OurTupelo

There’s growing concern across the country about potential impacts of data centers amid announcements of new ones being built. Conservative estimates put the expected capital expenditures around $3 trillion through 2030. In Mississippi:

• Southaven residents showed up to oppose an environmental permit for Elon Musk’s xAI to operate 41 natural gas turbines in Southaven to power its data center complex in the greater Memphis area. Mississippi Today reporters attended the meeting and spoke with residents about the noise and pollution from the company’s power plant.
• The Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice are threatening to sue xAI on behalf of the NAACP, claiming the company’s power generation in Southaven violates the federal Clean Air Act.
• Beyond tax dollars, some Mississippi companies are benefitting from the data center build out, especially those supplying and building the centers.
• Mississippi has five data center projects and potentially more in the works. The artificial intelligence boom across the country is helping drive demand for construction workers, especially high-skill positions such as electricians and HVAC technicians. A bill that passed the state House last week would provide some funding for Mississippi construction training programs and could help meet the demand.

A dry spell for some Mississippi liquor stores

These are turbulent times for Mississippi’s alcohol industry as the Alcoholic Beverage Control warehouse, the state-run distribution center, is running weeks behind on deliveries of wine and liquor with no immediate remedy. 

• Some businesses are worried about staying open and losing customers due to shortages. 
• 1.5% of the tax revenue collected by the Department of Revenue in 2025 came from ABC.
• Lawmakers discussed potential solutions this week but it is expected to be another month before the warehouse is halfway through its backlog.

$65 million in investment coming to Mississippi

• Spartan Composites, a Florida company that manufactures composite materials, is setting up some operations in Lee County. It’s expected to bring in $49 million in investment and create 45 jobs. 
• Texas-based Firehawk Aerospace is coming to Lowndes County. The defense technology company will invest $16.5 million and create 100 jobs.

Share your thoughts with me on data center, manufacturing or wine. Also, if you’ve tried vibe coding, let’s chat. marketplace@mississippitoday.org.

Slightly more students are graduating in Mississippi, and fewer students are dropping out.

The Mississippi Department of Education announced Thursday that the state’s 2024-25 graduation rate is 90.8%, and the dropout rate is 7%. The numbers represent students who were freshmen in 2021-22, more than a year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The new figures are an improvement on last year’s, when the graduation rate was 89.2% and the dropout rate was 8.5%.

The dropout rate has steadily decreased since 2023, and the graduation rate has been trending upward for years, aside from a slight drop — less than 1 percentage point — last year.

The latest numbers, which do not include students who earned a GED or a certificate of completion, are lower for students with disabilities: a 71.1% graduation rate and a dropout rate of 14.6%. The graduation rate is still higher than in 2025. 

A news release from the department notes that the improved numbers are due to targeted interventions, including more options for meeting graduation requirements and a focus on career and technical education programs.

“These results reflect the hard work of teachers, administrators, parents, and, of course, students,” said Lance Evans, state superintendent of education, in a statement. “With continued support from the state Legislature to provide funding, MDE is committed to supporting students with innovative programs and educators with professional learning opportunities designed to produce continued progress across the state.” 

The Mississippi School of the Arts and Union Public School District graduated 100% of their students this past year, according to the state data. Other districts with the state’s highest graduation rates include the Mississippi School for Math and Science, Benton County School District and Alcorn School District.

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.

On Feb. 3, the Senate Education Committee unanimously voted down House Bill 2, legislation that proposed a significant expansion of school choice in Mississippi. The debate that followed fell into well-worn lines of support and opposition.

However, I believe Mississippi could benefit from a more nuanced conversation about the matter. 

Mississippi’s public schools remain central to our education landscape, serving the vast majority of our children. They will continue to play that role regardless of new choice initiatives. Any debate that we have must be grounded in the fact that public schools matter, and they deserve our best investments. 

At the same time, supporting the central role of public schools should not mean ignoring the experiences of families who believe their assigned school is not meeting their child’s needs. This fall, Mississippi First commissioned a survey of a representative sample of parents in counties with C-, D-, and F-rated school districts that do not currently have charter schools. The results were clear: 

● 60.24% of the parents surveyed believe that only some children—or no children at all—have access to high-quality schools in their community.

● Only 17.5% believe that all children in their community have access to high-quality schools. 

● 91.8% of all adults surveyed believe parents should have a choice in where their child goes to school.

