Mississippi Today won the inaugural Peter F. Collier Award for Ethics in Journalism for its coverage of the ongoing state welfare scandal investigation in the face of a lawsuit against the newsroom from former Gov. Phil Bryant.

The Collier Award, administered by New York University’s Ethics and Journalism Initiative and judged by esteemed national journalists, celebrates journalism that meets the highest ethical standards in the face of pressure or incentives to do otherwise. 

Mississippi Today was awarded the first place prize in the local category at a Thursday night ceremony at The Paley Center for Media in New York City. A team of journalists from The Washington Post won first place in the national category.

“Powerful people who are the subject of our reporting often try to intimidate our journalists or discredit their fair and truthful work,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “But those efforts consistently fall flat because of the rigorous ethical standards we follow — guiding principles that have shaped American journalism for generations. It’s an honor to receive national recognition for upholding those standards, especially at a time when public officials are increasingly dishonest with the public and scrutiny of the press is at an all-time high.”

Ganucheau continued: “This is a proud day for our newsroom, but knowing our reporters, I can’t say I’m surprised. I hope this award reminds our readers that we have a process behind everything we do, and that we take our ethical obligations seriously, every single day.”

Mississippi Today had previously been announced as one of three finalists for the local Collier Award prize. National finalists included The New Yorker, The Guardian/NBC News, and The Washington Post, which took home the national first place prize.

The award’s panel of judges was composed of journalism professionals drawn from across the news media landscape: Dean Baquet, executive editor of the local investigations fellowship at the New York Times; Sewell Chan, executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review; Gina Chua, executive editor of Semafor; Lynette Clemetson, director of the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan; Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University; Lynn Novick, a documentary filmmaker whose works include Baseball (1994), The War (2007), and The Vietnam War (2017); Kerry Smith, vice president of ethics and standards at ABC News; Stephen D. Solomon, Marjorie Deane Professor of Journalism at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute; and Paul Steiger, ProPublica’s founder emeritus.

The post Mississippi Today wins Collier Award for Ethics in Journalism for welfare scandal coverage appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating the death of an inmate at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility earlier this year.

Prison officials reportedly told Mississippi authorities that inmate Melvin Cancer had suffered a heart attack, but a recent autopsy has since ruled his death a homicide.

“I’d like for it to be thoroughly investigated to see what did happen,” said Juan Barnett, chairman of the Senate Corrections Committee. “Even though people in prison have committed crimes, I still believe in humane treatment for everybody.”

After fellow inmates at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility repeatedly complained that Cancer would not bathe, prison officials reportedly dragged him into the shower, where he may have suffered fatal injuries. 

On Jan. 22, Cancer was declared dead at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The 53-year-old inmate had been serving eight years in prison after pleading guilty to a 2019 aggravated assault in Hinds County.

Jeremy St. Julian is the third person to serve as superintendent at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in less than a year. Some staff members have reportedly been placed on administrative leave.

“Either we’re hiring bad people, or we need to look at the people doing the hiring,” Barnett said. “There has to be some accountability somewhere.”

Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said he could not comment on the matter. The Mississippi Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.

The post Mississippi prison death under investigation appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Hezekiah Watkins was 13 when he was arrested in 1961 for entering a white-only Greyhound bus station in Jackson, sent to state prison and housed on death row. 

Watkins said Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest reminded him of his own experience. 

Khalil, a Palestinian activist who was the lead negotiator between students and the Columbia University administration during protests last spring regarding the ongoing war in Gaza for divestment in companies with ties to Israel, was arrested by Department of Homeland Security officials last month. The conflict in Gaza reignited on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants in a surprise attack killed 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals and kidnapped 215, led to Israeli military response that has decimated Gaza and left more than 50,000 dead.

A green card-holding permanent resident of the United States, Khalil was moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Louisiana soon after. On Wednesday, a New York court gave the Trump administration a 24-hour deadline to justify his deportation. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has argued that while Khalil had not committed any crime, his presence in the United States would “undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States.” Rubio’s determination was the only justification provided by the Trump administration for Khalil’s deportation.

On Friday, a Louisiana judge ruled that Khalil could be deported. 

“No due process. And the student that you’re speaking of, there’s no due process there…that’s not right. That’s not the way America is built,” Watkins said. The summer he was arrested, no less than 327 others were arrested for “breach of peace” and sent to Parchman for being in segregated waiting areas of bus stations, just like him.  

Watkins wasn’t the only Mississippian for whom Khalil’s arrest and the escalating crackdown on immigrants, especially those who have been vocal about Palestine, felt close to home. 

Last month, Terron Weaver, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, along with more than a dozen Southerners gathered in front of the ICE detention center in Jena, Louisiana, where Khalil was being held. 

