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While pandemic child tax credits meaningfully reduced financial stress for Mississippi families, federal child care supports have been less effective than in other states because of poor administration, a new report finds.  

Researchers at The Center for the Study of Social Policy surveyed and interviewed Mississippi parents and child care providers to understand the impact of federal stimulus efforts, namely the increased child tax credit and stabilization grants to child care centers. The authors found that while the child tax credit payments meaningfully eased financial burdens for families, grants for child care centers experienced a delayed rollout and providers have struggled from a lack of clear spending guidelines. 

The state received $319 million in federal funds for stabilization grants, which were meant to steady an industry that had experienced significant COVID-19 disruptions. Data from the 2021 Mississippi Child Care Market Rate Survey showed that 72% of providers closed at some point due to COVID-19, 80% had reduced enrollment, and 78% lost revenue.

Despite this, the Department of Human Services (DHS), the agency that administers the stabilization grants and has recently been embroiled in scandal, did not seek input from stakeholders when creating the process and has changed the rules of the program multiple times, according to providers and advocates interviewed in the report. 

“When we talked to stakeholders who have worked on child care for decades in Mississippi, most really pointed to issues around the limited capacity of the state agency to administer the funding,” Elisa Minoff, one of the report authors, told Mississippi Today. 

Minoff said that other states they looked at brought stakeholders into the conversation sooner to decide how to spend the stimulus funds, and created clearer guidelines and schedules for spending the money and what types of reporting were expected. She also said that for states with limited capacity like Mississippi, the federal government should be providing more support to ensure these programs run smoothly. 

Democratic state lawmakers held a hearing with DHS last month after advocates complained that the agency was not adequately answering questions from providers. 

Carol Burnett, director of the Low Income Child Care Initiative, spoke at the hearing addressing the issues with the short grant period of six months and the need for more technical assistance. DHS Director Bob Anderson responded to the concerns voiced at the hearing by saying that the agency cannot “take providers by the hand.”

“I felt like (Anderson’s comment) was dismissive of the genuine desire on the part of providers to be compliant, and a desire to know for sure if what they planned to do with the money was acceptable,” Burnett said. “Given the recent fiasco at DHS, you would think that they would be equally as eager to make sure that this grant program goes well.” 

The report also identified Mississippi’s process for applying for child care vouchers as particularly onerous, since it requires single parents to pursue child support from the non-custodial parent and frequently pushes parents out during yearly redetermination. 

Despite issues with the child care stabilization grants, the report found that the expansion of the child tax credit was an effective method of decreasing financial insecurity and pointed to other research that it could cut child poverty in Mississippi in half if made permanent. The expansion of the tax credit meant that 351,000 children in Mississippi who were previously ineligible could receive benefits last year. 

Approximately 86% of Mississippi children benefited from the credit in 2021, with the average monthly payment amounting to $439 per family, according to U.S. Department of Treasury data. 

Parents reported spending their credit on basic necessities, with the top five uses of the expanded payments being food and groceries, clothing, internet and utility bills, rent or mortgage, and child care. The majority of parents surveyed — 61% — said the credit reduced daily financial anxiety and 25% said it reduced the financial anxiety of their children. 

One parent interviewed for the report explained the usefulness of the credit, saying, “What people fail to realize is, I have a bachelor’s degree. I have a stable job. I wish I could just open up to some people like, ‘I need help.’ It might not be forever, but if I had two or three years of [government programs] to let me get higher, what’s wrong with that if our government has it. Our government spends a lot of money on a lot of stuff…That’s something that just gets on my nerves— [people say] ‘Get up and get a job.’ I got one.”

The credit was automatically available to anyone who had filed a tax return with dependents last year, but people who didn’t file taxes were still able to sign up. The authors pointed out that the ease of accessing the funds was part of what made the credit so successful, especially when compared to other government assistance. 

“The saying goes, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and that’s really true,” Minoff said. “But parents have really been doing it on their own for so long without enough support from society. With the federal investments that we saw last year, it was an indication of what could happen if we move towards providing families those holistic supports they need.”

The post Report: Mississippi misses opportunity to make the most out of child care stimulus funds appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG – Nothing was easy. Nothing ever is for Southern Miss, no matter the sport, no matter the venue.

But Scott Berry’s Golden Eagles achieved on a hot, muggy Monday afternoon what had seemed nearly impossible late Saturday night. They defeated the LSU Tigers 8-7, erasing a 4-1 deficit, to claim the championship of the Hattiesburg NCAA Regional. In doing so, they sent a highly partisan home crowd at Pete Taylor Park into something bordering on delirium.

The victory – or victories – set up a monster of a Super Regional this coming weekend when Ole Miss, winner of the Coral Gables Regional, comes to town.

After the last pitch, Southern Miss players charged the infield where they piled on to one another. Then they headed for Pete Taylor Park’s Right Field Roost where they literally climbed the outfield wall to high-five with celebrating fans. Still an hour after the game, sweat-soaked fans lingered, soaking in the moment, lavishing in what their favorite team had achieved.

They had achieved so much. After LSU erased a four-run deficit and knocked the Eagles into the losers bracket Saturday night, Southern Miss had to win three straight games a matter of 30 hours. They had to beat LSU twice.

