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Former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in Jackson at the newly reopened Thalia Mara Hall on Wednesday, stopping in Mississippi’s capital city for the second part of her book tour as she mulls another presidential campaign.

Harris was greeted with a warm reception from a packed audience at Thalia Mara, which had been closed since August of 2024 for renovations. Jackson Mayor John Horhn kicked off the event by awarding Harris a key to the city and announcing that he had signed a proclamation making Jan. 14 “Kamala Harris Day” in Jackson.

“Kamala, you don’t know what you mean to Jackson, Mississippi,” Horhn said. “You don’t know what you mean to America.”

Harris spoke for roughly an hour with Rita Brent, a comedian and writer from Jackson. Harris was in town to promote her book “107 Days,” which details what Harris called “the shortest presidential election in history.” Had she had more time to build her campaign — an opportunity denied by former President Joe Biden’s decision to keep running for re-election for a month after a disastrous debate performance — the election might have turned out differently, Harris said on Wednesday.

The then-vice president lost to Donald Trump in the popular vote and the electoral college. Her defeat ushered in an administration that is “corrupt, callous and incompetent,” Harris said.

Harris said she predicted what the administration would do, including efforts to eradicate the U.S. Department of Education and a widespread immigration crackdown. But she said she was caught off guard by the support President Trump has garnered from corporate leaders.

“I have predicted almost everything that’s happened,” Harris said. “But what I did not predict was the capitulation, the titans of industry, the powerful people who just bent the knee to the foot of a tyrant.”

Harris called the Trump administration’s agenda a “swift implementation of a plan that has been decades in the making.” She criticized what she said are economically damaging tariffs, the spread of disinformation and attacks on consumer protections.

At one point, when lamenting President Trump’s conduct and likening him to other demagogues, she appeared to confuse the home state of the white-supremacist politician Bull Connor, who is from Alabama.

“Mississippi knows it well, Bull Connor, I mean, we know, we have had figures throughout history that have been about destruction and have not elevated our best angels or our better angels,” Harris said.

The local crowd enjoyed a riff from Harris on the importance of participating in local government to help fix issues such as potholes, of which there are many in Jackson.

“Insurance doesn’t cover a flat tire,” Harris quipped.

Harris’s late-December decision to launch the second part of her book tour in the Deep South, where Black voters typically play a key role in the Democratic presidential primaries, sparked speculation about her future. She spoke in New Orleans on Tuesday and will also make stops in the critical primary state of South Carolina, along with appearances in Tennessee and Alabama.

Harris did not discuss her future plans on Wednesday. But she has said she has not ruled out another run for the White House and did not say anything that would dissuade attendees from assuming that.

She recounted writing her 2024 concession speech on the way to Howard University, adding one line: “Sometimes the fight takes a while.”

Mississippi mental health organizations say they lost at least $9.2 million when the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration terminated grants across the country Tuesday, a loss they say could be devastating for Mississippians. 

The federal agency cut hundreds of mental health and addiction grants that are estimated to be worth roughly $2 billion, according to NPR. The news organization reported many of these grants went directly to private nonprofit organizations. 

Melody Madaris, executive director of the North Mississippi community mental health center Communicare, said the cuts had also severely impacted organizations like hers. Four of Mississippi’s 12 community mental health centers had federal cuts to their organization totaling $8.7 million. 

About $3.7 million of those terminations are coming from grants for Communicare, Madaris said. Most of her organization’s cuts were for efforts to prevent addiction-related overdoses and to connect children with mental health services. 

Madaris said Communicare had consistently shown through measures such as job and housing placement data that it had used these types of federal grants to improve Mississippians’ mental health.

“This was completely shocking,” she said. 

With this cut, Madaris said she is nervous about how Communicare and other mental health centers will address needs in their communities. 

“I am terrified, to be honest,” she said. “We’re going to figure it out, we always figure it out. But it’s definitely going to be hard.” 

Madaris said the cuts would completely change how Communicare can help children in schools get mental health services and whether North Mississippians can access naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversing medication. It could also mean Communicare may have to reduce its staff. 

“We’re going to have to make some pretty significant changes across the agency,” she said. “It will include programs being stopped and reduction in some of the services that we have been providing for years now through the help of the SAMHSA funding.”

Phaedre Cole, president of the Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, said cuts to the other three public mental health agencies were also mainly for services related to children and addiction.

Unlike most private facilities, community mental health centers are expected to treat Mississippians regardless of their ability to pay. Cole said that model creates financial challenges that are furthered by SAMHSA’s cuts. 

“Even minor or surface-level cuts go very deep with regard to our long-term sustainability and being able to continue our mission,” she said. 

Mississippi Department of Mental Health spokesperson Adam Moore said the federal government terminated an additional roughly $440,000 from the agency that had been intended to help law enforcement respond to mental health emergencies. The department is aware of the community mental health center grant cancellations and is “still assessing the total impact of the cuts to the state,” he said.

The SAMHSA letter Madaris and the dozens of other organizations received says the federal agency is terminating the contracts to align its grant spending with its priorities. The priorities it lists — addressing mental illness, addiction, suicide and other societal challenges — are similar to what the community mental health centers told Mississippi Today they were doing with their now-terminated grants. 

The letter said the terminations are final. Spokespeople for the federal agency did not respond before publication to a Mississippi Today email asking how much money SAMHSA is canceling from Mississippi organizations, how the grants didn’t align with its priorities and whether new funding would replace these terminated funds. 

Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and a member of the state’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council, lives in Lafayette County — a region served by Communicare. She said the organization does a fantastic job of addressing mental health problems in North Mississippi. 

“It’s devastating,” she said of the cuts. “They have been really aggressive and proactive in addressing mental health issues and concerns in our community.” 

Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, said it’s been difficult to keep up with what the federal government does on a day-to-day basis. He said he and other lawmakers would have to see how the federal mental health cuts play out.

“Obviously, it’s not good news,” he said after his committee met Wednesday. “But in order to know exactly what to do about it or what we might do about it, just have to wait until we get the details.” 

The federal government also cut funds directed to private, nonprofit Mississippi mental health centers, but neither community mental health nor Department of Mental Health officials who spoke to Mississippi Today knew of any as of Wednesday. An executive with one Mississippi nonprofit that received a SAMHSA subgrant administered by the University of Mississippi Medical Center said over $100,000 of its funding was cut Tuesday.

The executive asked not to be named because they had not spoken about the cut with UMMC yet. Patrice Guilfoyle, communications director for the medical center, said she had not heard about any cuts as of Wednesday but would look into them. 

