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Federal prosecutors have revealed a sprawling scheme to rig college basketball games while yielding big payouts to gamblers. A former Southern Miss player, Picayune native Mo Arnold who last played for the Golden Eagles in the 2023-24 season, is among 20 men charged.

According to an indictment unsealed Thursday, fixers started with two professional games in China before turning their focus to recruiting college players in America to participate in similar point-shaving efforts as recently as January 2025.

The indictment, which includes charges against current and former college players, coincides with multiple NCAA probes into sports-betting violations.

“We were made aware this morning of federal charges brought against a former Southern Miss men’s basketball player as part of a larger sports betting probe,” Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain said in a statement Thursday. “This news is disappointing to everyone associated with Southern Miss athletics. Integrity is important to anyone who loves college sports, and the university stands ready to assist in making sure incidents like these are removed from the competitive space in college athletics.”

Arnold, a point guard, played three seasons at USM, the best being his senior year when he averaged 6.2 points, 2.4 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game. Southern Miss finished 16-16 overall and 9-9 in the Sun Belt Conference that season. Arnold also started 30 of 33 games in the 2022-23 season during which USM won finished 25-8 and won the Sun Belt regular season championship.

Here’s what to know about the latest case:

The types of bets that were flagged

Gamblers can bet on games with the point spread, a projected total by which one team is favored to win against another team.

Winning a bet on the favorite would mean that team won by more than the projected point spread. A winning bet on the underdog would require that team to win outright or lose by fewer points than the spread.

How this scheme allegedly worked

Prosecutors say players involved could manipulate a game, and therefore the bets related to it, by intentionally underperforming. Gamblers working with those players could then place wagers based on “higher degree of certainty” as to whether a team would cover or fall short of the spread, according to the indictment.

For example, the indictment charges former college and NBA player Antonio Blakeney with taking payments from two high-stakes gamblers to underperform while in the Chinese Basketball Association during the 2022-23 season.

In one such game in March 2023, Blakeney scored roughly 21 points below his scoring average and his team lost by 31. That covered the spread for the favored opponent so fixers could win most of their bets, according to the indictment.

Fixers later recruited college players to help ensure their teams failed to cover the spread either for the first half or an entire game, offering payments typically ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game.

The college games that were impacted

According to the indictment, the scheme eventually involved more than 39 players on 17 Division I men’s basketball teams who manipulated or attempted to manipulate 29 games in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

Most games were in the regular season and involved teams at the mid-major level, though DePaul in the Big East had three games cited in the indictment (against Georgetown, Butler and St. John’s) from late in the 2023-24 season.

The indictment listed at least four postseason games impacted in March 2024: Robert Morris’ first-round game against Purdue Fort Wayne in the Horizon League Tournament, New Orleans’ second-round game against Lamar in the Southland Conference Tournament, and Abilene Christian’s two games (against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Tarleton State) in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament.

Other schools that were affected

Eastern Michigan, Nicholls State, Tulane, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, La Salle, Fordham, Buffalo, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State and Alabama State all had players who allegedly impacted games.

Four charged players competed for their current teams within the past week, however allegations against them don’t involve the 2025-26 season.

They are: Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle; Eastern Michigan’s Carlos Hart, with allegations tied to a previous stint at New Orleans; Texas Southern’s Oumar Koureissi, tied to his time at Nicholls State; and Delaware State’s Camian Shell, tied to his stop at North Carolina A&T.

Cottle, the preseason pick for Conference USA player of the year, is averaging 20.2 points and had 21 points in Wednesday’s win against Florida International. By Thursday, however, Kennesaw State had released a statement that Cottle was suspended indefinitely from all team activities.

Separately, Eastern Michigan announced Hart’s suspension from team activities pending the outcome of the case. Koureissi — who played for Texas Southern as recently as Saturday — no longer appears on the Tigers’ online roster, while the school responded to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment with a statement saying Koureissi “has been removed from the team.”

Delaware State didn’t immediately return an email from the AP requesting comment Thursday.

In a statement Thursday, Buffalo athletic director Mark Alnutt said the school will continue to cooperate with investigators.

“We believe these to be isolated incidents,” he said, “that in no way reflect the values and core ethics of the Division of Athletics or our men’s basketball program.”

