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A controversial flood control project that would transform Jackson’s waterfront is set to move forward after decades of debate over how the project would impact an ecosystem stretching into Louisiana, local officials announced Thursday.

The Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District said the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Adam Telle, selected a proposal to dam and lower the banks of the river near Jackson. “Alternative D1” was one of a few proposals the public weighed in on during U.S. Army Corps of Engineers comment sessions last summer.

The flood control district’s board, comprised of elected officials from Rankin and Hinds counties, is the project’s local government sponsor. The board and the Corps are the agencies in charge of designing and proposing the project. As of Thursday morning, neither the Corps nor Telle had announced the project selection.

During a press conference Thursday, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said the agencies still need to finalize an environmental assessment and then “get a final decision, hopefully this summer.”

“After that, we will begin the intensive design and engineering process to get us ready for construction,” Windham said.

The Corps in 2022 dedicated $221 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for this project, which would only cover a portion of the estimated cost of $873 million to $918 million. The federal government is supposed to pay for 65%, with the rest coming from state and local governments.

Keith Turner, attorney for the flood control district, said he thinks the Corps’ estimate of the project cost is too high. He said he hopes to have a design agreement with the Corps in the next four weeks, and to begin construction by the end of the year or by early 2027.

The news would conclude a decades-long journey among Jackson metro officials to address flooding from the Pearl River, which caused record destruction in 1979. More recently, a 2020 event flooded over 200 structures in Jackson and Flowood, and was the third-highest crest in history.

Since the 1979 flood, which caused over $200 million in damages (the event would cause over $1.2 billion in damages today, the Corps estimates) local officials have worked with the Corps on a number of solutions. In 2011, the late oil businessman and developer John McGowan proposed a flood control and recreational development plan known as “One Lake,” which the local flood control board supported until the Corps rejected the idea in 2024 because of its high cost. Before that, McGowan proposed a “Two Lakes” solution in 1996. Alternative D1 is a scaled-back version of One Lake.

Ever since McGowan presented the idea, opponents — including environmental groups such as Healthy Gulf, Audubon Delta and the Sierra Club, as well as officials from downstream places such as Monticello and Slidell, Louisiana — have panned the idea for its potential to disrupt downstream flow and destroy valuable habitat.

Jackson-area officials on Thursday celebrated the project’s potential to reconnect Jackson with the Pearl River, opening up an array of recreational and economic development opportunities. In additional to providing flood control, the plan would include new riverfront development, parks and trails, its website says.

Jackson Mayor John Horhn said critics of the proposal are “not listening to the science.”

“They’re not listening to the fact that the Corps has vetted this project for more than 25 years,” said Horhn, adding he thinks the development will be the “most transformative project we have seen in the Jackson Metropolitan area, probably in its history.”

Two protesters showed up at the event, shouting that officials were lying about the project’s impacts. Both were detained by Pearl police officers.

What the last Corps study said

Last year, the Corps narrowed a list of proposals to “Alternative D1” and “Alternative E1.” Both proposals included an array of measures: building new levees, elevating the most flood-prone structures, offering voluntary buyouts, and excavating the stream’s banks to widen and lower the river.

E1 would not have included a dam, though. That difference made it a cheaper option than D1, but it also meant it didn’t have the recreational benefits that would come with turning that section of the Pearl River into a lake.

Downstream communities fear the dam would disrupt the Pearl River’s flow once it reaches them, harming both economic and recreational use of the stream. In response, the Corps said last year that neither alternative would impact the Pearl River’s flow once it reaches Monticello, about 80 miles south of Jackson.

The agency admitted that both alternatives would “likely adversely affect” several endangered or threatened species along the Pearl River, including three different types of turtles. D1, though, would affect a wider range of species, including the Gulf sturgeon.

The 2025 study estimated both D1 and E1 would remove 740 acres of forested wetlands. D1 would also remove about 230 acres of riverine habitat, the study said. The Corps’ proposal includes a mitigation plan to compensate for any wetland or habitat losses.

