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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — After beating Arizona twice in the Tucson regional and Arkansas twice in the Fayetteville super regional, Ole Miss softball begins its national title hunt Thursday at its first-ever appearance in the Women’s College World Series.

Ole Miss, unseeded going into postseason play, faces the No. 12 seed Texas Tech Thursday at 6 p.m.

Action across the eight-team double-elimination bracket begins Thursday at Devon Park. The final two teams will play for the title in a best-of-three series starting June 4.

In other opening-day matchups, second-seeded Oklahoma plays No. 7 seed Tennessee, third-seeded Florida will play No. 6 seed Texas and No. 9 seed UCLA meets No. 16 seed Oregon.

Although No. 1 overall seed Texas A&M was knocked out in regional play, the SEC has five teams in the field — Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida, Texas and Ole Miss.

Florida beat Georgia in three games to advance. The Gators won national titles in 2014 and 2015 and lost to Oklahoma in the semifinals last year.

Texas has reached the best-of-three championship series in two of the past three seasons, with both losses coming to Oklahoma. The Longhorns are also in their first season in the SEC.

Texas Tech and Ole Miss are first-time qualifiers.

Texas Tech beat host Florida State in a super regional. Pitcher NiJaree Canady, last year’s USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, led Stanford to the national semifinals two straight years before transferring to Tech. She led the Red Raiders to their first Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles.

UCLA and Oregon will meet in a matchup of former Pac-12 teams that moved to the Big Ten this year.

Oregon, the Big Ten regular-season champion, defeated upstart Liberty to advance. Liberty stunned Texas A&M in regional play, but couldn’t get past the Ducks.

UCLA was down to its last out against South Carolina in Game 2 before winning, then took Game 3. The Bruins could add to their record 12 World Series titles.

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a campaign this month to seek accountability from law enforcement departments undergoing federal investigations that the Justice Department under the Trump administration has abandoned. 

Through the “Seven States Safety Campaign,” the ACLU across seven states filed coordinated public records requests seeking to uncover police excesses in those departments. The records requested include Use of Force reports, records of Taser use, and complaints of racial discrimination and profiling. 

“We’re at the beginning of the investigation,” said Joshua Tom, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi. “Once we fully investigate, we can decide then what exactly we’re going to do.”

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on the same day as ACLU’s launch had announced the closure of its investigations into law enforcement departments in Phoenix, Arizona; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City;, Oklahoma; and the state of Louisiana. This came alongside an announcement that its lawsuits against the Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis police departments were going to be dismissed. An investigation into the Lexington, Mississippi, Police Department had been concluded, also, but no consent decree was issued.

In February, the Civil Rights Division had announced that it was pausing all litigation – notably an announcement that did not impact federal oversight of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department as the investigation into it had only been opened, not concluded, and not accompanied by litigation. 

The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a request for comment. This article will be updated if they respond. 

“The purpose of the Seven States Campaign is to try to fill the gap that the Department of Justice under President Trump has left by abandoning the eight investigations that were identified last week,” Tom said. 

The Justice Department is yet to confirm if it is ceasing its patterns and practices investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department in Mississippi, which was opened in 2024, the year after five deputies from the department, who were part of a self-described “Goon Squad” went to prison for their role in the torture of two Black men – one of whom they shot in the mouth.

Tom said that accountability could take various forms, such as consent decrees, damage awards and settlements for victims, and for officers who have engaged in misconduct to lose their jobs. 

“Policing is obviously an important public service. It’s also important that when police do their jobs that they respect people’s civil and constitutional rights, and to the extent that they’re not doing that – such as with the Goon Squad – that they be held accountable.” 

La Sasso becomes the second Rebel ever to win the NCAA golf title, which qualifies him for the U.S. Open in two weeks and next April’s Masters. Also, the Clevelands discuss how Mississippi’s baseball coaches should address pitching in the upcoming NCAA Regionals.

Stream all episodes here.

Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Tuesday that he will call lawmakers into a special session beginning on Wednesday to adopt a $7 billion state budget for the coming budget year that starts July 1. 