“I’m so proud, I’m just so proud,” Berry said, rubbing his bald head, his eyes misting.

If he said it once, he said it 20 times– “I’m just so proud” – during a series of post-game interviews. He said he was proud for his players, proud for his coaches, proud for the thousands of fans who were still in the stands cheering. And he said, the emotion showing clearly in his tearing eyes, he was proud of the joy he knew the victory brings to his old boss, Corky Palmer, who because medical issues due to a massive stroke listens to the USM games these days on a radio in a Collins medical facility.

“I know how much this means to him,” Berry said. “I just wish he could be here to enjoy this. Man, he would enjoy this.”

Heroes were plenty. Christopher Sargent, the MVP of the Regional, provided three more hits, scored two runs and knocked in another. Danny Lynch and Gabe Montenegro also hit safely three times. Montenegro batted in three runs, including two on his clutch single in the seventh that scored two of the Eagles’ four runs in that crucial inning. Shortstop Dustin Dickerson made play after superb defensive play.

But the biggest hero was the largest Golden Eagle, 6-foot-9-inch Tyler Stuart, who entered with the game on the line in the eighth inning. LSU had tied the score at 7 and had a runner on base with two outs and the most dangerous part of the Tigers’ batting order coming to the plate. Stuart got Jacob Berry to ground out for the last out of the eighth.

Then after USM plated the go-ahead run in the ninth, Stuart retired Cade Doughty, Tre’ Morgan and Jordan Thompson –  who had combined for six hits and five RBIs. Doughty and Moran grounded out and then Thompson struck out.

Stuart went right at them, throwing 95- and 96-mph fast balls – as if to say: “Here comes the heat, let’s see what you got.” 

“Nothing but fast balls,” Stuart would say later. “That’s all I threw.”

That game-winning, ninth inning run? Sargent led off the inning with a two-strike single to center field. That brought up Slade Wilkes who lined a single to right field, moving Sargent all the way to third. Lynch followed with a high fly ball to left field, easily scoring Sargent from third.

That was all that Stuart would need. What Justin Storm had done the night before, holding the dangerous Tigers in check, Stuart did Monday.

Said Lynch, who was in the same USM signing class as Stuart three years ago, “Nobody has worked harder for this moment that Stu. Even when he wasn’t getting the chance to pitch as much as he wanted, he never stopped working. Even when he had Tommy John surgery, he just kept working. I couldn’t be happier for him.”

Berry smiled and nodded, as he listened to Lynch talk about his teammate.

“You have to do a lot of things right to win a baseball game,” Berry said. “We did a lot of things right out there today, and in two games yesterday.”

Really, Southern Miss had only one bad inning in the tournament, when LSU rallied to win the game Saturday night.

“You don’t win 47 games unless you do a lot of things right,” Berry said. “You don’t win 47 games unless you have the kind of chemistry this team has.”

Southern Miss will take a 47-17 record into the Super Regional against an Ole Miss team, once ranked No. 1 in the country, which is playing its best baseball currently. The Rebels came to Hattiesburg late in the season to win a mid-week game. The two teams split their two regular season games.

The Hattiesburg Super Regional will be a matchup of mutual respect. Bianco and Berry are good friends.

“In my mind, Mike Bianco is responsible for building that Ole Miss program into one of the most respected in the country,” Berry said. “They ought to build a statue of him outside that stadium. He came to Ole Miss the same year I came to Southern Miss (as Palmer’s assistant.) I’ve watched it happen. It’s just amazing what he has achieved.”

Berry said he expects the Super Regional to be a celebration of Mississippi baseball.

“No other state loves its college baseball like the people of Mississippi,” Berry said.  “You look at Mississippi State last year. You look at the attendance figures at all three schools year after year after year. 

“This will be an amazing atmosphere. Heck, this was an amazing atmosphere this week. What a tournament. What a performance by our guys. Again, I couldn’t be more proud.”

The post USM knocks off LSU, sets up monster of a Super Regional with Ole Miss appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After giving birth to her first child in a hospital in January 2019, Jasmine Williams knew she never wanted to go through that experience again.

The constant flow of doctors and nurses entering and leaving her room, the needles and beeping machines only added extra stress to a situation that’s intense enough on its own, she said. 

The worst part for Williams was the epidural, where anesthetic is injected into the space around the spinal nerves in the lower back to block the pain from contractions. The procedure numbed Williams and made her feel like she was just a passenger for her own delivery. 

“I didn’t necessarily know what the doctors and nurses were down there doing,” Williams, who lives in Jackson, said. “I couldn’t feel anything, and that scared me.”

When she got pregnant again later that year, Williams decided to look into another option: home birth. She was living in Georgia at the time and contacted Meka Hall, a local midwife, and was told she could safely deliver a baby from the comfort of her home and avoid the negative experiences she’d had with her first birth. It’s an option she wished known about the first time around. 

 “Everything was so new, and the only thing that I knew to do was to go to the hospital,” Wiliams said. 

The relationship Williams and her husband, Jabriel, developed with Hall was much closer than any they’d had with hospital staff during her first delivery.

Williams also appreciated the ability to have a water birth, where at least part of a mother’s labor, delivery or both occur in a birthing pool filled with warm water. Williams says it helped greatly with the pain of cramping caused by contractions.