Critics have also asked why the agency didn’t more seriously consider another option from its study, “Alternative A1.” A1 would have only included the nonstructural measures, meaning no excavation or dam. But the Corps’ study limited A1’s scope, for instance including just one levee in the proposal versus the four in D1 and E1. In doing so, the agency limited the benefits associated with A1, those critics argued.

Moreover, A1 would have cost up to $22 million, the agency estimated. D1 and E1 would cost up to $960 million and $788 million, respectively. The state and local governments would be on the hook for 35% of those costs. For D1, that would mean needing to raise between $306 million and $321 million through state appropriations and local taxes.

Should the project go through, the flood control district would expand to include more homes, mainly in northeast Jackson and Flowood, said Turner, the board attorney. Those homes would then be subject to taxes to help fund the flood control project. For many, though, reduced flood insurance costs would offset those taxes, Turner added.

Candice Wilder, Mississippi Today’s higher education reporter, is among 10 journalists selected for the Ida B. Wells Society’s 2026 investigative reporting fellowship program. 

The six-month fellowship includes a series of training sessions on topics such as public records, data evaluation, web research and fact-checking. The program includes in-person training in Atlanta led by top investigative journalists.

“The higher education beat not only has implications for the lives of students enrolled at colleges and universities across Mississippi — tens of thousands of them at the public universities alone — but it also touches on the state’s workforce and economic future. Candice is on track to learn tools and methods to deepen and enrich her reporting on such an important beat,” said Marquita Brown, Mississippi Today’s education editor. “I look forward to seeing how she puts that learning and those resources to use in her reporting. ”

Wilder, an Ohio native, joined the Mississippi Today team in April 2025 and works in partnership with Open Campus. 

Wilder is a member of Open Campus’s Local Network, a group of newsrooms in 18 places where the nonprofit news organization has helped put reporters on the higher education beat full time. Open Campus and Mississippi Today have partnered together on higher education coverage since 2021.

The Ida B. Wells Society is named in honor of the muckraking Black journalist and activist who was born into slavery in Holly Springs. The journalism organization launched in 2015 with the mission to increase and retain journalists of color in investigative reporting, and its membership is open to journalists of all races and backgrounds.

Emilee Shell tried to reconcile two conflicting messages from the state Legislature as staff and clients from the Jackson women’s addiction recovery residence Grace House filled the Mississippi Capitol.

That January morning was Recovery Day, an event designed to connect politicians with those who have experienced substance use disorder in Mississippi. From the Senate floor, lawmakers clapped for Shell, Grace House’s director, and others in the gallery who were recovering from addiction, saying they were proud of everyone’s journeys.

But that recognition came a month-and-a-half after a council the Legislature had tasked with managing hundreds of millions of opioid settlement dollars submitted its recommendations for the first round of state spending. The council members ranked 127 applications last fall into tiers based on how highly they recommended funding projects that aim to address the opioid epidemic. 

Grace House’s application was scored in the third of five tiers. That application, which asked for $600,000 to expand medical services for people who’ve completed intensive rehab and are starting to live independently, sat below some applications that proposed approaches experts said could be ineffective at preventing more overdoses. 

Shell said the decision was both surprising and expected. She and the Grace House staff were confident its proposal, if funded, would help keep women from relapsing. But Shell saw that in the council’s initial scoring, the majority of money the body recommended in the top two tiers was to organizations with representatives on the council.

“When funding becomes available, it’s like a who’s who popularity contest,” Shell said on Recovery Day.

Across the state, applicant organizations that work to treat and prevent opioid addiction have told Mississippi Today they worry the council did not fairly consider their plans to prevent more overdoses. They pointed to the potential for council member conflicts of interest and how the subcommittee grading wasn’t standardized.

