OurTupelo

Mississippi lawmakers removed a provision from an opioid settlement reform bill Thursday that would have guaranteed tens of millions of dollars from drug company lawsuits would be used to address addiction. 

Six negotiators unanimously agreed to a proposal that would change how the Legislature spends national opioid settlement money. The plan goes to the full House and Senate for consideration in the next few days.

Since 2022, the state has received over $130 million from lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies that contributed to over 10,000 Mississippi overdose deaths since 1999. The state is expected to receive about $421 million by 2040. 

Every state is receiving opioid settlement money, and every state besides Mississippi had spent at least $3 million of it to prevent more overdose deaths by last fall. The Legislature controls 85% of Mississippi’s settlements. So far, it has only spent its share on legal fees. 

Across the state, 147 towns, cities and counties control the other 15% of Mississippi’s money. Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote a contract and a letter that said they could use the money on any public purpose without reporting their spending. Many did. 

Of the at least $15.5 million the local governments had received by last summer, Mississippi Today found that over $4 million went to general expenses, and less than $1 million was used to prevent overdoses. 

Soon after the newsroom’s investigation, House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, said he would like to pass a law that encouraged local governments to spend money addressing addiction. Earlier this month, he and the House proposed amending the state’s opioid settlement laws to require all local money to be spent on public health overdose prevention measures.

But Thursday’s agreement between the three senators and three representatives, including Creekmore, removed any mention of how local governments should spend the money. Creekmore said he couldn’t get agreement from the other lawmakers, and the bill would’ve gone away if he didn’t continue moving it forward. 

If the bill passes without the local government restrictions, cities and counties can continue spending money paid out by the drug companies on non-addiction purposes. The local governments are expected to receive over $40 million more by the time all the money is distributed.

While Creekmore said he would’ve liked to include guidance to encourage cities and counties on how to spend the lawsuit funds, he and the other negotiators worked hard on other parts of the bill. 

“I’ll stand with them on it,” he said. “Did I want to? No. But at the end of the day, I thought the bill is as good as we can get.”

Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford, is lead sponsor of the bill and also helped negotiate the latest provisions. She said the lawmakers sought advice about what they could and couldn’t do with reforming the local settlement provisions from their legal council in Fitch’s office. 

MaryAsa Lee, a spokesperson for the office, didn’t immediately answer a call or respond to a voicemail asking about the legal provisions the office suggested.

Boyd echoed statements the attorney general’s office has provided to Mississippi Today in the past — the money going to local governments was intended to compensate them for addiction expenses over the past two decades. While the national opioid settlements allow for a portion to not be spent on addressing addiction, the lawyers who negotiated the agreement discouraged states from doing that.

“The money that went back to them, that went to the cities and the counties, was for money they had already spent,” Boyd said. “It’s not abatement, it’s reimbursement.”

She said she’s more focused on the larger portion of opioid settlement money the Legislature controls — expected to be over $350 million by the time Mississippi receives all its payments. Most of that money is overseen by an advisory council and must be spent on addiction, but Fitch and the Legislature allow for about $63 million to be spent for general purposes. 

The current version of Boyd’s bill gives the Legislature more power to adjust the advisory council’s recommendations, strengthens ethics rules to prevent potential conflicts of interest among council members and instructs the council to contract with a third-party group to improve Missisisppi’s opioid settlement distribution and evaluation. It instructs Fitch’s office to use some of the $63 million for the third-party contract.

Boyd said she hopes these changes will lead to Mississippi’s opioid settlement money preventing more overdose deaths. 

“What we’re trying to see is how do we have a big impact for the people and how do you make a difference,” she said.

James Moore, a Hattiesburg recovery advocate who lost his son to an overdose, is a member of the advisory council with Boyd and Creekmore. During the council’s last meeting, he called for many of the reforms that are still in the bill. He  said he’s happy to see them moving closer to possibly becoming law. 

But he said he’s disappointed that lawmakers are insisting local money can be spent for anything other than what Mississippi argued it should be in its lawsuits against opioid companies, what Fitch’s office first said it would be used for — addressing the public health epidemic that killed his son.

If the lawmakers negotiated this deal at a public meeting, Moore said he thinks they wouldn’t have removed that provision. Too many families torn apart by the crisis, like his, would have shown up to encourage them to preserve that requirement. 

“I can’t imagine anybody in the room that’d be willing to look at survivors and families and parents and say, ‘We still ought to be able to do what we want to with this, even if it’s fix a pothole.’”

Natural gas explosions in January 2024 that destroyed two homes in Jackson resulted from underground pipes pulling loose from their fittings as spongy clay soil expanded and contracted with rainfall, according to a federal report released Thursday.

The first explosion killed Clara Barbour, 82.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that the natural gas utility in the city, Atmos Energy Corp., had detected the leaks before the explosions, but didn’t evaluate them as severe enough for quick repair. The board also found that Dallas-based Atmos didn’t do enough to assess risks and make repairs to its pipeline system and didn’t do enough to educate the public or emergency officials about how to respond to natural gas leaks. It urged regulators to take a closer look at the company.