Since then, a Turkish Fulbright scholar, Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University, has also been held in the same detention center. Like Khalil, she was arrested near her home without notice. In March last year, Ozturk co-wrote an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper criticizing the school’s response to a student government group’s call for the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Khalil was brought to Louisiana from New Jersey because the authorities “feel there’s no movement here,” Weaver said, “But they’re incorrect.”

Weaver and others are working to actively build a progressive movement in the South to change the overwhelming perception that it is “very bigoted, very racist.” 

“It really started with immigrants…and now it’s being escalated to people who spoke out against the genocide. And it’s not going to stop there. The answer has to be with a mass people’s movement that is fighting back against everything that the Trump administration is trying to do,” he said.  

“What history shows repeatedly is that when the government continues to launch attacks on the working class,” he said, “we do fight back. We do not shrink away in fear.”

“Whether you’re a politician or just a regular layman, if something goes wrong, one needs to share their thoughts,” said Watkins. “Especially if you have a voice – your voice sometimes speaks louder and goes further than the next person.”

Palestinian Christians visit Mississippi

Last month, a delegation of Palestinian Christians visited the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum as part of a tour organized by Washington D.C.-based group Telos. Members of the delegation reflected on the similarities between the struggle for civil rights in the South and the struggle for a free Palestine, and also the significance of the timing of their visit – just four days after Khalil’s arrest. 

“Christians in North America and in the West in general have been somehow uncritically supporting a settler colonial regime which oppresses us. I’m grateful that there is an awakening among Christian leaders in the U.S. to learn more about our context as Palestinian Christians and as Palestinians in general,” said one member of the delegation. However, he said, it was “devastating” to see uncritical support for Israel from many Christian faith leaders. 

Another member of the Palestinian delegation, who asked to not be named, fearing retaliation, said their visit to Jackson gave her important reminders about the nature of struggles for freedom and equality. 

“It is interesting to visit Trump’s America and do this trip during this time,” she said. “To think that we are in this museum that shows the struggle, and celebrates the achievements, and the various steps of progress…but also to realize that it can always be pushed back; you can always regress,” she said. “We have to keep fighting for those small steps of progress and not just assume they’re always going to be there.” 

Afraid but undeterred 

A Palestinian American Mississippian who asked to remain anonymous, fearing retaliation, said the current crackdown on the movement for free Palestine reminded him of dictatorships around the world forcing citizens to adhere to a certain ideology. “If you are against the government, you can be imprisoned, you can be deported, and you can be harassed if you speak frankly…I really fear for where the United States is going.”

As Mississippi’s Legislature created its first “Israel caucus,” he said the support in the state for Israel confused him. “Many Mississippians were attracted to Trump’s message because he said, America first – we’re not going to be spending all these unnecessary wars… Yet he just sent $4 billion to Israel to continue this and the U.S. government started bombing Yemen. So where is this promise to the Mississippians and the American people?”

State Sens. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, and Juan Barnett, D-Heidelburg, co-chair the caucus.

“It’s basically just a friendly caucus with Israel being our our longest standing and strongest ally in the Middle East, and a good trade partner for the state of Mississippi. This is really just to foster and and build that bond between the state of Mississippi and the nation of Israel,” England said. “I really hate what’s going on over there. I think that’s a very unfortunate situation, but it’s also something that’s been going on for a very long time.”

Late last month, Mississippians held demonstrations at three separate locations across the state to show their support for Palestine and demand an arms embargo. Nearly two dozen participated in the protest in Jackson. The reaction from passers-by was mostly positive, a protestor said. 

But a Muslim Mississippian, who also asked not to be named, said she feels like the tension is rising. And while fear can cause the community to band together, she said, it can also force people to look out only for themselves and their own. “People’s behavior changes when they’re fearful,” she said. “And it can oftentimes cause division.”

Update 4/11/24: This story has been updated to include comments from Sen. Jeremy England with the Israel caucus.

The post Mississippians protesting for Palestine regroup but persist through fear as Trump administration cracks down appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The day after Tim Henderson finished third in Jackson’s mayoral primary, garnering 3,499 votes, the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel was planning to pack up his office at the Jackson Medical Mall and be out by the end of the week. 

Henderson figured that’s what losing candidates do. Then he said his older brother gave him a different perspective: Henderson had just established a base of people who had rejected the city’s status quo, and he shouldn’t let them down.

“That’s what happens all the time,” Henderson said. “Candidates show up, they don’t win, the stuff they talked about doing, they walk away, and they leave the people hanging, which is partly, probably why people have lost faith in the process.”