Madaris said SAMHSA also cut nearly  $3 million from Hinds Behavioral Health Services, the community mental health center that serves Jackson. Nyaband Buong, the Hinds Behavioral executive director, said one of her canceled federal grants was $1 million to help navigate a complicated mental health system. 

In March, SAMHSA cut about $4.1 million from Mississippi community mental health centers, saying the funds were initially to address the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the centers and their patients told Mississippi Today that those cuts would have life-or-death effects, such as eliminating ways for people recovering from addiction to sustain long-term sobriety. 

In the aftermath of the cuts last spring, Cole said she wasn’t expecting another round this year. 

“I thought we were past any more cuts,” she said. “I was really shocked by this.”

Proposed changes to how the state funds its eight public universities could harm historically Black institutions, some lawmakers said.

The funding formula updates, which legislators discussed with higher education officials in December, would tie state money to post-graduation student success such as the number of Mississippians attaining jobs and completing some form of education beyond high school. 

A delegation of Black lawmakers said that factoring graduation rates, post-graduation employment and degrees awarded by universities into their allotted funding would unfairly penalize historically Black colleges and universities for challenges tied to decades of underfunding. 

Black lawmakers spoke about the funding formula to a standing-room-only crowd of more than 160 alumni and supporters at Mt. Nebo Baptist Church in Jackson on Monday. The goal of the event, organized by Jackson Democrats Sen. Sollie Norwood and Rep. Grace Butler Washington was to educate and warn HBCU stakeholders about proposals the state Legislature is considering this session. 

It was also a rally to encourage supporters to stay engaged.

“We need to be cautious as we proceed forward,” said Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Pickens and a 1998 graduate of Mississippi Valley State. 

The Board of Trustees for the Institutions of Higher Learning, which oversee the state’s public universities,  uses a formula that equally distributes funding across the eight universities without factoring in performance or enrollment. 

HBCUs serve many students who lack resources and face more barriers to completing higher education. More than three quarters of the undergraduate student body at Mississippi’s three public HBCUs rely on Pell Grants — federal student aid provided to students who demonstrate exceptional financial need — to attend. By comparison, Pell Grant recipients make up about half of the student enrollment at only two of the state’s predominantly white institutions  — Mississippi University for Women (56%) and University of Southern Mississippi (52%). 

Mississippi settled a lawsuit over funding disparities at its public universities in 2002  —  the $500 million Ayers settlement — but chronic underfunding of higher education by the state means these funds have not caught HBCUs up to their PWI counterparts. 

The proposed funding formula success metrics could lead to closing Mississippi Valley State, Clark said. 

Valley State’s average six-year graduation rate is 27%, the lowest of Mississippi’s public institutions, according to IHL data. MVSU awarded 242 degrees in the 2023-24 academic year, the lowest among the state’s public universities, even similarly sized ones. Of almost 2,200 students enrolled at MVSU in fall of 2023, 985 received Pell Grants, federal financial aid awarded to students from low income households, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. 

Students who attend Mississippi Valley State have more barriers to get to the rural campus, including transportation, cost and affordability, Clark said. It is unfair for the Legislature and IHL to consider a funding formula that doesn’t take into account the disproportionate challenges to graduation that the students enrolled face, he said. 

Mississippi Valley State is also an “economic engine” for the Delta region, Clark said. The university contributes $75 million to the the state’s economy and produces more than 980 jobs, according to a 2024 HBCU Impact report from the United Negro College Fund. 

Instead of focusing on closing them, the Legislature and IHL should view the state’s HBCUs as a model of efficiency, doing more with fewer resources, Clark said. “We continue to educate our students at just a fraction of the cost.”

Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State alumni tend to remain Mississippi residents and enter the state’s workforce after graduation, said Rep. Greg Holloway, a Democrat from Hazlehurst. For predominantly white institutions such as the University of Mississippi or Mississippi State University, he said, “you can’t say the same thing.” 

“They don’t talk about us and our impact,” Holloway said to thunderous applause. “This new formula is about a money grab. Displacing resources from one place to another. We should be talking about how to provide quality education for our HBCU students. We deserve more.” 

Students should pay attention to the threat of closing one of Mississippi’s HBCUs, said Camrynn Wimberly, a senior studying political science at Jackson State. Wimberly rallied a few of her classmates to attend the town hall. She shares policy issues and information on her social media. 

“Our schools, we’re more than just football, partying and pledging fraternities and sororities,” Wimberly said. “We’re history.” 

At the end of the event, Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson, encouraged HBCU alumni to send emails, call and pressure lawmakers to pay attention to their concerns. Summers also led a call and response chant, and participating lawmakers and audience members locked arms. 

“When we fight,” Summers shouted into the microphone. The audience shouted back, “We win!”

The House Education Committee on Wednesday advanced its chamber’s omnibus public education overhaul — but only by a few votes. 

It signals the battle to expand school choice in Mississippi, including spending millions of tax dollars on private schooling – Republican House Speaker Jason White’s pet issue this session – is far from over. Senate leaders have said the House bill is a nonstarter, and White has had to wrangle with reluctance or opposition from some of his own Republican caucus in the House.

But the school-choice movement has gained momentum in Mississippi, thanks in part to efforts from national think tanks and mounting pressure from the Trump administration. School choice refers to a number of policies that fund education outside of the public school system with public dollars in the name of giving parents more power over children’s education. 

Watch the full committee meeting here.

READ MORE: FAQ: What is school choice? What are Mississippi lawmakers considering?

The House’s expansive bill, which came after months of hearings and names White as a principal author, was unveiled Jan. 7. House Bill 2 makes changes across the state’s education system, including adding financial literacy requirements for students, permitting homeschooled students to play public school sports and encouraging prayer in school. 

Most notably, the legislation establishes an education savings account program in Mississippi that would allow students to pay private school tuition with public dollars. It’s the most expansive form of school choice. The bill also makes it easier for students to transfer out of their assigned public school districts, which is called “portability.” It also loosens regulations on where charter schools can expand.

The Republican-led Senate has taken a very limited approach to school choice legislation. The chamber recently passed its own portability bill, and Senate leaders say they won’t consider establishing a voucher program in Mississippi.

Despite intense efforts from White, the House bill doesn’t appear to have overwhelming support. In a small room with posters of A-rated public school districts on the wall, dozens of onlookers watched Wednesday as the panel debated the 553-page bill for over an hour, demonstrating clear discord in the chamber. 

In particular, Republican House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson and Rep. Cheikh Taylor, chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party, both heavy hitters in their respective parties and both from Starkville, lobbed questions back and forth, representing the ideological divide over school choice. 

“If we divert these funds from public education, we’re also diverting funds from the entire philosophy that gives advancements to most families,” Taylor said. “That’s problematic because I don’t see any remedy to replace the funds going to public schools. So I have a ton of heartburn.”