“Atmos has had significant safety shortfalls in recent years,” the board wrote “Thus, Atmos’s multistate operations require broader oversight.”

Company spokesperson Bobby Morgan said safety remains “our highest priority.”

“We will work diligently in the coming days and weeks to evaluate the findings as part of our ongoing safety efforts to further our vision to be the safest provider of natural gas services,” Morgan said in a statement.

The company distributes natural gas in Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

One explosion and fire in south Jackson on Jan. 24 killed Barbour and injured her husband, Johnny Barbour. Three days later and three-quarters of a mile away, another explosion leveled one home and burned a neighboring home. No one was injured there.

Investigators found that in both cases, gas pipes feeding the homes had pulled loose from their couplings as soil expanded and contracted, allowing dangerous levels of gas to build up, setting the stage for the explosions.

Much of the Jackson area is built atop a soil layer known as Yazoo clay that expands in wet weather and contracts in times of drought. Besides causing building foundations to crack and roadways to heave, the expansion and contraction can cause pipes to disconnect, and the pipe couplings that an Atmos predecessor installed are not resistant to pulling out, the board found. Investigators recommended that Atmos find and replace all those couplings.

The leak at the Barbour home had been detected Nov. 17, 2023, after the homeowner smelled an odor compound that is inserted into methane gas. An Atmos technician declared the leak nonhazardous, meaning Atmos might not repair it for a year or more. The leak at the second home was detected Dec. 1, 2023, but Atmos evaluated it as even less hazardous, scheduling it for repair within three years.

The report indicates the company re-evaluated leaks in Jackson following the explosion and found others that were more serious than initially reported.

The safety board faulted Atmos for not doing more to identify threats posed by expansive soils, noting regulators had been warning about the issue since 2008 and that the NTSB identified expansive soils as a factor in a 2018 Atmos explosion in Dallas that killed one and injured four.

Investigators said Atmos had different safety procedures in different states and that if stricter state rules in Kansas had been followed in Mississippi, the explosions could have been prevented.

“Atmos’s siloed state operations, including leak monitoring procedures that differed by state, demonstrate that Atmos has not applied lessons learned in one state to the other states it operates in,” the board wrote.

Mississippi State baseball coach Brian O’Connor was just about to board the team bus for Oxford when we talked by phone Thursday afternoon. Yes, O’Connor said, he has mighty fine and fond memories of his first visit to Swayze Field nearly 17 years ago.

You would, too. In a memorable NCAA Super Regional, O’Connor’s Virginia Cavaliers battled back from a 12-inning, 4-3 Game One defeat, to defeat Mike Bianco’s Rebels 4-3 and then 5-2 to advance to the College World Series. It was fantastic college baseball, matching two talented, well-coached teams. It was June college baseball at its best with the outcome often hanging on every pitch.

Said O’Connor, “You don’t forget something like that, especially when it sends you to Omaha for the first time.”

There won’t be a trip to the College World Series on the line this weekend, but O’Connor’s first Mississippi State-Ole Miss experience definitely matches two teams that have Omaha and national championship potential.

“This is just another reason why you come to the SEC to coach or play baseball,” O’Connor said. “You play high-level opponents every weekend with great crowds and great rivalries.”

Mississippi State, ranked as highly as No 3 in the nation, will take a 21-4 record (4-2 in the SEC) to face the Rebels (19-7, 3-3), also ranked in most polls.

The Egg Bowl of baseball

This will be O’Connor’s introduction to the Egg Bowl of baseball, and he hasn’t experienced an in-state rivalry anything like this. At Virginia, his arch-rival, at least in-state, was Virginia Tech. It’s hard to call it an intense rivalry when you dominate a team as thoroughly Virginia as dominated Tech. During O’Connor’s Virginia tenure, the Cavaliers won 42 of 61 meetings against their in-state rivals in what Virginians call the “Commonwealth Clash.”

The Ole Miss-Mississippi State baseball rivalry, which these days includes a three-game SEC series and a Governor’s Cup mid-week game, is not nearly so one-sided. State leads the series  268-213-5. Last season, State won two of three games at Starkville and Ole Miss prevailed in the Governor’s Cup.

“It’s two great college baseball programs that just happen to be in the state of Mississippi,” O’Connor said. “I’m excited to be a part of it and I know our players are looking forward to it, as well. No doubt, it’s the same way at Ole Miss.”

State’s new skipper has the utmost respect for his Ole Miss counterpart, Bianco.

“Mike has been the staple of consistency at Ole Miss,” O’Connor said. “I’ve always had a high level of respect for him and the job he has done there, and just the way he runs his program. He’s a good man, and his teams play the the game the right way.”

Besides the to 2009 Super Regional at Oxford, O’Connor’s Cavs also played Ole Miss twice in the 2014 College World Series, winning two close, low-scoring games, the second of which eliminated Ole Miss. O’Connor was an interested observer in June 2022 when Bianco’s Rebels, given up virtually for dead earlier in the spring, got hot in May and stunningly won the College World Series.