This data also aligns closely with my own experience. I am a product of Mississippi public schools, and my family exercised school choice more than 20 years ago by moving to a different school district for one reason – so I could attend a higher-performing high school.

That decision profoundly shaped my life and gave me firsthand insight into the power of attending a high-quality school. It is also why I fight for all children to have access to strong schools and why I am intentional about the schools my own children attend, a privilege that too many families do not have. 

When I speak candidly with other parents who have means – and set politics aside – many will acknowledge there are schools where they would not send their own children. Yet for the children who attend those schools, there is often no alternative. That reality deserves honesty, not defensiveness. 

It was the reality for many of the friends I grew up with. While I went on to attend school in one of the highest-performing districts in the state, many of my peers remained in a district that was later placed under state control for six years after spending nearly a decade on academic probation due to persistently low performance.

At the time, the only other option in our community was a small private academy founded in 1964, when many white families left the public school system to avoid integration. As a Black child, that school was not a viable option for me, and it is unclear whether it would have offered stronger academic outcomes than the public system. The district served roughly 1,600 students, many of whom did not have the means to move to another district, even if they wanted to. 

That experience continues to shape how I approach this debate. Choice already exists in Mississippi, but it is uneven, often tied to zip code, race and income. The question before policymakers is not whether choice should exist, but how to design policies that make access to high-quality schools less dependent on privilege and more rooted in public purpose. I believe this moment calls for a more thoughtful conversation about choice, one designed with a vision of all Mississippi children thriving.

In today’s policy debate around school choice, three primary approaches have been proposed. They are:

● Education Savings Accounts (ESAs): The Education Savings Account model proposed in House Bill 2 would allow up to 12,500 students to receive public funds for private education expenses through Magnolia Student Accounts, with half of those accounts available to students not previously enrolled in public schools. This approach would direct public dollars to private and unaccredited schools with limited requirements for academic transparency, accountability or evidence of effectiveness.

● Public School Portability: Public school portability in Mississippi would allow students to attend a public school outside of their assigned district, contingent on acceptance by the receiving district. While this can expand options within the public system, equitable access depends on transparent admissions practices, available capacity, transportation and administrative coordination.

● Expanding Public Charter Schools: Expanding public charter schools would mean authorizing additional tuition-free public schools beyond the narrow set of districts currently eligible under state law, where only 10 charter schools operate. The proposal that has been put forth would allow them to open in any district with a D- or F-rated school. 

Recently, Mississippi First released a position statement in which we oppose ESAs which fall short of bringing forth a design that supports strong public schools and meaningful options for families.

We support public school portability with caution. We believe that its effectiveness greatly depends on implementation guided by a high commitment to equity, and we recognize its limitations on serving kids who are most underserved.

Mississippi First strongly supports the expansion of public charter schools because they are designed to expand opportunity while serving a public purpose. In fact, for more than 15 years, Mississippi First has advanced evidence-based reforms, including public charter schools, not because of ideology, but because design matters. Choice is valuable only when it improves outcomes for children and strengthens the broader system. 

Mississippi’s public charter schools were created as tools for education reform, offering public options that are both innovative and accountable. While not every charter school in the state has consistently performed at a high level, charters are held to the same academic accountability standards that have helped drive Mississippi’s recent gains.They cannot selectively enroll students, and they must demonstrate clear parent demand and community need to open and to stay open.

National research from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes shows that charter schools can produce stronger learning gains for low-income students than their assigned traditional public schools.

Mississippi’s charter sector is still relatively young, but the early evidence is encouraging. Six of the seven charter schools have state accountability scores ranking in the top half of schools in the districts they serve.  The remaining three charter schools are still expanding and have not yet reached state-tested grade levels.

Strengthening traditional public schools and supporting high-quality public charter schools to open in more places where students need them are not competing goals. They are complementary strategies for building a public education system that works for every Mississippi child.

The question before us is not whether to choose one or the other, but whether we are willing to support policies that honor both. 

Angela Bass is the executive director of Mississippi First, a nonpartisan education policy and advocacy organization focused on public education in Mississippi. Mississippi First supports high-quality early education programs, high-quality public charter schools and effective teachers and leaders in Mississippi public schools.

A bill that would increase the amount of taxpayers dollars available to Mississippi private schools is, once again, proposed in the House. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, has introduced a bill that would increase the tax credits available to the state’s private schools through the “Children’s Promise Act.” 