Because of that, Shell said she thinks the state could miss out on funding Grace House and other organizations run by people with decades of experience addressing Mississippi’s addiction crisis — organizations with ideas that could save lives.

“I feel like we were definitely overlooked,” she said. 

Some lawmakers who helped create the advisory council also question the public body’s recommendations. House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, saw the advisory council process play out last fall as a non-voting committee member. As it did, he told Mississippi Today he saw both the amount of work council members put into reviewing the applications and the imperfections of the process.

Creekmore said he plans to spend time during the meeting of House Appropriations, the committee that is expected to review the applications and a body he’s a member of, revisiting lower-tier applications he thinks were scored incorrectly. A bill lawmakers passed last year allows the Legislature to accept or reject any of the advisory council’s recommendations, even those from the lower tiers.

“We can award some deserving people,” he said.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the chair of the council, did not respond to an email asking for her thoughts on lawmakers changing the council’s recommendations. Last fall, her office said the council has some rules to prevent conflicts of interest from influencing committee decisions. 

But this type of legislative intervention could signal that the advisory council process has gone awry, according to Tricia Christensen. An independent drug policy consultant in Tennessee, she said governments across the country task specialized committees with recommending how this lawsuit money should be spent. 

Few, however, have looked to reclaim most of the decision-making for themselves when elected officials don’t get the recommendations they want. 

“What’s the point of the process if the ultimate decision power is just going to come in and decide they want to fund this thing anyway?” Christensen asked. 

‘We have the trust of our community’

When Jason McCarty was recovering from addiction in Mississippi, he didn’t initially know who could connect him with what he needed to stay sober, he said. For people in similar circumstances, access to safe housing, steady employment, support from those who’ve experienced addiction and other long-term resources help prevent relapse. 

Now six years sober and the program development strategist at the United Way of the Capital Area, McCarty said that’s a big reason why the organization applied for about $1 million of opioid settlement funds. The proposal seeks to enhance the nonprofit’s 211 phone and text line, which helps connect people to resources like food banks, medical appointments and rental assistance. 

United Way submitted a proposal to employ phone operators with experience addressing addiction and tailor resources specifically for those with opioid use disorder, in addition to expanding its efforts to prevent teen drug dependence.

The state advisory council ranked the application in the lowest of the five tiers. McCarty said he tried reaching out to a committee member about why it scored so low, and he never heard back. 

He was disappointed that unlike some applicant organizations with representatives on the board, United Way didn’t get the opportunity to explain its proposal in front of the scorers.

“Some of the applications basically got to do question-and-answer in the middle of the session,” he said. 

At least one proposal from a smaller agency wasn’t even considered by the council. Leaders for the Corporation For Global Community Development, the nonprofit charity arm of the Jackson Revival Center Church in South Jackson, tried to submit an application requesting $250,000. It wanted to provide outreach, mental health services and other social services to people in underserved parts of Hinds County. 

But the application never showed up on any of the public council drafts that were supposed to list all applicants. Mississippi Today reviewed an email chain that shows the nonprofit submitted its proposal two minutes after the council’s submission deadline. Fitch did not respond to an emailed question asking whether the council received the corporation’s application. 

The council gave applicants only six weeks to finalize dozens of application pages, which smaller organizations said was difficult to accomplish. The committee itself missed a deadline codified in state law last year to appoint all its councilmembers by June 9, which it did about a week later. 

Evelyn Edwards, the corporation’s executive director, said no one from the council ever told her or her staff why the committee members never listed the application. She said omitting the application will delay the organization’s work to reach people in Hinds County struggling with addiction, especially those who are distrustful of other medical systems.

“We have the human capacity,” Edwards said. “We have the trust of our community, that’s number one. They’ll come, they’ll participate in those things.”

Ruby Denson, a nurse practitioner who leads the organization’s current efforts to address addiction and mental illness, said she was also disappointed the advisory council ranked McComb-based clinic Healing Horizons in the third of five tiers. The application asked for $83,000 to make the best treatments for opioid addiction and overdose prevention tools more available in Pike County.

