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Deep South Today, the nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News in New Orleans, Louisiana, and The Current in Lafayette, Louisiana, announced Tuesday that it will create a new regional investigative reporting center in collaboration with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship.

The Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center will launch in early 2026 with a lead investigative editor, dedicated full-time investigative and data reporters, and New York Times Local Investigations Fellows at Mississippi Today and Verite News. It will also include support from Big Local News, a program at Stanford University that empowers journalists with data, tools and collaborations. As the Deep South Today network of newsrooms continues to grow, the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center will add capacity in its new newsrooms with dedicated reporters and fellows.

“The Deep South Today newsrooms are already publishing impactful and award-winning investigative reporting, and our new Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship will dramatically expand the breadth and depth of that work,” said Warwick Sabin, President and CEO of Deep South Today. “We developed Deep South Today to provide the infrastructure to sustain and grow local journalism in a region that is under-resourced and underserved, and this critically important initiative will advance our mission.”

The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship is committing substantial resources in addition to the fellowship positions. Deputy Editor Chris Davis will manage the Deep South Today investigative team and the work will be co-published by Deep South Today newsrooms and The Times, and made available to local news organizations for co-publication. The Times will also lend staff time to help Deep South Today recruit, hire and train the editors and reporters who will be a part of their new investigative reporting center, as well as edit the stories being produced. Support from the Times will help fast-track Deep South Today’s ambitious goals to produce local beat coverage and investigative stories of importance to communities across the region. Additionally, the Local Investigations Fellowship will continue working with other newsrooms across the U.S. to produce original accountability journalism.

“Deep South Today has big ambitions for robust coverage of the South and building an investigative team is vital to that mission,” said Dean Baquet, former Executive Editor of The Times who now leads the Local Investigations Fellowship program. “We’ve already worked with Mississippi Today to much success and we look forward to doing more.”

Across the Deep South, the capacity of local and state newsrooms to produce resource-intensive, in-depth investigative reporting that exposes injustice and holds the powerful accountable is scarce. Local journalism is under attack on numerous fronts, and this initiative is being launched at a critical time when access to public information in the public interest is increasingly being restricted and accountability reporting is more challenging than ever to produce.

“This collaboration will redefine what’s possible for local journalism,” said Adam Ganucheau, Deep South Today’s Executive Editor and Chief Content Officer and a native Mississippian. “By combining the familiarity and trust of Deep South Today’s newsrooms with the resources and expertise of The New York Times, we’re building something truly unprecedented — a regional force for accountability and change. Together, we’re proving that the future of investigative reporting starts here, in communities that need it most.”

By working with The Times to launch and build out a new investigative reporting center, Deep South Today will position an upstart investigative team alongside some of the most prominent editors in the journalism industry. This initiative builds on the success that Mississippi Today already established with The Times and Big Local News: A joint investigation by those organizations about corruption and abuse by Mississippi sheriffs was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting and led to expanded federal investigations and legislative reforms in the state. Mississippi Today also separately won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2023 for its investigative series “The Backchannel” and The Local Investigations Fellowship won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2025 in collaboration with the Baltimore Banner and Big Local News for an investigation into the deadly opioid crisis.

“This collaboration is about more than just investigative journalism — it’s about building power through reporting in communities that have long been overlooked and where local newspapers are struggling to survive” said Terry Baquet, Verite News Editor-in-Chief and a Louisiana native. “We’re not just working together on stories; with The New York Times, we’re building a new model for how serious journalism can thrive in the South. It’s deeply personal to me, and I believe it is the future of local journalism.”

Integrating data journalism into the investigative teams and providing mentoring and training in computational methods with the support of Big Local News will level up the capacities of the Deep South Today newsrooms to uncover hidden patterns, provide sophisticated investigative coverage, and lower the cost of accountability reporting through better use of tools and algorithms.

“These resources mean Big Local News will be able to provide data journalism support to the Deep South reporters and editors that will further equip them to find and report out critical investigative stories,” said Cheryl Phillips, Founder and Co-Director of Big Local News. “I hope this work in the Deep South can serve as a model for how to scale local news.”

This initiative was made possible through a grant from Arnold Ventures, and Deep South Today and The Times view it as an opportunity to create a new sustainable, replicable model for building strong regional investigative teams that can produce high-impact local, state and regional stories in underserved communities.

All of the new positions for the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center will soon be posted on the Deep South Today website at: https://deepsouthtoday.org/careers

ABOUT DEEP SOUTH TODAY

Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News and The Current.

Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now the largest newsroom in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.

With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, and ensuring its long-term growth and sustainability.

ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times Company is a trusted source of quality, independent journalism whose mission is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. With more than 11 million subscribers across a diverse array of print and digital products — from news to cooking to games to sports — The Times is a diversified media company with curious readers, listeners and viewers around the globe.

ABOUT BIG LOCAL NEWS

Launched in 2020 as a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative, Big Local News helps reporters better use data in service of accountability journalism. Big Local News shares data and reporting recipes for journalists to localize stories at biglocalnews.org. It also provides news detection tools that monitor a wide variety of data and information streams. The goal: make it easier for journalists to find the stories that matter at the local level.