Reeves, a Republican, said he and legislative leaders agreed to a budget that keeps most government agencies level-funded, with only small increases for employee insurance costs and pension contributions and “staying true to our conservative principles.” This will leave the state well over $1 billion in untapped cash, which Reeves and some legislative leaders is a good idea given uncertainty on federal spending.

“S​​ince it became apparent that a budget would not be passed during this year’s regular session, I’ve been clear that we should prioritize funding core government functions and keeping spending under control,” Reeves said. 

Mississippi lawmakers must return for a special session because they adjourned their 2025 regular session earlier this year without passing a budget. Lawmakers were mired in political infighting over tax cuts and increases and capital projects, including many pet projects lawmakers wanted for their districts.

Legislative leaders, after the regular session ended, continued to bicker over spending on projects for weeks, pushing the special session closer to the end of the fiscal year. In order to have the Legislature quickly pass a budget and hopefully avoid prolonged argument, Reeves said legislators wouldn’t consider special projects or other major issues during the special session. 

The state constitution gives the governor, not the Legislature, the sole power to call a special session and set its agenda. He had to call them back into session before June 30 to prevent much of state government from shutting down.

The governor said he hopes legislators can quickly pass the budget, but Democratic leaders have criticized the rushed nature of setting a budget in recent years and said they have not received advanced copies of the bills that direct the spending. 

Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, a Democrat from Greenville, and House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, a Democrat from Natchez, in a joint statement criticized the rushed nature of the special session and urged legislative leadership to provide members sufficient time to vet the 100-plus budget bills. 

“Withholding finalized legislation from duly elected lawmakers jeopardizes the integrity of the legislative process and erodes public trust,” the two leaders said. 

For years, rank-and-file lawmakers have complained that they often don’t have time to read the lengthy budget bills because of the rushed nature of Saturday-night budget negotiations in regular session. This hurry-up has also caused lawmakers and staff attorneys in previous years to make mistakes in legislation.

The governor said he believes lawmakers will have sufficient time to review the budget. He also dismissed the Democratic leaders’ concerns about the schedule, saying he doubts they read every bill during the regular session. 

Last year, lawmakers passed a little over $7.05 billion state budget. Reeves said lawmakers will likely provide around $100 million more in deficit spending for the current fiscal year, putting the total spending for the current fiscal year around $7.15 billion. 

If lawmakers follow through with the agreement legislative leaders reached with Reeves, the governor said the budget for the next fiscal year will be roughly $7.135 billion. 

Ole Miss’ softball team is playing in the College World Series and the baseball team is hosting an NCAA Regional, but the Rebels already have claimed one national championship this spring.

Ole Miss junior golfer Michael La Sasso recovered from two double bogeys on his first nine holes to shoot a final round 72 to win the NCAA Golf Tournament’s individual championship Monday at Carlsbad, California.

La Sasso, from Raleigh, North Carolina, carded a 72-hole total of 11-under par 277 for a two-shot victory over Phichaksn Maichon of Texas A&M. What’s more, La Sasso’s par 4 on the 72nd and final hole of the stroke play tournament put Ole Miss in the eight-team match play finals for the NCAA Team Championship. It marked the first time in school history the Rebels have made the match play finals.

La Sasso, who transferred to Ole Miss after a freshman season at North Carolina State, becomes the second Ole Miss player to win an NCAA title, following Braden Thornberry who won in 2017 and now plays on the PGA TOUR. Ole Miss, which has never won the team championship, was slated to play Arizona State in a quarterfinal match Tuesday morning.

Sasso, ranked No. 11 in the world among amateur golfers, shot rounds of 68, 67, 70 and 72 to win the championship. The two double bogeys and a bogey on the front nine left him two shots behind Malchon after nine holes. He steadied himself over the last nine holes, playing bogey-less golf.

Afterward, Sasso said he was most proud of the way he won, coming back from so much adversity early in the round, telling reporters: “I’ve personally fought a s— ton of stuff these last two years since I’ve been at Ole Miss. I feel like I’m a pretty gritty guy.”