“To do what that team did to win the national championship is a testament to what Mike has built there,” O’Connor said.

Rebels’ Hunter Elliott is still pitching

The Ole Miss pitcher who started that national championship-clinching victory over Oklahoma as a true freshman will be the same left-hander who starts Friday night’s first game of the State-Ole Miss series. Seems like Hunter Elliott has been around forever, and certainly long enough to get O’Connor’s attention.

“Elliott has been one of the premier pitchers college baseball for years, and they’ve got some really good bullpen options,” O’Connor said. “Plus, they’ve got a lot of guys in that lineup who hit the ball a long, long way.”

State will counter with a deep roster of sluggers, fresh from a 12-0 Tuesday night trouncing of No. 11 Southern Miss. State’s hitting numbers are nothing short of gaudy: a .347 team batting average, a .452 on base percentage, a .571 slugging percentage. 39 home runs and 66 doubles in 25 games. Sheepish!

“There’s power in our lineup, and there’s speed,” O’Connor said. “We can score runs anywhere in the batting order. That’s what makes great offense. Plus we’ve got depth. We’ve got guys not in the lineup who can really swing it.”

Yes, O’Connor answered, when asked if his first State teams compares favorably with some of his best hitting teams at Virginia, seven of which advanced to Omaha.

“Now, we’ll have to see how it plays out,” O’Connor said. “We’ve got eight more SEC weekends when we’ll face top-flight pitching. There’s a long way to go.”

It starts Friday night at 6:30 p.m. followed by a 1:30 p.m. game Saturday and a 3 p.m. game Sunday.

A rivalry that has given us the likes of Casey Stengel, Dudy Noble, Tom Swayze, Paul Gregory, Ron Polk, Jake Gibbs, John Cohen and Mike Bianco gives us Brian O’Connor for the first time.

OXFORD — Former Hollandale police officer Javery Howard pleaded guilty Thursday to charges involving the transportation and distribution of illegal drugs through portions of the Mississippi Delta and into Memphis. He also admitted to traveling to Miami on two occasions to plot drug runs with FBI agents posing as Mexican drug cartel members.

He is among those charged in a federal drug trafficking indictment involving nine former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers, including a former police chief and two former sheriffs. In five separate indictments, an additional six former Delta law enforcement officers are charged with drug trafficking related charges.

Howard, 33, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy. He was indicted in October for accepting $31,000 in multiple bribe payments, the second highest of any other defendant across six indictments of former Delta law enforcement officers and associates. 

He previously served as an officer with the Metcalfe Police Department. Co-conspirator Brandon Addison, who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking last week, served alongside Howard at police departments in Hollandale and Metcalfe. Both departments are located in small, rural communities outside Greenville in Washington County. Howard is a resident of Greenville.

As part of Howard’s  plea agreement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi dropped five counts of attempting to aid and abet the transportation of illegal drugs, five counts of trafficking illegal drugs with a firearm, and one count of conspiring to traffick illegal drugs in possession of a firearm.

Howard declined to comment to Mississippi Today.

Senior U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills accepted Howard’s guilty plea and set sentencing for Aug. 13. Mills released Howard on the conditions of the $10,000 unsecured bond after his arrest.

Howard was arrested on Oct. 30 along with former Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston, former Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy Truron Grayson, former Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams, Addison, four additional former law enforcement officers, a former corrections officer and five associates as part of what the FBI called a conspiracy to aid and abet the transport and distribution of roughly 55 pounds of cocaine on five escorted runs — the most out of any co-conspirator.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped Washington County sheriff’s deputy Amber Holmes’s charges on Oct. 30 due to exonerating evidence from subsequent interviews with sources. 

Sean Williams, a former officer with the Yazoo City Police Department, intends to change his plea from not guilty, according to a March 20 court filing. A hearing has not been set.

The remaining charged co-conspirators in Howard’s indictment are scheduled for trial on July 20 in Oxford. Williams, who subsequently stepped down as sheriff, pleaded not guilty and promised to mount a “complete defense.” Washington County moved former Sheriff William Gaston into a new position responsible for trash collection in January.

Under federal guidelines, Howard can be sentenced to between 10 years and life in prison. He could also face up to $10 million in fines.

On Oct. 30, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed six indictments, which ensnared more than 14 current and former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers. Those charged were arrested in pre-sunrise sweeps in some cases at private homes and apartment complexes by special agents in armored cars.

The Justice Department charged current and former officers from sheriff’s offices in Washington, Humphreys and Sunflower counties and police departments in Greenville, Greenwood, Isola, Hollandale, Metcalfe and Yazoo City.

The department also charged Greenwood-based former Highway Patrolman Marquivius Bankhead and former state Department of Corrections guard Marcus Nolan, a Drew native, on drug trafficking charges.

