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Tougaloo College has named three finalists in its search for a new president. Donzell Lee, the current president, will complete his term in June. 

The finalists are: 

• Elfred Anthony Pinkard, former president of Wilberforce University, a private historically Black university in Ohio
• Archie Tucker II, president of Push Pull Solutions, a consulting firm based in Texas specializing in higher education marketing and philanthropy
• Corey Wiggins, federal co-chair of the Delta Regional Authority 

Each finalist is slated to participate in forums with students, faculty and alumni.  After the sessions, constituents will submit a written evaluation of each finalist. 

Tougaloo, a 157-year-old, private historically Black college located in north Jackson, has been on the hunt for its 15th college president for nearly a year. In June, the college’s presidential search committee held community listening sessions for faculty, alumni, board of trustees and students after hiring WittKieffer, a Chicago-based consulting firm to help lead the search. 

In a November letter addressed to constituents, Blondean Davis, chair of the presidential search committee, said the search committee received 114 applications for the role at Tougaloo. WittKieffer consultants and committee members reviewed and screened each submission before identifying 12 candidates to move to first round interviews. In December, committee members selected final candidates for the role and to schedule campus visits. 

“I’m extremely pleased with the process and think we have three highly qualified candidates,” Davis told Mississippi Today. 

In February, WitKieffer plans to gather constituents’ evaluation responses and present them in a formal report to the search committee. The committee will meet to discuss the firm’s report and make recommendations for the candidates to have a final interview with Tougaloo College’s board of trustees in March. The board will then decide whether to offer a contract.  

The Mississippi Department of Human Services is expected to explore a funding model advocates for months have proposed as a solution to the state’s child care crisis, agency director Bob Anderson announced during a Senate Public Health Committee meeting Wednesday. 

That model would use some of the department’s unspent $156 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds to address the roughly 20,000 working families on a waiting list for child care vouchers, or coupons. Since April, families have been added to the waitlist after pandemic-era funds that had boosted the voucher program ran out. 

The agency has yet to navigate the federal regulations around tapping into TANF funds for this purpose, Anderson said. Mississippi already transfers the maximum 30% of TANF funds to the Child Care Development Fund. That’s the federal block grant that makes up the bulk of the voucher program funding, called the Child Care Payment Program. But other states have successfully channeled additional TANF dollars toward their voucher programs in a way that doesn’t conflict with the transfer cap.

“We have to be sure we identify the families as eligible, and that the money is allocated pursuant to the federal law,” Anderson said to lawmakers during the hearing. 

Senate Public Health Chair Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, then said: “You can do all that, can’t you?” to which Anderson responded he was “certainly going to try.”

Advocates from the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, the main group pushing the state to use more TANF funds for child care, said Wednesday’s announcement was “extremely encouraging.”

“It’s a very significant development because before, they were sounding like they didn’t think it was possible to do it,” said Carol Burnett, executive director of the group. “But now they’re beginning to say, ‘Well, it’s new for us, we don’t really know how to do it’… The fact that they’re pursuing it is a very promising development.”

The voucher program is currently only serving 18,000 children – about half of what it was serving at the height of the pandemic – according to the Mississippi Department of Human Services. 

Importantly, the enhanced pandemic funding didn’t expand eligibility. Instead, it allowed the program to reach more eligible families. The voucher program has historically only received enough funding to cover 1 in 7 eligible children. 

Working parents consistently struggle to pay for child care in the U.S., where it takes an average of 10% of a married couple’s median income and 35% of a single parent’s income to pay for the weekly expense. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deems child care that costs more than 7% of a household’s income to be unaffordable. 

The use of additional TANF funds is not the only option on the table to resolve Mississippi’s child care crisis. Anderson asked the Legislature during Wednesday’s hearing to appropriate as much as possible toward the $60 million needed to fund the child care voucher program. Anderson added, however, that because federal cuts have shifted costs to states, he didn’t include an additional child care funding request in his department’s budget request. 

“If the Legislature is inclined to fund child care in a larger amount – whether it be $16 million, $20 million, $25 million, $45 million, whatever amount – we will devote those funds to providing certificates to those families and those children who are on our waiting list right now.”

Last year, the Legislature appropriated $15 million of the $45 million the department requested to the voucher program. This year, the total amount needed has risen to $60 million due to inflation, said Mark Jones, director of communications at the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Meanwhile, the state has assumed $15 million in additional costs to run its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – another impact of the many federal funding cuts that are tightening the state’s budget. 

