OurTupelo

The Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice are threatening to sue Elon Musk’s xAI on behalf of the NAACP, claiming the company’s power generation in Southaven violates the federal Clean Air Act.

In a letter on Friday, the center argues that xAI’s operation of “mobile-temporary” turbines in Southaven without air permits are polluting the air in Southaven and the greater Memphis area. 

“xAI is running a de facto power plant without an air permit, without necessary pollution controls, and without regard for families living as close as a half mile away,” said Laura Thoms, enforcement director for Earthjustice in a statement.

xAI, an artificial intelligence company valued at $250 billion, began building its first data center in Memphis in 2024. Since then it has started to build another center in Memphis, bought a power plant in Mississippi and recently announced that it had purchased a warehouse in Southaven to build another data center. According to county records, the company purchased additional property this month.

The company began operating the temporary turbines at the former Duke Energy power plant in Southaven as early as mid-August to power its data centers.

While Mississippians have expressed concern over noise and potential air pollution from the turbines, the number of turbines have increased. The company started with 18 but is now operating 27 at the site. 

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has said the turbines fall under an exemption that allows temporary turbines to operate without a permit, as long as they do so for less than a year. MDEQ has said the turbines have “air pollution control devices.”

xAI is in the process of applying for air permits to operate 41 permanent turbines in Mississippi. MDEQ is holding a public hearing on Tuesday in Southaven where members of the public can comment on the proposal.

In January, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that xAI would be building another data center, in Mississippi. “This is the largest economic development project in Mississippi’s history,” Reeves said in a statement. 

There are five data center projects in Mississippi, including xAI. Such data centers are popping up all over the South, driven by the artificial intelligence boom.

Proponents say these projects are creating jobs, driving demand for Mississippi construction companies, paying for upgrades to the electric grid and adding tens of millions in taxes to local governments.

But critics say the centers create relatively few permanent jobs, demand large amounts of energy that could drive up customers’ rates and that they receive overly generous tax abatements from the state. Despite recent concerns over an AI bubble, economic development leaders across the state have said that companies continue to be interested in building data centers in the state and that more may be coming.

A bill that would have paved the way for more school district consolidations in Mississippi died this week. 

It’s a surprising outcome for an issue that gained momentum during the months leading up to the legislative session, which has been headlined by education policy. 

Senate Bill 2486 would’ve tasked a committee within the Mississippi Department of Education with recommending school district consolidations and established a framework for future mergers. 

However, the legislation lacked the votes it needed to survive, said Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville. Both the House and the Senate had until Thursday night to pass bills originating in their respective chambers. 

“I would’ve liked to have brought it up, but I just didn’t have enough support on the floor for it,” he said. 

Gov. Tate Reeves said over the summer that he wanted the Legislature to consider consolidating some of the state’s 138 school districts, and House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville, has been steadfast in his support of consolidation. Two school systems in Roberson’s district consolidated in 2015 — Starkville School District and Oktibbeha County School District.

Still, consolidation is controversial. Though the student population has been declining in Mississippi for years, generational ties to schools in some communities makes school closures difficult and emotionally fraught.  

There have been 10 school district consolidations since 2014, according to the Mississippi Department of Education’s website. While school districts have the authority to consolidate schools within their own district, the consolidation of different school districts requires direction from the Legislature.  

“School consolidation issues are always troublesome for some legislators,” DeBar said. “They’re all for it, but not in my district. I think that was the concern. Some were concerned their district would be consolidated.”

DeBar added that he’s still interested in seeing if there are ways he can address the issue before the session concludes in April. Even if a piece of legislation dies, lawmakers can try to insert language into similar bills. 

The House’s big education bill that died in DeBar’s committee earlier this month would have immediately consolidated two Mississippi school districts and similarly provided a stronger framework for future consolidations.

PITTSBORO — If NCAA lawyers didn’t know they were in for a long Thursday in court, they got a strong hint early on.

Chad Logan, pastor of First Baptist Church of nearby Calhoun City, began proceedings with a prayer for wisdom and clarity on the part of the court that was considering a dispute over the college sports eligibility of Trinidad Chambliss. Logan praised the Ole Miss quarterback “for his unwavering faith we’ve observed, with him praying with his mom.”

Speaking passionately as if from the Sunday pulpit, Logan ended his prayer: “We know you are the God who has extended to us eternal salvation. … You extended King Hezekiah’s life for 15 years. So since you specialize in extensions, we are asking for one more extension here today. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

Said one of Chambliss’ lawyers during a break later in the day, “I didn’t know if it was a prayer or a closing argument.” Said one of the NCAA lawyers, “If God is against us, we’re in trouble.”

It took about eight hours of sometimes tedious testimony and arguments, but the preacher’s fervent prayer – and that of tens of thousands of Ole Miss football fans – was answered.

Chancery Judge Robert Whitwell ruled for Chambliss and against the NCAA, granting Chambliss a temporary restraining order and in essence another year of football eligibility at Ole Miss.

Late Thursday afternoon, Judge Whitwell took nearly 90 minutes to read his 35-page decision, in the end sparking applause from those in attendance and smiles, backslaps and hugs from Chambliss, his mother, his lawyers and Ole Miss quarterbacks coach Joe Judge.

Later, a still-smiling Chambliss signed autographs and posed for photos with many of those who had been in the courtroom.