Big Local News regularly supports and mentors journalists in computational methods, including the New York Times Investigative Reporting Fellows, and was integrally involved with a collaborative project with The Times and The Baltimore Banner, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting earlier this year.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections will review more than two dozen unprosecuted homicides inside its prisons, as well as deaths where causes were ruled as “undetermined,” following an investigation by several news sites, including Mississippi Today and The Marshall Project – Jackson.

“All the deaths that we’ve had since 2015, we’re going back to revisit,” Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain told the reporting team. “There is no statute of limitations, as you know, on homicide.”

Cain’s comments follow an investigation by a team of Mississippi reporters that revealed at least 43 people died by homicide inside Mississippi prisons since 2015. Total murder convictions in those cases? Eight, including two guilty pleas that came after the news stories were published.

The prison homicide investigation involved reporters and editors from The Marshall Project – Jackson, Mississippi Today, The Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link. 

A prisoner advocacy group said revisiting past homicides won’t address the key reasons for the deaths in the first place — chronic understaffing of security officers.

Revisiting past homicides is “sort of closing the door after the horse has left the barn,” said David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “What the commissioner also needs to do is figure out why this is happening and what to do to stop it.” 

Deaths officially categorized as homicides this year appear to have reached their highest level since 2020, when a gang war pushed that year’s total to at least nine killings.

Forty-one-year-old Aaron Harrison became the sixth person killed in a state prison this year when he died on July 3. A medical examiner later ruled that Harrison, incarcerated at East Mississippi Correctional Facility, was killed by blunt force trauma.  

A nurse practitioner at the prison noticed bruising on Harrison while treating him for a possible drug overdose before he died, according to an incident report obtained by the news reporting team. Court records show that no one has been charged in Harrison’s death, but it is not unusual for homicide investigations to take up to a year.

State Rep. Becky Currie, who chairs the House Corrections Committee, asked a legislative committee last month — as the reporting team was about to publish its investigation — to look into all prison deaths for the past five years. 

The Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review analyzes state agency programs and operations and can issue recommendations.

Even with recent deaths, she’s found that little information is shared with the families, the public and lawmakers when an incarcerated person dies. 

“How can you say you’ll keep people safe if you don’t know what they’re dying of?” Currie asked.

Internal investigations

The corrections department has its own criminal investigations unit and can refer cases to county prosecutors for further action.

Cain said the agency’s Criminal Investigations Division is now examining each death that was not referred to a district attorney’s office. About 25 people work for CID, which has been rebuilt since he took over corrections in 2020, he said.

“We’ve brought a lot more professionalism,” Cain said.

Each prison has an investigator who can respond quickly, and more investigators work out of the central office than before, he said. “That way we can keep the integrity and know what’s going on.”

He compared the investigators’ work on these homicides to working on cold cases. “They’re looking for answers.”

“We’re going back to visit all that to be sure that we haven’t left any stone unturned,” Cain said. “Every crime that is committed in the prison, no matter how small,” will be referred to a county prosecutor. “If he wants to throw it in the trash and not prosecute, that’s up to him.”

In the past decade, prosecutors indicted people in 16 of the 43 homicides, with eight guilty pleas. One case was dropped because the accused person died by suicide before his day in court. Another was dropped in light of evidence that supported the accused person’s claim of self-defense. The remaining six indictments, handed up between 2022 and June 2025, are pending trial. 

The commissioner shared similar comments during a Sept. 24 legislative budget hearing, but lawmakers did not ask him follow-up questions about the investigations. Among those in attendance were House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.

When reached by the reporting team, the offices of Hosemann and White, along with the state auditor’s office, declined to comment. 

The state Senate Corrections Committee chairman, Sen. Juan Barnett, did not respond to requests for comment about the team’s findings and Cain’s remarks. 

In addition to the 43 homicides, another 21 prisoner deaths since 2015 have been ruled “undetermined” by the state medical examiner’s office. That means medical examiners were not able to come to a conclusive answer about how a person died. An undetermined death could be a homicide, suicide, accidental, or a natural death. 

For example, Richard Weems’ 2022 death was ruled undetermined, but medical examiners noted his body showed signs of blunt force trauma. An incarcerated person told the Mississippi Free Press in 2023 that he saw Weems being beaten.

Asked if MDOC planned to review deaths marked as undetermined, Cain replied, “We’re going to look at all of them.”

Cain said prison security has been improved in recent years with more video cameras, six narcotic detection dogs, a drone detecting system and enhanced video on the prisons’ fences to stop drugs from being thrown over or dropped by drones. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the abundance of illegal drugs in MDOC facilities has led to extortion and violence, the department’s 2024 investigation found. 

Staffing shortages lead to violence, advocates say

One of the key problems the news investigation identified is the chronic understaffing that leaves incarcerated people vulnerable to violence. 

Fathi called the staffing levels in Mississippi prisons “a five-alarm emergency.” 

Corrections spokesperson Kate Head said in a statement that staffing “is central to safety and security.” The department continues to address the shortages and strengthen staff accountability, she told the news team.

Since Cain took the helm in 2020, the starting salary for a correctional officer increased by about $13,000, beginning at $40,392. Still, it is hard to hire and retain staff for such dangerous jobs. 