While La Sasso earned individual honors with his resiliency, Tom Fischer, a a junior from Birmingham, was the Rebels’ star on Sunday. After shooting a 77 on Saturday, Fischer rebounded with a 68 on Sunday, tied with Malchon for low round of the day. Fischer’s final round included six birdies and only two bogeys.

Fischer tied with Rebel Cohen Trolio of West Point to tie for 44th in the individual standings with 293 totals. Cameron Tankersley was next at 302, followed by Key Meeks at 309.

The Ole Miss golf program has made steady progress under 11th year coach Chris Malloy, a former Rebel golfer himself. This was the eighth consecutive year the Rebels have achieved an NCAA Regional appearance.

La Sasso, a first team All American, won his third and by far the biggest title of the season on the North course at Omni La Costa at Carlsbad, near San Diego. The victory qualifies him for the U.S. Open in two weeks and for The Masters next April. He is expected to turn pro later this spring and becoming immediately eligible for the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour.

The award-winning musical “Come From Away” lands in Jackson, Mississippi, at a time when its true, uplifting story of cross-border bonds and international unity may feel more like a relic of days gone by. Perfect timing to inspire the hope and connection that is at the show’s heart, cast members say.

New Stage Theatre is among the first regional theaters, and first in the Southeast, to mount a production of the hit Broadway musical, which ended its North American tour just weeks ago. Performances are May 27-June 8.

The musical is based on actual events in the immediate aftermath of the shocking tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when the shut down of U.S. airspace forced hundreds of planes to divert to Canada. Thirty-eight flights were forced to land in Gander in Newfoundland, a small town facing the sudden influx of about 7,000 people stranded far from home. Their hospitality and volunteer efforts are at the core of a joyous musical.

“Come From Away” unfolds in storyteller fashion, as an ensemble cast of 12 morphs into some 50 characters in dozens of scenes over the fast-paced musical’s 90-minute run time. The Celtic-inspired folk rock score links to Newfoundland’s musical heritage, and scrims hand-painted by Scenic Designer Braden Graves evoke the province’s landscape. A dozen chairs and a few tables are about the only props, as the actors, through costume bits, accents, physicality and sheer skill, sweep audiences along.

The custom motorized and programmable turntable on stage, newly engineered and built from scratch by the theater’s production team, keeps the story in motion. At 24 feet in diameter at its max, the turntable also adds a significant asset to New Stage’s drama toolkit, available for future productions and possible rental. “The stars aligned for me this season” and for this show, Technical Director Richard Lawrence said, with a crew that included three welders and an engineer. He chuckled, recalling nightly worries whether it would work. Once they mounted it, he rounded up a dozen crew members to stand on it, to test. “We turned it. And it worked. And I cried,” he said, laughing in relief.

About a week before opening night, actors had just finished a run-through, but had yet to experience their first “ride-through” on the turntable set. “This is magic!” veteran actor Ray McFarland (here in his 51st New Stage show) gushed as he eyed the stage’s new feature. “I’ve never seen this except on, like, Broadway — this big of a turntable. Hats off to the tech crew.”

With the emotional peaks and valleys of “Come From Away,” fresh in mind, actors reflected on memories and feelings its stories call up, from the anguish and scary confusion of the 9/11 attacks to the way this fleshes out a historical event some were too young to understand in the moment.

Actor John Howell saw the Broadway production, the same day he visited the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in 2018. “It really brought it to life in a way that a museum can’t do, because it was the personal stories of these people who actually experienced this — all these different points of view … and all of them have different reactions and needs and losses. Very powerful.”

Actor Hosea Griffith, a French Elementary first-grader in 2001, said the news arrived just after students finished their Pledge of Allegiance and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” morning routine. The principal told teachers to turn on their TVs. He saw the adults slump, their energy evaporate. “The whole mood of class and of that day — the life was sucked out of it.”

