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About a year after Jackson Mayor John Horhn began declaring that “Jackson is rising,” he unveiled a new catchphrase Tuesday at his State of the City address.

“Comebacks don’t get announced,” he told a jubilant audience at the Jackson Convention Center. “They get built. They get repaired. They get paved. And Jackson is rolling.” 

Horhn, a Democrat who took office July 1, 2025, returned to the catchphrase repeatedly throughout his speech to remind Jacksonians that his administration is following through on at least some of its promises. 

New business permits are being approved faster than before, Horhn said, citing data from the Planning and Development Department. A much-anticipated bid to redevelop the dilapidated Jackson Zoo has been posted. And Thalia Mara Hall was reopened. 

“Broadway is back in Jackson,” Horhn said to whoops and cheers. 

While Jackson still lacks up-to-date annual financial reports, the city made progress by completing its 2023 audit last year, Horhn said. Working with the Jackson City Council, he asserted that his administration erased a $25 million deficit in the city budget – a claim contested by some council members who sat behind Horhn during the speech. 

“You deserve to know where your money goes,” Horhn said. “And anyone thinking about investing in Jackson deserves confidence that our financial house is in order.” 

The development-minded mayor praised the private investment underway in Jackson, shouting out affordable housing developments planned for Robinson Road in west Jackson and Raymond Road in south Jackson, as well as apartment complexes that developer Gabriel Prado is constructing in north Fondren.

Horhn also repeatedly applauded recent steps to nab what many view as Jackson’s economic white whale: a developed riverfront on the flood-controlled banks of the Pearl River. 

Some influential Jacksonians backing these efforts joined the mayor on stage, including Horhn’s key supporters Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr. of New Horizon Church International, lawyer-developer Robert Graham and local restaurateur Jeff Good.

Horhn depicted Jackson as a place where concrete is pouring into new developments and asphalt is rolling on roads.

In partnership with Hinds County, the mayor said the city is now filling over 100 potholes a day – up from 38 potholes a day during his State of the City address last year.

“This is the biggest year of paving Jackson has seen in 40 years,” he said. 

Horhn added the city will ramp up efforts later this month to resurface some 600 streets and fix drainage problems over the next year. And he promised Jackson would finally smooth bumpy Medgar Evers Boulevard – an estimated $40 million project that began under his predecessor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba. 

Pete Perry, a member of the 1% Sales Tax Commission which pays for infrastructure projects in Jackson, questioned if the city will be able to repave Medgar Evers Boulevard without putting up more local funding. 

“I would be shocked if it gets done,” he said. 

Perry added that 2026 may be a notable year in terms of miles repaved in Jackson, but he added the claim needs context. In previous years, he said the commission spent millions more to completely rebuild roads, such as Riverside Drive in Belhaven, setting the stage for paving projects now happening under Horhn. 

Toward the end of his speech, Horhn remarked that Jackson has more ideas than resources to address its considerable challenges. 

Acknowledging Jackson’s ongoing battle with blight, the mayor said the city has invested $900,000 to demolish or clean up 40 properties. But that is just a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of dollars that city officials say will be needed to clear more than 3,200 blighted properties.

And some challenges will be self-imposed. In the speech, Horhn made new pledges for the city. 

He said his administration would publish quarterly data on permitting timelines, code enforcement and housing investments. And, finally, Horhn committed to redeveloping Farish Street. 

“Yeah, I said that, too,” Horhn said. “We’re gonna get it done this time.”

UPDATE, Oct. 13, 2026: This story has been updated with more details from the mayor’s address.

Lawmakers will hold a hearing on Thursday to look into dire problems with healthcare in Mississippi prisons and allegations of systemic failure to stop preventable deaths and illness.

Prison healthcare problems have been exposed through news investigations, legislative watchdog reports and first-person accounts from those working inside.

But apparently the Mississippi Department of Corrections will be a no-show at the hearing, a letter obtained by Mississippi Today shows.

In a letter on Tuesday to Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain, Public Health Chairs Rep. Sam Creekmore and Sen. Hob Bryan, along with Corrections Chairs Rep. Becky Currie and Sen. Lydia Chassaniol said they were “disappointed to learn that the Department of Corrections will not take part in Thursday’s joint hearing.”

“We want to be clear about the purpose of this hearing. It is not meant to assign blame. It is meant to help members of both chambers understand how health care is delivered behind the walls today, where the gaps are, and what the Legislature can do to help,” the lawmakers wrote. “The Department’s perspective is essential to that conversation. No one knows the day-to-day challenges better than the people responsible for meeting them.”

The letter does not say whether MDOC officials provided lawmakers with a reason for their avoidance. A department spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the matter.

The hearing comes after Mississippi Today’s Behind Bars, Beyond Care investigation documented potentially thousands of people living with hepatitis C going without treatment, amputations from delayed care and inmates having trouble getting cancer screenings. Such findings, as well as handwritten letters sent to lawmakers by prisoners seeking care and panicked messages from their family members, have drawn bipartisan condemnation in the statehouse and numerous hearings this year at the Capitol.  