What the NCAA has done about sports-betting concerns

In a statement Thursday, NCAA president Charlie Baker said enforcement staffers from college sports’ governing body have opened sports-betting probes into roughly 40 athletes from 20 schools in the past year.

Eleven athletes from seven schools were ruled permanently ineligible, while 13 others from eight schools failed to fully cooperate in NCAA probes, with none competing today.

News of those cases has dripped out over the past year.

For example, the NCAA banned three players in September for betting on their own games at Fresno State and San Jose State.

In October, the NCAA announced three former Eastern Michigan players refused to cooperate with its investigation. Two of those, Da’Sean Nelson and Jalen Terry, are defendants in the unsealed indictment.

A month later, the NCAA announced sanctions against six more players, a list that included two defendants — former New Orleans players Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavion Short — from Thursday’s unsealed indictment. Hunter, nicknamed “Dae Dae,” later said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he participated in point-shaving.

Later in November, the NCAA ruled former Temple guard Hysier Miller permanently ineligible for placing dozens of bets on Owls games, including some against his team, during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons.

And in December, the NCAA said former San Francisco player Marcus Williams gave information about his stats in upcoming games during the 2024-25 season to a player from another school who was betting on his performances. Williams reached a negotiated settlement to close the case and had no remaining eligibility.

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AP Sports Writer John Wawrow contributed to this report.

After perhaps the most intense vote-whipping he’s done as House speaker, Republican Jason White prevailed on a major school-choice bill, but only by a razor-thin, two-vote margin, with the future of the legislation uncertain. 

Despite the heavy lifting and House Bill 2’s passage after a four-hour debate, the final vote count could have been tied if every member had voted. 

The 122-member House passed the school-choice bill by a vote of 61-59. Fifty-nine Republicans and the chamber’s two independents voted for the measure. Seventeen Republicans, though, joined all of the chamber’s 42 Democrats to oppose it.

Two House members — Republicans Price Wallace of Mendenhall and Clay Deweese of Oxford — did not vote. 

Deweese was marked present on the House’s roll for the day. Wallace was marked absent. 

After the House concluded its four-hour debate on the school choice bill, Deweese, as chairman of the Appropriations C Committee, immediately presided over a roughly hour-long budget hearing to hear testimony from the Division of Medicaid. 

After the committee meeting, Deweese told Mississippi Today that he was “unavailable” to vote on the school choice bill. When asked why he was unavailable, he didn’t answer the question and walked off into a suite of legislative offices where the public isn’t allowed. 

He did not respond to a separate follow-up question asking how he would have voted on the measure if he were available. 

A legislative tactic that lawmakers can deploy is what’s commonly called “taking a walk,” or leaving the chamber and not voting on a bill. Often, this is a way to avoid drawing the wrath of legislative leadership or voters back home.

The two-term lawmaker represents Lafayette County, which contains two A-rated school districts. Oxford School District Superintendent Bradley Robertson penned an opinion essay for Mississippi Today in October arguing against school-choice legislation. 

Wallace, on the other hand, was not seen at the Capitol on Thursday and was marked absent on the roll. Wallace, a farmer, later told Mississippi Today that he didn’t take a walk. He was repairing some broken farm equipment and could even supply a picture of what he was trying to fix. 

Wallace said if he had been present at the Capitol, he would have voted against the school-choice measure. 

Whenever a speaker puts their full weight behind a policy, it’s long been the realpolitik that House members can gain the speaker’s favor by voting with the leader. Voting against a speaker can get a member demoted, or back-benched or make it difficult to pass their own legislation. 

In the Mississippi House, the speaker wields enormous influence by helping control which bills die and which ones become law. He also decides which members lead committees and can remove them as leaders.

Last year, White removed Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, a Republican from Picayune, as the leader of the House Drug Policy Committee.

White never said why he yanked her from the committee, but the Pearl River County lawmaker said it was because she pushed back against White over disagreements on legislation that sought to regulate pharmacy benefit managers. 

While the House debated the lengthy bill on Thursday, Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican, told Mississippi Today the Senate still doesn’t have the votes to pass a robust school choice package, as the House is pushing.

He also alluded to moves by House Republican leaders to finagle over votes in Wednesday’s committee meeting, such as asking some members to skip the meeting instead of voting no.

“The Senate position is what we passed, and I’m going to support the Senate position,” DeBar said. “I’ve got votes on a single bill, I’m not twisting arms or asking people to walk. I’ve got the full support of the Senate. When the House bill gets here, if it gets here, we’ll deal with it in due course.”

