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Fifteen years ago, Katrina roared ashore and forever altered the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Record storm surge obliterated homes, businesses, casinos, hotels and lives. Since then, the Coast has come back stronger. Now it is being tested by Hurricane Sally — which is no Katrina but is a unique threat of its own. Will the new construction hold? I sure hope so.

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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America

Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media about his shelter-in-place order for Lauderdale County during a press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, March 31, 2020.

After more than three months, Gov. Tate Reeves’ office is seeking applications for a portion of a $34.6 million pot of federal COVID-19 relief funds for education — well after most other states have awarded their funds.

The federal government awarded Mississippi its emergency money June 1, but Reeves’ office only issued its funding priorities and request for proposals for $23 million of those funds last week.

Most states — and all of those in the deep South excluding Mississippi and Tennessee — have already submitted their initial 45-day reports detailing how the funds are being spent. Florida, for example, used part of the funds to award “summer recovery grants” to school districts in July.

But despite being approved for funding by the federal government on June 1, a request for proposals went out Sept. 10. The deadline for schools and other eligible groups to apply for the funds is Sept. 24.

Renae Eze, communications director for Reeves, said the next portion of the request for proposals will be released as soon as the current funds are awarded. The deadline for funds to be awarded from the governor’s office is by June 1, 2021.

Requests for comment from Reeves’ office about specifics of the $23 million were not returned by press time.

If not enough quality proposals are accepted, the remaining funds will be made available as part of a second request titled “Innovative Educational Solutions,” according to a letter from Holly Spivey, Reeves’ education policy advisor and Head Start Collaboration Director.

The money, called the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund, is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed in March. The CARES Act contains one category of funding called the Education Stabilization Fund, which then breaks down into further categories that include the GEER Fund. Other pots of this education money are managed by the Mississippi Department of Education and colleges and universities directly, while the governor’s funds are to be disbursed at Reeves’ discretion.

READ MORE: Mississippi to receive millions in education CARES Act funds

The U.S. Department of Education announced the nearly $3 billion in GEER funds in April to “quickly be made available to governors to ensure education continues for students of all ages impacted by the coronavirus national emergency,” a press release from the U.S. Department of Education stated.

The purpose is to provide relief to schools the state education agency identifies as having been most significantly impacted by COVID-19. It may also go to colleges and universities in need.

The funds are also designed to support any other school or “education-related entity,” defined as a governmental, non-profit or for-profit entity within the state that provides services that support preschool and K-12 education, that the governor deems as needing support.

Reeves outlined two priorities for the first category of funding. The first focuses on educational services for children under 5 years old, and the second on school-aged children.

Day cares and other child care organizations can apply for funds to help provide full or part-time care and education for children in that age group who are in foster care, or whose parents have lost access to their regular child care arrangements, cannot afford child care or are experiencing negative job impacts from a lack of access to childcare.

Parents and existing care providers may also apply if they will use the money toward improving young children’s quality of care and education. This may mean providing programs, training or technical assistance; providing health and safety equipment or supplies paired with training; building the long-term capacity of care providers to offer quality services; or supporting the coordination of care, education, and health-related services for children under 5-years-old.

Parents and other caregivers may also apply to improve the quality of care and education for young children by providing access to programs, training or technical assistance; providing health and safety equipment for supplies and training; building the long-term capacity of care providers to offer quality services; and supporting the coordination of care, education and health-related services for young children.

The second priority is for education services for school-age children, including those with diagnosed developmental delays or other disabilities. These services must include providing school-day or work-day care to children who are in foster care or whose parents are essential workers, have lost access to child care or are at risk of losing their job or other negative impacts related to a lack of child care.

State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright and Mississippi State Board of Education Chairman Jason Dean have been “in regular communication” with Reeves’ office about the state education department’s priorities to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on public education, according to a statement from the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE).

“The MDE is in agreement with plans for the Governor’s Emergency Education Response (GEER) Fund, which prioritizes childcare from birth to age 5, services for school-age children with disabilities and innovation strategies for distance learning,” said Jean Cook, a spokeswoman for the MDE.

