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The federal board tasked with handling railway disputes has made its first decision in the Gulf Coast passenger route case: It denied freight rail’s petition to have Amtrak’s complaint thrown out.

That means Amtrak is at least one step closer to knowing how viable its plans are to return passenger service to the Gulf Coast in 2022. The proposed route would connect Mobile to New Orleans with four stops in Mississippi. 

“The good news is, things can proceed forward now,” said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.

Amtrak filed its complaint with the board in March, arguing freight rail companies would continue to stall against returning passenger routes to the Gulf Coast without intervention. Freight company CSX owns tracks Amtrak would need to access along its planned route. 

On Thursday, the Surface Transportation Board filed its decision against CSX and its request the whole case be stopped in its tracks. CSX argued for more traffic studies before the board got involved. It also argued that the route shouldn’t move forward because some Alabama officials were against the service and its potential impacts on the Port of Mobile. 

Ultimately, the history of disputes is what prompted the board to assert its need to hear and decide on the case.  

In its written decision, the board said the case will “provide a forum to assess precisely the matter of concern to Alabama state officials and others.” If anything, the board wrote, the lack of unanimous state support showed the need for its intervention. 

Mississippi and Louisiana officials have largely been in favor of the passenger route and the economic boost it could bring to the Gulf Coast. The former service that ran through southern Mississippi ended following Hurricane Katrina just over 15 years ago. 

In its decision, the board announced a schedule for the proceedings over the case. The transportation board handles complaints similar to a courtroom. In the coming months, both Amtrak and the freight rail companies have set dates for discovery, evidence rebuttals, and hearings. The schedule, as of now, ends in mid-December. 

“CSX is evaluating the decision, but will plan to move forward with the schedule established by the (board),” the company said in a statement. 

In its own statement, Amtrak thanked the board for moving the case forward and expressed hope for a transparent process that would lead to a decision by the end of this year. 

It’s still unclear if a decision will be made in time for Amtrak’s desired route start date of Jan. 1, 2022. 

“Each case has its own degree of complexity, so there is no deadline,” said Michael Booth, the spokesman for the Surface Transportation Board. “But the board will come to a decision as expeditiously as possible.”

The post Federal board confirms it will decide future of Amtrak’s Gulf Coast passenger route appeared first on Mississippi Today.

TrustCare Health is partnering with the Jackson Public School District to offer a back-to-school vaccine drive at all seven high schools over the course of next week.

All students receiving the vaccine will be entered into a drawing to win a $100 Amazon gift card from their participating school. Those interested in getting the vaccine must register in advance online here.

The Pfizer vaccine will be offered to interested high schoolers as well as teachers and administrators. The drive will begin Tuesday at 9 a.m. at Murrah High School and continue each day through Friday.

The schedule is:

• Tuesday, Aug. 10 — Murrah High School: 9:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, Aug. 11 — Callaway High School: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. & Lanier High School: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
• Thursday, Aug. 12 — Jim Hill High School: 8:30 a.m . – 12:30 p.m. & Provine High School: 1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Friday, Aug. 13 — Forest Hill High School: 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. & Wingfield High School: 1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

“We are so very thankful for our partnership with TrustCare to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to our JPS team members, scholars and their families,” said Superintendent Errick Greene. “We encourage the JPS community to take full advantage of these upcoming opportunities to help us make our schools safe and healthy learning environments.”

Hinds County is currently ranked as the county with the most COVID-19 cases in the state over the 2-week period of July 13 to 26, the most recent time frame for which data is available.

“TrustCare has been a leader in COVID testing and vaccinations since the pandemic’s onset and is dedicated to doing whatever is necessary to continue helping people through this troubling time,” said TrustCare President and CEO Warren Herring. “We are honored to have the opportunity to be a partner in education with JPS and offer this service to students and faculty, who may otherwise not have quick, convenient access to the vaccine.”

The first day of school for students in JPS is Monday.

The post Back-to-school vaccine drive set to run at Jackson high schools appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The family of Dominique Clayton, the 32-year-old mother of four who was shot and killed by former Oxford police officer Matthew Kinne, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Oxford Police Department, the City of Oxford and Kinne on Thursday.