In an interview, Currie, who has led the charge to improve healthcare in Mississippi’s prisons, said many prisoners are not getting cancer treatment in time to recover and are forced to languish for lengthy periods without care for ailments such as diabetes and hepatitis C, even as spending on prison healthcare has risen for taxpayers.

“Treatment could be less expensive and have better outcomes when treated early. Diabetic care is almost nonexistent. Many inmates complain to me that they have sugar drops when their blood sugar gets low, but they don’t have anything but the canteen to get a candy bar to get their sugar up, and then (prison medical staffers) put in the chart that the inmates are noncompliant.”

MDOC has the fourth-highest funding of any Mississippi state agency, set to receive over $430 million in the next fiscal year. The high costs for taxpayers can be attributed in part to its medical care contract and increased payments to private prisons, according to Rep. Currie, a top budget writer for corrections in the state Legislature.

The largest single chunk of the corrections budget goes to a prison medical contract currently held by Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies. The Kansas-based company was initially awarded four no-bid emergency contracts, for hundreds of millions of dollars, before securing a three-year contract worth over $357 million.

Mississippi Today’s investigation revealed that the same year the state agreed to keep paying VitalCore, a top official at the MDOC, remarking on a prisoner’s rotting leg, said the company “sucks.”

VitalCore has said it abides by Mississippi law and has rejected allegations that it denies prisoners care.

After she took over as House Corrections chairwoman, Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, began to notice what she described as disturbing instances of inadequate care under VitalCore’s contract. She embarked on a tour of Mississippi’s prisons and said she couldn’t believe what she found.

Currie encountered a wheelchair-bound man so jaundiced he appeared to glow in the dark. She met a 23-year-old woman with a lump growing out of her breast from untreated cancer. Other women were denied pap smears and mammograms. She met men with untreated HIV. Many more inmates were charged for care they never received.

“Since I began trying to hold VitalCore accountable to the contract they signed, they are doing somewhat better,” Currie told Mississippi Today. “They are now treating HIV, which they weren’t doing. They are treating 50 hepatitis C inmates a year, which is far below the necessary numbers if they want to eradicate (the illness), but better than they were doing. We still have a long way to go on many things.”

Currie said she wants to make it possible for other entities to compete for Mississippi’s prison health contract once Gov. Tate Reeves leaves office after the 2027 election.

As the healthcare problems roiling Mississippi’s prisons began to surface, Reeves dispatched Kenny Ellis, his former policy director, to keep an eye on the corrections committees in the Legislature. Cain then appointed Ellis as MDOC’s chief of staff in early 2026.

After numerous bills to reform prison healthcare passed the House unanimously, most of the measures were killed in the Senate by former Corrections Chairman Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg and Vice Chair Chassaniol, a Republican from Winona.

Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, advanced the only prison health care reform to survive legislative negotiations last session. His measure requires that prisoners be provided with protective equipment while handling cleaning chemicals. The measure was inspired by the story of Susie Balfour, a Mississippi woman, who died of breast cancer last year at the age of 64.

In a lawsuit that her family eventually settled, she said her exposure to cleaning chemicals in prison might have led to her cancer, and that prison health providers delayed or failed to schedule follow-up cancer screenings for Balfour even though they had been recommended by prison physicians. 

In a statement ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Gibbs urged the Legislature to pass more legislation on prison healthcare in 2027.

“Meaningful, large-scale reform will require the commitment, collaboration, and support of an overwhelming majority of our Legislature,” Gibbs said. “We are talking about human rights here. It shouldn’t be such a hard lift.”

Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, said he urged MDOC officials to participate with the hearing given the steady stream of stories emanating from Mississippi’s prisons about inadequate healthcare.

“There are very sad, unsuccessful stories about healthcare in prisons,” Creekmore said. “So I just hope that we can put everybody in the same room and figure something out.”

In the letter lawmakers sent to Cain, they said the issues of prison healthcare impact the state as a whole.

“The health of the people in our correctional facilities is a public health issue for every Mississippian,” the lawmakers wrote. “Nearly everyone who enters our prisons will one day come home. Whether they return healthier, treated for addiction and mental illness, and ready to work, or return sicker and more likely to reoffend, affects our communities, our hospitals, our Medicaid program, and our public safety. A strong, rehabilitative corrections system is in everyone’sinterest, and we cannot build one without the Department at the table.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor and disability rights advocate RJ Mitte, who brought a lifetime of experience with cerebral palsy to fictional family struggles in an essential role on “Breaking Bad,” died Monday at age 34, authorities and his representatives said.

Cameron County Justice of the Peace Cyndi Hinojosa told The Associated Press she declared Mitte dead at about 1:30 p.m. at what she believed was his home in Brownsville, Texas. She said she was unable to provide a cause, but an autopsy will be performed.

Mitte played Walter White Jr., the son of Bryan Cranston’s chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer Walter White on nearly every episode of the five seasons of the AMC show, which recently ranked as the best of the 21st century in a New York Times poll.

Cranston said he is in “deep despair” for the loss of his “sweet son.”

“I met him when he was only 14 years old when he was cast as Walter White Jr., a part he played with such joy and enthusiasm,” Cranston said in a Facebook post Monday night. “Born with Cerebral Palsy, he never — ever — allowed that challenge to be an excuse for anything. He met the demanding shooting schedule head on with great determination.”