As the 54-year-old space industry consultant spoke with friends, family and politicos last week, he began to look at those 3,499 votes differently. Instead of an outright loss, the numbers seemed to represent something remarkable: In a city where name recognition is king, it took less than a year for Henderson to go from a name few knew to finishing just 786 votes shy of the incumbent, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

He did it with a handful of volunteers and few connections to the city’s powerbrokers or politically connected church leaders or nonprofits. In fact, Henderson thinks his relatively little clout is precisely why he did so well.

“People insulate themselves inside of certain circles, and the problem a lot of people have with Henderson is I wasn’t connected or associated with any of those cliques,” he said. “People immediately started asking, who knows him?”

Now, Henderson is contemplating what he’s going to do next.

“I can be the mayor of the city hall, or I can be the mayor out here on the streets,” he said.

Beholden mainly to God and the truth, he said, he’s ready to talk – with little filter – about what Jackson needs to anyone who wants to listen. He described himself as “a loose neutron, or a loose electron, free radical.”

“Not radical in the sense of ‘radical’ but somebody that doesn’t have to be guarded in how I do things,” he said, adding, “Now I can say things other people can’t say and I can represent things the right way.” 

He’s not sure he’ll endorse anyone. Henderson said that in the past week, he’s met with the Lumumba campaign, as well as state Sen. John Horhn, whose 12,359 votes nearly preempted a runoff. To win the Democratic nomination outright, Horhn would have had to secure around 500 of the votes Henderson or 10 other candidates received.

Both asked what their campaigns needed to do to get Henderson’s support. He says he told them the same thing: Start an Office of Ethics and Accountability, one of his chief campaign goals. 

He wouldn’t say which candidate said what. But one told him they weren’t sure the city had the funding for it. He recalled the other asked if Henderson would work with them if they started an Office of Integrity, to which Henderson responded “only by my rules.” 

Through a spokesperson, Horhn said he wants to bring more accountability to the city’s procurement process and that his ongoing discussions with Henderson have been “productive.”

Horhn has been a senator representing parts of Jackson since the 1990s, and Lumumba is finishing his second term as mayor. If nothing has changed in the city in the last eight, or 32, years, Henderson reasons that’s because the people with power and connections, including those behind the scenes, don’t want change.

When Henderson moved back to the city two years ago, the Cleveland, Miss. native and Mississippi Valley State University graduate moved in with his brother, who lives in south Jackson. 

The retired military man had two goals in mind: Develop the vacant lots he owns near the Westside Community Center — a neighborhood called “the Sub” — and start a gourmet grocery store in downtown Jackson, hopefully on the first floor of the Lamar Life building owned by longtime downtown Jackson developer Andrew Mattiace. 

Henderson said he couldn’t find the funding – a common refrain in Jackson – or secure meetings with folks who might provide the funding. Still, his business endeavors bore political fruit as he met people he said encouraged him to run for mayor. That included Robert Gibbs, an attorney and developer who was working to convene a group of community and business leaders to secure a new city leader. The coalition assumed the name Rethink Jackson.

Last year, Gibbs invited Henderson to meet with Rethink Jackson members and others at the Capital Club, a highrise bar owned by Mattiace. The group was looking for a candidate to support, but Henderson recalled that Gibbs told him the meeting was not “an endorsement.” 

But when Henderson arrived, he says they kept him waiting in the lobby for 30 minutes before finally calling him up to meet with the dozen or so people in the room – mostly African American leaders – who were sitting at tables around the bar. 

Gibbs was there, so were Mattiace and Jeff Good, a local restauranteur. 

“Before we move forward, I want to make sure the air is clear: This is not an endorsement,” Henderson recalled telling the room. “And they’re like no, nope, it’s not an endorsement. I say well let me be clear you may not hear what you want to hear this evening. I’m only going to share what I’m comfortable sharing, because what I’m not going to do is have my information travel all across the city. Is that fair? That is fair, right? OK, so let’s talk.” 

When the group asked about economic development, Henderson said he brought up the Capitol Police, saying “I don’t care how much police security you put down here, you gotta put something in the parts of the city where people live,” meaning both safety and opportunity in west and south Jackson. 

“They can only rob other poor people so much,” Henderson said, to which he recalled the folks in the room “just looked at me.” 

Mattiace said he preferred not to comment on the election so he could remain neutral for the sake of his business. Good said he did not have a good memory of the meeting but added he thinks Henderson is a “good guy” and that’s why he did well at the polls.

Gibbs didn’t comment on the meeting but said he’s heavily involved in the Horhn campaign and doesn’t want to hurt it. He did speak to Rethink Jackson as a coalition, adding that the group also met with Horhn, Delano Funches, and Rodney DePriest, an independent, “to identify the person we felt would be the best person to lead the city of Jackson.” 