After the vote, White told reporters that he is not pressuring House members to vote a certain way and said arm-twisting was something previous House speakers would do.

“I think pressure comes to bear from voters and politics, not from a heavy hand in leadership,” White said.

The Mississippi House narrowly passed a major public-education overhaul Thursday after four hours of debate that centered on school choice — but also invoked President Trump, rifles and shotguns, the Psalm of David, pimps and meth addicts and even sexual innuendo.

The bill, authored by Republican Speaker Jason White, passed 61-59. Seventeen Republicans broke with White and voted no, and two Republicans did not vote.

The razor-thin margin is likely not the homerun that White wanted to see in his chamber, after his months-long campaign to expand school choice in Mississippi. The slim passage puts the bill’s future in doubt, with the Republican Senate leadership vowing to kill it, or at least the parts that would spend tax dollars on private schooling.

School choice refers to a collection of policies that give parents more power over their children’s education. But opponents argue that in doing so, public money is siphoned away from the public education system into private schools or the highest-performing public schools.  

White has been at the center of efforts to broaden school choice policies in Mississippi, one of the few states in the Southeast without an expansive program. The drive has, in large part, come from national conservative groups and the Trump administration.

Rep. Jeffrey Harness, Democrat from Fayette, acknowledged that pressure during the floor debate. 

“I know y’all have to do everything that Donald Trump tells you to do,” he said. “I mean, if he tells you to jump off a cliff, you’re gonna jump off a cliff.”

The crux of the divide in the House is ideological, representatives made clear on Thursday.

Democrats, led in dissent by House party leader Robert Johnson III from Natchez, said they believe the state’s public-education system should be rewarded for its recent success and that school choice would harm public schools, which must accept all students. In contrast, House Republicans said that parents, not the government, deserve the ultimate say over where and how their children are educated. Republican Rep. Celeste Hurst of Sandhill, in an unconventional opening, introduced the bill — estimated to cost the state $162 million overall and headlined by an education savings account program that would send public dollars to families to pay for private school tuition — by acknowledging its 446-page length.

“The opponents have called it gargantuan,” she said. “I have even heard the word ‘girth’ tossed around. And I get it, it’s really hard to embrace something that you can’t quite get your arms around … what’s also big is the issue we’re trying to address.” Others during the hourslong debate snickered as they used girth and similar innuendo.

And before the debate unfolded in earnest, Republican Rep. Jansen Owen of Poplarville, one of the authors and White’s right-hand man in the school choice push, was brought to tears.

“Supporting school choice doesn’t mean turning backs on public education. It means opening our eyes to the reality that every baby is unique and every baby is different,” he said, before turning away from the podium to gather himself.

There were recurrent themes throughout the floor discussion, including accountability, transparency and fears over resegregation. One major portion of the bill changes current law to remove the veto power of a home school district if a student wants to transfer out. The other school district, however, retains its power to accept or deny a student.

Johnson argued that idea was antithetical to public schools by definition. 

“If I live in a county, I can go to school in that county,” he said. “And if I show up at that school ugly, dirty, rambunctious, crazy, I don’t care what it is — they have to take you. That’s what public education is.”

House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, who represents Starkville, brushed off concerns that the public-school transfer provision would result in a concentration of high-performing students at the most well-resourced schools, causing rural, struggling schools with lower-income tax bases to lose students and, subsequently, close. 

Some Democrats likened it to the segregation of schools in the 1950s. 

“These schools that you’re talking about are going to close anyway,” Roberson refuted. “That’s the road they’re on.”

Lawmakers also took issue with private schools accepting state money, while adhering to their own standards, not public school standards. 

Rep. Bob Evans, a Democrat from Monticello, said there were no penalties in the bill, but Owen disagreed: If schools fail to educate students, their parents can send them elsewhere, he said. 

“Let me ask you a question: If little Johnny’s momma is on crystal meth, and little Johnny’s daddy is a pimp, can you tell me how they (are) gonna be able to choose that little Johnny is getting the right kind of education services when that’s not even on their plate?” Rep. John Hines, a Democrat from Greenville, asked. 

“I hope little Johnny has a good grandmomma,” Owen responded.  