Roberson argued that the money should be going toward educating children, no matter where they attend school, and that parents have students’ best interests in mind, not the government. 

“This bill is not the end all to fix all for schools, never has been,” he said. “It is a piece of a puzzle that we need to continue working on. Public schools, or schools in general in this state, have to continue being looked at, and we need to keep promoting and putting money into these systems.”

But Roberson has previously brushed the argument aside that public schools continue to struggle because of historic underfunding. 

The state’s public-school system has been nationally lauded for its reading improvements in recent years. House Democrats questioned why Republicans would want to make changes to the education system now, after the public school system has found surer footing. 

“Anytime you raise the standard, the water that comes into any system … makes all ships rise,” Roberson said. 

Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville who c0authored the bill, teamed up with Roberson to defend it in committee and echoed the free-market idea that proponents often use to promote school choice. They argue that more schooling options means public schools will have to improve in order to keep students. 

In some places, research shows that addition of charter schools has slightly raised the performance of public schools. 

READ MORE: Lawmakers want to expand ‘school choice’ in Mississippi. Here’s what it looks like in neighboring states

The panel of lawmakers also voted to modify two portions of the original bill during the committee meeting. 

The original bill allowed charter school establishment in any district without regard for the local public school district’s rating. But after amendments on Wednesday, the new bill limits new charter schools to areas with D- or F-rated schools. Current law only allows new charter schools in areas with D- or F-rated districts, so the amended bill would still greatly expand areas charter schools could open statewide. 

Tweaks to the state’s student funding formula were also removed during the committee meeting. Roberson said those changes will be presented in a new bill. 

Harness offered an amendment to strike all of the language in the bill and replace it with a teacher pay raise, but after assurance from Roberson that the House will consider a teacher raise in another bill, he withdrew his amendment. The omnibus bill omits a teacher pay raise, though it includes one for assistant teachers. Roberson said this was an intentional decision to avoid political bargaining over teachers’ livelihoods.

The Senate approved a teacher pay raise last week.

After Republican Rep. Kevin Felsher of Biloxi encouraged the committee to advance the measure so the full body of the House could debate it, representatives revealed their votes one-by-one, thanks to a roll call vote request from Rep. Percy Watson, a Democrat from Hattiesburg. 

The bill passed the committee 14-11. Two lawmakers were absent, and two Republicans — House Education Committee Vice-Chairman Kent McCarty from Hattiesburg and Rep. Dana McLean from Columbus — voted against the measure. 

It can now be brought up on the House floor, and will likely be debated by the full chamber by the end of the week. The vote, despite White’s best efforts, could be tight. 

Felsher acknowledged during the meeting that the bill was imperfect and said that while he voted for the measure in committee, he is not certain how he will vote when it comes before the full House.

“I was committed to moving the bill out of the Education Committee to the floor for further discussion,” he said. “I am still deliberating.” 

Owen said he expects there will be lots of attempts to amend the bill when it comes before the full House. But he said the House leadership is not open to further amendments at this point. 

“All of the amendments we intended to make, we made in the committee substitute,” Owen said. “Everything is where it needs to be at this point.”

I wrote this lament, which mentions our beloved Beth Israel, nearly a month ago in the days following the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre in Australia. It originally appeared in the Baptist News Global before the attack on the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson. As a former Jacksonian, and a friend of Beth Israel, I offer it today, acknowledging the fact that it is timebound to December of 2025 and grieving the fact that it remains, tragically, relevant to January of 2026.

Many mornings, I go on a long, slow, sunrise prayer walk – what the mystics call “goal-less walking” or “life lived at three miles an hour.”

These days, in the neighborhood where I walk, there are a number of delightful inflatable front-yard Christmas decorations: Santas, Rudolphs and Frostys, joined a few days ago by a new, minority inflatable among the many Yuletide blow-ups– a massive, 8-foot-tall Hanukkah bear, complete with a dreidel, a star of David and, of course, a menorah with nine inflated flames, one each for the eight days of Hanukkah, with the taller Shamash candle in the center, from which each of the eight others receive their light.

In other years, I might have walked past the whimsical, inflatable Hanukkah bear with little more than a passing glance. But, needless to say, not this year.

In the aftermath of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah Massacre of five days ago, every time I have passed the huge happy bear holding her HAPPY HANUKKAH sign beneath her brightly burning blow-up candles, I have stood still in the dawn and offered to God a prayer of solidarity with the two Beth Israel synagogues in my life – one in Macon, Georgia, the other in Jackson, Mississippi – and with all Jews in all congregations throughout the world; a sidewalk prayer of solidarity and lament.

Solidarity, lament and repentance.

Whenever there is another act of antisemitic violence, I always think, with deep sadness and quiet repentance, of all the ways the church has sown the bitter seed of bigotry against the Jews.

Hitler did not create the ghetto; we did. It was the church which, as early as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, called for Jews to be segregated into confined quarters, the forerunner of the much later Nazi ghettos.

This, of course, came after the forced baptisms, synagogue burnings and massacres of Jews by Christians in the seventh through 11th centuries, and before Martin Luther’s dreadful sermon of 1543 in which he declared that, “Next to the devil, Christians have no enemy more cruel and venomous than a true Jew,” and Pope Paul IV’s declaration in 1555 that, “God has condemned the Jews to eternal slavery”.

All of that antisemitic history was rooted in what I call “Christian onlyism,” the institutionalized arrogance of Christianity’s misguided assumption that we “replaced” Judaism, and that we – conveniently enough for us – are the only religion God recognizes, which has allowed us, at our worst, to dehumanize persons of all other faith traditions, including, especially, the Jews; all of which is all the more inexplicable when we remember that Jesus was, himself, a Jew, not only at his birth but also at his death.

Every Christmas, Jesus is born again in a barn, again, with parents who are Jews, again; parents who will take him to the temple to be dedicated, and, when he is 12, back to the temple for Passover; the same Passover meal he will eat the night before he dies.

And yet, somehow, with a Jesus who never abandoned his lifelong Judaism (and who, as far as we know, never mentioned starting a new world religion called “Christianity”), Christianity helped create the antisemitism which has borne the bitter fruit of anti-Jewish bigotry and persecution, all of which came back to me while watching a row of inflatable pretend Hanukkah lights standing in the heartbreaking Hanukkah shadows of the devastating Hanukkah massacre of last Sunday in Australia; antisemitic violence, not from Christians on Bondi Beach, but, sadly, on so many other times.