The Children’s Promise Act, through which private schools have been receiving money since 2020, allows people or corporations to donate to private schools certified by the Department of Revenue and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for up to 50% of the donor’s state tax liability.

The program was originally billed as a way to give money to nonprofit organizations that care for foster children. However, a provision to give tax credits to private schools was quietly included in the bill. Private schools that have any students in the foster care system, students with chronic illnesses or disabilities or students who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals can receive money through the program. 

To receive the money, that private school only has to have one student with diabetes or asthma, for example, and write a letter to the state Department of Revenue, the agency that manages the program, to explain why they meet the program’s criteria, according to Nancy Loome, leader of public school advocacy group The Parents’ Campaign. 

Despite receiving this money, private schools do not have to change anything about their accountability measures.

Loome said the act is a convoluted way to funnel taxpayer dollars to private schools. 

“We believe that any school that receives state funding or is supported through state funding should operate under the same rules if they’re going to receive taxpayer dollars,” she said. “This is the state saying, ‘The constitution says that we can’t appropriate money to private schools, so if private school supporters will just write a check, we’ll pay you back with state funds.’”

Lamar, who has served on the board of a private school in his community, has unsuccessfully tried to increase the cap on the program for the past three years. Currently, that total is set at $9 million.

This year’s bill would raise the maximum tax credit money private schools can receive through the program to $16 million in 2026. Then, under HB 1944, that cap would increase to $18 million in 2027 and $20 million for 2028 and every year after. 

“(Lamar) is relentless in his efforts to try to get additional funding to private schools,” Loome said. “He is not listening to his constituents. Mississippians do not want their tax dollars going to private schools.”

Half of the program’s tax-credits are specifically allocated to foster care service organizations. A new provision this year would allow unclaimed foster care service organization tax credits to be directed to private schools. 

The state Department of Revenue, the agency responsible for certifying the private schools that are eligible to receive funds through the Children’s Promise Act, could previously not explain how these funds are spent. 

House Bill 1944 awaits consideration in Lamar’s committee.

Correction 2/19/2026: A bill to increase the amount of money for tax credits for private schools has been introduced and is pending in the Ways and Means Committee. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the bill’s status.

In late January, Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, inquired about the status of more than $1 billion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had still not paid to New York health systems for COVID-19 expenses dating back to 2020.

Garbarino told NOTUS he is “still working with” the agency to obtain the documentation he requested in January to investigate the situation. The money still hasn’t been disbursed.

“It’s a lot of work that they did, and they were promised the reimbursement for,” he said. “And they’ve jumped through all the hoops. They’ve proven all the money that they were owed. And now they’re just waiting to get back. So, it really does affect their bottom line.”

Garbarino said he believes it is an issue that affects “all 50 states.” It is also now a problem compounded by the partial government shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals incurred tremendous expenses to treat patients and prevent the spread of the virus. Hospitals hired more medical professionals, purchased more beds and paid for ventilators, along with personal protective equipment.

Local governments and hospitals applied for reimbursement under FEMA’s Public Assistance Program. More than 1,000 COVID-related projects await reimbursement, according to a FEMA employee familiar with the situation.

Lawmakers are now trying to figure out why. And some are questioning how much Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s rule that requires she approve all expenses over $100,000 is playing a role in the delays.

In a letter to Noem, Garbarino said the payments “remain severely delinquent and subject to a lack of transparency and communication with recipients and subrecipients.”

“While streamlining FEMA’s grant administration is a valiant and shared goal, ongoing

delays coupled with the lack of information sharing regarding the status of reimbursement claims places further strain on the ability of hospital systems to adequately manage costs and respond to public health needs,” Garbarino continued.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, told NOTUS he has also “heard that Mississippi is missing tens of millions of dollars owed” from the reimbursement program.

“Our hospitals are depending on this promised funding and each day of delay is setting our States back,” Thompson told NOTUS in a statement. “If Secretary Noem thinks that withholding or delaying releasing these funds is improving Government efficiency, she is fooling herself and doing a disservice to the American people.”

Matt Elsey, an executive at the South Carolina-based Prisma Health, told NOTUS in a statement that his organization is waiting to be reimbursed on “three outstanding projects” related to COVID-19 response “totaling approximately $116 million.”