A handful of amendments offered by Johnson and Rep. Omeria Scott, a Democrat from Laurel, failed on the floor Thursday, including one presented by the latter to require a specific Psalm for the provision of the bill that permits school boards to create policies that allow prayer at the beginning of the school day. 

While the House debated the lengthy House bill, Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville, told Mississippi Today the Senate Republican majority does not support the House bill. Senate leaders have already passed a public-school transfer bill, filed legislation that mirrors portions of the House bill and made clear they don’t plan to entertain an education savings account program to spend tax dollars on private schools.

He also alluded to moves by House Republican leaders to finagle votes in a Wednesday committee meeting, such as asking some members to skip the meeting instead of voting no.

“The Senate position is what we passed and I’m going to support the Senate position,” DeBar said. “I’ve got votes on a single bill, I’m not twisting arms or asking people to walk. I’ve got the full support of the Senate. When the House bill gets here, if it gets here, we’ll deal with it in due course.”

But White on Thursday after adjournment denied any heavy arm twisting of House Republicans. He told reporters that he asked his members to vote ‘yes’ on the bill, and that pressure has come from their constituents and “politics,” not House leadership.  

And if the Senate kills his bill, White said senators will “answer to the voters” and suggested that Gov. Tate Reeves would call a special session to reconsider school choice expansion. 

“ I’m hopeful and optimistic that we can find some common ground,” he said. “The same people that voted for these representatives, voted for those senators, and I just can’t believe we’re that far apart.”

DeBar said he plans to call a committee meeting next week to handle noncontroversial bills. He plans to have his committee consider whatever version of House Bill 2 passes the House, but did not say when that would be. 

“My preference is to bring the bill up as is and not have amendments made to it because I think the committee needs to consider the bill in its totality and make a decision on how they want to move forward with it,” he said.

House Democrats outlined their plans moving forward at a press conference on the Capitol’s second floor steps immediately after adjournment.

“We hope the position of the Senate remains steadfast on this issue, and we’ll continue to talk to them and encourage them, along with everyone else in the House and Senate,” Johnson said. 

The bill was held on a motion to reconsider, a procedural motion that could bring more debate or another vote on the bill before it could move to the Senate.

Staff writer Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.

Mississippi’s former welfare director testified Wednesday that a leadership program at the heart of a criminal case against former WWE wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. was done in accord with a federal faith-based initiative during the first Trump presidency.

John Davis, the former Mississippi Department of Human Services director awaiting sentencing for his role in the brazen welfare heist, has repeated this refrain multiple times during the four days he’s held the witness stand so far in the DiBiase trial.

In fact, when answering how he first met the wrestler, Davis described attending a 2017 meeting at the Governor’s Mansion, where he said Gov. Phil Bryant discussed new faith-based initiatives on the federal level. Davis said DiBiase’s brother, Brett, was there, and told the governor how his dad’s Christian ministry called Heart of David could be involved. Their dad is famed professional wrestling heel Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase, who delivers his testimonial about overcoming temptations during his time with the World Wrestling Federation by recommitting to Jesus.

Davis’ explanation provides some context for his communication with the DiBiase brothers, which was laden with references to God and scripture. “You are God sent,” Teddy DiBiase said in 2017 in one of his earliest messages to the welfare director. 

Davis frequently told the brothers, “I love you” and “God loves you,” though on Wednesday, Davis testified that he messaged many people in that manner, including the two nonprofit directors that funneled grants to the wrestlers.

The DiBiase family secured a total of nearly $6 million in federal grants through Davis’ agency, the majority coming from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Teddy DiBiase is facing 13 criminal counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, theft of federal funds and money laundering. Brett DiBiase pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the scheme; the father was not charged criminally; and all three DiBiase men are facing a civil lawsuit brought by the welfare department to recoup the funds. 

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

DAY 6: Wrestler carried out welfare-funded workshops in broad daylight, defense testimony asserts

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

TANF funds are meant to alleviate or prevent poverty through a number of possible ways – direct cash assistance to help families care for children in the home; the promotion of job preparation, work and marriage; reducing out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and the formation or maintenance of two-parent families. Auditors questioned tens of millions of dollars worth of purchases under this program from 2016 to 2020. 

When prosecutors asked Davis last week about why his agency transferred TANF money to Heart of David, Davis said it was part of the faith-based initiative that “the governor wanted us to do.”

