OurTupelo

Mukta Joshi is a reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow. Joseph Cranney is a reporter at Verite News. Both report for the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The Times.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has completed its review of the Senatobia Police Department’s fatal shooting of a Black toddler and sent its findings to Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the department’s interim police chief said this week.

Angelica Maze, the chief, said Fitch will decide when to release more information about the shooting of the toddler, 1-year-old Kohen Wiley. Maze, appointed earlier this month after her predecessor was fired, released a statement on Thursday after months of uproar about law enforcement’s refusal to release body-worn camera and surveillance footage of the incident. 

A representative for Fitch said the office wouldn’t comment because the case remains active. If the attorney general decides to pursue a case against any officers involved, the findings would be presented to a Mississippi grand jury, which would decide if there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. 

Patrick Lumumba, who founded the Senatobia Committee for Accountability and Transparency in the wake of the shooting, which occurred on June 14, said Maze’s statement doesn’t address any of the community’s concerns. 

“We still don’t have any video footage. We still don’t have any clarity as to what M.B.I. has determined,” Lumumba said. “We don’t know anything other than the files are on Lynn Fitch’s desk.”

The Senatobia Board of Aldermen fired the department’s former chief, Harold Vanderford, after Mississippi Today, Verite News and The New York Times revealed he had routinely used racist slurs against Black people in private texts. 

Kohen was fatally shot in a Walmart parking lot after two women, including his mother, were accused of shoplifting diapers and baby clothes. At least five officers converged on them as the pair got into a car, with Kohen seated on the lap of his mother, Vellesiya Wiley, in the front passenger seat. 

Wiley said she had lifted her son up to show officers that there was a baby in the car. Then she heard three or four gunshots. Bullets struck the car, the driver and Kohen. 

Neither woman has been charged with shoplifting. 

In a statement the day of the shooting, MBI said the car had driven toward officers, “almost striking” one. The agency released documents “in error” that identified a Senatobia officer, Hunter Foster, as the subject of its investigation. The next day, the Board of Aldermen placed Foster on paid administrative leave. 

Since then, law enforcement has remained tight-lipped about the shooting and the progress of the state’s investigation. Sean Tindell, the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, which oversees M.B.I., said the investigative report and video footage would be made publicly available only if a prosecuting agency confirmed the case would not be prosecuted, or if a grand jury refused to indict.

Tindell announced his run for attorney general, and Fitch announced her run for governor in August. 

The only video footage that the public has seen was captured by an eyewitness, Desirae Smith. Her video shows three officers and one sheriff’s deputy running behind the car as it drove away. Smith said nobody in law enforcement had contacted her. The authorities haven’t reached out to Wiley either, said Veronica Roberson, her mother.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Friday that all 50 states will join in on a program set to provide Most Favored Nation pricing to some drugs within the Medicaid program, bringing the net price of selected drugs down to prices paid in certain other countries.

The Trump administration claims that Medicaid will save billions on prescription drug costs as a result of the plan, dubbed the Medicaid “GENEROUS” model. Experts say the savings are unclear since the content of the deals isn’t public.

“This one thing alone should win us the midterms,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Friday, flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and others, including Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves.

Friday’s announcement comes as cost-of-living issues are at the forefront of voters’ concerns ahead of the midterm elections in November. In a way to address affordability concerns, Trump has cut deals with pharmaceutical companies so that the cost of some drugs in the U.S. would not be dramatically higher than in other affluent nations. But critics say his administration has not presented a viable plan for broadly addressing rising health costs, especially after Republicans let expire Affordable Care Act subsidies earlier this year that sent plan costs soaring.

Last year, Trump signed an executive order instituting a “Most Favored Nations” policy, where the U.S. would commit to paying the same price for medications as the nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the world.

The White House in May estimated that Trump’s deals with pharmaceutical companies to lower some of their U.S. prescription drug prices to levels charged in other countries could save $529 billion over the next 10 years.

Patients in Medicaid, the state and federally funded program for people with low incomes, already pay a nominal co-payment of a few dollars to fill their prescriptions, but lower prices could help state budgets that fund the programs.

Trump said “every state will have the ability to use those extra billions of dollars to invest in other healthcare improvements or something else.”

