The Mississippi Department of Education has announced new pathways to become certified elementary educators and special educators. The change became effective Monday.
Education students can start teaching elementary school classes on a provisional license while taking a new free course to satisfy the Foundation of Reading test requirements. Students must post an 80% upon course completion, by excelling in end-of-section quizzes and pre- and post- “inventories of knowledge” that measure progress.
The Omaha-based AIM institute designed the new academic year-long course, which consists of 14 asynchronous learning sections, two in-person training sessions and testing.
In-person sessions will be held in Jackson, Hattiesburg, Oxford, Meridian, Cleveland, Tylertown, Holly Springs, Hernando, New Albany, Brandon, Carthage, Greenwood, Ridgeland, Columbus, Brookhaven, Gulfport, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula and Moss Point.
MDE also got rid of the reading test requirement for would-be special educators teaching “mild to moderate students,” a term for special education students that tend to be housed in general education classrooms.
The changes were implemented partly in response to the results of a 2024-2025 educator survey, which identified a need for MDE to review its existing licensure guidelines for elementary education and special education.
“The Office of Teaching and Leading is hopeful the revised Foundations of Reading requirements will strengthen Mississippi’s educator workforce,” MDE Office of Educator Continuum Executive Director Courtney Van Cleve said. It will allow for more “more Elementary Education and Special Education candidates to become licensed.”
Adrienne Hudson, who runs a nonprofit that helps teachers with certification, will now be able to move at least 10 teachers in her latest cohort to a traditional license.
“In an area where the critical teacher shortage is so prevalent, what seems like a simple change will have a drastically positive impact on the students we serve,” she said.
Five of her 10 teachers struggling with licensure were special educators on provisional licenses. She has seen a decrease in prospective educators seeking special education endorsements since MDE first introduced the Foundations of Reading requirement in January 2023.
“Typically, our teachers have a special education test after five sessions with no problem,” she added.
Most of the certified teaching jobs posted to MDE’s career portal were for Special education teachers and elementary teachers.
More tests are required for elementary educators than most other specializations. The primary elementary education licensure test has the lowest pass rate of any other subject test. Nearly a quarter of 2015 to 2018 test takers walked away after failing on the first try. (This is the most recent data available as a result of pandemic-era restrictions.)
Hannah Putnam, managing director of the National Council on Teacher Quality, told Mississippi Today that the Mississippi elementary education subject test wasn’t a good measure of teacher promise. Even a fifth-grade English teacher would have to take a test that covers kindergarten through sixth grade instruction as well as science, math, art, English, and social studies, among other subjects.
“Passionate, qualified educators should have multiple opportunities to teach, lead and make a difference in our classrooms,” said Clayton Barksdale, a former Delta educator who is currently running for state Senate on a platform that includes offering more pathways to teacher licensure.
He still remembers the mad dash each summer to fill those jobs when he was a principal.
“We must do better,” he told Mississippi Today. “Many prove their impact while on emergency licenses, only to be fired then immediately rehired as a long-term substitute – doing the same work for a fraction of the pay, with no benefits or retirement.”
Student teacher Jennifer Allen was thinking of spending $1,200 on additional coursework so she wouldn’t have to rely on the reading exam for licensure. She now plans on taking MDE’s newly offered course.
She and five other teachers interviewed expressed that university education programs did not adequately prepare them for the material on the PRAXIS exams, including Foundations of Reading.
With the new course, Allen can start teaching on a provisional license while she works towards a traditional license without penalty to the school.
She feels relieved.
“Knowing that there’s a new pathway designed to help me improve and finally reach my goal of becoming a teacher will boost my confidence, reminding me why I wanted to become a teacher in the first place.”
Cindy Hudnall runs Saints’ Brew Soup Kitchen in Tupelo where she serves hot breakfasts to close to 100 people every weekday – working parents, the elderly, the homeless, veterans and even young adults aging out of the foster care system.
There’s always been a need for people to find enough food to eat in Mississippi, one of the nation’s poorest and most food insecure states. But lately, things are different. Federal money that funded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has dried up due to the government shutdown – so far the second longest in history – and big changes to the program coming down the pipeline are leaving people desperate and scrambling.
“You can hear it in their voice, you can see it in their face – they are scared,” Hudnall said. “And there’s no magic solution in the foreseeable future. When you get large groups of people who are worried about their livelihoods, you cannot have a thriving community.”