So, before the waiting wicks of Hanukkah and Advent wear their last lights for another year, let us say, one more time, for the globe-circling, centuries-spanning church, to the globe-circling, centuries-spanning synagogue, “We are sorry.”

Amen.

Chuck Poole, former senior minister at Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, retired in 2022 from 45 years of pastoral life during which he also served churches in Georgia, North Carolina and Washington D.C. The author of nine books, numerous published articles, one gospel song and the lyrics to three hymns, Poole has served as a “minister on the street” in Jackson, as an advocate for interfaith conversation, and as an ally to immigrant neighbors. Poole and his wife Marcia now live in Birmingham, Alabama, where he serves on the staff of Together for Hope.

Tomekia Luckett’s journey to becoming a mental health nurse practitioner — pursuing a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree while raising triplets — was made possible by federal student loans and scholarships. But she fears proposed new caps on those loans could make the path she took more treacherous for the next generation of nurses.

Beginning in July, graduate students across all disciplines will face stricter limits on federal loans under a provision in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

The law directed the U.S. Department of Education to identify “professional degree” programs, which will be eligible for higher loan caps. A draft rule released by the agency excludes graduate nursing programs from the designation, a decision that could subject such students to tighter borrowing limits. These programs train nurse practitioners and certified nurse anesthetists, professionals who help fill critical gaps in Mississippi’s physician workforce.

“I am very concerned as a person who was a first-generation college student,” said Luckett, who treats patients across rural southwest Mississippi and has taught nursing for more than a decade. “If those caps had been in place, there would very likely not be a Dr. Luckett today.” 

Luckett, who spoke to Mississippi Today in a personal capacity, serves as the associate dean for nursing continuing professional development at Walden University and as director of the Mississippi Nurses’ Association’s Council on Nursing Education. 

The federal Department of Education plans to finalize the rule classifying professional degree programs “early this year,” according to its website. But experts and advocates warn that the draft rules — which halve the amount of federal student loans nursing students can receive compared to doctors, dentists and lawyers — could create barriers for nurses seeking advanced education and threaten the stability of the nursing workforce nationwide.

“By limiting the loans, that will make it more difficult for people who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to be able to afford going to nursing school and a career in nursing,” said Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, a nurse practitioner and executive director of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing Institute for Policy Solutions. 

Under the draft rules, “professional degree” programs will be capped at a $200,000 borrowing limit. Nursing graduate students would be capped at half that amount — a maximum of $100,000, or $20,500 a year. Current borrowers will be permitted to continue receiving loans under existing rules for three years or the length of their program. 

The Trump administration said not classifying graduate nursing as a  “professional degree” — a decision that has caused outrage among some nurses — is a technical and regulatory decision, not a “value judgement about the importance of programs,” according to a post on the U.S. Department of Education website.

The department said the new caps on loans won’t have a widespread impact, noting that 95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit, according to the agency’s data, and that 80% of the nursing workforce does not have a graduate degree. 

Since 2007, graduate and professional students have been allowed to borrow up to the full cost of attendance through the federal Graduate PLUS program. These changes have allowed schools to inflate their tuition and saddle students with debts, the Trump administration said.

The changes could make the nursing workforce less representative of the people they serve, and contribute to existing health care workforce shortages, Guilamo-Ramos said. Studies show that a representative and diverse health care system improves health outcomes and access to care for patients. Researchers have shown that patients are more likely to receive preventive care they need and agree to recommended care when their doctors have a similar racial or cultural background to them.

Antonia M. Villarruel, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, said in a statement to Mississippi Today she expects the new loan caps to have “devastating effects” on the preparation of graduate-level nurses and nursing educators, and that these limits will contribute to increased shortages of primary care providers, especially in rural areas.

“This impacts both access to care for all Americans and the ability of schools and universities to continue to educate this group of professionals that will result in faculty shortages,” Villarruel said. 

Crystal Joslin, a registered nurse from Corinth who works at a rural hospital and a nursing home, said she aims to advance her career by becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Working shifts at the hospital’s medical-surgical unit and emergency room, she often sees patients with serious mental health needs, and she hopes to further her education to assist her community. 

News of the proposed federal loan caps made her second guess her plan to attend a master’s program at the University of North Alabama later this year. She considered delaying her career plans to save up. But she said she has decided to persist — and will pay the portion of her tuition that is not covered by loans out-of-pocket — in order to help her community and advance her career. 

“I didn’t really want to wait the extra couple of years,” she said. “Of course, my work as an RN, I can definitely be doing that. But I feel like there’s nurses to educate out there, and there’s patients to help. …There’s more things that I could be doing with my education and my knowledge that I wouldn’t be getting to do.”

Critics of the caps argue that while the changes may limit students’ debt, they will also limit students’ access to education.

“It would be nice if I could have less debt, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have the education I have,” Luckett said. 

Guilamo-Ramos said he does not expect universities to lower their tuition as a result of the changes. Nursing education must comply with strict requirements that make programs more costly to run, like student-to-faculty ratios. 

“I think what will happen is that over time just people who can afford to attend will attend,” Guilamo-Ramos said. “And that’s bad for all of us.”

The draft loan caps have generated bipartisan dissent. In a Dec. 12 letter to U.S. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent, a bipartisan group of nearly 150 congressional lawmakers expressed support for including nursing degrees in the department’s definition of “professional degree.” The effort was spearheaded by several lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, co-chair of the Senate nursing caucus. 

“At a time when our nation is facing a health care shortage, especially in primary care, now is not the time to cut off the student pipeline to these programs,” wrote the group of U.S. senators and representatives. 

Mississippi has one of the lowest rates of physicians per capita in the nation, and the gap is expected to grow over time. In rural areas, nurse practitioners often fill gaps left when there is not a physician.

National research shows that the share of Medicare visits delivered by physician assistants and nurse practitioners nearly doubled between 2013 and 2019. Rural family physicians are more likely to partner with these clinicians to meet patient care needs.

Certified nurse anesthetists also help address critical care shortages, performing about 70% to 90% of procedures compared to their physician counterparts in Mississippi, according to Public Health and Human Services Chairman Rep. Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, speaking during a House floor session last year. 

Mississippi is currently facing a shortage of nurse anesthetists, and that gap is expected to grow over the next decade, according to data from Health Resources and Service Administration. Today, Mississippi is lacking about 90 needed nurse anesthetists, but by 2035, that figure is expected to grow to 140 — meaning only 76% of needed positions will be filled.

Guilamo-Ramos said he hopes that the new student loan provisions will spur nursing schools to consider ways to make tuition costs affordable for more students apart from loans. 

“Schools of nursing need to take a hard look at the cost of tuition and make it more affordable,” he said. “And we need to improve our scholarships, and we need to improve other kinds of aid besides loans.”