“I was a lot more present,” Williams said. “It was a lot more intimate. You actually know what’s going on.”

The home birthing experience was much smoother for Williams, and she hasn’t looked back since. After moving back to Mississippi and becoming pregnant with her third child in 2021, Williams decided to enlist the help of the Jackson-based nonprofit public health organization, Sisters in Birth, for her second home birth.

Sisters in Birth (SIB) pairs community health workers with low-income women, primarily Medicaid beneficiaries, to provide support during and after their pregnancies. SIB uses evidence-based practices with the goal of reducing birth disparities in Mississippi.

 A community health worker visited Williams at home each week to make sure she was attending all her prenatal care visits, eating well and exercising regularly. 

“It was a very big help and kept me on track (for a healthy home birth),” Williams said.

When she gave birth in September 2021, a Mississippi-based midwife helped her through the process while Hall, the Georgia midwife she used before, tuned in via Zoom. The actual delivery only took a few minutes, as compared to an hours-long delivery process for her hospital birth.

Now, Getty Israel, SIB’s founder and program director, wants to expand on the work done by her organization by opening Mississippi’s first birth center. The centers serve women with low-risk pregnancies and act as a compromise between hospital births and home births. 

“Women deserve to have an alternative to the hospital setting,” Israel said. “I have patients who said they’re going to deliver at home with or without a midwife. And I have patients who have delivered at home without a provider being there. They did so safely, but they shouldn’t have to.”

The number of birth centers in the United States has more than doubled in the last decade. As of January 2021, there were 400 birth centers across 40 states and the District of Columbia, according to the American Association of Birth Centers. Mississippi is one of the 10 states without one.

“We’re so far behind (in Mississippi). This should have happened 40 years ago,” Yolanda Davis, a community health worker at SIB, said.

If SIB were to open a birth center, the organization would need a transfer agreement with a hospital so that patients could be moved to a hospital setting in the case of an emergency. The group currently has a memorandum of understanding with University of Mississippi Medical Center, a nonbinding agreement that states the two parties intend to form a partnership. Israel says the agreement will be made official if SIB opens the birth center.

UMMC officials declined to answer questions about the medical community’s perception of home births and birth centers. 

Birth centers remain controversial due to conflicting accounts of safety. Not yet peer-reviewed research presented at The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) conference in 2021 showed that birth center deliveries are associated with a higher risk of infant death and seizures than hospital births attended by midwives. 

On the other hand, a government-financed study in 2012 found that Medicaid beneficiaries who used birth centers saw lower rates of preterm birth, low birthweight and cesarean deliveries (C-sections) when compared to other Medicaid participants who gave birth. 

The lack of regulation around midwifery care in Mississippi also adds risk to births outside of the hospital setting, as anyone can claim to be a midwife, even if they lack formal training and experience. Because of the lack of regulation, midwives who lost their right to practice midwifery in other states are free to work in Mississippi. 

Mississippi is one of 14 states and the District of Columbia that does not regulate or license direct-entry midwives, who have become credentialed without first becoming a nurse. However, certified nurse-midwives are licensed as advanced practice registered nurses.

Melinda Thigpen, a direct-entry midwife from Bay Springs who has attended an estimated 300 to 400 births since 1999, said that the lack of regulation does present dangers, but that it also grants midwives freedom in how they practice. 

“The regulation of midwives in Mississippi would mean that we were able to weed out those who just simply call themselves midwives, but do not have actual formal training … that would be beneficial,” Thigpen said. “But on the flip side, if we as midwives lose our autonomy, then our clients also lose their autonomy. The care that we’re able to give is dictated rather than individualized.”

Though the number of home births has increased in recent years, the vast majority of births still occur in the hospital setting. Of the more than 35,000 births Mississippi recorded in 2020, just 152, or 0.42%, were intended home births, according to CDC data. 

Israel is currently looking at land in rural areas of Hinds County to purchase for the center, both because the land itself will be cheap and so the center can qualify as a rural health clinic. This would make it somewhat of an outlier among birth centers, as they often avoid locating in rural, low-income areas due to high out-of-pocket costs and low reimbursement rates from Medicaid and private insurers. 

Israel estimates it will cost $3 million to make the center fully operational. That estimate includes $250,000 for land and $1,000,000 to build the center. The remainder will go toward hiring midwives and community health workers. She’s hoping that purchasing the land soon will help with fundraising efforts to get the center built. 

“Having a plot of land with a sign that says ‘birth center coming soon’ makes it more real for people,” Israel said. 

Israel began publicly fundraising for the birth center after several attempts to get state COVID-19 relief funding failed. State Sen. Albert Butler, D-Port Gibson, read a proposal for funding she submitted to the Legislature and then introduced a bill that would have given Sisters in Birth $1.5 million from the state’s Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds. The bill died in the appropriations committee. 

Efforts to federally fund birth centers have also failed to gain steam. The BABIES Act would require the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to establish a prospective payment system (PPS) that would reimburse birth centers for prenatal, perinatal and postpartum care for mothers and infants.

The BABIES Act was introduced both in 2019 and 2021, but never advanced. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson was the only congressman from Mississippi to co-sponsor the legislation, though Israel says she lobbied the state’s three Republican congressmen to support the bill. 