The true cost of the claimed savings is unclear since few details of the deals struck by the Trump administration and participating pharmaceutical companies have been made public, making it hard to independently verify the projected savings.

Kathy Hempstead, a senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told The Associated Press that there is significant pressure on the administration to provide more granular data to justify its cost-savings claims, and that the lack of information creates a barrier to legislative action.

“He is saying Congress should codify all of his MFN arrangements,” Hempstead said. “But it’s kind of unreasonable because it’s not clear what Congress would actually do. No one knows what is in these deals.”

She added that there is concern about whether the current administration’s tenure will affect the longevity of these price cuts and whether prices will revert once the administration leaves.

Some want to see more people benefit from lower drug pricing.

JD Hayworth, a former Republican congressman and spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance, said in a statement that Friday’s announcement reflects “meaningful progress, but that progress remains incomplete,” as millions of Americans not enrolled in government healthcare want lower drug prices.

Drug prices for patients in the U.S. can depend on a number of factors, including the competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which shield them from much of the cost.

OXFORD — So I’ve heard this question several times this week: “Is this LSU-Ole Miss game the biggest college football game you have ever covered?”

Well, no. It’s not even the biggest in the last 10 months. The Ole Miss-Georgia Sugar Bowl playoff game was bigger. The Miami-Ole Miss Fiesta Bowl was still bigger. Now then, this might be the most anticipated regular season game I’ve ever covered. No question, it would be in the first sentence of any conversation of that nature. 

This much is certain: This will be the strangest college football game I have ever covered. And by strange, I refer to all the bizarre surrounding circumstances – all the, for lack of a better term, football incest.

No. 7 LSU vs. No. 8 Ole Miss, two teams with star power and national championship hopes, make this the national game of the week. But you factor in Lane Kiffin returning to the scene of what Ole Miss fans consider his unforgivable betrayal, former Ole Miss stars now playing for LSU and so many other extenuating circumstances and you have a football tempest. Indeed, Shakespeare would have a ball with this scenario. Had football been a sport in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Shakespeare might have written this play. This game has many of the elements of a Shakespeare masterpiece: betrayal, revenge, corruption, incest – you name it.

Let’s put it this way: When I got into this business about a hundred or so years ago, I never imagined covering anything quite like this. How is this bizarre? Let us count the ways:

• Just this Tuesday in Baton Rouge, LSU defensive end Princewill Umanmielen was served court papers pertaining to the $550,000 lawsuit Ole Miss filed against him for allegedly breaking the terms of his contract at Ole Miss. Umanmielen led Ole Miss in sacks with nine last season. He already has five for LSU.
• Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who also seems LSU’s de facto athletic director, then posted about the Ole Miss athletic director on social media: “Keith Carter could have saved Ole Miss some money and waited until Saturday. He’ll be easy to find in the Ole Miss backfield often!”
• Umanmielen is one of four former Rebels who helped Ole Miss to 13 victories last season. Others are linebackers T.J. Dottery, guard Devin Harper and wide receiver Winston Watkins. All are key players. LSU fans might term them opportunists. Ole Miss fans believe them traitors.
• Of course, what Ole Miss fans resent most is that Kiffin tried his best to take Heisman candidates Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy and several other Rebels to Baton Rouge with him, as well. They still play for the Rebels.
• Much has been made of the former Rebels – players and assistant coaches – now at LSU. But two former Tigers now play for Ole Miss: running back JT Lindsey and offensive lineman Carius Curne. Yes, the former Ole Miss coaches now at LSU know all about Ole Miss’s personnel, but one of Pete Golding’s key off-season hires was Frank Wilson, LSU’s star recruiter and the interim head coach after Brian Kelly’s dismissal last year. 
• Head coaches Kiffin and Golding both coached under Nick Saban at Alabama, and then Kiffin hired Golding away from Saban at Ole Miss. They know each other’s tendencies inside and out. Here’s the crazy part: Golding now lives in Kiffin’s old house. You couldn’t make it up. And you can bet on this: For all the nice things Golding has said about Kiffin this week and in the past, he still burns inside because of the manner in which Kiffin tried to sabotage the Ole Miss program after he left.
• Want more? Landry Kiffin, Lane’s daughter, remains a student at Ole Miss and has complained on social media this week about vulgar signs around Oxford and posts on social media about her and a former Ole Miss football player and a sexual relationship that didn’t happen. ”I opened my phone this morning to pictures of banners on houses around Oxford posted on different accounts saying really inappropriate things about me,” Landry Kiffin  said. “… I think that turning a girl into the punchline of a sexual joke because you’re upset at somebody she’s related to should not be okay.” Landry Kiffin dates Whit Weeks, an LSU linebacker.
• With all the intrigue, a record crowd is descending upon Oxford, with or without game tickets. Oxford’s population is about 26,600. Estimates are 200,000 – and perhaps even 300,000 – will clog the roadways, the Oxford Square and the Ole Miss campus. By midafternoon Friday, traffic was insane and getting worse by the minute. Security has been beefed up with extra officers from the state Department of Public safety and police from Mobile and New Orleans for the Mardi Gras-like weekend. From above, Oxford must look like a stepped-on ant bed.
• Back to Shakespeare: The bard’s plays, while heavy on incest, betrayal and corruption, also featured much hilarity. Ole Miss coaches found some humor this week when Kiffin listed $5 million transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt as “doubtful” because of an unspecified injury. “That’s Lane being Lane,” was the general reaction, along with laughter, in the Ole Miss camp. “We can’t complain much. He did that s— all the time when he was here,” an Ole Miss athletic official told me.