The increased need for child care funds coupled with the decrease in available state funds make for a difficult situation. But several lawmakers on either side of the aisle have expressed support of at least matching last year’s $15 million appropriation. 

Meanwhile, Mississippi averted an unrelated child care disaster after the Trump administration froze child care funding to five states – California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York – following allegations of widespread multi-state fraud concerns, which the states have argued the administration has not provided evidence to support. All other states were required to immediately submit new paperwork, including “strong justification” for all child care expenses, to continue drawing down federal funds. 

Mississippi successfully “defended its spend” and was able to draw down federal funds Jan. 16, Jones told Mississippi Today Thursday. 

“Because of the controls we had in place, we were able to so quickly comply,” Jones said. “If the TANF scandal taught us anything, it’s to do it right.”

Mississippi has faced shortages in child care availability long before the recent tumult on the federal level. 

Centers are closing in record numbers, child care workers are providing uncompensated care, and parents are facing impossible decisions – including anecdotal reports that several desperate parents have left their children unattended with at-home security cameras, or “nanny cams,” and were later reported to Child Protective Services. 

The only thing that will resolve the crisis, advocates say, is immediate and significant increase in funding. 

“Employers across the state need the child care industry to be stable, they need parents to have stable child care,” said Matt Williams, director of research at the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. “There are always improvements that could be made to processes and policies regarding access to affordable child care, but revenue is what’s needed right now. The voucher program has been functioning in recent years pretty well, and what the system needs is more revenue.”

A new lawsuit accuses Rankin County prosecutors of refusing to release public records that could play a role in reversing wrongful convictions resulting from criminal acts by a “Goon Squad” of deputies, many of whom are serving decades in federal prison.

For a generation, Rankin County Sheriff’s Department deputies, some of whom called themselves the “Goon Squad,” used “torture, violence, and other abusive practices to coerce confessions and extract or manufacture evidence for criminal cases prosecuted primarily by the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office,” the lawsuit alleges. 

The ACLU of Mississippi and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit Thursday in Rankin County Chancery Court.

“Due to that misconduct, the Goon Squad was responsible for profound suffering by community members, including numerous wrongful convictions,” says the lawsuit, which represents one side of a legal argument.

The lawsuit cites reporting by Mississippi Today and The New York Times, which included revelations from former Rankin County deputy Christian Dedmon about how he and others in his department regularly entered homes without warrants, beat people to get information and illegally seized evidence that helped convict people of drug crimes.

His statements corroborated many aspects of the publications’ investigation that uncovered a two-decade reign of terror by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies, including those who called themselves the “Goon Squad.” Dedmon’s statements also shed new light on the deputies’ tactics and the scope of their violent and illegal behavior.

In 2023, Dedmon and five other officers barged into a home without a warrant and then beat and tortured two Black men, Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins. One of the deputies shoved a gun in Jenkins’ mouth and shot him, shattering his jaw. To conceal their crimes, the deputies destroyed surveillance footage, planted false evidence and lied to investigators. 

After a state and federal investigation, Dedmon and the other officers pleaded guilty and were sentenced to federal prison in 2024.

Soon after Dedmon’s statements were published by Mississippi Today and The Times on Dec. 23, the civil rights organizations filed a public records request with the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office related to actions taken in response to the Goon Squad’s abuses. District Attorney Bubba Bramlett denied their request. 

“Given the documented and admitted misconduct of multiple Rankin County officers, which spans the course of two decades, the lack of transparency is deeply troubling,” said Ayanna Hill, a racial justice staff attorney with the ACLU of Mississippi. “Extraordinary measures should not be required to obtain records that, by law, belong to the public.”

The lawsuit asks the court to compel the district attorney to release a list of cases involving Goon Squad officers, actions taken in response to those revelations and communications between prosecutors and those officers.

The District Attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication of this story.

In a March 2024 statement to Mississippi Today, Bramlett said his office conducted an “extensive review to identify any and all cases in which these officers were involved.” He said his office dismissed those indicted cases and didn’t go forward with cases where “the integrity of the investigation may have been compromised.”

Mississippi Today found dozens of drug cases dismissed in the wake of the 2023 Goon Squad arrests. Some of these dismissals cited the unavailability of those deputies, who are incarcerated, as witnesses. Bramlett’s office wouldn’t divulge any details of its review, including how many cases have been dismissed and how far back his review went.

