OurTupelo

Mississippi lawmakers are considering legislation to ban sales of synthetic kratom products after the deaths of two University of Mississippi students.

Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican from Brandon, is considering legislation to ban synthetic kratom products, while Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford, wants to give state officials authority to temporarily remove potentially harmful substances from store shelves. Other officials, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and State Health Officer Dan Edney, have called for tighter restrictions.  

The renewed discussions follow the Sept. 21 deaths of Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20, in separate incidents in Oxford. Investigators discovered kratom products while examining the students’ deaths, and federal authorities have since charged a store clerk and his son with selling illegal kratom. 

Kratom comes from a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia. Its effects can vary by dose, producing stimulant-like effects at lower doses and opioid-like effects at higher doses. The substance is sold in gummies, tablets and drinkable shots, mainly at gas stations and convenience stores. 

At Ole Miss, officials have been encouraging students to use drug education and wellness services and resources from the university’s William Magee Center, said Jacob Batte, a university spokesperson. 

Hosemann called for a statewide ban in an op-ed the Magnolia Tribune published this month. 

A law already restricts access to kratom. In 2025, Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law prohibiting kratom sales to anyone younger than 21 and outlawing a synthetic form of the substance. 

Yancey, who authored the 2025 law, said he believes synthetic forms are the most dangerous. There needs to be another layer of protection for consumers, he said. 

The state Senate has been reluctant to ban the products, Yancey said, so he’s also exploring legislation that would classify kratom as controlled substances and ban over-the-counter sales.

Boyd said she is considering introducing a bill that would give a state agency, such as the state Board of Health, authority to temporarily remove potentially harmful products from store shelves until lawmakers could take further action. Lawmakers would need to determine whether violations would result in administrative penalties or criminal charges, what testing would be required and how much enforcement would cost. 

“We’re all looking and thinking through the steps that need to be put in place and in a comprehensive way to get these poisons off our shelves and make sure it isn’t getting to students and our youth,” Boyd said. 

The Legislature has been discussing kratom bans for more than six years, and simply passing another law wouldn’t be a magic bullet, said Sen. Daniel Sparks, a Republican from Belmont. Banning one substance could prompt manufacturers to sell similar products under different names, Sparks said. 

Some Mississippi communities are already enforcing their own restrictions on kratom. Sales and possession of kratom have been prohibited in Oxford since 2019. Lafayette County has had a local ban in place since January 2021. A  Sept. 30 statement from Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit called on lawmakers to ban synthetic kratom in statewide. 

Edney said he supports classifying kratom leaf as a schedule III controlled substance.That’s what the lawmakers did in 2023, with a law  categorizing tianeptine also known as “ZaZa” and “Tianaa,” with other drugs such as ketamine and anabolic steroids. 

“I think we can all agree that any potentially addictive substance, that’s even beneficial in other ways, at least needs to be determined safe,” Edney said. “And, right now we can’t say the kratom supply in the state of Mississippi is safe.”  

Taylor Vance and Gwen Dilworth contributed to this report.

Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney is becoming  president of a national nonprofit organization representing public health agencies across the United States, the group announced Wednesday. 

Edney will lead the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials for a one-year term while continuing to lead the Mississippi State Department of Health. He plans to focus his presidency on maternal and infant health, rural health and highlighting the important work of states and territories, according to a press release from the association. 

“Our nation’s public health leaders face increasingly complex challenges, but we also have tremendous opportunities to strengthen our public health system through collaboration, innovation and a shared commitment to improving the health of every community,” Edney said. “I am honored to serve as ASTHO president and look forward to working with my colleagues to advance policies and partnerships that support a healthier nation.”

ASTHO’s members are chief health officials from across the U.S. The organization works to develop public health leaders, support their agencies through training and technical assistance, and advocate for resources and policies that improve public health. 

Edney spent the past year serving as the organization’s president-elect. He succeeds Dr. Manisha Juthani, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, as president. 

“It is a real privilege to welcome Dr. Edney as ASTHO’s next president,” said Dr. Joseph Kanter, the organization’s CEO. “He brings a remarkable depth of experience — not only as a visionary state health leader guiding Mississippi through critical public health milestones, but also as a frontline clinician deeply committed to tackling complex challenges like the opioid crisis.”

