OurTupelo

Members of Congress are asking the National Park Service to investigate the death of Mississippi Gulf Coast teenager Nolan Xavier Wells, adding to calls for federal intervention to help his family better understand what happened to him. 

Rep. Frederica Willson, a Democrat from Florida, wrote to the agency Sept. 28, requesting a “prompt and exhaustive investigation.” Wells, 18, was last seen on July 4 at Horn Island, a barrier island that is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore administered by the park service. His body was found there two days later, and a Jackson County grand jury concluded he probably drowned.

“The full resources and investigative authority of the National Park Service must be brought to bear,” Wilson wrote in the letter, which was also addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. 

“ … Nolan cannot speak for himself. We have a duty to ensure his death is met with the seriousness it deserves,” she wrote.

The letter comes several weeks after the Congressional Black Caucus sent its own letter asking for the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI to step in and investigate. Over 60 representatives and senators are part of that group, including Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson and Wilson. 

On Monday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump joined Wells’ parents at a news conference at Center of Hope church in Inglewood, California, to renew calls for a federal investigation and push for answers for the family.

The family’s legal team has continued to raise questions about his death, including how water was not found in Wells’ lungs, airway and stomach – where water is typically found in drowning incidents. They also raised questions about what caused blunt-force trauma injuries to the back of his head. 

Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California who is also part of the Congressional Black Caucus, was unable to attend the news conference. Crump said she joined Rep. Wilson’s letter asking for the Park Service to investigate. 

At the news conference, Christine Wonsley said the Jackson County grand jury’s decision not to indict anyone for her son’s death has left her and her husband with more questions and heartbreak than answers. 

“In fact no one has given us any answers other than ‘consistent with accidental drowning’,” she said. “That’s all our Black and Asian child received.”

Through his mother, Wells was Black and Filipino. 

Cynthia Choi, executive director of the national group Stop AAPI Hate, also spoke at the news conference and joined calls for a federal investigation into Wells’ death. She also condemned “patterns of harassment and intimidation” his family has faced, including those directed at Christine Wonsley’s workplace. 

Stop AAPI Hate was formed in 2020 during a surge in incidents of anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Christine and Elmore Wonsley were in California over the weekend where she was honored by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, which hosted its 30th anniversary celebration and showed support for their family. 

At the event, Christine Wonsley received the “Voice of Courage Award” for seeking answers and transparency about what happened to her son. She was also recognized for a career of caring for others as a nurse practitioner. 

“I never thought I would be in this position,” Wonsley said Monday about receiving the award and her advocacy. “I never thought I would be someone who was giving a voice to so many who feel like they have none because our justice system has told us to just take the answers you have been given.”

More than a year after breaking ground, Jackson residents and city officials gathered Monday morning to celebrate the opening of Farish Street Green and Urban Forest, a project that has transformed a once-vacant lot in one of the city’s historic neighborhoods into a cooling green space intended to combat extreme heat.

Along North Farish Street, young sycamores, maples and sumacs are beginning to spread their branches over grass, walking trails and lounge areas, replacing a landscape that offered little refuge from the summer heat.

The project grew out of research begun by the nonprofit 2C Mississippi in late 2020 to examine extreme heat in Jackson. Data gathered by volunteers from Jackson State University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center found that parts of downtown could be more than 10 degrees hotter during the summer than areas on the city’s outskirts. The findings helped spur plans to add trees and green space along Farish Street.

It was made in partnership with Tree Urban Design, Jackson Community Design Center and the Jackson Redevelopment Authority — costing around $500,000, according to Tree Urban Design Architect Travis Crabtree. 

“If you’re sitting there thinking, I hope this wraps up before it gets too hot. That’s the whole point,” Ward 7 Councilmember Kevin Parkison said to the crowd. 

The project is a part of an effort to eliminate urban heat islands — which suffer from higher temperatures because of asphalt and concrete. The addition of trees and other greenery aims to create shaded areas and reduce ambient temperatures.

2C Mississippi founder Dominika Parry said the alarmingly high heat in the area, alongside the historical significance of the area, made it easy to choose where to place the green space.

The project will continue to monitor temperature and humidity in the area over the next two years using stationary and handheld sensors. The findings will be used to help develop future projects to reduce Jackson’s urban heat islands, if data shows the tree canopies lower the area’s temperature, Parry said.

“The idea for 2C Mississippi is to provide as many projects as there is a demand,” Parry said in an interview Friday.

This is not the final project the 2C Mississippi and Tree Urban Design are working with the city to tackle.

2C Mississippi is using its resources to green areas for flood control near the Jackson Zoo. Tree Urban Green has been working alongside the city of Jackson and the Jackson River District Partnership to revitalize a 30-acre landfill near Old Brandon Road into a riverfront park.