Since the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, there has been an increase in rhetoric among politicians at the state and national levels about the need to increase support for pregnant moms and babies. In Mississippi, the rhetoric has for the most part not been matched by policy proposals.  

In March, Speaker of the House Philip Gunn killed legislation that would have extended health care coverage for new moms from 60 days to one year. About 60% of births in Mississippi are covered by Medicaid, one of the highest percentages in the nation.

“Those pro-life legislators, those hypocrites, who want to make sure women don’t have an abortion, but they won’t support something as simple as a birthing center so they can have a healthy birth – what are they talking about?” Israel said. “If we really care about saving the lives of babies, you’d want to give them access to a midwife.”

Mississippi is consistently ranked as one of the worst states to have a baby due to its poor health care system. More children born in Mississippi, per capita, do not live to see their first birthday than anywhere else in the nation. Mississippi’s infant mortality rate is the highest in the nation at 8.27 deaths per 1,000 live births.

The state also has the highest rate in the nation of children living in extreme poverty.

Mississippi mothers die in 33.2 of every 100,000 births — nearly two times higher than the U.S. average. Black moms in the state are three times more likely to die than white moms.  Many experts believe Mississippi’s lack of prenatal care contributes greatly to this statistic.

Israel said that the work SIB and other organizations in Mississippi do to tackle birth disparities is undervalued and overlooked by political leaders. The work they’re doing saves taxpayer money, but they get no investment in return.

 “When we prevent one premature baby, we’re saving the state a hell of a lot of money,” Israel said.

A premature birth costs $41,610, compared to a full term birth’s $2,830, according to data from University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

Two of the organization’s largest goals are reducing the rates of C-sections and labor induction, both of which increase the risk of further birth and recovery complications. 

Israel views medically unnecessary inductions of labor as a harmful intervention of a natural process.

“It’s about the doctor’s schedule and not about nature’s schedule,” Israel said.

C-sections can save the lives of mothers and babies during dangerous deliveries caused by conditions such placenta previa, where the opening of the cervix is obstructed, or when a baby is in a breech position. However, C-sections come with greater risks than vaginal births, including a higher risk of death. 

Even a relatively uncomplicated C-section comes with a longer and more difficult recovery for mothers than a vaginal birth. 

C-section deliveries are thought to be overused in the United States. Since 1985, the World Health Organization has considered the ideal rate for C-section births to be between 10% to 15%. More than 31% of all deliveries in the U.S. were by C-section in 2020 and 25.6% of low-risk pregnancies resulted in a C-section, according to data from the CDC.

The prevalence of C-sections is higher in Mississippi. C-sections were used during 38.5% of births in Mississippi in 2020, giving the state the highest rate in the nation for these deliveries.  According to the Mississippi maternal mortality review committee’s 2019 report, 65% of women who died after giving birth delivered by repeat C-section.

In Israel’s view, the overuse of C-section deliveries is motivated by financial incentives and expediency. 

“C-sections are a cash cow for hospitals,” Israel said. “With induction and C-sections, doctors often do not have a discussion with Black women about this. They don’t engage them and allow them to help make that medical decision. They just decide for them.”

According to a report released in May 2020 by Health Care Cost Institute, average spending for a C-section birth was nearly $5,000 higher than spending for a vaginal birth for people with employer-sponsored insurance. Physicians are paid on average 15% more for a C-section than a vaginal delivery. 

Studies have also shown that during the work week, non-medical factors appear to affect the time of deliveries. C-sections spike around morning, lunchtime, and the end of the day, which some see as evidence that doctor’s decisions are motivated, at least in part, by scheduling conflicts rather than purely medical considerations. 

Thigpen says that popular misconceptions about what a midwife does is a factor in their work being undervalued by politicians and the general public.

“I tell people all the time, they don’t hire me just to blow up a pool, light candles or rub their back,” Thigpen said. “They hire me for the very few times where something does come up that is more concerning, and that’s when I jump in to use the skills that I’ve learned.”

Thigpen also thinks that there’s a fundamental difference between how doctors and midwives view the birthing process. She’s grateful for hospitals and doctors but believes that the medical community needs to do a better job of accepting those differences and working with midwives to help ensure better outcomes, no matter what delivery method a mother chooses.

“The medical community tends to look at birth as a medical event that may occasionally happen naturally,” Thigpen said. “And as a midwife, I look at birth as a natural event that may occasionally need medical help.”

The post Nonprofit aims to open Mississippi’s first birth center appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s medical marijuana license portal is shy of a week old but more than 1,800 people have already registered for online accounts to apply for licenses, the state Department of Health announced Monday. 

“If you can shop on Amazon you can probably work through the portal,” said Kris Jones, the director of Mississippi’s new medical marijuana program.

The program is still in its early stages and leaders don’t expect medical marijuana to be available to purchase for another six months. 

“I know everyone would love for it to be up in running,” said Jim Craig, the director of the Office of Health Protection. “It looks like it will be the end of the year that we see products.” 

About 85% of those who have made accounts on the new portal are patients seeking cannabis treatment. But 15 businesses and nine medical practitioners have completed their applications, Jones said during a Monday press conference. A dozen people have also submitted applications for work permits, which are required for marijuana-related jobs. 