President Donald Trump opted not to tap into emergency funds to continue running the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, obtained by Politico. While officials in at least three states have pledged to keep the program going in the absence of federal funds, the Mississippi Department of Human Services announced Friday that its SNAP program had been paused.
“No new SNAP benefits will be issued for November unless federal guidance changes, however, previous benefits will remain accessible,” the department said in a press release Friday.
That decision promises to leave nearly 400,000 Mississippians without food security, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But it also undermines people’s confidence in elected officials, explained Gina Plata-Nino, interim director of SNAP at the Food Research and Action Center, a national nonprofit working to end poverty-related hunger.
“Allowing hunger to deepen during a shutdown is a choice,” Plata-Nino said. “The Secretary of Agriculture has the authority and the responsibility to act now to ensure no one goes hungry because of political gridlock. Further delay in using available funds only weakens public faith in government.”
Nonprofits are having to pick up the slack, which is not sustainable long term, said Jason Martin, executive director of the Northeast Mississippi Hunger Coalition, a network of 24 food pantries across eight counties.
“I just got off the phone a little bit ago with a woman whose SNAP benefits are not coming through and can’t survive and is requesting emergency boxes,” Martin said. “From the pantries’ perspective, we’re expecting to be overwhelmed with the request for services. And our system is already taxed to the max.”
Food banks have been under enormous pressure since the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut $500 million to their funding in March. The loss of federal funding to food banks coupled with the increasing need is forcing nonprofits to constantly pivot in an effort to fill impossible gaps, Martin said.
“On a personal note, I just wish that our politicians and legislators would stop politicizing human issues with people who are in a poverty-stricken situation already,” said Martin, who made it clear those were his personal beliefs and not those of his organization.
While the government shutdown will eventually end and SNAP benefits will resume, they won’t look like they used to.
How Trump’s megabill will affect Mississippians who rely on food aid
As a result of a historic tax and spending package President Donald Trump signed into law over the summer, the SNAP program will be transformed in two ways. First, enrollees will face immediate new paperwork and eligibility requirements. Cost shifts will also force states to make tough choices about cutting eligibility or benefits further. Altogether, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes the largest cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP.
Mississippians who don’t meet new work requirements could get kicked off SNAP as early as next month, while the state will have to come up with an additional $140 million to keep the program going, according to analysis from the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown Law School
For the first time ever, states will be forced to cover a portion of the costs for food aid benefits, shifting billions in costs to state budgets. Mississippi, like many other states, will likely have to cut enrollees or benefits or withdraw from the state-federal program altogether. Poverty will increase, local economies will struggle, and food banks will face mounting strain, experts say. As the poorest state in the nation, Mississippi could stand to lose the most.
“This is one of the most significant impacts on Mississippi’s budget,” said Theresa Lau, senior policy counsel at the Southern Poverty Law Center, to a group of lawmakers during a hearing on the federal budget law in September.
For a number of reasons, states are not equipped to handle this shift, explained Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Tax and Income Supports Division at the Urban Institute. The poorest states, that need social safety net programs the most, will be at the biggest disadvantage, she said.
“Unlike the federal government, states typically cannot deficit spend,” Waxman said. “They have to balance their budgets. And they also have a lot fewer revenue sources – they don’t have access to the federal income tax, for example. Especially a state like Mississippi, which has a historically high poverty rate, there’s just less resources to draw out of the population.”
The most likely scenario is that states that can’t afford their new share of the program’s cost will have to make eligibility changes to cover fewer enrollees. Another option would be to reduce the monetary benefits enrollees get – though Waxman said states would likely need to get waivers, specific authorization from the federal government that allows states flexibility in administering the state-federal program, to do so.
Both of those options would put an undue burden on food banks and coalitions like the one Martin runs in northeast Mississippi. His small non-profit network must now find new donors and more grants to meet needs that the government once supported.
“As a nonprofit organization we’ll have to figure out how to sustain that level of funding so we can sustain that level of service,” Martin said. “We don’t have a bunch of staff – I’m the staff person.”
The last option would make food aid a thing of the past.
“The most drastic scenario would be that a state would be unable to support the program and would withdraw,” Waxman said. “And that’s a catastrophic option, but I’ve definitely heard states say that they can’t rule it out because this is a pretty significant escalation in their budget responsibilities and they don’t have a clear path as to how they’re going to meet it.”