Tree Urban Design has also announced plans in conjunction with developer Gabriel Padro to revitalize the abandoned YMCA building in the greater Belhaven area into a mixed residential recreational space. The City Council approved rezoning the area in August. 

The 9-acre space will cost $60 million to redevelop.

“We’re planning some new exciting improvements that should be hopefully starting early this fall or early this spring,” Crabtree said.

Farish Street Green’s opening marks a new chapter for the historic district in downtown Jackson that was once the hub of Black-owned businesses  — with hopes that the revitalization will help the city’s efforts to breathe new life into the area. 

“Projects like this can help create momentum and encourage additional investment and contribute to continued monopolization to Farish Street and downtown Jackson,” city spokesperson Nic Lott said at the green space’s ribbon cutting.

SCOTLANDVILLE, La. — If you cross the Mississippi River on the Huey P. Long-O.K. Allen Bridge, pass the Exxon Refinery, then head north for a few minutes, you’ll find a pocket of Louisiana that’s unlike any other place in America’s never-ending battle over what it means to have equal representation.

Here is Scotlandville, which was once its own unincorporated town but is now part of Baton Rouge. It’s a nearly all-Black community of 10,000 people that has been, for the second time, shuffled around on the state’s congressional map to make it part of a majority white district. Both times it was during the term of the same representative.

The first time was 1996, when a group of voters sued to redraw the lines. The second time was earlier this year, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a core part of the Voting Rights Act intended to protect minorities’ political rights was unconstitutional.

The ruling led to cascading changes around the American South, but the case originated in Louisiana — specifically the 6th Congressional District that included Scotlandville. This is where Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields, 63, grew up poor and attended local schools before graduating from nearby Southern University A&M, eventually climbing the ranks to the U.S. House.

Now he plans to leave Washington and return to the Legislature instead of running for reelection in a race that he sees little chance of winning because the district boundaries have been altered dramatically. Scotlandville will no longer be represented by a native son, someone who people believed instinctively understood their challenges and offered a direct line to power and influence in the nation’s capital.

“We’re back to where we were right after Reconstruction,” said Press Robinson Sr., 89, who has spent years working on issues involving the congressional map. “When they redistrict, they are not concerned about the effect it has on those of us who are people of color.”

The methods have changed over the years, he said, but the intent has not.

“They disenfranchise people of color and they’ve done it again,” Robinson said.

Fields’ career echoes legal battle for representation

Congressional districts are core to debates over racial equality in the South, where white leaders spent decades using gerrymandering to ensure Black people couldn’t gain enough power to elect their own representatives.

The Voting Rights Act signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 was supposed to fix that. Among other things, it required states and jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to get approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before congressional maps could take effect. It also allowed people to sue to challenge laws and procedures that would deny them the chance to elect candidates of their choice.

That didn’t settle the issue, however, and there has been a series of legal battles since then. Fields’ political career has tracked those twists and turns over the years.

He first came to Congress in 1993 when Scotlandville was part of the 4th District, which had been redrawn to create a majority-Black seat. A federal court said in 1996 the boundaries that zigzagged from northwest portion of the state to the Baton Rouge area were unconstitutional.

Scotlandville shifted to the 6th District, which was then predominantly white, and Fields became a state senator. But he had an opening to return to Washington when Robinson and other plaintiffs challenged how the state drew its maps following the 2020 census.

A 2023 court decision involving Alabama also affected Louisiana, requiring the state to draw new district lines to achieve fairer representation for minorities. The district became majority-Black again, and Fields won the seat in 2024.

Another wave of litigation was already starting, and the issue soon reached the U.S. Supreme Court once more. The new lawsuit by a group of non-Black voters dovetailed with a separate effort by President Donald Trump to push Republican-led states to redraw their maps to help his party keep control of Congress in this year’s midterms.

The high court’s conservative majority said Fields’ district was unconstitutional. Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee raced to redo their U.S. House districts in time for the November elections.

In Alabama, Democratic Rep. Shomari Figueres is fighting to hold onto his seat, where Black voting age population dropped from 50% to 40% under the new political lines, according to an Associated Press analysis of the citizen voting age population in his redrawn district. In Tennessee, the majority Black district anchored by Memphis was split between three others.

Fields’ district went from being 53% Black to 25% in the new one. He announced in July that he wasn’t going to run for reelection.

Blocks from the main entrance to Southern University A&M, a small crowd hung around a convenience store, but people were unwilling to talk about politics, eyeing strangers suspiciously. One younger man said he didn’t know who represents the area on the city council, let alone in Congress.

Frank Levy, 56, the cashier, said people’s apathy created the political environment that allowed for gerrymandering to occur again.

“A lot of people don’t even think about politics like this,” he said. “They don’t understand.”

About five minutes away, Dakasha Caulfield Leonard, 48, sat in the chapel of Scott’s Bluff Morticians, a nearly century-old fixture in the business community. Leonard returned two years ago to take over the funeral home when her father, who purchased it in the 1990s, became ill. She is worried about what will happen when Fields is no longer in office.

