic analysis with support from the FBI and cybersecurity experts to determine what data was accessed or exfiltrated during the cyberattack. 

Ransomware group Medusa claimed credit for the cyberattack in March, nearly a month after the initial attack that shut down UMMC’s network. The group demanded payment to prevent the publication of stolen data, cybersecurity news outlet The Record reported. A UMMC spokesperson declined to confirm whether Medusa was the organization that attacked the medical center. In an April blog post, Louann Woodward said the perpetrator is well known to the FBI.

On Monday, State Auditor Shad White sent a letter to IHL Commissioner Al Rankins Jr. seeking more information about the agency’s response to both attacks. White requested information about the nature and scope of the incident, whether a ransom or extortion payment was requested, information about any such payments and copies of and plans for remediation. 

“Taxpayers deserve to know what happens to their money and the IHL should be transparent with what happened here,” White wrote in the letter.

PASS CHRISTIAN — Muddy, sweat-soaked and occasionally bloody, the dedicated staff at a Mississippi wildlife center are drill sergeants. And their soldiers? Baby raccoons.

Welcome to raccoon boot camp, where the goal is to help sick or injured animals learn to survive in the south Mississippi wilderness — a skill set they would have learned from their mothers, most of whom died or were separated from their kits by storms, traffic accidents or other traumatic events.

It’s a challenge that’s left Woodside Wildlife Rescue’s founder, Paula Woodside, with cuts from scared, defensive raccoons and their sharp claws, and when she isn’t able to save a kit, emotional scars too.

“When these babies come in, and they’re so desperate, it’s heartbreaking,” said Woodside, who most days is covered in sweat from caring for the animals in the Mississippi heat, and dirt from curious kits crawling up her legs and onto her shoulders. “It’s really important for them to get a little bit of a head start.”

After being weaned, the young troops get a taste off the wild

Woodside, a former U.S. merchant mariner, opened the rescue in 2019 after she helped rehabilitate a baby raccoon found aboard her ship. The rescue in the coastal city of Pass Christian typically raises dozens of kits each year, 76 so far this year, alongside other indigenous wildlife.

City animal control and citizens call Woodside, or the rescue’s director, Raquel Priest, when they find a raccoon in need of saving. Together, they attempt to reunite the kits with their mothers, if they can find them, or bring the kits to the rescue.

The youngest raccoons will spend a few weeks mostly indoors being bottle-fed by rehabbers until they’re vaccinated for diseases carried by cat colonies and dogs and are ready to move to outdoor pens.

Though the kits stay close to their adoptive human parents, they’re eventually allowed to roam free during the day on the rescue’s rural 20-acre property, a sprawling mix of meadows and thick forest spotted with ponds and a nearby river. Thanks to that setting, Woodside and Priest can take their troops on learning excursions, a luxury many wildlife rescues don’t have, Woodside said.

Teaching by example: digging for worms and cracking acorns

Woodside and Priest teach by example. They hide worms in the dirt to show the kits how to dig for food, and break open pine cones or acorns to reveal the seeds inside. The raccoons’ eyes light up when they encounter a new tasty food, and they run to show their discovery to their rehabbers before hurrying back to fend off other kits who might try to steal their find.

Where a drill sergeant might yell, ‘Attention!,’ Priest and Woodside give a shrill trilling sound, mimicking the raccoon call for danger, that sends the kits running up trees to safety. A short whistle lets the troops know the coast is clear.

The kits also practice fishing in shallow pools, their uncoordinated paws tentatively patting the water until they’re quick enough to snag a snack. A live quail hunt provides hunting experience. While these are skills raccoons would likely learn on their own, Woodside’s staff hopes the training gives the kits a greater chance of survival.

On the property’s pond, the raccoons learn to swim, a critical skill in hurricane-prone south Mississippi. The rehabbers take to kayaks and encourage the kits to swim back and forth. They also take trips to the deep woods, where kits learn to run from tree to tree to avoid being seen by birds of prey and to have a quick escape route from snakes or other dangers on the ground.

Raccoons graduate to ‘Pomp and Circumstance Marches’

For their final lesson, a volunteer — who isn’t Woodside or Priest — traps the raccoons in cages, scaring them enough to encourage them to avoid traps and humans. The experience helps the young raccoons wean themselves from their human rescuers, a process Priest said naturally occurs as they mature.

When a group of kits is ready for release, about six months after their rescue, Woodside and Priest host a graduation ceremony. They play Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance Marches,” and read a roll call of each graduating kit’s name.

A reverend then blesses their journey as they’re released onto a different section of the rescue’s forest-covered property. For kits that die in care, the staff holds a second ceremony to bless and scatter their ashes.

“It’s like watching your children leave home,” Priest said. “It’s important to see them prosper and go and be the mischievous creatures they were meant to be.”