Asahn Roach, who was named in the same indictment as Howard, is a former school resource officer for Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Pierre Lakes, a Drew native, owns a real estate investment company. Torio Chaz Wiseman was a football coach for the Memphis Business Academy charter school.

At the conspiracy’s outset, a local drug dealer and FBI informant introduced Howard and Addison to an FBI agent posing as a Mexican drug cartel member who offered bribe payments in exchange for the safe transport of illegal narcotics, namely cocaine, through the Mississippi Delta along Highway 61 to Memphis. Howard, Addison and associates escorted the drug transports on three separate occasions in March 2023, March 2024 and July 2024, also escorting the proceeds of the drug trafficking in October 2023 and March 2024.

Howard, along with individuals unnamed in the indictment, are accused of escorting roughly 55 pounds of cocaine on June 22, 2022, the same date on which former Greenwood Police Department officer Jamario Sanford pleaded guilty to protecting illegal drug shipments through Washington, Sunflower and Leflore counties.

Howard is the fifth former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officer from the Greenville area to plead guilty to drug trafficking charges since mid-February.

The lone remaining bill intended to enhance the regulation and transparency of pharmacy benefit managers died Thursday after the Mississippi House of Representatives chose not to advance the Senate’s versions of the bill or pursue further negotiations on an issue that has long divided the chambers and lawmakers within them. 

House Speaker Jason White attributed the bill’s failure to the Senate’s inclusion of language mandating a dispensing fee and called on Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session to address pharmacy benefit manager reform in a social media post.

“The Senate has repeatedly taken this legislation too far, placing the cost burden on the shoulders of Mississippi’s patients,” wrote White, who declined to answer reporters’ questions after the House adjourned Thursday.

The House’s original bill would have given independent pharmacists 90% of what they have been advocating for the past three years, he added.

White said he anticipates further negotiations and for interested parties to reach an agreement within the next few days.

Sen. Rita Parks, a Republican from Corinth who has spearheaded pharmacy benefit manager reform efforts in the Senate for years, said in a statement the outcome is “so disappointing.”  

“This wasn’t about policy — it was about power,” she said. “And today, the power of Big Pharma outweighed the needs of Mississippi families and community pharmacists.”

Pharmacy benefit managers are the middlemen used by health insurance companies and self-insured employer plans. They have increasingly drawn scrutiny from policymakers because of their opaque business practices, market consolidation and concerns that their practices are leading to increased drug prices with little accountability.

Independent pharmacists have warned year after year that if legislators do not pass reform legislation, pharmacies may be forced to close. They say the companies’ low reimbursements and unfair business practices have left them struggling to break even. 

Joe Mohamed, the president of the Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association, said the bill’s failure is a missed opportunity for Mississippi patients and communities that depend on independent pharmacists. 

“We stand ready to continue discussions throughout the remainder of the legislative session and beyond to ensure that Mississippi independent pharmacies remain viable and the patients they serve have access to the care they deserve,” said Mohamed, who is also the co-owner and pharmacist of G&P Pharmacy in Belzoni.

The Trump administration and Reeves have also gotten involved in the dispute. 

In a memo dated March 18, the Trump administration urged the House to invite further negotiations on the bill to remove a provision that would interfere with TrumpRx, a government-run website launched in February that offers cash discounts for prescription drugs. The bill’s language defined sponsoring or providing cash discount cards as a pharmacy benefit management service. 

The section of the Senate’s bill “could complicate the President’s policy and priority of providing access to the lowest prices on prescription medications for every American,” the memo read. 

Reeves met with lawmakers this week to discuss the legislation. 

In the meeting, Parks said, the governor encouraged the House and Senate to find language that could get pharmacy benefit manager reform passed.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen,” Parks said. 

White said the governor has indicated he would be unlikely to sign the Senate’s version of the bill into law.

The House and Senate versions of the bill included similar provisions such as measures to increase transparency and prohibit spread pricing, or the practice of paying insurers more for drugs than pharmacists to inflate pharmacy benefit managers’ profits.

Several key differences emerged between the proposals. 

The original version of House Bill 1665, authored by Rep. Hank Zuber, a Republican from Ocean Springs, would have moved the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers from the Board of Pharmacy to the Commissioner of Insurance.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney told Mississippi Today the state agency would regulate pharmacy benefit managers if it was given the staff and funding to do so. 

“We’re willing to run it if they give us the money and people to run it,” Chaney said. 

The Senate’s version, authored by Parks, would have kept the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers at the Board of Pharmacy and added language to the House’s bill, which she said  independent pharmacists requested to ensure they are paid fairly and transparently for dispensing drugs to patients.

Under the proposal, pharmacy benefit managers would be required to reimburse pharmacists at least as much as an affiliate pharmacy or the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, which covers the cost of the drug and a dispensing fee. Pharmacists have long said reimbursements for filling prescriptions are often lower than the cost to acquire and dispense the medications. 

But some senators said the suggested payment structure would harm Mississippi businesses.