About 30% of the funded corrections officer positions were vacant, Deputy Commissioner Nathan Blevins told lawmakers at the budget hearing in September. 

“No prison can operate safely with that kind of staffing,” Fathi said, “It’s not safe for the incarcerated people, it’s not safe for the staff… it’s not safe for anybody.” 

Homicides in the prisons often happened when corrections officers were not watching.

For instance, Ronnie Graham was killed at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County in 2021, but his battered body was not discovered by a corrections officer for at least five hours. In another case, Jonathan Havard was strangled to death earlier this year at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. However, his body was only discovered after an unidentified parent called to tell the prison officials that he had been killed, according to prison records.

Compounding the staffing problems is the growing prison population. Since December 2021, the number of state prisoners has increased from about 16,800 to 19,300, returning to pre-pandemic levels. Cain said the increase is largely due to high rates of recidivism. 

About 47% of people released in fiscal year 2021 returned to prison within three years, according to state corrections data. 

“If we do a better job of getting them employable, then that’s the whole key to recidivism and not coming back,” Cain said in the legislative hearing. “Recidivism is killing us.”

Cain’s promise of new investigations into unsolved homicides sparked hope for a mother who lost a son. 

Janice Wilkins, the mother of Denorris Howell, who was killed in the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman in 2020, said she is grateful that her son’s case will be reviewed.

“It means a whole lot to me,” she said. “Once they review everything, they should move forward.”

Grant McLaughlin with the Clarion Ledger contributed to this report.

LELAND – Destrile Jackson recited Psalm 23 as she ran for her life while bullets whizzed around her. Then she hid under a Jeep, watching as “guys with black T-shirts” shot at the sidewalk in her hometown in the Mississippi Delta.

She was sure she was going to get hit in the explosion of gunfire Friday night in Leland at a block party following a high school homecoming football game. She did but was not seriously wounded.

“I got hit running across the street. I just kept running. I could see the bodies dropping as I looked back. … I could see the bodies. … Just three minutes of continuing fire,” Jackson, a 2016 Leland High graduate, recalled Monday.

“I could see people drop like something you see in a movie,” she said. “It was panic. Everyone was in survival mode. People running and getting trampled. Some guy was having a seizure near me. It was pure panic.”

Mississippi communities from Leland to Lorman are reeling from the chaos of gun violence that killed nine people and wounded more than a dozen during or after high school and college homecoming celebrations Friday and Saturday.

Leland became the site of the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. this year when six people were killed and 20 were wounded in gunfire that erupted late Friday during a celebration downtown that included people who had returned to the small town to see friends and family. 

“It’s sad that we’re now known for a mass shooting. It had nothing to do with the school or the students,” Leland nonprofit leader Jasmine Styles said Monday, hours before the community held a candlelight vigil to honor victims of the violence.

“The most we’re used to is kids stealing license plates off cars,” she said. “The most we saw recently was kids setting off firecrackers at the tailgate, and people thought they were gunshots.”

Styles, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor, said she drove by downtown Leland on Sunday.

“It’s been taped off,” she said. “It looks like a cloud of gloom.”

The FBI Jackson office set up a digital media tips website where people with information can anonymously share cellphone video, photos or other information about the Leland shooting.

Elsewhere in Mississippi, two died in gunfire after the Heidelberg High School homecoming Friday night, including a pregnant woman. On Saturday, the Alcorn State University homecoming in Lorman ended in the shooting death of a 29-year-old Vicksburg woman and the wounding of two others.

The condition of a child shot in the abdomen in the tailgate area after the Jackson State homecoming Saturday in Jackson is unknown.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is assisting local and federal law enforcement agencies in investigating the shootings. No arrests had been made by Monday in the JSU or Alcorn State shootings.

Washington County coroner LaQuesha Watkins identified the Leland victims as Oreshama Johnson, 41; Calvin Plant, 19; Shelbyona Powell, 25; Kaslyn Johnson, 18; Amos Brantley Jr., 18; and JaMichael Jones, 34.

Brekyra Fisher, 29, of Vicksburg, died in the shooting at Alcorn State, according to Claiborne County Coroner Kieon Neal. 

Maxine Greenleaf, vice president of marketing and communications at Alcorn State, said the victim was not a student. A university statement said the campus in rural southwestern Mississippi now has “heightened security measures in place.” 

“Our deepest condolences and prayers go out to the family and loved ones of the deceased,” the university statement said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured individuals and their families as well.”

Anyone with information is urged to contact Campus Police at 601-877-3000 or MBI and Crime Stoppers at 888-827-4637 or MBITIPS@dps.ms.gov.

The student government associations at Alcorn State and JSU released a joint statement that they “stand together – united as one HBCU.”

“Our shared legacy as Mississippi’s two premier HBCUs calls us to uplift one another – not only in moments of celebration, but also in times of challenge.”

The Jasper County coroner’s office identified the Heidelberg victims as Mikeia McCray, 28, of Laurel, who was pregnant, and Chris Newell, 35, also of Laurel. 