The scope of services in one of Heart of David’s subgrant agreements included several items geared toward young people, including trying to “increase the number of adolescents who live a life of servanthood” and “strengthen attitudes and expectations towards community, family and their US citizenship.” The second agreement was more pared down, with Heart of David agreeing to “establish a network of partnerships, services and resources throughout Mississippi communities for faith-based and self activities,” according to a forensic audit.

In the first report detailing the misspending, the State Auditor’s 2019 MDHS Management Letter, the authors explain that TANF rules allow states to direct funds to faith-based organizations as subgrants, but they must include restrictions on explicitly religious activities. Auditors found that grant agreements between DHS and Heart of Davis did not feature such restrictions.

In October 2017, about four months after DiBiase began working on his first welfare-funded contract to create a leadership development program, he received an invitation to visit the White House from Jay Strack, a motivational speaker and then-member of President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board. The letter, shown to the court Wednesday, referred to DiBiase as “one of the best and brightest the nation has to offer.”

In 2018, Trump signed an executive order establishing the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which stated that the administration wanted faith-based organizations to compete on an equal playing field with others for federal funding.

The same year, Trump signed the Family First Prevention Services Act, which Mississippi leaders vowed publicly to adopt and set up committees to carry out. The Act aimed to prevent family separations by allowing states to use child welfare funds on items that a family may need to keep a child safely at home. DiBiase sat on the state advisory council for the state’s Family First Initiative. Churches and faith-based organizations were part of the approach to coordinate prevention efforts across sectors. But the state didn’t submit its plan under the Act to the federal government until years after the scandal led to the effective dismantling of the initiative. 

As part of DiBiase’s work with the welfare department, the agency recorded him delivering what were supposed to be weekly inspirational messages to DHS staff – the people who work on the ground level to administer federally-funded assistance to needy Mississippians. He called the mini-lectures “Tuesday Turnaround.”

“We’re going to enhance our culture. We’re going to create a community and a family that is about growing, that is about loving, because if we can love ourselves and love each other, then we can love our clients at a greater level,” DiBiase said in one of the videos.

DiBiase went on to tell the story of Shamgar, an Israeli farmer who slaughtered 600 Philistines using an ox goad – “a stick with a nail on it,” DiBiase explained – and delivered Israel.

“Now this is in a book I read; I can’t talk about it. You know, I ain’t preaching,” he said in the video. “So what’s the lesson there? Just a simple farmer, right? Who picked up a stick with a nail on it and he delivered a nation. How awesome is that? Here’s the lesson. Start now. Ok? Use what you got. Do what you can. We know that we have issues in our offices, maybe the printers aren’t working, maybe somebody’s got a negative attitude. But that doesn’t mean you have to have a negative attitude, does it? You could respond in love. The printer doesn’t work, I’m sorry. Guess what? There – somebody – don’t let that affect you.”

Wednesday was a short day of trial, with U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves announcing after lunchtime that he had matters to handle in other cases. He paused the proceedings until Friday, when the defense is expected to continue its cross examination of Davis.

The criminal trial of DiBiase may be the only one to occur within the larger Mississippi welfare scandal. 

At one point while Davis was speaking on the witness stand this week, seven blocks away, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and various volunteers were bundling suitcases, part of a partnership with Focus on the Family. The evangelical Christian parachurch had donated 1,350 satchels for some of Mississippi’s roughly 4,000 foster children. 

The organization’s concept is that when children are neglected – the most common reason being poverty – or abused, and are taken from their families by state child protection officers, they often don’t possess any belongings, or if they do, they use garbage bags to carry the items. 

Laurie Todd-Smith, a former Bryant adviser, came to Jackson to promote the program. She now serves as deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development in Trump’s Administration for Children and Families, the agency that oversees TANF funding nationally. 

Each suitcase they planned to pass out to foster children contained a teddy bear and a Bible.

“I think Mississippi, of all the states I visited and all the states we’re working with, we are particularly a very faith-filled state,” Todd-Smith said during a Tuesday interview with Supertalk, a Mississippi radio network that received $600,000 in welfare funding during the scandal. “And I just feel so proud that we’re visiting a church today that the churches are engaging in this issue.”

The Mississippi Board of Education has authorized a takeover of the Wilkinson County School District because of its severe academic challenges. 