Edney has served as Mississippi’s state health officer since August 2022. He succeeded Dr. Thomas Dobbs. Edney previously served as the state agency’s deputy state health officer and chief medical officer and worked closely with Dobbs on the department’s COVID-19 response. 

He is also a former president of the Mississippi State Medical Association and former board member of the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure. He was in private practice in Vicksburg for more than 30 years, and is a board-certified general internist with a subspecialty board certification in addiction medicine.

Three-time Grammy Award winner, 16-time Blues Music Awards winner, living blues legend and master showman Bobby Rush has entertained audiences worldwide in a career of more than seven decades, so safe to assume he is easy to spot, particularly at home in Jackson.

And yet, Rush managed to sneak into rehearsals at New Stage Theatre, as cast and crew careened toward opening night of a new musical about him, and hide. 

“I cheated a little bit, because I was here when they started, but I didn’t even want him to know,” Rush said, grinning as he pointed toward his co-writer on the musical and the show’s co-director and conceiver Stephen Helper. 

Rush scooched down in his seat to show how he hid about five rows back, lifting his head a bit for a peek at the action. He wanted to watch Helper’s reactions, see any changes in the show and judge whether actors liked the script (“You can always tell,” Rush said). But he didn’t want to make them nervous.

Then in rehearsal, the actor playing Rush walked down from the stage and into the aisle, playing to seats yet to be filled, when “Oh!” He found the man himself. “Mr. Rush is in the house, I see!”

Theater-goers will find Rush there, too — not ducking between rows, but in Rush’s life story up on the stage, from sharecropper to blues superstar with a big batch of his songs propelling the journey.  “Slippin’ Through the Cracks: The Bobby Rush Musical” has its world premiere this week at New Stage Theatre. 

A $49,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant supported the world premiere production. Visit Mississippi, Visit Jackson, Times Square Production and Hinds County Board of Supervisors are also sponsors.

The show’s title is a nod to the musician’s wits and persistence to slip through the cracks in obstacles such as prejudice, hardship and loss to pursue his dreams.

The show’s run through Nov. 1 is the culmination of a goal set years back.

The inspiration for it came through the car radio as playwright Helper, best-known for co-conceiving the Broadway smash hit “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” drove down the road one day. Rush’s sly and saucy song “Sue” grabbed his ear, made him laugh and set up shop in his imagination.

“It was bluesy but really funny,” said Helper, who also recognized a bit of vaudeville timing in the tune. “Its timing is impeccable. I thought if I heard that song in a theater, I’d have a great, great time. That was the kernel.”

Research about Rush revealed a story ripe for telling on the theater stage, and Helper reached out about creating a musical. As he and Rush worked on the project, a partnership bloomed into friendship. New Stage Theatre has worked with the show’s creators since 2021.

“I wanted to grow it from its roots,” Helper said of the musical. New Stage Theatre helped shepherd it along.

New Stage’s summer 2022 workshop reading had actors in folding chairs with still photos projected overhead to set scenes. Even with that bare-bones setup, players’ skills, its powerful story and the score packed with Rush’s songs electrified the experience, for a show that guests lapped up and grooved to.

More than a half dozen actors from that workshop are back in the world premiere, including Mark Henderson as older Bobby Rush. Also returning for the premiere production are Hosea Griffith, Nicholas Patrick, Vershaune Stamps, Joy Brashears Amerson, Jayla M. Lomax and Chris Roebuck. They are joined by Actors’ Equity members Rajeer Alford and Melessie Clark, Jaden White, Grady Champion, Quintin Powell, Joe Tomberlin and Nancy Bigelow Cheney.

Money raised from the workshop helped fund a similar presentation in New York City, which raised money for a production. A one-night concert at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre kicked off that theater’s New Stages Festival in 2023.

“Then, it’s just been some perseverance on my part,” Helper said. Noting New Stage Artistic Director Francine Thomas Reynolds’ interest in helping further the show or do a production, “It’s just taken that amount of time to get a slot,” he said. In the meantime, he fleshed out some bits, and tucked others tighter.