For Lauren Parkinson, 2 at the time with no firsthand memory of 9/!!, “This show has revealed a lot to me about that day that I could never learn from watching videos on YouTube. … This is making it real for me in a brand new way.”

McFarland, who had returned to Jackson after a 15-year stint in New York, thought of people he knew who worked in the Word Trade Center and had the searing thought, “We’re at war.” 

“If you’re old enough to remember, it will grab you in a very personal moment,” he said of the show. “You will remember things that happened that day, as clear as a bell. It will also help you remember all of the good that came out of it, because, as we watched on the TV, the world came to take care of us. We took care of each other, and that’s what this show is about.”

The show is more about the aftermath of 9/11, and how people banded together and coped. Many times, people cope with humor, “and there’s some stuff in this show that’s just downright funny,” McFarland noted.

“You have all these people from all these cultures from all around the world stuck here in this teeny tiny Canadian town, and it’s hilarious what happens because of that,” Parkinson said.

The musical lands in Jackson at a time when President Trump’s musing about Canada as a 51st state, tariff talks and more in recent months has eroded relations between the two nations. It delivers real-life historical perspective and a reminder of the healing power of strong bonds that can last years.

“It could not be at a better time,” McFarland said. “We need to take care of each other and come together more than we have in decades right now.”

“I think this show might be a tonic to audiences,” Howell said. “It might be something that they need right now.”

Said McFarland: “It’s not just about taking care of each other, personally. It’s about taking care of America. We took care of America back then.”

“And Canada helped us,” Howell was quick to add. 

“On the individual level, people care about each other,” he said. “Whatever their political leanings may be and where that takes them, when it comes down to the wire and people are in a crisis, they will come to each other’s aid, regardless of where they live, regardless of who they’re having to assist.”

Griffith said, “People just see humanity on that stage, just humanity, and realize that there is humanity in all of us. And though we are different, we’re not too much different.”

Performance times are: 7 p.m. May 27-31 and June 3-7; 1 p.m. June 4; and 2 p.m. June 1 and 8. Tickets are $50 adults, $45 seniors/students/military. Visit newstagetheatre.com, email tickets@newstageheatre.com or call 601-948-3533. The theater is located at 1100 Carlisle St. in Jackson.

The Road to Omaha now has its road map, and we should hear no complaints from Hattiesburg, Starkville or Oxford. As per usual, Mississippi will be well represented in the NCAA Baseball Tournament.

Ole Miss and Southern Miss will both host NCAA Regionals and Mississippi State, after a season in which it fired the head coach, is in the tournament as a 3-seed at Florida State. You won’t see that happen often.

First things first: Ole Miss, the No. 10 national seed, will play Murray State Friday night at 7 p.m. Southern Miss, the 16-seed, will play Columbia University Friday night at 6 p.m. State plays Northeastern, which has won 26 straight games, Friday night at 6:30 at Tallahassee.

In the other half of the Oxford regional, Georgia Tech plays Western Kentucky. In the other first round game at Hattiesburg, Alabama plays Miami. At Tallahassee, host Florida State will play Bethune-Cookman.

You ask me, both Southern Miss coach Christian Ostrander and Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco have big decisions to make. Both teams have established pitching aces in USM’s JB Middleton and the Rebels’ Hunter Elliott. Do you start your ace against the weaker 4-seed, or do you save him to pitch against a decidedly more formidable opponent on Saturday? Clearly, State interim head coach Justin Parker doesn’t face the same quandary. You go with your best when facing a higher seed with a 26-game win streak – no matter what league they play in.

The old school approach is that the next game is the most important game. In other words, throw you ace. Keep in mind also, you need for your game one starter to go as deep as possible into the game, saving your bullpen arms for a long weekend. The flip side: Having your best pitcher available to start the second game gives you a decided edge going against your opponent’s No. 2 pitcher.