Graduate nursing programs in Mississippi range in cost. The Mississippi University for Women offers one graduate nursing program, for family nurse practitioners. The program costs about $4,300 per semester and takes about three semesters to complete, according to the school’s website. Because the cost of the program is below the cap, the draft rule would not impact students attending this program. 

Brandy Larmon, the dean of the College of Nursing, said the school is assessing the potential risks of the loan caps, but is not currently concerned due to the short length of the program and low cost of attendance. 

Other graduate nursing student programs, and especially nurse anesthesia programs, can be more costly and take more time to complete. The University of Southern Mississippi’s graduate nurse anesthesia program costs about $30,000 annually, according to a spokesperson, and takes three years to complete.

If enacted, Guilamo-Ramos said he expects the proposed caps on student loans to affect advanced practice nurse staffing levels and exacerbate faculty shortages as soon as within the next one to two years. 

He added that the impact could be especially significant in Mississippi and across the South, where workforce shortages are already severe and health outcomes lag behind other regions.

“It worries me deeply that we would be losing nursing workforce in the very places that we need to have more people,” Guilamo-Ramos said. 

Education reporter Candice Wilder contributed to this report. 

This coverage is supported by a grant from Press Forward Mississippi, part of a nationwide philanthropic effort to strengthen local news so communities stay informed, connected and engaged.

At the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the 34 men on death row who have shown good behavior can leave their cells to play cards and games with each other in a common area and have had access to an outside space for recreation, a garden and activities such as a book club.  

At the women’s unit at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, Lisa Jo Chamberlin’s clean prison record hasn’t earned her similar privileges. 

She lives in total isolation and, since Dec. 30, more restrictions. Chamberlin is the only woman on Mississippi’s death row, where she’s been the past decade. 

“This is the worst treatment I have seen by far,” said the Rev. Jeff Hood, who communicates with death row prisoners around the country and has witnessed nearly a dozen executions. 

More restrictive conditions have nearly been deadly. Chamberlin was on suicide watch at least twice in 2025 as her mental health declined. At one point, she said she considered whether to sign papers to let her execution proceed, but then ultimately decided not to.

Chamberlin said she enjoys peace, quiet and time to herself and has turned to activities like writing, reading the Bible, sharing her story and passing the time as she continues to appeal her case and await a possible execution. 

She said doesn’t mind being on her own, but Chamberlin doesn’t want to be isolated. 

“I have to do everything by myself because I’m the only woman on death row,” Chamberlin said in a phone interview with Mississippi Today. 

She has spent all  of her prison sentence at the women’s prison in Pearl. 

Last May, Chamberlin saw a change in her custody level and was able to gain some privileges, including a tablet to make calls and send messages. Chamberlin said those greatly improved her quality of life. She said the tablet was a gamechanger. 

At the end of the year, she noticed more restrictions to her time out of her cell and access to areas where she previously was able to go. She said she has been confined to her cell for 48-hour periods before being let out to shower and use the community microwave. 

She is no longer able to walk laps around the unit and access video calls because with her new housing and custody status, Chamberlin can’t go to certain areas. 

Prison records list her location as Unit 720 Max, which is closed custody that requires close supervision and security control. Those in close custody anywhere in the prison system are confined to a cell or dormitory unit with similar level custody prisoners, according to MDOC’s inmate handbook. 

Chamberlin said the women’s prison superintendent told her the reason for the change in privileges and restrictions: You are on death row, so you will be treated like the men on death row. 

Kate Head, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Chamberlin was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of two people in Hattiesburg. 

She and co-defendant and former partner Roger Gillett were arrested in Kansas on a tip that they stole a car and were manufacturing drugs at his family’s farm. As authorities searched the farm, they found a freezer taped shut containing the dismembered bodies of the victims: Vernon Hulett, who was Gillett’s cousin, and Linda Heintzelman, who was Hulett’s girlfriend. Chamblerlin and Gillett had lived with the victims in Hattiesburg. 

Separately, Chamberlin and Gillett were convicted and sentenced to death in 2006. Years later, the Mississippi Supreme Court vacated his death sentence because due process rights were violated when the jury considered an invalid aggravating factor. He was resentenced in 2018 to life without parole. 

Chamberlin has pursued her own appeals, including a third petition for post-conviction relief in August, which the state opposes and has asked to be dismissed. As of January, the case has been submitted without argument. 

Death row inmates of any gender are housed in a facility or unit deemed appropriate by the MDOC commissioner, and the status requires the highest level of supervision available, according to the MDOC inmate handbook. 

Advocates helped get Chamberlin into a less restrictive situation, only to have it taken away, Hood said. 

He and other advocates said they want similar privileges and housing situations for Chamberlin as the death row men have, but that is not happening. Instead, they see unfairness in Chamberlin’s imprisonment compared to the experience of the men on death row in Mississippi and women on death row in other states. 

For years, death row prisoners at Parchman have been housed in Unit 29, but last year they were moved to Unit 17, which is fenced in and recently remodeled, said prison reform advocate Mitzi Magleby.  

The unit is also where the gas chamber, electric chair and the gurney used for lethal injection are located. 

An MDOC spokesperson did not respond to questions about how men are housed on death row and why they were moved. Prison records for each man on death row list their location as Unit 17. 

Nationwide, as of October, 47 women were on death row, with the majority in California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Mississippi is among seven states with just one woman with a death sentence, and it’s not the only state with apparent disparate treatment of women facing execution.

Antoinette Frank, the only woman on Louisiana’s death row, has been held in conditions resembling solitary confinement since her 1995 triple homicide conviction, The Guardian reported. She is separated from the general prison population, has experienced extended lockdowns and doesn’t have access to in-person classes. 

She was part of a group of death row prisoners who sought clemency in 2023. The Louisiana state Board of Pardons denied all of them. 

After a 15-year hiatus, Louisiana has resumed executions. The state’s attorney general has filed requests to set execution dates for five on death row, including Frank. 

Hood, the death row spiritual adviser, is also in contact with Tennessee’s Christa Pike who spent years in restrictive housing until 2024. Since her 1996 murder conviction, Pike was essentially in solitary confinement before she sued the prison system in 2022. 

As part of the lawsuit settlement, she has been allowed to work, have more interaction with women in general population and have the ability to earn opportunities that the death row men already have access to, according to the Death Penalty Information Center and local reporting. 

The Tennessee Supreme Court has scheduled her execution for Sept. 30, which would make her the first woman to be executed in the state in more than 200 years. 

Chamberlin said she is exploring legal action around the conditions of her confinement. 

Advocating for herself is something Chamberlin said she has done during her nearly 20 years in prison. She said it’s tiring, but she considers herself a survivor. 