Premiering it in the South was important, he said, “in the roots, from its culture, from a cast who really knows the blues, who knows Bobby Rush’s music. They are just born with a kind of knowledge that informs the show.” He and co-director/choreographer Matthew Johnson Harris can draw upon that to keep a real sense of authenticity.

“This is the chance to really try it all out, in front of an audience, not on folding chairs but with people who’ve paid money to come,” Helper said.

The setting is ripe, too, because it is Rush’s home. 

“He’s an international hero, but he’s also a local hero,” Helper added. “It’s important for a Jackson audience to celebrate its own.”

Choreographer Harris embraced his luck, working on this musical with Rush’s music and the sweep of time it covers. “The nearly 93 years that Bobby has been on this Earth allows me to really use African-American social dancing from the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s, and tell a story of joy and resilience,” he said. It offers a glimpse, too, at the evolution of dance moves, from the Charleston in early juke joint sequences, to a more ‘90s-based Kid ‘n Play move in the second act.

“What I hope to bring through movement and also through, just, cultural dramaturgy, is a love letter to Bobby, to Mississippi, to Black culture, to Black dance,” Harris said, “and use that as another storytelling device to just track time.”

Amid all the song and dance in “Slippin’ Through the Cracks,” there runs a strong thread of resilience. 

“Any woman or man in life is doomed to fail,” Rush said. “It’s not if, it’s when. But when you fall and you can get up, that’s the important thing of life. If you can’t get up, have enough strength to turn over and look up.”

At 92, Rush is still learning, he said. “I still have hope. I’m still enthused about the things that I do. And I still would rather do it well enough to make sure that people like what I’m doing. 

“Even if they don’t like it, they can say, ‘Well, I don’t like Bobby Rush, but damn, he’s good.’” Rush chuckled, along with Helper and Harris. “That’s all that matters to me.”

Ditto for this musical about a lifelong entertainer. 

“It has to be good,” Rush said.

Inspiration is built into his tale of surviving and thriving, wrapped up in and swept along by the folk funk grooves, humor and heart that made Rush a blues superstar.

“If I can slip through the cracks and be where I’ve been, and who I am as a blues singer and a Black man at that — if I can make it, you can, too,” Rush said.

That is a message that has already hit home. Harris, though blessed to work in commercial theater in New York City for several years, still felt “othered” because of his humble beginnings, even in rooms with all-Black peers (some who’d gone to Yale or Juilliard) or in shows about Black lived experience, he said. 

Rush’s song “Just Be Yourself” became his mantra and a life goal, and seeing Rush live in concert was a liberation, he said.

“As he was up there, being so much himself, and he ended, saying, ‘If a dirt-poor country boy can make it, so can you,’” Harris said, his own perspective shifted. He told himself, “You are here, working on Broadway and you are thriving and you are a young Black man in 2026. Could you imagine being a young Black man in 1956, like Bobby had to be?”

That “you can, too” line has always been in this show, Helper said. 

“But when it’s represented and spoken by a man who can prove it and lived it and had to work around so many obstacles to achieve it … the content of those words is so much more profound.

“It’s a great thought and we all want to subscribe to it when it’s said by you,” Helper turned to Rush, “and hopefully by little Bobby Rush in our show, it will land in the same way.”

Performances of “Slippin’ Through the Cracks; The Bobby Rush Musical” continue at 7 nightly through Saturday, on Oct. 27 and Oct. 29-31, 2 p.m. Sunday and Nov. 1, and at a special 1 p.m. matinee on Oct. 28. Tickets — $50 with discounts for students, senior citizens, military and groups — are on sale at New Stage Theatre; call 601-948-3533 ext. 223 or visit newstagetheatre.com. 

Gov. Tate Reeves on Wednesday awarded $32 million for healthcare workforce development and psychiatric emergency services as a part of a federal program to improve rural healthcare.

The 60 awards will support earn-while-you-learn programs for healthcare workers, workforce recruitment efforts, clinical mentorship projects and bolster interest in healthcare careers among middle and high school students. 