State officials also have serious concerns about the district’s financial health. Wilkinson schools’ full financial picture isn’t clear, officials said, because district officials have not submitted a financial audit since the 2023 fiscal year. The district did indicate a $1.7 million deficit in its budget outlook for the 2025-26 school year.

“We don’t have a choice,” state Superintendent Lance Evans said at a state Board of Education meeting Thursday. When a district hits rock bottom, he said, the state has to act. 

The board appointed Lee Coats as interim superintendent of Wilkinson County schools. Coats recently served as the assistant superintendent of Holmes County Consolidated School District, which the state took over in 2021.

Without intervention, there could be a “continuation of an inadequate educational environment, thereby denying the students enrolled in Wilkinson County School District the opportunity to learn, to excel, and to obtain a free and appropriate public education,” Paula Vanderford, chief accountability officer for the state Department of Education, said during the board meeting.

The school district has been rated F under the state’s accountability system for each of the past two years, state officials said. State accountability data shows that both Wilkinson County Elementary and William Winans Middle School are also failing. Wilkinson County High has a D grade.

The Wilkinson County district has the second-lowest graduation rate in the state. The district also has the state’s lowest proficiency rate in math and science as well as the second lowest proficiency rates in English and history, state education officials said. 

Those are just some of a long list of academic concerns state education officials mentioned Thursday.

Enrollment in Wilkinson County schools has also dropped by about half since 2019, and is now 648 students — a number that prompted state board Chairman Matt Miller to question whether the school district should be consolidated into another one.

Consolidation is not yet the top question for state education officials. The immediate first step of the takeover, Evans said, is for state officials to do a full audit of the Wilkinson County’s personnel and finances. Under the takeover, Wilkinson County’s school board is abolished and its superintendent is removed. 

Wilkinson County is the second school district the agency has taken over in less than three months.

The state Board of Education voted on Nov. 14 to take over Okolona schools for financial reasons, marking the district’s second time under state control in 15 years. Okolona schools officials had notified the agency on Oct. 30 that it could not make its November payroll. 

Dozens of other school districts across Mississippi could also be in financial trouble. The current finances are unclear for 47 school districts that are behind on submitting completed annual financial audits to the state Department of Education.

On Thursday, the state Board of Education unanimously approved a temporary rule that, among other things, spells out consequences districts will face if they fail to submit annual audits on time, starting with the March 31 deadline. Those districts will be designated as high-risk, face “enhanced monitoring” from the state education department, and their accreditation could be downgraded for with multiple outstanding audits.

At a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday, Evans said there is limited funding available to help provide technical assistance for additional school districts taken over by the state: $4.8 million. Since taking over Okolona schools, the agency has already spent $1.5 million. Evans asked lawmakers for additional funding for next fiscal year.

“It doesn’t take long to eat through that,” Evans said of the agency’s emergency fund. “One district that’s in serious trouble can completely wipe that out.”

For now, the state runs six school systems, called districts of transformation: Noxubee County, Holmes County, Humphreys County, Yazoo City, Okolona Separate School District, and now Wilkinson County. The latter two districts are also the first districts the state has taken over since gaining the authority in 2024 to take over a school district for academic or financial reasons without the governor first declaring a state of emergency.

On Thursday, state Board of Education officials touted Tunica County School District as a success story. The district was placed in a district of transformation in 2015 and is now rated a B, the highest grade among school systems in the Mississippi Delta. 

This story has been updated with additional details.

The Madison man accused of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue has now been indicted on a federal arson charge. 

The federal indictment returned Wednesday does not mean Stephen Spencer Pittman is facing a new charge, only that a grand jury has confirmed federal prosecutors have enough evidence to proceed with prosecuting the 19-year-old for burning the Beth Israel Congregation temple. 

Federal and state prosecutors have not announced how they will collaborate on Pittman’s court cases. His attorney, federal public defender Mike Scott, could not immediately be reached Thursday.  

In state court, Pittman is facing a charge of first-degree arson. Earlier this week, a Hinds County Circuit Court grand jury indicted Pittman on that charge and recommended his sentence be enhanced under a Mississippi law punishing “offenses committed for discriminatory reasons.”

The federal government has not filed hate crime charges against Pittman and it was not immediately clear whether those are being considered. He also has not made an initial appearance in state circuit court, nor has one been scheduled, according to a court administrator.

Pittman is being held in federal custody, though it was not immediately known where. 