Clayton was killed by former OPD officer Kinne the morning of May 19, 2019, when he conducted a “welfare check” on Clayton at her home. The check resulted in Kinne killing her, shooting her one time in the head with his OPD-issued firearm. Clayton’s body was found later that afternoon by her 8-year-old son.

Kinne pleaded guilty to capital murder July 30 in New Albany for killing Clayton and was sentenced to life without the chance of parole.

“These past two years have been a painful experience because it’s not anything you expect to experience… Our family is finally getting the justice we need. It’s heartwarming, heartwrenching… You don’t know whether to be happy or sad because it’s justice for her, but she’s still not here to be with us,” Cha’nya Clayton, Dominique Clayton’s 22-year-old cousin, told Mississippi Today.

The lawsuit includes details surrounding Kinne’s previous law enforcement experience before joining OPD. Before Kinne was hired in Oxford, he was allegedly forced to resign by a previous law enforcement agency after he was identified as a person of interest in the suspicious death of his former wife, according to the lawsuit. 

It was ultimately determined that his former wife died by suicide. Kinne was not formally charged for her death, but after the law enforcement agency conducted an internal investigation, he was asked to resign or be terminated. After his resignation, he applied for a police officer position with OPD, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said OPD knew the circumstances around which Kinne resigned from his previous law enforcement agency.

“Despite being aware of the fact that… Kinne would likely violate the constitutional rights of another person, based upon the information included in his personnel file… (OPD) Chief (Jeff) McCutchen and the City (of Oxford) authorized the hiring of…Officer Kinne,” the lawsuit said.

Kinne was hired by OPD, remarried and had two children. During his time with OPD, he became involved in an extramarital affair with Clayton, the lawsuit said. After Kinne killed Clayton, he and another OPD officer, Diarra Gibbons, lied and told Clayton’s family she had died by suicide, the lawsuit alleges.

Gibbons is still an officer with OPD, while Kinne is now serving a life sentence for Clayton’s murder.

Clayton’s family is being represented by Carlos Moore of The Cochran Firm in Grenada and Michael Carr of the Carr Law Firm in Cleveland.

“They (Clayton’s family) have justice in the criminal courts. Now, they need justice civilly. She left four young kids,” Moore said in Thursday’s press conference about the lawsuit. “They need justice. Left without a mother. Have to fend for themselves. Any money that’s recovered in this lawsuit will go into a trust fund for these kids for when they are adults, so that they can take care of themselves.”

The post Family of Dominique Clayton, woman killed by former Oxford police officer, files wrongful death lawsuit appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Missing appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Amid a wave of delta variant COVID-19 infections that State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said is “sweeping over Mississippi like a tsunami,” the state Department of Health reported 3,164 new cases on Thursday, the second highest single-day caseloads the state has seen throughout the pandemic.

As of Thursday, there were 1,147 Mississippians hospitalized with COVID-19, with 299 in ICUs and 150 on ventilators. The state is currently averaging 137 new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day.

On Thursday, just eight of 827 total adult ICU beds in Mississippi were available.

This strain on the healthcare system is not sustainable, health care experts warn, and has created an environment where between 30 patients per day on average — and as many as 60 — are receiving care in emergency room settings when they should be in an ICU. This not only limits the ability of healthcare workers to effectively care for these patients, but it also causes delays in the time-sensitive care that non-COVID patients need in an ER setting.

Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs and COVID-19 clinical response leader at University of Mississippi Medical Center, said on Wednesday that UMMC has not had to turn away any patients yet, but that breaking point is approaching. 

“We are not infinite resources,” Jones said. “We can break. We can have to close… And I think we’re rapidly headed that direction.”

READ MORE: COVID-related emergency room visits higher than any point as virus rips through Mississippi

Health care leaders reiterate one key point: It wouldn’t matter if Mississippi had an infinite number of hospital beds if the corresponding number of healthcare workers to weren’t able to staff them. On Wednesday, there were 14 unusable beds at UMMC because of this understaffing. Whether nurses, respiratory therapists or certified medical assistants, Mississippi hospitals small and large are reporting they do not have the staffing to meet the current level of need.