Mitte was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi.

Mitte told the AP in 2014 that his disability and the surrounding struggles with physical therapy, family problems and exorbitant medical bills — all key subjects on the show — made him better at his job.

“You develop a different mentality and you develop a different look at how the world sees you and how you see the world,” he said. “You’re able to use that. And I think it’s an asset instead of something that would hinder.”

He landed small guest roles on sitcoms after moving to Los Angeles to act in 2006 before landing the role on “Breaking Bad” in 2007. The show ran from 2008 to 2013.

“That kid was pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot,” Cranston said in his post, “but little by little we watched him grow into a really fine actor.”

Cranston added, “I loved him, and thoroughly enjoyed being with him throughout the years on the series, and after the spotlight on Breaking Bad dimmed.”

In a statement announcing his death, Mitte’s representatives said he “brought authenticity to the role and built a platform on disability awareness and inclusion.” The statement said he used “his platform to challenge stereotypes and promote greater representation.”

Mitte’s later credits included the ABC Family series “Switched at Birth” and the superhero satire series “Guardians of Justice.”

He was also a producer of several independent films.

As an advocate, he served as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children’s. He was also president of his own Mitte Foundation supporting philanthropic and community initiatives around disabilities.

Alex Meyer, a former White House official for President Donald Trump, will host a fundraiser in Oxford next month for state Auditor Shad White, who has been telegraphing a run for governor next year. 

White, a Republican, has not declared a gubernatorial run, but has long made it no secret that he’s considering it. The Nov. 11 fundraiser offers tickets ranging from $500 to $10,000, with proceeds directed to White’s campaign committee, an invitation obtained by Mississippi Today shows.  

White has long praised Trump, and Republican candidates in the GOP primary next year are likely to jockey for his endorsement.

White has faced criticism from some in the Trump orbit and conservative media because of his legal battles with former NFL star Brett Favre, a close friend of Donald Trump Jr. Favre is suing White, alleging defamation over comments White made in a book he wrote about Mississippi’s welfare scandal and in media interviews.

Meyer, a University of Mississippi alumnus, led Trump’s 2024 campaign operation in the Iowa caucuses before working in the White House as director of intergovernmental affairs and deputy assistant to the president. He left the White House in June to work on the GOP’s political operation for the midterms, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said. 

Meyer told Mississippi Today he hasn’t officially endorsed White, but agreed to host a fundraiser because White’s style of politics aligns with Trump’s. 

“Shad has a lot of the energy that I see in the Republican primary electorate in Mississippi, and across the country. They’re looking for someone who will go to war and will fight for them,” Meyer said. “And I think Shad is doing a great job of meeting the primary electorate where they’re at and giving them a fight on things that they haven’t felt like anyone’s fought for a while.”

READ MORE: Shad White running for governor as pro-Trump candidate. But does MAGA have a problem with him?

Meyer, without speaking for the president, said he predicted Trump would wait until well after the midterms to endorse in Mississippi’s Republican primary for governor, if he gets involved at all. But he said an endorsement is likely still up for grabs.

Arthur Schwartz, a Washington political operative who’s close to the Trump family and has been an adviser to Donald Trump Jr. for years, has traded barbs with White on social media, telling the auditor he was not “getting anywhere near a Trump admin” and that the “transition team has already been warned about you.”

The late Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative media personality who was assassinated in 2025, once dedicated a segment of his show to defending Favre and criticizing White.

Neither the president himself nor his White House administration has said anything publicly about the state auditor.

Republican candidates running for governor in Mississippi appear to be working hard to win over Trump and his supporters, often in strikingly similar terms. 

Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch launched her gubernatorial campaign calling herself a “Trump conservative who doesn’t back down from a fight.” In his rollout, Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson said he’s  “always been in the fight with President Donald J. Trump.” White, touting his record as auditor, has said voters are “ready for a pro-Trump governor” focused on ending government fraud.

While many polls indicate Trump’s approval rating has cratered nationally, his endorsement is still considered a powerful factor in Mississippi Republican primaries. Trump won Mississippi by nearly 23 points in 2024. 

If White enters the race for governor, he will square off against a Republican primary field to replace term-limited incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves that includes Fitch, Gipson and former House Speaker Philip Gunn. Former U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper and billionaire businessman Tommy Duff are also considering entering the race on the Republican side. 

Priscilla Williams Till, a cousin of Emmett Till who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2026, is the only Democratic candidate to have entered the race thus far

White has over $3.8 million in cash on hand, leading a fundraising battle that is sure to accelerate before the Aug. 3 primary.

Call me Old School. I don’t mind. Actually, you can just call me old. That’s OK. I am. 

And it seems the older I get, the more I hate how much the almighty dollar defines sports, especially at the college and professional levels. The teams that spend the most usually win the most. Its true on the college level, just as it has nearly always been true in the pros.

Seven teams in the Top 10 in the Associated Press college football poll this week are also among the top 10 spenders on their rosters, according to a report in The Athletic. That includes the Ole Miss Rebels, who ranked eighth in roster spending and rank ninth in the AP poll. Only three teams that are not in the top 10 in spending are actually in the AP Top 10. So let’s raise a glass to Indiana (No. 5), BYU (No. 8) and Texas Tech (No. 10), which crack the top 10 without spending top 10 money. Don’t raise it too high for Texas Tech, however. The Red Raiders do have all that backing from Permian Basin oil money and they do rank No. 11 on The Athletic’s list of big spenders.