Kiffin was an Ole Miss hero in this town then. He is public enemy No. 1 now. In the minds of Ole Miss fans, Shakespeare’s Brutus had nothing on Lane Kiffin. Et tu, Lane?

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.

“I am happy to still have my two little ones as they have kept me alive,” a French widow wrote to a group of women in Mississippi more than 100 years ago. Anna Laborde’s husband had been killed in World War I, as had her brother. Her mother had also recently died. Although her children, she wrote, had kept her alive, they were too young to lighten her heart “in the moments of sadness that often come.”

It is one of 13 World War I letters written to the members of the Woman’s Book Club of Oxford, now archived at the University of Mississippi Libraries. When students at the university translated the letters from French to English this past year, they did not simply complete a class assignment. They uncovered the story of a family that in France had become a war statistic. In Mississippi, they recovered a piece of history. Their work reminds us that the value of a university education cannot always be measured in salaries or job placements in the workforce.

I discovered the handwritten letters several years ago as I researched the history of the book club, of which I am a member. Other than dates and a few words that I could recognize, I had no understanding of what the letters contained. In fact, I assumed they were business correspondence, likely confirming the club’s participation in a relief program known in the United States as the Fatherless Children of France, coordinated through the Army Orphanage, a French nonprofit organization.

I knew that for several years the Oxford women contributed $36.50 a year, the equivalent of 10 cents a day, to help a French woman feed and clothe her child. But it was not until the students recently translated the letters into English that I began to understand how the letters did more than acknowledge the club’s financial contributions.

The World War I letters preserved evidence of the friendship that developed between women on two continents. The women wrote about their children and in one, Madame Laborde expresses concern for the brother of a club member who is serving with American troops in France. In another, she writes about the Allies’ victory as the war ends. “Truly, I am glad the war is over, but it is a new heartbreak for me,” she said. “One’s heart hurts so much when one sees some return and not others. At least, thanks to the brave Americans who wanted to join us, the country was saved.”

The students, enrolled in a graduate-level French translation class, had unlocked a source of history and cultural understanding that otherwise had been largely inaccessible. 

Trustees of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board recently moved toward a new funding model that could tie public support for state universities to graduation rates, student retention and workforce outcomes. Part of the proposal outlines how universities could earn additional dollars by producing graduates who earn competitive wages and align student success with the state’s workforce needs.

Such a formula raises an important question. What would become of those university programs whose full value cannot be measured in terms of salary and immediate job placement?

It’s fair for our leaders to ensure that public funds advance the state’s economy. We need teachers, healthcare workers, engineers, computer scientists and other skilled professionals. We need our university graduates to earn well-paying salaries so they can build lives in Mississippi rather than move elsewhere.

