OurTupelo

The House passed a pair of bills on Tuesday that would reshape laws surrounding the sale of alcohol in Mississippi.

The first would allow the direct shipment of liquor to Mississippians’ homes, and the second would let local authorities pass ordinances allowing the sale of alcohol on Sundays.

House Bill 669 would allow the direct shipment of liquor. Rep. Hank Zuber, a Republican from Ocean Springs who chairs the House State Affairs Committee, said the law would bring Mississippi’s alcohol laws “into the 21st century.” 

The legislation comes after Mississippi legalized the direct shipment of some wines in 2025. Supporters fought for over a decade to get the Legislature to agree to such a measure, and it was signed by Gov. Tate Reeves last year. Rep. Brent Powell, a Republican from Brandon, said his proposal to do the same for liquor is modeled after the wine shipment legalization, using the same permitting rules that the law sets out.

The bill would also enact a 15.5% tax on each sale of “distilled spirits” made to a Mississippi resident. It defines distilled spirits as any beverage containing more than 6% of alcohol by weight produced by the distillation of fermented grain, starch, molasses or sugar.

Similar measures in the past have attracted opposition from those concerned that allowing for the direct shipment of alcohol could exacerbate alcohol abuse or hurt sales at brick-and-mortar stores.

“In my 40 years as a lawyer, I’ve made a lot of money on DUIs, so keep up the good work,” said Rep. Bob Evans, a Democrat from Monticello who voted against the bill, which passed 75-32.

House Bill 672, also authored by Powell, would give local authorities in “wet” jurisdictions, or areas of the state that legally permit alcohol sales, the power to allow permitted package retailers to sell alcoholic beverages on Sunday.

Current state law forbids liquor stores from operating on Sundays, a legacy of historical “blue laws” rooted in religious traditions. Package stores are allowed to operate from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday through Saturday. This bill would change that if entities such as counties, municipalities and tribes pass an ordinance allowing the sale of alcohol on Sunday, including both wine and liquor.

That bill passed 62-47.

Both measures will now head to the Senate for consideration.

University of Mississippi leaders plan to spend up to $10 million on tree removal and other debris cleanup on the Oxford campus because of an ice storm that caused widespread damage in the northern part of the state. 

On Monday, the IHL Board of Trustees unanimously approved increasing the amount of the university’s contract with Looks Great Services, a landscape service based in Columbia, to ensure the cleanup can be completed. The board, which oversees the state’s public universities, has to approve contracts that exceed $2 million.

Ole Miss will pay for initial services and seek reimbursements from other funding sources including Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and insurance, according to IHL. Ole Miss officials are still assessing the storm damage, and the final storm recovery costs are unclear.

“Snow, ice, power outages and blocked roads were just a few of the obstacles that stood before some of our universities including Ole Miss, Mississippi Valley State and Delta State University,” said Gee Ogletree, IHL board president. 

Classes and campus activities resumed Monday at the Oxford campus, two weeks after Winter Storm Fern coated roadways and power lines with ice, causing outages of water and power. UM college students were left reeling with the storm’s aftermath as residence halls and other campus buildings lost power throughout the week. Some students also struggled to find food. 

The storm damaged flooring in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, but the majority of campus buildings are safe, open and operating as normal, university spokesman Jacob Batte said. There is not yet a timeline for completing the cleanup efforts.  

Despite the overall storm damage, nearly 95% of the university’s Oxford campus trees survived the winter storm, Chancellor Glenn Boyce said in a letter to Ole Miss stakeholders last week. 

The university’s tree canopy, including oak trees in the Grove at the center of campus, is a key part of the campus character and landscape design.  

Other schools in northern Mississippi, including Mississippi Valley State University, Delta State University and local community colleges also sustained storm damage that resulted in extended campus closures. 

At Mississippi Valley State, storm damage included a tree limb breaking the window of an academic building. 

“We anticipated the power outage but not the tremendous amount of tree damage,” Michael Switzer, MVSU’s vice president of facilities management and capital projects, said in an email. “With a storm like this, you never know exactly what the impact will be.” 

The university’s grounds crew and contractors are working to clear the debris, Switzer said. 

Lexington police have a new interim chief after the first appointed leader resigned less than a month into the job. 

The city’s Board of Aldermen appointed Kenneth Gee as interim chief Thursday following a special meeting. 