“These projects address different healthcare professions, but they share a common goal: removing the training bottlenecks that limit how many qualified professionals we can prepare to serve Mississippi,” Reeves said at a Wednesday press conference. 

The funds will also help establish three therapeutic units at hospital emergency departments to improve crisis mental healthcare.

Reeves was flanked by State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney and Courtney Taylor, executive director of AccelerateMS, the state’s workforce development agency. Both agencies are collaborating with the governor’s office to distribute and oversee the funding awards. 

This is the second round of funding announced by Reeves as a part of the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. Mississippi was awarded nearly $206 million in December as a part of the national $50 billion program. States will receive payments over five years for initiatives designed to bolster rural healthcare and offset the disproportionate impact that federal spending cuts President Donald Trump signed into law in July 2025 are expected to have on rural hospitals.

In September, the governor announced 167 awards worth $104 million for projects aimed at helping rural providers make facility improvements, expand service offerings, upgrade technology systems, bolster cybersecurity defenses and increase telehealth capacity.

Nearly 400 applicants requested roughly $241 million in funding for the four workforce grants awarded. In total, state officials awarded roughly $19.2 million to these projects. 

Reeves said the programs will help to address Mississippi’s healthcare provider shortage. Programs he highlighted Wednesday include those to help licensed practical nurses become registered nurses while continuing to work, train experienced practitioners to mentor students and strengthen the rural pharmacy workforce. 

“We have Mississippians who want to work in healthcare, and we have communities that need healthcare professionals,” he said. “We’re bringing those two things together by making training more accessible, by helping people advance their careers and by building a workforce that can serve their own communities for years to come.”

University of Mississippi Medical Center Greenwood, Merit Health Central in Jackson and Memorial Hospital Gulfport will establish psychiatric emergency service units to expand access to specialized care for people experiencing mental health crises.

“Far too often, families in our state and others find themselves waiting in emergency rooms for far too long, before their loved ones receive appropriate psychiatric care,” said Reeves. “That’s really not the way it should be, and we’re going to work hard to change that.”

Applications are also open for small, rural providers to adopt or upgrade electronic health records, and for innovative pilot programs that aim to improve healthcare. The state is also seeking proposals for a statewide health information exchange to allow health care providers to securely share patient information and coordinate care.

“The frustrations of our rural providers in not having the patient information they need in real time will be eliminated,” Edney said. 

He said the exchange will also be a source of data that can help the Mississippi State Department of Health better understand health problems and propose solutions. 

Reeves previously said Mississippi has submitted its request for second-year funding as part of the Rural Health Transformation Program to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and expects to receive word by November on the amount of federal funding allocated to the state. 

VICKSBURG – Mississippi officials Wednesday celebrated plans to build a $114 million Civil War museum and visitor center next to Vicksburg National Military Park, one day after President Donald Trump signed legislation that will help with the development.

Historians consider the Siege of Vicksburg a key turning point in the Civil War. The Confederate surrender to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on July 4, 1863, helped Union forces take control of the Mississippi River and effectively cleave the Confederacy into two.

“What you have here today is an opportunity to continue to expand the real story about who actually fought here and saved this country of ours, and ultimately put it back together,” U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said during the ceremony.

The expansive new building, set on nearly 13 acres adjacent to the national park, already one of the state’s largest tourist attractions, is expected to be completed by 2030.

The federal government established a national park in 1899 to commemorate the battle.A study cited by project supporters estimates the visitor center will help draw an additional 200,000 visitors to the region, pump $231 million into the local economy and create 1,630 jobs during its first seven years.

The planned 60,000-square-foot facility will include a museum exploring Vicksburg’s history from the prewar era through the siege, Union occupation and Reconstruction.

The space will also feature an event space, gift shop and cafe. Outdoor areas, officials said, will be used for educational programming such as living history demonstrations.

The federal government established the national park in 1899 to commemorate the battle.

Wednesday’s event featured a rare bipartisan appearance between Thompson, Mississippi’s lone Democrat in Congress, and Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is campaigning for reelection.