Major League Baseball? The Los Angeles Dodgers have by far the highest payroll in the big leagues. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Dodgers are the two-time defending World Series champions. They spend big bucks. They win big, too. 

Case in point: The Dodgers faced a (for them) severe pitching shortage back in August. So they just went out and traded three top prospects to the Detroit Tigers for two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, despite the fact Skubal will become a free agent after this season and thus will command a salary that would pretty much buy Tupelo or Meridian or maybe both.

Don’t bet against Dodger Blue as a permanent home for Skubal, who, seriously, is expected to command a contract of somewhere between $400 million or $500 million over nine or 10 years. Of course, the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Phillies, all large market teams, will be bidding, too.

Brewers spend less but still win

One franchise that most likely will not be bidding for Skubal’s services is the Milwaukee Brewers, the primary reason I write what I write today. These are the Brewers, a small market team that has never, ever won a World Series. These are the Brewers who currently defy all baseball odds. These are the Brewers who spend about $146 million on player salaries, far less than half of the roughly $340 million the Dodgers spend.

And, yes, these are the Milwaukee Brewers who now lead the Dodgers two victories to none in the best of seven series to determine the National League pennant winner. These are the Brewers who are fighting the almighty dollar by playing Old School baseball. 

The modern game of baseball has morphed into something far different from the sport I dearly loved as a child and am still trying to love today. Today’s game is defined by two factors: home run power and power pitching. That’s where the Dodgers have spent so many of those millions: on guys who can hit the ball out of the yard and guys such as Skubal, who can throw a sinking fastball at 97 miles per hour. 

In fact, the Dodgers spent a king’s ransom on one player who, when healthy, can do both. Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese version of Babe Ruth, throws 100 mph fastballs and has also averaged 51 home runs per season over the previous three. The Dodgers are paying Ohtani $700 million over 10 years. That’s $70 million per year, which is roughly what the entire Washington Nationals team makes this year.

So how can the Brewers compete against all that money? Well, they play Old School baseball. They bunt. They steal bases. They take the extra base. They hit behind the runner. They play clean defense. They always hit the cut-off man. Their manager, Pat Murphy, came up through the college ranks, stresses fundamentals and looks like he just walked out of central casting for a 1950s black and white baseball movie, square jaw and all. He has made all the right calls.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a solid and likable baseball guy, may have said it best about Murphy’s team.

“They play baseball the way it was intended,” Roberts told reporters. “They value 90 feet. They take extra bases. They defend well. They’re athletic. They prevent runs with really good pitching and then with the defense layered in. They don’t give pitches away.” 

The Brewers do sometimes hit home runs. But they are more likely to score with an opposite field single, a stolen base, a grounder to the right side to move the runner to third and then a sacrifice fly. They manufacture runs. This old school baseball guy loves it.

A rookie from Mississippi

I also love it that they have a 22-year-old rookie shortstop named Cooper Pratt from Magnolia Heights School in Senatobia. Pratt had two hits in the Brewers’ 7-4 victory Monday night. He hit .280 as a rookie. His on-base percentage for the National League Championship series is .500.

True story. I grew up a New York Yankees fan, mostly because my folks were Yankee fans. I ditched the Yankees during the George Steinbrenner years when pulling for the Pinstripes seemed too much like pulling for Chase Manhattan. 

I switched my Major League allegiances years ago to the Atlanta Braves, who were once the Milwaukee Braves. And now that the Dodgers have eliminated the Braves, I turn to the small-market Brewers and their Old School approach.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland Guardians lead the Tampa Bay Rays 1-0 in the American League playoff series, despite the fact that you could combine the salaries of both those ballclubs and not get to even half of what the vaunted New York Yankees pay their players.

In Major League Baseball, at least this year, money isn’t everything. For me, at least, that’s refreshing.

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful ideas to be shared 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.  

Opposition to data centers is at an all-time-high across the country. We are no outlier here in Mississippi. The opposition to data centers spans across the political spectrum. “Data centers are a unique issue where ‘MAGA Republicans and liberal Democrats’ land in the same place,” NPR recently reported, quoting the co-director of a group that tracks political advertising.

Yet in Mississippi, the battle around data centers looks like a game of two-on-two. On one side is team “people and communities,” versus team “data centers” made up of corporations and politicians across the political spectrum. 

Even though communities across the state are resoundingly rejecting data centers, very few officials are responsive to the concerns of these communities. Who even asked for these data centers, anyway? What regular citizen wants these data centers in their backyards? Rather, it’s the politicians and corporations telling us from on high that we should want these data centers and they will be good economic opportunities. The divergence between the people and the state is stark. 

State and local officials in Madison County, along with the corporations behind them, claimed in late August that data centers will help fund public schools. You know what could have funded public schools? It’s this thing that most civilized societies use to fund public education, along with infrastructure projects and hospitals, called taxes. But, we cut the income tax last year with even some Democrats voting for the cut. 