“It’s never a simple ‘just do this’ resolution”
Costs to states are expected to increase dramatically in the months ahead. Each state’s share of administrative costs for implementing the program will rise from 50% to 75%. Then, states will be responsible for paying up to 15% of the cost of the actual food benefits – something the federal government used to cover completely.
How much a state has to pay in benefit costs will depend on its error rates. That rate measures how accurately each state determines if a person is eligible to receive benefits, including SNAP. The Trump administration and Congress enacted this provision to crack down on alleged fraud and abuse. But that has been proven to be rare in the SNAP program, which has one of the most rigorous systems to determine eligibility and payment accuracy among safety net programs, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Errors more often come down to overburdened systems and the fluctuation in poor people’s income, Waxman said.
“It’s often literally just administrative errors, or someone forgot to submit something, or someone’s income was fluctuating frequently and that made it difficult to calculate the correct benefits. It’s not driven by fraud – that’s a very small issue relatively in SNAP.”
Mississippi, a state with an error rate over 10%, would be required to pay the maximum 15% share of benefit costs, explained Lau, from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Shifting costs to states isn’t the only change to SNAP that the federal budget bill imposes. New work requirements will mean that enrollees have to prove they are working, going to school or training at least 80 hours a month, or that they qualify for one of the exemptions.
The law increases the upper age limit on the work requirements from 54 to 65-years-old and extends the requirement to those previously exempt: veterans, those facing homelessness, and youth aging out of foster care. Caregivers remain exempt, but parents must have children under the age of 14 – down from 18.
The coverage losses will have a profound impact on local economies, including grocers and retailers in rural areas who stay afloat from the business SNAP recipients bring, explained Plata-Nino, from the Food Research and Action Center.
“What happens when the SNAP retailer can no longer receive the funds for whatever reason?” asked Plata-Nino. “He still has to pay the rent, there’s no money for rent. He still has to pay salaries, there’s no money for salaries. So, there go the wages, there go the income and federal taxes they would pay, and there go the local taxes. It really is such an ecosystem.”
Research shows that hunger has serious consequences on health and education outcomes. Since children who are enrolled in SNAP or Medicaid are automatically enrolled in free school lunch, the downstream effects of changes to these programs will result in fewer children automatically enrolled in free school-based meal programs. For many children, these meals are the only ones they are guaranteed each school day.
With constant uncertainty and an increasingly frayed safety net, advocates worry people’s desperation will force them toward options that perpetuate poverty. Charity Bruce Sweet, who leads the Economic Justice Campaign at the Mississippi Center for Justice, said she has seen people get buried under debt after taking out small loans to cover bills or groceries – and worries that will become more common.
Payday loans, which often accept bad credit and offer same-day funds, typically have exorbitant interest rates that perpetuate poverty. Mississippi has no protections against payday loans and one of the highest average interest rates for them, Bruce Sweet said. Mississippi’s average payday loan interest rate in 2023 was 572%, according to the Center for Responsible Lending.
“People eventually default on those loans, and they end up in the court system and these attorneys are coming in asking for the loans, plus the interest, plus the late fees, plus the court fees,” said Bruce Sweet. “And it literally will put you in another level of poverty you haven’t even thought of before.”
While it might be easy to judge people or assume solutions, Hudnall, of Saints’ Brew Soup Kitchen, said that working on the ground has opened her eyes to just how many layers are at play when it comes to poverty.
“It’s never a simple ‘just do this’ resolution,” Hudnall said. “Getting to know people at an individual level will change your perspective about life. You do not know the real story until you ask open-ended questions and get to know people – their background, where they came from, what life was like for them growing up, what scares them and what motivates them.”
After being ambushed by a rival group, Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima went from being a Muslim prince and colonel in his father’s army to being enslaved in Mississippi.
Ibrahima spent 40 years enslaved on a Natchez plantation, far from his homeland in Futa Jallon, which is in present-day Guinea. Today, the city now has a historical marker honoring his story.
The marker, unveiled on Oct. 24, sits at the corner of Highway 61 North and Jefferson College Street, near Historic Jefferson College. The Natchez Historical Society approved a donation to buy the marker from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, was the guest speaker at a ceremony honoring Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima on Friday, Oct.24, 2025,at Historic Jefferson College. Credit: Courtesy of Albert L. Jones
Roscoe Barnes III, president of the historical society and the Cultural Heritage & Tourism Manager at Visit Natchez, told Mississippi Today about the significance of Ibrahima’s story.