“The town has never experienced anything like this before, and my heart goes out to those devastated by this tragedy,” state Sen. Juan Barnett, former mayor of Heidelberg, said Monday. “It brings tears to my eyes right now. It really hurts.”

Heidelberg Police Chief Cornell White said Monday the department and other agencies continue to investigate. The town is about 85 miles southeast of Jackson.

Tylar Jarod Goodloe, 18, was arrested Saturday by the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department in the Heidelberg shooting. He is charged with capital murder and possession of a deadly weapon on educational property. His bond is set at $2 million cash, according to the sheriff’s office. It wasn’t known Monday whether he is represented by an attorney.

Three other suspects were arrested Monday: 19-year-old Damarin Starks, charged with accessory after the fact and tampering with physical evidence; 19-year-old Jadarius Quartez Page, charged with accessory after the fact; and 19-year-old Jabari Deshaun Collins, charged with possession of a deadly weapon on educational property.

Barnett knows what it’s like to have a loved one’s life stolen. While he was fighting in Desert Storm, his father was killed in Heidelberg in 1991. 

“People sympathize,” the senator said, “but the hurt is not the same.”

The East Jasper School District released a statement Saturday saying the violence marred what should have been a joyful evening.

“These actions are not representative of the values, strength, or character of our community,” the statement said. “East Jasper and Forever Blue and Gold Homecoming are a place and time where families come together, where neighbors support one another, where alumni come from far and near with excitement and anticipation, and where our schools are centers of pride and belonging.”

Community members on social media said McCray was a Heidelberg High School graduate from the Class of 2016. 

The school district said it has fully cooperated with local and state law enforcement during the investigation, but understands there will be “questions, concerns, and fear in the aftermath of this tragedy.” 

“While this brings no comfort to the families and friends impacted, please know that the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and community still remain our highest priorities.” 

Sen. Derrick Simmons, who represents Leland, called the shootings “just senseless gun violence.”

“What we are experiencing now is just a proliferation of guns just being in circulation.” 

Styles, who operates a pre-trial diversion program in Leland, echoed those thoughts..

“To my knowledge, nothing like this has happened in my 31 years of living in Leland,” she said. “How are they getting access to weapons and alcohol? There must be adults giving it to them.”

Jackson, one of the shooting victims in Leland, said her fondest memories growing up were from homecoming.

“Homecomings are usually filled with love. We have Block Party Saturday and Family Fun Day Sunday,” she said. “It’s always something people looking forward to. We wouldn’t do that to our own. We’re just as shocked as the rest of the world. Our homecoming’s been stained like that.”

She said she is not planning to go to any more homecomings in the Delta.

Everytown for Gun Safety for Gun Safety advocates for evidence-based solutions to end gun violence.

“I shouldn’t have to text my parents to tell them I’m safe every time there’s a shooting near my school,” said Eshah Green-Ortega, a volunteer with the Jackson State chapter of Students Demand Action. “It keeps happening on our campuses, at our celebrations, and in our communities. We deserve to feel safe learning and living our lives, and our lawmakers need to do their jobs and pass the basic gun safety laws that will keep us safe.”

Jerry Mitchell and Candice Wilder contributed to this report.

Updated 10/13/25: This story has been updated to add photos and to reflect additional arrests in the Heidelberg shooting.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s Presidential Medal of Freedom will go on display in the next few months at the Two Mississippi Museums.

Hamer’s family donated the medal to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which operates the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

 “Our hope is that others will see it and want to learn more about Aunt Fannie Lou, her life, her legacy and the tremendous sacrifices she made on behalf of others,” Hamer’s niece, Monica Land, said in a press release Monday.

Curators will decide where the medal is displayed, said Michael Morris, director of the two museums that are side-by-side in downtown Jackson.

“Our museums already trace much of her life’s work,” Morris said. “The medal symbolizes the impact her courageous activism has had on the lives of Black people in Mississippi and across the nation.”

Hamer was born Fannie Lou Townsend in 1917 to sharecroppers in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She joined the Civil Rights Movement in 1961 after attending a meeting with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She became a SNCC organizer in 1962.

Hamer went on to become a key figure in Mississippi’s Civil Rights Movement. 

In 1964, Hamer helped organize Freedom Summer and co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The party traveled to the 1964 Democratic National Convention and tried to be recognized as an official delegation. She also addressed the Credentials Committee, speaking out about her experiences with racism and human rights abuses in Mississippi on national television. 

Hamer was part of Mississippi’s first racially integrated delegation at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Hamer was 59 when she died of cancer in 1977. Former President Joe Biden posthumously awarded her the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January during his final weeks in office.

Deep South Today, the nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News and The Current, has named Hollis R. Towns as its first chief operating officer.

Towns is an experienced journalist and media executive who most recently held senior leadership positions at Gannett and AL.com and Alabama Media Group. In his role as chief operating officer, Towns will be responsible for translating strategy into actionable steps, sustainably scaling the organization, driving operational integrity and strengthening the fiscal business hub. His appointment is the result of a national search conducted over the last six months by BoardWalk Consulting.