“I’m going to make a way out of no way,” she said. 

Days before the Mississippi Department of Human Services director was ousted from his job in 2019, he was testifying to Congress about one of the very initiatives that landed him with a felony conviction in a now-infamous welfare theft scandal.

As director of the agency tasked with helping some of the neediest people in one of the poorest states in the country, John Davis had secured contracts for his new friend, former WWE wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase, in 2018 to deliver leadership development workshops to state employees. 

And the reaction to their efforts was swell.

While testifying Tuesday in the criminal trial against DiBiase, Davis said he met with a top official at the attorney general’s office at the time, and they discussed including the attorney’s staff on DiBiase’s circuit. 

Davis said a director at the federal office that oversees the national Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, which funded the DiBiase training, recommended that Davis expand the program.

Even a representative in Congress remarked during Davis’ testimony, “It’s interesting how well your program is working.”

DiBiase is facing 13 counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, theft and money laundering. But his defense lawyer’s cross-examination of Davis, which began Tuesday, revealed how much of the alleged scheme was carried out in broad daylight.

“Would you agree that if you were trying to hide something, you were going about it in a terrible way?” defense attorney Scott Gilbert asked Davis.

Davis said he thought everybody was aware of what he was doing, but that he “evidently” didn’t go about it the right way.

It was after delivering this answer, on his third day on the stand, that Davis displayed the largest emotion so far, his face puckering and voice cracking. The defense briefly halted its questioning for him to compose himself.

“Hindsight is 20/20 and until someone told me what conspiracy was, I would have told you I did exactly right,” Davis said earlier in the day. “When someone told me what conspiracy was, I admitted I did what I was told I did, so I have to accept responsibility. But my intention would have been as legal as possible.”

Davis pleaded guilty to state and federal charges in 2022 and he is cooperating with the prosecution as he awaits sentencing. DiBiase’s defense counsel is expected to resume cross-examination of Davis Wednesday.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

DAY 5: Welfare director texted wrestler who was his high-paid aide about ‘money bags,’ testimony shows

DAY 4: Feds ask disgraced former welfare director ‘million-dollar question’: Why? Loneliness and love

DAY 3: Wrestler’s multimillion dollar ‘self-help curriculum’ helped crack open a wider welfare scandal

DAY 2: Opening statements in welfare scandal trial paint former director as villain who doled out millions over infatuation

DAY 1: 83 witnesses could enter the ring in Mississippi welfare scandal trial

TRIAL PREVIEW: Ex-WWE wrestler faces feds in first – and potentially only – criminal trial in Mississippi welfare scandal

Much of the defense’s questioning of Davis Tuesday touched on the difficulties he faced at the Byzantine welfare agency, with its outdated technology and constant political pressure.

One might think an agency with billion-dollar federal spending power would have automated spreadsheets in its accounting division, Davis said, but instead, employees used pencils on paper ledgers. 

“Sometimes the pencil stroke would be so light or wrong,” Davis said, that he personally witnessed a scenario in which a $2 million deficit was mistaken as a $200 million shortfall.

In an agency with a budget made up primarily of federal funding, subject to a maze of everchanging federal regulations, Davis relied on his executive staff, roughly 70 staff attorneys and several assistant attorneys general who were assigned to his agency to keep him on track.

Davis testified he was steered wrong on several occasions, leading to an inappropriate course of action. “You always lived on the edge, scared to death,” Davis said.

He was also appointed by the governor and had no civil service protection.

“I was at the whim and pleasure. I said ‘whim and pleasure,’ and that’s what it was,” Davis said.

This made him more susceptible to politics. Davis said he would travel to Washington to meet with Mississippi’s delegation and would visit state lawmakers at the Capitol in Jackson several times a week. When Gilbert suggested powerful people must have constantly been asking Davis to do things for them, Davis said he received 1,000 emails a day.

“Everything I did was influenced by a political process,” Davis said. 

His direct supervisor was then-Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican who served from 2012 to 2020. Davis said he interacted with Bryant every day or most days.

“I learned that as an eligibility worker,” Davis said. “The only way things worked is to please your boss.”

It wasn’t about pleasing the people in need, the clients of the agency, Davis added.

“I know I’m saying something controversial,” he said.

When asked if he was able to carry out these directives, even the unpleasant ones, Davis responded, “No compunction about that. That was my job.”

Davis testified he was working under Bryant’s orders to outsource and consolidate functions of the agency when Davis authorized granting tens of millions of TANF dollars to just two nonprofits, one being Mississippi Community Education Center founded by Nancy New. 

New has also pleaded guilty in the scheme and is also awaiting sentencing.

Davis said Bryant and his wife had known New for years and would at times call New “rather than go through me.”

The subgrants with the two nonprofits, together dubbed Families First for Mississippi, presented the vehicle for officials to allegedly steer TANF money to their friends, family and celebrities without the kind of restrictions and oversight that would exist if the money came directly from the state agency.

This structure was underway by the time Davis met DiBiase, the defense pointed out Tuesday.  

Gilbert also strove to show that it would not be unusual for Families First to seek out celebrities like DiBiase to spread their message. Gilbert asked Davis to talk about the array of stars that Families First sought for endorsements, such as Oprah Winfrey or Morgan Freeman. Davis said he thought New had actually spoken with Winfrey “or her people.” 

Gilbert displayed reports of social media analytics showing that of MDHS-related posts, DiBiase’s tweet about his leadership development program received the most page views.

DiBiase called his training program, which he delivered to hundreds of employees until the Davis’ scheme collapsed under an auditor’s investigation, “Law of 16.”

“He had a fascination with the number 16,” Davis said.

The Law of 16 curriculum contains four types of self-help actions – love, yearn, fight, empower (LYFE) – among four areas of life – self, family, business, community – to create 16 different commands for living, according to an information packet.

Law 1, for example, is SELF+LOVE. 

Standing before a gospel choir in a banquet room at the Westin hotel in downtown Jackson during what the agency called the “Law of 16 celebration,”  Davis declared to the large crowd, “If we don’t know who we are, if we haven’t mastered self, we will never, ever master the master’s plan,” according to a video the welfare agency produced.

When Gilbert asked Davis if he ever offered, or if DiBiase ever requested, a “no work” contract, Davis said it was quite the opposite. If anything, he said, he probably invested too much of himself ensuring that DiBiase succeeded. 

Davis said he knew the situation was dysfunctional. Especially now, being on the other side of it, Davis said, “complicated, convoluted and crazy are terms that don’t even begin to describe it.”