Sen. Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave and the most vocal opponent of the Senate’s version of the bill, said March 10 that the Senate’s proposed text would drive up the cost of prescriptions and health insurance, which would then be passed on to Mississippi businesses and their employees. 

He presented a memo from the Legislative Budget Office estimating the bill would add $34 million in costs to the State Health Plan. 

“This is bad policy,” England said. “This is going to cost our job creators money.”

Parks said the business community has consistently employed “scare tactics” that discourage legislators from voting for pharmacy benefit reform legislation but have provided little evidence that prescription drug costs will rise if the Legislature passes a bill that requires a specific reimbursement model. 

On Thursday morning, Zuber said negotiations were ongoing between the House and the Senate. 

“There’s still time,” he told Mississippi Today.  

But less than an hour later, the House killed the bill by not voting to advance the Senate’s version or invite further negotiations before the deadline.

Last year, a pharmacy benefit reform bill made it to a similar stage in the legislative process but died in the House after a lawmaker raised a procedural challenge.

The options for reviving this year’s pharmacy benefit manager reform are limited. Lawmakers could introduce the text in a different bill, suspend the rules to revive the measure or the governor could convene a special session to address it. 

Parks said the work to regulate pharmacy benefit managers in Mississippi would continue. 

“While today’s result is disappointing, the fight for transparency and fairness in prescription drug pricing is far from over,” she said.

After Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a bill that attempted to provide low-interest loans to local governments impacted by Winter Storm Fern, lawmakers on Wednesday night revived the program in another piece of legislation.

House and Senate leaders introduced the loan program in a compromise plan, called a “conference report,” in a separate bill. The House and Senate unanimously approved the plan on Thursday morning, and it will head back to Reeves for consideration. 

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Gulfport, said on the Senate floor that the new plan is a compromise with Reeves and addresses the concerns the governor had with the prior proposal that was vetoed.

“Our neighbors in North Mississippi have suffered too much devastation, and we must provide financial relief as quickly as possible,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in a statement. “This conference report is a second attempt to support our cities and counties. We will pass it out of the Senate.”

Under the plan Reeves vetoed, local governments would have been able to borrow money from the state at a 1% a year interest rate that would kick in after the federal government sends relief money. Under the new plan introduced Wednesday, lawmakers changed it to a 3% annual interest rate after reimbursement from the federal government arrives. 

It’s unclear why legislative leaders raised the annual interest rate from their initial 1% proposal to 3%. But it may be an attempt to avoid Reeves vetoing the program a second time. 

In his veto message on the first proposal, the governor claimed he had negotiated a 1% monthly loan rate with legislators, which would have totaled 12% annually. But legislative leaders last week said including the word “monthly” in the plan was a mistake and agreed to remove it. 

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves vetoes winter storm aid bill and levels false claim of criminal act at Senate staff

Reeves also falsely accused Senate staffers of removing language in an unconstitutional and potentially criminal fashion. Senate leaders on Wednesday rejected those allegations and said it was reckless for the governor to have done so. 

Sen. Tyler McCaughn, a Republican from Newton, told Mississippi Today on Wednesday evening that lawmakers were exploring different ways to revive the loan program after the governor vetoed it. 

McCaughn said he favored reviving the program in another bill because it would be the quickest and most efficient way to get relief money to cities and counties that desperately need it. 

Bursts of color and a bright vibe of joy beckon inside the “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” exhibition, newly installed at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. That same magnet pulled scores of visitors to Hull’s Kosciusko home for years — a home the self-taught artist embellished to the nth degree using the raw materials of found and donated objects, paint and glue.

For Hull, who was born in 1942 and died in 2008, home and garden became her canvas, as did just about everything else within reach — fan blades, beads, buttons, jewelry, lighters, sneakers, tiny toys, bigger tools, television sets, spray bottles and more. Always more. Her home was simultaneously a studio, a gallery and an immersive art environment that was also packed with standalone pieces.

“L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation,” on view through June 14 at the Mississippi Museum of Art, is presented in partnership with the L.V. Hull Legacy Center and represents the first major museum exhibition devoted to Hull’s art and life. The Legacy Center, a project of the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, includes Hull’s preserved home in a new visual arts campus scheduled to open in Kosciusko this June with a parallel exhibition and related programming. 

Hull’s home/studio was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2024, and became the first of a Black female visual artist to be recognized as nationally significant.

The title of the Jackson exhibition stems from a saying of Hull’s, repeated in different works. “The whole quote is ‘Love is a sensation, started by a conversation, spread by the population and hurts like an operation,’” said guest co-curator Yaphet Smith, a friend of Hull’s, an Arts Foundation of Kosciusko board member and president of the Keysmith Foundation, steward of her historic home.

Hull’s saying inspired, too, the title of Smith’s documentary, clips of which are included in the exhibition. The Mississippi Museum of Art hosts a premiere screening of his documentary “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” April 9. 

“Love was such a driving force in her practice of art,” Smith said. “That really came out as I recorded her … love of self, the love of her Creator, friends and family, neighbors, and then the strangers that used to come from around the world to visit with her.”