The new portal is the first step for patients to eventually receive a medical marijuana card; for doctors, optometrists and nurse practitioners to become certified providers; for facilities to receive licensing to grow, process and test marijuana; and for businesses and their workers to become certified to transport cannabis and dispose of its waste. 

The portal does not handle applications for those hoping to open dispensaries. Those applications will be processed by the Mississippi Department of Revenue. The department is scheduled to begin accepting those applications on July 1. 

READ MORE: Inside a $30 million bet on Mississippi’s medical marijuana industry

Jones said all applications that have come through the portal are still under review and the number of applications is growing daily. 

While hopeful medical marijuana patients can make accounts and begin the application process through the new portal, none of them can receive their license to buy medical cannabis until they’ve met with a certified doctor or practitioner. 

No one is certified yet to offer that care but doctors’ applications will be processed within 30 days, according to the program’s rules. Jones said approved providers and dispensaries will eventually be listed on the health department website to assist patients. 

Craig touted the regulation requirements deployed to manage the state’s processing labs, which are among the businesses that can now apply to be licensed. These labs will test THC levels – the chemical in marijuana that produces the feeling of being high – as well as for possible contaminants in products. 

Craig called this one of the key pieces to product safety in the state. Another safety measure is limiting advertising and marketing options so medical marijuana “isn’t something very attractive to kids,” Craig said. 

Medical marjinaua businesses cannot be on social media, for example. Businesses are limited to creating just a website and logo.

More than two dozen Mississippi cities opted out of the medical marijuana program. Although that limits where medical marijuana businesses can open and operate, it does not prevent licensed patients in those areas from using and buying medical marijuana. 

The post Mississippi’s medical marijuana application portal already has more than 1,800 users  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today’s political team breaks down this week’s congressional primaries and looks ahead to potential November general election matchups.

The post Podcast: What you need to know about 2022 Mississippi midterms appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss coach Scott Berry made one point perfectly clear Friday night after LSU rallied from four runs behind to send the Golden Eagles into the losers bracket of the Hattiesburg Regional.

“To achieve the task we are faced with now, we are going to have to call on players to do things they haven’t been asked to do before,” Berry said.

Justin Storm must have been listening.

With the Southern Miss season hanging in the balance, the seldom used Storm entered the game in the fifth inning and never left it while leading his team to an 8-4 victory. He pitched five innings of sensational baseball, shutting down the high-powered LSU Tigers as if he had been in similar situations often in the past.

Actually, he never has. He’s never thrown 85 pitches in a game either. Storm’s longest previous stint this season was 1.2 innings. But he shut out the Tigers, allowing only two hits while striking out seven and walking only one. The 6-foot, 7-inch former Madison Central basketball and baseball player pitched the game of his life. That’s all.

“A star was born tonight,” Berry said. “I’ve seen players step up in these kinds of situations before, as Justin did tonight. He was so calm, so in control. I really believe we saw a star born tonight.”

It was nothing fancy. Storm spotted a 90-91 mile per hour fastball, using both sides of the plate, high and low, and kept the Tigers off balance with an effective slider. He threw strikes.

Storm said if he has ever thrown 85 pitches in a game — from Little League until now — he doesn’t remember it.

He will remember these 85 pitches for a long, long time, no matter what happens when the Tigers and Golden Eagles square off in the Hattiesburg Regional’s deciding game at 3 p.m. on Monday. It will be 46-17 Southern Miss going against 40-21 LSU for the third time in three days. Southern Miss will be playing its third game in a 27-hour span, having had to defeat feisty Kennesaw State 4-3 in 10 innings earlier Saturday.

Hunter Riggins was the pitching hero in that one, allowing only one earned run and seven hits over nine innings. Riggins was fantastic — but then Southern Miss fans have to come to expect that from him, just as Delta State fans had before he graduated and transferred to USM to play his final season of college eligibility.

Riggins covered the nine innings in temperatures that soared well over 100 degrees on the artificial playing surface. He threw 117 pitches. Yes, he said, he had considered the fact that after all those 36 pitching victories in five seasons of college baseball (including the Covid season), Sunday night mark his last game as a college pitcher.

“I thought about it and what I thought is that I am not ready to transfer to the couch,” Riggins said. “I want to play some more baseball.”

Riggins won’t be available for the Eagles today. Neither will Hurston Waldrep, who was extended to 117 pitches against LSU on Saturday night. Storm surely can’t throw again on such short rest, but one would think that all other Southern Miss pitchers could be called  for an inning or three on Monday.

LSU is in the same boat. Said LSU coach Jay Johnson, “That’s why we carry 13 pitchers on a 27-man roster. We have plenty of options.”

Johnson seemed confident. “We’ve answered the bell after failure before,” he said. “I feel as good as any coach can given our situation.”

LSU broke on top 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning on Cade Doughty’s two-run home run off the new Southern Miss scoreboard in left center field. Southern Miss answered with two runs of its own in the second inning.

LSU fired right back with two more in the top of the third, but then Southern Miss responded with two more in the third to tie it at 4.

“I knew when we answered them after they went up 2-0 and 4-2 that we were locked in and ready to play,” Berry said. “I couldn’t be more proud of our resilience.”

