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BUCHAREST, Romania — Tudor Lakatos is fighting discrimination against the Roma people, one Elvis Presley song at a time.

Decked out in a rhinestone shirt and oversized sunglasses, with his black hair slicked back into a 1950s-style quiff, Lakatos swivels his hips and belts out his own idiosyncratic versions of hits like “Blue Suede Shoes” at venues throughout Romania.

But don’t call him an Elvis impersonator. Lakatos prefers to say that he “channels” the King of rock ‘n’ roll’s global appeal to break down stereotypes about the Roma and provide a positive role model for Roma children.

“I never wanted to get on stage, I didn’t think about it,” Lakatos, 58, said after a recent gig at a restaurant in the capital, Bucharest. “I only wanted one thing — to make friends with Romanians, to stop being called a Gypsy,” he added, using an often derided term for people belonging to the Roma ethnic group.

The Roma, an ethnic group that traces its roots to South Asia, have been persecuted across eastern Europe for centuries and are still associated with high rates of poverty, unemployment and crime. They account for about 7% of the population of Romania, where a fifth say they have faced discrimination in the past year, according to a recent survey by the European Union.

Lakatos’ quest to change that began in the early 1980s when he was an art student and Romania was ruled by the hard-line communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

At a time when anti-Roma discrimination was mainstream, Lakatos found that singing Elvis songs was a way to connect with ethnic Romanian students while rock music was a symbol of rebellion against the oppressive government.

Four decades later, he’s added a new audience.

A school teacher for the past 25 years, Lakatos uses his music to show his students that they can aspire to something more than the dirt roads and horse driven carts of their village in northwestern Romania.

“The adjective Gypsy is used everywhere as a substitute for insult,” Lakatos said. “We older people have gotten used to it, we can swallow it, we grew up with it. I have said many times, ‘Call us what you want, dinosaur and brontosaurus, but at least join hands with us to educate the next generation.’”

But Lakatos still crisscrosses the country to perform at venues large and small.

On a hot summer evening, that journey took Lakatos to Terasa Florilor in Bucharest, a neighborhood joint whose owner takes pride in offering live music by local artists who perform on a stage made of wooden beams painted in vivid colors.

The audience included those who came for the show and others attracted by the sausages, pork roast and Moldavian meatballs on the menu. A few danced and others took selfies as they enjoyed Lakatos’ trademark “Rock ‘n’ Rom” show, a mix of Elvis songs delivered in the Romani language, Romanian and English.

The eclectic mix of languages can sometimes lead to surprises because there isn’t always a literal translation for Elvis’ 1950s American English.

For example, “Don’t step on my blue suede shoes” doesn’t make sense to many of the children he teaches because they are so poor, Lakatos said.

In his version, the lyric Elvis made famous becomes simply “don’t step on my bare feet.”

It’s a message that Elvis — born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, during the Great Depression — probably would have understood.

 This report was written by Vadim Ghirda and Andreea Alexandru of The Associated Press.

We are in that period of the sports calendar when baseball is winding down and football talk is heating up. The Clevelands discuss Saints pre-season camp, the college football preseason rankings, the lowly Atlanta Braves, and much more.

Stream all episodes here.

A federal judge will soon decide if a Mississippi law banning educators from teaching diversity, equity and inclusion programs should be blocked indefinitely. 

Dozens of educators, students and parents watched on Tuesday as attorneys argued over a preliminary injunction. It would extend the pause issued by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate and prevent the controversial state law from being enforced until there’s a final ruling in the case.

The biggest hang-up? Whether teachers and students have First Amendment rights in the classroom. 

Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued over the course of two days about the law’s unconstitutionality and vagueness. Rob McDuff, a Mississippi Center for Justice attorney, emphasized that entire curricula would have to be rewritten, and that widespread confusion about the statute could lead to a flood of complaints. 

“The statute is breathtaking in breadth and confusion,” McDuff said. 

Attorneys for the plaintiffs called four witnesses — a parent, a professor, a graduate student and a law-school professor — to the stand. They all said they felt uncomfortable with and confused by the law. The two University of Mississippi educators — sociology professor James Thomas and law-school professor Cliff Johnson — said they were unable to finalize their syllabi, just weeks before classes begin. 