According to local defense lawyers, the district attorney’s office is not reviewing cases where defendants pleaded guilty, ruling out a vast majority of drug cases involving the deputies. Dedmon estimated deputies conducted hundreds of home search break-ins without warrants in recent years.

When the civil rights organizations asked for a list of all the cases that Goon Squad officers had been involved in over the past four years, Bramlett’s office responded that it had no such list.

“The Rankin County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted and convicted people with the Goon Squad’s help. It should be eager to provide the public with information about what it’s doing to address,” said Terry Ding, a staff attorney with the ACLU State Supreme Court Initiative. “But instead, it is unlawfully withholding all of its records except one self-serving statement to the press.” 

Ding said that the public “has a right to know how their public officials respond to cases of severe police misconduct.”

Center for Constitutional Rights Justice Fellow and attorney Korbin Felder said in a press release in the wake of Rankin County’s largest law enforcement scandal, “the District Attorney’s office should have created a transparent process of disclosing records and reviewing all cases involving these officers. 

“Rather than providing the citizens of Rankin County and the victims of law enforcement abuse the transparency and accountability they deserve, the District Attorney’s office continues to insist that the public and the victims are not entitled to such,” Felder said.

The lawsuit says Bramlett’s office had “a legal duty to disclose misconduct by those officers to the people being prosecuted as well as those convicted.”

Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the nonprofit Innocence Project, said the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland requires prosecutors to disclose any evidence that might clear a defendant, even if the evidence arises after that person’s conviction.

The lawsuit in Rankin County cites the case of Ron Shinstock, who is serving a 40-year prison sentence after he was convicted in part by the testimony of Chief Inspector Brett McAlpin, who federal prosecutors described as the “ringleader” for the 2023 attack on Jenkins and Parker.

McAlpin led a violent raid of Shinstock’s home, holding his children at gunpoint and forcing him to strip naked in his backyard. According to the lawsuit, McAlpin and other deputies beat him, threatened him with sexual abuse and told him he would be raped in prison. Shinstock’s friend was reportedly beaten so badly that he bled from his ears.

In emails and phone calls, Dedmon delineated the drug raids that occurred in Rankin County almost every week for years.

He said deputies regularly brutalized and humiliated suspects to get them to share information during the raids. And he said they often seized evidence without a legally required warrant, raising questions about possible wrongful convictions in hundreds of narcotics cases stemming from the raids.

For some raids, Dedmon said, the deputies would falsely describe emergency circumstances that gave them cover for searching without a warrant. For others, they would falsely claim that evidence was in plain sight, he said.

Dedmon said deputies were entering homes without warrants so often that in 2022 McAlpin passed on a warning from a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office demanding that “the warrantless entries had to stop.” The warning was specifically aimed at him, according to what McAlpin told him, Dedmon recalled. “He said to me that times are changing at the D.A.’s office.”

The lawsuit cited Dedmon’s remark, saying this information suggests the office knew of this “massive misconduct” but failed to inform the public or those arrested by Goon Squad officers.

“To this day, neither criminal defendants nor the public have been informed of the full scope and gravity of the Goon Squad’s misconduct,” according to the lawsuit.

In 2023, while investigating allegations against the Goon Squad, reporters for Mississippi Today and The Times sought copies of warrants related to nine raids by the unit. The department did not provide the warrants and referred reporters to the district attorney’s office, which declined to release any documentation.

Jason Dare, the lawyer for the Sheriff’s Department, has said that Dedmon’s remarks insinuate “that investigators with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department do not procure search warrants for residential searches. Such a generalized accusation against our investigators is false, defamatory and easily disproven through readily available public records.”

Dare said Dedmon’s statements to Mississippi Today show the former narcotics investigator “admits that he knew right from wrong and admits to falsifying reports to the Sheriff’s Department, both of which show that the training and policies of this department taught him how to legally and properly perform his duties. Assuming these statements are accurately reported, they show that Dedmon made the choice to commit criminal acts and is incarcerated as a result.”

Dare said the sheriff “has remained committed to the safety and protection of Rankin County citizens.”

Krissy Nobile, director of the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, had volunteered her office to help review past Goon Squad cases to determine what, if any, wrongful convictions took place.

That offer still stands, Nobile told Mississippi Today: “Our office specializes in post-conviction.”