After meeting with him, Henderson said he told one of the folks that he wouldn’t be back – he had a campaign to run. He didn’t hear from the group again.

Rethink Jackson debated and took a vote on which candidates “could come in on day one and start doing the things we felt the city needed in order to turn around,” Gibbs said. 

“We had a vote, paper ballot voting, that we took so that people could not necessarily be influenced by someone who was in the room,” he added. 

Out of about 50 people, Gibbs said only one person was unsure of Horhn. The endorsement was a campaign score for the senator.

It wasn’t just the business community Henderson says did not ultimately align with his campaign. When he talks about the status quo he wants to undo, he means nonprofits, too.

On the campaign trail, Henderson committed to personally screening all nonprofits that receive city grant funds. He wanted to send out screening criteria, categorize all the buckets of grant funding the city was dispersing, and meet with each nonprofit. But if they didn’t show up, he said he would contact their other funders. 

He called this “a dogwhistle” –  a tell that he was on to them.

“You’re using my data,” he said. “As the mayor, it’s my data. And if you’re supposed to be working in this city, I want to know outcomes.” 

Jackson has an excess of nonprofits, Henderson said, that are all working to tackle similar social ills, from decreasing homelessness and youth violence to improving mental health. Some are doing good work and should be supported to leverage their resources. But for others, those missions are a “smokescreen,” Henderson said, and the problems remain. Coincidentally, this is a similar campaign pillar of conservative talk radio host and independent mayoral candidate Kim Wade.

“Here’s my concern: Things aren’t getting better because people don’t want them to get better,” Henderson said. “If you keep crime high, poverty high, you keep the education system where it is, you keep housing, the lack of affordable housing high, you keep jobs at the minimum wage – the only thing people have as an entry point, there’s no upward mobility. This city will never be what it can be. … Because if you wanted change, you’d work yourself out of a job.” 

Within city hall, Henderson said he wanted to “clear the slate” by rehiring every department head, putting out job descriptions, and hiring candidates with a blind application – no names, race or gender attached – to ensure that a person’s “connections” were not taken into account.

“Those connections over time is why we are the way we are,” he said. “Because the most qualified person is not who you’re hiring. You’re hiring someone connected to you.”

Make no mistake: Henderson made connections, too. He said two names include Shirlene Anderson, a former chief of police under Frank Melton, and Hank Anderson, a retired administrator for IBM who worked in former governor Ray Mabus’s administration. Anderson had approached Henderson after the February debate at Duling Hall and later advised him on how to keep his message straight. 

After that, Henderson made a point to answer questions as directly as he could during the candidate forums. He said he stressed: “public safety, cleaning it up, public safety, cleaning it up.”

“Everybody else is talking about economic development and all this other stuff,” he said. “I’m like, either you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re playing the people, or it’s both. I’m like no, you can’t get any economic development with crime the way it is.” 

But perhaps the most important connection Henderson made during his run for office was with Sherri Jones, the first person to join the campaign and the station manager at WMPR. 

The pair formed a kinship over their deep skepticism of the city’s elite — Black and white, activists and church leaders, and especially the politicians and the business owners who seem to be looking out for their bottom line and not for the entire community. 

“You got two things you gone have to be aware of,” Jones said. “One is racism. The other is classism. Now, when you deal with the classicism, it’s about a certain group of people and a lot of them are African American and then they are connected with white people and they don’t really care if there’s racism involved or not because they got a certain agenda and it’s gonna always come back and be tied to money.” 

From the perspective of the leaders at the Capital Club, the business community wants to help Jackson, so finding a mayor who works with them will result in economic advancement across the city. 

Jones saw it differently.  

“It’s about contracts, it’s about being in charge of the decision, what’s going to stay open, what’s going to close, how things move,” Jones said. 

Nothing will change in Jackson if economic development does not include the entire city, Henderson said. South and west, too. 

The primary “wasn’t just about low voter turnout,” he said. “It actually speaks to the psychological impact that the environment and the quality of life has had on people, where they totally felt dejected, rejected and disconnected.” 

What he wants most of all is to bring back people’s confidence in Jackson and knows it won’t happen overnight. 

“It’s about empowering the people in the city to be able to believe in it again,” Henderson said. 

How’s he going to do that? He might start a nonprofit. 

Editor’s note: Mississippi Today is moving this summer into the Lamar Life Building, operated by Andrew Mattiace, in downtown Jackson.

The post A self-proclaimed ‘loose electron’ journeys through Jackson’s political class appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed and remanded a decision ordering the release of federal benefit recipient data to the federally appointed receiver JXN Water.

For over a year, JXN Water and its chief Ted Henifin have hoped to implement a first-of-its-kind discount for Jackson customers who receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The water and wastewater utility, though, doesn’t have access to names of the city’s SNAP recipients, which it says greatly limits its ability to apply the discount.