But a model that assigns value primarily on the basis of whether a degree program can be mapped to high-paying jobs overlooks the value of other work that universities perform – preserving records and history, interpreting cultures and helping us understand lives beyond our own.

The students who translated the letters from Madame Laborde had to know more than French vocabulary and grammar. They had to understand French culture as it existed in 1918. The word veuve, for example, literally means widow.

When Anna signed herself “Madame Veuve Laborde,” she was doing more than reporting that her husband had died. She was evoking the public identity and respect associated with a woman whose husband had been killed in war.  Elsewhere in the letters she wrote that she and her children “are also considered heroes among the fallen.” To translate her signature fully, the students had to understand not only the meaning of a word, but the social context in which she used it. 

Their translation led me to pause and think about a war I knew little about, to think about it in terms of families and people and not just battles and victories. The humanities help us develop the empathy we need to understand people whose experiences are different from our own. 

Certainly, Mississippi needs to find ways to counteract the “brain drain” that leads too many graduates of our universities to move out of state. But we also need to value the university programs that help our students whose work increases our knowledge and our understanding of other cultures, places and experiences.

Madam Lamborde’s letters had largely sat inaccessible in the university archives for more than a century. With the translations the students provided, her voice can now be heard again. That, too, is a return on Mississippi’s investment in higher education.

Shirley Wimbish Gray lives in Oxford. A retired writing instructor and science editor, she writes about what is often overlooked or forgotten, particularly in the American South. Her recent essays have appeared in Earth Island, Brevity Blog and Persimmon Tree. More information can be found on her work  at her website, (shirleywimbishgray.com.

Mississippi brothers James and Tommy Duff again made Forbes’ list of the top 400 richest Americans.

The billionaire brothers are the two wealthiest people in Mississippi, and they each saw their net worth rise from $4.1 billion last year to $4.5 billion, according to Forbes. They ranked 380 on the list.

The Duff’s also made Forbes’ global billionaire ranking, with James coming in at 978 and Tommy at 982.

The global list was topped by Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX founder, with a current net worth of nearly $948 billion. Musk was the single largest overall political donor of the 2024 US election cycle, forking over hundreds of millions of dollars to support President Donald Trump. He later led Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, before leaving the administration in May of 2025.

Tommy Duff, 69, and Jim Duff, 65, built a multi-billion-dollar business empire that started as a small tire shop founded by their father. Southern Tire Mart, which is based in Columbia, now sells over 4 million new tires and 2.5 million truck tire retreads each year, Forbes said. The Duff brothers also cofounded and co-own Duff Capital Investors, a holding company with total revenue of $6 billion from more than 20 businesses.

Tommy Duff has been a political power broker in Mississippi and a philanthropist. He served an eight-year stint on the board of the state Institutions of Higher Learning, first appointed by then-Gov. Phil Bryant, and has been a major contributor to many Republican campaigns in Mississippi.

He has said he is considering running for governor in 2027, but has not announced a decision.

A group representing mayors from 10 states along the Mississippi River said they’re seeking regulation to help conserve water and “navigate the fast-growing AI data center economy.”

The plan that the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative announced Wednesday is to push in other states regulations modeled after legislation recently passed in Missouri, which bans the “mass exportation” of water. State lawmakers from Mississippi, Louisiana and Minnesota have committed to introducing similar bills, MRCTI said.

“As droughts persist and intense heat expands, the need to secure our water resources will only become more acute,” Sen. Derrick Simmons, a Democrat from Greenville, said at a press conference in Natchez during the group’s 15th annual meeting. “I am proud and eager to introduce a version of the Missouri bill that was enacted into law last year, and I hope to accomplish the same thing for Mississippi and get us closer to realizing a Mississippi River Compact.”

The group is modeling its Mississippi River Compact after the Great Lakes Compact, a 2008 agreement which Simmons said has kept the lakes’ water resources “secure and intact.” If enough states pass the export ban, the group can then push a federally recognized agreement through Congress, Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman said at the news conference.

“With last year’s passage in Missouri and now three more states committing to move the legislation forward, we only need three more states to move us to the congressional level,” Hoffman said.