Meanwhile, Shinstock is scheduled to be released in 2056, just before his 82nd birthday. “I lost my family, I lost my home,” he said. “I lost my life.”

While the Senate appears to remain opposed to the House’s push for sending public dollars to private schools, the chamber’s Education Committee passed bills with many of the House’s other proposals on Thursday.

The panel of lawmakers advanced 15 measures over a nearly three-hour hearing, including four bills that mirror segments of the House’s omnibus measure, House Bill 2. 

The committee passed bills that would extend a literacy act that helped raise reading scores in Mississippi into higher grades and establish a similar math act. It also approved bills that would create a framework for school consolidations and mandate financial literacy education for high school graduation.

“A lot of stuff from last year passed again today, and then a lot of new stuff that you’ve probably seen in a House bill somewhere,” Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville, told reporters after the meeting. “But, as I said before, we have most everything in House Bill 2, and we’re gonna pass (the Senate bills).”

An adolescent literacy expansion, which the Mississippi Department of Education estimates would cost $9 million, would send more literacy coaches to schools and establish an eighth-grade reading gate, akin to the test that third-graders are required to pass to graduate. 

The math act passed by the committee on Thursday is similar — with a cost of about $3.5 million. Lawmakers and education officials are aiming to replicate the state’s reading gains in math by deploying coaches and testing students at least three times a year to identify weaknesses.

Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, amended the bill to specify the use of high-quality instructional materials after committee Vice Chairman David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson, also pushed back against it, asking for a standardized curriculum and closer alignment with the state’s literacy program.

“We established a model that works, and I want to stick to that model,” Blount said.

The committee also passed a bill that would broaden the powers of the Commission on School District Efficiency, which the Legislature established years ago. The bill would require the commission to give the Legislature recommendations on school consolidations as early as the next session. 

Then, if any consolidations are approved by the Legislature, they would begin July 2028, DeBar said. 

Another bill that the committee approved Thursday, which mirrors a section of House Bill 2, would require financial literacy education for Mississippi students. 

The Senate committee previously passed three other components of House Bill 2 — easing public school transfer regulations, making it easier for retirees to return to the classroom and raising assistant teacher pay. 

The committee has passed more than a third of the provisions in House Bill 2 altogether, and more are coming. Senators have filed bills promoting prayer in school and permitting homeschooled students to play sports at their assigned public school, both pieces of the omnibus House bill. 

The panel on Thursday also took up 11 other education measures that would give more money to schools for their gifted students, raise the salaries of school attendance officers, allow school boards to enact cellphone bans during school hours, permit the earlier distribution of procurement cards that teachers use to buy classroom supplies and create an ombudsman office within the state education department.

One bill that would have revoked the charter of charter schools that are rated D or F for longer than two years was listed on the committee agenda. However, DeBar, who’s been outspoken about his disapproval of the performance of the state’s charter schools, cut the meeting short without bringing the bill up for a vote.

“I don’t anticipate bringing that back up,” he said. 

The bills passed by the committee can now be considered by the full chamber. 

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann referred House Bill 2 to the Senate Education Committee this week. DeBar said he will take it up in committee, but he has repeatedly said the Senate opposes any measure that includes a voucher system of using public tax dollars for private schooling.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center has raised nearly $90 million for the construction of a new cancer center, an important step in Mississippi’s quest to gain a national designation that could improve outcomes for patients in the state with one of the nation’s highest cancer mortality rates, according to hospital leaders.

“What we don’t have in Mississippi is the gold standard kind of cancer program that is available in other places in the country,” said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the UMMC School of Medicine, during the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday.

The medical center is asking the state Legislature to appropriate $100 million to go toward the new building’s $250 million overall cost. The project also has the support of U.S. Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker and U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, who are seeking approximately $40 million in federal funding for the cancer center, Woodward said. The remaining costs will be financed through bonds issued by the medical center.

The five-story building will be located on State Street across from the medical center and “bring together education, research and treatment under one roof,” according to the project’s fundraising website. The building will be adjacent to the American Cancer Center’s Jackson Hope Lodge, which provides a free place to stay to cancer patients and their families. 

The new building is critical to the UMMC Cancer Center and Research Institute’s application for designation by the National Cancer Institute, a federal agency run by the National Institutes of Health, Woodward said. The institute recognizes cancer centers that meet rigorous requirements for laboratory and clinical research and translate scientific knowledge into innovative treatments for patients. It also provides training for the next generation of cancer-care professionals and performs outreach to the community. 