And so it is that Chambliss likely will quarterback the Rebels when they open the 2026 season against Louisville Sept. 5 in Nashville. Chambliss, a remarkably nimble and resourceful 23-year-old from Michigan, passed for nearly 4,000 yards and accounted for 30 touchdowns in leading Ole Miss to a school record 13 victories, the national semifinals and an end-of-season ranking of 3rd in the nation — its highest ranking since 1962. Chambliss will enter the season as one of four or five favorites to win the Heisman Trophy.

The NCAA earlier this year denied Chambliss’ request for a sixth year of college football eligibility, and almost surely will appeal Judge Whitwell’s decision. But legal proceedings could easily last into 2027, at which time Chambliss will have completed his college career.

Lawyers for the NCAA left the court immediately after final arguments and did not wait around for the Whitwell’s lengthy decision. Clearly miffed, Whitwell said he would consider holding them in contempt. “That’s not the way things are done,” he said.

‘The biggest trial we’ve had’

I have lived in Mississippi for 72 years, and this was my first visit to Pittsboro (population 157), a tiny village that sits on Highway 9 about halfway in between the larger Calhoun County towns of Calhoun City and Bruce. Visitors are welcomed by one of those gigantic, 200-foot tall crosses we see across the Bible Belt. City Hall, just down the street from the courthouse, is about the size of a three-car garage.

Readers, as I did, might wonder: Why is tiny Pittsboro the county seat? The answer: Pittsboro wasn’t always so small. At the turn of the 20th century, it was a bustling railroad town. Calhoun County Sheriff Greg Pollin says that while Bruce and Calhoun City vied to be the county seat, a compromise was struck “and they put it right slap dab in the middle of them.”

Why Pittsboro for Trinidad Chambliss vs. the NCAA, you ask? The case was filed in Lafayette County, where the University of Mississippi is located. Answer: Lafayette and Calhoun are two of five counties served by the state’s 18th Chancery Court District. When lawyers for both sides were queried for possible dates for this hearing, they settled on Feb. 12, when Whitwell was holding court in Pittsboro.

Said Sheriff Collin, “This is by far the biggest trial we’ve had in the 14 years I’ve been the sheriff.”

If the population of Pittsboro is 157, there were nearly that many folks in courtroom Thursday. The place was packed with media crammed into what is normally the jury box. Two local high schools brought classes. Many Ole Miss fans came dressed in school colors of red and blue. As neutral sites go, this surely wasn’t.

William Liston III of Ridgeland-based Liston & Deas handled most of proceedings for Chambliss. Doug Minor, formerly of Jackson, was the lead attorney for the NCAA. Said Liston, “I got this case on January 9th and I haven’t slept much since.”

To say Liston was thorough is to say the Mississippi River is rather wide. He called four witnesses to the stand: Dr. Bradford Dye, an Oxford ear, nose and throat specialist; Ole Miss offensive coach Joe Judge; Trinidad’s mother Cheryl Chambliss; and Chambliss himself.

Dye, an Ole Miss grad and avid fan, testified about the seriousness of the illnesses that caused Chambliss to miss the 2022 football season at Ferris State in Michigan.

Cheryl Chambliss also testified about how seriously ill her son was at the time, as did Chambliss himself.

Coach Judge basically testified that Chambliss would benefit greatly from another year of college ball before turning pro.

Chambliss also testified that he believed he was receiving a medical redshirt when he didn’t play in 2022.

NCAA lawyers, who called no witnesses, argued that in denying Chambliss’ appeal for one more year of eligibility, the organization was only enforcing the rules that Ole Miss, an NCAA member, has agreed to abide by.

Whitwell said in his decision that the NCAA had acted in bad faith, writing that “the NCAA’s history of inconsistent waiver decision undermines the fairness of the process here. The NCAA never really sought the truth in its investigation.”

Whitwell ruled that the harm to Chambliss outweighs the harm an injunction might to do the NCAA. If the NCAA appeals Whitwell’s decision, the case could eventually reach the Mississippi Supreme Court, where several justices are graduates of either Ole Miss, the Ole Miss law school or both.

Good luck there.

Editor’s note: The essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

On the day I am writing this, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, I sit in Georgia in a warm home surrounded by my three dogs, my partner and my best friend. Tonight, I will make my partner’s favorite soup – cioppino, a fish stew developed in San Francisco by Italian and Spanish immigrants.

Yesterday, I drove from my mother’s home in Lake Village, Arkansas, to my home in Oxford, Mississippi, before heading on to Georgia. I had not seen my home in Oxford since Friday, Jan. 23.

As Winter Storm Fern approached, as forecasters issued dire warnings for the storm’s potential impact on northern Mississippi, my mother called me Thursday, Jan. 22, telling me to drive to her house the next day. “You remember 1994,” she asked, “when we were without power for seven days huddled around a fireplace cooking beans on a camper stove?” Yes, I said, I remembered. “Well, I would come here now if I were you. We’ve got a generator.”

No matter how old I am, like a good son, I listened to mama. It wasn’t guaranteed that Lake Village would be spared, and to be clear, we were iced in on undrivable roads for a good 72 hours. (Those who live their daily lives across rivers know that traveling over an icy bridge, especially the scale of the ones that crisscross the mighty Mississippi, is hubris, a folly).

But as we now know, Fern wreaked the most havoc on a very specific strip of interstate geography, stretching from northeast Louisiana into the Mississippi Delta up through Oxford and northeast Mississippi and on up to Nashville, Tennessee. Fortunately, my mother’s house in southeast Arkansas never lost power, and my decision to leave Oxford proved to be a fortunate one.  