Many nurses and other healthcare workers are leaving the state for higher paying jobs elsewhere, or leaving the medical field altogether due to the traumas of the past year. 

“It is almost impossible to put into words the frustration that they feel, that we all feel, and the disappointment that here we are again… There are a lot of people in healthcare right now that feel pretty mad about this situation,” said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for UMMC. 

Healthcare workers themselves getting infected with COVID-19, mostly outside the hospitals where they work, is only compounding the staffing problem. 

“There’s no cavalry coming that’s going to bring in a whole army of new nurses to fill in… it’s just not there,” Dobbs said. “We’ll do everything we can to balance it out. But we’re just looking at some real significant pain points in the coming weeks. It’s just inevitable.”

In response to the high levels of COVID-19 infections among its staff, Jackson’s St. Dominic Memorial Hospital announced on Thursday that all employees will have to be vaccinated, or have a documented medical or religious exemption, by Oct. 31 or they will be fired.

This move by St. Dominic comes after UMMC announced on July 16 that all its employees and students will be required to be fully vaccinated after the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines receive full authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Woodward said she was glad to see St. Dominic’s require vaccination for its employees, and that she hopes others will follow suit because the strain on the entire hospital system is “absolutely worse than it was” during the winter peak. 

As scientists continue to collect data on the newest variant that is spreading rapidly, medical experts continue to reiterate that vaccination remains the best protection against contracting the delta variant. The nation’s leading medical researchers agree that vaccines are nearly as effective against the delta variant as the original strain, greatly minimizing the chance of infection and nearly eliminating the risks of developing a serious illness.

Studies suggest, however, that being fully vaccinated is the only adequate protection against the delta variant, as a single shot of either of the two-dose mRNA vaccines provides only weak protection against infection. Of the 2,510 Mississippians who died of COVID-19 between Jan. 1 and Aug. 4 of this year, only 51 were fully vaccinated.

Though Mississippi is no longer last in the nation for the share of its population that has been vaccinated, it still trails 48 other states. Only 35% of Mississippians have been fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The threat posed by the delta variant is motivating a significant uptick in vaccinations, a welcome change that Woodward says will make a difference in the state’s caseload. It will take at least a month for the hospital system to reap any of those benefits, however, and the challenges seen this month are only going to get worse. 

“The path out of this is vaccination,” Woodward said. “What viruses do, they mutate, and they can do it quickly. So the best thing that we can do to be sure that we don’t see another variant that comes through is to get people vaccinated. That is just the best defense.”

The post Hospitals pushed to brink as delta variant hits Mississippi ‘like a tsunami’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency in the troubled Holmes County Consolidated School District on the first day of the new school year and just hours after the district announced it was suing state officials in an attempt to block the takeover.  

Signed at 1:25 p.m. on Thursday, the declaration will immediately dismantle the school district. Interim superintendent Jennifer Wilson will take over, and the local school board will be disbanded. The State Board of Education will act as the district’s governing body.

“This isn’t a decision I take lightly nor one I make with any delight. Maintaining local control when possible is a foundational principle of conservative governance; however, the serious violations of state and federal law and accreditation standards, serious financial concerns, lack of internal controls, inappropriate standards of governance, inappropriate oversight by the Board, and the continued poor academic performance (among many other factors) no longer make that possible in the HCCSD,” Gov. Tate Reeves wrote on Twitter. 

“Ensuring Mississippi kids have access to a quality education will always be a top priority. This declaration of an extreme emergency situation within HCCSD will hopefully give the kids of this district a chance at success in life, because each one of them deserve(s) nothing less!” Reeves continued. 

This means the district, now termed a “District of Transformation,” now stands to lose its accreditation. School districts that lose accreditation are limited to participation in no more than half of the regular season of any athletic and extracurricular activities. The activities’ schedule will also not include the opening day of the season or any type of post-season participation, according to the Mississippi Department of Education. 