“The community is small and everybody knows everybody. Cleo is a member of our community,” she said. “If he doesn’t speak up and carry our voices, there’s nobody else to do that for us.”

Scotlandville has struggled for investment

Scenic Highway is one of the main thoroughfares in Scotlandville, and it once featured family businesses and restaurants as part of a prosperous self-contained Black community.

It’s faded overtime. The centerpiece boulevard has become blighted by empty lots and vacant buildings.

But deeper into the community is the Louisiana Leadership Institute, a sprawling complex that includes a full-scale gymnasium, classrooms, a fine arts center, a football field and a stadium with artificial turf. A thousand-seat amphitheater is being built.

The campus is the legacy of Fields, who founded the institute as the Congressional Classroom in 1993, during his first stint in Washington, and secured a mix of public and private funding for it. Over the decades since, it has hosted government, civics and leadership classes, and it’s created opportunities to travel and experience art and music and see government work in Washington.

“I wanted to engage young people,” Fields said. “Everything you see with the institute is result of me being a member of Congress.” The goal, he said, was to bring the workings of the federal government and other experiences to kids who had grown up like him.

Baton Rouge Councilman Anthony Kenney Jr., 29, is one of the human legacies, taking advantage of the course offerings, training and opportunities at the center as a young student.

“Congressman Fields is someone I’ve known my entire life,” Kenney said. “I actually grew up in the Louisiana Leadership Institute. I was talking about civics, how to get involved in government, how to do policy, how to move legislation as a young child.”

Kenney is now responsible for improving the roads, plumbing, drainage and sidewalks around Scotlandville, describing it as essential for attracting new businesses.

He said it was “devastating” to see what happened to Fields.

“It’s important for us to have representation that not only is from here, raised here, but actually lived through that same experiences,” Kenney said.

____

Associated Press data reporter Hannah Recht in Washington contributed to this report.

A panel of state lawmakers heard from 11 state agency leaders on Thursday and Friday about their proposed spending for fiscal year 2028.

Nearly every agency asked for more money as legislators begin the work of setting a more than $7 billion state budget.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee will issue its recommendations and revenue estimate later this year, but the final budget will be set during the regular legislative session that begins in January.

For fiscal year 2027, which started July 1, lawmakers passed a $7.5-billion state-funded budget, part of a $29 billion total budget that includes federal money.

With state revenue expected to remain more or less flat over the next few years due to tax cuts and the economy, legislators are carefully watching spending and as Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said multiple times in the hearings, lawmakers do not like running deficits.

Legislators had a lot of questions for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency as it raised concerns about its coffers after recent disasters, such as Winter Storm Fern, which has become the state’s second most expensive disaster after Hurricane Katrina. They also had many questions for the state Institutions of Higher Learning, over a controversial new funding formula for universities.

Institutions of Higher Learning

IHL’s hearing was perhaps the most contentious hearing. Legislators pressed its leaders for over an hour and a half. The questions were primarily over the move toward a performance based funding model and whether the universities would fund to metrics such as graduation rates, student income after graduation and cost per student.  

IHL asked for an increase of $93 million for a total education and general fund request of around $561 million for the coming budget year. Legislators questioned IHL leadership about whether the additional money is needed, how much universities are spending per student and the financial health of the schools amid declining enrollment. They pushed for more funding to be tied to performance. Lawmakers made it clear that their priority is graduating more students and preparing them for the workforce.

Legislators questioned the willingness of the agency’s board to find cost savings through shared resources and by turning around financially struggling schools, and asked what IHL would do if the Legislature approved the same funding as the current year. 

Alfred Rankins Jr., commissioner of higher education, defended IHL’s approach but said the board is committed to improvement and supporting the universities. 

The Office of Student Financial Aid is facing a “significant” deficit in fiscal year 2027 due, in part, to changes in federal student aid and increasing the number of eligible students. Earlier this year, the FAITH scholarship, which is given to former foster youth, faced a funding gap until the Woodward Hines Education Foundation stepped in with a one-time gift of $800,000.

MEMA says it ‘won’t make it to June’

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency again raised alarms about its funding in a year that saw three federally declared disasters in the state — Winter Storm Fern in January, tornadoes in May and Tropical Storm Arthur in June. 

The agency’s “Disaster Assistance Trust Fund” is critically low — at about half its usual level — considering what future disasters may be around the corner, MEMA executive director Stephen McCraney said Thursday. 

The agency’s disaster trust fund — which includes money for the state’s match of federal disaster aid, mission assignments and payments to the National Guard — stood at $6.7 million, MEMA chief deputy Crystal Thompson said Thursday.

“I won’t make it to June,” McCraney said. “Not at this current burn rate.”