Missouri’s 2025 legislation requires anyone withdrawing water from the state and exporting it more than 30 miles outside the state to have a permit. The law does not apply to bottled water or packaged water intended for single use.

MRCTI is a coalition, formed in 2012, made up of nearly 200 cities along the Mississippi River. Blytheville, Arkansas, Mayor Melisa Logan said Wednesday that 75% of the group’s member cities have been approached about hosting AI infrastructure. While usage amounts vary greatly, some research estimates that large data centers can use about 5 million gallons of water per day, largely for cooling, or the equivalent water use of a town of at least 10,000 people.

Every morning for a week, the fifth-graders in Hannah Bagwell’s science class at Florence Elementary School check on the apples.

Under their watchful eyes, three apples — one whole, one halved, one sliced — will decay. The students will take notes, predict what will happen and analyze the success of their guesses the next day. Bagwell uses the lesson to introduce the students to the scientific method. It’s a unique way to teach the idea, and she’s found it’s the most successful. 

“Science is so real-world, so having hands-on experiences really helps the students see that science is everywhere,” she said. “It’s hard for them to think about in theory, but when they see it in practice, it makes it more relatable to students.”

Teachers across subjects use all kinds of supplies and methods to teach students — think building toothpick-and-straw contraptions in physics class to prevent falling eggs from cracking, or using shaving cream for a sensory word spelling experience in kindergarten. 

But these nontraditional items have become harder to access, according to some Mississippi teachers. 

The Mississippi Department of Education rolled out a new digital platform this year for the Education Enhancement Fund, or procurement card program. The program, which was established in 2012, gives every K-12 public school teacher $748 a year — around $25 million in total — to buy supplies for their classrooms. But educators have long said they get the money, traditionally in the form of a physical card, too late for it to be useful. 

To make the process easier for teachers, the agency switched to ClassWallet this year, a digital platform that allows teachers to purchase supplies online from pre-approved vendors. Teachers can also file for reimbursement for purchases from vendors that are not included, and local vendors can apply to join the marketplace.

“The decision to move to the digital platform … was driven by frustration we were hearing from teachers by way of business managers,” said Kymberly Wiggins, the state education agency’s chief operating officer. “This was not a decision made in a vacuum. We heard pretty sound concerns that drove us to examine the way we were delivering those funds.”

According to Wiggins, the change has been successful. More than 35,000 teachers are using the program, she said, thousands more than at this point last year. 

They are also spending more money. Last year, in the first month of activating the cards, teachers spent $8.5 million of the $25 million allocated for the program. This year, they spent almost $10.5 million in the first month. 

“We’ve come a long way,” said Lance Evans, Mississippi Superintendent of Education at a state board of education meeting Thursday. “We’re excited about where we are.”

But educators say the new platform forces them to plan lessons far ahead and makes it more difficult to buy uncommon teaching supplies and subscribe to online teaching modules. 

“I haven’t tried to be reimbursed because it’s not a ton of money,” Bagwell said, of the apple experiment. “The new process is definitely more complicated than just going to the grocery store. For someone who is not thinking weeks in advance, especially when it comes to a science investigation, I’m going to have to spend more of my own money now.”

Wiggins said the agency is trying to respond in real time to teachers’ concerns. People work over the weekend to approve teachers’ purchases, she said, and they’re accepting more nontraditional items, such as a convection oven for a science class or fidget spinners for special education students. 

Out of 70,000 transactions, the agency has only rejected 448, she said. 

“We are aware of those niche kinds of specialized teacher populations,” Wiggins said. “We see the program working because they’ve spent half the funds, but we know there are areas we can gain some efficiencies.”

‘Another rock in the road’ with ClassWallet

Katie Erwin is one of those educators who requires unique supplies. The Yazoo City High School librarian says the ClassWallet online marketplace offers beaucoup books, but it’s missing what she really needs: Book repair equipment.

She would typically buy those through Amazon, but her account is frozen because it’s linked to her old physical EEF card. Erwin has two options, and she’s not pleased with either: She could buy the supplies elsewhere and file for reimbursement, but she’s uncomfortable linking her bank account. Or she could request that another vendor is added to the marketplace, but she’s not sure how long that would take. 