Denson said she’s worked with Laquana Daniels, the psychiatric nurse practitioner from McComb who runs Healing Horizons, and she thinks that organization is as well-equipped to address Pike County’s addiction crisis as any group could be. Denson said because of Daniels’ education and community involvement, Daniels could make a big public health impact with a relatively small amount of money.

“It would definitely benefit her community in that McComb area,” Denson said.

Making changes with those most impacted

Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said he expects his committee to review the advisory council’s opioid settlement recommendations soon after it is finished working on agency budgets. Like Creekmore, he thinks his chamber will review the recommendations of the council to see which projects should be funded.

When making those decisions, Hopson said he’ll be looking for applications that will make strides toward stopping an epidemic that’s killed over 10,000 Mississippians since 2000.

Christensen, the drug policy consultant, said legislative leaders should also consider revisiting the advisory council process that led them to question that body’s decisions. Senators and representatives have taken steps to ensure they can continue adjusting Mississippi’s opioid settlement laws before the end of the regular session. 

She thinks it would be worth using opioid settlement money, including the funds the Legislature and Fitch have designated for general purposes, to help improve that process. If lawmakers make those adjustments, Christensen said she thinks it’s important for lawmakers to get input from Mississippians most affected by the crisis. 

While the state doesn’t have a formal process for Mississippians to testify about legislation, Christensen said it should be on lawmakers to include the voices of those most impacted by the opioid epidemic, who might have effective ideas for improving the advisory council. 

“They shouldn’t just be making these decisions independently behind closed doors,” she said.

A GOP challenger to U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has launched a website accusing the incumbent Republican of using campaign money for personal vacations and alleging that lobbyist contributions have compromised her loyalty to her home state. 

Sarah Adlakha, who is challenging Hyde-Smith in the Republican primary, recently launched SpendingCindy.com. The website, branded as “The Cindy Files,” lists what Adlakha describes as several luxury trips paid for by Hyde-Smith’s campaign account.

The website lists expenditures at hotels in several locations, including nearly a dozen Las Vegas trips. Among the hotels named are The Venetian and MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The site characterizes these trips as “vacations” rather than campaign-related travel.

In an accompanying op-ed titled “When Your Senator Works for Lobbyists, Not Mississippi,” Adlakha also alleges Hyde-Smith’s family has accompanied her on many of these trips.

“This isn’t campaign travel,” Adlakha wrote. “This is a U.S. Senator using a campaign account — filled with lobbyist cash — like a personal vacation fund.”

Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, did not directly address Adlakha’s allegations, but he said in a statement to Mississippi Today that the senator is a lifelong Mississippian who “raises funds to support her campaign from donors across the country.” 

“We probably even have a few donors from Sarah’s hometown of Chicago,” Monssen said. “Mississippi is a wonderful place to live. We welcome Sarah and her family, and we’re happy that she decided to register to vote here in August of 2024.”

Federal regulations prohibit congressional candidates from spending campaign donations on personal travel. Candidates have some discretion in how they spend donations, but generally, they can only spend them on campaign-related activities.

Adlakha is a physician who lives in Ocean Springs. According to her website, she moved to Mississippi after completing her medical school residency. Hyde-Smith, who was first appointed to the Senate in 2018 by former Gov. Phil Bryant and later elected to a full term, is seeking reelection this year.

Adlakha and Hyde-Smith will compete in the GOP primary on March 10. Three people are competing in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate: Scott Colom, Albert Littell and Priscilla Till. The party nominees will compete against Ty Pinkins, an independent candidate, on Nov. 3. 

Regularly scheduled clinic appointments and elective procedures at the University of Mississippi Medical Center are canceled through Friday, extending statewide disruptions in health care to more than a week since a cyberattack targeted Mississippi’s only academic medical center.