In the Fern recovery, the state has so far spent $86 million to match federal funding for  “other needs” aid, part of FEMA’s Individual Assistance program that covers costs for things such as funerals, hotel stays and childcare. FEMA covers 75% of the costs and the state pays the remaining 25%. 

The Legislature put another $20 million in the disaster trust fund this past session, but MEMA has already spent that money matching FEMA aid, the agency said. 

MEMA requested a $70 million budget for fiscal year 2028, nearly twice what it had estimated spending for the current year. 

Medicaid’s increasing price tag after COVID

The Division of Medicaid is asking for an additional $179 million for a total request of $1.3 billion from the state. The Legislature provided more money to Medicaid for this fiscal year but the division is still anticipating a deficit of $34 million. And the department’s request for the upcoming fiscal year could continue to change.

It is one of the state’s largest expenditures and about a quarter of the state’s population is enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The number of people enrolled has decreased, but the end of increased federal COVID money means that the cost to the state continues to rise even as enrollment has dropped.

Child Protection Services requests large increase

The Department of Child Protection Services requested an increase of about $52 million for a total of over $200 million in state funds. 

The agency wants to add 47 attorney positions, partly due to recent Youth Court reforms the Legislature passed during a special session. Around $34 million of the additional money would go to contractual services, including contractors to handle the agency’s large caseload. 

One of the requirements of the Olivia Y lawsuit, a federal consent order focused on the safety of children in care of the state’s long-troubled foster system, is for the department to request enough money to meet the lawsuit’s safety standards. Hosemann said that for the past two years the agency has run an annual deficit of $35 million.

“We want them to budget realistically, particularly Child Protective Services,” Hosemann said, “We’re wanting them to be funded to adequately do their job and we don’t need for them to be short funded and have to come up with $35 million at the end of the year.” 

Despite deficit, court system lowers its request

Legislators acknowledged there have been many changes in state courts over the last year, including the recent Youth Court Reform Act. 

The Administrative Office of Courts has added contractors to handle intake from Youth Courts and will add nine new Youth Court judges next year.

The office is anticipating a deficit of nearly $3 million this year. The office, which includes the state Supreme Court, youth and electronic courts and court interpreters, said this is due to the system coming under oversight of the state Personnel Board and not receiving enough funding.  

Despite changes to the office and this year’s deficit, the overall budget request for the next fiscal year is $6 million less than the previous year for a total of close to $34 million.

Demand increases for mental health services

Mississippians’ unmet mental health needs continue to be critical. The state’s suicide death rate has risen in recent years while the national number has declined, according to federal health data.  

Wendy Bailey, the Department of Mental Health’s director, requested roughly $10 million more than the Legislature gave the department for the current year. 

She said $4.5 million of the additional request would be for the department to fund community services for 200 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After Bailey told lawmakers that about 2,700 Mississippians were on a waiting list for the program, Hosemann asked why Bailey hadn’t requested more money. He asked a similar question after Bailey said the beds were full at a Brookhaven intellectual and developmental disability youth home.

Bailey responded that plenty of substance use, mental health and disability problems in the state are not being funded. 

“There are many, many more things I can add to the budget request,” Bailey said. “This is not an area that we are seeing a decrease in demand of services.”

Office of Workforce Development wants to expand

Accelerate Mississippi, the state office of workforce development, wants to expand its programs in the coming budget year.

The agency requested over $7 million, an increase of $2.5 million. The additional money would go to increasing staffing and covering increased costs of services to train more workers and meet industry demand in the state. 

Health Department requests no increase

Dr. Dan Edney, Mississippi’s state health officer, requested level funding, no major increase, for the Mississippi State Department of Health for the third year in a row. The department requested a budget of over $90 million from the state.

Edney said the agency has worked to reduce overhead on operations in order to maintain services in spite of significant inflationary pressure in healthcare. 

Edney said the agency hopes to allocate more of its money to developmental support and services for young children and their families, even as it maintains its current funding level. 

Public Safety wants salary increases

The Department of Public Safety requested a budget increase of around $30 million from about $167 million to $197 million.

Most of the money would go to salary increases and making salaries for sworn officers competitive at a base of $65,000.

Correction 10/5/2026: This article and a photo caption have been updated to correct Commissioner of Higher Education Alfred Rankins Jr.’s title.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has posted a steady stream of food recalls, following a summer with historic rates of cyclospora-induced illnesses and several products with potential salmonella contamination. Mississippi Today talked to food safety experts to learn about top concerns, how food safety is addressed in Mississippi and how food systems are linked.

What are the active food recalls in Mississippi now?

Several active food recalls in Mississippi include some of Prime Line Distributor’s ready-to-eat pork products potentially contaminated with Listeria, Graziers raw milk cheeses from Sierra Nevada Cheese Company potentially contaminated with E. coli and raw meat products that were produced without federal inspection.