There are 73 NCI designated centers nationwide, but none in Mississippi, Louisiana or Arkansas. Cancer patients in Mississippi seeking care at a designated center must travel to Alabama, Tennessee or Texas. The designation was first introduced in the 1970s as a part of a national initiative to increase Americans’ access to cutting-edge cancer treatment. 

Achieving the designation will be a “long, heavy lift,” that could take up to a decade, Dr. Rodney Rocconi, the director of UMMC’s cancer center since 2023, previously told Mississippi Today. It will require the center to recruit faculty, expand its research capacity and demonstrate strong programming in community outreach and prevention.

Designated centers receive a support grant from the agency and have access to early clinical trials. Studies have shown that patients treated at NCI-designated centers have lower mortality rates than people treated at non-designated cancer centers. 

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Mississippi, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mississippi’s cancer death rate is 25% higher than the national average.

UMMC, the state’s only academic medical center, is the only institution in Mississippi capable of achieving NCI designation because a successful application requires a high level of research horsepower, Woodward said to the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday. 

“It’s either us, or it doesn’t happen,” she said. 

The state Legislature increased its appropriation for the cancer center to $9 million in 2024 – a nearly $5 million increase — to support research infrastructure, clinical trials and recruiting researchers.

The medical center is currently recruiting cancer researchers “as fast as we can,” Woodward said Wednesday. 

The University of Mississippi Medical Center has sought National Cancer Institute designation since 2012, a process it then expected to take five years, the Jackson Free Press reported at the time.

UMMC has received several sizable donations for the cancer center, and donations have outpaced the medical center’s internal schedule, said Woodward. John and Sandy Black of Madison donated $25 million to support the new facility last January. 

“The enthusiasm that we are meeting for this project is phenomenal,” Woodward said. 

The medical center has discussed the application process with the National Cancer Institute, Woodward said. The institute will not give UMMC a pass on any requirements, but they have been “exceedingly encouraging” of Mississippi’s efforts, Woodward said.

“They know the need in the state.”

Kimberly Bartlett endured a year of beatings and strangulation at the hands of two former partners who are now incarcerated for crimes stemming from the abuse. She didn’t know it at the time, but both had a history of domestic violence.

When the Ellisville resident learned about an effort in Tennessee to create a public registry for repeat abusers, she wanted to see her state take action. 

As a mother and survivor, she said she believes a repeat domestic violence offender registry would be a game changer and something that could have alerted her about her partners’ pasts. She reached out to a local lawmaker and the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence to see if the state could create its own. 

“This has got to happen for our sake,” Bartlett said about the need for the registry for survivors, parents and the public.  

A handful of bills pending in the Mississippi Legislature propose creating a public online system displaying information about people convicted of two or more domestic violence offenses, including misdemeanors and felonies. Each entry would include a picture, name, county of conviction and charges. The Department of Public Safety would maintain the information. 

A repeat domestic violence offender would need to be convicted at least once in Mississippi, but any prior conviction can be from in or out of the state. Legislation would also require those who meet the criteria to be added to the register. 

The registry would list repeat offenders for crimes committed after the act becomes law, but any prior convictions used to establish their eligibility can be earlier. 

Rep. Charles Blackwell, a Republican from Ellisville, and Sen. Kamesha Mumford, a Clinton Democrat, each proposed registry bills supported by the coalition.

House Bill 1312 is called the “Purple Angels Law,” and Mumford’s Senate bill is expected to have a similar name. As of Thursday, the Senate bill was not available on the Legislature website. 

The bills are named for domestic violence victims, including those who have died, said Luis Montgomery, policy and justice strategist for the statewide domestic violence coalition, which is supporting efforts to create a registry and other domestic violence legislation. 

Additionally, Republican Rep. Lance Varner of Florence and Sen. Angela Burks Hill, a Republican from Picayune, filed HB 1371 and SB 2113 to create a repeat domestic offenders registry. Both bills include similar language as the Tennessee law. 

Tennessee’s registry, “Savanna’s Law,” was named for Savanna Puckett, a 22-year-old sheriff’s deputy, who was killed by her ex-boyfriend on Jan. 23, 2022. About a year later, James Jackson Conn pleaded guilty to first-degree, premeditated murder and is serving a life sentence. Investigators found he had a history of domestic violence and stalking other women. 