UMMC is making significant progress in its response to the Feb. 19 cyberattack and restoring systems, the medical center said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.  

“Through diligent, around-the-clock work, UMMC is hopeful that it will be able to resume normal clinic operations as soon as Monday,” the statement read. 

Patients across Mississippi have missed health care appointments and surgeries since the attack, which compromised the health care system’s IT network and forced the medical center to shut down all of its network systems, including its electronic patient health records. Experts have warned the hospital system could face weeks or months of recovery following the attack. 

Jimmie Elaine White of Brandon had a follow-up appointment scheduled for Feb. 19, the same day the cyberattack began, to go over the results of an ultrasound examining a blockage in her carotid artery.

Since then, she has been unable to contact UMMC to reschedule the appointment, leaving her increasingly anxious.

“I’m worried that I’m going to have a stroke,” White said. 

UMMC is one of Mississippi’s largest providers of specialty health care and operates the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, which is equipped to handle the most severe medical emergencies.

All UMMC hospitals and emergency departments in Jackson, Madison County, Holmes County and Grenada remain open, and UMMC will reschedule canceled appointments, it said in a statement. 

Nearby hospitals are stepping in to fill gaps in care caused by the attack.

“We have increased staffing and welcomed patients in our emergency department and clinics to help offset any immediate needs and meet increased demands for health care in our community,” said Baptist Memorial spokesperson Kimberly Alexander. 

The medical center has not yet publicly described how extensive the attack on its computer systems was or if any data was compromised. In a Tuesday interview with SuperTalk Mississippi, medical center Vice Chancellor Dr. LouAnn Woodward confirmed the attacker made financial demands. 

Getting hospital computer systems back up and running after a ransomware attack can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month, but full recovery often takes much longer, said Allan Liska is an intelligence analyst for cyber threat intelligence company Recorded Future.

“It can take six months to a year to fully recover,” said Liska, who is also an expert in ransomware, or malicious software that holds computer systems or data hostage with demands for a payment.

Usually, computer systems that have been infiltrated are rebuilt from scratch, then tested segment by segment while disconnected from the internet to ensure that the attackers are out, Liska said. Once they are confirmed to be secure, the systems are gradually brought back online. 

UMMC has endured security breaches before. After a 2013 report of an incident involving unsecured electronic patient health information, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights investigated UMMC’s cybersecurity policies. The agency determined that UMMC had identified risks and vulnerabilities to its systems as far back as April 2005 but did not undertake significant risk management efforts until after the breach.

UMMC agreed to settle the matter by paying a resolution amount of $2.75 million and adopting a corrective action plan. The Office of Civil Rights closed the matter in 2022 based on documentation of UMMC’s compliance with the terms of the resolution and settlement.

Liska said it’s difficult to evaluate from the outside whether a hospital system has effective defenses against cybersecurity attacks. Attackers are constantly changing their tactics, and even well-prepared organizations can have vulnerabilities, he said. 

“’Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face,’” he said, quoting former professional boxer Mike Tyson. 

Patients with time-sensitive needs including prescription refills can call the automated UMMC Triage Line at 601-815-0000, the medical center said. Patients requiring immediate assistance will be contacted directly to schedule an urgent care clinic visit.

Regency Hospital, a Meridian facility that primarily provided extended care to patients with respiratory disorders, will close on or about March 13, according to its website. 

The 40-bed, long-term acute care hospital is on the second floor of Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center-South. It focused on weaning medically complex patients off of mechanical ventilation and helping them breathe independently. 

Regency Hospital is owned by Pennsylvania-based Select Medical, one of the largest operators of critical illness recovery and rehabilitation hospitals in the country. 

The decision to close the hospital was based on business operations, and the facility is no longer accepting patients, Select Medical Chief Communications Officer Shelly Eckenroth said in an email to Mississippi Today. The company has no plans for the hospital to reopen.

As of Monday, four patients remained in the hospital, Eckenroth said.