For now, she’s stuck borrowing supplies from teachers and relying on her principal to help her get what she needs.

Read more: Mississippi teachers say new state-mandated process for buying classroom supplies is ‘insane, cumbersome, frustrating’

“It’s just another rock in the road with this new system, another something to go around,” Erwin said. “I feel like I have very little control or say over where I buy from or what I buy. It almost feels like I’m being doubted. 

“If I say the library needs something, it needs it.”

State officials weigh a solution

Erwin has run into another problem frustrating educators across the state: Paying for subscriptions. 

Previously, educators were able to use their physical cards to pay for subscriptions to teaching platforms or teacher supply magazines. The new ClassWallet marketplace doesn’t account for subscriptions. Teachers have no choice but to pay out of pocket and file for reimbursement, which many prefer not to. 

Erwin, for example, subscribes to her local newspapers and keeps them in the library for students. Other educators, such as music teacher Michelle Cook in Laurel, need subscriptions for curriculum. 

Cook has for years subscribed to a music magazine, ordering songs for students that come with a digital download, making it easy to project lyrics onto her screen. The subscription is about $150 a year. 

As the only music teacher at her elementary school, she has the same group of students from year to year. She uses the subscription to keep the songs fresh, keep her class fun. 

Now, without being able to pay for the subscription with state funds, she’s going to reuse old songs. 

“Some of the kids might remember it,” she said. “It’s just been frustrating. I would love to be able to get access to the stuff I need.”

Bagwell, the science teacher, is splitting a subscription to a science video service with other science teachers at her school. One teacher pays $300 for the subscription at the beginning of the year, and the others send her their share via Venmo. 

Ronald Jeri, a Spanish teacher at West Jones High School, relies heavily on subscriptions to teach his students. The platform Señor Wooly, for example, allows his students to watch educational videos, answer questions and learn how to correct their mistakes. 

Jeri estimates he spent around $400 on subscriptions each year. In early August, he said he wasn’t sure what he would do this year. 

“I’m hoping that in the following weeks, somebody will try to correct this huge mistake,” he said. 

Wiggins said the agency is aware of educators’ issues paying for subscriptions and acknowledged reimbursement is currently their only option — but it may not be for long. 

State Education Department officials hope to introduce a hybrid model for the program in the future, she said. Part of the $748 in EEF funds would go to a physical card that teachers could use for subscriptions or last-minute supplies at their local store. 

Agency officials deployed a new feature on Aug. 31 that allows businesses enrolled in the direct pay program to be paid directly from ClassWallet. That way, teachers don’t have to file for reimbursement. Currently, 20 vendors are enrolled. 

Wiggins wants to hear from more teachers in the future to improve the program. 

“Our thought was not ever making this a more cumbersome, complicated process,” she said. “We had little to no visibility into what teachers were purchasing. For us, this has been really informative to establish benchmarks about what teachers need. 

“We just continue to listen to all feedback and figure out how to make this experience as efficient as possible for teachers while also finding the balance of being good stewards of $25 million in state funds.” 

Erwin, though, wishes educators were more involved in the process from the start. 

“Where’s our voice in all of this?” she asked. “Are we being consulted before the big decisions are being made, or are people just throwing Band-Aids at us afterwards?”

HATTIESBURG — Hattiesburg is one of the most crucial areas in Mississippi’s redistricting fight this year, and dozens of its voters packed a room on Thursday night to say they’re opposed to it. 

Only a handful of the many people who addressed the Joint House and Senate Redistricting Committee said that they support efforts altering congressional and state legislative districts. The vast majority said they’re against it because they believe it would waste taxpayer dollars and diminish Black voting power.

“I ask you don’t disenfranchise the citizens that voted for you,” Deanna Douglas said. “Listen to us and please don’t do this.” 

Thursday’s hearing was the sixth in a slate of eight public hearings the committee is holding across the state.

Hattiesburg will be a crucial area in redistricting and would likely determine whether the Republican Party can achieve a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate. 

Lawmakers redrew legislative boundaries in 2022 to create two majority-white Senate districts in Forrest County, the county where Hattiesburg is located. Sen. Chris Johnson and former Sen. John Polk, two white Republicans, represented that area. 