The recalls come in three classes, depending on the level of risk. Class I is for probable serious health risks, including death, such as E. coli or Listeria. Class II recalls have a remote chance of adverse health effects, and Class III recalls violate regulations but are unlikely to cause harm. 

Mississippians should know that recalls are very specific to certain brands, product names, use or freeze by dates and lot numbers, said Courtney Crist, a food safety specialist at the Mississippi State University. All information must match for a product to be considered part of the recall, she said, and one product being recalled does not mean every food of that category is unsafe. 

“Do not try to make a recalled food item safe,” she cautioned, recommending that consumers properly dispose of their purchases or return them for a refund. 

Should I be concerned about cyclospora in Mississippi?

Asked if Mississippians should be concerned about lettuce on their grocery shelves, State Epidemiologist Renia Dotson offered a succinct answer. 

“No, I don’t,” she said, while recommending people wash or scrub their fruits and vegetables as a general safety practice.   

On Sept. 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared an end to the multi-state cyclospora outbreak. Officials linked nearly 13,000 confirmed cases to this outbreak, the largest in modern U.S. history. 

Mississippi’s cyclospora cases, however, were not linked to the multi-state outbreak, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health. On July 15, the department temporarily made cyclosporasis a reportable disease in order to “do our part” and provide more data for the CDC investigation, Dotson said. Mississippi was previously one of three states, along with Idaho and Pennsylvania, that did not require clinicians or laboratories to report positive cases to the state Health Department. Dotson said Mississippi has not previously seen large numbers of the illness and that mandated reporting began, not due to increased cyclospora cases, but to contribute to the national database. 

On Aug. 22, Mississippi had 33 confirmed cases of cyclospora, Dotson said. For each confirmed case, nurses and a team of epidemiologists conducted an extensive interview with the affected person that included what they ate, where they ate it and when their symptoms started. 

“Each one seems to be an independent case on its own, and none of them trace back to the actual multi-state outbreak,” she said. 

Cyclosporasis tends to be a seasonal infection that runs from May to the end of August, Dotson said. Positive cases can emerge later because the disease can incubate for two or more weeks. 

Should I be concerned about salmonella in Mississippi?

Several recalls remain active for salmonella, a bacteria that causes illness year-round and has been reportable in Mississippi for decades.

“We’re always looking at salmonella,” Dotson said. 

Amid multi-state outbreaks of salmonella reported in jalapeno and eggs, Mississippi had some stores in the recall distribution chain but no confirmed cases linking salmonella to either outbreak, Dotson said. On Sept. 3, the CDC closed the investigation into potentially salmonella-contaminated eggs. The jalapeno investigation remains ongoing.

To test for clustered salmonella cases, state public health laboratories send samples through genomic sequencing and add it to a national CDC database called PulseNet. The amount of similar genetic sequences shows how closely bacterial samples are linked. If the samples reveal striking resemblances to a similar sequence, epidemiologists know it is connected to a certain outbreak.  

How can I keep myself safe from foodborne illnesses?

Experts recommended the following measures:

• Stay up to date on food recalls through the FDA and USDA websites, or sign up for email alerts;
• Pay attention to recall notices from grocery stores. If you have a shopper’s card at Kroger or Costco, for instance, you will get emails about their food recalls; 
• Clean fruits and vegetables, even produce that is pre-washed;
• Wash your hands, utensils, and kitchen surfaces often, including before food preparation and eating;
• Separate raw meat, poultry, eggs and seafood from foods that are ready to eat, to help prevent cross-contamination;
• Refrigerate and freeze foods promptly, such as by refrigerating perishable foods within two hours, or one hour if food is exposed to temperatures above 90°F;
• Buy produce locally when possible, such as at farmer’s markets;
• Be aware of your risk level. Young children, older adults, pregnant people and those with weakened immune systems have a higher risk of severe symptoms from foodborne illnesses.

Grocery shoppers who see a recalled product or concerning product on store shelves can scan the QR code on a Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce regulatory inspection sticker to report it, said Andy Gipson, the department’s commissioner. The red, white and blue stickers are placed throughout grocery stores and the checkout counter. 

What should I do if I think I am sick with a foodborne illness?

First, seek medical care, Dotson advises. From there, medical providers can offer tests for different foodborne illnesses. A cyclospora test is not included in the routine panel and has to be specifically asked for by the patient. 

Why have foodborne illnesses been so prominent this year? 

It’s hard to say whether food is getting less safe or not, but the whole food distribution system is under stress right now, said Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University. 

“When you have a system under stress, failures do tend to happen more,” she said. The challenges start from the farms under stress from increased labor and fuel costs. They then spread all the way up the supply chain to distributors and escalating retail costs. Then, there’s public health agencies and regulatory agencies overseeing the safety of the food supply. 