The large photo of Hull on her front porch at the exhibition’s start puts her at ground zero of this colorful, creative explosion. Her polka-dot dress echoes the paint dot patterns that show up on shoes, pots, signs and more that surround her, for a near-intoxicating visual buzz.

Inside, individual artworks, ephemera from Hull’s archives and video clips offer a chance to zoom in and appreciate the details. Curiosity and intrigue first drew exhibition co-curator Ryan Dennis to Hull’s work, and she hopes viewers experience the same pull toward a closer look. Annalise Flynn, who works with the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko to preserve Hull’s home and legacy, is also part of the exhibition’s curatorial team.

“What makes this show special for me personally,” Dennis said, “is that, if you encountered L.V.’s work in Kosciusko while she was living, you were surrounded — really immersed in this art environment.

“What we have done here is take out these gems and allow for them to breathe a little bit, and you can spend some time with the paintings. You can really see what these words are on these paintings. 

“You can see how she put together these assemblages, these plaquettes,” Dennis said. She hopes it sparks people’s own creativity to create art from things so close within reach.

Hull merged artmaking and hospitality in her practice, welcoming neighbors and visitors to the 900-square-foot home she purchased in 1974 and transformed over decades with her unique creative vision. “Coming into her truest artist self, she wanted to share that with the world,” Dennis said. “The invitation is just so beautiful, and it’s nice to also be able to extend that here.”

In Hull’s hands, a tabletop Christmas tree base provides the structure for a tabletop bottle tree packed with small, gaily painted glass and plastic bottles. No need for Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots to fight for attention, when Hull’s painterly touch adds so much vibrant visual action to the toy.

Zooming in on her plaquettes becomes a journey of discovery — a tiny toy or perhaps a Santa face amid the buttons, costume jewelry bits and other charms. Hull leads viewers through her B.B. King plaquette in a video clip, pointing out the gas pump, sunglasses and guitar that connect to the blues icon and fellow Mississippi artist.

An archive tableau offers a further peek into the perspective and outlook of this self-proclaimed “Unusual Artist,” with a paint-flecked sheet of notebook paper and its handwritten list of “wisdom drops,” as Dennis called them. “A smile is the most important to wear” reads No. 6 on the list.

“My hope is that people get a sense of the personality of L.V.,” Dennis said. “She’s obviously joyful, but she’s obviously also a pistol of sorts. She’s witty. And at the end of it, she’s fueled with love and creativity, and we want people to take that away.” 

The exhibition’s concurrent run with “Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground” at the museum enhances the impact with intriguing parallels in the two one-woman shows centered on Mississippi artists.  Both highlight artists deeply connected to place, community and national contemporary art trends.

“They’re from different communities, and yet the community is really what informs the work,” said Betsy Bradley, Laurie Hearin McRee director of the Mississippi Museum of Art. Fussell uses items donated by friends, family and fellow townsfolk in Water Valley.

“L.V. Hull started making art when she was able to buy her own house. So, her art was decorating her house — painting on her house, adorning her house, creating beauty on every object in her house. Some people also in the community would drop off beads or buttons or whatever for her to use,” Bradley said. 

“It’s this connection and relationship between members of the community and creativity and making art, I think, that really ties them together.

“It really speaks to this need to create beauty and art out of everyday objects … this generous impulse that they both had to create and share with the community.”

Visit msmususem.org for details on admission, hours and related events.

Correction 3/26/2026: This story has been updated to correct Annalise Flynn’s name.

As states that already ban abortion look to further restrict access this year, much of the focus is on pills sent by out-of-state providers.

A survey released Tuesday helps explain the emphasis. It suggests that more women in states with bans obtained abortions last year using the pills prescribed via telehealth than by traveling to places where it’s legal.

Most of the states with the political will to impose broad bans have already done so in the nearly four years since the U.S. Supreme Court used a Mississippi case to overturn Roe v. Wade and opened the door to enforcing the bans. So far this year, just one state has a new one.

Here’s a look at where things stand as many state legislatures are wrapping up or have completed their 2026 sessions.

States are taking steps to make abortion pills harder to get

South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, a Republican, signed a bill last week that makes it a felony to advertise, distribute or sell abortion pills.

Similar measures have cleared both legislative chambers this year in Mississippi, where the House and Senate need to iron out differences before sending a bill to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

A survey of state abortion policies from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, finds that at least three states — Florida, Oklahoma and Texas — already have laws that specifically ban providers from mailing the pills to patients. Louisiana has classified mifepristone as a controlled dangerous substance.

Bills intended to keep out the pills have cleared one chamber in Arizona, Indiana and South Carolina this year. Republicans control the legislatures in all three states and the governor’s office in two of them. In Arizona, any restrictions that pass could be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

Survey suggests more women using abortion pills in states with bans

A Guttmacher survey released Tuesday sheds light on why abortion opponents may be focusing on pills.

