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An arson Saturday morning damaged the building of a beleaguered police department in Mississippi that has drawn outrage from the community in recent months after an officer shot and killed a 1-year-old child, authorities said.

It was unclear what caused the fire at the headquarters of the Senatobia Police Department. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local agencies are investigating.

The Associated Press has reached out to the fire department, police department, and the Tate County Sheriff’s Office for comment.

Firefighters were dispatched to the city’s police department at 4:58 a.m. Saturday to respond to smoke in the building, the Senatobia Fire Department said in a statement, and crews were able to quickly knock out the fire. There were no details on the damage.

The Senatobia Police Department ignited anger in the community of 8,000 after an officer fired into a vehicle and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in June while investigating a shoplifting call at a Walmart.

Kohen, who is Black, was in the vehicle with his mother, who was unharmed, and another woman, who was seriously injured. The two women denied having stolen anything, and no charges have been filed against them.

In September, the police chief was fired after reporting by The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News alleged that he used racist slurs in private text messages. Earlier this month, the officer involved in the shooting resigned, though he was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the Mississippi Attorney General’s office after its probe concluded his use of force had been justified.

BILOXI — Five hundred or more people gathered on Biloxi’s southeastern waterfront Sunday morning and then marched to Ocean Springs, demanding justice for Nolan Wells.

The Ocean Springs teen went missing during a July 4 trip to Horn Island with a group of friends. The group traveled to the barrier island on three boats, but the friends returned without Wells, saying he stayed behind to talk to a girl.

Two days later, on July 6, authorities found Wells’ body in the water off Horn Island, a barrier island about 10 miles from the mainland.

A Jackson County grand jury later found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Wells’ friends, who had traveled to Horn Island that day to celebrate the Fourth of July.

The official cause of his death remains undetermined.

Wells’ parents, Elmore and Christine Wonsley, hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump to do an independent investigation into their son’s death.

They have called on the Department of Justice to do an independent investigation. The protesters came from the Mississippi Coast and beyond, including New Orleans, Atlanta, Chicago and other places.

The event was billed as part of a 50-state march.

“It’s important for us to come out here today because this is a concern for all people, not just Black people,” said Jennifer Matthews, who drove from New Orleans. “This didn’t just happen to Nolan Wells. It’s been going on with three or four other Black kids, and we need to get to the bottom of it.

“Mississippi is a very prejudiced state, and it’s 2026, and I want to be a part of the change that needs to happen,” she said.

Sandra Wyche, of Gulfport, echoed the sentiment.

She said she came to the protest “because we’re tired of our children being murdered and killed, and tired of the people that are over these communities.

“If it was a Caucasian baby that was a part of this, somebody would have been in jail today,” Wyche said of Wells’ death. “And color does matter. Now, as far as me being prejudiced, I’m not. But right is right, and wrong is wrong.”

The speakers at the protest talked about other Black lives cut short, including Kohen Wiley, a 1-year-old shot to death by police in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia after a report of shoplifting by women who were with Kohen, and Andrew Joseph III, a 14-year-old who was struck and killed on an interstate after being kicked out of the Florida State Fair in 2014.

Tonya Brown, of Biloxi, said she came out like the others who made the nearly four-mile walk to Ocean Springs and back to “support these families that are in dire need of knowing what happened to their babies. We need justice, and the killing needs to stop. We all need to come together as one to support these families.”

Another protester, Carolyn Ruff, of Chicago, is founder of Black Lives Matter Women of Faith and described herself as an activist fighting for justice for Nolan Wells and others.

“We know Nolan Wells did not drown,” Russ said. “We’re here because we know they will find the truth eventually.”

Protestors chanted, “Justice for Nolan Wells,” and “Nolan did not drown,” among other slogans calling for justice for those who died under questionable circumstances.

Both major party candidates for Mississippi’s U.S. Senate seat in Tuesday’s midterm election have tagged their opponent with snappy, derisive nicknames.

Democratic challenger Scott Colom refers to Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith as Cindy High Prices. It is not clear whether High Prices should be hyphenated.