Cheerleading, drill and dance squads, speech and debate and other extracurricular groups can participate in district and state contests but are ineligible to receive ratings. 

Wilson, the interim superintendent, will remain there until the district reaches a grade of C or higher for five years; and the superintendent would work with district staff to correct all accreditation violations and raise student achievement. 

Officials from the Mississippi Department of Education will meet with administration, faculty and staff from the district, then with parents and community leaders during a series of evening meetings. 

A request for comment from Clarence Webster, the attorney for the lawsuit filed by former superintendent Debra Powell and school board members, was not immediately returned Thursday afternoon. Powell was also not immediately available for comment.

The state’s calls for a takeover of the district come following the release of a nearly 400-page investigative audit of the district that found it in violation of 81% of the state’s accreditation standards. The audit also found violations of state and federal law, including nearly $1 million of questioned federal expenditures. 

The allegations include a dysfunctional school board and administration, improper spending, inaccurate record keeping and unlicensed teachers in the classroom. 

The state has placed a school district in a conservatorship 20 times since 1997; Holmes County is now the 21st. Current Districts of Transformation, as they are referred to, include the Tunica and Noxubee County School Districts.

The post Holmes County school district dismantled, state takes control appeared first on Mississippi Today.

With the fall semester weeks away, the Mississippi Department of Health has released updated guidelines for mitigating the spread of the coronavirus in colleges and universities. This comes as the delta variant “sweeps over Mississippi like a tsunami,” State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said in a press conference on Thursday. 

“We’ve seen a phenomenal increase in the number of daily reported cases of COVID,” Dobbs said, “and this is entirely attributable to the delta variant.” 

As the “primary health prevention strategy” to stem transmission of the virus, the new guidelines recommend all eligible students, faculty and staff receive the COVID-19 vaccine. It also urges colleges and universities to direct everyone on campus, regardless of vaccination status, to mask-up in all indoor facilities and in crowded outdoor settings. 

Students are recommended to continue social distancing in classrooms, and all students, faculty and staff should stay home if they are sick with any infectious illness. 

“You can’t fill a classroom with non-immune kids without a mask on with the most contagious coronavirus you’ve ever seen circulating and expect for it not to spread,” Dobbs said. “It’s just biology.” 

Colleges and universities are further advised to continue contact tracing to identify COVID-19 positive individuals and remove them from the school setting, particularly dormitories where transmission is more likely. 

Lastly, the guidance also contains strategies that schools can use to manage and respond to an outbreak. 

“I just want to remind everybody that we have COVID top to bottom in every single county,” said Dr. Paul Byers, the state epidemiologist. “We are seeing increases and high transmission in every single county across the state — we are going to see cases in all settings and all counties.” 

Shortly after MSDH released its new guidance in a memo Wednesday afternoon, Mississippi State University and University of Mississippi announced that they would temporarily require masks in all indoor activities and locations on campus. 

“We’re optimistic that this temporary mask utilization indoors will help ensure a successful start to the school year,” UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce wrote in an email to students, faculty and staff.  “We will evaluate this protocol daily based on how spread of the virus evolves on campus and in our community.” 

“Let me emphasize that we are implementing this temporary mitigation strategy as the least disruptive way to ensure a full campus experience,” Boyce added in bold. 

At the end of the spring semester, Boyce announced that UM would be returning to “a full resumption of in-person classes” and pre-COVID-19 operations starting this fall. 

MSU similarly opened up its campus over the summer, announcing June 30 that all facilities, including meeting rooms and auditoriums, could operate at 100% capacity. 

The new guidance from MSDH and the surge in COVID cases led MSU to reconsider that plan, according to a press release announcing the temporary mask mandate. 

“After the first few weeks of the Fall 2021 semester, it is our hope that MSU may be able to move to mask-optional policies if the number of cases on campus and in the community decreases, and vaccination rates improve substantially,” MSU wrote. 

Mississippi is currently experiencing a fourth wave of COVID-19 due to the highly infectious delta variant. On Thursday, MSDH reported 3,164 new cases, close to double the number of daily cases reported a week ago. 