Thomas, who teaches a sociological race and ethnicity seminar, said he didn’t think he could teach his discipline “without running afoul of the law.” A parent of two Oxford School District students, he also said he was concerned that his kids’ education, as a result of the law, would not stack up to their peers who live in other states. 

Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law, described a portion of the statute as “nonsensical,” to titters from the audience. At one point, Wingate questioned Johnson himself, asking if he felt comfortable teaching various lawsuits and statutes — the list spanned the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, as well as defining U.S. Civil Rights cases such as Korematsu v. United States. 

When Johnson responded that he didn’t feel comfortable teaching those things under the law, both the judge and the court were silent. 

Lisa Reppeto of the Mississippi Attorney General’s office chalked up the plaintiffs’ concerns to “histrionics” and an “overwrought” reading of the statute. 

She argued that the testimony provided was largely irrelevant because what the educators, parents and students feared would most likely not come to pass, and that the educators in particular gave up their First Amendment free speech rights when they chose employment with public institutions. 

“I have been a public employee now for two months,” she said. “I knew when I took the job with the attorney general’s office that my First Amendment rights are now subject to my employer. It’s what every public employee agrees to. If you don’t want to be subject to those rules, you should probably find another job.”

As for the parents and students in the lawsuit who expressed anxiety and dismay about the law’s enforcement?

“Feelings aren’t evidence,” Reppeto said. 

This was also the first time that parties appeared before Wingate since he issued an error-riddled temporary restraining order that contained several factual inaccuracies.

The first iteration of the order named plaintiffs who weren’t parties to the suit, quoted state law incorrectly and referred to a case that doesn’t appear to exist — errors some lawyers speculated were made by artificial intelligence. After the state attorney general asked Wingate to clarify the document, he replaced it with a corrected version, removing the original from the docket entirely.

Then, the state asked that the original faulty order be restored to the docket and for an explanation for the errors. 

But Wingate, in an order on Aug. 1, denied the request and attributed the mistakes to “clerical errors.”

“The Court corrected the record, notified the parties, and the corrected TRO is the controlling order,” he wrote. “No further explanation is warranted.”

While attorneys have been questioned or sanctioned for using artificial intelligence, the power imbalance makes it difficult to do the same when the same is suspected of a judge. 

The plaintiffs have also filed a motion seeking class-action status, which would prohibit state agencies from forcing other educators to comply with the DEI law. That motion was not substantively discussed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Wingate is expected to issue a ruling on the preliminary injunction before Aug. 17, when the temporary restraining order expires. Lawyers on both sides stressed that time is of the essence — some Mississippi schools have already welcomed students back for the new year. The remainder will begin classes within weeks.

Mississippi Today reporter Taylor Vance contributed to this article.

CANTON – Jeff Goodwin, director of the state auditor’s compliance division, was congenial while describing to Canton officials how the office has taken $352,000 of the city’s revenue to pay for past-due audits – the first time Auditor Shad White has exercised this authority.

“I didn’t write the law. Auditor White didn’t write the law, but we’re charged with enforcing it,” Goodwin said at the Canton Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday.

Canton is one of 68 local governments across Mississippi that received an auditor’s letter in March, putting officials on notice of their delinquent audits. 

The notices went as far north as Farmington near the Tennessee line and as far south as Moss Point on the Gulf Coast. They spanned from mid-sized cities like McComb, to rural towns like Coffeeville, to tiny villages like Beauregard – a signal of widespread municipal finance concerns.

This is especially true in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, during which Congress dolled out billions to local governments nationwide, necessitating more accounting, and city and town halls dealt with the fallout of a reduced labor force. 

Incomplete audits create a host of problems, including reducing a city’s ability to borrow money and prohibiting it from drawing down federal grants.

Audits are important, despite not appearing urgent, said Billy Morehead, Mississippi College accounting professor and member of the Mississippi Public Procurement Review Board.

“All of a sudden, the can’s been kicked down the road and the municipality is at risk of losing a variety of funding, a lot of their federal funds, but also their credit ratings,” Morehead said. “It could be catastrophic to some of these places.”