“We believed it was time to honor his life and his legacy, to commemorate him for the time that he spent here and the story that he left behind,” Barnes said.
In 1788, the rival group ambushed Prince Ibrahima, who was serving as a colonel in his father’s army, and his men.
They sold him into slavery. He wound up in Natchez, where he spent the next 40 years as an overseer on Thomas Foster’s plantation. He had nine children with an enslaved woman, Isabella.
According to Barnes, the marker is erected at the spot where Ibrahima reunited with Dr. John Coates Cox in 1807. Cox was an Irish doctor who briefly stayed in Futa Jallon, where he met Ibrahima as a child. The pair met at a marketplace in a small community near Natchez. Cox and, later, his son tried unsuccessfully for 20 years to buy Ibrahima’s freedom.
It was Ibrahima’s friendship with newspaper publisher Andrew Marschalk that led him to freedom. Marschalk agreed to help him with a letter to Futa Jallon.
It took a few years, but Ibrahima wrote the letter and gave it to Marschalk in 1826. Marschalk sent it with a cover letter to U.S. Sen. Thomas Buck Reed, who sent it to Washington, D.C. From there, it reached the sultan of Morocco who offered to pay for his freedom. Marschalk believed Ibrahima was a Moor from Morocco, and Ibrahima did not correct him.
President John Quincy Adams and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Clay helped negotiate a deal with Foster and the sultan to sell Ibrahima. The deal required Ibrahima to return to Africa. Foster also agreed to sell Ibrahima’s wife, Isabella.
Before leaving the country, the couple traveled to Washington, where Ibrahima worked with government officials and the American Colonization Society to raise money to free his children.
Ibrahima and Isabella made it to Liberia in 1866, sponsored by the American Colonization Society. However, Ibrahima became sick and died shortly after arriving of an unrecorded illness. Two of his sons arrived in Liberia the next year, one with his own wife and children. Ibrahima never returned to his homeland.
Barnes described Ibrahima’s story as “one of the most remarkable stories to come out of this area”. Historian and author Terry Alford retold his story in “Prince Among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold into Slavery in the American South.” That book became the basis for the PBS historical drama “Prince Among Slaves.”
Barnes explained that Ibrahima’s story is a view of slavery in Africa, the United States and southwest Mississippi.
“It is a story about darkness, a story about pain, suffering, enslavement, but that’s not all. It is a story about hope,” he said.
President Donald Trump on Saturday announced he is endorsing U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell for reelection ahead of the 2026 midterm race.
Trump on social media called Ezell, a Republican who represents South Mississippi in Congress, a “fantastic Representative for the wonderful People of Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District.”
“In Congress, he is working tirelessly to Keep our now very Secure Border, SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Champion American Energy DOMINANCE, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” Trump wrote.
Ezell, a former Jackson County sheriff, was elected in 2022 after defeating incumbent Republican Steven Palazzo. He was reelected in 2024 and will be up for a third term in 2026.
Sawyer Walters, a former Palazzo staffer, announced he would challenge Ezell in the 2026 GOP primary. Paul James Blackman, a political newcomer, announced he was running as a Democrat for the seat.
The qualifying period for congressional elections runs from Dec. 1 through Dec. 26. Party primary elections are in March of 2026. The party nominees will face one another in the general election in November 2026.
Ricky Neaves, director of the Mississippi High School Activities Association, said that the push for expanded “school choice” by Mississippi lawmakers could have a drastic impact on athletics and other programs in the state’s public education system. He said improper “recruitment” of athletes already happens, even with his agency’s oversight, but that universal school choice would exacerbate competition to lure athletes with ill effect on public schools, especially small, rural ones. Neaves said he hopes lawmakers leave MHSAA’s eligibility authority intact if they expand school choice.
Christopher Boose awoke to see a sign for the paraplegic unit at the hospital where he had arrived five hours earlier, shackled and drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Cut it off,” he remembered the doctors shouting shortly after they had wheeled him into an operating room. “Cut it off so we don’t lose him.”
Then everything went dark. When he came to, he tried to turn over.
“My right arm wasn’t there,” he said.
He started crying, and a nurse came over to reassure him: He had died on the operating table before doctors revived him. He was lucky to be alive. But they had to amputate his arm to stop the spread of sepsis.