“I really do think it’s going to be the worst wave to date,” Dobbs said. 

The deluge of cases comes almost entirely from unvaccinated people, Byers said on Thursday, who tend to be in younger age groups. As of mid-July, college-aged people made up more than 60% of all new cases over the last two months in Mississippi, according to MSDH.    

Byers said that while this age cohort “may not have serious complications from COVID-19,” it’s still important for them to get vaccinated because they “are serving as a source of transmission to (the) most vulnerable population,” those who are immunocompromised or older than 65. 

“It’s incumbent upon all of us to make sure that not only are we vaccinated to protect ourselves, but to protect those individuals around us from infection,” Byers added. 

MSDH’s guidance stops short of requiring students or faculty get vaccinated — something hundreds of professors across the state have pushed for in online petitions. 

Dobbs said he doesn’t think there is consensus in Mississippi yet over whether the COVID-19 vaccine should be mandated for college and university students. 

“Having everyone vaccinated and even looking at mechanisms to make that happen make sense from a transmission perspective,” Dobbs said. “I appreciate their opinion and I wish they keep sharing it. And if that’s the general consensus, instead of being hundreds (of signatures), it would’ve been thousands.” 

Dobbs is also uncertain that MSDH will recommend a mandate even if the COVID-19 receives final approval from the Food and Drug Administration. 

“Mandates are a curious sort of animal,” he said. “We’ll work with colleges to make those sorts of decisions. This is not really a ‘top-down, Department-of-Health, we-tell-you-what-to-do” sort of situation. These sorts of things require coalition building and consensus to some degree, and we are not really there yet.”   

The post What you need to know about MSDH’s new COVID guidelines for colleges appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Holmes County Consolidated School District is suing state officials over what it describes as “sham, unconstitutional proceedings” following the State Board of Education’s recommendation that the governor declare a state of emergency in the district earlier this week.

The lawsuit is seeking a temporary restraining order ahead of a declaration by Gov. Tate Reeves that would result in the school district being dismantled and turned over to the state.

The lawsuit filed in federal court alleges the Mississippi Department of Education did not give the district due process and violated its own policies and procedures in conducting an audit of the district and the subsequent hearings before the Commission on Accreditation and State Board of Education.

The Mississippi Department of Education on Thursday said it does not comment on matters in litigation.

The state department “conducted a two-month audit and provided less than a week’s notice for the Petitioners (district) to assess and respond to the audit findings,” the lawsuit states. “What is more, Petitioners do not receive an opportunity (to) question anyone regarding the findings. Simply put, the process afforded does not provide an opportunity for a hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.”

It also states the board violated the Open Meetings Act when it conducted its deliberations in executive, or closed, session.

The lawsuit points out that before the department’s audit was completed and any proceedings had occurred, the department advertised the job of an interim superintendent position for a District of Transformation. The deadline to apply for the job was July 21, several days before the department had concluded its on-site investigative audit of the district.

On Aug. 3 the State Board of Education recommended Jennifer Wilson, the former superintendent of Greenwood School District, serve as interim superintendent for the district should a state of emergency be declared. It is not uncommon for the state board to announce a potential interim superintendent before a takeover is official. At multiple hearings in past years, the board has named ahead of the governor’s declaration.

In Tuesday’s hearing, a Mississippi Department of Education employee told State Board of Education members she was not able to verify that the district had agreements with universities to help its uncertified teachers receive the coursework and training they needed by the following year, as Superintendent Debra Powell had said.

The lawsuit, however, attaches copies of memorandums of understanding with Alcorn State University and Jackson State University, though both are missing signatures from the contact person at each university.

“The District, does, and did, have those relationships,” the lawsuit states.

The district also takes issue with the fact that it was not afforded an exit conference or interview per MDE’s own policy that auditors “will schedule a time to meet with the superintendent and school board chair to conduct an exit conference” near completion of the investigation.