At this moment, we need state lawmakers who will actually listen to the community, not the corporate interests that lobby them. Early on, lawmakers had very limited information about the harms of data centers and were swayed by big corporations to sign legislation in support of data centers.

Sen. Hillman Frazier was one of those lawmakers. Sen. Frazier penned an August op-ed calling for data center regulations, maybe trying to right the wrong of having sponsored the “Data Center Giveaway” bill, Senate Bill 2001 from 2024. 

In his op-ed Sen. Frazier says that Mississippi should create laws that protect our communities, and he advocates for statewide policies and regulations around data centers. He says it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition between “economic growth and protecting our communities,” but says there needs to be more rules and regulations “before Mississippi sees another wave of data center development.” 

Well, the future is here. We are presently experiencing a wave of data center development that needs to be halted before further irreparable harm occurs to our environment, people and communities. People are already feeling the effects of data centers in their communities, including health issues.

We need regulation, public transparency and corporate accountability; and we need more legislators speaking up and revoking their sponsorship. To do anything else feels a bit tone-deaf. We know too much now of the economic and physical harms data centers cause. These harms far outweigh any imaginary benefit. 

S.B. 2001 (2024), codified at Miss. Code Ann. § 77-3-271, made it easier for Amazon and Entergy Mississippi to build their Madison County data centers. The bill provides heavy tax incentives to the companies and helps Entergy to create the infrastructure – power plants and grid – to power Amazon’s data centers. The bill made the projects exempt from the Public Service Commission’s review, and shielded the deals from the Mississippi Public Records Act designating the deals “trade secrets.” Thus, members of the public have no way to know the terms or rates Entergy charges.

We should be concerned because S.B. 2001 also “makes it easier for Entergy to build new power infrastructure serving Amazon’s data centers and recover expenses from customers,” the Mississippi Free Press reported. Money used to construct the data center infrastructure is deemed “used and useful,” which means Entergy can pass the costs onto residents.

Entergy can, and very likely does, pass costs along to its customers by increasing residential rates. There are serious “fears that Entergy could be undercharging Amazon while raising rates for other customers,” the Mississippi Free Press reported.          

A report commissioned by Environmental Advocates MS and EarthJustice estimates that: “Entergy’s residential ratepayers in Mississippi have already paid approximately $38 million as of March 2026 for investments related to serving data centers, and that they will contribute $74 million by the end of 2026. As a result, the average residential customer’s bill is now about $10.60 per month higher,” according to the report.

Now, these are just estimates because S.B. 2001 shields all the deal’s terms and rates from the public. But under S.B. 2001, Entergy can raise rates higher than the annual 4% rate increase cap under existing state law. This “allows the company to raise rates in excess of that to fund the construction of energy plants that power data centers.” Mississippi residents rightfully are skeptical of the corporations’ claims because the people clearly see their bills increasing. Corporate gaslighting is nothing new. These corporations will tell us the sky is green when we can clearly see it is blue.

While Sen. Frazier likely meant well with his op-ed, we still must ask who is responsible for S.B. 2001? Republican Sen. Josh Harkins was the lead author of S.B. 2001 and the senators who signed on as “authors” or “sponsors” represent a multigenerational, multiracial and cross-party coalition of politicians. All but one state senator, and all but two House members voted for the bill. Republican Rep. Dan Eubanks, Democratic Rep. Solomon Osborne and Republican Sen. Kathy Chism were the only legislators who voted no.

This, unfortunately, is an example of the Mississippi Legislature coming together seamlessly to enact public policy that the public never asked for and now communities across the state must fight retroactively against.

S.B. 2001 has been discussed and criticized by community members across the state. Groups such as Environmental Advocates Mississippi, Mississippi for a Just World and Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition are actively organizing communities to fight against data centers. Legislation like this further entrenches us in a world where corporations lack oversight and accountability, while members of the public, particularly our most marginalized and economically vulnerable communities, will continue to be left holding the bag while corporations profit. 

It’s a cruel reality that Mississippi politicians willingly allow corporations to pollute communities, then turn around and tell us that is the best way to fund public schools. Yet we know the corporations are trying to get out of paying their fair share. Our budget reflects our values. We could simply choose to fund public education without polluting and poisoning the kids first.

The politicians don’t speak for us, and we see this every day. This summer, we attended multiple People Over Politics sessions about data centers and community members discussed planned data centers across Mississippi, particularly in the Jackson metro area. Overwhelmingly, community members are against data centers and worry about the impact on their health and wellbeing.

This summer, we saw true people power with residents showing up to Jackson City Council meetings and demanding limits on data centers emerging in Jackson. Then we saw the Jackson City Council pass the first data center moratorium in the state, and now the people are pushing for a permanent ordinance to prevent data centers in our backyard. 

Nationally, data center opposition is at its highest politically. So why do Mississippi politicians continue to choose corporations at the expense of our health and wellbeing? The consequences to the public are here and felt, from the financial harms with higher bills to the very real and known environmental harms that data centers cause, such as the deprivation of natural resources like water needed to cool the data centers.