“These projects have all been reviewed and have been awaiting final approval for obligation since early 2025,” Elsey said in the statement. “While FEMA has been very responsive regarding Helene-related projects (all less than $100,000), we have received no similar communication from FEMA regarding reimbursement for these very large COVID-19 reimbursement projects.”

FEMA responded to NOTUS’ request for comment after publication, stating that any “delay in reimbursements is a direct consequence of the ongoing government shutdowns and the refusal by Democrats in Congress to provide the necessary funding to secure our nation.”

“At the direction of President Trump and Secretary Noem, we are meticulously reviewing every outstanding request for eligibility. This standard review process is essential to restoring integrity to our disaster relief operations and ensuring federal funds are managed responsibly,” a spokesperson for the agency told NOTUS.

Slow reimbursements have increased financial burdens on hospitals already trying to make up for the more than $1.1 trillion cut to Medicaid that Republicans passed last year, industry players said.

“It’s long overdue,” Jonathan Cooper, senior vice president of government affairs at the Greater New York Hospital Association, told NOTUS. “And you see what’s going on at all the hospitals now post the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, and what’s about to happen with this huge number of uninsured about to occur, and Medicaid being cut, and everything else.”

Trump’s budget law pushed some hospitals across the country to reduce services, with a rural hospital in Georgia citing “cuts to Medicaid” as a reason for closing its delivery unit. An estimated 11.8 million people could be left uninsured by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“I would say that the money is more important than ever to really help provide hospitals, safety net hospitals across the state with the resources they need to deal with the current situation,” Cooper said.

In a statement to NOTUS, a spokesperson for the American Hospital Association said it looks forward to working with the agency to fix the situation.

“We have heard from our members about the challenges they are experiencing in getting reimbursed for work done years ago on behalf of their communities,” the spokesperson said. “This includes the distribution of billions of dollars’ worth of funds for hospital projects that have been approved by FEMA but not yet paid out as well asfor projects that have been reviewed by the agency but not yet approved and paid out. FEMA also is now requesting that hospitals return funding for projects that had been approved and paid out — sometimes years after the distributions were made. We welcome the opportunity to work with FEMA to address our members’ concerns.”

Hospitals in some states have only recently been reimbursed for COVID expenses. East Alabama Medical Center was reimbursed $4.7 million at the end of 2024. The hospital requested the money in 2020, and only received it after a local emergency management director traveled to D.C. to speak with lawmakers.

In May, Rep. John Garamendi and members of the California congressional delegation sent a letter asking FEMA to reimburse $460 million owed to California hospitals. Garamendi’s office told NOTUS in an email that the state received money at the end of 2025, but could have received it “earlier if Noem hadn’t had to review every grant over $100K.”

“Well for the hospitals themselves, they had to find the money to pay for the services when people showed up sick at the emergency rooms,” Garamendi told NOTUS about the effect not receiving those payments had in California. “So, there was a lot of expenditures that the hospitals had to make. They were busily borrowing money to make the payments that they had to so that left the hospitals with a funding crisis,” he continued. “And that funding crisis just made it impossible for the hospitals to expand their services.”

Garbarino said he has talked to Noem about “about getting a further brief” on whether her expense approval rule will be “permanent.”

“You want to go after waste, fraud and abuse, I’m all for that,” Garbarino said. “It can’t all just fall on her. She’s got to rely on some of her deputies.”

This story is provided by a partnership between Mississippi Today and the NOTUS Washington Bureau Initiative, which seeks to help readers in local communities understand what their elected representatives are doing in Congress.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center closed all its statewide clinics and canceled many appointments Thursday and Friday after a cybersecurity attack shut down all its computer systems, an incident officials expect to last multiple days. 

The state’s only academic medical center said in a Facebook post that many of its IT systems are down after the attack. That includes the electronic medical record system, which stores patient medical history, billing, test results, appointment booking and chart documentation. 

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor of the medical center, said at a press conference Thursday morning that all UMMC’s locations were impacted. She said the hospital was continuing to provide urgent, time-sensitive services using protocols that can function without electronic medical records, like paper charts. Emergency services will also continue to be available.

She said UMMC was trying to determine what would happen to patients’ personal information stored in the hospital’s computer systems, but the hospital had taken down the systems to prevent potential privacy breaches. 

“We are working to mitigate all the risks that we know of,” she said.

In addition to suspending its clinic operations Thursday and Friday, the hospital system canceled all elective procedures, except for those at the Jackson Medical Mall’s dialysis clinic.