But a federal three-judge panel determined in 2024 that lawmakers diluted Black voting strength in the Pine Belt area and ordered the Legislature to redraw maps. The Legislature followed the court order and in 2025 made one of the districts majority Black. Sen. Johnny DuPree, a Black Democrat, won the seat in a special election later that year. 

The Callais vs. Louisiana U.S. Supreme Court decision removed protection for majority-minority districts and cleared the way for Republican-controlled state legislatures to redraw political lines in their favor. But Forrest County voter Kennen Walker said on Thursday night that he wanted DuPree to continue representing the area. 

“I’m against mid-decade redistricting because I don’t want to lose representation we just voted for,” Walker said. 

Gov. Tate Reeves is expected to call a special legislative session before the end of the year for lawmakers to redraw legislative districts. Will Spradling said he wants the committee to draw districts that elect more Republicans, so that lawmakers enact more conservative policies. 

“Mississippi should be as conservative as states like California are progressive,” Spradling said. “No matter how these lines are drawn, these citizens will have their vote.”  

A few people, including Petal Alderman Drew Brickson, asked legislators to specifically draw maps in a way that keeps the nearby town of Petal fully intact and not split between legislative districts. 

The committee will conduct two more hearings: One on Sept. 22 at Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport and another on Oct. 1 at the state Capitol in Jackson. Both will start at 6 p.m.

The public can also submit written comments to the committee by emailing ted.booth@peer.ms.gov. 

Four-term incumbent Republican Rep. Michael Guest faces a challenge from a Democratic farmer from Shubuta and a Libertarian real estate investor from Meridian for the 3rd District congressional seat in central Mississippi.

The challengers are coming at Guest from the left and right with criticism of Guest’s support of, and lack of pushback against, Trump administration policies.

Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District covers central portions of the state, such as the GOP stronghold of Rankin County, and stretches from the Louisiana border in the west to rural Alabama border towns in the east.

Democrats are leading in many congressional race polls across the country, and are favored to reclaim a majority in the House. But the 3rd District in Mississippi has been a GOP stronghold. Yet, if Republicans are to stand a chance at retaining their razor-thin majority in the chamber, defending territory in areas like Mississippi’s 3rd District is critical.

Guest, who was first elected in 2018, is running for a fifth term in office after sailing to general election victories three times. In 2024, he survived a primary challenge from the right that went to a runoff but ran unopposed in the general election. He ran unopposed for the Republican nomination this cycle.

The race also features Libertarian candidate Erik Kiehle of Meridian. Kiehle, a businessman in property management and a volunteer firefighter, said he is “a strong believer in America First.” He has criticized incumbent Republicans’ support of “U.S.-Israel military integration” and has called for an end to foreign wars and a halt to spending on wars in Ukraine and Iran along with an end to aid to Israel. He said he would push for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget and end deficit spending. He supports mass deportation and a ban on Muslim immigrants.

Guest serves as chair of the House Ethics Committee, and also serves on the Homeland Security and Appropriations committees. In August, NOTUS reported that Guest, whose chairmanship on the Ethics Committee includes enforcing compliance of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, violated the insider trading and transparency law. Guest’s Democratic opponent, Michael Chiaradio, and the Mississippi Democratic Party have highlighted the story in social media posts.

Guest, the outlet said, was more than six months late disclosing three stock sales made by a family trust fund owned by his wife involving shares of the oil giant Chevron, the lodging platform Airbnb and the cosmetics company e.l.f. Beauty. A spokesperson for Guest said he “does not have any decision-making role” in the trust and “was not consulted on these, or any other, transactions made by the trust.”

Otherwise, Guest has run a steady, low-profile campaign, appearing at local events hosted by the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women and with U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is also on the ballot this year. He has emphasized his endorsement from President Donald Trump and his work helping enact the administration’s agenda.

“Under President Trump’s leadership and with a conservative Congress we have restored law and order in our country, rebuilt our military and respect around the world, cut taxes, and secured the border,” Guest told Mississippi Today.

Guest also holds a massive financial advantage, outraising Chiaradio by a nearly 5-to-1 margin, as well as maintaining significantly more cash on hand, Federal Election Commission reports show.