“We’re here today as an exercise in bipartisanship,” Wicker said. “Today is a nod to persistence. This is a day to be remembered.”

Wicker called the project a lesson about the “complicated history” in Mississippi and across the country.

Thompson, who introduced the Vicksburg National Military Park Boundary Modification Act on March 16, 2026, said many Black Mississippians believe their stories have been overlooked at historic sites across the state. He expressed hope the Vicksburg center will be different by including exhibits that recognize Black soldiers who died during the war.

The legislation signed into law Tuesday transfers a small piece of the park to the state of Mississippi, which has given $56 million thus far to fund the visitor center and its operations, according to the state Department of Archives and History. State officials said the land will be used for trails to connect the park to the new visitor center.

The state Department of Archives and History said private donors have committed $15 million to the project. This combines with the state funding, plus $3 million so far from the federal government and up to $15.5 million from the City of Vicksburg and Warren County. Supporters also expect to raise more private money.

The state will own the new facility, with the National Park Service serving as its long-term tenant and interpretive partner, while the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park and Campaign is leading private fundraising and marketing.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, a Vicksburg native, helped secure the state money to get the project off the ground. He said his great, great grandfather fought for the Confederacy about half a mile from the patch of grass where the visitor center will be constructed.

“It’s fair to say the Hosemanns haven’t moved very far,” he said.

Spence Flatgard, who presides over the state archives and history board, said the visitor center will give ample space to “tell many, many stories.”

“Mississippi has the most compelling history of any state in America,” Flatgard said. “We’ve got it all. Civil War, civil rights, Native American history, birthplace of American music. We have a lot to be proud of.” 

The new facility, which has been under design for the past three years, will modernize the park’s aging visitor center, which officials said was prone to flooding. 

Mississippi Today Senior Editor Bobby Caina Calvan contributed to this report.

Correction, 10/21/2026: This article has been corrected to show that organizers describe Wednesday’s event as a celebration. It also has been updated with additional information about funding for the project.

As funding challenges persist, Mississippi health officials may cut clinical services at more county health departments. 

If taken, this step would continue changes the Mississippi State Department of Health made after the Legislature in 2023 denied the department’s request for $9 million to hire the nurses needed to fully staff county health departments and send nurses into the homes of low-income women with high-risk pregnancies. 

“Our goal is not to retreat from anywhere, just restructure and reorganize,” State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney told Board of Health members at a meeting Oct. 14. 

Greg Flynn, a spokesperson for the health department, told Mississippi Today on Monday he could not say which counties are being considered for changes because the adjustments are still a “work in progress.” 

Edney said several county health departments with nurses on staff are seeing patient volumes too low to sustain that level of care. Other clinics, he said, may be able to support a physician or nurse practitioner and be upgraded to a higher level of service. 

During legislative budget hearings earlier this month, the health department requested level funding from lawmakers for the upcoming fiscal year, the third consecutive year the agency has not asked for a major increase. 

County health departments currently offer three levels of care as part of a reorganization Edney previously called a “pathway for survival.” 

• Level 3 clinics, or “super clinics,” have a doctor or nurse practitioner on staff and offer a full range of services.
• Level 2 clinics have a nurse on staff and offer limited clinical services and telehealth appointments with providers. 
• Level 1 clinics do not have a clinician on staff, but offer federal programming for women and children. They serve as “access points” to other locations and may host occasional immunization events with nurses.

County health departments’ levels are not listed on the department’s website. Mississippi Today published a map in 2025 of department levels.

Edney said it is less costly to transport patients to a higher-level clinic than to provide a full range of services in every county. He said the state agency aims to be strategic in its planning to ensure that patients are close to a level 2 or level 3 clinic. 

All of the counties operating at a lower level of service have federally qualified health center partners providing access to low-cost healthcare, Edney said. 

“Our job is filling gaps, closing access loops and partnering with our community partners, and not competing,” he said. 

Legal groups are suing Lexington and its police department for free speech violations days after the city settled with the U.S. Department of Justice over its policing practices. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU of Mississippi are representing Lexington resident Terrance Gypson, who alleges that in May 2024 police officer Robert Boyd came at him with a Taser, threw Gypson to the ground and arrested him without probable cause. 