Hyde-Smith has labeled Colom a “Transgender Defender.”

Colom said he calls the incumbent Cindy High Prices because she has been unwilling to oppose President Donald Trump on his tariffs, his war with Iran and other issues that Colom argues have resulted in higher prices on gasoline, diesel and most retail items.

During a Trump rally last week in Corinth in northeast Mississippi, Hyde-Smith referred to Trump  as “the best president of our lifetime.”

On the flip side, why does Hyde-Smith refer to her challenger as a “Transgender Defender?” Colom, a district attorney for four counties in the Golden Triangle area, did sign a letter in 2021 stating opposition to “the criminalization of transgender people.” But he has said he opposes gender-affirming surgeries for minors, which have not occurred in Mississippi and are rarely performed nationally and then only with parental consent.

Colom told MPB in a recent interview, “Listen, I have two daughters. I believe in fairness in girls’ sports, and I don’t believe in gender-affirming surgery for children.” 

Still, fearmongering about transgender people should not be surprising. It is a tactic as old as the country for politicians to leverage people’s unease about minorities to further their own electoral goals.

Black people, gay people, immigrants and others have faced the scorn of politicians.

In recent election cycles, the nation’s very small transgender community has been the subject of the ire of Trump and other politicians. In 2023, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, facing a tough reelection campaign, accused Democratic challenger Brandon Presley of supporting transgender issues. It was in many ways the central theme of Reeves’ campaign, even though it was not an issue that affects most Mississippians’ daily lives.

In 2024, Trump used many of the same arguments against his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

Now, President Trump and others are canvassing the nation before the midterm election campaigning for Republican candidates for the Senate and House and making outrageous statements about the transgender community.

At Corinth, Trump said Democrats “promote the transgender mutilization of your children,” meaning, presumably, mutilation.

A recent analysis by The Associated Press showed Republicans have spent an estimated $183 million on television ads attacking Democrats on the transgender issue.

Perhaps, the component of the issue that resonates the most with voters is what appears to be overwhelming opposition to “boys or men playing sports against girls or women.” Or, in other words, many say they are opposed to transgender athletes competing against people who were identified as female at birth.

A recent YouGov poll highlighted the opposition, with 51% strongly opposed and 11% “somewhat opposed” to transgender women competing in female sports categories, but the poll also identified many misconceptions on the issue.

For instance, despite the NCAA specifically limiting participation in female sporting events to only athletes who were female at birth, only 31% of respondents said correctly that less than 1% of NCAA female athletes were transgender.

In addition, according to the poll, 15% said they think up to 5% of the athletes competing in female events were transgender and 14% said they think up to 25% of the athletes were transgender.

It is obvious that a sizable number of politicians believe focusing on the transgender issue and attacking transgender people, regardless of the facts, can help them win elections.

It is an often-used strategy: Try to increase turnout by scaring voters.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — In Missouri, summer nights are defined by muggy, humid heat, the deep croaking of bullfrogs and the flickering glow of lightning bugs. The distinctive, melodic call of the whip-poor-will, a native bird species, used to be a central part of that chorus.

Now, the absence of the birds’ song on summer nights is telling. The population of what used to be a common summer resident in the eastern United States has sharply declined.

“Whip-poor-wills are a native species,” said Kristen Heath-Acre, state ornithologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. “I get a lot of phone calls from people asking why they don’t hear whip-poor-wills anymore, so they’re very important to people, and we want to protect them.”

Eastern whip-poor-wills are nocturnal birds in the nightjar family and can be spotted throughout Missouri and the Mississippi River Basin between April and September. They migrate south to Mexico and Central America for the winter. 

But whip-poor-wills have been steadily declining by an estimated rate of 2.5% per year since the 1970s, according to Holly Coates, a PhD student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  Possible causes include habitat loss and decreasing insect availability.

This rate differs by state. Coates said the population decline rate is around 5% per year in Illinois. According to the United States Geological Survey, Missouri’s population of whip-poor-wills is declining at a rate of 2.11%.