It was as if the LSU and Southern Miss teams were swapping punches on the field, while the fans tried to drown one another out in the stands. Again, it was a football-like crowd atmosphere. Every time Tiger fans would start their L-S-U chant, Southern Miss’s much larger home crowd would drown them out with chants of U-S-M.

LSU chants became fewer when Storm entered the the game with one Tiger on base and nobody out in the fifth and the score still tied at 4. The big southpaw kept LSU at four runs for five straight innings, while Southern Miss scored three in the the sixth and then another in eighth on Carson Paetow’s line drive home run into the Right Field Roost, which left the ballpark in a seeming nanosecond.

Southern Miss pitching coach Christian Ostrander kept asking Storm how he felt. He kept saying he felt fine. Ostrander and Berry kept sending Storm back out and he kept throwing strikes.

How did he feel afterward?

“I’m exhausted,” Storm replied.

Much later came the news that top-seed Miami had been eliminated from the Coral Gables Regional, meaning that Southern Miss will host the Super Regional if the Eagles can knock off LSU for a second straight time.

For the Golden Eagles to do it, someone likely will have to pull off another Justin Storm — if that’s even possible.

The post On an otherwise clear night, it Storm-ed on LSU in Hattiesburg appeared first on Mississippi Today.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, a Tupelo Republican, believes the leak of the draft U.S. Supreme Court decision revoking a nationwide right to an abortion is “an attack on a key institution” and “threatens (the) independence of the Court.”

But by Wicker’s estimation, the alleged conflict of interest created by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ruling on cases involving his wife Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and election denier, is no big deal and does nothing to hurt the Supreme Court.

“I’m not concerned about Justice Thomas and I disagree that there are apparent conflicts as you assert. His service to date has been beyond reproach,” Wicker said in response to a question from Mississippi Today.

The senior senator from Mississippi went on to add, “Mrs. Ginni Thomas is a free American entitled to her own views. She does not surrender her rights based on who her husband is.”

No one, of course, is questioning Ginni Thomas’ right to have a personal or public life of her own. What is at issue is whether Clarence Thomas, as one of the nation’s nine most powerful members of the judiciary, should be ruling on issues surrounding his wife’s public life.

Earlier this year, Thomas was the only member of the nation’s highest court to rule against releasing correspondence from the White House to a commission established by the U.S. House to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election.

That commission is chaired by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who is the lone Democrat in Mississippi’s congressional delegation. It is of note than Wicker voted against forming the commission.

It is hard to fathom that when Thomas ruled on the case, he was not aware of his wife’s email correspondence with the White House in which she urged members of President Trump’s team to do all they could to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

While Wicker sees no problems with the Thomases, he said if the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked by a Supreme Court law clerk, that person should be disbarred. If it was a Supreme Court justice who leaked the draft opinion, that justice should be impeached, Wicker said.

“This leak will severely damage that trust, putting at risk the ability of our nation’s highest court to function,” Wicker said in a commentary. “It will also set a disturbing precedent of inciting mob pressure to intimidate the justices before they issue a decision.”

On a conservative news show, Wicker said, “I think Democrats and Republicans should have denounced the leak. So far it has only come from our side.”

Many believe both Republicans and Democrats also should be speaking up in favor of placing guidelines on Supreme Court justices for dealing with conflict of interest issues. There are guidelines for recusal from cases that judges are supposed to follow. But the Supreme Court is not bound by those guidelines.

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges that apparently does not apply to Supreme Court justices says, “A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. This prohibition applies to both professional and personal conduct. A judge must expect to be the subject of constant public scrutiny and accept freely and willingly restrictions that might be viewed as burdensome by the ordinary citizen.”

Perhaps such a code also should apply to the nine most powerful judges in the nation — those who make up the Supreme Court.

Fix the Court, a nonprofit advocacy group, cites about 60 alleged ethics violations by Supreme Court justices in recent years, including Thomas’ possible conflicts of interest related to his wife and other justices accepting gifts and travel from groups that might appear before the court.

“At a time when the Supreme Court has outsized power — over our personal privacy and health care decisions, over who can vote and who wins elections, over who can marry and who can unionize, and so much more — it is critical that the branch, including those at its apex, are subject to transparency and accountability rules that measure up to its might,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court.

Legislation is currently being considered by Congress that will address some of those conflict of interest issues facing the Supreme Court and will provide more transparency.

Whether that legislation will receive support from Republicans like Roger Wicker remains to be seen.

The post Wicker says leak could harm Supreme Court, but scoffs at Clarence Thomas’ possible conflicts of interest appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss led LSU 6-2 headed into the bottom of the ninth inning, and Pete Taylor Park was seemingly coming apart at the seams. Fans stomped on the metal grandstand and thundered U-S-M, U-S-M over and over and over. It was more like a football crowd than baseball.

The Golden Eagles had slammed three home runs. Starting pitcher Hurston Waldrep had delivered perhaps the performance of his life. LSU was on the ropes, and Southern Miss closer Landon Harper, so dependable all season long, was on the mound.

The Eagles needed just three outs. LSU needed four runs just to extend the game.

And then, well, you know what happened next. LSU scored those four runs in the ninth to extend the game and then won it with a single run in the bottom of the 10th for a 7-6 victory that was as exhilarating for the Tigers as it was devastating for the Golden Eagles.