The infection stemmed from a broken bone after Boose, then 38, fell off his bunk at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility onto his arm. Left untreated for a week, the sepsis spread.
A one-year sentence for a Drug Court infraction became a lifetime sentence as an amputee, the Newton County man alleges in a lawsuit filed in federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
The lawsuit targets VitalCore Health Strategies, a private company contracted to provide health care in Mississippi’s prisons. Systemic neglect gave way to “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Constitution, the lawsuit contends.
VitalCore did not respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit or the episode that led to Boose losing an arm.
Boose, now 40, filed his lawsuit in June and reached out to Mississippi Today after it began publishing its Behind Bars, Beyond Care series documenting alleged denial of health care in Mississippi prisons. He and his attorneys say his story is a case study of how routine injuries in prison escalate into permanent harm.
Additionally, his lawyers’ arguments aim to test a constitutional boundary: At what point under the Eighth Amendment does the delay of medical care in prison amount to cruel and unusual punishment?
‘They took my arm off’
In February of 2023, Boose, a Mississippi State University graduate and former Wells Fargo employee, was arrested for violating the terms of a Drug Court program. He was sentenced in Newton County Circuit Court to complete alcohol and drug treatment in prison, a sentence designed to be a one-year rehabilitative term, his attorney said.
Attorney Warren Martin, left, and Christopher Boose photographed in Jackson, Miss., on Aug. 15, 2025. Credit: Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
He entered the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, a sprawling prison on 171 acres in Rankin County. The prison has 18 housing units, and with a capacity of about 4,000, it holds the largest number of people of any state prison.
But when Boose arrived for his sentence, it took months before he received any of the drug treatment mandated by the judge, he said in an interview.
In phone calls from prison, Boose alerted his mother, Cynthia Boose, to the delay. She called the prison and eventually discovered the Mississippi Department of Corrections was short on drug counselors, she said in an interview.
“I called, and they said it was because of staffing,” Cynthia said. “OK, so my son is sitting there, waiting for a treatment or waiting for a class, and y’all can’t find nobody to do it?”
Staffing shortages have been a persistent problem for both MDOC and VitalCore. In April, the department withheld $2 million in state money for VitalCore for having inadequate staff according to its contract, Mississippi Today reported.
An MDOC spokesperson said the department would not comment on pending litigation and did not respond to a question about the agency’s alleged shortage of drug counselors.
After about four-and-a-half months, Boose said, he began receiving drug counseling. But his treatment was interrupted by the episode that would irrevocably change his life.
Christopher Boose lost his right arm to infection after breaking it while incarcerated at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in 2023. Credit: Special to Mississippi Today
On Dec. 15, 2023, Boose took a hot shower and returned to his cot in “quickbed” — a unit where inmates sleep on bunk beds in dormitory-style housing. While climbing up to his bed, he slipped and fell onto the floor, his side bearing the brunt of the impact. The pain was immediate and radiated from his elbow to his collarbone.
He asked a guard to escort him to the prison infirmary.
“The guard told me to go sit my ass back down,” Boose said.
Boose said he had no recourse.
That’s a problem born from the absence of an organized process for requesting medical attention, said Rep. Becky Currie, the Republican chairwoman of the House Corrections Committee. Currie has traveled to prisons around the state and spoken with inmates about issues they’ve faced when trying to get medical care.
She said inmates were often not provided any formal process for scheduling medical appointments. Some prisons also didn’t provide access to medical professionals overnight.
At a legislative budget hearing in September, Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said Central Mississippi Correctional Facility has sent some prison nurses directly into inmate dormitories because requests for medical visits have gone unanswered in the past.
“Inmates would say they signed up for a sick call, and nobody ever sees them,” Cain said. “But we have to track the sick call sign-up to be sure that it’s actually seen and utilized, and they actually see the doctor.”
Over the next week after his fall, Boose’s arm started to swell. He said he repeatedly asked for help, to no avail. As the swelling worsened, he periodically lost consciousness, prompting other inmates to ask guards for help on his behalf.
The conditions inside Mississippi’s prisons have at times forced inmates to advocate for each other, according to an ex-corrections official who spoke to Mississippi Today. She once encountered inmates carrying a man whose legs appeared to be rotting across the prison, trying to find help for him.