Bianco’s decision is complicated by the fact that Murray State, the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament champions, is one of the nation’s best No. 4 seeds. The Racers have won 39 games and seven for their last eight. In mid-week regular season games, the Racers lost 8-7 in 10 innings at Ole Miss and won at Kentucky 5-4. Using golf terminology, Murray is no gimme. The Racers hit .301 as a team. Still, I’d lean toward holding Elliott for either ACC regular season champ Georgia Tech or Western Kentucky.

At USM, Ostrander must strongly consider holding Middleton, the recent Ferriss Trophy winner and likely All-American and high MLB draft choice. Columbia, the Ivy League regular season and tournament champ, hits at a .290 clip but, at least on paper, has pitching issues. The Lions’ team earned run average is 6.57 and opponents are hitting .290 against them. Me? I’d take my chances with Matt Adams, who has been really good of late, against Columbia, and then have Middleton, he of the 10-1 record and .168 opponents’ batting average, to go against Alabama or Miami. Southern Miss has won all six of Adams’ most recent starts, and he threw seven innings of four-hit, shutout baseball against Old Dominion in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.

More college baseball observations:

• The SEC placed a record 13 teams in the tournament, which represents roughly 20 percent of the field. The only SEC selection I’d quibble with: Kentucky, at 29-24 and losing its last four and seven of its last 10 games.

• Color me surprised the Troy Trojans were left out of the 64-team field. Troy finished 39-21 and was nationally ranked for much of the season. Troy was the nation’s only team that hadn’t lost a weekend series until being swept in the last series of the regular season by Southern Miss. The Trojans did lose six of their last eight, and it now seems certain that the 2-1 loss to USM in the Sun Belt semifinals probably kept them out. 

• Ole Miss, picked to finish 15th in the SEC, is instead the 10th national seed. Mike Bianco deserves strong consideration for any Coach of the Year honor out there.

• Looking ahead: The Oxford Regional is matched with the Athens Regional, meaning if the No. 1 seeds advance, Ole Miss would play a Super Regional at Georgia, a team the Rebels did not play in 2025. The Hattiesburg Regional is matched with the Nashville Regional, which means Southern Miss, the No. 16 national seed, would play overall 1-seed Vandy if both teams advance. The Tallahassee Regional is matched against the Corvallis Regional, which means State would likely head far to the west if the Bulldogs can advance.

• Southern Miss has now achieved nine consecutive 40-win seasons. No other Division I baseball team in the country has done that. This will be the Golden Eagles’ ninth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance (not counting the 2020 season curtailed by Covid).

Just before municipal elections this year, the city of Jackson quietly settled a more than decade-long battle over public transportation standards for people who have disabilities. 

In January, Disability Rights Mississippi and Jackson reached a settlement agreement establishing standards that JTRAN, Jackson’s transportation system, must continue to reach for in the coming months. Otherwise, the city could face further legal action from disability advocates. 

While it may be considered progress for the city, the conclusion of the lawsuit was not publicized earlier this year as the mayor ran unsuccessfully for reelection, though he generally touted improvements in JTRAN during the campaign. Materials from Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s campaign highlight updates to JTRAN’s bus fleet, as well as securing more than $20 million in federal funds to improve Jackson’s transit system. 

Scott Crawford, the lead plaintiff in the 2008 lawsuit, which led to a 14 year-long consent decree, said the settlement agreement is a move in the right direction. 

“The notion that the consent decree could last forever is just not realistic. You can’t tie up a court system overseeing a transit system forever. That is not practical, and I’m the lead plaintiff,” said Crawford, JTRAN Paratransit Advisory Committee Chairperson. “You can’t have courts overseeing a system forever, so they needed it off the docket. That’s just a pragmatic fact of life. We had it in place for 14 years, and that’s a very long time.”

Those standards include ensuring that 95% of telephone hold times are not longer than three minutes and 99% are not longer than five minutes. It also states no more than 10 trip denials in a month, which occurs when JTRAN cannot provide a trip or when JTRAN offers a trip with a pick-up or drop-off time differing by more than 60 minutes from the requested time.

In addition, the settlement agreement focuses on the timeliness of passenger pickups, with at least 90% of all pickups occurring within the on-time pickup window, which is 30 minutes, and 95% of all pickups within 45 minutes.