The March letters required compliance within 30 days or the auditor would request the Mississippi Department of Revenue to divert sales tax dollars from the municipality – the estimated price of bringing the audits up to date, plus 50% of that amount the auditor is allowed to retain for its administrative cost of hiring the accounting firm and acting as a third party on the reports.

Jackson has faced scrutiny for falling behind on its audits, including one for 2023 which has yet to be complete, but the capital city did not receive a noncompliance letter. The auditor’s office said it focused on municipalities that are as far behind as 2022.

Only Canton, a city of about 11,000 in Madison County, and Maben, a town of fewer than 1,000 in Oktibbeha County, have seen their funds diverted under this process so far. Maben’s transfer totaled more than $68,000. Holly Springs, Indianola and Tchula are not far behind.

The planned diversions total $1.6 million, with Indianola facing the largest threatened seizure of $675,000. That’s more than half of the city’s total annual sales tax revenue of about $1.1 million. Holly Springs, which has been under investigation for its management of the local electric utility, faces a sales tax diversion of $450,000, also roughly half of its annual sales tax revenue of $900,000.

The auditor’s office has chosen so far not divert an additional total of $900,000 from four other towns – Itta Bena, Okolona, Winona and McComb – which it said demonstrated a good faith effort to rectify their incomplete reports. WLBT reported that McComb hadn’t completed an audit since 2020, and that residents “think someone is stealing from the city,” according to a local official.

Annual audit requirements were relaxed during the pandemic, Goodwin said, “But COVID has since passed.”

“And so we’re finding municipalities in circumstances where they can’t borrow funds, they can’t get grants, which is a jeopardy to the health, safety and welfare of the constituents,” he said.

In the case of Indianola, the audit delinquency caused the city to lose federal grants, such as a half-million dollar sidewalk project from the Mississippi Department of Transportation, according to reporting by The Enterprise-Tocsin, though it found a workaround by routing the money through the school district.

The auditor’s office has the power to direct these diversions under a law passed in 2009. But this is the first time it has deployed this authority, assuming control of a city’s funds and engaging a firm to conduct the audits.

“It’s brand new, uncharted territory,” Goodwin said, “The way the code reads, we have to estimate the fee and we have to put a 50% penalty on it. We don’t want your money.”

White, a Republican, has jokingly referred to his office as “MOGE,” the Mississippi version of President Donald Trump former adviser Elon Musk’s DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency. The auditor was more rigid in his comments on the municipalities’ overdue work.

“We’ve given cities plenty of chances to catch up on their audits,” White said in a statement to Mississippi Today. “For the ones who have refused to get audited, their citizens deserve better, and my office will use the full extent of its legal authority to make sure the taxpayers get the transparency they deserve.”

The auditor’s office notably does not have the authority to audit municipalities itself, and legislators killed a 2024 proposal to permit the auditor to review and examine them.

The Mississippi Department of Revenue declined multiple requests for an interview about the diversions, directing all questions to the auditor’s office.

Under the law, the auditor’s office has the power to choose the CPA firm to complete the past-due audits, enter the contract as a third party, and pay the invoices with the diverted revenue. Canton recently retained Tann, Brown and Russ in an effort to comply. The same firm has been working on the 2019 audit for Indianola since 2024. An accountant there declined to comment about their engagement or about the challenges surrounding municipal auditing.

It’s difficult to find CPA firms that will conduct municipal audits, let alone one that will do it for a price some small towns are willing or able to pay. The number of students majoring in accounting has dwindled, despite an uptick in more recent years, Morehead said, and firms are still struggling to keep up with the demand.

“I know folks who are just exhausted,” Morehead said.

In Tchula, one of the poorest towns in the nation on the edge of the Mississippi Delta in Holmes County, Mayor General Vann served 2017-21 and oversaw the last annual audit the town completed. He was elected again this year and took office July 1. Within a few weeks, Tchula had retained Watkins, Ward and Stafford, headquartered in West Point. 

“The town finances are meager,” Vann said. “But this is a priority and a necessity and it’s something that you have to get done. And the price, you just have to bear it and come up with it. You don’t have any choice.”