About seven days after his fall, Boose was taken to the infirmary, where nurses X-rayed his arm and sent him back to his cell with a sling. The swelling continued, and Boose believes he would have died had it not been for a routine sweep by an officer with a dog, searching for drugs.
The officer saw the state of Boose’s arm and urged prison officials to take him to the hospital.
Editor’s note: The photo below, which can be seen by sliding the button, is graphic and may not be suitable for some readers. It shows the state of Christopher Boose’s arm before amputation in December of 2023.
There, doctors found “massive tissue and muscle damage from the bacterial infection” caused by the delay in treating Boose’s broken arm, his attorneys wrote in the complaint. His arm was amputated at the shoulder.
After nearly dying in emergency surgery and losing an arm, Boose called his mother and told her what happened. It was Christmas Eve.
“I’ll never forget it. Me and my sister had just finished cooking,” she said. “He called and said, ‘Hey, Ma. Merry Christmas Eve.’ I said, ‘Oh, son, so glad to hear your voice, but I was worried. He said, ‘Well, I got one arm. They took my arm off.’”
Boose remained in the hospital for several days and was then granted early release from custody on Jan. 12, 2024.
Boose and his attorneys argue that the permanent disability he now suffers is the direct result of postponed medical care. Their lawsuit argues the postponement of such care qualifies as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
What is ‘deliberate indifference’?
In a damning 2024 report, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Mississippi of violating the constitutional rights of those held in four prisons, including Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. It should be read to prohibit “prison officials from being deliberately indifferent to conditions of confinement that pose an excessive risk to inmate health or safety,” the DOJ report said.
According to the report, Cain, the state corrections commissioner, has acknowledged that Mississippi is “not where it need[s] to be in terms of running a safe prison system.”
Boose’s attorneys – Warren Martin and Robert Thompson – quoted that line in their complaint. Its legal argument is rooted in the concept of “deliberate indifference,” the legal standard needed to prove cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
“The delay of medical care,” the complaint said, “constituted an Eighth Amendment violation … manifesting deliberate indifference” to Boose’s medical needs.
VitalCore, the recipient of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars through its contract with the Corrections Department, “failed to adopt a strategy to protect the safety, health and lives of inmates in MDOC custody,” the complaint said. This, the complaint argues, reflects deliberate indifference.
In its 2024 report, the Justice Department said deliberate indifference requires the proof that prison officials were actually aware of “an excessive risk to inmate health or safety” and disregarded that risk.
If Boose’s legal argument succeeds, it would be an outlier, according to legal data
In 2024, Business Insider examined nearly 1,500 cases in federal appellate courts that involved Eighth Amendment claims. The news outlet found that only 1% of prisoner claims succeed, with almost half failing to meet the strict deliberate-indifference standard.
Boose’s complaint seeks $5 million in damages for the Newton County man, who has since returned to live with his mother. She still helps him tie his shoes and put on a belt. He receives disability benefits in lieu of steady employment. He suffers from “phantom limb,” the sensation that an amputated limb is still attached.
The condition sometimes causes him to lose his balance and fall, transporting his mind back to the rickety bunk at CMCF from which he fell nearly two years ago.
Unlike that December night, his mother is often nearby to help when he falls. But inside prison, “Anything could happen,” Boose said.
“Somebody could die at any moment. It’s just like that, it’s the way it is.”
As the days grow shorter and autumn settles in, it’s a good time to shine a light on a topic that can feel mysterious: your credit score. For many, credit can feel confusing or even intimidating, but understanding how it works and why it matters can be an important step toward strengthening your financial health journey.
How Your Credit Score Impacts Your Financial Journey
Your credit score is a three-digit number used by lenders, landlords, insurance companies, mobile phone providers, and financial institutions to assess your reliability. A higher score can help you qualify for lower interest rates and better loan terms, saving you money in interest and making it easier to achieve major financial goals such as buying a home or car.
Establishing good credit means building a record of responsible usage. Using your credit card and paying your bill on time demonstrates financial responsibility to lenders. On the other hand, missing payment deadlines or not meeting the minimum amount due can negatively impact your score.
Understanding the Factors Behind Your Credit Score
Credit scores typically range from 300 to 850. The better your score, the more options you may have with lenders. Here’s what usually influences your score:
Payment History: Consistently paying bills on time has a positive impact, while late or missed payments can lower your score.
Credit Utilization: Using a smaller portion of your total available credit is better for your score; high balances relative to your total credit limits can be a negative factor.