Alderman Isaac Lindsey shared news on Facebook last week about Gee’s appointment and the resignation of former interim chief, Robert Kirklin. Some commenters on the post raised concerns about Gee’s hiring and a track record with other police departments and jobs. 

The board plans to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday so community members can share their thoughts with city officials. 

Prior to his appointment, Gee had served as an officer with the Lexington police. He was also a Republican candidate for the mayor of Jackson, where he is from. Police certification records show he also worked in Holmes County as an officer with the Durant and Tchula police departments and as acting chief in West. Gee also lists experience as a reserve officer with the Yazoo County Sheriff’s Department on his LinkedIn page.

The city expects to continue the search for a permanent police chief over the next 60 days.

Mayor Percy Washington said Kirklin previously worked for the Lexington police and retired with the department. He chose to leave the interim position due to challenges with pay and conflicts with his retirement benefits.

The Board of Aldermen had appointed Kirklin during a Jan. 10 special meeting following the dismissal of former chief Charles Henderson, whose police certification was suspended and is under review. That suspension prevents him from holding any law enforcement position. 

Henderson’s alleged violation of law enforcement ethics happened in November 2024 while he worked for the Jackson Police Department. Details about the incident are not immediately known. 

His departure also coincided with the board’s vote to adopt police reforms recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Years earlier, allegations surfaced of Lexington police’s discriminatory policing practices, excessive force and retaliation against critics, and some resulted in lawsuits. Henderson became chief in 2022 after the former chief, Sam Dobbins, was fired after a leaked recording captured him using racial and homophobic slurs when describing how he used force while on the job. 

The Justice Department opened a pattern and practice investigation into the department in 2023 and released its investigation report less than a year later, finding constitutional violations and a practice of jailing people for unpaid fines without determining whether they could afford to pay them. 

Leo Bevilacqua contributed reporting 

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wrote a $10,000 check to Mississippi’s oldest Baptist college in 2013.

Epstein sent the money  to Mississippi College less than a week before Thanksgiving that year to cover tuition for the daughter of his longtime pilot, Larry Visoski, who previously lived in Palm Beach, Florida, and flew the jet that became known as the “Lolita Express.” At the time of the check, Epstein wasn’t a household name, but he was already a registered sex offender. 

Jenny Tate, vice president of marketing communications for the college, told Mississippi Today, “Mississippi College can confirm it received a $10,000 tuition payment in 2013 for a student who was the daughter of one of Jeffrey Epstein’s employees. Our review of MC’s records indicates that MC had no other payments or contact with Epstein. Mississippi College unequivocally condemns all actions associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as these acts are incompatible with the mission and values of the University.”

The check and related emails are contained in the Justice Department’s release of more than 3 million documents related to Epstein. There is no suggestion in the documents that the Mississippi College case involved any sex-trafficking victims. 

But the documents do make more than 1,600 references to “tuition,” revealing that he paid tuition, mainly for female students, at  elite universities, massage schools, boarding schools and children’s summer camps around the world. Some are apparent victims, whose names are concealed through redactions.

Before her death, Virginia Giuffre became one of the loudest critics of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, describing how they sent her to a massage school in Thailand. She was also there, she said, “to pick up another victim and bring her back home.” 

In 2021, Giuffre sued then-Prince Andrew, alleging that he sexually abused her when she was 17. He denied the allegations but settled the lawsuit without admitting any wrongdoing. She took her own life last April just months before the release of her memoir, “Nobody’s Girl.”

With regard to Mississippi College, emails show that Visoski was upset when Epstein paid $10,000 for his daughter’s tuition, but Mississippi College didn’t refund the $8,900 Visoski had already paid toward tuition. “Not sure what I can [do] to get this money I paid back?” he wrote Epstein in a Dec. 4, 2013, email. “Any thoughts?”

It wasn’t the first time Visoski asked Epstein for cash to cover tuition. In 2012, Visoski asked Epstein for a loan to pay for tuition for the same daughter, then attending Millsaps College, as well as his other daughter, who was attending Syracuse University.

“Total $43,584.00,” Visoski wrote Epstein in a July 13, 2012, email. “Thank you.”

One daughter held her wedding at Epstein’s 7,600-acre “Zorro Ranch” in New Mexico and another got engaged there, social media posts show.

Visoski did not respond to a request for comment by phone.