As an example, Kowalcyk brought up the CDC’s parasitology group, once comprised of 11 staff members who were in charge of coordinating outbreak response across states and internationally. Part of the CDC team’s funding came from a different federal agency that was responsible for foreign aid and development, USAID. After the Trump administration cut USAID funds in early 2025, the CDC team was reduced to three staff members. 

Part of USAID’s work was funding water sanitation and hygiene programs in countries that import produce into the U.S. 

“And when you’re talking about cyclospora, you’re talking about contaminated agricultural water in all likelihood, or processing water,” Kowalcyk said. 

She thinks it’s important to understand that beyond the number of outbreaks, people should be aware of how quickly a response is mounted. Kowalcyk likens food safety to a fishnet. If the fishnet has big holes, it can only catch big fish, and not many. “Ideally you’ll have a strong fishnet with smaller holes so you can catch fish when they’re smaller, before they become a problem,” she said. 

 Who’s in charge of food safety in Mississippi?

Recalls are handled by two federal agencies. The FDA covers about 80% of the U.S. food supply, including fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs, packaged foods, dietary supplements and seafood, except catfish. The U. S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, handles recalled meat, poultry, processed egg products and catfish. However, most recalls are voluntary and come after the distributing company identified a health hazard in its product.  

The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce has a team of about 200 food safety inspectors in grocery stores working with store managers to make sure recalled products have been taken off the shelves. 

“We’re the boots on the ground making sure that lettuce is not being offered for sale at the Dollar General if it’s under a recall,” Gipson said, as an example.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Health is in charge of restaurant and food facility inspections, conducted one to four times a year, depending on the facility’s risk level. 

Gipson emphasized that the level of food safety in the U.S. is the “gold standard.” 

“There’s no country that has the high level of food safety protocols that we have,” he said. “I feel very good about the safety of our food in Mississippi.” Gipson also encouraged Mississippians to shop for local food, which tends to be fresher than grocery store products.

In the most recent Global Food Security Index report, the U.S. ranked third out of 113 countries on the “Quality and Safety” pillar in 2022. Crist acknowledged this general safety with a caveat, saying, “The United States has many safeguards to protect its food supply, but no food system is completely free of risk.”

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

The process of developing a state budget for Mississippi is never-ending. There are steps in the process occuring nearly year-round.

Work in earnest – at least the work seen by the public – began last week on Mississippi’s $32-plus billion state budget to fund education, public healthcare, law enforcement, transportation and other services.

The 14-member Joint Legislative Budget Committee met publicly for two days to hear from some state agency leaders on their budget requests for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Before the 2027 legislative session begins on Jan. 5 (always the first Tuesday after the first Monday of the year), the Budget Committee will develop a budget recommendation. That proposal serves as a guide or starting point for legislators when they meet in the new year to develop a plan to fund all state services.

Used to, the Budget Committee, which includes the lieutenant governor and speaker who alternate yearly as the chair of the panel, would meet for a month in late summer or early fall to hear from scores of state agencies about budget requests.

Now, the Budget Committee meets with a select few and depends on written requests that agency leaders had been working on during the summer. It is of note that the work on the next fiscal year’s budget begins behind the scenes for the agency leaders not long after the current budget year started on July 1.

In short, work on state agency budgets is a never-ending process.

One of the key steps in that process is when the Budget Committee and governor meet in the fall to develop a revenue estimate. That estimate represents the amount of revenue anticipated to be collected by the state during the upcoming fiscal year which runs  from July 1 until June 30 of the following year.

If actual revenue collections do not meet that estimate, the governor is forced to make mid-year budget cuts or dip into reserve funds to offset the shortfall.

During the legislative session, which begins in January, as stated earlier, the Legislature will work to appropriate the anticipated revenue to fund state services. The revenue estimate made by the governor and Budget Committee is important since knowing how much money is available is a crucial step in any budgeting process. But its importance is mitigated by the fact that the Budget Committee can, and often does, meet during the legislative session sans the governor to change that estimate.

At any rate, near the end of the three-month session (about four months the first year of every four-year term), legislators are supposed to come up with a budget.

Often, they have to extend the session or go into special session when they have disagreements or roadblocks to completing the budget, but it always gets done.

This current fiscal year, the overall state budget is a whopping $32.02 billion, including $13.11 billion in federal funds,

Federal funds make up a significant portion of the budgets for multiple state agencies, including Medicaid, Human Services, Environmental Quality and Transportation.

The portion of the budget that receives the most attention is the general fund (mostly revenue from such items as the sales tax, income tax and a litany of other taxes, including the so-called sin taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.) The general fund is often combined with the state-support funds, which include other taxes and revenue, such as  the 1-cent sales tax for education, the annual tobacco lawsuit settlement payments and others.

The general fund and state support funds total $9.22 billion. These are the funds legislators have the most discretion in how they are spent and are the funds that generally result in the most disagreements in the process.