“Their treatment will continue until they are discharged or transferred to an appropriate facility for ongoing care,” she said. “Our case managers are working closely with patients and their families to arrange these transitions.”

Ochsner Specialty Hospital, a 49-bed, long-term acute care hospital about a block away from Regency Hospital, will continue to provide the same level of care to the community, Eckenroth said.

“Ochsner Rush Health continues to operate Ochsner Specialty Hospital with no changes to our current operations,” said Ochsner Rush Medical Center CEO Allen Tyra. “Our focus remains on providing high‑quality, compassionate care to the patients and families we serve, and we will continue to evaluate the needs of our community as we always have.”

Long-term acute care hospitals serve patients with inpatient stays longer than 25 days, and many patients come from an intensive or critical care unit. The hospitals provide services such as respiratory therapy, head trauma treatment and pain management, and patients are often discharged to a skilled nursing or long-term care facility.

The seven long-term acute care hospitals in Mississippi are in Batesville, Greenville, Gulfport, Jackson and Meridian, according to the Mississippi Department of Health’s facility directory. Select Medical owns three of the facilities in addition to Regency Hospital. 

Select Medical operated nearly 140 hospitals nationwide, including 104 critical illness recovery hospitals as of December. The health care company also operates about 2,000 outpatient rehabilitation clinics in 39 states. 

It reported $5.5 billion in revenue in 2025, a 5% increase over the previous year. Select Medical also closed a 24-bed critical illness recovery hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in late 2025.

Payments to long-term acute care hospitals for Medicare patients have changed over the last decade, resulting in lower reimbursements for some patients at the same time as health care costs, including staffing expenses, have risen. 

A growing proportion of Medicare patients are covered by Medicare Advantage plans, some of which refuse to approve care at long-term acute care hospitals, according to a U.S. Senate report published in 2024. In Mississippi, the number of patients covered by Medicare Advantage plans has more than doubled since 2019. 

In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized an annual rate increase for long-term acute care hospitals, but some advocates say the bump is not large enough. 

Concerns continued about overall payment increases, Ashley Thompson, the American Hospital Association’s senior vice president for public policy analysis and development, said in a July statement responding to the rate increase. She said long-term acute care hospitals “will have an increasingly difficult time caring for some of the sickest Medicare patients and may be unable to continue relieving pressure on their acute-care hospital partners.”

Mississippi’s three main food banks last year handed out 40 million meals across all 82 counties and had their largest-ever distribution of produce as a result of a new collaborative effort, food bank leaders said Wednesday at the Capitol. 

Through the collaboration, food banks lean on one another and allocate resources more efficiently as federal support rapidly diminishes, said Michael Ledger, chief executive officer of Feeding the Gulf Coast. In 2023, his organization banded together with the Mississippi Food Network and the Mid-South Food Bank to better serve the nation’s hungriest state. 

The organizations come together in times of crisis, such as the recent ice storm, during which they distributed over 160,000 meals. They also share information about partnerships and brainstorm ways to reach more people in the state. That solidarity is needed now more than ever, advocates say. 

Nationwide, hunger is increasing while funds to address it are shrinking. As a result of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law by President Donald Trump last summer, Mississippi will be responsible for $140 million in costs previously covered by the federal government to run its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the next two years. 

Experts say people will lose benefits for multiple reasons: 

• Increased paperwork will inadvertently kick off eligible people;
• Fewer people will be eligible under new federally-mandated work requirements;
• Some states may further cut eligibility to afford the new costs. 

“Needs are going up, and we need to address it,” Ledger said. “It’s a harsh reality that people are going to see. As much as we can be ahead of it, the better.”

Theresa Lau, senior policy counsel at the Southern Poverty Law Center, applauds the work of food banks, but she said they cannot make up for the loss created by federal cuts to SNAP. And food banks shouldn’t have to, Lau said. 