The audits become even more difficult to complete when municipalities haven’t maintained proper recordkeeping – every transaction, deposit and debit – in part because they’re losing institutional knowledge inside their clerks’ offices due to retirement and population loss.

“I think there’s a brain drain,” Vann said. “You have to have someone that knows how to keep a good set of books.”

The auditor’s office said it would be returning any unused money to the municipalities, but since the estimated cost of the audit assumes financial statements will be in a good enough shape to audit and that may not be the case, it could be unlikely there are any leftover funds.

“I do have concerns for you, each one of you,” Goodwin told the Canton officials. “You’re basing your decisions off of financial statements that will not be complete.”

Alderwoman Shannon Whitehead, who was just elected in April, smiled, nodded and repeated “right” and “absolutely” during the presentation Tuesday. 

Jason Camp, a Mississippi State University extension specialist who specializes in municipal government, said in some cases, current municipal officials were not in charge when the audits fell behind, but someone has to hold them accountable for following the law.

“It does sound like the actions taken by the state auditor’s office has made some urgency come into play with some of the cities who maybe didn’t think it was such a big deal to be behind,” Camp said in an interview with Mississippi Today. “They’re now saying, ‘Hey this is a serious issue and we have to put resources towards getting us caught up.’”

All but one incumbent Mississippi lawmaker won their primary race in special elections scattered across the state Tuesday. 

With complete but unofficial numbers, Sens. Michael McLendon of Hernando, Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg and Reginald Jackson of Marks, and Reps. Kabir Karriem of Columbus and Rickey Thompson of Shannon all won their primaries.

See vote totals below.

Sen. Robin Robinson of Laurel was soundly defeated, ending her brief tenure in the Senate. Donald Hartness, a retired Ellisville resident backed by former longtime state Sen. Chris McDaniel, captured the Republican nomination with more than 70% of the vote.

In newly drawn Senate District 2, including parts of DeSoto and Tunica counties, Theresa Isom defeated Robert Walker in the Democratic primary. She will face Republican Charlie Hoots in November.

A federal three-judge panel ordered Mississippi to conduct special elections for 14 legislative seats this year because the court determined the Legislature diluted Black voting strength when it redrew state House and Senate districts.

The federal panel specifically ordered the state to have special elections for House districts in the Chickasaw County area, Senate districts in the Hattiesburg area and Senate districts in the DeSoto County area.

Ten of the 14 seats are contested. Of those 10, seven had a contested primary Tuesday. After party leaders certify the election results, the Republican and Democratic nominees will compete in the Nov. 4 general election. 

Here are the complete results of the primary election: 

Senate District 1 – DeSoto and Tate counties: 

Republican Primary: 

• Michael McLendon, incumbent:  4,176
• Jon Stevenson: 1,941

In the general election, McLendon will face Chris Hannah, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. 

Senate District 2 – DeSoto and Tunica counties: 

Democratic primary: 

• Theresa Isom: 841
• Robert Walker:  234

In the general election, Isom will face Charlie Hoots , who was unopposed for the Republican nomination. 

Senate District 11 – Coahoma, DeSoto, Quitman, Tate and Tunica counties: 

Democratic primary: 

• Abe Hudson, Jr.: 1,025
• Reginald Jackson, incumbent: 1,427

In the general election, Jackson will face Kendall Prewett, who was unopposed for the Republican nomination. 

Senate District 42 – Forrest, Greene, Jones and Wayne counties: 

Republican primary: 

• Donald Hartness: 4,246
• R.J. Robinson: 84
• Robin Robinson, incumbent: 1,676

No Democrat ran, so Hartness has won the seat. 

Senate District 19 – DeSoto County: 

Dianne Black, a Democrat, will face Republican Sen. Sen. Kevin Blackwell in the general election. They were unopposed for the party nominations.

Senate District 44 – Forrest, Lamar and Perry counties: 

Republican primary: 

• Chris Johnson, incumbent: 2,282
• Patrick Lott: 1,961

In the general election, Johnson will face Shakita Taylor, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. 