In fact, the Sierra Club just gave Entergy Mississippi a failing grade on “clean energy,” because it is adding 3500 megawatts of gas-powered energy to meet the needs of Amazon’s data centers in central Mississippi. There is an ever-present risk of pollution, including noise pollution, from data centers that can and will cause long-term health issues. For instance, the Madison County data centers use hundreds of diesel generators that “emit toxic pollutants linked to a range of chronic illnesses, from nitrogen oxides and particulate matter to cancer-causing chemicals like benzene,” the Mississippi Free Press reported. And yet politicians will say we “just have to take the good with the bad,” of data centers. Well, “the bad” may very well be cancer. 

The corporations behind the data centers will continue to claim that the benefits outweigh the negatives, that jobs and economic growth outweigh the human and environmental harms. Yet, the number of jobs being promised are minimal (Amazon claims its data centers will create 2,000 jobs, statewide).

The recently announced Jefferson County data center is only expected to create 200 permanent jobs. Construction jobs will be created as data centers are built. However, those jobs by definition are temporary and often given to out-of-state contractors. Plus, with the tax incentives given to these corporations, we will never receive a true fair share back. 

At the end of the day, AI is meant to replace humans. People use ChatGPT so they don’t have to write that email or do their own research. Why would we trust corporations behind AI data centers claiming to create long term jobs? Are we naïve enough to believe in 30 years people will be retiring from and living comfortably off pensions from data center jobs? We don’t even have a state minimum wage in Mississippi, and the conditions for workers across this state is abysmal. Corporations come to this state because our lawmakers don’t make them pay their fair share. They take advantage of workers and maximize their profits. 

In recent months, in community meetings across Mississippi, residents have asked their legislators about S.B. 2001, and we’ve heard multiple reports of legislators admitting they didn’t even know what was in the bill but voted yes. It’s a grim political reality when state lawmakers don’t carefully review legislation before signing onto or voting for it.

Mississippians deserve so much more. The Legislature can do so much more. They can shield consumers from rate hikes, make data center operators and utility corporations like Entergy pay their fair share, require environmental and community impact studies of the data centers before they are built, require proper permitting and Public Service Commission review, and increase – not decrease – public transparency while creating processes for public review of these deals being struck.

Members of the Mississippi Legislature, especially those authors of S.B. 2001 (2024), must right their wrong. Legislation prioritizing corporations over the people is always wrong. An August tweet can sum up the impact of S.B. 2001:

Brooke Floyd is a daughter of Mississippi. She has a master’s in education from Jackson State University, a master’s from Belhaven University and an undergraduate degree in English from Tougaloo College. She is the director of programs and community-led governance at People’s Advocacy Institute. Brooke continues to call Jackson home, with her husband and two children. 

Korbin Felder is a civil rights attorney who lives and works in Jackson.

Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will campaign for Scott Colom, Mississippi’s Democratic Senate nominee, in cities along the Gulf Coast on Oct. 27, one week before the federal midterm elections.

Buttigieg, in a statement, said that he is looking forward to joining Colom on the campaign trail and “seeing him elected as the next U.S. Senator from Mississippi.”

“Scott Colom is the kind of leader we need in the U.S. Senate: rooted in his community and ready to work with anyone to deliver results,” Buttigieg said. “He knows that it is not too much to ask for safer communities, good-paying jobs, and a government that works for people.” 

Buttigieg last visited Mississippi in 2024 while he was transportation secretary to help break ground on a $20-million renovation of Medgar Evers Boulevard in Jackson. He also toured the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument and visited the Mississippi Delta. 

Buttigieg, a potential presidential contender in 2028, has visited traditionally conservative states such as Kansas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida, and Montana recently to campaign for Democratic candidates. 

The announcement marks the latest national Democratic figure to campaign for Colom. Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey visited Mississippi in recent weeks to campaign for the Mississippi Democrat.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia will host a fundraiser, conduct a conversation with faith leaders and headline a campaign rally on behalf of Colom in Jackson on Wednesday. 

Former President Barack Obama cut an ad on Monday urging Mississippians to vote for Colom ahead of the Nov. 3 election. 

“Mississippi, it’s time for a change,” Obama said in the ad. “And that’s why you need to send Scott Colom to the U.S. Senate.”

Colom is competing against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and independent candidate Ty Pinkins. 

Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Colom “will suffer the same fate as the last two candidates President Obama endorsed in Mississippi.” Monssen was referring to Obama’s 2020 endorsement of Mike Espy for U.S. Senate against Hyde-Smith and his 2019 endorsement of Jim Hood for governor. 

President Donald Trump has endorsed Hyde-Smith, saying the Republican incumbent would never let Mississippi down.

Dogs draped in American flags jump through hoops, little kids wrestle to catch free biscuits flying through the sky, and a giant pink and purple teddy bear sits down at a table like it’s about to eat lunch.

Welcome to the 167th Mississippi State Fair, where I learned that everything can be fried, put on a stick or both at the same time.

It’s nothing like the Santos Populares, the traditional street festival in Lisbon, Portugal, where I grew up. We eat sardines, dance to pimba folk music and toast to Saint Anthony with Sagres beer.

This fair is bigger, more extravagant, more kitsch. In other words, it’s American. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” blared through the loudspeakers as I strolled the fairgrounds, feeling like Dorothy in the Land of Oz.