“The trouble is food banks are just one part of the equation,” Lau told Mississippi Today. “You can’t food bank your way out of some of this stuff. SNAP is the most effective anti-hunger program.”

That’s in part because SNAP dollars can help people get fresh, hot meals with more flexible hours and locations, and allow them to consider personal dietary needs. 

About 1 in 8 Mississippians — or 334,000 people  — use SNAP to put food on the table. More than 67% of participants live in households with children, and about 41% are in households with elderly or disabled adults. In four Mississippi counties, over a third of residents rely on the program to purchase food, according to a report from WLBT. 

In October, the nation’s longest federal government shutdown in history paused food assistance for thousands of Mississippians. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced his priority was finding ways to restrict the use of food assistance benefits for the purchase of sugary food and drinks. 

Talk of food assistance this year has been scant in the Legislature. However, the Department of Human Services did ask for $15 million to cover immediate SNAP costs. Bob Anderson, executive director of the department, cited it as the reason he wouldn’t request additional child care dollars, despite roughly 20,000 households sitting on waitlists for state-funded child care vouchers.  

House Public Health Committee Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, authored a bill this year to invest in farms and help food banks distribute local foods, boosting both farmers and people who need access to food. But the bill died in committee this month. Creekmore said he hopes to revive it in other legislation, but he is unsure if he can secure funding. 

The move is a no-brainer, said Creekmore, in a state whose economy is driven by agriculture and has among the highest rates of poverty and poor health outcomes.

“Let’s come up with the best practices to get the healthy foods that we grow to the tables of our most needy,” Creekmore said. 

It’s “the best way the state can stretch their dollars,” Ledger said. He said his collaborative already has resources in place – truckers, drivers and warehouses – to stand up this kind of enterprise. 

“It’s not like with other things where we have to build the infrastructure,” he said. “This is really just fuel to put in the car.” 

Poverty drives hunger, but the reverse is also true, advocates say. Without access to reliable meals, people are less able to stay healthy, find jobs and stay in school. 

“When somebody is fed, their opportunity to go out and get a job or do better in school or a grandparent trying to take care of a grandchild – it enables them to be functioning,” Ledger said. “It pays the community back.”

Mississippi Today general assignment reporter Simeon Gates has been selected by the National Press Foundation for its Widening the Pipeline fellowship.

The program’s goal is to help journalists of color remain in journalism and develop into future leaders of newsrooms. Throughout the yearlong fellowship, Gates is one of 15 fellows participating in online and in-person training events.

She is the second Mississippi Today reporter to take part in the fellowship. Criminal justice reporter Mina Corpuz participated in the program in 2022.

Gates began her career at Mississippi Today in May 2024 as an intern and became a fulltime general assignment reporter in August of that year. She has covered a wide range of topics, including the immigration and deportation issues, the impact of federal cuts on Mississippi libraries and the commemoration of 70 years since the murder of Emmett Till.

“Simeon approaches all of her assignments with an open mind and a commitment to provide our readers with the facts,” said Mississippi Today Ideas editor Bobby Harrison, who also serves as Gates’ editor. “She is eager to learn and brings a good attitude to all of her assignments. We are proud that the National Press Foundation recognized her talents and potential and awarded her the fellowship.”

Gates earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Southern Mississippi.

 In Mississippi, a former teacher was accused last year of using artificial intelligence to create hyperrealistic videos depicting some of his students performing sexual acts.

As artificial intelligence proliferates, such cases are driving states to enact laws regulating and protecting people from its use.

Mississippi currently has two laws dealing with AI, and three more are being proposed. One current law criminalizes creating political deepfakes meant to damage a candidate. The other classifies AI-generated images of children performing sexual acts as child exploitation.

Those being proposed include Senate Bill 2050, authored by Sen. Bradford Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton. This measure would mandate political advertisements disclose if AI was used. Another is House Bill 1723, authored by Rep. Jill Ford, a Republican from Madison. It would create a state definition of AI.