House District 16 – Chickasaw, Lee, Monroe and Pontotoc counties: 

Democratic primary: 

• Brady Davis: 348
• Rickey Thompson, incumbent: 1,325

No Republican ran, so Thompson was reelected. 

House District 22 – Chickasaw, Clay and Monroe counties:

Democrat Justin Crosby will face Republican Rep. Jon Lancaster in the general election. They were unopposed for the party nominations.

House District 41 – Lowndes County: 

Democratic primary: 

• Pierre Beard, Sr.: 248
• Kabir Karriem, incumbent: 1,310

No Republican ran, so Karriem was reelected.

Four seats that are part of the special elections were not contested, which means only one candidate filed to run. These incumbent candidates win those races by default. Those districts are: 

• Senate District 43: Juan Barnett, Democrat.
• Senate District 41: Joey Fillingane, Republican.
• House District 36: Karl Gibbs, Democrat.
• House District 39: Dana McLean Republican. 

More than a half-century after the state banned it, “Mississippi: Conflict and Change” is back on the shelves.

The University Press of Mississippi is releasing an updated version of the 1974 book this week, “Mississippi: Conflict and Change: A New Edition.” Byron D’Andra Orey, a professor of political science at Jackson State University, revised the ninth-grade history textbook.

In 1974, the State Textbook Commission rejected the original book, co-authored by James Loewen and Charles Sallis, which banned the work from classroom use. Now, more than 40 years later, the revised textbook may not have any more luck than its predecessor.

After the commission rejected “Conflict and Change” in 1974, litigation followed. Six years later, a federal judge ordered state officials to include it among the approved textbooks.

Historian Charles W. Eagles detailed that fight in his 2017 book, “Civil Rights, Culture Wars: The Fight over a Mississippi Textbook.” The book “grew out of the civil rights movement,” he wrote, “and foreshadowed the emerging culture wars.”

Unlike its predecessors, “‘Conflict and Change’ did not flinch in its discussions of lynching, white supremacy, and Jim Crow segregation in the late nineteenth century,” he wrote. “For the first time black and white ninth graders could read about the civil rights movement in their state.”

Stephanie Rolph, author of “Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council, 1954-1989,” said the 1974 book “struck at the very foundations of the Redemption narrative that had prevailed in Mississippi classrooms for decades. By providing more honest and historically accurate descriptions of the Civil War and the institution of slavery, it supported a shared history for all Mississippians, and an opportunity to grapple with the economic, political and social impacts of the past.”

From the early 1900s until the 1970s, Mississippi textbooks often depicted the Civil War as a noble cause, the Ku Klux Klan as a band of heroes who saved the South and slavery as a good thing, even for the slaves, said historian Rebecca Miller Davis, who has studied the state’s textbooks throughout the 20th century and is writing a book on the Mississippi press during the civil rights era.

White schoolchildren read about enslaved people being “happy and content,” “corrupt Negro-controlled” Reconstruction governments, and “troublemaking” civil rights activists, while never reading about the brutality of slavery, the violence of the Ku Klux Klan or the thousands of lynchings of Black Americans, she said.

At the time, history professor C. Vann Woodward said this kind of “bedtime story” was aimed at keeping “the South sleeping” and Black Southerners in “their place.”

Davis said a 1967 assessment of Mississippi textbooks charged that “among the perversions committed in the name of education, few equal the schoolbook’s treatment of the Negro and his history.” That assessment, she said, concluded that these books portrayed Black Americans as “sub-human, incapable of achieving culture, happy in servitude, a passive outsider.” 

When Orey first began revising the textbook four years ago, his initial aim was simple: republish the book with minimal changes to preserve its original essence. But a “reviewer’s misinterpretation” of his revised draft led him to “refresh, rather than rewrite.” 

“It was the kick in the butt I needed to go in the right direction and to that anonymous reviewer I have to give them credit,” Orey said. “It made it a much better book in a comprehensive way.” 

The version updates the textbook’s original language, capitalizing “Black” and referring to people as “enslaved,” rather than calling them “slaves.”

At the time of the textbook’s original publication, milestone events such as the Freedom Summer of 1964 and the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, which propelled the civil rights movement, were only decades old.