Faced with internecine Republican opposition to “school-choice,” or spending tax dollars earmarked for public education on private schools, House Speaker Jason White broke out the biggest gun in Mississippi GOP politics: He invoked President Donald J. Trump.

“The @WhiteHouse is watching Mississippi and Education Freedom is gaining momentum!” White posted Monday on the social media site X. “HB 2 promotes the Make America Great Again Platform and @POTUS’s Executive Order to return power over education to families, instead of bureaucracies …”

White had retweeted a post from Trump Education Secretary Linda McMahon, endorsing the House’s proposed HB 2 as “ambitious school choice expansion” and adding, “Well done, @JasonWhiteMS.”

A key question that remains unanswered, though, is how far the Trump White House is willing to go to see a robust school-choice policy become reality in the Magnolia State, which remains a holdout in the Deep South.

A White House official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation told Mississippi Today that the Trump administration is “very closely monitoring” the school choice debate in the Legislature and wants strong school choice legislation to pass.

U.S. Department of Education officials traveled to Mississippi last year to visit with White’s staff and Gov. Tate Reeves’ office to discuss policy specifics.

Now, many took White’s trumpeting Trump’s support for his plan as a shot over the bow of his Republican Senate leadership colleagues, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. Senate leaders have vowed they will not consider any House proposal that includes vouchers or accounts for parents to spend public money on private schooling.

White and other proponents of expanded school choice and spending public money on private schooling appear to be trying to cast the issue as a referendum on Trump. And among the MSGOP, when Trump says jump, the answer appears to be, “How high?”

But with a House committee vote on White’s school-choice proposal happening as early as Wednesday, it would appear that his invocation of Trump was as much an effort to whip votes from his own still-reluctant or opposed House members as it was to try to sway the Senate. Some heavy-duty House whipping of Republican votes on school choice has been going on even before the Legislature gaveled in for the new session last week. Reluctance and opposition remain among some House Republicans.

Senate leaders, including Hosemann, appeared nonplussed by White’s warning that Trump is watching or by McMahon’s endorsement. When asked about McMahon’s backing of House Bill 2 on Supertalk radio this week, Hosemann replied that he’s surprised she’s read it all, a dig at the 553-page omnibus House education proposal that includes school choice vouchers.

Trump has endorsed school choice and included federal tax credits for donations to fund private school scholarships in his so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” He’s called school choice “the civil rights issue of our time.”

But how involved would Trump and his administration get in Mississippi’s legislative wrangling over school choice? Might he come down for a visit to whip up votes? Might he or Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller start calling Mississippi GOP lawmakers and threaten to primary them next year, as the Capitol rumor mill was suggesting this week?

Trump appears to have many bigger fish to fry at the moment. He famously doesn’t like to lose battles, especially when he parachutes in on the state or local levels. Senate leaders have deemed spending tax dollars on private schools a non-starter. Local governments, including in some red areas, have adopted resolutions against school choice expansion, and local superintendents across the state are lobbying their lawmakers against it.

As politically stout as Trump is in the Magnolia State, some Republican lawmakers would likely still be hesitant to follow him against the wishes of their school leaders back home.

Several lawmakers who are, at best, hesitant to vote for a school choice bill told Mississippi Today they have not been on the receiving end of any lobbying efforts by the White House.

Stephen Spencer Pittman, the 19-year-old suspected of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue, uses his social media accounts to post about baseball, his friends, his commitment to physical fitness and his devotion to Christianity. 

That was until 12:52 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10, when he posted an antisemitic video on Instagram.

“A Jew in my backyard, I can’t believe my Jew crow didn’t work,” an animated Disney-Princess-esque character says to a short yellow figure with a long nose. “You’re getting baptized right now.”

About two hours later, Pittman is alleged to have driven to a synagogue, the Beth Israel Congregation in northeast Jackson, where federal authorities say he used an ax to break through one of the windows. Once inside, Pittman is alleged to have doused the lobby with gasoline and set it on fire with a torch. 

The flames reduced the historic synagogue’s library and administrative offices to charred ruins — and burned his hands in the process. 

Federal authorities say Pittman laughed when he told his father what he did, boasting about finally getting “them.” 

Pittman is facing state and federal arson charges, including elevated hate crime charges at the state level. The federal criminal complaint says he admitted to law enforcement that he targeted the synagogue for its “Jewish ties.” 

Previous local news reports show Pittman, who goes by his middle name, was a multi-year honor roll student and varsity baseball player at St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison. After graduating in 2024, Pittman attended Coahoma Community College in the Mississippi Delta, where he played on the baseball team. 

The federal criminal complaint detailing Pittman’s alleged crime stands in stark contrast to the aspirational and seemingly comfortable life documented on social media by the suburban student-athlete from one of Mississippi’s wealthiest cities.  

Pittman has posted regularly on his X account, often about baseball and Christianity. Many posts pair videos of him practicing his swing in a batting cage with a captioned Bible verse. 

His most recent post, on Jan. 6, links to a website called One Purpose, which describes itself as a faith-based community for men focused on “​​Scripture-backed fitness. Brotherhood accountability. Life-expectancy maxxing.”

“Maxxing” refers to a trend, popularized on sites like TikTok and Youtube, where people talk about maximizing certain aspects of their lives — most often physical appearance, health or wealth. 

Mississippi Today reviewed the site’s domain, which showed that the website was created on Dec. 5 and registered to a Stephen Pittman in Madison. 

A number listed under the domain name has been disconnected, and efforts to reach Pittman’s family and his court-appointed attorney on Tuesday were unsuccessful. His court-appointed federal public defenders did not immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.

The site Pittman promoted days before he allegedly committed a shocking act of antisemitic violence offers a window into his beliefs. Court records, a review of Pittman’s online activity, and an interview with a longtime friend also paint a portrait of how he spent his time and his worldview, one that appears to have been informed by internet subcultures weaving between fitness, finance and Christian Identity. 

With reports showing an increase in antisemitic content and encounters on social media, researchers argue that a review of a suspect’s digital footprint can provide insight into their motive.

Sheep or Shepherd? 

The One Purpose website, which culminates with an offer of a $99 per month membership subscription, is a mishmash of pop self-improvement fads alongside religious references. 

A bar at the top of the site shows a number shifting back and forth between 240 and 245 “brothers building their temples right now,” a reference to the supposed number of paying subscribers.

The top of the site advertises 96 scripture lessons for free next to a beaming yellow button that asks users to begin their “transformation.” A click of that button opens a prompt that asks the user to select whether they are a Shepherd or a Sheep, a biblical metaphor that contrasts those who lead through divine guidance and those who are easily lost and dependent on others. 

“This is a pivotal moment,” the site says. “Will you follow the crowd or lead with purpose?”