Once schools, day cares and other educational organizations receive their share, they have until September of 2022 to obligate the money. However, guidance from the U.S. Department of Education urges recipients of the grant “to deploy GEER funds quickly.”

The post Lagging behind other states, Reeves makes $23 million in education relief funds available appeared first on Mississippi Today.

As we continue to provide the latest on Hurricane Sally in Mississippi, stay up-to-date with photos of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and its residents preparing for the storm to make landfall.

LATEST: Check National Hurricane Center for latest forecasts.

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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Masks are worn as hand sanitizer is distributed at Corner Market on Fortification Street in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 8, 2020.

Mississippians will be expected to mask up through September.

Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday he has extended an executive order mandating the wearing of masks in public places in an effort to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. The executive order was scheduled to expire Monday morning, but now expires on Sept. 30 at 5 p.m.

Reeves reported 145 new cases of COVID-19 and nine new deaths Monday. He said the number of new deaths was “the lowest in recent memory.” Reeves said for the first time in weeks, the seven day total new cases had dipped to below 3,000. It peaked at more than 9,000 in late July.

“According to the White House, we are no longer in the red zone,” Reeves said.  “I simply want everyone to understand now is not the time to let your guard down….We want people to continue to wear your mask. We want people to continue to social distance.”

While the mask mandate remains in effect, Reeves did ease restrictions on restaurants and other retail establishments. For instance, the capacity at restaurants has been increased from 50% of normal maximum capacity to 75%.

According to the AARP, Mississippi is among the 34 states that still have mask mandates. Mississippi’s contiguous states of Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas have mask mandates.

Reeves imposed the mask mandate in early August, making it the last of the 34 states to impose a statewide mandate.

The post Reeves extends statewide mask mandate to Sept. 30 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Tim Isbell for Mississippi Today

Hurricane warning flags flap in the breeze at Jones Park in Gulfport on Monday morning. (Photo: Tim Isbell for Mississippi Today)

Gulf Coast residents are preparing for what forecasters believe will soon be Hurricane Sally to hit Mississippi directly, bringing “life-threatening storm surge,” hurricane-force winds, and up to two feet of rainfall between now and Wednesday.

As of Monday morning, Sally is expected to make landfall in Mississippi as a Category 1 or Category 2 hurricane. It will likely dump up to 25 inches of rain in parts of Mississippi, and it will likely produce tornadoes and high wind gusts. Hurricane conditions in Mississippi are expected to begin Monday night ahead of a Tuesday landfall.

During a briefing Monday morning, Gov. Tate Reeves said the projection for the path of the slow moving storm had shifted eastward, placing landfall near Biloxi in Harrison County instead of in Louisiana. Under current projections, it is expected to make landfall around 2 a.m. Wednesday and continue to move  northeast, meaning it could be exiting Mississippi quickly, but could still have major impacts on the Gulf Coast and in southeast Mississippi.

Reeves said the storm could have sustained winds of 90 miles per hour or higher and storm surges on the Coast of as much as 9 feet.

Local officials issued mandatory evacuations for parts of Hancock County on Sunday, and officials in all three counties along the Gulf Coast warned residents to plan for extended power outages and flash flooding in addition to the coastal flooding that is expected.

“While this storm has ticked to the east overnight, it is anticipated that we are going to bear the brunt of this storm,” Reeves said on Monday morning. “Be prepared for the worst-case scenario. With this storm slowing, it could get worse before it gets better.”

LATEST: Check National Hurricane Center for latest forecasts.

In Waveland on Monday morning, storm surge during high tide had already flooded parts of Beach Boulevard. Residents along the Coast on Monday began boarding up windows and placing sandbags around their property, and boaters along the Coast scrambled to remove their boats from the water to higher ground.

The storm, which is slower moving than many tropical systems, is expected to drop up to two feet of rainfall even far inland. Local officials as far north as Hattiesburg are prepping for potentially devastating flash flooding.