When asked about what impact the attack would have on the UMMC emergency service communication system, Dr. Alan Jones, vice chancellor for health affairs at UMMC, said that system could operate independently of the regular hospital operations and should be capable of functioning during the attack. 

He said the university was working to set up a phone line for patients to get more information about rescheduled or upcoming appointments, in addition to creating an operational plan for providing other medical services.

The attack has had repercussions beyond the medical center. County health departments rely on UMMC’s electronic medical record system for their clinical services, and Mississippi State Department of Health spokesperson Greg Flynn said providers at the departments are now using paper charts. He said all local health department services remain open. 

More than 10,000 employees work across UMMC, making the institution one of the state’s largest employers, according to the university. Over 3,000 students are enrolled in the medical center, which has an annual budget of roughly $2 billion. UMMC facilities include seven hospitals and 35 clinics statewide. 

In addition to the main campus in Jackson, UMMC has sites in Ridgeland, Holmes County and Grenada County.

UMMC runs the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, programs that are best equipped to respond to severe medical emergencies. Woodward said the hospital is continuing to serve Level 1 patients using manual procedures.

The cyberattack happened Thursday morning, Woodward said, and the attackers were in contact with the medical system afterward. She declined to answer what the attackers have said or asked for, but she said the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were aware of the hack. 

Woodward did not answer questions about how long UMMC and federal agencies expected the cyberattack to last or how long it would take to restore normal operations once the medical center regained control of its computer services. Jones said UMMC has information stored on both local and cloud-based servers, and the medical center believes the attack was just on the local servers. 

The hospital system’s websites were down Thursday, including a site that shows which medical services are diverting patients to other facilities. UMMC in-person classes will continue as scheduled, according to Woodward. 

Update, 2/19/2026: This story has been updated to reflect that UMMC will again cancel many appointments and close clinics Friday.

Update, 2/19/2026: This story has been updated to show that UMMC officials say the hospital was contacted after the cyberattack, and that the hospital has been in touch with investigators.

Some Mississippi Supreme Court justices on Wednesday raised questions about a lower court judge’s dismissal of a defamation lawsuit that former Gov. Phil Bryant filed against the state’s largest newsroom, Mississippi Today. 

Two justices asked if a jury – not a judge – should ultimately decide whether the nonprofit news outlet defamed Bryant in describing Mississippi’s welfare scandal that has led to multiple guilty pleas and rocked the state’s politics. Bryant did not attend Wednesday’s hearing and has not been charged with any crime.

“Why wouldn’t what you’re saying today to us be appropriately brought before a jury?” Chief Justice Michael Randolph asked an attorney for Mississippi Today. “So they would agree with you, hopefully, on your behalf. Why isn’t this jury material?”

Lee Crain, a Gibson Dunn attorney representing Mississippi Today, disagreed with Randolph. He said a jury-like standard is not necessarily needed in a defamation case because a judge could dismiss the suit if the judge believes Bryant’s complaint contained legal deficiencies and didn’t meet the burden of proof showing actual malice existed.  

Justice Josiah Coleman also pressed Crain on whether the case belonged in front of a jury, while Justice Kenny Griffis said he was concerned about whether the procedural mechanism that Madison County Circuit Court Judge Bradley Mills used for dismissing the case was correct. 

Justices on Wednesday did not question the accuracy of Mississippi Today’s reporting on the welfare scandal but expressed reservations about whether the case was properly dismissed by the lower court.

If a majority of justices determine the lower-court judge improperly tossed out the lawsuit, they could decide to send the case back to Madison County Circuit Court for more legal arguments. 

If it goes back to the trial court, attorneys for both Bryant and the newsroom could then file additional motions and gather more evidence, and the case could ultimately head to a jury for consideration. 

Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe spent years researching and writing about a sprawling welfare scandal — something that investigators have called the largest public embezzlement scheme in the state’s recent history. Auditors have questioned roughly $100 million in welfare spending under the leadership of John Davis, who was chosen by Bryant to lead the Mississippi Department of Human Services.

Wolfe did not attend the Supreme Court hearing Wednesday. Her series of stories, The Backchannel, examined how federal welfare dollars meant to help the state’s poorest residents were misspent or misdirected to projects involving powerful figures, including former NFL star Brett Favre and associates of then-Gov. Bryant, a Republican who held the state’s highest office from January 2012 to January 2020.