The budget also is made up of $9.68 billion in special funds, generally fees or taxes to fund specific agencies. A lot of these agencies are small, such as boards that regulate various professions. The groups being regulated pay a fee to operate the agency. The largest special fund agency is the Department of Transportation, which is funded with a motor fuel tax and with federal funds.

There are multiple steps and moving parts associated with building a state budget each year. Yet, somehow those agencies are always funded.

And the budget cycle never stops.

STARKVILLE — Kamario Taylor has had far better days this season and even last year as a freshman. He will have many much better days in the future. As has been written in this column several times, the gifted quarterback will win many, many big games at Mississippi State.

But this sunny, humid Saturday at Scott Field was a reminder of two important facts:

• One, for all his remarkable ability and his accomplishments to date, Taylor is 19 years young and will not turn 20 until February. Saturday was only his sixth college start. As good as he is, he’s far from as good as he will become. He made mistakes that cost State dearly.
• Two, Alabama is still Alabama, which is elite. And we could add a third important factor: Crimson Tide quarterback Keelon Russell, like Taylor only a sophomore, seems a lock to be the next in line of so many splendid Crimson Tide quarterbacks (think Starr, Namath, McCarron, Hurts, Tagovailoa, Young and so many more). 

Russell, strong-armed and so uncommonly quick, passed for three touchdowns and ran for another as No. 7 Alabama raced past No. 16 Mississippi State 56-23 to remain undefeated and unceremoniously knock the Bulldogs from the ranks of unbeaten. 

If you saw Russell play in in Alabama’s first two games and then saw him again against State, you can be excused for thinking you were watching two different quarterbacks. In a month’s time, the Duncanville, Texas, native has become much more efficient, much more confident and sure of himself, much quicker with his decisions. Saturday, he completed 16 of 22 throws for 275 yards and used his quickness and speed to escape State defenders, buy himself some time, and make accurate throws down the field. 

Some of Russell’s throws, particularly a couple of perfect back-shoulder tosses, almost didn’t seem fair. State defensive backs seemed in perfect position, running step for step with the receiver, and then the receiver stopped, turned around and snagged a perfectly timed pass. 

State defensive back Isaac Smith, one of the Bulldogs’ veteran leaders, offered no excuses. “Russell is a really good player, but we shot ourselves in the foot,” Smith said. “That’s on us, the players. It’s not on the coaches, not on the crowd. I apologize to our fans. I’ll take the blame. I’m the leader on the back end, and we just didn’t do our job.”

There were excuses that could have been made. Taylor came into the game hobbled with a lower leg injury, didn’t play the fourth quarter and limped off the field with his foot in a protective boot. Said State coach Jeff Lebby, “Kamario wasn’t able to do anything with his legs.” As anyone who has watched Taylor play knows, his long legs – and his foot speed – are so much of what make him who he is. 

Taylor did manage to throw for 258 yards and three touchdowns, but he suffered two interceptions, one a pick-6, and he lost a fumble. All three mistakes led to Alabama touchdowns.

The fumble actually led to Alabama’s first score when Taylor seemed to pump fake a pass, but the ball tumbled out of his hands. Bama recovered. Officials reviewed the play and the call on the field, a fumble, stood. Alabama quickly scored.

Some day, perhaps, someone will explain that rule to me in a way I can understand it. Taylor’s arm was moving forward, the ball went forward and I’ve seen that ruled an incomplete pass as often as not. Maybe you have to be a mind reader to officiate that call. If so, clearly some refs read minds differently than others.

On State’s next possession, Taylor simply threw a bad pass, nowhere near the intended receiver, which Alabama cornerback Dijon Lee snatched out of the air and returned 30 yards for a second touchdown.

That was two touchdowns in 71 seconds, no way to start a game against anybody, much less against Alabama.

Lebby praised Taylor for his courage and grit, but at the same time also stated the obvious, that Taylor has to be more careful with the ball. 

State’s other valid excuse was that the Dogs’ best back by far, Fluff Bothwell, was banged up coming into the game and carried only one time for 1 yard before retiring to the sidelines. His absence was glaring.

But then, when Alabama loses a great back, the Tide just plugs in another, and they all run behind mammoth, yet mobile, offensive linemen who look as if they just walked off an NFL bus. Bama won the line of scrimmage on both sides as it usually does in this lopsided series which the Bulldogs have won only 17 of 109 meetings. 

At times, this writer felt as if I was watching a rerun of a bad movie I’ve seen maybe 25 or 30 times before. Indeed, Alabama has now won 17 straight games over State by an average of 26 points per game. 

Maybe a healthy Kamario Taylor is the quarterback who can finally snap that streak. State will have to improve greatly across both lines and play much more efficiently, Taylor included, to do so. Until then, the Tide will keep on rolling.

NEW YORK — Two months past his 90th birthday, Buddy Guy is still up for a little bragging, a lot of cursing and a long night of partying.