“To be accurate and clear, we’ve only met that standard one month, so we’re not there yet. Nobody’s declaring victory. It’s a work in progress,” Crawford said. 

Minutes from April’s JTRAN Paratransit Advisory Committee meeting provides data that shows trip cancellations were down in January and February. Excessive ride times were up, with a few rides lasting longer than 120 minutes. The settlement agreement says that the city shall not provide excessively long trips for more than 5% of paratransit trips in a month, and no trip should be longer than 120 minutes.

“We have been in the range of 78% to 85% (for on-time dropoffs) in the last several months. I hope we can get up to 90% for Paratransit on-time performance. That would be an acceptable level of timeliness when you’re trying to get to appointments,” he said. “If you’re the medical provider or you’re the employer, you really want your folks to be on time for their appointments and their jobs, so it matters.”

The city of Jackson contracted with MV Transportation to manage transportation services, including JTRAN bus drivers, in January of 2024. Last fall, the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1208, which represents the drivers, went on strike against MV Transportation due to concerns such as long hours, wrongful terminations and safer working conditions. The strike lasted two weeks. 

Christine Welch, deputy director for the Office of Transportation, said that one thing JTRAN needs now is more bus drivers.

“It’s across the board. Drivers,” Welch said. “Currently we have about 54, 55. The desired number is hopefully about 60 drivers.”

JTRAN’s buses are ADA accessible, she said, meaning that people with disabilities can ride fixed routes or paratransit. But paratransit comes with some limitations. 

“You have to first be certified for that service based on your medical disability,” she said. “It’s a door to door service, curb to curb. Our services operate within three-fourths of a mile of a fixed route.”

Crawford said that one way to ensure JTRAN meets the standards agreed to in the settlement is for the city to hire more bus operators and pay them a fair wage. 

MV Transportation’s current job listings for CDL drivers in Jackson come with a starting pay of about $16-an-hour. The city is also seeking an associate planner who will aid JTRAN in managing paratransit services.

“I think public transit is worth its weight in gold. I think we underpay our transit staff, and that would help. That’s one way to fix this, but trying to convince lawmakers is an uphill battle,” Crawford said. “These are professionals who are doing a stressful job, and they need to be paid like it.” 

Greta Martin, litigation director for Disability Rights Mississippi, said that the protection and advocacy organization will continue to monitor data that the city of Jackson provides to them on a monthly basis. 

“For every piece of data that we get from the city of Jackson, there is some kind of number that they have to stay within,” Martin said. “It’s kind of a wraparound situation that we have. We’re making sure that we keep an eye on the data, but we’re also trying to work with the city, knowing that they have their own limitations, but then we also want to be accountable to the community and understand what their perspective is as people that utilized the services.”

Martin said by ending the consent decree and reaching a settlement agreement, it allows the city and her organization to direct time and resources toward improving public transit and quality of life for people who have disabilities. 

“That was the point of filing the litigation to begin with, to hold them accountable for the services they should be providing people with disabilities in the city,” Martin said. “I hope it fosters a collaboration with the city so that not only will they lean upon us for these issues involving public transit, but also that they will lean upon us for making the city of Jackson more accessible as a whole.”

Martin has represented plaintiffs in the JTRAN lawsuit since she started at the legal advocacy organization seven years ago. A little over a year ago, the city hired Martin’s husband, Drew Martin, as its lead attorney. The plaintiff’s lawyer said she’s received more feedback from the city attorney’s office in the last year than at any other point in the litigation. 

She quipped that may be because “my husband sees my name on the email and says, ‘I better answer it.’”

“I’ll take my wins anywhere I can find them for people with disabilities,” Greta Martin said.

Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Friday that he intends to call a special legislative session next week for lawmakers to pass a state budget.

The move comes after House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, both Republicans, said separately that they had reached a handshake deal on a $7 billion state budget, which was supposed to have been passed earlier this year in regular session.