Orey said extensive research and decades of scholarship shed more light on these moments, allowing a new generation of students to engage with the state’s complex and rich history. 

On July 8, University Press of Mississippi officials met with the Mississippi Department of Education staff regarding whether “Conflict and Change” could be supplemental material for the classroom.

In a statement, department officials said that “an informal, unofficial review of the book by MDE staff has been misinterpreted as an official rejection of the book on the state level, and that is not the case.”

There was a discussion regarding how a new law barring public schools and universities from inclusive programs and teaching of “divisive concepts” might affect the book.

Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked that anti-DEI law from going into effect.

“People might deem some of its content as controversial, but everything in the book is fact based,” Orey said. “The intent for this textbook’s republishing was to carry on the legacy of the original book and interestingly, 50 years later, we are right back where we were.” 

The State Textbook Rating Committee, which replaced the textbook commission, reviews and recommends textbooks for required courses. The State Board of Education decides whether to approve them.

The board did approve an updated history textbook by Mississippi State University professor Kenneth Anthony, head of MSU’s Department of Teacher Education and Leadership. The book, “Mississippi: Our History, Our Home,” is a revision of the late David Sansing’s 2013 textbook, “A Place Called Mississippi.”

Debate continues to rage over what Mississippi public schools should teach regarding slavery, Jim Crow and the state’s violent past.

Jeanne Middleton Hairston, one of the last living Millsaps College students who co-authored the 1974 textbook with Sallis, said there is always a struggle to create an honest and appropriate schoolbook for middle and high school students. 

People didn’t like the idea of “Conflict & Change” including a graphic photo of a lynching. When the professors sued the state, she recalled her testimony plainly: If a child is old enough to be lynched, than they’re old enough to know about it. 

“Of course there are ugly things that occurred in our history, and there’s no reason we should prohibit our youth from knowing about it in our state,” said Hairston, who serves on the board of trustees at Jackson Public Schools. “We as a nation can’t move forward with our history until we recognize, learn and understand it.” 

The USA Today college football coaches poll is out. Texas is ranked No. 1, defending champion Ohio State is No. 2, Ole Miss is 15th, and nine SEC teams are ranked in the Top 25. Now then, what all this means is…

…absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

Seems like we could at least wait until Texas and Ohio State square off later this month to rank one team higher than the other or to rank any team at all for that matter. Preseason college football polls are about as meaningful as a politician’s promise, which is to say, not at all.

We ought to wait at least a month into the season to have rankings, which has been my rant forever, even back when, for several seasons, I voted in the Associated Press poll. Today, when college football rosters change faster than Trump’s tariffs, the preseason polls mean less than ever before. Ole Miss may well be the 15th best team in the country, but how in the heck anybody would know that is beyond me. Lane Kiffin lost eight terrific players to the NFL and about 30 more players in the transfer portal. Yes, the Rebels brought in a bunch of talent, too, but they will be practically a whole new team. The same is true for most teams around the country. College football has become one ridiculously huge game of musical chairs.

Given Kiffin’s track record — and what I saw from quarterback Austin Simmons in his brief appearances last season — it wouldn’t surprise me if the Rebels eventually become one of the best 15 teams in the country. But it also wouldn’t be all that surprising if they lost their second game — and first road game — Sept. 6 at Kentucky.

Honestly, where Ole Miss is concerned, my biggest concern would be all the talent that must be replaced on the defensive side of the ball. For all the hype Kiffin’s offense gets (much of it deserved), Pete Golding’s defense was every bit as effective last season. And Golden will be replacing nine starters.

The truth is, preseason polls exist to give us something to talk about or, in my case, something to write about before they start playing games.