Without the ability to automatically apply the discount, JXN Water relies on customers coming forward to confirm their eligibility. The utility told Mississippi Today on Friday that fewer than 10 people have signed up for the discount, which went into effect in February, 2024.

Almost exactly a year ago, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate ordered Mississippi and federal agencies to hand over a list of Jackson’s SNAP recipients to JXN Water on a quarterly basis. While the Mississippi Department of Human Services maintained that it could lose federal funding by disclosing recipients’ names, Wingate said JXN Water’s discount qualified as a federal assistance program and thus was an exception to the disclosure rule.

The 5th Circuit disagreed that JXN Water’s discount could be considered a federal assistance program. It added that, despite the utility being a federal receiver, it still has to comply with state law, which in this case prohibits the disclosure of participants’ names.

“The mere appointment of a federal receiver — even if the individual or entity is considered an officer of the court — does not grant federal power to the receiver,” Judge Dana Douglas wrote. “In other words, while JXN Water became an officer of the court and a federal receiver, its compliance with state and local law did not become a matter of federal law or administration of federal assistance.”

In a statement Friday afternoon, the third-party utility said it was “disappointed” in the court’s ruling.

“Access to this data would have allowed us to proactively reach households struggling to keep up, rather than waiting for them to come to us,” JXN Water said. “This decision is a hurdle, but it does not change our commitment. We remain steadfast in finding new paths to identify and appropriately classify customers eligible for relief under the JXN Water SNAP Customer Classification to ensure affordability and protect access to water for the most vulnerable members of our community.”

There are about 12,500 SNAP recipients in Jackson. But, as the Gulf States Newsroom reported, just about 62% of those eligible in Mississippi receive the benefit, according to federal data. Most people who receive the utility’s SNAP discount would pay about $30 less per month than the average customer, according to a breakdown JXN Water provided last year.

The decision comes as JXN Water is set to raise its rates for the second time in as many years. The increase, which Henifin said on Tuesday would begin in June at the earliest, would average out at around 12% for a customer’s monthly bill.

While Henifin can impose a rate increase without approval from city officials, council members pushed back on the proposal on Tuesday, the Clarion Ledger reported, calling the increase too steep and criticizing the utility for not first improving collection rates. Henifin, though, recently said even with 100% collection the current rates wouldn’t yield enough revenue to run operations. He said that it’s taken time to fully realize how much it costs to run the city’s water and wastewater services.

When asked on Tuesday if he and city officials were on the same page as far as billing, Henifin just said, “No,” and laughed.

Update 4/11/24: This story has been updated to include a response from JXN Water.

The post 5th Circuit reverses order to give JXN Water SNAP data appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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

As Jackson’s mayoral race moves into the April 22 runoff, the future of our city hangs in the balance.

This election is not just about who will sit in City Hall. It is about the direction of our city for years to come. Jackson is at a crossroads, and the choice we make in this runoff will determine whether we continue our journey toward progress or allow the weight of past challenges to slow us down. The outcome of this election will send a message about what kind of city we want to be.

Do we want leadership that is forward-thinking, accountable and committed to real solutions? Or will we settle for leadership that is reactive rather than proactive? The people of Jackson deserve a leader who understands that governance is about service, not status. This is a defining moment. It is a moment that will test our commitment to progress, our ability to persevere and the power of our collective voice.

Our voices will be heard through our vote.

A city of progress

Despite its struggles, Jackson has always been a city of progress. Our history is filled with moments of resilience, innovation and growth. From the Civil Rights movement to economic revitalization efforts, Jacksonians have always been visionaries who believe in creating a better tomorrow. Even in the face of difficulties, our people continue to push forward.

Over the past few years, we have seen improvements in economic development, in efforts to enhance infrastructure and in a growing emphasis on education and community engagement. But we cannot afford to be complacent. Progress does not happen automatically. Progress requires leadership that listens, adapts, and is willing to make bold decisions for the greater good.

The next mayor of Jackson must not only understand our city’s challenges but be willing to fight for the innovative policies and investments that will strengthen our schools, enhance public safety and expand economic opportunities for all residents. Progress is not just about making promises; it is about taking action.

A city of perseverance

Jackson is no stranger to adversity. From economic setbacks to infrastructure failures, our city has endured its fair share of difficulties. We have faced crises with our water system, budget constraints and rising crime rates, but through it all, the people of Jackson have continued to push forward. Perseverance is part of who we are. It is in our DNA.

Our next mayor must embody that same spirit of perseverance. This is not a position for someone who wants the title without the responsibility. It is not a job

for someone looking for an easy win or political gain. We need a leader who understands that real change requires commitment, hard work and the ability to navigate complex challenges with determination and integrity.

