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The 10 candidates running in a contested election for a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court or the Mississippi Court of Appeals collectively raised just over $126,000 during May, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office. 

The candidate who raised the most money during May was 8th District Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel who is running for the open seat on the state Court of Appeals. 

Schloegel’s campaign raised over $42,000 last month, totaling over $140,000 she has raised so far this year. Of that money, she has spent around $25,000 this year, leaving her with around $123,751 in cash on hand. 

The Gulf Coast-based District 5 race that Schloegel and her two opponents—Pascagoula-based attorney Amy St. Pe and Caost-based prosecutor Ian Baker—are competing in is shaping up to be the most expensive of the three contested judicial elections this cycle. 

St. Pe’s campaign committee amassed just over $24,000 in donations last month, totaling around $131,000 she’s raised so far this year. Of that money, she’s spent a total of $29,510 this year, leaving her with over $101,000 in cash on hand. 

Baker’s campaign raised  $3,200 last month, bringing his total this year to around $68,051. He’s spent around $950 this year, leaving him with over $67,000 in cash on hand. 

The second-most expensive race is the contested central district Supreme Court race, in which incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens faces four different challengers. Kitchens, currently the second-most senior justice on the court, raised around $18,000 last month, bringing his total raised this year to $60,00. Of that money, he spent $33,000, leaving him with around $27,000 in cash on hand. 

Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Philadelphia is cementing herself as the top challenger in the race by raking in $77,000, for a total of $145,000 raised this year. She’s spent $27,000 so far and loaned her campaign $250,0000, leaving her with over $368,000 in cash on hand. 

The other three candidates in the central district race —  Jackson-based attorney Abby Grace Robinson, former Court of Appeals Judge Ceola James and Hinds County attorney Byron Carter — raised nominal amounts compared to the other two. 

Robinson has not raised or spent any money this year, James has only raised around $1,700 this year and Carter has raised around $5,600 so far. 

In the contested Supreme Court seat in the southern district, incumbent Justice Dawn Beam and challenger David Sullivan remain almost neck-and-neck in fundraising. 

Beam raised $18,800 last month, totaling $36,350 this year. She’s spent over $16,000 so far, leaving her with around $20,000 in cash on hand. 

Sullivan, a south Mississippi-based attorney, raised nearly $20,000 in May, for a total of around $35,000. He’s spent just over $1,000 this year, leaving him with over $34,000 in cash. 

Candidates must disclose their campaign expenditures again by 5 p.m. on July 10. While the amount of money a candidate has on hand is not necessarily a sign of their political strength, it can be a strong indicator of how they’ll fare on Election Day. 

Judicial offices are nonpartisan, so candidates do not participate in party primaries. All candidates will appear on the Nov. 5, 2024, general election ballot. If a candidate does not receive a majority of the votes cast, the two candidates who received the most votes will advance to a runoff election on Nov. 26.

Judges on Mississippi’s two highest courts do not run at large. Instead, voters from their respective districts elect them.

The nine members of the Supreme Court are elected from three districts: northern, central and southern. The 10 members of the Court of Appeals are each elected from five districts across the state.

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Summer and swimming go hand in hand. With summer being only a few days away, one of the best ways to beat the heat is having fun in the water. But before jumping in any water to cool off, knowing how to swim is the key to great fun.

Swim classes are underway at 100 Black Men of Jackson, located at 5360 Highland Drive, just south of Callaway High School.

“We had 303 participants last summer,” said instructor Betty Smithson. “The swim program will have four, 2-week sessions.”

They started June 3 and will continue through July 25. “There are six, 45-minute classes per day and classes meet Monday to Thursday,” added Smithson before entering the pool.

Kids file out to the pool and are eager to hit the water. Instructors Smithson, Meredith Cole and Matthew Mixon, Sunkist Swim Team head coach and owner of Live Slow Swim Fast LLC, greet each child by name and with a smile. 

Lessons begin. Instructors are teaching water safety, breath control, flotation and swim strokes to children with a wide range of abilities with patience and care.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 in the United States and the second leading cause of death by accidental injury for children 5 to 14.

“Our goal here is teaching kids to be safe in and around the water,” said Aquatics Director Barnett Taylor. “These lessons will enable these kids to have fun in the water and also to be safe. That’s the key.”

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A large Jackson hospital earned a D in hospital safety from a group that measures how well  hospitals protect its patients from harm.

Mississippi Baptist Medical Center fell from an A in 2021 and 2022 to a D in the spring of this year, according to the Leapfrog Group’s most recent Hospital Safety Grade ratings. 