That population decline is a research focus for Natalie Ramos, a doctoral student studying natural resources with an emphasis in forestry at the University of Missouri. She is interested in studying forest-dwelling nightjars, particularly whip-poor-wills and chuck-will’s-widows.

Ramos became fascinated by nightjars during her undergraduate program at the University of Georgia.

“I love just like the whole charisma, the whole personality of the bird,” Ramos said, explaining that her first experience with nightjars was during an internship on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia called Little St. Simons.

“I started with chuck-will’s-widows and wanted to stick with nocturnal birds,” Ramos said. “I really love nightjars. They’re kind of these really secretive, cryptic birds.”

Ramos hopes to get landowners and others invested in protecting the birds.

“The way to get people more into animals and conservation in general is to tie it to their childhood or tie it to some kind of nostalgia,” Ramos said. “I feel like whip-poor-wills are a really good tool for that.”

Why are whip-poor-wills disappearing?

As part of a four-year whip-poor-will occupancy study, Ramos has spent two summers surveying their habitats and prey availability to understand why the population is shrinking.

The study surveyed eight sites that were deemed priority geographies — key landscapes around the state where the Department of Conservation collaborates with private landowners to improve natural ecosystems. These sites encompass a gradient of forest management types, including even- and uneven-aged cuts, thinning and burning, clearcuts and group selection.

“We’re trying to understand how the presence or absence of whip-poor-wills is associated with how we’re managing for that landscape or not managing for the landscape,” Heath-Acre said.

Whip-poor-wills are most active between the first- and third-quarter moon phases. This encompasses about a two-week time frame. Ramos explained that while the birds are often active and vocal during all moon phases, their activity increases when nights are brightly lit.

“They really are keyed into the moonlight, so like how much light there is, and we think it’s because that increases their visibility, so they can see their prey easier,” Ramos said.

Whip-poor-wills fly around with their mouths open and use the stiff, hair-like feathers around their beaks, called rictal bristles, to help them scoop up insects.

Within that time frame, the moon must be above the horizon for whip-poor-wills to be active, which restricts the period of time that Ramos can survey.

Because the restrictive time window is at night, automatic recording units are used to passively monitor the birds to avoid safety risks for researchers. The AudioMoth automated recording units are programmed to record for two hours every night between the first- and third-quarter moon, giving Ramos about 28 hours of audio to analyze from every two-week survey window.

“Most people know the whip-poor-will song,” Heath-Acre said. “It’s very loud. It’s easily detectable by these recording units. And so we’re using that as a way to kind of expand our ability to listen for whip-poor-wills and detect them.”

Bucket traps and fecal samples

By the end of the study in 2027, Ramos will have completed three field seasons. The automated recording units were deployed for three survey windows during the first season, which was during the summer of 2025. This past summer, a new component of insect sampling was added to the study.

“We’re seeing like this crazy decline in insects, and that’s what we theorize is leading to the decline of nightjars, like whip-poor-wills and chuck-will’s-widows,” Ramos said.

Whip-poor-wills eat mostly moths and beetles. To catch the insects, Ramos set up black light bucket traps in the same sites where the automated recording units were set up to track whip-poor-will calls. With this setup, Ramos can observe how insect populations influence whip-poor-will occupancy at these sites.

Ramos explained that while habitat management practices might not affect the birds’ population month-to-month, the availability of prey might.

In the upcoming field season, Ramos will add another dimension to the survey: fecal samples. These samples will show Ramos exactly what the whip-poor-wills are eating.

Getting fecal samples is tricky, though. Ramos will set up a handmade bird decoy and put a speaker nearby playing the call to attract the whip-poor-wills. Because the birds are territorial, they will dive-bomb the fake bird upon arriving at the site. From there, she will trap the bird and collect fecal samples to get a clearer picture of their diet. This will be the last component of the study.

“So now I know where they are, what’s available, and of what’s available, what they’re actually eating,” Ramos said.

During the academic year, Ramos will analyze the data and document her study’s findings in a scientific paper. At the end of the study, Ramos will send her data, along with her analysis and recommended conservation actions, to the Missouri Department of Conservation.