This is not the first time a school district has resorted to legal action to prevent a state takeover. In 2017, the Jackson Public School District filed a temporary restraining order against the Commission on School Accreditation, the state Board of Education and the Mississippi Department of Education to prevent a state takeover after the commission and department both found an extreme emergency situation existed in the district. A Hinds County Circuit Court judge denied it, the Clarion Ledger reported at the time.

Separately, a group of JPS parents filed a federal lawsuit against state education officials for failing to include them in the decision-making process over the district’s fate.

In the end, legal battles were not what saved the district from takeover. Instead, then-Gov. Phil Bryant declined to declare a state of emergency and opted to create a commission to evaluate the district.

The state board’s request to the governor for Holmes County expires on Aug. 17.

The post Holmes County schools sues to block state takeover appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Hinds County Sheriff Lee Vance was found dead at his home today after testing positive of the Delta variant of COVID-19. In this business, you meet many of the people who are in public office. I had met Lee a few times and always enjoyed our conversations — he was a good dude. This is a big loss for Hinds County — he was making progress correcting many of the issues that have vexed the county for the past few years. My prayers are with his family and the scores of people who loved him.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Lee Vance appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs has done public service announcements on television and in his hometown newspaper urging his constituents to get the COVID-19 vaccination.

Unfortunately, Flaggs said, he did not heed his own advice. Now Flaggs, who said he is doing well recovering from the coronavirus, is redoubling his efforts to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Absolutely, I am still encouraging people to get vaccinated,” Flaggs said Wednesday. “I was putting everybody else before myself. But it was indefensible for me not to get vaccinated. All I can do now is encourage everyone to take the vaccine.”

Flaggs confirmed earlier this week he had tested positive for COVID-19. He said he first got sick while attending the Mississippi Municipal League’s annual conference from July 26-28 in Biloxi. The event hosts mayors and thousands of other elected officials from around the state. Flaggs said he took safeguards to try to ensure he did not infect anyone else.

The third term mayor and former state House member said he had a runny nose when he left for the convention, but it did not dawn on him it might be the early stages of the coronavirus.

“I did not pay that much attention to it,” he said of the runny nose.

But soon after getting to the conference, he said he began to get body aches and feel bad.

He said he stayed in his hotel room for about 30 hours after he began to feel ill and left to travel home after he was feeling better. Upon returning home, he immediately went to get tested. He said his first test came back negative, but a second test confirmed he had the coronavirus.

Flaggs said he was fortunate that he never was severely ill. He said he briefly ran a fever, had body aches and a headache. The 68-year-old mayor said he never lost his senses of taste or smell. Flaggs said he knows COVID-19 is serious and has had family members and friends who contracted the coronavirus and died.

“It is no joke,” he said. “It is serious. I have enough experience with it to know that. I should have gotten the vaccine.”

Flaggs said he will go back to the doctor Friday and anticipates returning to city hall Monday to resume his duties.

There have been reports of other people attending the Municipal League conference contacting the virus. But Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons, who is president of the Municipal League, said he did not know of any other of the 2,000 people attending the conference getting sick.

Attendees were urged to wear masks, though they were not mandated. Plus, reports indicate that hand sanitizer was readily available throughout the event and people were urged to socially distance.

Also during the past two weeks, thousands attended the Neshoba County Fair where attendees often stayed overnight in close contact in the cabins that line the fairgrounds.

The recent surge in cases — a seven day average of 115 cases in mid June to more than 2,800 cases reported on Wednesday — has created a quandary for organizers of events like the fair and the Municipal League conference. After being canceled last summer because of COVID-19, many events organizers, based on the dramatic drop in cases earlier this year and the availability of the vaccine, assumed it would be safe to return to near business as usual.

Meanwhile, Mississippi is seeing its worst COVID-19 spike since the pandemic began in early 2020. As of this week, Mississippi hospitals are stretched thinner than they have since the pandemic began in early 2020. This is due to the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which is much more infectious than previous strains.

READ MORE: Where and how to get a COVID-19 vaccine in Mississippi

The post ‘I should have gotten the vaccine’: Vicksburg Mayor Flaggs admits mistake after contracting COVID-19 appeared first on Mississippi Today.