On Sunday, Feb. 1, nine days later, I was finally able to return to my home in Oxford. Full of anxiety, I drove up the county road to the east of Oxford. Limbs and detritus covered the roadside. Tree damage in Fern’s hardest hit areas like Oxford will take months if not years to document. It is immeasurable and catastrophic.

As I rounded the crest of the hill atop which my house sits, I began to see the house’s gold siding peeking through the tree line on my right. On my left, I first saw a pine tree still bending in submission to the elements, struggling but defiant in its efforts to stand tall again. Further ahead, in front of my house’s half-circular drive, I saw the old growth pine trees, over 100 feet tall, still standing. As I pulled into the drive, I could tell the house was intact: No trees had fallen on the house from the woods that envelop the golden cabin.

I was lucky. Inside, no pipes had burst, but the power was still off – the thermostat measured a chilly 33 – but I am blessed and grateful I did not have to endure more than a week of such temperatures. That wasn’t the case in February 1994. 

1994

I was 6 years old then; my younger brother had just turned 2 and my sister was 9. At that time, we lived in a home in Greenville in the Mississippi Delta.

I remember the blue kitchen, and the towel holder by the sink was in the shape of a white goose’s neck. I remember the marigold ceramic tile of the bathroom and the green and burgundy color scheme of my parents’ bedroom. I remember the juniper bush in front of our living room windows and the great live oak tree in the front yard. I remember the paneled den, which had been added onto the house before my parents bought it. The den with a wood-burning brick fireplace at the end of it jutted from the back of the house.

The room gave lodge vibes, and I remember my mother hung paintings of ducks and a quilted tapestry on the walls. The new den’s backdoor slider, to the right, led to the backyard where I could often be found at that age on the swing set listening through headphones to Bette Midler sing on my red Sony Walkman cassette player.

But for more than a week in February 1994, my two siblings, my parents and I were stuck indoors. As Dr. Seuss writes in The Cat in the Hat, “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So, we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.” So, as the ice storm of 1994 shut off power for many homes across the Delta, we sat in the house, huddling for warmth.

The den’s fireplace was our only heat source. My dad kept a fire going, and my parents hung a giant blanket to cover the room’s opening to the rest of the house to contain the heat. We existed for those seven days without electricity in that one room, cooking beans and canned goods on my dad’s camper stove, sleeping on pallets as close to the fireplace as possible, stoking the embers, reigniting the flames when needed, playing games awkwardly in layers of clothing, listening to the battery-powered radio for entertainment. We read books, perhaps Dr. Seuss among them. We kids left the room sparingly to go to the bathroom or to bathe. My father went outside to gather wood or assess damage or check on neighbors. Power lines and poles were down across our neighborhood, the town and the region. Trees fractured beneath their icy burdens. 

Russell L. Pfost of the National Weather Service called it “The Disastrous Mississippi Ice Storm of 1994.” This 1994 disaster in Mississippi claimed at least nine lives.

Though we were without power for seven days, it took some homes more than a month to regain power, with nearly 750,000 customers without power at some point in north Mississippi. Parts of the state received from 3 to 6 inches of ice accumulation, and the full accounting of the storm’s damage would take years to comprehend.

According to data collected by the National Weather Service in the storm’s aftermath: “Over 8,000 utility poles were pulled down by the weight of the ice, and over 4,700 miles of lines were downed. About 490 water systems were impacted, with as many as 741,000 customers without water at some point.”

1994, 2026

Even before Fern impacted Mississippi, people like my mother were warning 2026 could be like 1994. Storm-planning mode went into overdrive. Electricians were working around the clock to connect backup generators to homes “just in case.”

In Oxford, both the Kroger and Walmart quickly sold out of bottled water and other food items. I went to Kroger on a Tuesday night, more than three days before Fern’s arrival, and many shelves were already empty.

I asked students in one of my classes what they planned to do for the storm that was coming. Most of them did not seem worried; they planned to huddle together as a group at one friend’s house. Another student, however, asked, “Do you remember ’94?” I said, “Yes, I was a kid, but I do; we were without power for a week.” She said, “My mom said the same thing.” I added, “If this turns out to be anything like that was, y’all need more of a plan than huddling at a house. That’s a start, but you need to think about a safe heat source, nonperishable food, having a stockpile of any needed medications, what you’ll do if the water goes out, etc.” She smiled while other students seemed suspect of their older instructor’s warnings. The confidence of youth, perhaps, or a skepticism shaped by our digital age. 

1994, 2026 … 1951

Only time can provide the full story of Winter Storm Fern’s effects on Mississippi, but we can hear echoes from the past in Fern’s aftermath. According to historians, prior to 1994, the worst winter storm to hit Mississippi happened at the end of January 1951. They called it the “Great Southern Glaze Storm.” It was linked to 25 deaths and resulted in $100 million in damage (more than $1 billion today). As with 2026, Nashville was hit hard, with 8 inches of ice and snow measured in the city at the storm’s zenith. In its wake, the Great Glaze left a 100-mile-wide, 4-inch-thick ice sheet that stretched from Texas to West Virginia. Though damage occurred in many states, as meteorologist Ben W. Harlin wrote in 1952: “It was the Southland that suffered most in human misery and property damage.” 

When historians write the story of Winter Storm Fern in 2026, it will likely be a stretch of our “Southland” with Oxford at its bullseye that will have suffered the most human misery and property damage. For now, we are all in recovery mode. The historians will have to wait. 