“MDC will take that information and the recommendations to make work plans for the regions,” Heath-Acre said.

While the culturally significant whip-poor-wills have been dwindling, researchers like Ramos are working to understand more about their decline and ways to mitigate it.

“There’s a lot of really amazing work being done on how we can help bring back their populations,” said Jared Del Rosso, author of an imminent book on the species. “Hearing a bird call when you don’t get the opportunity to hear it very often, I can’t help but feel inspired by the persistence with which they sing.”

What whip-poor-wills mean

Beyond being native to North America, whip-poor-wills hold a distinctive place in regional folklore with their rhythmic, lilting whistle, reminiscent of home for many Midwesterners.

“The first whip-poor-will’s song was really important to people,” Del Rosso said. “It was interpreted as a sign that the last frost had passed, which is really important if you farm.”

Del Rosso started birding in 2012, but he became curious about whip-poor-wills more recently after diving more deeply into their rich history. He said that whip-poor-wills have been associated with a wide array of emotions, such as grief, sadness, loneliness, happiness and nostalgia.

“Owls are really culturally important,” Del Rosso said. “Bald eagles, of course, are really culturally important. But there’s such a variety of responses to whip-poor-wills.”

Few people are as acquainted with the nostalgia of the whip-poor-will as Danny Marshall.

Marshall, 77, has been around wildlife since he moved out of St. Louis in 1961. After graduating from Missouri State University in 1971, known as Southwest Missouri State at the time, he started working for the Department of Conservation. He was an assistant hatchery manager at Indian Trail Fish Hatchery in Dent County.

“While I was there, there were hundreds and hundreds of whip-poor-wills,” Marshall said. “You would have to be careful going down the county road because they would be sitting in the road.”

Marshall remembers a time when whip-poor-wills were abundant enough to keep you awake during the night. One time, when his mother-in-law and father-in-law came to visit from Springfield, they stayed in a camper right outside his house.

“The next morning they came in, and I asked them how they slept, and my mother-in-law said it was terrible,” Marshall said. “She said, ‘Those things sang all night long; I couldn’t get to sleep.’”

Marshall now lives about an hour to the north in Crawford County, where he’s been for the past 36 years. Marshall still goes back to the Indian Trail State Conservation Area in Dent County occasionally to fish with his son. He said hearing a whip-poor-will has become a rarity.

“If we hear a whip-poor-will, it’s really pretty neat,” Marshall said. “There’s not near as many as there were.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri. 

TUPELO — Former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom on Friday, casting Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith as out of touch with Mississippians struggling with surging consumer prices and lack of healthcare.

Clinton, joined by longtime adviser James Carville, argued that Colom, a district attorney in northern Mississippi, would work across party lines and put “Mississippi first,” while accusing Hyde-Smith of putting President Donald Trump first and rubber-stamping his agenda.

“I’m supporting Scott because he will honestly give you his opinion, and if you disagree, he’ll have a conversation with you. And if you can change his mind, he’ll change his mind,” Clinton said. “You can’t put MAGA first. You have to put Mississippi first.”

The crowd of roughly 400 people broke out with chants of “We want Scott” and “If we vote, we win,” mirroring other Colom rallies in Columbus and Biloxi. 

Colom’s campaign has drawn national attention to Mississippi, prompting pundits to ask whether a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982 could flip to blue. 

If elected, Colom would be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction and the first elected by popular vote, in a state with a history of some of the nation’s most brutal racial violence.

The former president panned a Hyde-Smith interview on WLOX, where she said “you know, you have so many proteins to choose from” when asked about high beef prices. 

Clinton said that was “a shopping tip, not a policy.” 

“I don’t believe we need a senator to explain the existence of chicken,” Clinton said. 

Colom has repeatedly hammered Hyde-Smith for supporting Trump’s tariffs because he believes they’ve hurt farmers in Mississippi, a state where agriculture is the top industry. Clinton also criticized tariffs and gave a nod to how much they’ve impacted the furniture manufacturing industry in Tupelo. 