Harper, who had allowed only 10 earned runs in 28 appearances all season, gave up four earned runs in one inning.

LSU now has to win just one game to advance to an NCAA Super Regional. Southern Miss must win three, and two of those will have to be over LSU.

Don’t know what the odds against that are, but they are sky-high. LSU will rest in the heat of Sunday afternoon while Kennesaw State and Southern Miss play one another to see who gets to come back Sunday night and face a fresh LSU team again.

Kennesaw State and Southern Miss share one regrettable fate. Both had LSU on the ropes on back-to-back nights. Neither could finish the deal.

“We just couldn’t put them away,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. “We just couldn’t come up with that one pitch for a punch-out the way Waldrep had when he was in there.”

We should go no further without giving Waldrep his due. Actually, let’s let LSU coach Jay Johnson have the honors.

“Waldrep was outstanding,” Johnson said. “We faced (Tennessee All American) Chase Dollander (9-0) last Friday night and we faced Waldrep tonight. Those two are the two best pitchers we faced all season.”

That’s high, high praise and definitely deserved. After struggling with his control in the first two innings, Waldrep allowed only two hits to the explosive Tigers over the next 4.1 innings. He struck out 11 and at one time fanned six in a row and seven of eight batters. With each third strike, the home crowd got louder and louder. Waldrep was demonstrative himself, punching the air with each strikeout.

It was, both coaches said, a college baseball atmosphere that would be difficult to duplicate.

“Great for college baseball,” Johnson said.

“I can’t imagine it was like this at any other venue across the country,” Berry said.

All of which makes the defeat all the more crushing for the Eagles, who got home runs from Will McGillis, Carson Paetow and Christopher Sargent, who was playing with a sore lower back, but also added two singles to his home run.

“We played a really good game for the most part,” Berry said. “We just couldn’t get that last out in the ninth. Give LSU credit. They kept fouling off good pitches and did what it took to win the game.”

On Friday night, LSU rallied from seven runs behind in the eighth inning for a 14-11 victory over Kennesaw State. Dylan Crews, the LSU centerfielder and leadoff hitter, said then it was the greatest victory of his LSU career because of the circumstances. Turns out, it was the greatest victory for about 24 hours. What the Tigers did against a really good Southern Miss bullpen takes the proverbial cake.

“It’s about what’s inside of you,” Johnson, the LSU coach, said. 

LSU has plenty.

We’ll find out how much moxie the Golden Eagles have Sunday afternoon when they go against a Kennesaw State lineup that has pounded virtually every pitcher it has faced in this regional. 

Said Berry, “It’s all hands on deck. We face an incredibly hard task, but I feel like we can do it.”

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HATTIESBURG — The NCAA Baseball Tournament pairings had just been announced on Monday when Zachary, La., native Tanner Hall was asked about what game of the Hattiesburg Regional he wanted to pitch.

Hall, the sophomore ace for Southern Miss, was direct and to the point: “I want LSU,” he said, referring to the school, 16 miles away from his hometown, that did not recruit him.

Turns out, Hall got Army instead.

Army wishes he hadn’t.

Hall, an All American and winner of the Boo Ferriss Trophy, mastered the Black Knights, pitching eight innings of four-hit, shutout baseball in the Golden Eagles’ 2-0 opening round victory. Southern Miss will play LSU, 14-11 comeback winner over Kennesaw State at 6 p.m. Saturday night in a winners’ bracket game.

Hall mixed a 92-93 mph fast ball with a Major League-quality change-up that broke to either side of the plate depending on how he gripped the baseball. He struck out nine, walked only one and kept the Army hitters off balance throughout.

Said Army coach Jim Foster, “Hall is one of the best in the country and his numbers show it…. He has a change-up that would get Big League hitters out. I played 10 years of professional baseball and that’s what I saw. It was a good, late action changeup. … We had a tough time with him. He’s really good.”

Those “numbers” Foster referred to are becoming the stuff of legend where Hall is concerned. Through 17 appearances this season, Hall has now struck out 139 batters and walked only 12. That’s a strikeouts-to-walks ratio of nearly 12 to 1, which is stunning. (Three to one is considered top shelf.) Little wonder Hall has won eight of his 10 decisions.

Turns out, Southern Miss needed Hall at his best to beat Army, which got a superlative pitching performance from sophomore left-handed ace Connelly Early. Early, who allowed only one earned run over his six innings, was especially effective whenever the Eagles put runners in scoring position, which was often.

In fact, Southern Miss put runners in scoring position in three of the first four innings to no avail. Over those four innings Early faced five batters with runners in scoring position. He struck out all five. You won’t win many games with clutch hitting like that. Southern Miss would not have won this one if not for Hall.

Southern Miss finished the game batting zero-for-seven with runners on second or third – or both. It was as if Eagles were swinging at invisible pitches when it mattered most. That will have to change for Southern Miss to advance.

Clean-up hitter Christopher Sargent, playing with a painful back injury, was the hitting hero. He gave the Eagles the only run they would need when his line-drive double bounced off the left field wall with such force, it caromed back into the playing field past Army left fielder Nick Manesis. By the time Manesis retrieved it, Reece Ewing was on the way to scoring all the way from first base.