Baptist scored worse than average in preventing problems like MRSA infections and post-surgery problems like breathing issues, blood leakage and bed sores.

“Providing quality care is our top priority, as is evidenced by our many safety awards and recognitions,” Baptist Public Relations Coordinator Caroline Gillard said in a statement to Mississippi Today. She cited Baptist’s U.S. News and World Report  ranked as the #1 hospital in Mississippi for five years in a row.

U.S. News and World Report bases its rankings and ratings on how well a hospital performs specific procedures and treats certain conditions. 

“We encourage patients to consider all quality standards and measures available to them from publically reported sources along with the services and expertise of each hospital in making decisions about their care,” Gillard said in the statement. “We are proud of the care we provide and our team of caregivers who save countless lives daily.”

The Leapfrog Group is a nonprofit that evaluates the safety and quality of general hospitals nationwide. They are most known for their Hospital Safety Grade system, which rates hospitals from A to F. The results come out twice a year.

The Hospital Safety Grade is based on how well the hospital protects patients from errors, accidents, infections, injuries and more. It uses up to thirty performance measures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and additional data. 

The spring 2024 hospital ratings came out in May. Mississippi ranked 34th in hospital safety overall.

Of the eight hospitals in the Merit Health system graded, only two made B’s. Five earned C’s and one, Merit Health Rankin in Brandon, earned a D.

Across all reports, the hospitals “declined to respond” to several categories: pediatric care, complex adult and pediatric surgery, and more. This means they chose not to disclose that information to the public. In a statement to Mississippi Today, Merit Health Biloxi’s Marketing Manager Amy Bowman did not answer why it did not submit the data for certain areas. 

“We are pleased to see our Leapfrog grade improve (from a D in spring 2023) with this most recent update and it reflects the focused work of our providers,” said Bowman. “Our leadership team and clinicians implement evidence-based best practices to continually strengthen the care we provide.”

Several hospitals improved their grades, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center maintained its B grade from the fall.

Dr. Lisa Didion, physician champion in UMMC’s Office of Patient Experience, presented a report about patient quality in this year’s May Health Affairs Committee of the Institutions of Higher Learning. 

“Clinical quality is absolutely the most important thing we do at the medical center,” she said.

Singing River Gulfport’s grade jumped from a C last fall to a B this spring. It has average or better-than-average scores in several areas, including a culture of safety among the staff and preventing safety problems like collapsed lungs and blood clots.

Singing River’s Pascagoula and Ocean Springs hospitals both received Cs.

Last  fall’s report had eight As, 10 Bs, 19 Cs, three D’s, and one that was not graded. This spring there are seven As, eight Bs, 19 C’s and five Ds. 

One hospital, Delta Health Northwest Regional in Clarksdale, did not receive a grade.

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Civil War reenactors brought history to life at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson as members of the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry taught attendees how soldiers of that era lived on rations or off the land, the wool uniforms they wore; the armaments they used; how meals were cooked, and how their horses were taken care of and used to transport men and materials.

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The U.S. Open will be played at Pinehurst No. 2 this week. It’s a golf course with which Randy Watkins is extremely familiar. Watkins says it will be a test, even for Scottie Scheffler. Today’s discussion also covers the College World Series, the bidding war the L.A. Lakers lost to UConn, and Hurston Waldrep’s debut with the Atlanta Braves.

Stream all episodes here.

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Originally published by The 19th

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday announced a new effort to ban medical debt from credit reports, something that would ease a burden that falls most heavily on women and Black people. 

“Medical debt makes it more difficult for millions of Americans to be approved for a car loan, a home loan or a small business loan, all of which in turn makes it more difficult to just get by, much less get ahead, and that is simply not fair. Especially when we know that people with medical debt are no less likely to repay a loan than those without medical debt,” Harris said. “No one should be denied access to economic opportunity simply because they experienced a medical emergency.”

Federal efforts to remove medical debt from credit reports began last fall after Harris announced that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would take the first steps to create rules that would take medical bills off credit reports, prohibit creditors from using medical bills to make underwriting decisions and ban collectors from using medical debt to pressure consumers to make payments. These proposals would narrow the 2005 exemption in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which allowed creditors to use medical debts in underwriting credit decisions. Creditors would still have the ability to access medical debts and bill information in certain instances, such as to evaluate loan applications for medical services.

Other federal efforts to curb medical debt include the No Surprises Act, which took effect in July 2022 and requires private health insurers to cover most emergency services, emergency care and non-emergency in-network services and prohibits medical providers from billing patients more than in-network cost sharing.