I wasn’t alive in 1951; my students weren’t alive in 1994; more than likely my parents won’t be alive for the next one in 30-plus years (if it takes that long for another disastrous winter storm to hit Mississippi). In sharing our stories, I hope we can build a molecular memory across generations as an ethic of climate responsibility and accountability to ourselves and others in our beloved “Southland.”

My grandmother used to like to say to me ‘Remember where you have been.’ She was an English teacher in Cleveland, Mississippi, all her life, and she taught us that the traces of every place we inhabit move with and within us. She knew, too, the importance of the past in shaping the future and the necessity for multiple storytellers to contribute to what we know of any given event.

My family’s story is but one story of 1994, one story of 2026. What is yours? Perhaps there could be a series of “Ice Storm” family narratives featured across our timelines and newsfeeds: a string of storytelling lights to come out of a disaster that plunged so many of us into literal darkness.

I’ve come to amend my grandmother’s imperative. It isn’t only remembering where you have been but who you have been with and who you could not have been without. I am grateful to the families in all their forms that shelter, sustain, nourish.

This, to me, is the meaning of care. I know I would have fared far worse without my family in 1994 and my families (in Arkansas, in Mississippi, in Georgia, in Florida) in 2026. 

Now that I’ve lived through two of these ice storms – once as a kid, once as a grown man – it seems to me that we would do well to remember that the infrastructure we rely on comes in multiple forms. Infra, from the Latin for beneath or under, structure.

Perhaps most obvious, we rely on a tangible infrastructure that supports or makes possible the structures we move through daily: power lines, utility poles, internet broadband, satellites in space, cellular data and water pipes we hope withstand the ground’s cruel freeze. We rely on roadways unburdened by ice and rights of way unoccluded by fallen trees, splintered poles or live wires. We rely on easy access to food supply, from what is available in grocery stores in both normal and abnormal times to what we can safely prepare when we cannot use all the routine cooking tools at our disposal. We rely on flushing toilets, heated water and lights that work by the simple flick of a switch.

We recognize the centrality of this tangible infrastructure in our lives perhaps most clearly when we are without it, when it has suddenly been pulled out from under us. 

But moments like 1994, like 2026, reveal our equally important reliance on an intangible infrastructure – something more than just the “material stuff” – that shapes our lives in often far less obvious ways.

We might call this an “infrastructure of care,” a structure of feeling and embodied practice that underlies our connection to one another. My thoughts here borrow from ideas in feminist ethics of care such as Emma Power’s “Caring-with” in which care becomes less an individual responsibility and more a “distributed achievement” and infrastructure functions “not [only] as a dimension of urban technology [poles, wires, pipes, roadways] but a dimension of everyday life” (Graham & McFarlane, 2015: ix).

“Caring-with” or an “infrastructure of care” isn’t about naming the heroic acts of individual actors but tracing the pattern or textures of a general fabric of care in which individuals may contribute a thread or stitch here or there in an ethic of shared responsibility. I am reminded of words from Carson McCullers, one of my favorite writers, in the 1958 play “The Square Root of Wonderful”: “The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.” 

In 1994, I glimpsed this infrastructure of care at work through the eyes of a 6-year-old child. I remember my dad checking on our widowed next-door neighbor who lived alone with her Scottish terrier. On sunny days, “Scottie” would be running in the front yard as wild as we kids did. But in 1994, the utility pole had fallen on the tree in her front yard, and my dad made sure she didn’t go near the newly forged tree-pole until the electric company could ensure it was safe.

I remember similar moments of neighbors checking on neighbors, walking door to treacherous door in an era before cellphones helped us stay in touch. I remember hearing about men leaving their families when the roads were safe enough to drive to go help those in need wherever they may be and whoever they may have been. I remember extended family relaying messages to each other as best they could that they were safe and warm even if their power had also gone out.

This was the era of the walky-talky, and walky-talky we kids did! I remember my grandmother – safe with my grandfather in Cleveland – most worried about the frost on her prize-winning rose garden. Would the Queen Elizabeth rose bush come back with the thaw?

In 2026, we might ask a similar question: Will the trees of Oxford’s beloved Grove prove resilient? 

In 1994, we cared for one another and allowed ourselves to receive care in return but not because we saw ourselves as doing something “important” but because it was just what we did: It was the fabric of who we were. In 2026, this infrastructure of care manifested similarly, despite the arguably deeper divisions that now plague our society. 

After Fern’s icy deluge, I personally received numerous text messages and phone calls from all corners of my life, from colleagues and friends in Mississippi and Georgia, from folks I know intimately to those I don’t know very much at all. For example, my mom’s neighbor texted, “We’ve got plenty of whiskey if you need it.” Now, that’s carework indeed!

On a more serious note, I witnessed neighbors checking on neighbors and observed community organizing at its most resilient, from those with four-wheel-drive trucks leaving their own powerless homes to transport those trapped in homes without power to warming centers to businesses providing free food to those in need. I observed the fierce leadership of both campus and community administrators. I marveled at more senior colleagues inviting junior colleagues into their homes, and I, too, was the recipient of such literally warm invitations.

This infrastructure of care – both those in Oxford checking on each other and helping out in the most mundane of ways to those from out of town coming to Oxford’s rescue – is an evolving story, one that I hope will continue to grow and endure for generations to come.

Disasters like 1994 and 2026 remind us that though the lights can go out and wreak havoc on our lives, the lights can come back on again if we practice patience, allow the professionals to do their work and remember our responsibility to each other. Through both the restoration of tangible infrastructure and the care work of intangible infrastructure, we have the power to turn the lights on again.