Some other college football observations:

• It won’t get that much attention outside of the Magnolia State, but the Aug. 30 season opener between Mississippi State and Southern Miss is as intriguing as any in recent memory. Both will be playing with largely revamped rosters. Both badly need some early season success after terrible seasons last year. My only gripe: an 11 a.m. kickoff time? In August? On artificial turf? In Hattiesburg, Mississippi? If it’s a sunny day, the temperature down on the field will be about 120 degrees, if not hotter. Temps in the stands won’t be much cooler. The average “feels like” temperature for that time of the day at that time of the year in Hattiesburg is about 114 degrees. Football was not meant to be played when it’s that hot. Hell, football was not meant to be watched when it’s that hot. TV doesn’t care about any of that, and TV pays the bills and calls all the shots. I have often said that if TV told teams to play at midnight, they’d do it. In this case, that would be preferable.
• Jackson State is ranked No. 17 in something called the Stats Perform Preseason FCS football poll. Stats Perform? Glad you asked. I looked it up. Stats Perform is a Chicago-based AI company that is involved in sports data collection and predictive analysis for use across various sports sectors including professional team performance, digital, media, broadcast and betting. Artificial intelligence quite likely is at least as accurate as coaches polls or media polls. And T.C. Taylor’s Tigers probably deserve the high rating coming off last season’s 12-2 finish, which included a SWAC Championship and 28-7 victory over South Carolina State in the Celebration Bowl. JSU opens with a home game Aug. 30 against Hampton before heading to Southern Miss Sept. 6.
• Did you see where John Hartwell, formerly associate athletic director at Ole Miss (2012-2015) resigned Monday as athletic director at Louisiana-Monroe? Apparently, Hartwell resigned after being instructed to drastically cut an athletic budget that was already among the lowest in the country. On Tuesday, ULM football coach Bryant Vincent was named the interim athletic director. So now, besides preparing for a Sept. 6 football game at Alabama, Vincent must also deal with beach volleyball, cross country and balancing an impossible-to-balance budget. Good luck with that.

With complete but unofficial numbers, it appeared incumbent Sen. Michael McLendon of Hernando, incumbent Sen. Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg and incumbent Rep. Kabir Karriem of Columbus all won their special primaries on Tuesday night. 

However, it appears incumbent Sen. Robin Robinson of Laurel was defeated in the election, ending her brief tenure in the Senate. Donald Hartness, a retired Ellisville resident, appeared to be on track to capture the GOP nomination. The winner of the primary will take the seat because no Democrat qualified to run.

McLendon, a Republican, will go on to compete against Chris Hannah, the Democratic nominee, in the November general election. Johnson, a Republican, will go on to compete against Shakita Taylor, the Democratic nominee. 

Karriem, a Democrat, will win the overall House race because no Republican candidate qualified to run. 

READ MORE: 2025 Mississippi special election guide

A federal three-judge panel ordered Mississippi to conduct special elections for 14 legislative seats this year because the court determined the Legislature diluted Black voting strength when lawmakers redrew legislative districts.

Ten of the 14 seats are contested. Of those 10, seven had a contested primary election on Tuesday. After party leaders certify the election results, the Republican and Democratic nominees will compete in the general election on November 4.

Mississippi Today will have complete, official election results as they become available. 

Valerie Martin-Davis stood in the Willowood Community Center Monday evening, hand to her chest, pleading with law enforcement to hear her out.

It was just two nights earlier that five young men allegedly engaged in a shootout on her street which left one injured, shattered car windows and left bullets lodged in homes. 

“I don’t want to move to Madison. I don’t want to move to Ridgeland. I want to stay right here in Jackson,” Martin-Davis said to a round of passionate claps. “I’ll be doggone if they make me move. This is home for me. You’re not going to mess with my folks.”

Martin-Davis has lived in Will-O-Wood for 36 years. In recent years, she said she’s seen her neighborhood become overrun with crime and gang activity. She’s called the police multiple times and left complaints with an operator about young men walking the streets with guns. 

“We’ve been dealing with this for five years. We see the boys come outside shooting the guns in the air. They’re shooting at each other like they’ve got cap guns, like the guns aren’t real,” Martin-Davis said in an interview with Mississippi Today.

On Monday evening, dozens of concerned residents packed out the community center to hear from Chief Joseph Wade with the Jackson Police Department, Chief Bo Luckey of Capitol Police, and other elected officials, and offer their concerns about crime in their neighborhoods. 

Some voiced complaints about long wait times when calling 911. Assistant Chief of Police Vincent Grizell, who oversees the 911 system, said that JPD received over 8,000 calls last week.