Kelly Shannon, public relations specialist at the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, met me at the entrance to the fair, handing me a biscuit oozing with cane syrup. As a reporter, you don’t usually get to participate in the events you cover. But this time it would be different.

Shannon took me to the back of “Biscuit Booth,” where Aguster Lewis whisked flour off her apron. Lewis has been baking biscuits at the state fair for over 30 years. She’s now the manager of the Biscuit Booth, where Mississippians can get free biscuits in between Sky Screamer rides and Fetch N Fish dog shows. Last year, they gave out over 110,000 biscuits in the course of 12 days.

The tradition was started by late Agriculture Commissioner Jim Buck Ross in the 1970s after taking inspiration from a biscuit booth at the Missouri state fair. Despite its long-standing history, there is still room for innovation: This year for the first time, veterans and active-duty military can get a “Brisket Biscuit” for free.

Lewis mixes, kneads and folds. One bag of flour makes 75 biscuits — each of which should be half an inch thick. If the biscuits in a batch are too small, they go in the trash. Pro-tip: If you come back to the Biscuit Booth enough times during the fair, Lewis will give you a goody bag of biscuits to take home.

With a full stomach, I make my way to the show ring with Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, where children wrangle their sheep around and around. I am incredibly amused at how regal and luxurious the sheep look with the tufts of fur around their legs.

The Mississippi State Fair began in 1859, two years before the Civil War, when a group of farmers decided to have a fair to see who had the best cows, hogs, goats and sheep. Today, at over 100 food vendors and over 10 daily shows, it’s a far-cry from the small, informal cattle show it once was. But its agricultural heart remains the same.

“Farmers are the first ones here, and they’re the last ones to leave, because this event is theirs,” said Gipson as he walked me through the livestock barns, gliding much more skillfully through the straw and animal muck than me.

We strike up a conversation with a farmer from Wiggins, who is amused at how little I know about cows, livestock and anything farming. He introduces me to Mr Wxc Long Haul Jim, one of White’s Crossing Cattle’s most prized bulls, who is nurtured all year around to win all the blue ribbons at the fair.

His dedication reminds me of Jack Jones from Blackburn Syrup, who told me that “biscuits are eaten with cane syrup and not maple syrup, and to please get it right in my article because maple syrup is produced in the northeast and therefore not local at all.” To me, these men embody the best of the fair: the beautiful craftsmanship that keeps Mississippian traditions alive.

Having moved to Mississippi after a year living in New York City, a place where life happens on street corners and in subway cars and firescapes, it was hard to adjust to the silos of suburban life. It felt strange that living was often saved for the inside of homes and cars, and I missed third spaces. I missed the unexpectedness that can happen when strangers come together. But at the fair, Mississippians have no option but to be on foot. And the best part about third spaces in Mississippi is that no one really feels like a stranger.

The way I see it, stereotypically American symbols fall into two categories: ones that have become partisan and corrupted to some (the flag) and ones that are still generally harmless and neutral (Stanley cups, air conditioning and ice – that’s “ice” in lower case). An all-American state fair falls into the latter category. It’s nothing but family, giggles and funnel cakes.

As the day drew closer to an end, I put my camera away, sat down next to a “fried Oreos” sign, and felt wistful. After all that unabashedly Americana fun, returning to real life seemed unappealing. I wasn’t the only one who thought so: A little girl with butterflies painted on her face cried while her mother dragged her toward the exit. 

Two-thirds of Canton public school students had their school day disrupted Monday due to an electrical issue at the city’s water treatment plant.

Canton Municipal Utilities announced Monday on social media that an electrical issue at a water treatment plant resulted in a loss of water services and reduced water pressure in some parts of Canton. The issue was resolved, according to the statement, and water service and pressure should return to normal.

The water issue affected four school buildings — Huey Porter Middle, Canton High, Goodloe Elementary and Canton Elementary — comprising more than 2,000 students of the district’s 3,137 total enrollment.

Students and teachers at the affected schools were transported to other district schools with functioning water, Superintendent Bonita Coleman said in an announcement on Facebook.

Students at Huey Porter Middle and Canton High were dismissed early at 11 a.m. Parents could also pick up their students.

In its Facebook post, the school district mischaracterized the cause of the water loss. Howard Young, general manager of CMU, said the district was inaccurate in describing the issues as a “water main break.”

“It was an electrical issue,” he said. “It’s resolved, and students should definitely be able to return to their [regular] schools tomorrow.”

Correction 10/12/26: This story has been updated to reflect the correct cause of temporary water loss to several Canton schools.

President Donald Trump has pushed Congress to pass a proof-of-citizenship law, signed an executive order seeking a national voter ID requirement and tried to limit mail voting through U.S. Postal Service changes.

None of those moves succeeded in time to affect this year’s midterm elections. It’s a different matter in the states.

More than three dozen voting laws passed in Republican-controlled states are taking effect for the first time this year, many of them containing elements of Trump’s stalled proposals. They include changes to what IDs are acceptable to register for the first time and requirements to show proof of citizenship, an issue the Republican president has tried but failed to get through Congress.