“Because you make so much furniture, you not only pay more for the food, you pay more to sit down at the table and eat it,” Clinton said. 

Clinton said Mississippians are smart enough to decide what the government should spend money on, contrasting affordable health care with Trump’s Rose Garden renovation at the White House, which he said looks like ‘the entrance to Liberace’s bedroom.” 

Hyde-Smith’s campaign has tried to use the steady string of national politicians such as Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stumping for Colom as a liability, and label him as part of the far-left faction of the Democratic Party. 

If Colom were to pull off an upset in ruby-red Mississippi, it would be a stunning defeat for President Donald Trump in the Deep South and make the incumbent Republican a casualty of the president’s sinking popularity. 

Colom’s campaign has homed in on issues of affordability, access to health care and a rejection of Trump’s tariffs in the home stretch of his campaign. He has pledged to tackle the cuts to Medicaid that the Republican-majority Congress passed as part of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. 

At a Thursday night Jackson rally alongside U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Colom said his pitch to Republicans who may be on the fence about his campaign is to deliver what Trump originally promised to deliver for them in 2024. 

“They were promised lower grocery prices. That’s what I’m going to fight for,” Colom said. “That’s my message to them. I’m going to give you what you were promised in 2024. You were promised no more endless wars. I’m going to give you no more endless wars.”

Colom told reporters he wants to end partisan gerrymandering by largely taking redistricting out of state lawmakers’ hands. He also said he would advocate for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore federal oversight of voting changes in states with a history of discrimination.

“We cannot allow people like Gov. Reeves to draw lines in ways where they get to pick the voters that matter. We have to make sure that independent commissions draw lines that empower the voters to pick the leaders.” 

Clyburn told a crowd of roughly 100 people they should elect Colom because he is interested in being a public servant and “not interested in being a partisan.”

Clyburn said he has encountered people who have grown dissatisfied with politics and don’t plan to vote because they believe one vote won’t make enough of a difference. He pushed back on that idea.

“The most critical things that happened to fairness in this country were each decided by one vote,” Clyburn said.

He pointed to the 1876 presidential election, when no candidate won a majority of Electoral College votes amid disputed results in several states. Congress formed a 15-member commission to settle it, and the commission voted 8-7 to award the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes later withdrew federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. 

Like Clyburn, Colom has urged the crowd to “write a new chapter” in Mississippi’s history that lifts the state as a whole and depart from the chapters stained with divisive history. 

“There is nothing wrong with Mississippi that can’t be fixed with what’s right about Mississippi,” Colom said.  

Eight Jackson State University positions are being eliminated at the end of the year as federal funding for the roles dry up, possibly affecting the institution’s ability to secure donations and other private financial support. 

The news, confirmed in a letter obtained Friday by Mississippi Today, comes as the university confronts limitations on millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Education.

In 2022, JSU received $8.2 million in Title III funds, according to the federal agency’s website.

Kelli Sharpe, a spokesperson for JSU, said Jackson State would not lose Title III grant funding.

“The personnel actions announced by the university are the result of a compliance-driven reallocation of funds, not a reduction or cancellation of federal support,” she said in an email.

She confirmed that eight positions would be affected by the layoffs.

At least a handful of staff members in the university’s Division of Institutional Advancement, whose positions were funded by Title III money, were notified this week that their roles would be eliminated Dec. 31. 

The letter specifically mentioned funding for “JSU’s Activity Six, Title III, Part B. Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program,” which the university’s website describes as “elevating contributions from alumni and private donors.” This is one of 21 projects under the university’s HBCU Title III grant which the federal government awarded for the 2022-27 cycle. 

Employees affected by the layoff were encouraged to apply for vacancies, officials said. 

In a statement from another university spokesperson, the university said it would reallocate the funds to other Title III activities. The university did not disclose how much money nor where it would go.

Sharpe declined to explain what Title III changes triggered the job cuts.

Title III was created in 1965 under the Higher Education Act, and it was established to help historically Black colleges and universities overcome past underfunding and provide students with equal opportunity to a quality education, according to the federal education department’s website. 