“Hollis Towns is bringing precisely the kind of skills and expertise that Deep South Today needs at a moment when we are poised for dramatic growth,” said Warwick Sabin, president and CEO of Deep South Today. “He is an accomplished journalist and a proven business strategist with a deep understanding of talent development, digital innovation and financial management. Hollis is also a Georgia native who now lives in Alabama, so he is intimately familiar with our region. I am looking forward to working closely with him to advance our work and deliver more local journalism to the communities we serve.”

Towns is a nationally recognized media strategist who has led successful teams for more than 25 years. He is credited with creating Gannett’s police coverage strategy that led to national recognition and for envisioning the Center for Community Journalism, a self-contained news structure that combined Gannett’s small to mid-sized media properties into a self-sustaining operation.

“I’m thrilled to be joining Warwick and Deep South Today as its first COO,” Towns said. “It represents a pivot and it affords me the opportunity to leverage my deep management, news and leadership experience. Deep South Today is already a well-regarded and fast-growing media operation; I’m excited about building on that.”

Throughout his career, Towns’ teams have reached the upper echelons of journalistic excellence. His teams have won a bevy of national awards, including being a Pulitzer finalist in the prestigious public service category for a series on New Jersey taxes. His investigative team was featured in the Columbia Journalism Review. Towns has judged numerous journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prizes (three times) and the Poynter Prizes (twice). In 2025, Towns led his team at AL.com to launch Beyond the Violence 2.0, a comprehensive solutions-journalism initiative that seeks to tackle Birmingham’s intractable gun violence. His team won 27 citations at the 2024 Alabama Press Association Awards, winning first place in numerous categories.

According to Manny Garcia, the former editor-in-chief of the Houston Landing, “Hollis thinks like a CEO but with the chops of an editor. He’s the total package.”

Towns grew up in middle Georgia and graduated from Fort Valley State University. He attended college on a football scholarship and was a standout linebacker in both high school and college. He interned at the Detroit Free Press and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was offered a full-time job at the AJC before graduating from college. After working at the AJC, he was managing editor of the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette before being named executive editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer. His achievements in Cincinnati took him to New Jersey, where he oversaw the Asbury Park Press and Gannett’s other nine properties in the state. After several promotions, Towns was named VP of news for Gannett, overseeing more than 150 sites in more than a dozen states in the company’s East Coast operations. He most recently served as VP of news for AL.com and Alabama Media Group.

From creating APP University as Editor of the Asbury Park Press to the more recent AMG Academy, the in-house training program launched in 2024 at AL.com, Towns has consistently championed professional development. He also serves as a mentor and coach for the National Association of Black Journalists talent and development program. Towns was appointed to the Poynter Institute’s National Advisory Board, one of the nation’s premier journalism training and advocacy organizations.

Towns’ first day as chief operating officer with Deep South Today was Monday.

ABOUT DEEP SOUTH TODAY

Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News and The Current.

Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now the largest newsroom in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.

With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, and ensuring its long-term growth and sustainability.

Nancy Loome, executive director of The Parents’ Campaign public education advocacy group counters many points proponents are making in their push for more school choice in Mississippi. Loome says siphoning public money for private schools would provide no benefit to Mississippi students or taxpayers and that state leaders should instead focus on sustaining and expanding education gains made in recent years. She said opposition to school choice from parents on both sides of the political aisle in Mississippi is growing.

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As we near the holiday season, you may be looking to treat yourself to those set of wheels you’ve been eyeing, or perhaps it’s time to purchase your loved one their dream car. In today’s financial climate, managing your vehicle costs efficiently is key, as it could help you save money and limit potential headaches down the road. Here are some helpful tips to finally make that purchase for your (or a loved one’s) dream vehicle this holiday season:

1. Set your holiday budget, and stick to it. There are a variety of different expenses that come with getting a car – the purchase cost, insurance, maintenance and fuel being a few of them. Knowing how much you can afford, especially if you plan to pay for it over time, is key to avoiding a car bill that stretches your finances. Look for access to different budgeting tools and tips that can help you save for your purchase.
2. Look for the best holiday deals. Like many other items, vehicles have a price cycle; the end of the year tends to be when you can find a better deal, as dealers may need to meet quotas or clear out inventory. Generally, make sure you are considering multiple vehicles and shopping around at several dealerships to get the best price. 
3. Test drive the vehicle to make sure it fits your needs. This is your time to see how the vehicle looks and feels, try out the interior systems and figure out if the vehicle fits your needs. Schedule test drive appointments to ensure the car you want is still available, ideally a few in the same day or week to keep your impressions fresh in your mind. It’s also helpful to simulate your daily driving conditions as much as possible, such as bringing any car seats or equipment you may have in your car daily. After your test drive, you can ask about the car’s warranty and fuel and maintenance requirements, as well as the possibility of getting an extended test drive or bringing the car to your own mechanic for a second opinion.
4. Determine whether you are financing or leasing. There are benefits of both a lease and a loan. With a loan, there is no milage limit and you are free to customize and change the car as you see fit. After completing your finance payments, you own it. Leases typically have lower upfront costs than loan payments, and at the end of the term you can return, purchase or trade the vehicle in. But keep in mind that most leases have a mileage limit, so it might not be the best option if you travel often.  
5. How to know if an electric vehicle is right for you. With so many major manufacturers building EVs, there are more options than ever before. However, cost, maintenance, range and charging logistics are all key factors to consider. For maintenance, EVs typically require less maintenance than traditional cars. EV batteries tend to be covered by 8-10 year warranties (outlasting the amount of time most people own their cars) but EV tires degrade faster due to the weight of the battery.  And just as gas prices vary, so do electricity costs – based on your location, your driving style and the size of your battery.