Total Debt: Lower overall debt is viewed more favorably, while carrying high debt can reduce your score.
Types of Credit Accounts: Having a mix of credit accounts, such as credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages, can strengthen your score.
Length of Credit History: A longer track record of responsible credit use contributes positively to your score.
Recent Credit Applications: Applying for new credit can temporarily lower your score.
Credit Inquiries. Soft inquiries, like checking your own credit or receiving pre-approved offers, don’t affect your score. Hard inquiries, such as applying for a loan or credit card, may lower your score slightly, but the impact fades over time and drops off your report after two years.
If your credit score is on the lower end, don’t worry—there are steps you can take to help improve it.
Credit Smart Habits for
Pay your bills on time. Payment history is an important factor when it comes to calculating your credit score. If you struggle with meeting payment deadlines, consider setting reminders or enrolling in autopay.
Pay down your debt. Your credit utilization—meaning the size of your card balance—is the second biggest factor in most credit scoring models. Create a plan to pay down high-interest debt first.
Monitor your credit with Chase Credit Journey®. Regularly checking your credit report can help you spot areas of improvement and fix errors. Chase Credit Journey is a free tool that lets you monitor your score without impacting it, and provides alerts if your personal information is exposed in a data breach. It’s free for everyone, no Chase account required.
Turning Credit Concerns into Financial Wins
Building credit doesn’t have to be spooky and mysterious. With patience and smart financial habits, you can improve your score and unlock financial opportunities. This fall, take steps to understand and strengthen your credit.
More protections are provided to the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion than to the White House based on events unfolding in the nation’s capital.
While President Donald Trump is demolishing the East Wing of the White House and no one is stopping him, there is a state law that prevents Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves from acting on his own to make major changes to the Governor’s Mansion. And to be clear, Gov. Reeves is not planning any major renovations to Mississippi’s version of the White House, though he does attempt to emulate President Trump.
This past week work began to remove, according to news reports, the entire East Wing of the White House – arguably the nation’s most recognizable building – to prepare for the construction of President Trump’s one big beautiful ballroom.
Who knew in America one person could tear down a portion of what we fondly called the people’s house and construct a massive structure that based on drawings will dwarf the original building and overwhelm the iconic White House grounds? For comparison, the original White House, situated on 18 acres, is 55,000 square feet while it is anticipated the ballroom will be 90,000 square feet.
Based on state law, one person cannot undertake similar activities to public buildings in Mississippi.
The Mississippi Governor’s mansion in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, July 19, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
The guidelines established by the long-standing Antiquities Law of Mississippi govern work of many historic buildings in the state, including the Governor’s Mansion and the Capitol.
Under the law, any action involving “excavation, property transfer, excavation or ground disturbing activities of any nature, demolition or significant alteration” of a building or property designated as a Mississippi Landmark must be approved by the Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees. Mississippi landmarks could be state or local public buildings, including those found at education entities.
Granted, nearly every president makes changes to the White House. For instance, former President Barack Obama incorporated a basketball goal into the tennis court. And his wife, Michelle, had the nerve to add an organic vegetable garden.
Before Trump was inaugurated for his first term, conservative personality Ann Coulter posted on social media, “I respectfully suggest a new name for Michelle’s White House vegetable garden: ‘Putting green.’”
Trump already has made significant modifications to the White House, replacing one of its most legendary features – the Rose Garden – with a concrete patio. And he has incorporated enough gold features in the Oval Office to make envious Tony Montana, the drug-dealing kingpin in the movie “Scarface.”
Various groups, including the congressionally created National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Society of Architectural Historians, have urged a delay on the ballroom construction to gather more information and to allow input.
Who has been silent on the issue are congressional Republicans, including Mississippi U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith who previously served in the state Legislature where the Mississippi Antiquities Law was created. And Wicker was a vocal supporter of the designation of the Jackson home of civil rights leaders Medgar and Myrlie Evers as a national monument under the supervision of the National Park Service.
The National Capitol Planning Commission does have some authority over changes made to the White House. But Will Scharf, a Trump appointee and chair of the commission, said the president can do demolition at the White House on his own.
Water is sprayed on debris to help with dust control as demolition continues on the East Wing of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, in Washington, before construction of a ballroom. Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
“Demolition and site preparation work can certainly occur, but if you’re talking about actually building anything, then, yeah, it should go through our approval process,” he said during an early September meeting, according to The Associated Press.