Seven people have pleaded guilty to federal and state crimes in connection with the scandal, and another is on trial in federal court for 13 charges related to the scandal. 

Shortly after Wolfe won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage, Bryant filed a lawsuit in Madison County Circuit Court against the newsroom and its CEO, Mary Margaret White. 

Bryant’s lawsuit didn’t challenge the accuracy of Wolfe’s reporting because he didn’t file the lawsuit within the specific statutory timeframe needed to file such a claim.

Instead, Bryant’s lawyers have argued that the news outlet, its CEO and other employees made defamatory comments about the former governor when discussing the series in public settings, including during a radio interview and during a speech at a journalism conference. 

Bryant has emphasized in his lawsuit that he has not been charged by state or federal authorities with any crime related to the welfare scandal, and he argued that Mississippi Today’s public comments went beyond protected journalistic reporting. 

Mills dismissed Bryant’s lawsuit in April, and the former governor is now arguing before the state Supreme Court that the lower-court judge should not have done so. 

At the core of the legal disagreements is whether the news outlet committed “actual malice” with its series. 

Actual malice is a legal standard in defamation law requiring that someone said or published something, particularly against a public official, that they clearly knew was false, a high bar to prove against elected officials such as Bryant. 

“Make no mistake, the statements that were issued here are false, defamatory, and they were made with actual malice,” Billy Quin, Bryant’s attorney, argued Wednesday. 

But Mississippi Today’s attorney, Crain, argued that it’s highly unlikely for the news outlet to have committed actual malice because the newsroom believed what it said was true and was supported by interviews, public records and research.

To support his claims, Crain argued that Sports Illustrated published a similar article about Bryant’s role in the scandal, and the former governor also sued the magazine over for defamation. 

U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump, dismissed the former governor’s lawsuit. Bryant also appealed that ruling to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it awaits consideration.  

Crain argued that the Sports Illustrated and Mississippi Today cases were nearly identical. However, Randolph said legal standards for Johnson’s decision in federal court were different than the state law standard. 

After oral arguments ended, Crain said in a statement that Mississippi Today’s reporting on the welfare scandal is “journalism at its best” and the news outlet “shed light on wrongdoing that diverted millions of dollars away from Mississippi’s most vulnerable.” 

“The trial court already dismissed this flawed case, and today we asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to affirm that decision,” Crain said in the statement. “The freedom of the press is sacred in Mississippi, and Mississippi Today remains committed to serving as the state’s flagship source for independent news.” 

Only seven justices are currently on the usual nine-member court because the U.S. Senate recently confirmed two of the former members as federal judges in northern Mississippi.

Justices Jenifer Branning and David Ishee did not ask questions during oral arguments. Justice Leslie King was absent Wednesday, but he can still participate in the court’s decision in the case. 

It’s unclear when the justices will issue a ruling.

Mississippi is still waiting on a declaration from the federal government that would allow residents to apply for individual assistance for damage wrought by a winter storm last month, lawmakers said at a legislative briefing on Wednesday.

A group of lawmakers, most of whom represent areas in north Mississippi hit hardest by the storm, convened at the Capitol to discuss damage assessment and ongoing efforts to secure funding for local governments and individuals staring down a costly recovery. The ice storm resulted in the death of at least 29 people, forced thousands to go without power for weeks, hampered local water systems and left debris and damage across large swaths of terrain.

Rep. Jody Steverson, a Republican from Ripley who chaired the hearing, said he has been receiving calls from constituents wondering when they could apply for individual assistance to help pay for damage to their homes. But that money could only be provided by the federal government issuing an individual assistance declaration.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Scott Simmons said earlier this month that the state is “nowhere near” finished with its damage assessment, which FEMA uses as a basis for approving different types of assistance.

On Feb. 6, President Donald Trump approved a federal disaster declaration request from Mississippi, clearing the way for local governments to seek public assistance through FEMA, which would go toward repairs for infrastructure such as roads and government buildings. The federal government has also stepped in to provide food and supplies across Mississippi and approved replacement benefits for SNAP recipients. But the declaration that would provide assistance for individual residents with damaged property could still be weeks away, lawmakers said at the Wednesday hearing.

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi, has said the state’s damages from Winter Storm Fern will likely reach $400 million. His district was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and he said some elements of the damage he had seen in north Mississippi as a result of the winter storm, such as widespread power outages, were evocative of the historic hurricane.