MORE PHOTOS: View our full photo gallery

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Former congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Parker has endorsed Democrat Joe Biden in the November election. (AP Photo/Rogelio Solis, File)

Mike Parker, the last Republican candidate for governor to lose in the general election, has for almost two decades been a non-factor in Mississippi politics.

But in recent weeks, Parker’s name has resurfaced as he joined more than two dozen former Republican congressmen across the nation in endorsing Democrat Joe Biden for president.

The ghosts of Parker’s political past will be on the November general election ballot in Mississippi in another way.

Parker, the only candidate in state history to force Mississippi House members to cast the deciding vote on who would serve as governor, said he will vote this fall to take that responsibility away from House members.

Mississippi voters will decide in November whether to remove a state Constitutional provision requiring a candidate for statewide office to win both a majority of the votes and the most votes in a majority of the state’s 122 House districts.

If both of those thresholds aren’t met, that same constitutional provision, written in 1890 by white lawmakers to keep African Americans from holding statewide office, grants the state House the responsibility to decide the winner from the top two vote-getters.

This year’s proposed change would instead force a runoff election between the top two vote-getters instead of letting House members decide the outcome.

Surprisingly, Parker said recently he was not familiar that amendment would be on the November ballot.

“I think that is good,” Parker said. “If that is what the amendment says, that is what I will vote for.”

Parker, age 70, says he has no regrets in forcing the House to decide the election for governor on the first day of the 2000 session of the Legislature.

In the November 1999 election, Ronnie Musgrove, the Democratic lieutenant governor, won a plurality of the vote against Parker, a former congressman who resigned from the House to run for governor as the chosen candidate that year of the Republican establishment. Not only did neither candidate win a majority of the popular vote, but Musgrove and Parker each won 61 House districts.

Based on those results, Parker said he opted to take the election to the House, as allowed by the Constitution, to see if members would vote the way their constituents voted “one way or the other.”

“A lot of them wanted to push it under the rug. But they are elected to vote,” Parker said.

The House voted for Musgrove 86-36, with two Republicans voting for Musgrove and two Democrats voting for Parker. All three independents voted for Parker.

While Parker is still the only candidate to take a statewide election to the House for the members to decide, there have been other instances where candidates could have done the same. In two races for lieutenant governor in the 1990s, the winning candidate did not achieve both constitutional thresholds to win, but in those instances the candidate who did not receive the most popular votes conceded.

Twenty years after Parker threw the election to the House, the Legislature has opted to put the proposal on the ballot to remove the archaic provision from the Constitution. But the Legislature’s action only comes after a federal lawsuit was filed saying the provision was unconstitutional because it had the possibility of diluting minority voting strength.

Based on the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan of the Southern District of Mississippi, strongly hinted that if the provision was not removed by a vote of the people, he would do it himself.

Ironically, Parker, who in Mississippi history will always be closely associated with the electoral provisions of the state Constitution, said he has not kept up with the issue.

But he does keep up with national politics enough to know he opposes incumbent Republican President Donald Trump.

“His (Biden’s) politics are not mine,” Parker said. “They are very different. I am a Republican. Trump is not. This is a constitutional thing more than anything. Trump does not understand our system of government. He has no respect for our system of government. That is sad.”

Parker bemoans the fact that his grandchildren live next door to he and his wife in Brookhaven, but they limit their contact with them because of COVID-19. Parker said both he and his wife have pre-existing conditions that would put them in danger if they contracted the coronavirus from the grandchildren, who are now in school, or the children’s mother, a teacher.

Parker said his brother-in-law, whom he describes as the healthy member of the family, recently died “a terrible death” from COVID-19.

“He was on a ventilator for 20 days,” Parker said. “I can’t imagine the leadership of the country not telling us how bad this is. The people needed to know that.”

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Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force talks with Shannon Singletary, senior associate athletics director for health and sports performance, as she tours campus facilities during her visit to the University of Mississippi. (Photo by Logan Kirkland/ Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services)

OXFORD — Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, met with state and local leaders at the University of Mississippi on Saturday and praised Mississippi and other states across the South for what she called “incredible work.”