The aid can help eligible institutions build infrastructure, develop academic programs and training, and raise endowments. 

It remains unclear whether JSU or Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, the state’s college board, will seek alternative funding to retain these positions. 

IHL declined to comment to Mississippi Today. 

JSU’s Division of Institutional Advancement oversees fundraising efforts, including securing major gifts, maintaining relationships with alumni and private donors, fundraising campaigns and growing the university’s endowment. The office also works with the JSU’s Development Foundation to secure financial support for scholarships, academic programs and other institutional needs. 

Clarification, Oct. 30, 2026: This story has been updated to include additional information from Jackson State University saying that the funds for eight eliminated roles will be reallocated.

Jackson is one of four cities that could get tens of millions of dollars under a new U.S. Department of Justice grant. 

City officials have said the federal money would be used to rebuild the city’s forensic laboratory, hire more officers and expand surveillance of violent crime, including using artificial intelligence to track potential criminals.

The Trump administration announced Friday that it has awarded its new Model Cities Initiative grant to Mississippi’s capital city and three others. The Jackson Police Department had applied for an award of up to $125 million over three years.

Next, the Jackson City Council will have to vote whether to accept the money. The new initiative has proved controversial in other Democratic-led cities, including Charlotte and New Orleans, as the grant requires municipalities to cooperate with certain Trump administration priorities, including immigration enforcement and a ban on people sleeping in public.

But in Jackson, which has some of the highest homicide rates in the nation and recently dealt with budget cuts, at least one council member said that JPD needs the money too much to turn the grant down. 

“I hope they get it because we’re going to reduce their budget,” Ward 2 Council Member Tina Clay told Mississippi Today before the grant was awarded.  

“I’m not concerned about anything other than them (JPD) solving crimes and reducing the crime rate,” she added. “I don’t care what style they use as long as it’s legal and ethical, and they get the results we need.” 

The budget issue is one reason Jackson’s new police chief, RaShall Brackney, has prioritized pursuing federal funding.

Unlike other federal law enforcement grants, the Model Cities Initiative will be administered through a “cooperative agreement,” giving the DOJ a more active role in implementation.

The city’s grant application was supported by letters from state and local law enforcement officials, including Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones, then-Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey, Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch. 

Mayor John Horhn also wrote a letter of support in which he mischaracterized the city’s progress in reducing homicides.

“Under the leadership of Chief Brackney and the dedicated men and women of the Jackson Police Department, we have seen meaningful reductions in homicides and violent crimes,” Horhn wrote.

The letter presented to the City Council was dated June 10. On that day, WLBT’s Homicide Tracker showed that Jackson had seen 32 homicides, equal to the number it had seen by that date last year. 

By Aug. 3, the date on the letter that Horhn submitted to the federal government, Jackson’s homicides had outpaced last year. 

In an interview earlier this week, Horhn said he was not aware of the inaccuracy until a reporter brought it to his attention.  

Jackson is poised to receive the grant alongside Baton Rouge, St. Louis and Jacksonville, Florida. 

JPD proposed to use most of the $125 million to create a specialized gun-crimes unit focused on “repeat shooters,” expanding its network of cameras housed at the Real Time Command Center, and creating a database that would link 911 calls to the addresses of burned-out homes, illegal dumping sites and other code enforcement complaints.

High school senior and Clinton resident Jeremy Burwell is on track to go from being a fan of comics to starring in his own.

He is one of 840 quarterfinalists in Stan Lee’s Super Kid contest. If he wins the national contest, he’ll get a $25,000 honorarium, four VIP passes to Los Angeles Comic Con 2027 and a comic book character based on himself.

Parents must submit an entry form on their child’s behalf. LaToya Clarke-Horne, Burwell’s mother, nominated him to the competition. However, knowing her son can be pessimistic, she waited until he garnered positive results to tell him about the contest. 

“I’m not really sure how to feel. … Surprised, definitely,” Burwell said when asked about the support he’s received.