“What we saw a couple of weeks ago in north Mississippi is equally as devastating as Katrina was for south Mississippi,” DeLano said. “We understand that we’re in unprecedented times when it comes to the scale of impacts across the northern part of the state. When you have an ice dome where you have four or five days that nobody can get in, that’s the thing that all of the families that lived through this will be scarred their entire life for.”

More updates from the hearing include:

• One of the biggest challenges local governments have faced is the cost of tree removal. The federal government will reimburse 75% of these costs, the state will pay 12.5% and local governments will cover the remaining 12.5%, said Sen. Daniel Sparks, a Republican from Belmont. In places such as Prentiss County, that figure could reach about $3.5 million. Many cities and counties will not be able to afford their cost for these repairs, which means the state would likely need to step in to provide additional local assistance, Sparks said.
• Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill, who was present at the Capitol for the hearing, said her city is facing close to $25 million in storm recovery expenses. Debris removal makes up by far the largest share of the costs at an estimated $16.6 million. “It has just been a catastrophic event,” Tannehill said. “We didn’t budget for $25 million in expenses this year.” Tannehill said she met with House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann on Wednesday and urged them to pass legislation sending additional money to local governments.
• The Senate has passed a bill, which now heads to the House for discussion, that would create a “disaster recovery emergency loan program” to aid counties included in the recent federal disaster declaration. DeLano described the proposed program as a “revolving loan fund,” meant to get public assistance money to counties and cities on the front end as they await reimbursements from FEMA. On Wednesday, DeLano said the bill would serve as a starting point for negotiations with the House.
• Multiple lawmakers urged their constituents to document all damage to their properties and record all conversations they have in the future with insurance companies. In previous natural disasters, some Mississippians have been left on the hook for pricy repairs because they didn’t have such documentation.
• Rep. Rodney Hall, a Republican from Southaven, called for an “after-action review” of Mississippi’s response to the winter storm. He said he’s spoken to several mayors who have been displeased with the pace at which state officials responded to the dangerous conditions.

The House Education Committee, in a five-minute meeting on Wednesday, passed two Senate education bills before its leader announced that the panel would not meet again this session.

That means that the last school choice measure standing before the Legislature, a bill that would make it easier for students to transfer between public school districts, would be dead. 

“This is our only meeting that we will be having, from what I am understanding,” said House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville, at the conclusion of the meeting. 

The move, and Roberson’s wording, could indicate the House leadership is striking back at the Senate, which killed Speaker Jason White’s school choice bill.

The Senate Education Committee killed White’s omnibus education policy change bill — which included a program that would have allowed parents to spend public dollars on private school tuition — earlier this month. 

White, a Republican from West, had made school choice his signature issue this session. He lambasted Senate leaders at a meeting in downtown Jackson on Monday for their opposition to private school choice programs and called their decision to kill his bill after only 90-seconds of deliberation “theatrical.”

“I was told that this is the only meeting that we’re having for this session,” Roberson told Mississippi Today after his committee’s brief meeting.

He would not definitively say that this would be the House’s final move on school choice, which could mean interest in the governor calling a special session about school choice is gaining momentum. A special session, which can only be called by the governor, would allow Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to set the agenda and put pressure on lawmakers. Reeves has been an outspoken supporter of school choice.

Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville, said the House’s actions wouldn’t interrupt his committee’s priorities, and that he appreciated the House Education Committee passed two Senate bills at its Wednesday meeting.

Before Roberson’s announcement, the panel of representatives passed a Senate bill that would allow the Mississippi Department of Education to create a code of ethics for school counselors to follow — rather than a national, “ever-changing” code, said Republican Rep. Jansen Owen of Poplarville. The committee also placed the language in another Senate bill with a new math initiative, standards that build on the 2013 literacy act and financial literacy requirements for Mississippi students. 

“We’re just going to continue doing the work that we’ve been elected to do and charged to do … and try to keep our priorities alive and moving forward,” DeBar said. “Hopefully we can come together at the end. 

Roberson could change his mind, but if the House Education Committee doesn’t meet again, more than a dozen Senate bills are poised to die. 

Just a few months ago, shelves at Levure Bottle Shop in Jackson were full of wines that can be hard to find in Mississippi. 