“We’re hoping that things can be more efficient. We’re talking to Hinds County and AT&T about our 911 system,” Wade said. 

Officers offered up their personal phone numbers to residents to call if they needed assistance. Wade also laid out plans to increase police presence in the community.

“Not only are we looking at installing some blue light surveillance like we did in Presidential Hills. We’re looking at installing some license plate readers in your community, as well, to catch these bad actors coming in and out, and taking photos of them as they come in and out,” Wade said. “We’re also looking at installing some of our stealth covert cameras where they don’t even know that we’re there and recording things.”

Jackson Mayor John Horhn also spoke to the crowd, pointing to recent statistics that show the murder rates are declining across the city.

“All of our stats right now are trending downward in Jackson,” Horhn said. “We had 71 murders this time a year ago. We have 35 now. So we’re moving in the right direction, but not fast enough.”

Violent crime in Jackson is down 12.35% from 2024 to 2025, and property crime is down 17.28% in that same time frame, according to data provided by Tommie Brown, JPD’s public information officer.

Still, Horhn said that the court systems need to apply a bit more pressure in trying criminal cases. Some cases take years, he said, which bogs down the system.

“We’ve got to move those cases forward, and we’ve got to go ahead and expedite the building of this new jail, but I’m talking it might be 2029,” he said. 

Horhn also points to creating and investing in mentorship programs and workforce development programs as an alternative for people who are vulnerable to gang activity.

“We’re not going to police and jail our way out of this problem. We don’t have enough jails. We don’t have enough policemen to fight the problem everywhere it’s manifesting and showing its face. So we’ve got to come up with some opportunity to provide an alternative to the criminal element,” he said.

Outside after the community meeting, Martin-Davis said she’s hopeful that the police will work together with community members to protect their neighborhoods. She doesn’t want to leave Jackson, and she said she shouldn’t have to.

“I could have moved anywhere. I came back home. This is home for me. We’ve had a house over here for 36 years,” she said. “There is no way anyone is going to make me leave my neighborhood.”

Mississippi’s Public Service Commission scheduled a “show-cause” hearing over Holly Springs’ troubled utility department for Sept. 4 at 9 a.m. at New Albany Municipal Court.

The PSC announced the hearing during a docket meeting Tuesday, a week after it released a third-party report detailing the struggles of the power provider. The report echoed previous criticisms from state lawmakers, the PSC, the Tennessee Valley Authority and others blaming Holly Springs officials for not investing in its power supply system over the years and allowing it to deteriorate to a point where customers have seen constant outages.

Holly Springs, which buys power through a contract with TVA, serves about 12,000 customers in Marshall, Benton and Lafayette counties as well as a small part of Tennessee.

The PSC, which regulates utilities in the state, initially tried to schedule a hearing for Jan. 7 in Jackson. But Holly Springs successfully appealed after arguing one of its lawyers, Sen. Bradford Blackmon, needed to be with the state Legislature then. The PSC then agreed to delay the hearing until after the legislative session.

The state initially had no jurisdiction over the Holly Springs Utility Department, but a 2024 bill that became law gave the PSC the power to investigate the utility and recommend, if it decides the utility doesn’t provide “reasonably adequate service,” that a court put the department into a receivership.

“We strongly encourage public participation in the upcoming show-cause hearing, emphasizing that this is more than a procedural requirement — it is critical for HSUD to address the issues raised in the report and to clarify its actions,” the commission said in a press release Tuesday. “By working together, we can ensure that the outcome serves the best interests of the people who rely on HSUD services.”

The company behind last week’s report, Silverpoint Consulting, wrote that it may be hard to find a receiver willing to take on the utility, and instead recommended one of three options: selling the utility to another city or cooperative utility; converting it into a cooperative to open up access to low-interest loans; or seeking eminent domain and condemnation.

Holly Springs is also facing a lawsuit from TVA, which alleges the city mishandled funds from the utility and failed to raise rates when needed. On June 9, though, a federal judge ordered a 90-day stay in the case. Then on July 24, court filings show, both parties told the court they would meet on Aug. 15 to “discuss a negotiated resolution of this action.”