Birx, on a tour of college campuses across the nation this week, acknowledged Oxford is one of the top cities in the U.S. for new cases per capita. She said the college town effect — where most of the population is comprised of students — can skew the rate, but the fact that the university is finding and isolating those cases is a good thing.

“We’re confident that the university is finding cases,” Birx said. “We want to encourage them to find more asymptomatic spread — but they’re finding cases, they’re quarantining, isolating and most importantly, they’re caring for those students.”

On her last visit to Mississippi in mid-July, the state was in midst of a growing outbreak, but she said the recent improvements toward the end of the summer are a testament to the power of sustained behavior change.

Masks and social distancing are working, she said, encouraging governors across the South to continue their efforts to reverse trends over the summer.

Mississippi’s latest executive order mandating masks and limited crowds is set to expire on Monday. But Gov. Tate Reeves told reporters last week the mandates likely won’t be dropped altogether, though restrictions could loosen.

Mississippi is one of only a few Southern states to still have a statewide mask mandate, but Birx said it’s a piece of the many metrics that has pushed the state to no longer be considered a “red zone” risk by the federal task force. She added that eight weeks ago, about 60 of the state’s 82 counties had test positivity rates of over 10%. Now, just 23 do.

The state has cut its positivity rate in half over the same time, based on the task force’s metric that only counts some labs that reliably report both negative and positive results. At six months into the pandemic in Mississippi, cases are back down to where they were mid-June, before they began to sharply rise.

Though improved over the past few weeks, Mississippi’s new deaths per capita are still the highest in the nation, and August brought the most monthly deaths to date.

Birx pivoted her attention to college campuses, advising universities to have a plan but be flexible. And when an outbreak does occur, she said, university leaders should work through it without shutting down, if possible, to keep continuity of care and behavior change.

She spoke directly to students as well, saying on her visit she saw most students wearing masks but parents were not. She encouraged students to opt-in to new surveillance testing that looks for people with the virus but without symptoms. In addition to its contact tracing efforts and diagnostic testing for symptomatic students, the university is launching broader surveillance testing with the capacity of 500 per week, university officials said Saturday.

Birx reiterated that asymptomatic surveillance testing, particularly at universities because many students don’t have symptoms, will be “critical”. As of now, the university publishes a daily dashboard with case and other surveillance metrics, but not number tests performed. Across the state, daily tests have declined in recent weeks, as cases have. Diagnostic tests are expected to decline as fewer patients present with symptoms, but health experts advise random surveillance testing is also necessary to gauge and thwart asymptomatic spread. 

“I want to be clear to every student: We know you’re not intentionally transmitting the virus, you don’t know you have it, but I think its key for them to know that you can be infected, not know it, and pass the virus on, and eventually through that cascade it can get to someone that’s particularly vulnerable and have a bad outcome,” Birx said. “Students can be a real voice to get that information across.”

She briefly addressed college football, saying she thinks it can be played safely if teams adhere to strict policies to limit spread, noting the Major League Baseball’s bumpy but ongoing return. But she did not address crowd sizes of said games.

State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs has repeatedly warned that college football brings more risk than just the sport itself, but the gatherings it brings with it have to be considered. The university’s own contact tracing team has tracked most cases back to social gatherings off-campus and has quarantined around 400 students total, officials said.

Birx’s 20-minute press conference was mostly meant to encourage, and she repeatedly conveyed the power of messaging by officials to meet people where they are, saying that sometimes leaders can forget the “public” in public health.

“The entire South has shown us a way forward with this virus, what Mississippi has been able to do just over the last four to five weeks, shows us if we change our behavior, if we wear our masks, if we social distance, if we wash out hands, if we take care of others, there’s a pathway forward that maintains retail open, maintains universities and schools open,” she said. “But it’s all of us together working together to protect communities by protecting each other.”

Editor’s note: The SEC case chart is courtesy of Welch Suggs, journalism and sports media professor at the University of Georgia.

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