Sargent, who moved around gingerly, looking like a man much older than his 21 years, acknowledged he was playing with significant lower back pain. “I’m just going to get treatment and fight through it,” he said. 

Southern Miss added an unearned run in the sixth when Gabe Montenegro singled, moved to second on catcher Blake Johnson’s sacrifice bunt and then scored on a throwing error by the Army shortstop.

Johnson, the Eagles’ junior catcher, was his pitcher’s best friend. The game was still scoreless in the fourth when Johnson’s perfect throw nailed Manesis trying to steal second with two out. Army’s Sam Ruta was on third base at the time and would have scored easily had Johnson’s throw been late. Johnson also made a sterling play, throwing out Army catcher Cam Corruto on a swinging bunt with a runner on second in the fifth inning.

Otherwise, Hall needed little help. He was dominant. Not only did he win, he kept the Southern Miss bullpen fresh, a bonus in a double elimination tournament such as this.

Berry said he never discussed saving Hall for LSU or whomever the Eagles play next. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” Berry said. “I just think the most important game is the one you are about to play. You just have to win that first one and stay in the winners’ bracket. I’ve seen coaches do it the other way and I’ve seen it backfire.”

Anything less than the All American performance Hall gave might not have been enough.

Berry did make one significant change in the Eagles’ approach. He moved Montenegro, normally the leadoff hitter, down to eighth in the order, replacing him with Carson Paetow. That’s what the Eagles did earlier in the season when Montenegro was hit in the face by a pitched baseball and was out of the lineup.

“By my count we are now 15 and 0 with Paetow batting leadoff,” Berry said.

Paetow was zero for four with three strikeouts Friday. Montenegro was two for three, walked once and scored one of the Eagles’ two runs. Nevertheless, don’t expect Berry to switch the lineup back Saturday when Southern Miss plays LSU. After all, 15-0 is hard to beat.

The post Southern Miss survives Army, thanks to Tanner Hall’s brilliant pitching appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Bill Renick, who is serving as the chair of the Commission on the Future of Northeast Mississippi, has been nominated to serve on the nine-member Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors by President Joe Biden.

Renick’s nomination was announced Friday afternoon.

“This is an honor for someone from Ashland,” Renick said. “TVA is such a major player in Mississippi, not just in electricity, but also in economic development, workforce training and education.”

TVA was created during the 1930s to, in part, help bring electricity to rural areas of seven states. In Mississippi, TVA sells electricity to municipalities and electric cooperatives encompassing almost one third of the state’s population. TVA provides electricity in all or parts of 35 counties primarily in the northern part of the state, but stretching as far south as Rankin, Scott and Newton counties in central Mississippi.

Renick would be the first Mississippian on the board since former Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth resigned from the board in August 2020.

Renick will face Senate confirmation.

Renick’s nomination for the post by the Democratic president was praised Friday by both of Mississippi’s Republican senators, Sen. Roger Wicker of Tupelo and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Brookhaven.

“The Tennessee Valley Authority has long been vital for Mississippi’s power generation and economic development needs, as evidenced by Tupelo being the first TVA city in 1934. It is imperative that our state’s interests always be represented within TVA,” Wicker said. “I am pleased that President Biden has recognized this and nominated Bill Renick to serve on the TVA Board of Directors.

“Bill has a proven record of serving our state first in public office and then as a business and economic development leader.”

Hyde-Smith said, “I’m pleased the president has nominated Bill Renick to serve on the TVA Board, which would restore Mississippi representation on this important body. I look forward to the confirmation process and believe Bill’s experience, aptitude, and extensive record of service to Mississippi will serve the TVA and its customers well.”

Until last summer, the 68-year-old Renick served as director of the workforce division for the Northeast Mississippi-based Three Rivers Planning and Development District.

Renick said he hopes that he can bring to the TVA Board expertise in the areas of economic development and work force training. He said he would strive to reach the president’s goal of energy conservation.

Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley of the Northern District of Mississippi had lobbied the White House to appoint a Mississippian to the TVA Board. He praised Renick’s nomination.

“Bill Renick is a product of the region of America that led our rural areas out of the dark in the 1930s with the help of TVA, and he knows the struggles of working families, senior citizens, and business owners as well as anyone in the entire Tennessee Valley,” Presley said. “President Biden made a smart choice in picking this good man for this job,”

Presley added, “While we fought for two seats on the TVA board, Bill Renick’s abilities, tenacity and work ethic will mean that Mississippi’s voice will be heard loud and clear. I’m proud for my friend, Bill, and even prouder that such an upstanding man will be serving on the TVA board. The Senate should act swiftly in confirming his nomination.”

Renick was elected to the Ashland Board of Aldermen at age 18 and later served as mayor. He also served on the Marshall County Board of Supervisors and in the state Senate. Renick was chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Eddie Briggs in the 1990s and later as chief of staff for Gov. Ronnie Musgrove.

Renick also was a hospital administrator.

The TVA term will be for five years. There are currently four vacancies on the board with two more seats becoming open this year. Biden also nominated on Friday Wade White, a Lyon County judge executive in Kentucky, to the TVA Board.

TVA also manages various bodies of water and other recreational and cultural facilities.

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