Chiaradio, a first-time candidate for Congress originally from New Jersey, is a former baseball player turned farmer living in rural Mississippi. He traveled the country while playing baseball at Eastern Nazarene College, and after playing in the inaugural season of what became the Empire Professional Baseball League, he launched a professional softball league in Satsuma, Alabama.

He also has professional experience working for a government contractor that provides administrative services for health care agencies.

He came to Mississippi in search of a lifestyle that would suit his interest in farming. In 2023, he purchased a house on several acres of land in Shubuta.

A constituent of Guest, Chiaradio said he grew weary of watching the four-term incumbent act as a rubber stamp for Trump and the national Republican agenda. When he saw Guest’s name alone on his 2024 ballot, Chiaradio decided he would supply political competition himself.

“Michael Guest is the only name on my ballot,” he recalled. “My God, I could step up and stand up to this guy. And who the heck is going to do it if not me?”

Chiaradio ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He told Mississippi Today he believes a localized message built around economic frustration can unite both disaffected conservatives and a fractured Democratic Party. His policy agenda includes expanding safety net programs to offer universal childcare and food assistance.

Chiaradio launched his campaign with the help of Zee Cohen Sanchez, a strategist who worked on U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s shock upset of a powerful New York Democratic incumbent in 2018.

Sanchez, who is no longer with the campaign, had earlier said she believed a successful challenge to Guest would cost over $1 million. Chiaradio has fallen well short of that sum, raising just under $140,000 in total contributions.

On the campaign trail, Guest has criticized Chiaradio’s hiring of Sanchez and, by extension, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the progressive firebrand from Vermont.

“The far-left ideology promoted by Bernie Sanders and other Democrat radicals is the last thing we need representing the people of Mississippi in Congress,” Guest said.

The general election is on Nov. 3.

In a Wednesday court filing, University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce continued to defend his firing of former university employee Lauren Stokes over a social media post she made following the death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

This is the latest legal development in Stokes’ First Amendment lawsuit that she filed against Boyce in October in response to her firing. U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson dismissed the lawsuit in March on the grounds that Stokes’ failed to make a plausible First Amendment violation claim.

Following the dismissal, Stokes filed an appeal in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that Davidson had improperly dismissed her lawsuit.

In his response, Boyce argues that Stokes’ complaint fails to allege a violation, that the chancellor is entitled to qualified immunity and the district court was correct in its dismissal of the lawsuit.

“She failed to plausibly allege that her interest in speaking on social media outweighed the University’s interest in promoting efficiency in the workplace.” Boyce’s filing states.

Boyce argues that the attention drawn to the university and the “disruption to the University’s operations” only stopped after Stokes was fired and he, as chancellor, issued an apology statement.

Read more: Former Ole Miss employee contends in appeal of dismissed lawsuit that Chancellor Glenn Boyce caved to hecklers

Boyce’s lawyers stated that the chancellor testified “he did not terminate Stoke’s employment based on his personal opinion about the viewpoint expressed in her Instagram post,” but he fired her due to the disruption and impact that it had on the university’s operation and reputation.

The filings also argue that Boyce has qualified immunity in his personal capacity. The filing largely mentions the Pickering test, a legal standard that courts use to determine whether the law was clear enough that a reasonable official would have known what they were doing was illegal.

“Even if Stokes could state a plausible First Amendment claim, the qualified immunity defense prevents pursuit of that claim against the Chancellor in his individual capacity,” Boyce’s response states.

On July 23, University of Mississippi faculty members J.T. Thomas, Wendy Goldberg and Graham Pitts, along with a freedom of speech organization, filed amicus briefings, or “friend of the court” briefings, in support of Stokes.

Next, Davidson will determine whether an oral argument is necessary. Stokes’ lawyers requested one, while Boyce’s said it was not necessary.

Stokes served as the executive assistant for Charlotte Parks, UM vice chancellor for development. Following Kirk’s death, Stokes reposted a social media comment critical of Kirk’s activism to her private Instagram account. By the next morning, Stokes was terminated from her position and the university released a statement condemning Stokes’ actions.