The report suggests that in 2025, for the first time, more women in the 13 states that ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy obtained pills through telehealth than traveled to other states for abortion.

The prescriptions come from providers in states with laws adopted since the fall of Roe that are intended to protect those who prescribe abortion pills to patients in states with bans. Most often, women using pills for abortion are prescribed a regimen of two drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol. They’re approved for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

The estimated increase in the mailing pills comes as Guttmacher’s estimates also suggest fewer women are traveling to obtain abortions in states like Colorado, Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico.

Guttmacher’s estimates are based on data from a monthly survey conducted among a random sample of U.S. abortion providers, combined with historical data from every provider in the U.S. They reflect a trend documented in other surveys of abortion providers.

Court battles are also centered on pills

Multiple states are challenging the federal rules that allow mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth. Requiring in-person prescriptions instead would at least dent the ability of out-of-state providers to get pills into states with bans.

Louisiana has such a lawsuit in federal court there; the attorneys general of Florida and Texas have one in Texas; those two states, along with Idaho, Kansas and Missouri, are making the same case in a Missouri court.

Meanwhile, Texas has filed civil cases and Louisiana criminal ones against providers accused of sending pills into their states.

The Food and Drug Administration last year approved a generic version of mifepristone, which frustrated abortion opponents.

One state imposed a ban, but its fate is uncertain

Wyoming is the only state this year that has imposed a new abortion ban.

Under a law signed in March by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, it became the fifth state with a ban on abortion at about six weeks’ gestational age — before many women realize they’re pregnant. Like most of the others, Wyoming’s bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected.

But courts have rejected previous Wyoming efforts to limit abortion, and the Wyoming Supreme Court in January struck down a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

The idea of punishing women is not gaining ground

No state has adopted a measure intended to allow criminal prosecutions against women who have abortions.

Proposals to do so keep getting made but sputter early in the legislative process.

The farthest such a bill has advanced was a hearing last year before a Senate subcommittee in South Carolina. One was scheduled for a subcommittee hearing in Tennessee this month, but didn’t get one.

Pregnancy Justice, which advocates for the rights of pregnant people, says it has tracked new “abortion-as-homicide” measures introduced in six states in 2026 — down from 13 states last year.

The major established anti-abortion groups oppose the approach. “Women require compassion and support,” said Ingrid Duran, the state legislative director for National Right to Life. “Not prosecution.”

Melissa Murray, a professor at New York University School of Law, says that by introducing bills with penalties against women, the movement’s less compromising abolitionists can break down the idea that such policies are off-limits.

“You keep pushing the boundary, pushing the envelope, eventually you will get what you’re seeking,” Murray said. “It will no longer feel fanciful or shocking.”

She also noted that women are already sometimes charged with crimes related to their pregnancies. This month, police in Georgia charged a woman with murder after allegedly using an abortion pill and the opioid painkiller oxycodone.

Abortion will be on ballots in November

Abortion questions will be before voters in at least three states in November.

Missouri lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the right to reproductive freedom that they put into the state constitution in 2024.

Elsewhere, voters are being asked to add constitutional amendments that largely mirror current state abortion laws.

In Nevada, a state constitutional amendment to allow abortion until fetal viability — generally considered to be sometime after 21 weeks of pregnancy — passed in 2024, and needs voter approval a second time to take effect.

A Virginia ballot measure would guarantee the right to reproductive freedom, including access to contraception and making decisions on abortion care during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

___

Associated Press reporter Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this article.

Amid a hectic week of crafting a multi-billion dollar state budget, most of the Capitol on Wednesday paused business to witness the unveiling of former House Speaker Philip Gunn’s portrait that will hang in the entrance to the House chamber. 

Gunn is a Republican who represented the Clinton area in the House for 20 years. For 12 of those years, he served as speaker, one of the most powerful positions in state government. He was the first Republican speaker since Reconstruction. 

The painting features Gunn sitting in an armless olive-green chair with brass rivets. In the upper-left corner, it features a painting of Mississippi’s newly changed state flag. As speaker, Gunn helped lead the charge for Mississippi to scrap its former flag containing a Confederate battle emblem and adopt its current flag. 

“When I first saw it, it was like looking in the mirror,” Gunn told reporters. 

The painting does not show Gunn wielding a gavel or inside the House chamber, which is the typical fashion for portraits of past speakers. Jason Bouldin, the portrait artist, said he chose to showcase Gunn in that fashion to portray his overall sense of generosity and calmness. 

In addition to changing the state’s flag, Gunn will likely be remembered for leading the House in its passage of a bill that restricted abortion in the state. That legislation led to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and ending a constitutional right to an abortion. 

The former speaker said other items he views as policy achievements are rehabbing road and bridge infrastructure, increasing salaries for public school teachers and cutting the state’s income tax. 

The end of Gunn’s speech sounded like a prelude to a future campaign announcement. He told attendees at the Capitol ceremony that he wanted to be part of an effort that helps build up the next generation of Mississippians and continue to make the state the “best place to live and work.” 