Reeves, a Republican, said he informed Hosemann and White on Friday that he intends to call a special session for the middle of next week.

“The proposed budget does not materially increase state spending, is fiscally conservative, and will help us to continue Mississippi’s historic economic momentum,” Reeves said in a statement posted on social media. “I’m proud of the work we’ve done to reach this agreement. I’d like to thank Mississippi’s legislative appropriators for working diligently throughout the budget negotiation process. I’m excited to get the special session completed and look forward to quickly passing the budget.”

Multiple legislators told Mississippi Today that House Speaker Jason White’s office notified them that the special session would begin on Wednesday morning, though the governor has not yet publicly said when it will begin.

Mississippi lawmakers must return for a special session because they adjourned their 2025 regular session earlier this year without passing a budget. Lawmakers were mired in political infighting over tax reform and capital projects, including many lawmakers’ pet projects in their districts.

The Senate wanted to spend only on projects for state agencies, universities and colleges. The House believed there was enough money to fund projects in counties and municipalities around the state, in addition to the state projects.

The political reality is that legislative leadership tightly controls the bulk of the local projects in what’s often referred to as the “Christmas Tree bill.” Leadership can use these projects to reward people who buy into their agenda and punish members who buck the leadership.

Such special projects for back home are often a key focus of rank-and-file lawmakers who don’t have prominent leadership roles at the Capitol.

Legislators must return to the Capitol to pass a budget in special session before the new budget year begins July 1. Failure to pass a new state budget by the end of June could result in some agencies shutting down until they are funded.

President Donald Trump on Friday approved Mississippi’s request for federal assistance to help recover from deadly tornadoes and severe weather that left damage spread across the state on March 14 to 15.

“That’s good news,” said Walthall County Emergency Director Royce McKee on Friday, over two months since the storms hit. “Everybody will be happy we can start picking up the debris. People will start to see the light at the end of tunnel.”

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said it didn’t know yet how much money would come to the state. MEMA did confirm that the federal government would cover 100% of costs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Individual Assistance aid — a program that sends direct payments to those affected by the storms — and 75% of costs for FEMA’s Public Assistance, which pays for repairs to public infrastructure. The state and local governments will split the remaining those costs.

The 11 counties that qualified for Individual Assistance are: Covington, Grenada, Issaquena, Itawamba, Jefferson Davis, Leflore, Marion, Montgomery, Pike, Smith and Walthall. The 17 counties that qualified for Public Assistance are: Calhoun, Carroll, Covington, Grenada, Humphreys, Issaquena, Itawamba, Jefferson Davis, Lee, Leflore, Marion, Pike, Prentiss, Sharkey, Smith, Walthall and Washington.

Residents impacted by the storms can apply for assistance through this online portal, by calling 1-800-621-3362, or on FEMA’s mobile app.

The March storms killed seven Mississippians and injured dozens of others, while damaging nearly a thousand homes, according to MEMA’s tally. Of those homes, the storms destroyed 164, and left another 204 with “major damage,” which usually means a home is no longer habitable.

In Walthall County, McKee said over 100 homes were destroyed or received major damage. The biggest priority with FEMA’s support, he said, is taking care of displaced residents who are either living in hotels or staying with family.

“We’re a poor county and have a lot of people that don’t have insurance,” McKee said. “It’ll be leaps and bounds for them trying to get back to normal.”

Starting next week, FEMA will have in-person stations in Mississippi to enroll storm victims in assistance programs. MEMA Director of External Affairs Scott Simmons said the state agency will soon make information on those locations available on its website.

In Leflore County, where the storms damaged 314 homes, Emergency Director Fred Randle said it took a while for insurance companies to reach some places, and even then there were “a lot” of costs that insurance didn’t cover.

“We had a lot of people (where) it was two weeks before the insurance adjuster could get out and check their home because there was so much damage everywhere,” Randle said, adding that while it was nerve-wracking waiting over two months for the decision on FEMA aid, it was good news to receive going into the holiday weekend. “It’ll help us tremendously. Something to help celebrate.”