I think of what my mother wrote on the final image of our Ice Storm 1994 family photo album, “There is Light Again!” Sure, the lights worked again after the linemen fixed the electrical grid, but now I understand my mother’s words more expansively. In my own family, that time together huddled as one unit seemed to bring about a lightness, a buoyancy, among us kids, despite the labor and worry of our parents and the ecological tragedy unfolding outside.

My siblings and I grew closer together that week. We came to appreciate “play” in a new way. We used our imaginations and our sensorium differently. Without the visual dominance of television screens, our ears grew more attuned as we listened to radio programs.

In short, we kids were all right. So, too, will be your kids who may have spent a few days or weeks without power in 2026. In fact, they too may learn how to survive, imagine and move through the world anew. 

More broadly, like we kids in 1994 who had to use our imaginations anew, perhaps moments like this invite us as a society to collectively reimagine when, how and to what extent we should care for one another – every single man, woman and child – no matter what (natural, man-made or politically motivated) disasters befall us.

Eric Solomon, PhD, is a graduate of Emory University and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. He grew up in the Mississippi Delta and is a lifelong Southerner. His work has been featured in Southern Cultures, Southern Spaces, south, South Atlantic Review, Studies in the Literary Imagination, Mississippi Quarterly, the North Carolina Literary Review, among others. Solomon is an instructor of English and Southern Studies at Ole Miss.

The Mississippi House passed several bills this week aimed at improving the quality of medical care in Mississippi prisons and developing stronger oversight of health care delivery. 

​​The bills, which follow an ongoing investigative series from Mississippi Today on the alleged denial of care in state prisons, are part of a reform package spearheaded by Rep. Becky Currie, the Republican House Corrections chairwoman from Brookhaven.

A bill cleared the House Thursday that mandates the creation of hepatitis C and HIV treatment programs for people incarcerated in state prisons. The programs would be crafted by the Mississippi State Department of Health and the private company that provides health care to people housed in state prisons, which is currently Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies, LLC. The bill also instructs the state to develop a plan to improve the health of female prisoners.

Currie, who authored the legislation, said VitalCore is failing to adhere to the terms of its contract by not treating people incarcerated in Mississippi prisons with hepatitis C. 

“They are treating 50 inmates a year that have hepatitis C,” she said. “The problem is, we have more than 5,000 inmates with Hep C, so doing 50 inmates a year is doing nothing.” 

A report from Mississippi Today published in October revealed that only a fraction of Mississippi inmates diagnosed with hepatitis C receive treatment, allowing the treatable infection to develop into a life-threatening illness in some cases. It also showed that although the health department provided information to Mississippi Department of Corrections about how to access lower drug prices through the federal 340B discount drugs program last year, the agency has not yet taken steps to obtain the reduced prices. 

Currie’s bill would require the health department to assist the state Department of Corrections in obtaining hepatitis C and HIV medications for inmates at 340B drug prices.

Speaking to lawmakers Thursday, Currie argued that treating hepatitis C and HIV in state prisons is a public health issue, noting that over 95% of state prisoners will be released. 

“Most of them are getting out and coming into a community near you,” she said. 

Currie has spent the past two years pushing for reforms to health care in Mississippi prisons and scrutinizing the state’s contract with VitalCore, which in 2024 was awarded a three-year contract worth over $357 million. 

Another bill authored by Currie would take the power to award health contracts away from the Department of Corrections and task the Department of Finance and Administration with soliciting proposals for a new contractor. VitalCore was awarded over $315 million in emergency, no-bid state contracts from 2020 to 2024. Currie said she does not want the Department of Corrections to resort to emergency contracts in 2027 when its current contract with VitalCore expires.

“We want to move on,” Currie said. “We’ve been through this dark time, and we just want to make sure that we don’t sit around and wait and we end up having to have another emergency contract for the people that are in there now.”

The House also unanimously passed a bill Tuesday authored by Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, that would require the Department of Corrections to develop policies for supplying protective equipment when incarcerated people are forced to use strong cleaning chemicals. Gibbs introduced the legislation, which also passed the House last year but died in the Senate, in response to the case of Susan Balfour, a woman who developed terminal breast cancer after she came into contact with raw industrial chemicals during cleaning duty. Balfour died in August. 

Other bills that were a part of Currie’s prison health reform package did not survive the first legislative deadline, including bills requiring medical kiosks for prisoners, redirecting funds for a prison health audit from a private law firm to the state’s legislative watchdog, and doing away with a requirement in state law that members of the Legislature must provide advance notice before prison visits. 

The measures that survived now head to the Senate for consideration. The Senate Corrections Committee is chaired by Sen. Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg. Barnett told Mississippi Today he planned to meet with Currie and potentially advance the measures in his chamber.

“We need to be more proactive because we have to realize that at the end of the day, most people in there are going to get out, and it’s best to let them out as healthy as we can versus letting very unhealthy people out into the general population,” Barnett said.

Mississippi Today’s “Behind Bars, Beyond Care” series has documented potentially thousands of prisoners living with hepatitis C going without treatment, an untreated broken arm that resulted in amputation and delayed cancer screenings one woman said led to a terminal diagnosis. An ex-corrections official said people are experiencing widespread medical neglect in Mississippi’s prisons and turned over internal messages to Mississippi Today bemoaning the care provided by VitalCore Health Strategies, the state’s private medical contractor for prisons.

“As a nurse, I went in and saw a lot of things that I can’t unsee,” Currie said. “And it breaks my heart every day that we haven’t had the gumption to go in and fix this.”