Now, shelves are empty and customers come in asking if the store is closing. Owners put a sign outside that says, “Not going out of business … still waiting for the ABC to deliver.” 

Mississippi’s alcohol industry is in crisis due to operating changes and delays at the state-run Alcoholic Beverage Control warehouse through which most alcohol in the state has to pass. Over the last month, package stores and restaurants have struggled to fill their shelves and owners are worried. It’s not just impacting small businesses such as Levure. Casinos and restaurants across the state are also waiting for orders. 

With officials saying the warehouse expects to clear half its backlog by March, some businesses are worried about staying afloat. Some are waiting on tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of orders that are weeks late. When orders do come, they often contain only part of what the businesses paid for. 

Supply is dwindling or just gone. Bartenders are telling customers their favorite drink is out of stock. Restaurant owners are scrambling to adjust their wine menus. 

“I have not received inventory to keep (the store) full. We are a smaller business, so I don’t keep a ton of back stock but you shouldn’t have to be a big business to have a business in Mississippi,” said Brandi Carter, a co-owner of Levure and the beverage director at the Jackson restaurant Elvie’s, which was recently awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Levure was born out of Carter’s love of natural wines and sharing them with Mississippians. Natural wines are produced using minimal human intervention and additives and often have unique colors and flavors. As Carter developed Elvie’s wine menu, she realized that there weren’t enough natural wines in the state. To bring in new wines, she went through the painstaking, years-long process of getting them certified with the state’s ABC. 

Mississippi is one of 17 alcohol control states. In these states, some or all alcohol sold wholesale must go through a state agency. For many years, lawmakers have discussed privatizing alcohol distribution but some have worried that the state would lose the hundreds of millions of dollars it receives in taxes. In Mississippi, all wholesale spirits and wine must go through the ABC warehouse in Gluckstadt. ABC is under the state Department of Revenue. 

This is not the first time that ABC has experienced issues with deliveries. To address these issues, the Legislature in 2022 approved $55 million to build a new warehouse that could hold double the capacity at the time and the Department of Revenue contracted a private company in 2023 to operate the warehouse. 

Even though the process can be complicated, business owners say that they know how to do it and that lead times had improved.

In January, the warehouse took a planned break to do inventory and had notified customers months in advance. It also implemented a new software management system and ran into issues with the transition that took weeks to resolve according to Chris Graham, DOR commissioner. 

“We really crawled for a couple of weeks on shipping cases because of the challenges that they had with their system and getting it in place,” Graham said at a House State Affairs Committee hearing held Tuesday because of the alcohol crisis. 

In addition, new software was not compatible with the old conveyor belts that the warehouse used to load delivery trucks. So, operators removed three of the four conveyors and implemented a system to pick up and place individual pallets onto the trucks. While Graham said there had been a learning curve with the new system, he said that the warehouse had recently hired some experienced workers to help mitigate the issue.  

But business owners say issues go beyond delayed deliveries. 

“We may order five cases of an item. It’ll be marked as out of stock but we will get them,” said Jamie Farris, owner of Lincoln Road Package Store in Hattiesburg and a leader of the Mississippi Independent Package Store Association. Farris said that while it’s normal for orders to get mixed up, what’s happening now is “bonkers.”

Many businesses have reported being charged for orders they have not received or only partially received. Usually they are charged a few days before delivery but now they’re not sure when their products will be delivered. 

“There shouldn’t be widespread billing and not receiving the product unless there’s a problem that needs to be investigated,” Graham told lawmakers. 

“I think there is a problem,” responded Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson. “I mean as of last night, I’ve heard from a dozen package store owners and restaurants who were facing this issue across the state.”

Lawmakers and industry leaders discussed various options to find solutions, including limiting orders to a hundred cases, authorizing direct shipment to businesses, and implementing a process for businesses to pick up their orders from ABC instead of waiting for delivery. Lawmakers are likely to propose new legislation in the coming days and weeks, but many business owners walked away from the hearing unsure when their orders would arrive.

“While we were sitting in this meeting, I had an order that was scheduled for today. It was going to be roughly 35 cases. It was charged to my account and one of my employees just sent me a text that we received five cases,” said Anne Marie Smith, the operations manager at Raines Cellars in Flora, speaking to the committee. 

Correction 2/18/2026: Rep. Shanda Yates is an independent from Jackson. Her party affiliation was listed incorrectly in an earlier version of this story.