As in Tennessee, the registry would remove a person’s information after a certain period of time after a conviction. For one conviction, they would be listed for five years. It would be seven years for two prior convictions, a decade for three priors and 20 years for four prior convictions. 

Blackwell and Mumford’s bills propose a lifetime listing on the registry for anyone convicted of felony domestic violence, Montgomery said. Domestic felonies can include aggravated domestic violence and more than three misdemeanor domestic violence assaults.  

The proposed bills do not specify what charges would qualify someone for the registry. Montgomery said the language is open ended to account for other types of charges a person could face for a domestic offense, including stalking or sexual assault.  

The Mississippi bills would also establish a registry fee paid for by the person convicted of multiple domestic violence offenses. A portion of that money would go to support administrative costs, and the rest would be deposited into the state’s Domestic Violence Fund to provide grants for prevention, intervention and victim support services. 

Montgomery hopes establishing a repeat domestic offender registry can build on the momentum from the previous session when lawmakers created the state’s domestic violence fatality review committee. He serves as vice chairman of the group which is in the process of developing processes and policies to start reviewing domestic violence homicides and other deaths. 

Bartlett said she’s seen how women are scared to talk about domestic violence, which can lead to their voices being silenced and abuse being pushed under the rug. She hopes a registry can help spread awareness about the issue and empower people who use it. 

“You want to be able to check and verify and check in black and white, that this person is who they say they are, that they are safe,” Bartlett said.

A hyper-realistic video shows John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln playing video games. Another, of Michael Jackson dancing in a fast-food restaurant, has over 25.3 million views on TikTok.

But in Louisiana, two middle-school boys created artificial-intelligence generated nude images of their female classmates. It’s becoming nearly impossible to tell a real video from one generated by AI, and the technology can be used for nefarious purposes far beyond entertainment.

A bill proposed in the Mississippi Legislature would make it illegal to create such deepfakes in the Magnolia state. 

Sen. Bradford Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton, has reintroduced a bill to give Mississippians the right to their image, name and voice. The Mississippians’ Right to Name, Likeness and Voice Act would enact penalties for using a person’s image in AI-generated content without their consent.

“This is not theoretical. These are real kids, real classrooms facing real consequences from fake content,” said Blackmon. 

Last year, a former Mississippi teacher pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography after he was accused of creating explicit videos of his students using AI.

In 2024, Mississippi passed two laws that regulate AI use. One addressed using deepfakes in political campaigns and the other other classifies AI images of children as child exploitation.

The rapid improvement of AI and growing concerns around deepfakes have led to piecemeal legislation across the country. But the federal government wants to dictate AI regulation, over fear state regulations would hinder the technology’s development. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last year that pushes for a consolidated national approach to AI regulation and allows the U.S. attorney general to challenge state AI laws. 

In the meantime, Blackmon said he would “rather be proactive than reactive” when it comes to regulating AI in Mississippi.

Other news: layoffs in Southaven, childcare access and unemployment data

• November data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that unemployment was up slightly in three metro areas across the state. This followed national trends and unemployment remained lower than the nationwide rate of 4.3%. Gulfport-Biloxi unemployment was 3.6% in November, up from 3.1% the previous year. Hattiesburg and Jackson were both at 3.5%, up from 3.1% in November 2024. December state unemployment data will be released next week. 
• Dozens of workers abruptly lost their jobs after xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, bought the Southaven warehouse where they worked. Temporary workers at the GXO warehouse say they learned they would be laid off a day before Gov. Tate Reeves announced xAI’s $20-billion investment.
• Mississippi Today’s Sophia Paffenroth recently wrote about the challenges Mississippians have finding affordable child care. There are around 20,000 families on a waiting list for child care vouchers and last year a record number of child care centers closed. Mississippi has continually struggled with a low labor force participation rate and studies have shown that available and affordable child care increases the rate among parents of young children. 

The state’s two K-12 education bodies are asking lawmakers for only slight increases in their budgets for the coming fiscal year.

The Mississippi Department of Education is asking for a $33 million, or 1% increase, to its $3.31-billion budget. Many of the agency’s spending priorities are directed to classrooms, not administration, and aimed at continuing improvement in education, State Superintendent Lance Evans told legislators.

“We won’t be satisfied until we lead the nation,” he said during a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting on Jan. 14.