The 29-year-old was recording video of police action from a safe distance and didn’t interfere with officers, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi. 

“Recording the police is a critical tool to ensure that there is a fair record of what happens when police officers interact with the communities they serve; therefore, all citizens have a right to record the police in public spaces. Mr. Gypson’s right was violated,” Christoper Graves, senior staff attorney from SPLC, said in a Wednesday statement. 

Attorneys say police charged Gypson with misdemeanors of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, and he was found guilty in Lexington Municipal Court. After an appeal, a Holmes County Circuit Court judge dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning the case is permanently closed and cannot be refiled. 

The legal groups are seeking a judgment in favor of Gypson for unspecified compensatory damages. The lawsuit also calls for policy and practice reforms and tighter oversight of the police department. 

A lawsuit is one side of a legal argument. The city and department will have an opportunity to respond to the allegations in court filings. 

The SPLC and ACLU of Mississippi were among those whose suit against the city and police helped lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to an investigation that began in 2023. 

Months after the alleged police assault of Gypson, the Justice Department issued a report based on its investigation about how the Lexington police “engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people” of their constitutional rights. Those practices included retaliation against those who filmed officers and the jailing of people for unpaid fines. 

“Police have a powerful role in our society. That role must be performed within certain boundaries. When those boundaries are broken, police must be held accountable,” Joshua Tom, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi, said in the statement with the SPLC. 

At the beginning of the year, the Lexington Board of Aldermen adopted reforms in response to the DOJ’s investigation and report. Among those actions was dismissing the city’s chief, Charles Henderson. In May, the city hired David Simmons, who has made rebuilding community trust a major goal.     

Henderson had begun leading the department in 2022 following the firing of his predecessor, Sam Dobbins.

The Lexington police force and its practices have been the subject of scrutiny since the publishing of a leaked recording featuring Dobbins using racial and homophobic slurs to describe use of force while on the job, including the killing of 13 people.  

President Donald Trump will appear in Mississippi on Monday night to campaign for U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith at the Crossroads Arena in Corinth, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. 

Neither Hyde-Smith nor her campaign would confirm a Trump visit is imminent, but at an event in Vicksburg on Wednesday, Hyde-Smith told Mississippi Today that Trump is “trying to be helpful.”

“We feel very good about this,” Hyde-Smith told reporters. “It’s going to be 13 days, and we’re going to run through the tape so strong. I’m very proud of the record I have to run on. If he would like to, that would be fine.”

Trump has been traveling to normally safe Republican states ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms to try to drum up support and GOP voter turnout as his approval ratings have tanked and national pundits say races even in normally ruby red states are becoming more competitive.

His plans during his recent “midterm blitz” covering multiple states have been subject to change.

Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for Senate, said in a statement that “Hyde-Smith is scared and that’s why she’s sending Donald Trump down here.”

“She’s scared to answer why she voted to cut health care, why she betrayed our farmers, and why she blocked the release of the Epstein files,” Colom said. “If she won’t answer for any of that, I challenge Donald Trump to a debate. Mississippians deserve to know why they are being betrayed.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris is set to arrive in Mississippi on Thursday for an afternoon of campaigning with Colom in Columbus. Hyde-Smith said the presence of national Democratic figures could benefit her campaign.

“It tells me that Mississippi is pretty red,” Hyde-Smith said Wednesday. “And for them to bring their message that Mississippians don’t always agree with, I’m OK with that.”

Hyde-Smith also said she was tuning out pollsters and prognosticators who have said the race has grown increasingly more competitive as Election Day nears.

“We’ve been at this for a while,” Hyde-Smith said. “It’s just like most all campaigns. In the last few days you hear a lot of noise. It’s just noise, and we have our clear message.”

Hyde-Smith appeared at the Vicksburg event alongside Mississippi’s other Republican U.S. Senator, Roger Wicker, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson. Wicker told Mississippi Today that former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant intends to go on a bus tour with Hyde-Smith to campaign in the coming days.