If convicted, Pittman’s federal charges carry a punishment of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The federal charges against him were released earlier this week in an affidavit from an FBI agent that alleged Pittman broke into the northeast Jackson synagogue before dawn Saturday, doused a lobby in gasoline and set it on fire. Later that day, he allegedly confessed to law enforcement that he targeted the synagogue for its “Jewish ties.” 

The blaze charred parts of the synagogue, left smoke damage throughout and destroyed two Torahs. The fire was set in the same part of the one-story brick building that Ku Klux Klan members bombed in 1967 because the congregation’s rabbi supported civil rights. 

The Hinds County indictment did not include a photograph of Pittman. Federal authorities also have not released a photo of him.

Pittman is scheduled to return to federal court for a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

Federal investigators quickly identified Pittman – a former high school and community college baseball player –  as a person of interest, according to the affidavit filed earlier this week, which included text messages he allegedly sent to his father in the course of setting the fire Saturday. The father pleaded for his son to return home, the affidavit says, but Pittman “replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and ‘I did my research.’” 

Pittman is alleged to have confessed to his father, who later contacted the FBI and provided GPS data showing Pittman was at the synagogue early Saturday morning. 

The son “laughed as he told his father what he did and said he finally got them,” said the affidavit from Nicholas Amiano, an FBI agent in the Jackson division. 

Less than 48 hours after terminating over $14 million of Mississippi mental health grants, the federal government informed organizations that their funding will be fully restored. 

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration cancelled nearly $2 billion of grants across the country Tuesday, according to NPR. In Mississippi, government health centers, private nonprofits and universities were told to stop all work funded by those grants — mainly related to addiction and children’s services. 

By Tuesday evening, Mississippi Today had learned about roughly $9.2 million of cancelled Mississippi grants. Later that night, the state Department of Mental Health accounted for an additional $4.9 million that had been terminated to Mississippi State University, University of Southern Mississippi and the Mississippi Public Health Institute. 

Wendy Bailey, the mental health department’s executive director, said Wednesday night there could have been other terminated grants her agency hadn’t learned about yet. 

A Tuesday letter the federal mental health department sent to grantees said the cancellations were final because “no corrective action could align the award with current agency priorities.” But by Thursday morning, the agency sent the same organizations a short message to “disregard the prior termination notice and continue program activities as outlined in your award agreement.”

Nationwide, all $2 billion of the cuts from earlier this week were reversed, according to Roll Call. A spokesperson for the federal agency did not answer Mississippi Today’s call and email about the terminations and restorations.

Four of Mississippi’s 12 community mental health centers, local public organizations that serve people regardless of their ability to pay, were set to lose $8.7 million. Phaedre Cole, the Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers president and the executive director of a center that serves the Delta, called the unexpected terminations and restorations “whiplash.” 

She said she was encouraged by the swift, bipartisan pushback to protect critical Mississippi mental health services that were already underfunded. But the previous 48 hours had left her and other executive directors frazzled. 

“It’s terrifying to us because we know we are the place of last resort for thousands of people across the state,” she said. “If we are to disappear, we will not disappear quietly.”

Shortly after receiving notice that the Department of Mental Health’s grant had been restored Thursday, Bailey said the last two days had been a whirlwind. But she’s grateful Mississippi mental health providers can continue providing important services. 

“We must remember that behind these dollars are services and supports that are being provided to our neighbors, friends, family members, and people throughout our communities,” she said.

Communicare, the community mental health center serving Oxford and the surrounding counties, was set to lose more than any other organization Bailey’s department heard from. Melody Madaris, Communicare’s executive director, said the losses would force her agency to cut back on preventing opioid overdoses, restructure services for school children and halt other planned programs. 

Thursday morning, before she had officially heard that the federal government would restore her grant, Madaris said services funded by federal grants are often the ones most people don’t notice unless they need them — transporting people from rural homes to receive antipsychotic medications, working with food banks to deliver meals to patients and other resource-intensive services. 

“Those are the things we do to keep our community healthy,” she said. “Without the federal funding, these are things that we won’t be able to do as much of.” 

Right after the federal government sent her an email restoring the funds, she texted Mississippi Today: “A sigh of relief and back to work as usual helping the citizens of Mississippi struggling with mental health and substance use issues.”

Correction 1/15/2026: This story has been updated to show that Wendy Bailey’s initial comments were made Wednesday night.

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!”