Leadership in Jackson requires someone who will not back down when things get tough. We need a mayor who will fight for solutions, not excuses—who will prioritize action over rhetoric. The people of Jackson deserve leadership that is as resilient as they are.

A city of power

Jackson’s greatest strength is its people. We are a city of educators, entrepreneurs, activists and students —each playing a vital role in shaping our community. Our collective voice has the power to drive change and that power must be reflected in the leadership we choose.

The power of Jackson lies in its communities. From West Jackson to Fondren, from South Jackson to Belhaven, every neighborhood has a voice and a vision for a better city. But for our collective power to be effective, we need leadership that empowers its people. The next mayor of Jackson must be someone who recognizes the importance of investing in our communities, supporting local businesses and uplifting young people who are the future of this city.

This election is an opportunity for Jacksonians to demand bold, transformative leadership. We need someone who is ready to challenge outdated systems, push for new economic opportunities and build a city that is safe, inclusive and thriving.

Our power is in our vote, our voices and our vision for what Jackson can and should be. But power is only meaningful if we use it. If we want to see change, we must show up to the polls on April 22 and make our voices heard.

The choice before us

As we head to the polls, we must ask ourselves some critical questions:

• Who has the vision to lead Jackson into a new era of progress?
• Who has the perseverance to take on our toughest challenges and see them through?
• Who has the power—and the will—to bring our city together and create meaningful change?

These questions are not just theoretical. They will define the future of Jackson. This is not just another election; it is a pivotal moment for our city. The choice we make will impact our schools, our economy, our infrastructure and the safety of our neighborhoods.

We owe it to ourselves, our families and future generations to make the right decision. This is our city, and it is up to us to ensure that it thrives. Leadership matters. Policies matter. And most importantly, our participation in this election matters.

Conclusion

Jackson is a city of progress. A city of perseverance. A city of power. But to fully realize our potential, we need leadership that is committed to action, not just words. The April 22 runoff is our chance to shape the future of Jackson for the better.

Our best days are still ahead—but only if we make the right choice at the ballot box. The power is in our hands. Let’s use it.

Javion Shed is the senior class vice president of Murrah High School, the 2nd Battalion JROTC command sergeant major and a Youth Leadership Greater Jackson member. He is committed to creating a stronger future for the city. He believes participating in the democratic process by voting is essential to the future of Jackson.

The post Voters can help maintain city of progress in upcoming Jackson election appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Matthew Devers, 18, describes his current job as “very brute force.” He’s in a welding program, working part time while completing his associates degree at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. 

He says it wouldn’t have been possible without the pre-employment training and services program he joined after high school. Pre-ETS is a program that provides students with disabilities education and experience to help them enter post-secondary education and/or the workforce. Devers, who is autistic, says  “I wouldn’t have found them otherwise.”

People with disabilities make up 13% of the country’s population as of 2024. The employment rate for people with disabilities is lower than for people without. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2024 employment-population ratio for disabled people between 16 to 24 years old is 37.4%. By comparison, the employment rate for non-disabled people is 65.8%.

Pre-ETS provides job exploration and counseling, work-based learning experiences, counseling opportunities for enrollment in comprehensive transition or postsecondary education programs, workplace readiness training, and instruction in self-advocacy. 

In 2014, Congress amended The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, expanding the population of students with disabilities that vocational rehabilitation agencies may serve. This gave birth to the pre-ETS program, which is funded by state vocational rehabilitation agencies. 

Nationally, pre-ETS services are underutilized. The Hechinger Report found that in 2023, 295,000 students were using pre-ETS when it’s estimated that 3.1 million were eligible. Often, the report found, parents are even aware it exists.

The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation is currently serving 3,382 students, 2,053 of whom are in the pre-ETS program. How many it could potentially serve isn’t known, but the Mississippi Department of Education said there are 20,994 students between the ages of 14 and 21 in special education. That’s the age group pre-ETS serves.

If aware of pre-ETS, families can request thatfor their child to join the program through a school counselor or school transition staff. If the student doesn’t have an open vocational rehabilitation case, they can reach out to a local VR transition counselor or vocational rehabilitation for the blind counselor. 

Jennifer Jackson, the executive director of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, said she is optimistic about the direction of pre-ETS in Mississippi.  “I feel like our state is constantly improving and constantly seeking out ways to help these individuals be successful,” she said.

The recent cost-cutting measures from the Trump administration have alarmed some disability rights advocates. As part of its sweeping cost-cutting spree, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, canceled at least two grants researching school-to-work transition services for youth with disabilities, including two multimillion-dollar contracts for studies on outcomes for students with disabilities after high school graduation. 