Wicker, Mississippi’s senior senator, said he believes Hyde-Smith is still leading, despite increased enthusiasm about the race among Democrats.

“This is very much a Republican state at the federal level,” Wicker said. “Kamala Harris is not particularly popular among a majority of the voters in Mississippi. So it’s sort of a statement as to the political philosophies of the two candidates. Senator Hyde-Smith is a mainstream Republican, and her opponent is very much aligned with Kamala Harris and folks like that.”

Trump is backing Hyde-Smith, a Republican seeking her second full term. He announced his “Complete and Total Endorsement” on March 26, 2025, calling her “100% MAGA.” She faces Colom, a district attorney in north Mississippi, and independent Ty Pinkins, who is a lawyer, in the Nov. 3 election.

A Democrat hasn’t won a U.S. Senate race in Mississippi since 1982, and Trump carried the state by about 23 points in 2024. Most national forecasters rate the race solid or likely Republican.

National Democrats have invested heavily in Colom’s race in recent weeks. Senate Majority PAC announced a $1.2-million ad buy to help Colom this week. Harris is campaigning for Colom in Columbus, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is slated for the Gulf Coast, and Sen. Raphael Warnock held a Jackson rally. Barack Obama has also endorsed Colom.

Thompson, the state’s lone Democratic member of Congress, said Colom’s strength as a candidate presented his party with a rare opportunity to be competitive in a state Republicans have dominated for years.

“I think Scott’s running a textbook campaign. He’s getting out, meeting the voters and doing things that create energy around the campaign,” Thompson said. “The energy level is catching based on his support. So I’m excited about it. He’s what I think is a first-class candidate for Democrats to have.”

Thompson spoke to Mississippi Today a day after a Super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a $1.2 million ad campaign on behalf of Colom. It was the PAC’s first infusion of funds into the race, and Thompson had previously been critical of national Democrats for failing to invest more in Colom’s campaign. On Wednesday, Thompson applauded Schumer’s investment, and said Democrats would increasingly look to the South in the future as newly competitive terrain.

“It means that people are looking South for direction,” Thompson said. “Historically, Democrats have written the South off. But with this investment and the number of people coming to the South, and it means we’re now in play again, and I think it’s a good thing. The future of the Democratic Party rests in the South.”

Whether Trump’s presence would help Hyde-Smith is an open question. Mississippi has consistently voted for Republican presidents since 1980, but Trump’s unpopular decision to start a war with Iran, along with tariff trade wars with numerous countries, has driven consumer prices up. 

Trump has been to Mississippi several times. He campaigned in Jackson in 2016 as the Republican presidential nominee, attended the opening of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson in 2017, spoke at a DeSoto County rally in 2018, and made a two-stop visit that same year to stump for Hyde-Smith in Tupelo and Biloxi. He also hosted a 2019 campaign rally for Gov. Tate Reeves. 

Update, 10/21/2026: This story has been updated with information about the time and place of the event.

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can intervene in the NAACP lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI, but blocked the federal government’s attempt to dismiss the case. 

“We are pleased the Court saw through the Department of Justice’s deeply flawed arguments, which aimed to block communities from holding xAI accountable for the harmful air pollution being pumped out by its illegal power plant,” Patrick Anderson, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, one of the organizations representing the NAACP in court, said Tuesday.

The NAACP is suing the company, now known as SpaceXAI, over its use of 69 gas turbines to power its data center in Southaven. In the suit, the organization alleges that SpaceXAI is polluting the air and violating the federal Clean Air Act. It has asked U.S. District Judge Debra Brown to prohibit the company from operating the turbines unless they go through the state permitting process. 

In June, the Department of Justice filed a motion to join the lawsuit with SpaceXAI. The DOJ said it could intervene because the suit deals with a federal law, and that the company’s data center is “a matter of paramount national security.” The company’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, has helped launch missiles during the conflict with Iran.   

When the company first set up the turbines last year, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality told the company that it would not need air permits to operate because the turbines are “temporary” and “mobile.” 

The turbines are mounted on top of trailers and can operate for up to 12 months. However, MDEQ recently allowed the company to continue operating some of the generators for an additional five months due to a delay of the permanent turbines, which have air permits.