Clark-Horne describes her son as kind and intelligent. 

“His heart is unmatched,” she said.

“He loves the Lord, he loves people, he loves his family, he loves annoying his sister.”

The contest was in the quarterfinals Friday. Contestants, who must be between the ages of 5 and 17, are divided into groups. To advance in the competition, a contestant must get the most votes out of his or her group. Supporters can cast one vote per day, or donate to the Stan Lee Foundation to cast multiple votes at once.

During the final round, the votes will be reset, and a single winner will be chosen. One quarterfinalist will be the “Critic’s Pick” winner and appear in the comic book along with the Grand Prize winner.

According to Burwell’s profile, he got into comics when his mother was a high school librarian.

His mother said on the profile page, “He would read everything he could get his hands on, and he gravitated to superheroes because of the core values they taught. He often talked about fighting for those who couldn’t help themselves, and I think it just took root. That’s part of the reason why he does his best to help others.”

His favorite heroes are Iron Man and Black Panther, and his preferred super power is healing. Reading is one of his favorite hobbies, along with video games, napping and more.

If he wins, Burwell wants to donate the prize money to local charities and his high school, the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus.

At school, he’s in the Model Security Council, Tales from the Crypt, is an English peer tutor, a senator in Student Government Association and more. He also does tutoring and manages the livestream at his church, Faith Christian Center Ministries in Utica.

Outside of school, he’s part of the Mississippi Department of Education’s State Superintendent Student Advisory Council.

Voting ends on Nov. 19, and the grand prize winner will be announced on Dec. 17. 

A judge has ordered the owner of Jackson’s troubled Grand Chateau apartments be extradited and jailed after failing to comply with previous rulings to demolish the blighted property.

In an order released Thursday, Jackson Environmental Court Judge Jeffery Reynolds issued a “nonappealable judgment of conviction” against Ramesh Ramchandran, which requires the property owner to serve nearly two years in the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond. 

The order comes after Ramchandran failed to comply with a previous order issued last month that required him to begin demolition or restoration of the property after incurring several building code violations. 

The previous order granted Ramchandran a 30-day suspension on the sentence contingent on progress made towards demolition or restoration. 

In his order, the judge called the property “a dangerous menace to the residents of the City of Jackson,” adding that Ramchandran showed “criminal neglect.”

Ramchandran did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

The Grand Chateau is one of several complexes in legal limbo as the city pushes more aggressive efforts to fight against blighted properties plaguing the city. 

While the order sentenced Ramchandran to 630 days in jail, it remains to be seen how much time he will actually serve. As part of his ruling, Reynolds said early release would require his written authorization.

Ramchandran lives in Georgia, and is believed to have returned to his Alpharetta home after his initial sentencing in September. Due to this, a warrant for Ramchandran’s arrest would be required for Jackson Police officers to collect Ramchandran from his residence. 

Reynolds requested that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp issue a warrant for Ramchandran’s arrest. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Department told Mississippi Today it cannot provide information regarding warrants. 

Ramchandran has owned the West Capitol Street property since 2021. It’s most notably known for a recent controversy, in which Entergy cut power to the complex in July over alleged signs of meter tampering. 

The complex was supposed to be abandoned at the time of the power shutoff. However, over a dozen squatters were found still living on the premises.

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful ideas to be shared about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.

During the presidential election of 1863, at the height of the Civil War, federal troops reportedly descended on polling places in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri and prevented people they deemed disloyal from voting. This prompted a fierce national debate that culminated in Congress passing an 1865 law barring federal “troops or armed men” from “any place” where an election is being held.

The central goal of this law, according to its proponents, was “to prevent the president and his officers from interfering in elections,” which are run by the states. Keeping armed federal officers away from the polls, they argued, was necessary to preserve democracy, even in the midst of civil war.

This has been the clear law, and the respected policy of every presidential administration, for over a century.

Until now.

Ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election, top Trump Administration officials have publicly refused to rule out the possibility of sending federal agents to the polls. In September, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed that immigration officers could be sent to polling places to “serve a warrant” as part of immigration enforcement operations or if “there is a threat” to those polling places, adding “we’ll be where we need to be.”

“ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places,” hedged Mullin. “We’re there to enforce specific threats.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel similarly said, “If there’s a reason to go there because there’s been a violation, we will, otherwise we won’t.”

It is clear to us, and to legal experts, that barring extreme circumstances, sending ICE or FBI agents to the polls for Tueaday’s midterm election would be flatly illegal under the 1865 law, and several others. As Daniel Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointedly said this August, any request to send military troops to election sites would be an “unlawful order.” The same holds true for any other armed federal agents.

The only exception to the prohibition is to “repel armed enemies of the United States.” The Congress of 1865 originally included a second exception, allowing armed federal agents to “keep the peace at the polls.” But Congress repealed that exception in 1909 because lawmakers feared that federal authorities could point to any kind of disturbance as a pretext to deploy federal forces.

In other words, unless a hostile foreign power attacks voting sites using weapons, it is a crime for any armed federal agents to go to those sites, even to quell a disruption. And they are certainly not allowed to show up for routine policing or immigration actions.

If sending ICE to the polls is so plainly illegal, then why do top administration officials keep refusing to rule it out?

Context is important. The federal government has been conducting indiscriminate and often violent immigration enforcement actions in communities across the country. At the same time, the administration has been peddling conspiracy theories about widespread illegal voting, often targeting communities of color. The administration has redirected thousands of homeland security agents away from critical transnational security threats to hunt for elusive noncitizen voters.

These efforts are not uncovering any significant problems. Federal and state laws already bar noncitizens from voting in federal and state elections, and our election system does a terrific job of ensuring that only eligible citizens vote, with vanishingly rare exception as dozens of studies, election reviews and painstaking investigations have already confirmed.

This intimidation campaign is taking a toll. According to a University of California, San Diego poll conducted last month, a staggering 40% of voting-age American citizens expect ICE agents to be at the polls this November. Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters are three to four times more likely than white voters to worry that they will be questioned by ICE at polls or that members of their racial or ethnic groups will face intimidation at the polls. This fear is real.

But despite all the administration’s threats, voters should not be intimidated. The law protecting election sites from federal forces is ironclad. Anyone who violates that would be committing a federal crime. Federal and state laws also prohibit any effort to intimidate voters, wherever it occurs.

A broad array of civil rights groups and labor unions have already filed lawsuits to hold the federal government accountable for its intimidation effort – including The Brennan Center, where we work. Other lawyers across the country are poised to run to court to protect elections if federal agents do unlawfully show up to polls.

Outside court, election officials, state government officials, law enforcement and voter protection organizations are prepared to respond to any instance of voter intimidation. That includes de-escalation and backup plans, including changing voting sites if needed, to ensure that all Americans can continue to vote safely. Voters are determined and undeterred, as millions so far have already cast their ballot voting early and by mail.

Our advice to concerned voters: make a plan to vote as early as you can. Voters have multiple options to vote with confidence. In addition to voting at the polls on election day, they can vote early in person or vote by mail ballot, dropping it off in secure ballot drop boxes, at an election office or by mail. In Mississippi, people 65 and over, the disabled and those who will be away from home on election day, can vote until noon Saturday at the circuit clerk’s office or by mail, but the ballot must be postmarked by election day on Tuesday.

You can also go vote with a trusted group of loved ones or neighbors.

It is an outrage that the federal government has refused to rule out the idea of federal agents at the polls. In our view, it is part of a campaign to intimidate voters and undermine our elections.

The only way it will succeed is if voters don’t show up.

Wendy Weiser is vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, a nonpartisan think tank and public interest law center that works to revitalize, reform and defend our systems of democracy and justice. She oversees the center’s work on voting rights and elections, redistricting and representation, federal reform, abuse of power and the courts.

Jasleen Singh is a senior counsel and manager in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, where she focuses on voting rights and elections. She previously served as deputy attorney general in the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the California Attorney General’s Office. Her work has been cited in outlets including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and CNN.