North Mississippi senators pleaded for an improved disaster response from the state Thursday as thousands of their constituents still lacked power nearly three weeks after the January winter storm.

Sen. Rita Potts Parks, a Republican from Corinth, repeatedly told her colleagues “we have work to do” to better prepare for future disasters. Her district includes Alcorn and Tippah counties, two of the hardest-hit areas in Mississippi.

“I hope you remember how my people were cold, and we as a state, we failed them,” she said during an emotional speech on the Senate floor. “I’m included.”

In her district, hospitals and nursing homes went more than four days without power or water, Parks said.

“Can you imagine what those smells were like, what those cries were like by that second day?” she said. “And those people being placed with more and more blankets on them just to keep them warm.”

Parks and her colleague Sen. Neil Whaley, a Republican from Potts Camp, mentioned the response times of specific agencies as areas for improvement.

“Us getting resources from (the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) took days,” she later told Mississippi Today. “I’m not throwing darts, I’m just saying it was a fact we didn’t see supplies coming to us until Tuesday. That’s water, MREs, cots. This event happened on Saturday, Sunday. You’re Tuesday night, Wednesday getting us what we needed.”

She said about five or six counties went over two days without any power transmission because Tennessee Valley Authority lines were down. “That’s historical, that’s never supposed to happen,” Parks said.

She and other senators spoke during discussion of Senate Bill 2632, which passed in the chamber. The bill, which now heads to the House for discussion, would create a “disaster recovery emergency loan program” to aid counties included in the recent federal disaster declaration.

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi who introduced the bill, said the state’s damages from Winter Storm Fern will likely reach $400 million. He described the proposed program as a “revolving loan fund,” meant to get public assistance money to counties and cities on the front end as they await reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Parks said FEMA payments to local entities could take anywhere from 18 months to two years. DeLano said Tennessee did something similar in response to Hurricane Helene in 2024.

While the bill doesn’t include a dollar amount, DeLano said the plan is to request $50 million in appropriations later in the session. Counties would have five years to repay the loans, and would also have to pledge a source of revenue in the event FEMA didn’t reimburse the funding. For any projects that FEMA rejects for reimbursement, local entities would have two years to repay the loan.

Sen. Sollie Norwood, a Democrat from Jackson, expressed concern that counties in those situations would be left on the hook for recovery spending. DeLano responded that lawmakers could use the two-year period to address any such shortfall. The state couldn’t offer the funding as a grant because it could be seen as a duplication of benefits, he added.

Whaley, who spoke after Parks, expressed a similar sentiment.

“I live in an area where the district lines of the Mississippi Department of Transportation meet, and for some reason that plow truck blade just would not stay on the ground when it got to that district line,” Whaley said.

The senator added that “a lot of things have to be answered,” and that he intends to bring “a lot of this out to light.”

Delano said later: “We are going to have a lot of discussion over the next year about how we better prepare for these types of events.”

About 1,700 Mississippians still didn’t have power as of Thursday afternoon nearly three weeks after the storm, according to poweroutage.us. That number, though, doesn’t include all electric utilities in the state. Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown said municipal systems, such as the beleaguered Holly Springs Utility Department, aren’t included. As of Thursday that system still had about 500 outages.

Another measure, House Bill 1645, would create state versions of FEMA programs as Mississippi officials prepare for reduced federal disaster support. That bill passed the House on Thursday and moves onto the Senate.

Other federal aid kicks in for recovering Mississippians

On Wednesday, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced low interest loans were available for certain private nonprofits in Alcorn, Bolivar, Calhoun, Carroll, Grenada, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Leflore, Montgomery, Sharkey, Sunflower, Warren, Washington, Webster and Yazoo counties as well as the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Eligible organizations include, but are not limited to, food
kitchens, homeless shelters, museums, libraries, community centers, schools and colleges.

Then on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a number of assistance measures for Mississippians, including a 90-day foreclosure pause for mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Click here for a full list of those measures.

Taylor Vance contributed to this report.

PITTSBORO — Trinidad Chambliss apparently will make an encore performance after leading Ole Miss to the most successful season in school history.

In a tiny town of about 150 people, with at least that many spectators in a Calhoun County courtroom on Thursday, Chancery Judge Robert Whitwell granted 23-year-old Chambliss a temporary restraining order against the NCAA after day-long court proceedings.

The ruling virtually assures that Chambliss will be the Ole Miss quarterback when the Rebels open the 2026 season in September.

Chambliss presumably will enter the season as a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy. He finished eighth in Heisman voting in 2025.

Whitwell ruled that the NCAA “acted in bad faith” in denying Chambliss’s appeal for another season of eligibility.

Stunningly, lawyers for the NCAA did not stick around to hear Whitwell’s decision, angering the judge who said he would consider holding them in contempt.

Chambliss transferred to Ole Miss last spring after leading Michigan’s Ferris State University to the Division II national championship in the 2024 season.

The NCAA argued that Chambliss, who spent four years at Ferriss and then one at Ole Miss, had used up his allowed five years of eligibility to play a maximum of four seasons.

But Chambliss didn’t play at all his first two seasons at Ferris. He red-shirted as a freshman in 2021 and then was plagued by severe upper respiratory illness as a sophomore. He testified that he was told the 2022 season would count as a medical redshirt season. The NCAA argued otherwise.

Chambliss’s lawyers called on Dr. Ford Dye, who’s an Oxford ear, nose and throat specialist; Ole Miss quarterbacks coach Joe Judge; Chambliss’ mother, Cheryl Chambliss; and Trinidad Chambliss himself as witnesses. The NCAA called no witnesses.