“I am not riding off into the sunset, but I will be riding into the sunrise,” Gunn said. 

Regardless of whether Gunn chooses to run for statewide office, his portrait will hang in the Capitol alongside other past speakers, as is the typical custom. Whenever the 122 elected House members enter the chamber during a session, they will likely view Gunn’s image. 

Current House Speaker Jason White told Mississippi Today that he believes the portrait captures his predecessor’s “down-to-earth” nature and his bold leadership style. When he views the painting, White said he’ll remember how Gunn led “from the front” and not “from the side or the back.”

“I can only hope to kind of get close to that mark,” White said. “For us, when you see that, you remember that guy and that leader, and it’s a good memory.”

Mississippi lawmakers are considering legislation that would make joint custody the standard in all divorce cases – something done in only five states.

Advocates of the proposed legislation say it will even the playing field for fathers. But litigation to gain sole custody would become more costly and time-consuming. If enacted into law, opponents say this bill would disproportionately hurt low-income women and those who work full time caring for children and households. 

Critics also say women who get joint custody of their children may end up providing most of the childcare, but they won’t receive child support that can make that extra care more manageable. In some cases, it could force women into contact with abusive ex-husbands or leave children in the custody of abusive fathers.

In most states, including Mississippi, parental custody is considered on a case-by-case basis. Often, mothers are granted primary custody. Experts say this legislation, if passed, would affect tens of thousands of Mississippi parents each year. 

Rep. Shane Aguirre, a Republican from Tupelo and author of the bill, told Mississippi Today he thinks Mississippi fathers have the odds stacked against them. He proposed legislation to make the system more fair, and because he believes children benefit from having a mother and father present when possible. 

“Why not start where we’re going to be 50-50 at the beginning?” Aguirre said. “And then if we have an issue with the dad who’s got problems, or mom she’s got problems, we can adjust it. 

Splitting custody down the middle is not necessarily the best scenario for all families, said Douglas NeJaime, a family law professor at Yale Law School. He also said creating a preference for joint custody could obscure the nuances of individual cases. 

“Families come in all shapes and sizes,” NeJaime said. “It’s not clear that a presumption of shared custody is going to promote the interests of children.”

Five Mississippi family and divorce lawyers told Mississippi Today they felt the legislation was unnecessary. Four of them said it was harmful. 

“I think it’ll be used to put more women in court than should be,” said Mark Chinn, who has practiced Mississippi law for 47 years and family law for 35 years. Chinn added that he respects that fathers today want to be more involved, but believes that this legislation would only make things harder for women. 

To those who aren’t lawyers, the system might appear to blindly favor mothers, but it doesn’t, said Matthew Thompson, who practices family law in Madison and is an adjunct professor  at Mississippi College School of Law. 

Current state law presumes mothers and fathers are equally entitled to custody of their children. Judges award custody based on a rubric of 12 factors, including employment responsibilities and who provided most of the care before the divorce. 

“Dads think, ‘Well I could have done XYZ, but I had to work.’ Well, they’re right, they probably could have – but they didn’t,” said Thompson. “The facts are what’s driving those cases. It’s not an inherent bias.”

That was the case for Terry Winter, a real estate agent in Tupelo, who always wanted to be a mother. After getting married and having children, Winter said she paid for her children’s braces and was their primary caregiver, taking them to doctors’ appointments and sports games. Her marriage unraveled. In 2015, Winter divorced her husband, and was then awarded full custody of their three teenage sons.  

If Winter had to pay to prove those things in court, she said she worries her family “would have been living on the street.”

Under the proposed legislation, sole custody would still be awarded to the mother in many cases, said John Grant, a former Rankin County judge who presided over 6,000 divorce cases during his 24 years in the role. But the presumption of joint custody would have to be overcome, and that will waste resources, Grant said. 

“It offers false hope in most cases to fathers,” Grant said. “It’s going to promulgate needless litigation.”

In some states where versions of this law already exist, some women who should get custody of children after a divorce don’t. Under Kentucky’s joint custody presumption law, the Wall Street Journal reported about cases where women and children have suffered abuse because the law compelled them to interact with violent ex-spouses and caregivers. 

Joy Jones, director of the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she’s not against the bill. However, she would like to see it amended to make exceptions for domestic violence. If the onus is on the victim to provide “a preponderance of evidence” showing abuse, Jones said she worries that will put women and children in harm’s way. In some cases, Jones said, a victim of such violence might choose to stay in an abusive relationship because it seems better than having their children out of sight. 

“The victim might go back to ensure that they can watch and see what’s happening with their children,” Jones said. 

Jak Smith served as Winter’s attorney, and he said lawyers stand to benefit from increased litigation if the bill passes. But he worries about the people it would hurt. 

“I will make more money if this law passes, but it’s wrong,” Smith said. 

For the bill to survive, the House will have to bring it up for a vote by Thursday. If it passes the House, it will be sent to Gov. Tate Reeves. The House also has the option to invite further debate with the Senate.