“Trump’s attacks on our elections are deeply damaging, but they are not happening in isolation,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project. ”Across the country, states are also advancing restrictions that make it harder for eligible voters to cast a ballot.”

READ MORE: Legislators send bill to governor to require voter citizenship checks and audits of voter rolls

Some new laws seek to make voting easier. Others continue a trend in Republican-controlled states of imposing restrictive rules that began in 2021 after Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s continued false claims have resonated with Republican voters, a majority of whom believe Biden was not legitimately elected despite all evidence to the contrary. Trump lost dozens of court challenges, his own attorney general found no evidence of widespread fraud, and reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states where he contested his loss all affirmed Biden’s victory.

Among the changes confronting voters as early voting gets underway: Students in New Hampshire can no longer use student IDs. Utah voters returning mail ballots must include more information on the envelope and some voters in Mississippi might need birth certificates or passports to verify their identity.

Under a new Mississippi law signed by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, if someone tries to register and can’t produce a driver’s license number or if the number doesn’t appear in the Statewide Elections Management System, a county registrar would have to verify whether the person appears in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database called SAVE.

Government agencies use the federal database to verify an applicant’s immigration status or citizenship. If a person is flagged in the SAVE database, the registrar would notify them and offer a chance to provide documents showing U.S. citizenship before their registration application is denied or canceled.

Changes to voter ID requirements are challenged

Republican lawmakers who support the tighter voting laws, especially around voter ID, describe them as common sense changes.

New Hampshire state Rep. Donald McFarlane said he sponsored the bill to eliminate student IDs as acceptable for voting because colleges don’t have the same controls when issuing those cards as government agencies.

“The change removes a special exception and applies the same government-issued ID standard to all voters,” he said, adding that his bill had bipartisan support.

Students, he said, can still get state IDs free of charge.

The new requirements have not gone unchallenged.

In South Dakota, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a new law that includes requiring voters registering for the first time to present the most common forms of ID — driver’s licenses, Tribal IDs and non-driver state IDs. They must be presented in person at places that accept registration.

“Proof of citizenship in itself is not terrible,” said Kathryn Johnson, president of the League of Women Voters of South Dakota.

Her concern is the requirement to present the IDs in person.

“We’re kind of a remote state, so sometimes it takes a drive, and you have to coordinate, you have to take off work, and all of these kinds of things,” she said.

Ohio seeks to scrub voter rolls

Ohio has a proof of citizenship requirement in effect for the first time this year for those registering to vote or updating their voter registration information at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles location. The state also eliminated its four-day grace period for mail ballots, which now must be received at local election offices by Election Day.

Yet the biggest concern for voting rights groups is an ongoing purge of the state’s voter rolls. The databases used to check citizenship against voter registration lists can be outdated, said Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, which has sued to overturn the law.

“Vast numbers of perfectly eligible voters are vulnerable to being disenfranchised,” she said.

Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, one of the primary sponsors of the bill, challenged the ACLU’s legal action and said the problem it addresses is a real one.

“In the past two years, hundreds of noncitizens have been removed from Ohio’s voter rolls,” she said in an email. “Every single vote cast by a noncitizen disenfranchises a lawful Ohio voter.”

Voters have mixed views on the changes

Outside an early voting center in Wayne County, Ohio, retired steel worker Dan Walter, an independent voter, said he opposes requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote.

“It’s to keep people from voting, it sounds to me like,” he said.

His wife, Jody, a retired aerospace executive and a Democrat, said she felt the same way about Ohio’s new requirement for registering to vote.

“A driver’s license doesn’t prove citizenship, and that’s all they ask for now,” she said. “It’s going to be an obstacle for so many people.”

Genia Fortune had a different view. A nurse, the Millersburg resident described herself as an independent and said she voted for President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and later for Trump. She believes Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and sees requiring documentary proof of citizenship as a necessary precaution.

“I just feel like you need to be a citizen and show proof of ID,” she said.

Voting and election laws have become a regular target for legislatures

The Trump administration has pushed multiple strategies to influence this year’s midterm elections, most of them stymied by Congress or the courts.

Chris Diaz, the director of legislative tracking at the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks state legislation, said the group has seen several versions of the Republican president’s proposals passed by his allies in the states.

A recently released report by the group highlighted some of the key areas drawing Republican lawmakers’ attention, including mail balloting, voter ID and the hunt for noncitizens on voter rolls.

Noncitizen voting has been a focus of the Trump administration despite it being a rare problem. The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced it had brought charges in roughly 90 cases for various types of election misconduct, including 50 against people who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. The U.S. had 227 million registered voters for the 2024 presidential election.

The Brennan Center for Justice has identified nearly 40 laws in 21 states taking effect this election season that will make it harder for eligible voters to register, stay on the rolls or cast ballots.

The report from the center, part of the New York University School of Law, found that many of the new laws target subsets of voters.

“What I want voters to take away from this is that elections are still run by the states and there are still people in many states who are trying to make it harder for you to vote,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, senior director of the center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program. “But that’s all the more reason to go make a plan to vote and participate.”

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Mississippi Today reporter Michael Goldberg contributed to this report. AP’s Gary Fields reported from Washington, and Julie Carr Smyth reported from Wooster and Millersburg, Ohio.