A new adolescent literacy initiative would build on a 2013 literacy act — which established a third-grade reading gate and helped Mississippi gain national attention for improvement. Expanding the program to higher grades would cost $9 million. That money would add assistant directors, regional coaches and literacy coaches to support teachers and comprehensive statewide professional development. A similar math initiative would cost $3.48 million, the agency said, which would fund coaches’ salaries and travel, screeners and statewide training.

The agency wants to continue its new virtual teaching program, which would cost $2.1 million. The program, called the Mississippi REACH Remote Synchronous Teaching Initiative, is one of the agency’s attempts to respond to the teacher shortage affecting swaths of Mississippi schools. It puts educators, based in rooms at Mississippi Public Broadcasting, on classroom screens throughout the state. 

The education agency is also addressing teacher shortages by investing in its workforce. Officials want to spend $3.5 million on the Mississippi Teacher Residency Program and more than $500,000 on training for school leaders and superintendents. 

Another classroom initiative is $3.6 million that would be directed to expanding the state’s early childhood programs. 

The money would fund 33 early learning coaches to serve 40 collaboratives — a state and taxpayer funded pre-K program established by the Legislature in 2013 that created education partnerships in communities across Mississippi. It would also serve 33 state-invested pre-K programs — a similar program with less red tape that doesn’t require collaboration with Head Start centers — throughout the state, about 494 classrooms in total. 

Other funding initiatives include college-and-career readiness programs, equipment for driver education, the administration of state and federal tests, and support for the office of accreditation to better monitor compliance. 

The state’s student funding formula accounts for $2.974 billion of the agency’s total request for next year, compared to its $2.965-billion formula appropriation this year. The $9-million decrease is due to lower enrollment and fewer students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, agency officials said during their meeting with the Senate Appropriations Committee last week.

MDE also wants to pay for more school attendance officers, or truancy officers. The department is requesting additional funds to add capacity for SAOs across the state, as well as to fund more early childhood education employees.

The charter authorizer board, tasked with approval and overseeing the state’s charter schools, has only marginally raised its request compared to what it was appropriated this year. For the coming year, the board is asking the Legislature for $1,403,231, or a $3,321 increase.

The increase is due to slightly higher salary costs, which officials said were due to employing people with higher degrees. 

Lisa Karmacharya, director of the board, told Mississippi Today that the agency’s priorities remain the same this year as they’ve been for years past: quality oversight, support and accountability for the state’s charter schools.

Alcorn State University has resumed operations after being locked down for several hours Thursday morning. 

An update posted to Facebook around noon notes that Alcorn was among several historically Black colleges and universities that received emailed threats. The post does not provide details about the nature of the threats.

“There is no ongoing threat, and the campus is secure,” the statement read.

The post notes that some security precautions remain in place, and that access to the campus is restricted.

University officials would not provide additional information Thursday morning.

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning’s Board of Trustees, which had a regularly scheduled meeting Thursday morning, went into closed session to discuss matters including security and personnel plans related to the situation at Alcorn. The board gave no statement about Alcorn when they returned to open session and adjourned the meeting.

In February of 2022, most HBCUs in Mississippi locked down and pivoted to virtual classes after receiving bomb threats. Other HBCUs across the country also reported bomb threats that day, which was the first day of Black History Month. That year, the spate of bomb threats prompted the American Council on Education and other organizations to ask Congress to support and protect HBCUs from such “acts of terror.”

The incidents continued. There was another wave of threats against HBCUs in September.

On Thursday, other HBCUs including Morris Brown College and Morehouse University in Atlanta, Savannah State University in Georgia, Wiley University in Marshall, Texas, also received threats, according to news reports. It is unclear how many schools also received threats Thursday, and whether the incidents are connected.

A video obtained by Mississippi Today confirms oral and documented accounts that a guard at the Rankin County Adult Detention Center punched an inmate so hard that he broke the inmate’s jaw.

The video, captured by security cameras inside the Rankin County jail, shows guard Jordan McQueary striking an inmate, Dustin Rives, during his 2022 stay in the jail. Medical records show that Rives, whose jaw was fractured, did not receive treatment until 25 days after the incident, by which time he had developed a deep infection that required surgery.

McQueary is still employed by the department and was honored in 2024 for his “outstanding” work in the jail. He declined to comment and redirected reporters to the department’s attorney.