The Shepherd button directs the user to answer questions about what ails them, such as a lack of confidence, discipline or energy. The user then selects from a list what “wordly methods” they’ve used to change, such as diets or workout routines. The user is prompted to imagine a transformed version of himself. Eventually, the prompt asks for the user’s information to create a personalized “temple plan.”

The user is directed to a “biblical nutrition” plan touting the “Seven Species of Israel,” including wheat, pomegranate and honey. 

Pittman’s emphasis on a puritanical diet extends to his broader online footprint, one that shows he was not simply a passive consumer of content but also encouraged others to engage with his corner of the internet. 

Stacks of cash, diet fads and ‘how to destroy a society’

Pittman appeared to have multiple social media pages, including duplicate accounts on various platforms.

Mississippi Today reviewed Pittman’s social media activity and interviewed one of Pittman’s longtime school friends. The person was granted anonymity to share details from Pittman’s social media activity and their personal interactions. To verify the person’s connection to Pittman, Mississippi Today cross-referenced screenshots of messages Pittman sent the person with other screenshots of Pittman’s Snapchat username. 

Of all his accounts, Pittman seemed to be most prolific on Snapchat. So much so, he even posted a photo of himself in the hospital with burnt hands, allegedly after setting fire to the synagogue.  

According to the friend, Pittman has “changed a lot” in recent years, living an extremely online existence. The friend said Pittman posts 10-15 Snapchats a day, often documenting his interest in diet trends, fitness, expensive cars and thousands of dollars in cash he claimed to have made through an artificial intelligence platform.

“He posts about either him eating the kind of food that’ll make him really ripped, or his money stuff, or him driving his Porsche or his dad’s Porsche,” the friend said. 

Pittman also frequently posted his fitness regimen, the friend said. He would post about “testosterone optimization” and videos of himself cracking raw eggs into his mouth. His physical regimen also included injecting himself with steroids, the person said.

“He was probably like, ‘OK, I’m gonna get jacked’ or whatever,” the friend said. “And he definitely did steroids, because he posts him putting needles into himself.” 

Themes such as diet, masculinity and fitness frequently co-occur in online spaces associated with the “manosphere” and Christian nationalist-adjacent subcultures, where physical strength, dietary “purity” and hormonal optimization are framed as markers of masculinity and discipline.

The friend said Pittman never talked much about politics, and that is supported by his Instagram page, which shows little engagement with notable political figures.

On Instagram, Pittman described himself as an entrepreneur, a follower of Christ and a “lawyer” of God. His bio includes an Italian flag and dove emojis.

He follows hundreds of accounts, suggesting he was an avid user, including baseball accounts, well-known rappers like Drake and Playboi Carti, President Donald Trump, an account devoted to “Catholic hopecore content,” several motivational accounts and pages about conspiracy theories. 

Pittman also posted photos on his Instagram account showing a Porsche, jewelry, stacks of dollar bills and a reference to an AI venture.

“Link in bio, start making passive income with less than 10 minutes a day, Crazy ROI, 300k views and you’ve already been repaid for the ai. Stop being lazy get started today,” Pittman wrote, linking to a now broken webpage. 

The content on Pittman’s Instagram shifted in the fall of 2025. Prior to that, Pittman would often go months between posting, and all of his photos were about baseball or his friends, such as pictures of him at bat or in the outfield.

“We have brotherly bonds that couldn’t be broken,” he wrote in May 2022 about his high school baseball team. 

But on Dec. 13, Pittman posted a slideshow of photos, the first one seemingly of him holding his middle finger up to multiple stacks of $100 bills. “Money is the root of all evil,” he wrote in the caption. “Hate hates growth.” 

More bizarre posts followed. A video of him driving with the hashtags “bullish,” “ecom,” “clipping,” and “dropshipping.” On Dec. 23, he posted a video of himself stuffing multiple $20 bills into a Salvation Army donation box. 

The next day, he uploaded a video of his hand on the steering wheel of a car, listening to a Chief Keef song, a post he captioned “How to destroy a society: Make discipline cringe. Make truth offensive. Make masculinity shameful. Make femininity weak. Make families unstable. Make loyalty rare. Make education manipulation.” 

Earlier this month, four days before he posted the antisemitic video, Pittman posted a bullet point list of recommendations for a “Christian Diet,” including raw milk, raw eggs, raw honey, raw oysters, raw nuts and “Only God-made fats,” such as olive oil, butter, lard and ghee. 

Influencers in online spaces popular with young men interested in masculinity, diet fads and faith can sometimes blend self-improvement content with ideological messaging, portraying modern society as decadent or feminized, some analysts have noted.  

Pittman also created a second Instagram account, with the first post in July 2025, to promote free fitness routines that he would create for clients if they DMed him the word “SHRED.” His videos included photos of him flexing in front of mirrors and frying red meat and eggs. 

But in between all of the newfangled fads Pittman seemed to embrace, a professed devotion to God seemed to remain at the center of his pursuits. 

‘Synagogue of Satan’ and Christian Identity 

After Pittman was arrested at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he had sought treatment for burns, investigators said he admitted to starting the fire at Beth Israel, which he called the “synagogue of Satan.”

It was not the first time the Jackson congregation had been targeted, and it was not the first time that phrase was directed at a Jewish house of worship in Mississippi. Jewish people make up a small percentage of Mississippi residents. Although Beth Israel is the state’s largest Jewish congregation, it has only about 150 families as members.

“Synagogue of Satan” is a phrase used by followers of Christian Identity, a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity, to refer to Jews. In Mississippi in the 1960s, it was also adopted by the Ku Klux Klan, which in 1967 bombed Beth Israel Synagogue over its rabbi’s support for civil rights.

Christian Identity is a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity that teaches that Adam and Eve were white, that non-whites were created on the Sixth Day with the animals and have no souls, and that Jews are the offspring of Satan. Christian Identity teaches that white people are the true Israelites and that Jews are impostors.

More recently, the phrase has been adopted by figures such as Candace Owens, the right-wing commentator who has used the phrase and suggested there are people “who are pretending to be Jews, but are in fact people that worship Satan.”

Pittman, who is scheduled to return to federal court for a preliminary hearing Jan. 20, first appeared on Monday afternoon via video conference from a hospital, accompanied by a public defender. 

Aside from answering the judge’s questions, the young man did not speak. At times during the proceedings, he appeared to be leaning back in his chair, gazing away from the camera. Both his hands were heavily bandaged. 

When the judge asked him if he understood his rights to an attorney, Pittman responded, “Yes sir, Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Reporters Katherine Lin and Jerry Mitchell contributed to this report.