The median range of an EV with a fully charged battery is roughly 250 miles, but that number depends on the make and model as well as other factors like weather, traffic conditions and driving style. And when it comes to charging infrastructure, some cities and states may have more charging stations than others. Make sure to plan your trip ahead of time and map your route.  

Be sure to do your homework first before making that big purchase. There are many tools available that can help you plan for costs in addition to the vehicle loan or lease payments, such as sales taxes, registration fees, and insurance—which can vary depending on the car make, model and even the color. For instance, using a car payment calculator can help estimate your monthly car payment for different scenarios, by inputting the ballpark amount you’d like to finance along with some other basic info.

For more auto budgeting tools and tips, visit autofinance.chase.com.

For informational/educational purposes only: Views and strategies described in this article or provided via links may not be appropriate for everyone and are not intended as specific advice/recommendation for any business. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but JPMorgan Chase & Co. or its affiliates and/or subsidiaries do not warrant its completeness or accuracy. The material is not intended to provide legal, tax, or financial advice or to indicate the availability or suitability of any JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. product or service. You should carefully consider your needs and objectives before making any decisions and consult the appropriate professional(s). Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates are not responsible for, and do not provide or endorse third party products, services, or other content.

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 © 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Only a fraction of Mississippi inmates diagnosed with hepatitis C receive treatment, which has allowed the treatable infection to develop into a life-threatening illness, interviews and documents obtained by Mississippi Today reveal. 

As many as 845 people incarcerated in Mississippi Department of Corrections facilities were confirmed to be living with hepatitis C between January and March of this year, records show. During the same period, 48 people – or less than 6% with documented diagnoses – received treatment. 

But in private, officials have at times cited a much higher caseload – 5,000 cases out of about 19,000 people incarcerated by the state. This suggests that public records may reveal only a small portion of a widespread hepatitis C problem in Mississippi’s prisons, a state lawmaker with direct oversight over the corrections department told Mississippi Today. 

As people in the care of the state suffer and the treatable illness continues to fester, she said, officials aren’t using resources available to them to lower the costs of medications. 

This year’s treatment numbers represent an improvement over last year, when 19 people in state prisons – or 2% with diagnoses – received medication for hepatitis C. In 2020, only three people received treatment. 

READ THE SERIES: Behind Bars, Beyond Care: A Mississippi Today investigation into suffering, secrecy and the business of prison health care

Department of Corrections spokesperson Kate Head did not answer questions from Mississippi Today about why at least hundreds of people in its custody with the contagious illness are not receiving treatment. But she said the agency’s medical contractor “is responsible for providing appropriate medical treatment to inmates with all medical conditions, including Hep C.” 

VitalCore Health Strategies, a company that holds a three-year, $357-million contract to provide medical care to Mississippi prisoners, declined to comment. The company was previously awarded over $315 million in emergency, no-bid state contracts from 2020 to 2024.

Data obtained by Mississippi Today show a clear disparity between the number of people who test positive for the virus and the number of people who receive treatment. 

Behind closed doors, state officials and VitalCore executives have been briefed on a much larger volume of cases, House Corrections Chairwoman Rep. Becky Currie told Mississippi Today. 

Mississippi has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the world. Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, has oversight of Mississippi’s prison system and those who manage it. During a private meeting at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County with some of these leaders, Currie said Dr. Raman Singh, VitalCore’s chief medical officer, told her and State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney that about 5,000 MDOC prisoners and some prison workers had contracted hepatitis C. 

Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain shared the same number with her in a separate meeting, Currie said. 

Singh did not respond to requests for comment.

MDOC and VitalCore did not respond to questions about whether such conversations occurred. Department of Health spokesperson Greg Flynn said Dr. Edney did not believe it would be appropriate to comment on a private conversation, but he said it “absolutely could be the case” that as many as 5,000 people incarcerated in Mississippi suffer from hepatitis C. 

Mississippi Today identified inconsistencies in testing and diagnosis numbers, such as low numbers of tests that resulted in large increases in new diagnoses, obtained through public-records requests. “Data collection and streamlining of the reception and diagnostic unit” contributed to the discrepancies, Head said. 

During a series of tours of Mississippi prisons last year, Currie, who is a registered nurse, said she witnessed prisoners suffering from a wide range of health ailments, including hepatitis C, without treatment. The suffering is preventable, and raises questions about how hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent, she said.

Currie called the denial of hepatitis C medication in Mississippi prisons a “public health crisis” that she couldn’t look away from as a nurse and a Christian. 

“This is morally wrong,” she said. 

A cure to count on

Hepatitis C can be treated with a type of highly effective antiviral medication that cures more than 95% of patients in a matter of weeks. Nonetheless, there are over 10,000 hepatitis C-related deaths in the U.S. each year.