Ole Miss’ athletic department issued a statement praising the judge’s “thoughtful consideration” of the circumstances of Chambliss’ appeal.

“We believe this outcome affirms what we have maintained throughout this process that Trinidad deserves the opportunity to compete and complete his collegiate career on the field,” the department said. “Trinidad has demonstrated tremendous perseverance, character and commitment to his teammates, this university and college football.”

The NCAA released a statement expressing frustration with the legal system, but the organization did not say whether it would appeal the ruling.

“This decision in a state court illustrates the impossible situation created by differing court decisions that serve to undermine rules agreed to by the same NCAA members who later challenge them in court,” the NCAA said. “We will continue to defend the NCAA’s eligibility rules against repeated attempts to rob future generations of the opportunity to compete in college and experience the life-changing opportunities only college sports can create.

“The NCAA and its member schools are making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but the patchwork of state laws and inconsistent, conflicting court decisions make partnering with Congress essential to provide stability for current and future college athletes.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

An expanded list of Mississippi government institutions and law enforcement agencies would be forced to cooperate with federal immigration authorities if a bill the Mississippi House passed on Thursday becomes law.

The measure advanced in Mississippi on the same day President Donald Trump’s administration ended its surge of immigration agents in Minnesota, an operation that led to thousands of arrests, widespread protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens. The Trump administration continues its mass deportation efforts that have at times led to violent clashes between people and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It also led to political conflicts in other states between Democratic local officials and Republican federal officials who have sent ICE agents into cities around the country.

In Mississippi, House Bill 538 authored by Lee Yancey, a Republican from Brandon, would expand Mississippi’s ban on “sanctuary” jurisdictions to require all state and local government entities and employees, including agencies, departments, officers and law enforcement, cooperate with federal and other governmental authorities in enforcing immigration laws. Universities, community colleges and various other political subdivisions would be required to participate in federal immigration enforcement, if requested.

There are no official sanctuary cities in Mississippi because it is among the states that already have prohibitions on such policies. House Judiciary A Chairman Rep. Joey Hood, a Republican from Ackerman, who presented the bill on the House floor, said the new measure is necessary to ensure local government agencies and their employees don’t get in the way of federal law enforcement operations.

“I think the overwhelming majority of the people of the great state of Mississippi want law and order in this state, and if that includes immigration laws, so be it,” Hood said. “We’re not going to have individuals based through counties, municipalities or law enforcement agencies that are going to hinder immigration officials.”

House Democrats leveled fierce criticism at the legislation, arguing it would expose local Mississippi police officers to arrest if they tried to stop ICE agents from engaging in illegal behavior. They also said it would rope a wide range of Mississippi government institutions into carrying out the federal government’s immigration policy.

The bill would waive “sovereign immunity,” a legal doctrine protecting federal and state governments from being sued, for entities violating it. It also would empower the state attorney general to investigate and prosecute violations of the law.

The House voted 77-40, mostly along partisan lines, to pass the measure.

All but one Democratic member, Karl Gibbs of West Point, opposed it. The chamber’s two independents, Angela Cockerham of Magnolia and Shanda Yates of Jackson, did not vote. No Republicans opposed the measure.

“I don’t think we really realize what we’re about to do,” said Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Pickens.

Clark attempted to amend the legislation by clarifying that law enforcement could not punish government employees for refusing illegal or unconstitutional orders from federal immigration officials. The Republicans successfully defeated his amendment.

Clark said he had concerns about employees from the University of Mississippi Medical Center or the state Department of Revenue who could face state penalties for refusing to release private health care or tax information to immigration enforcement agencies.

“We shouldn’t do that to our state employees,” Clark said.

The House bill, which now heads to the Senate for consideration, came two days after lawmakers in both chambers passed other bills to expand the state’s role in immigration enforcement and elections.

Politics reporter Taylor Vance contributed to this report.

The Mississippi Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday designed to help rural hospitals open needed services, joining the House in advancing proposals to support struggling facilities by loosening the state’s certificate of need law. 

“I think we’re moving closer to a consensus about what to do,” Senate Public Health and Welfare Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory and the author of the bill, said of the overlap between each chamber’s proposal. 

The Senate bill would create a pilot program that tasks the state health officer with issuing licenses for three outpatient dialysis units, three ambulatory surgery centers and geriatric psychiatric facilities connected to rural hospitals within five miles of the rural hospital’s main location. The goal is to let hospitals open services that bring in revenue and help them keep their doors open, Bryan said Wednesday. 

The House passed a broader measure on Feb. 4 that would exempt 55 existing rural hospitals from certificate of need regulations, allowing them to open new health services or make improvements within a five-mile radius of their main building without state approval. 

The House and Senate will trade bills for further debate, and they must agree on a final plan before anything could go to the governor.

Mississippi’s certificate of need law requires providers to receive state approval before opening new services or paying for costly upgrades by proving that people need the services in their area. The regulations are meant to lower costs and enhance the quality and accessibility of health care by preventing duplication of services, but stakeholders are divided on whether the law accomplishes its goals. In Mississippi, where more than half of rural hospitals are at risk of closure, some people argue the law harms rural hospitals by restricting the services they are allowed to offer. 

Greg Gibbes is the CEO of five hospitals, including South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel and Covington County Hospital in Collins. He said he has advocated for a rural exemption from certificate of need law for years because it will allow hospitals to expand the services most needed in their communities. 