The rule change could lead to more people being able to borrow money, as CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said it would give lenders more accurate and predictive information about borrowers.

“The 15 million Americans who would benefit from this credit reporting change would see their scores rise by an average of 20 points. … For mortgages alone, we estimate that this could lead to approximately 22,000 additional home loans each year,” he said. “Our action today is an important step toward reducing some of the unnecessary costs of getting sick in America.”

According to a senior administration official, this rule would include historical medical bill information and dental debt.

Other federal efforts to curb medical debt include the No Surprises Act, which took effect in July 2022 and prohibits surprise billing for most emergency services and non-emergency services done out-of-network.

The nationwide credit reporting agencies, which are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, removed medical debt under $500 from consumer credit reports as of April 2023. However, this April, the CFPB released research that found 15 million Americans still have medical debt on their credit reports — particularly those in the American South and low-income communities. A March 2022 report from the CFPB found that Americans were harboring $88 billion in medical debt.

A KFF Health Policy Research analysis published this year based on the 2021 national Survey of Income and Program Participation found that 20 million people owed a collective $220 billion in medical debt. The analysis found that 13 percent of people with disabilities reported having medical debt, compared with 6 percent of those without a disability. It also found that non-Hispanic Black people carry more medical debt than other racial and ethnic groups, and women carry more than men. A separate analysis found that 14 percent of people who gave birth within the last year and a half reported having medical debt, compared with 7 percent of those who did not. 

“Since we know that Black adults and women are more at risk of having medical debt, then I would expect this policy would benefit those groups,” said Cynthia Cox, KFF vice president and director of the foundation’s Program on the Affordable Care Act, which examines health care coverage costs, affordability and accessibility.

Undue Medical Debt, the nonprofit formerly known as RIP Medical Debt that contacts hospitals and health care systems requesting that they sell or donate portions of patients’ debt, and Perry Undem, a nonpartisan public opinion research firm, surveyed over 2,600 adults in August 2023, 229 of whom were Black women. Among Black women, 27 percent said they have delayed or said no to health services out of concerns over acquiring medical debt. A study from the American Cancer Society published in March suggested that “medical debt is associated with worse health status, more premature deaths, and higher mortality rates at the county level in the US.”

In 2022, YouGov, a research data and analytics technology group, reported that 66 percent of Americans supported government relief for medical debt. Eva Stahl, the vice president of public policy and program management at Undue Medical Debt, attributes this support to the fact that it can impact anyone. 

“It’s not a debt of choice, it’s a debt of necessity. Because there’s a general consensus about that, it’s not really a partisan issue,” she said. 

Stahl said they have gotten interest from legislators across the nation, even in the South, with some jurisdictions in Texas and Kentucky showing interest in erasing residents’ medical debt. Some state-level efforts to erase medical debt for state residents have either passed or been proposed — some in partnership with Undue Medical Burden.

In June 2023, Colorado became the first state to prohibit medical debt from being included on residents’ credit reports. Similar legislation was passed this year in Connecticut and proposed in New Jersey. 

Last year, Connecticut’s state legislature approved a budget that would allocate $6.5 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding toward erasing medical debt for residents whose medical debt is 5 percent of their income or whose household income is up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line. Earlier this year, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, announced efforts to use $30 million of ARP funding to cancel medical debt for up to 1 million Arizonans, using similar criteria as Connecticut. Both states partnered with Undue Medical Debt

To Stahl, removing medical debt from credit reports has limitations.

“It’s an action that is helpful, but it’s not getting it’s not at the it’s not at the root,” which is “that people don’t have access to affordable high quality health care,” Stahl said. “Even if you banned medical debt from credit reports, which is an important and worthy exercise, people still have unpaid medical bills. … Patients will still feel the stress of having debt collectors call them several times a day, asking them when they’re going to pay their medical bills, or they may get into payment plans that they can’t really afford.”

A senior administration official said public comments are being accepted through August 12. They expect the rule to be finalized early next year.

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Whether it’s through their animals, their careers, or their homes, Mississippians have fascinating connections to the environment, and it’s been a privilege getting to talk to them over the six or so years I’ve been on this beat.

One of my favorite things about doing this coverage is that, because everyone interacts with the environment, there’s no telling where the next story will come from. Every now and then, we get a tip from someone with no political connections, talking about some issue I’ve never heard of, in a town I’ve never been. Often, those become some of the most special stories to tell.

Be it pollution, farming, habitats, energy, disaster mitigation, climate change, or water infrastructure, we want to keep engaging with our readers on what’s happening with the environment around Mississippi, and we hope you’ll keep letting us know what we’re missing.