The blues great was celebrated Thursday night with a sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall in New York, where a lineup of guest musicians and a house band led by Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan had the audience on its feet for much of the three-hour-plus “Buddy’s Got the Blues” concert.

Guy himself was only on stage part of the time, but his name was heard throughout, and his spirit always present. One of the last of the Chicago bluesmen who thrived in the mid-20th century, Guy has become so much the ideal of the genre that musicians didn’t need to perform his songs to summon his legend.

John Mayer, with an ache in his voice on Otis Redding’s “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” and Eric Gales and Joe Bonamassa jamming on the Jimmy Reed standard “Baby What You Want Me to Do,” seemed as fitting as Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks reviving an old Guy-Junior Wells favorite, “Messin’ with the Kid.”

But no one was going to top the guest of honor. Guy, wearing a dark cap, dark pants and a polka dot shirt, opened the show with a long, raunchy acoustic workout of John Lee Hooker’s “I’m in the Mood” and only seemed to get friskier after bringing out his electric guitar.

He leered and joked with longtime friend Shemekia Copeland on a duet of “Rock Me Baby,” left no doubt about the meaning of “to buzz all night long” in Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” and carried on a lot more when joined by one of his few contemporaries, Bobby Rush, just a month away from his 93rd birthday. Everyone came on at the end for an all-out, self-fulfilling “Got My Mojo Workin.’”

Guy is still making plans. His team announced this week that he has a new album out next year, produced by Jordan and featuring multi-instrumentalist Ivan Neville, bassist Willie Weeks and others who played at Radio City Music Hall.

Guy didn’t seem at first to have a lot on his mind Thursday besides the next double entendre or the next profanity. “Help me f—k up this song,” he liked to call out. But the tributes offered by the younger performers and the presence of Rush, who testified that he would have walked from Mississippi just to be here, left him moved and near tears.

“I didn’t think this many people would be coming out for a 90 year old man,” Guy said, after confiding he didn’t have the strength to blow out that many “f—kin’ candles” on the cakes brought out at the end. “This is the greatest day I ever had in my life.”

The Mississippi Division of Medicaid asked lawmakers for a roughly $179 million increase in state spending for the coming fiscal year after receiving a steep increase last year that squeezed other parts of the state’s budget. 

The proposed increase for the fiscal year beginning in July 2027 represents a 15% increase over last year. The agency is also anticipating a $34 million budget shortfall for the current fiscal year.

But Mississippi Medicaid’s $1.3 billion state funding request is expected to change again, Cindy Bradshaw, the state’s executive director for Medicaid, told the Joint Legislative Budget Committee at a Friday hearing.

“The one thing I can guarantee you is that will not be the amount that we need,” she said. “This is a fluid process, and it changes quickly.” 

For example, officials learned Thursday the federal government will increase the share of money it pays toward the state Medicaid program in 2027. Mississippi’s federal matching rate will increase slightly — by .0024% — for the upcoming fiscal year, said Bradshaw. This is expected to reduce the agency’s request by roughly $25 million.

Medicaid is one of the state’s largest budget items, accounting for roughly a 10th of the state’s spending. The agency’s total projected budget for the upcoming fiscal year is $9.4 billion, including federal funds. 

The agency administers health coverage to nearly 700,000 children and low-income pregnant, disabled and elderly Mississippians. The program’s enrollment is at its lowest level in over a decade and decreased by about 7,500 people in the past year. 

Mississippi Medicaid has launched initiatives to lower costs, Bradshaw said. Efforts include audits of contractors and long-term care facilities, reviewing prior authorizations and reducing managed care companies’ profit margins. Managed care companies receive per-member payments to maintain a provider network and implement programs intended to improve health outcomes for enrollees.

The agency’s requested increase is smaller than its ask last year early in the budgeting process of nearly $390 million. Lawmakers were stunned by the request and baffled by Gov. Tate Reeves’ roughly $160-million-lower proposal. Reeves’ office oversees Medicaid. 

Lawmakers ultimately approved a roughly $200 million increase in Medicaid’s budget for the current fiscal year, setting aside $100 million from the state’s capital expense fund. The fund is a reserve intended for one-time expenses, such as repairs and renovations of state-owned properties. State legislators also approved a $35 million deficit appropriation to cover a shortfall for the prior fiscal year.

Medicaid officials said last year’s large funding increase was the result of a a reserve of funds leftover from the COVID-19 pandemic running out, which necessitated a significant boost in state appropriations to maintain services at the same level.

After lawmakers balked at the agency’s budget request for the current fiscal year, Bradshaw warned in January that underfunding the agency could force it to cut payments to providers. 

State agencies present budget requests to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee in the fall. The committee makes recommendations in December, and most appropriations bills are passed by lawmakers in the latter months of the legislative session, which ends in April.