So, what does that mean? How much of the White House can the president demolish on his own?
Scharf said there is nothing to worry about.
”Given the president’s history as a builder, and given the plans that we’ve seen publicly I think this will be a tremendous addition to the White House complex, a sorely needed addition,” he said.
Reports have said the ballroom will cost $250 million or more and private funds will be raised to pay for the structure.
Little else is known. If the funds are not raised, will Trump turn to Congress for taxpayer money to complete the project?
Or will he depend on Mexico to pay for it just as he said Mexico would pay for a border wall?
Incidentally, Trump is seeking money from American taxpayers to compensate himself for criminal investigations he has been subject to. He is asking for $230 million – almost enough to pay for one big beautiful ballroom.
In the South, there is only one thing that can rival college football itself: the party before kickoff.
Pinpointing the exact origins of tailgating is near impossible. Some trace it to Nov. 6, 1869, when Rutgers and New Jersey (later Princeton) played in the first college football game. Others credit Green Bay Packers fans, who folded down pickup truck tailgates for makeshift pregame seating during the team’s inaugural season in 1919.
Arguments over who has the best tailgating traditions are as old as the sport itself and the creativity is as varied as the fans themselves. From Bevo Boulevard (Texas) and the Tiger Walk (Clemson) to the Vol Navy (Tennessee) and the sailgating on boats outside Husky Stadium (Washington), the options are endless.
The tradition runs deep in the South, and few do it like Ole Miss and LSU.
It’s hours before kickoff. Ole Miss is hosting LSU in its biggest game of the season so far, and tens of thousands of fans gather at The Grove, a 10-acre plot in the center of campus surrounded by oak trees. The grassy area has transformed into a sea of red and blue tents decked out with chandeliers and elaborate spreads.
Fans fill the Grove tailgating area before an NCAA college football game between Mississippi and LSU in Oxford, Miss., Sept. 30, 2023. Credit: AP Photo/Thomas Graning
Anticipation builds for The Walk of Champions – one of the program’s longest-standing traditions where coaches and players are met with applause and “Hotty Toddy” cheers as they exit the buses and pass under the archway en route to the stadium.
Elizabeth Heiskell, a caterer from Oxford, is at the center of it all. She’s become a Grove regular since marrying into the fan base, and she wouldn’t want it any other way.
“It is a beautiful space right in the middle of campus with gorgeous trees that have been here forever,” Heiskell said. “There’s just really no place like it. It’s not like we’re, you know, dropping a tailgate in some parking lot. I mean, it is so green and so beautiful.”
Like most Grove goers, Heiskell is dressed for the occasion. She’s wearing a red and white blouse, gold jewelry and a fabulous pair of red sunglasses that tie the whole look together. This isn’t an outfit she just threw together; gameday getups are carefully curated.
“Of course everybody gets dressed up. I mean, we shop all year long for our game clothes,” she said. “When they say it’s a red game, honey, we’re all gonna wear red.”
The pregame buzz carries into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, where nearly 68,000 fans watch Ole Miss hold off LSU for a 24-19 victory.
Two weeks later, crawfish boils and Cajun spices replace the chandeliers and elegance of The Grove as the party moves 330 miles South to Baton Rouge.
Fresh off a bye week, LSU is hosting South Carolina in Death Valley, where home-field advantage is alive and well, thanks to a passionate fan base of their own.
LSU fans dance the wobble at a tailgate party before an NCAA college football game against Alabama in Baton Rouge, La., Nov. 8, 2014. Credit: AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman
Gameday preparation begins early for Wayne Breaux, a fisherman from New Iberia, Louisiana. He drives up to his condo near campus on Thursday night, reserves his spot on Friday and begins the setup early Saturday. After 35 years, his tailgate has become quite the attraction. Breaux regularly welcomes football, basketball and softball coaches and recruits.
“Tailgating is an event in itself. A lot of people, even if they don’t have tickets to the game, they’ll come out and enjoy the atmosphere, the friendship and the camaraderie,” Breaux said. “I love the football game itself, but tailgating is a very close second.”
Like every good tailgate, Breaux’s setup centers around the menu. His spread features speckled trout, red fish, steak tips, pork loin, and of course, jambalaya and boudin.
“We got one rule,” Breaux said. “If you leave here thirsty or hungry, it’s your fault. It’s not mine.”