Take the survey below, and we’ll use your questions to create an FAQ.

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While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers appears to be moving on from the “One Lake” flood control plan, the agency is indicating its support for an altered version of the proposal that includes other flood control components.

Since 2011, local officials at the Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District — also referred to as the Flood Control District or the Levee Board — have backed One Lake as the solution to a decades-long effort to curb flooding in Jackson. The effort traces back to the record-setting flood of 1979, which the Corps estimates would leave behind over $1.2 billion in damages if it happened today.

The proposal has garnered both support and opposition from politicians on either side of the aisle, with environmental advocates cautioning that One Lake would disrupt the water flow downstream of Jackson and harm valuable ecosystems. Proponents, including local business leaders, have hailed the proposal as a potential revenue-builder for Jackson and Rankin County. The idea behind One Lake was not only to reduce flooding by lowering and spreading the Pearl River out, but also to create recreational areas along the water.

The Corps, the federal agency in charge of approving such a project, visited Jackson last year to hear the public’s input. The group of engineers came back with a draft environmental study on Friday that appears to support a plan with similar features as One Lake with additional mitigation measures, including elevating homes and improving the nearby levee system.

Friday’s report also initiated a new public comment period that lasts until July 22. The Corps will hold a new round of public meetings, including two in Jackson on July 10 and one the following day in Monticello. For more information on how to submit comments or attend the meetings, visit the Corps’ project page.

What options are the Corps looking at?

Friday’s 300-page draft study narrowed the scope of the Pearl River flood control project to four options: a nonstructural option, the locally preferred plan (One Lake), a combination of other plans without a weir, and a combination of other plans with a weir.

The nonstructural option (called “Alternative A1” in the report) would consist of elevating and floodproofing up to 143 structures. Property owners would also have the option of voluntary buyouts, and their land would be converted into publicly owned greenspaces. This option, the report found, had the highest cost-benefit ratio of the four, a key criteria in the Corps’ decision-making. But Alternative A1 also comes with “significant uncertainties and risks,” the Corps wrote, as the plan’s success depends on the participation rate of the property owners.

One Lake (or “Alternative C” in the study) would relocate a dam near the J.H. Fewell water treatment plant, excavate the sides of the Pearl River and widen it for a 10-mile stretch from near Lakeland Drive to south Jackson. Alternative C had the lowest cost-benefit ratio of the four options, the study found. The Corps estimated that the project could cost anywhere from $1 billion to $2.1 billion, and that the annual cost of the project (between $40 million and $80 million) far outweighs the benefits from damage reductions ($14 million). The Corps’ estimate also far exceeds the $340 million cost estimate that local officials attached to One Lake as recently as 2022.

“Alternative C… is not justified under the traditional (Corps) benefit-cost analysis,” Friday’s report said.

The last two options are combinations of other plans. “Alternative D,” the one the Corps is tentatively supporting, includes building a dam on the Pearl River and widening the channel, creating a 1,700-acre lake — a smaller, but similar version of the 2,500-acre lake in Alternative C. Alternative D also doesn’t include moving the existing weir by J.H. Fewell, and the new dam would go in a couple miles upstream of the one proposed in Alternative C.

Another main difference is the other components of Alternative D, which includes elevating or floodproofing up to 60 structures, including 43 homes, as well as voluntary buyouts. The plan would also include improving existing levees, as well as building a new levee on the west side of the river that would reduce flooding for an estimated 250 homes in northeast Jackson.

The other combination plan, “Alternative E,” doesn’t include a new weir, but has less flood-reduction benefits than Alternative D.

“As a result, it can be reasonably expected that one of the (combination) plans, likely (Alternative D), would be the NED plan,” the report says (the “NED,” or National Economic Development, plan indicates which plan best meets the Corps’ criteria as far as weighing the costs and benefits of a proposal).

Alternative D, the report says, would cost between $485 million and $655 million. In 2022, the Corps announced it would spend $221 million in funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on the project.

Environmental advocates who spoke to Mississippi Today said they’re still reviewing the details of the corps’ new proposal, but said that the idea appears to raise similar concerns that came with One Lake.

“It’s going to dig out the wetland areas and the bottomland hardwoods, and it’s going to affect critical habitat, just a little bit less than (One Lake) would have,” said Andrew Whitehurst, Water Program director for Healthy Gulf. “So, it still requires a lot of mitigation.

“Alternative D and old Alternative C are pretty close in what they are going to do to the river.”

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