Mississippi Today and The New York Times previously uncovered allegations of widespread violence in the jail involving the use of favored inmates, known as “trusties,” as enforcers, and a culture of brutality condoned and encouraged by top officials.

The Justice Department has been investigating the patterns and practices of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jail, since its deputies’ 2023 shooting of a Black man. Mississippi Today and The Times documented a reign of terror by deputies for nearly 20 years.

When the publications asked the department for this video in August, they responded, “The requested date is beyond the record retention date for videos and, upon best information and belief, such video is not available for production.” It was one of 10 videos the publications requested in 2025 and did not receive. The department did not respond to multiple requests for its retention schedule.

“There is a public interest in prosecuting crimes, and there is a public interest in purging people who commit crimes from their jobs,” said Matt Steffey, a professor of criminal law and evidence at the Mississippi College School of Law. In the absence of a criminal investigation or a lawsuit, while there may not be a legal requirement for the department to retain video evidence beyond their retention schedule, “They should, as a matter of sensible administration of a public body,” Steffey said.

Mississippi Today obtained the video from Rives’ family, who acquired it through an attorney’s office.

Jason Dare, the attorney for the sheriff’s department, said McQueary’s “single slap in response to Rives (1) calling a female jailer a “b****”, (2) threatened to punch her,  then (3) raising his right fist to follow through with his threats” appeared to be constitutionally permissible, and that Rives received medical attention within five minutes of the incident and was X-rayed within 24 hours. 

Rives’ complaint acknowledged that a nurse had checked his vitals soon after the incident, and that he had been X-rayed. A report written 17 days after the incident by a nurse in the jail says Rives was being given Naproxen, which is used to manage pain. Medical records show that he was not taken to the hospital until 25 days after the incident. 

McQueary, the guard in the video who is seen punching Rives, has been named in complaints or federal lawsuits by at least nine inmates who allege he assaulted them.

While being held in the male detox cell on July 18, 2022, Rives began “yelling and screaming that he wanted his medicine,” McQueary wrote in his report.

Rives wrote in a complaint he filed a month later that when he went to the restroom, he was urinating blood. “I yelled for help and officers and trustees came cursing and threatening me,” he wrote. “I turned to point at blood.” Rives said the medication he was asking for included his antidepressants, antibiotics and pain medicine. 

The video shows a group of guards and a trusty rushing to the cell. A shouting match ensues.

McQueary quoted Rives as saying to a female guard, “Shut up, bitch, before I punch you in the face.” Rives admitted to using that language, but said it was directed at the male trusty who accompanied the guards, not the female guard. 

McQueary then lunges and punches Rives in the face, knocking him to the ground. 

On reviewing the incident, David Fathi, the director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said punching a detainee could only be justified in self-defense, which was not the case according to the guard’s own report.

“There is no indication that when the incident started, the detainee was doing anything other than yelling and screaming,” Fathi said. “Putting aside the way he was expressing himself, asking for medicine is a reasonable and appropriate request. They could have had someone from medical talk to him, or they could have just left him alone. Instead, the officers escalated the situation into what ended up being a very dangerous use of force.”

About a minute and a half after punching Rives, McQueary can be seen escorting him away with his hands behind his back. Rives’ pants have been pulled down, exposing his genitals. “I was begging them to pull up my pants,” Rives wrote. “They laughed and said they wouldn’t.”

“If his pants had been pulled down, they should have pulled them back up before parading him through the jail in front of other people,” said Fathi. “That kind of gratuitous humiliation is completely unjustifiable.” 

Jail incident reports show that instead of being taken to a hospital, Rives, whose jaw was fractured, was strapped into a restraint chair overnight and then locked in an isolation cell for 25 days. “I got real sick,” he said.

By the time he was hospitalized, medical records show, his jaw was infected and required surgery, including the removal of a tooth.

Rives was one of eight inmates who filed grievances in the jail between 2018 to 2022, describing assaults by guards or trusties.

Rives’ grievance file shows that a supervisor closed his complaint three days after he filed it, saying the department had provided a “satisfactory response,” which included scheduling a medical appointment for Rives and informing him of his right to press criminal charges against McQueary after he was released from the jail. The report does not indicate whether McQueary was disciplined or questioned about the incident. 

Rives said the department never contacted him again.

He also said his broken jaw never fully healed. “They’re still hurting people,” Rives said. “I just want to make sure that can’t happen again.”