“We want to give a small and rural hospital every fighting chance,” he said. “And there are those that are currently struggling that are probably not going to be calling a lot of offensive plays.”

The Senate bill defines rural hospitals as those in a county without a city over 15,000 people or located in Washington County, while the House applies the term to critical access hospitals, those located in Delta counties or in municipalities with a population under 15,000 people. The House bill also would exempt Humphreys and Issaquena counties entirely from certificate of need law.

Crafting effective exemptions to certificate of need laws requires a focus on “very rural” hospitals and parts of the state such as the Delta that require additional support because of workforce shortages and poverty, said Richard Roberson, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association. 

“We’re trying to make sure we find that sweet spot where we’re allowing hospitals to add services that their communities need in those really rural areas, while also making sure that we’re managing the cost of those services coming online,” said Roberson.

The certificate of need law has long been criticized by health care providers as cumbersome and time-consuming, frequently delaying the opening of new health care services when competing providers appeal the state’s issuance of a certificate. Another bill that passed the Senate Wednesday would require any party requesting a hearing on the state’s decision that loses to pay the fees associated with the hearing. 

Streamlining procedural aspects of the certificate of need process has lowered costs and helped the health department move through applications more quickly in the past, Roberson said. Mississippi enacted a law setting benchmarks for the process’ timeline in 2016. 

He said the Mississippi Hospital Association is weighing the impact of changes to the certificate of need application process, but is open to “anything we can do to lower the cost and make the process better.”

However, Roberson said, the state needs to have some supervision of the addition of new health facilities, especially given the large portion of patients with government-sponsored health plans, like Medicare and Medicaid. 

“It is important to have some oversight of the process to make sure we aren’t spitting up unnecessary or duplicative services that are just going to run up the cost of care for everybody,” Roberson said.  

Mississippi has already enacted one certificate of need reform law this year. Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill Feb. 4 and it became law immediately, doubling the cost threshold that triggers a requirement for hospitals to seek state approval before making improvements. For clinical improvements other than major medical equipment, hospitals will now require approval for changes over $10 million, up from $5 million. 

The new law also limits University of Mississippi Medical Center’s exemption for a certificate of need to the area around UMMC’s main campus and the Jackson Medical Mall. For years, UMMC has been exempt from certificate of need requirements for facilities or equipment used for education.

Gibbes said if the state Legislature moves to exempt rural hospitals from certificate of need law this session, he doesn’t expect to see a significant increase in services overnight because adding them requires time, labor and funding. But, he said, he believes it is important to create an environment where hospitals that take a risk to offer new services aren’t impeded. 

“These things take time,” Gibbes said. “It’s not like flipping a switch.”

Mississippi would take more steps to investigate prison deaths, under a proposal that’s advancing through the Legislature. 

House lawmakers approved a bill that calls for more oversight of prison deaths, legislation inspired by an investigation by Missisisppi Today, The Marshall-Project Jackson, the Clarion Ledger, the Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link.

On Tuesday, House Bill 1739 passed unanimously with 120 votes. Next, it heads to the Senate Corrections Committee. 

Senate Corrections Chairman Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, said he planned to review the prison death task force legislation before bringing it up for consideration in his committee. 

“I heard about it, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it,” Barnett said. “I think that’s something that we really need to be looking into more. More oversight, more transparency for the public so they can feel more comfortable and know that if something happens, somebody will be on top of it to make sure that we don’t have any bad actors.”

Rep. Becky Currie, a Brookhaven Republican who filed the legislation and chairs the House Corrections Committee, told lawmakers Tuesday that people continue to die in prison and their cause of death remains unknown. She said that includes the deaths of a 20- and 30-year-old who died last week and two people who died that day. 

The bill would direct and empower the Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force to look into “unexpected” deaths using information provided by coroner’s reports and the Mississippi Department of Corrections. 

“A lot of times these deaths don’t get investigated correctly, they’re swept under the rug,” Currie said. “We don’t know if they were suicide, we don’t know if they were drugs. We don’t know if they were killed by another inmate. But I’m a big believer (in) if you don’t know where you’ve been, you can’t figure out where you need to be.”

Unexpected deaths would include those not related to a previously diagnosed or serious terminal illness. Under Currie’s bill, the task force must release a public report describing its findings and recommendations to try to prevent future deaths. 

Currie proposed prison death oversight in response to an investigation by the news outlets. Prison understaffing and gang violence likely led to the killings of nearly 50 people since 2015, the news team found. Of those, eight resulted in criminal convictions. At least 20 deaths remain undetermined. 

Family members of those who died in prison said they received little information from prison officials, and instead had more luck learning from a whisper network of incarcerated people, insiders, advocates, and, in some cases, from journalists. 

Weeks after the news investigation, prison Commissioner Burl Cain told a legislative budget committee and Mississippi Today that the department would review unprosecuted homicides and deaths ruled as undetermined. 

But four months later, there have been no new indictments or convictions in open homicide cases.

Currie’s bill adds members to the task force, including the chairs of the House and Senate Corrections committees,  the Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency committees and the public safety commissioner or a designee. 

Currently, much of the group is Department of Corrections staff, leading to a situation where “MDOC is reviewing themselves,” Currie said.

Rep. Tracey Rosebud, a Democrat from Tutwiler, asked if it was possible for the corrections commissioner to be removed from the task force. Currie said that’s unlikely because the commissioner is the one who would bring information to the task force. 

“All this does is bring transparency, oversight and sunshine to the board,” she said. 

The bill would have to clear the Senate Corrections Committee, be passed by the Senate and signed by the governor to become law.

Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.