But, SB2046 would likely impact everyday Mississippians the most.

Known as the Mississippians’ Right to Name, Likeness and Voice Act, the bill, also authored by Blackmon, would give Mississippians the right to their image, name and voice and would create civil liabilities for unauthorized use. The bill passed the Senate on Feb. 11 and has been referred to the House Judiciary A Committee.

While proposals have been made at the federal level to grant Americans rights and protections against AI, none have become law. In the absence of federal legislation, a growing number of states have enacted laws giving people protections against their identity being used to generate AI content. 

“Senate Bill 2046 reflects a broader national movement toward regulating AI-enabled impersonation, particularly realistic voice cloning and digital replicas,” said Oliver Roberts, who teaches a Mississippi College School of Law course on AI. He is also an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis and co-director of its Law AI Collaborative.

While SB 2046 is modeled heavily after California Assembly Bill No. 2602, other states have also passed similar legislation, including Tennessee, New York, Kentucky and Louisiana.

Roberts said what makes the Mississippi bill distinct is that “it treats a person’s name, likeness, and voice as a form of transferable intellectual property and builds a damages framework around unauthorized digital use.”

Last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to promote the AI industry’s growth and prevent state laws from impeding innovation with regulations. However, Roberts thinks that despite tension between states and the federal government around regulating AI, SB 2046 in Mississippi would be an unlikely target for federal intervention.

“Bills like SB 2046 could be challenged based on federal preemption, but it is less likely because these types of bills are not regulating the foundational AI models themselves,” Roberts said.

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

The recent passing of Jesse Jackson marks the end of an era in American public life. For more than five decades, the Rev. Jesse Jackson stood on the front lines of the struggle for civil rights, economic justice and human dignity. His voice thundered in pulpits, echoed through protest lines and rang out on debate stages across this nation. Whether one agreed with him politically or not, his impact on American history is undeniable.

He walked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He founded Operation PUSH and later the Rainbow Coalition, advancing an agenda rooted in fairness, inclusion and opportunity. He ran for president of the United States, not once, but twice, expanding the political imagination of what leadership in America could look like. His campaigns inspired millions, particularly young people and communities long excluded from the political process.

Mississippi knows something about struggle. We know something about courage. And we know something about redemption.

Our state stands on sacred Civil Rights ground. From the Mississippi Delta to Jackson, from Meridian to Philadelphia, history has tested this state in ways few others have experienced. That history includes pain, injustice and resistance, but it also includes resilience, faith and transformation.

The Rev. Jackson’s life intersected with that larger American story. He helped push this nation and states like ours toward a more inclusive democracy. His work opened doors in boardrooms, classrooms, city halls and state capitols. Leaders across generations stand on ground he helped clear.

Honoring him is not about partisanship. It is about acknowledging the arc of history and those who bent it.

As chair of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, I believe it is both appropriate and necessary that the state of Mississippi formally recognize his contributions. I have respectfully called upon Gov. Tate Reeves to order flags across our state to be flown at half-staff in honor of the Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson Sr.

Flying the flag at half-staff is more than symbolism. It is a public statement of recognition. It tells future generations that when history called, Mississippi did not remain silent. It affirms that we understand the weight of sacrifice and the power of perseverance.

Scripture reminds us in Matthew 25:23: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Jesse Jackson’s life embodied service to faith, to justice and to the enduring promise of America.

At this moment, Mississippi has an opportunity to demonstrate maturity, unity and moral clarity. Lowering the flags would not erase our past. But it would acknowledge that leaders who fought for equality helped shape the freedoms we all share today.

History is always watching how we respond in moments like these.

Let Mississippi respond with dignity. Let us respond with respect. Let our flags fly at half-staff in honor of a man whose life helped move this country forward.

Democrat Kabir Karriem has represented Mississippi  House District 41, covering parts of Lowndes County, since 2016. He is chair of the Legislative Black Caucus.