Left untreated, the contagious blood-borne virus can cause serious health problems, including liver disease, liver failure and cancer. It is the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S. 

Hepatitis C proliferates in state prisons across the country, where its prevalence is nine times greater than the general population. 

Risk factors for hepatitis C, such as injecting drugs, overlap with those for incarceration, said Dr. Anne Spaulding, an associate professor of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health who studies hepatitis C in prisons. She formerly served as medical director for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections. 

Spaulding said prisons should make the medication available to every person who wants treatment.

“There should be no reason why a prison can’t treat most of their patients,” Spaulding said.

The first treatment for hepatitis C arrived in the 1980s. But the medication had low success rates and debilitating side effects, including flu-like symptoms, fatigue, depression and suicidal ideation. 

A major scientific advance in the early 2010s – direct-acting antiviral drugs – transformed treatment regimens, offering high cure rates, shorter treatment durations and fewer side effects. 

“The cure is something that you can really count on,” Spaulding said. “So it’s gone from a difficult-to-treat infection to an infection that is much, much simpler and effective (to treat).”

But the breakthrough in treatment has meant little for most Mississippi prisoners with hepatitis C, who have been fighting for years to receive the medication in prison. 

“It is a problem that has been left so long without any answers,” Currie said. 

In 2017, Chad Spiers, then incarcerated at South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville, filed a lawsuit against the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the medical contractor at the time for denying him medication after he tested positive for hepatitis C. 

Magistrate Judge Robert H. Walker dismissed Spiers’ complaint, ruling that his care was constitutional because, though he did not receive medication, he was monitored for progression of the illness. 

“The Constitution guarantee (sic) prisoners ‘only adequate, not optimal medical care,’” reads the ruling. 

The Department of Corrections’ hepatitis management policy obtained by Mississippi Today says it will provide treatment for people with hepatitis C diagnoses “when indicated.” Spokesperson Head did not respond to questions about which cases warrant treatment. 

But a person with direct knowledge of medical care inside Mississippi’s prisons, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about how inmates are treated, said prisons are financially incentivized to wait to treat inmates until they get sick enough for prison officials to justify purchasing the expensive medication. 

“(Prison staff) were told he’s not sick enough yet,” the person said. 

The medication can cost the Mississippi system almost $30,000 for a six-week course, the person said. 

However, many state prison systems have negotiated cheaper prices for the medication and are able to treat more patients.

Delaying treatment runs counter to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which say clinicians should treat people and not wait for the illness to resolve spontaneously.

The CDC’s guidance should be applied to people who are incarcerated, said Dr. Kate LeMasters, as assistant professor at the University of Colorado who studies the public health implications of the prison system.

Most people with hepatitis C do not have symptoms, and about 25% will spontaneously clear the infection without treatment. The disease is slow moving and can take years for symptoms to show. But left untreated, it can wreak havoc on a person’s immune system, turning their skin yellow from jaundice and causing joint pain that leaves them immobile. Its longer-term health consequences, such as liver failure and cancer, are life-threatening.

“What we do now is that we let them get sick and die, or we let them get so sick that they get a liver disease, cirrhosis or cancer, and they die,” Currie said. 

Disincentives and unused discounts

Even as the price of costly medication has fallen and treatment has become more effective, some state prison systems argue that treating hepatitis C is prohibitively expensive. 

Several states have negotiated innovative payment models to treat people and prevent the spread of the disease inside and outside of prison walls. 

Some use what is called the “Netflix” model – a subscription-based program that gives a state unlimited treatment doses during a fixed period. Other states have negotiated lower costs with pharmaceutical companies or obtained the medication through health care organizations enrolled in the federal 340B program, which requires pharmaceutical companies to sell outpatient drugs at discounted prices. The program can offer discounts on drugs in the range of 20% to 50%. 

In its February 2024 contract proposal, VitalCore wrote it was “confident” it would be able to access discounted prices for hepatitis C medications using the 340B program. 

“We have had tremendous success in accessing 340B purchasing and pricing in other similar contracts for the purpose of purchasing more expensive medications such as those for the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C,” the proposal reads.

In the 2025 legislative session, a bill proposed by Currie would have required the Mississippi Departments of Health and Corrections to establish a hepatitis C program for inmates and work to obtain the medication at a discounted price through the 340B program. 

The legislation passed the House with a large bipartisan majority, but didn’t survive negotiations with the Senate, in part because of a disagreement over the bill’s proposed audit of prison health care. 

MDOC and VitalCore did not respond to questions about whether they receive 340B pricing for hepatitis C drugs. University of Mississippi Medical Center, the state’s largest hospital system, did not respond to a request for comment about whether the hospital partners with VitalCore to obtain discounted hepatitis C medication. 

The Department of Health provided MDOC information about how to access 340B pricing several months ago, but the agency has not yet taken steps to obtain the reduced prices, Health Department spokesperson Flynn told Mississippi Today. 

“The Department of Health has given information about how to go about getting 340B pricing and joining the program to the Department of Corrections,” Flynn said. “But to our knowledge, they are not utilizing the 340B, at least not that we know of right now.” 

This means the Corrections Department isn’t making use of the tools it has to purchase hepatitis C medications at a cheaper price, Currie said. 