MDEQ maintains that the temporary turbines are operating in compliance with state regulations.

The Trump administration argued that it could dismiss the case because a federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, enforces the Clean Air Act. Brown denied the request to dismiss the case.

“The EPA’s role as a primary enforcer of the Clean Air Act does not mean that the federal government retains complete control over all Clean Air Act litigation,” Brown wrote in court filings.

“Congress intended to allow individuals to sue even when federal and state governments may, for whatever reason, decline to enforce the Clean Air Act,” Brown wrote. 

Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham leaned over the wooden barrier dividing the courtroom from the sparse audience inside the federal courthouse in downtown Jackson. 

“This is a waste of time,” Graham said of Tuesday’s hearing about the troubled Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond. 

Technical difficulties with a projector had just led U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to pause the proceedings. Reeves had been in the midst of unpacking a thorny dispute over the jail’s budget between his appointed receiver, Maryland-based public safety consultant Wendell France Sr., and Hinds County.

France contended the county was providing him with too little information about the jail’s budget, impeding his efforts to improve unconstitutional conditions at the Raymond Detention Center, the county’s most troubled facility and the one under his direct control. 

“My only recourse was to come to court and say we didn’t approve a budget,” France told the judge. “I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do as the receiver.” 

Through Nick Morisani, a private attorney hired to fight the federal consent decree, the county claimed it had, in fact, provided France with adequate information and resources. 

But when the court finally got its projector working, Morisani presented Reeves with a spreadsheet showing France had received significantly less money than he requested for salaries and capital improvements. 

The back-and-forth ultimately concluded with Reeves suggesting he would order the county to move detainees out of the Raymond Detention Center if it continues to obstruct France’s efforts to improve the unconstitutional conditions. 

“I’m not sure that anybody needs to be in the RDC period right now,” Reeves said. 

Morisani defended the county, asserting that France had $2 million left over from last year’s budget that he hadn’t spent. To this, France said he had overspent the jail’s budget, citing a line-item for professional services the county spent $3 million on last year despite originally allocating $150,000. 

France said he did not know what caused the overspending. “Tell me what the money is for,” he said. 

The path forward, Morisani said, could be clearer if the receiver would spend the money the county already gave him. 

“Maybe cooler heads can prevail that way,” Morisani said. 

“I don’t know if there are uncool heads around, Mr. Morisani,” Reeves responded. 

Reeves, the county, and Christopher Cheng, an attorney with the U.S Department of Justice, also haggled over how to interpret a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals order limiting the receivership’s scope. 

At one point, Morisani suggested the county would appeal if Reeves tried to direct its budget – an argument that drew a sharp response from the judge. 

“Well, I know we stayed at the 5th Circuit for over a year, and conditions got far worse,” Reeves said. “We can go back down that path again if that’s where Hinds County is going to drag the court.” 

The contentious hearing came more than a year after France finally assumed operational control of the Raymond Detention Center, a rare move that has occurred in a handful of jails and prisons around the country. 

In that time, the jail has continued to be crowded and deadly. 

“We should not get so tied up in the abstract budget issue that we miss the whole point,” Cheng said. 

In April, three men charged in a shooting at a south Jackson apartment complex were attacked within 24 hours of each other. Two of the suspects were housed in Raymond and a third suspect was housed at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in the Mississippi Delta. 

Over the summer, an 18-year-old was stomped to death in the Raymond jail, just days after he was booked and arrested in connection to a killing at the same south Jackson apartment complex. A video of the beating circulated on social media. 

The county also admitted to Reeves that it was going to miss yet another self-imposed deadline on its main solution to the problems at its Raymond jail: Finishing construction on a new detention center just south of downtown Jackson. 

Reeves asked the county if it was going to hire enough people to staff the new facility. The county admitted it did not have a plan. 

“It’s a national problem, but it seems like when it comes to Hinds County that it’s only a Hinds County problem,” John Hall, an attorney representing Sheriff Tyree Jones, said of staffing at jails and prisons. 

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the county alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with a list of changes to address jail conditions.