“While we are aware that staffing changes have taken place within the Department of Education (DE), where RSA is housed, we have not been informed of any direct impact to Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) funding at this time,” Jackson said in a statement. RSA refers to the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

Jackson said these services provide essential help for young people with disabilities who often struggle learning skills that people are not disabled can take for granted. She said they’re also key for improving employment outcomes for people with disabilities. 

To be eligible, a student must: be between ages 14 to 21; have a documented disability, 504 plan to ensure the child receives accommodations and access to the learning environment; or Individualized Education Program plan; and be enrolled in a recognized educational program. Applicants must complete a Pre-ETS Referral Form, have a parent or guardian sign a release of information, and have a copy of the student’s documented disability, 504 plan, or IEP plan.

OVR partners with 13 organizations and nonprofits across Mississippi to deliver pre-ETS programs. One of them is the Transition to Adulthood Center on Learning, the same program Devers was in. The center is part of the Institute for Disability Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Beth Robertson, the center’s executive coordinator for transition, described the program as a collaboration between families, schools and state agencies. “We can always work together even more, increase our involvement more, we would love to see that,” she said. 

The post ‘I wouldn’t have found them otherwise’: Program helps students with disabilities forge paths to careers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi will lose out on billions of dollars if Congress continues to advance legislation that would make deep cuts to Medicaid and other agencies to pay for a tax cut championed by President Donald Trump.

Tens of thousands of Mississippians could lose their health insurance as a result of what could be the largest cut in the history of Medicare and Medicaid. 

While the budget resolution passed by Congress this week doesn’t specifically call for cuts to Medicaid, experts have said there is no way to achieve the proposed magnitude of cuts to a group of federal agencies – $880 billion – without slashing Medicaid. 

Mississippi could see a potential reduction of up to $5.4 billion in federal funding for Medicaid under one proposal over the 10-year period, and $16 billion under another, according to a brief by the Center for Mississippi Health Policy based on a report conducted by the Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 

Neither Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican and outspoken supporter of Trump, nor the Mississippi Division of Medicaid responded to requests for comment by the time this story published. 

All of Mississippi’s Republican Congress members – Reps. Mike Ezell, Trent Kelly and Michael Guest, along with Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy-Hyde Smith – voted for the budget resolution. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, voted no.

Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation with a large Medicaid population, would be significantly impacted by such a blow to the program. In particular, low-income people in vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, disabled adults, children and the elderly would face losing coverage, and hospitals and providers that rely on the program to reimburse for services could face massive losses. 

One state lawmaker in recent weeks said it would bring Mississippi, one of the most federally dependent states in the nation, “to its knees” – particularly on the heels of the state Legislature passing an income tax cut that will result in an estimated loss of about $2.2 billion of the state’s $7 billion in operating revenue.   

Medicaid is a federal-state program that provides health coverage to millions of people in the U.S. States administer the program, which is funded by both states and the federal government.

One option being discussed in Congress to downsize Medicaid is to lower the limit of or to eliminate what’s called the provider tax. Despite being a tax, it allows the state to draw down more federal dollars to use for the Medicaid program and to reimburse hospitals at a higher rate. Mississippi is currently nearly maxed out on the tax it’s allowed to impose on hospitals.

Health care leaders are sounding the alarm bells on the potential cuts, which they say will leave hospitals high and dry. The state, which has not expanded Medicaid, has had to rely in recent years on federal COVID-19 relief money and tweaks to its supplemental payments to keep hospitals afloat.  

Richard Roberson, the CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association, says that the provider tax is “a lifeline to Mississippi hospitals big and small.”

Now, it may be in jeopardy.

“If Congress reduces the 6% ceiling to 5%, 4%, 3% – whatever it may be – there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake that would be lost that are right now keeping many Mississippi hospitals open,” Roberson said at a House Democratic Caucus meeting at the State Capitol last week. “So that’s a significant concern that we have.”

Other proposals being floated include capping the amount of money states can get per Medicaid enrollee, as well as reducing the federal match rate for states that have expanded Medicaid. As a state that hasn’t expanded Medicaid, Mississippi already does not receive an enhanced federal match rate, so it would not be affected by the latter option.

But any proposal that pushes people off Medicaid has direct consequences for hospitals, argued E.J. Kuiper, CEO of the Louisiana-based Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, which owns St. Dominic Health in Jackson. 

Without insurance, patients let their health conditions deteriorate. That, in conjunction with the fact that the emergency room is the only place health care providers can’t turn patients away for not having money, means the emergency room becomes the only source of primary care for uninsured patients. 

“Driving people off Medicaid rolls and making them uninsured – the societal cost is not going to go away,” Kuiper said. “People are still going to get sick whether they’re insured or not. What we’re concerned about is if people don’t have access to the Medicaid program, and are afraid to go see a doctor, what could be a $400 problem in April turns into a $10,000 problem in November.”