“They’ve been able to get it all along,” she said.

A fate no one deserves

One study suggests it is most cost-effective to test and treat hepatitis C widely and provide linkage to care when people are released from prison because it prevents expensive complications and limits the spread of the infection. 

“It’s going to cost the taxpayers more because we don’t initially treat it,” Currie said. 

Currie told Mississippi Today she has personally asked the corrections department to treat several people she met while touring the prison system last year. One was “literally about on his deathbed” before receiving treatment, but has shown significant improvement since receiving medication, she said. 

Despite evidence that suggests broad testing and treatment save money in the long run, Mississippi does not test widely for hepatitis C. Testing is performed “when deemed clinically indicated by the healthcare providers,” who take into consideration risk factors and the probability a patient has hepatitis C, Head said. 

Incarceration itself is a risk factor for hepatitis C, given its high prevalence in prisons, LeMasters said. 

“Everyone should be screened when entering prison because people who have a history of incarceration are considered at risk,” she said. 

Opt-out testing, where patients are tested unless they specifically decline it, is the most effective way to identify hepatitis C, Spaulding said. 

Incarcerated people are one of the few groups in the U.S. with a constitutional right to health care. MDOC has told Mississippi Today that it provides health care to prisoners that meets constitutional standards. 

But a former top corrections official, after reading Mississippi Today’s coverage of prison health care issues, turned over internal communications to the news outlet that revealed top prison officials bemoaning the poor medical care provided to prisoners. 

Inside prison facilities, hepatitis C patients are denied lifesaving medication – a fate no one, not even people convicted of crimes, deserves, Currie said. 

“Our whole ‘because you’re in jail, we don’t care if you die’ program really doesn’t work for me,” she said.

Based on the ongoing rhetoric surrounding the federal government shutdown, perhaps it is time to ask the question.

The question is, do we – the United States of America –  really want undocumented immigrants receiving medical treatment in our hospital emergency rooms?

If a non-citizen falls off a roof of a house while doing carpentry work, do we want to transport him to the hospital or just leave him in the yard to fend for himself – broken legs and all? If a non-citizen child is sick, should she be provided emergency care?

Under current law signed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, the answer is yes to providing emergency care.

Hospitals, if they receive federal funds, are obligated to provide “stabilizing care” in their emergency rooms to all who show up, including undocumented immigrants.

The issue is worth discussing now because Republicans, led by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, are complaining that Democrats are shutting down the federal government demanding federal funds to provide health care to undocumented immigrants.

U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell of Mississippi’s 4th District wrote on social media, “Senate Democrats failed America. They shut down the government because we refused to give free healthcare to people who broke our laws to get here.”

U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi reposted the Senate Republicans proclaiming, “Senate Democrats are putting illegal aliens ahead of our troops and American families in need.”

In reality, the issue that led Democrats to oppose the continuing resolution to fund the federal government and thus leading to the shutdown has little to do with illegal immigrants. Instead, Democrats are trying to extend federal subsidies that make insurance policies purchased through the federal Affordable Care Act exchanges dramatically cheaper than they would otherwise be.

If the subsidies are not extended before the end of the year, the cost of insurance will go up on average $480 annually for the estimated 285,000 Mississippians on the exchange, according to KFF, a national nonprofit health care research organization. The premiums will go up much more for some Mississippians.

Some Republicans counter that they will discuss the subsidies once the government is funded. But the main talking point for many Republican lawmakers is that the Democrats want free health care for non-citizens. 

Under federal law, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive coverage through federal health care plans, such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Republicans had a chance to take up that issue when they passed what they called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” earlier this year at the urging of President Donald Trump. They did not.

Granted some states – yes, California _ do use their own state funds to provide health care for undocumented immigrants. Congressional Republicans considered trying to penalize those states for using their own money to provide health insurance for undocumented people, but opted not to in the big bill that President Trump signed into law in July.

While undocumented immigrants do not get health care through any federal program, hospitals do receive compensation for treating in their emergency rooms people, including non-citizens, without insurance and with limited ability to pay.

Trump’s big bill reduced the amount of compensation hospital emergency rooms receive for treating undocumented immigrants. That reduction hurts the hospitals, not the undocumented immigrants who the hospitals still must treat if they show up in emergency rooms.

Hospitals are partially reimbursed for the uncompensated care they give to help ensure their financial sustainability and help hold down the cost of health care for Americans. Without the federal assistance, hospitals could be forced to close or reduce services or increase costs for those with the ability to pay through private insurance or through other means.

So, if congressional Republicans and President Trump are complaining about Democrats trying to provide health care for undocumented immigrants, perhaps the options should be discussed.

One option was the big bill’s reduction of money going to the hospitals to treat undocumented people. This option penalizes hospitals and potentially those with insurance or the ability to pay. The alternative would be to provide adequate federal funds for the care that federal law mandates the hospitals provide.

Another option is to stop requiring hospital emergency rooms to treat undocumented immigrants. That could save a lot of money.

How does the United States of America, a country where a majority of people claim some type of religious views, want to address that issue?

Perhaps it is time to cut through the rhetoric and ask that question.