The emergency room is the most expensive place to receive care. When patients can’t pay, hospitals pick up the slack covering their care, and the practice – called uncompensated care – costs Mississippi hospitals millions each year. 

Mississippi already has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation. 

Tens of thousands of Mississippians losing health insurance would have a domino effect on employment and the economy, according to a recent report from the Commonwealth Fund. 

Mississippi – whose state leaders have called for work requirements for Medicaid enrollees and stress the importance of a strong labor force participation rate – faces nearly 10,000 people losing their jobs as the result of  potential cuts to Medicaid.

The resolution narrowly passed Congress amid infighting between Republicans allied with Trump and hard-line conservatives who think the legislation doesn’t cut federal spending enough.

But now that the House and Senate have both passed identical versions of the budget resolution, lawmakers can begin working on specifics of what gets cut and how in a complicated process called “reconciliation.” Because reconciliation has been unlocked, Republicans can avoid a filibuster from Democrats and pass the final bill with a simple majority. 

The post Mississippi would lose billions if Congress cuts Medicaid, report says appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Whooping cough cases are accelerating in Mississippi as public health officials prepare for possible measles outbreaks in the state. 

There have been 32 reported pertussis, or whooping cough, cases in Mississippi so far this year, up from 49 total cases last year, reported State Epidemiologist Dr. Renia Dotson at the State Board of Health Meeting April 10.

No measles cases have yet been reported in Mississippi, despite outbreaks in nearby Texas. 

Risk of widespread pertussis or measles outbreaks among young children, who are at greatest risk for both diseases and for having severe complications that can lead to death, are low due to high childhood vaccination rates in Mississippi, said Dotson. The risk of measles outbreaks among adults is low due to lifelong immunity from previous infections.

“Our first line of defense is our immunization rates,” said State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney.

Mississippi has long had the highest child vaccination rates in the country. But since a federal judge ruled in 2023 that parents can opt out of vaccinating their children for school on account of religious beliefs, the vaccination rate has crept lower, falling from 99% to 97.5%.

The state’s declining childhood vaccination rates are “very concerning,” said Dr. Patricia Tibbs, a Laurel pediatrician and the president of the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

“With how much the religious exemption has affected our vaccine rates, I’m just worried that once (measles) hits the state, it’s going to spread,” she said.

Maintaining a childhood vaccination rate above 95% is crucial to prevent measles from becoming endemic, or a constant presence in an area, said Edney. 

Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 as a result of the measles vaccination. But vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving more children vulnerable to the disease. 

Two school-aged children in Texas died from measles this year, and over 500 cases have been reported in the state. Over 600 cases have been reported nationwide across 22 states. 

Measles is a highly contagious acute viral respiratory and rash illness that will lead to the hospitalization of one in five infected people. One to three out of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications. 

The health department is working aggressively to educate physicians and providers on measles.  

“Doctors younger than myself have never seen measles unless they’ve seen it in the developing world,” said Edney.

Whooping cough, named for the “whooping” sound people make when gasping for air after a coughing fit, is a very contagious respiratory illness that may begin like a common cold but lasts for weeks and months. Babies younger than one year of age are at greatest risk for getting whooping cough, and can have severe complications and often require hospitalization. 

Two infants in Louisiana have died of whooping cough in the past six months.

From 2023 to 2024, pertussis cases in the U.S. increased by a factor of seven, soaring from 5,500 to 35,500 cases. 

The best protection for children and communities against measles and whooping cough is vaccination, said Tibbs. She recommends that parents of children who are too young to get the vaccines check on the vaccination status of people who care for their children.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends that children receive two doses of the measles vaccine, which is 97% effective at preventing measles for life. The pertussis vaccination is administered in a five-dose series for children under 7 and booster doses for older children and adults.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cancelled over $200 million in federal grants allocated for COVID-19 pandemic relief to the Mississippi State Department of Health last month, saying the funds were a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The department was using some of those funds to strengthen and augment the state’s epidemiology capacity, including “how we do our surveillance, how we identify when outbreaks are occurring and how we respond,” Edney told Mississippi Today. 

The health department’s reporting systems are adequate for surveilling outbreaks of measles and pertussis, he said. But the cuts will slow the department’s planned improvements to the state public health laboratory and its ability to prepare for emerging pathogens. 

“I think that’s what’s wasteful, not using the money to rebuild public health, but stopping the work halfway through, so now we have a house half-finished with no roof or walls,” Edney said. 

The post Health officials brace for resurgence in childhood illness amid rise in whooping cough and decrease in vaccination rates appeared first on Mississippi Today.