From 1991 to 2019, he flew jets for Epstein. In addition to paying for the pilot’s daughters’ education, Epstein gave him 40 acres to build a house in New Mexico that includes a tennis court. A draft copy of Epstein’s will listed Visoski as a $10 million beneficiary, according to the documents released by the Justice Department.

Visoski became a key witness against Maxwell, and she is now serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and transporting minors for illegal sex acts.

He testified that he flew Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Kevin Spacey, but he said he never knowingly flew minors and denied witnessing any evidence of sexual activity.

Emails show Visoski sometimes delivered females to Epstein. A Feb. 4, 2015, email shows Visoski telling a driver to pick up a female at the JFK International Airport and take her to the closest private airport, located in Teterboro, New Jersey — the same airport Epstein allegedly used to deliver dozens of sex slaves to the famous.

Visoski wasn’t the only employee whose children received tuition gifts from Epstein. So did the daughters of Bella Klein, who served as Epstein’s accountant. Epstein paid up to $25,000 a year for them to attend the Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented in Brooklyn as well as summer camp, according to emails.

Epstein paid more than $70,000 in tuition for four children of the first lady of the Virgin Islands. “Never ends,” Epstein emailed his lawyer, Darren Indyke, a central figure in ongoing investigations into Epstein’s network.

Indyke has been accused of making payments from Epstein’s personal accounts, totaling over $2.5 million, to dozens of women for expenses that included tuition, rent and hotel stays. His lawyers have said he knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes.

In 2005, Palm Beach police began investigating Epstein after a 14-year-old girl’s parents told them that he paid her for a massage. 

Two years later, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to two state charges in Florida and register as a sex offender in exchange for a nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors that gave Epstein immunity. Before that deal, they had planned on indicting Epstein with 60 counts of sex trafficking.

In 2018, the Miami Herald exposed the role of then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta in Epstein’s “sweetheart deal.” A month later, Epstein was found dead in a federal detention facility in Manhattan. The New York City chief medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Once again, we find ourselves debating the purported merits of school choice – the familiar claim that it is a benevolent mission to save poor children trapped in low-performing public schools. I would argue that this narrative is deeply misleading.

What is framed as reform is, in reality, a last-gasp effort to abandon one of our most essential public goods, a strong system of public education that sustains an informed citizenry and is essential to economic development.

When businesses look for communities in which to locate and grow, the quality of the public schools is not incidental. It is often a tipping point. Employers want a stable educated workforce, communities that attract and retain families, and a place to send their own children.

Why then, would legislators vote against their own community’s long-term prospects? Why would business leaders endorse policies that undermine the very conditions that foster economic vitality?

And geographically speaking, which parents are likely to benefit from “choice” most? Too often, it is those who already have it. Honestly speaking, how is that fair? 

Investing strategically in our public schools and their teachers is what makes public schools good, as is the accountability that accompanies those investments.

My own  20-year investment enabled a close scrutiny of what public schools need to be effective. They need our involvement and constructive evidence-based legislation, such as we saw in the Literacy-Based Promotion Act that put Mississippi on a path to become a model for the nation.

It is readily known that the top states promoting school choice have gone backward in student achievement while Mississippi’s public schools have moved ahead. Our national rankings in 4th-grade reading prove the point that strategic investment works. And it works for our poorest kids.

If school choice is truly about expanding opportunity, consider for a moment what our state would look like if our children scatter across a patchwork of inconsistently regulated options, not knowing where they land, what qualifications their “teachers” will have, if their special needs will be met and whether they are being held to a standard that equips them to become self-reliant individuals

That is not a reliable system. It is a gamble. 

Realistically, few will even have a choice, and even fewer a meaningful one. The promise of “choice” is an illusion, masking a deliberate unraveling of a public system designed to serve a common good.

What, exactly, is American about that? 

Bio: Jim Barksdale of Jackson is a business owner and philanthropist. He is former chief executive officer of Netscape. In 2000, Barksdale created  a program to improve reading levels of Mississippi children. Jim and Donna Barksdale also are Mississippi Today donors and founding board members. Donors do not in any way influence our newsroom’s editorial decisions. For more on that policy or to view a list of our donors, click here. 

YALOBUSHA COUNTY — Power outages and icy, blocked roads caused by Winter Storm Fern were more than an inconvenience for Rubijo Purdy. They were a threat to her life. 

Without electricity in her home, Purdy couldn’t charge the ventilator she needs for help breathing at night. 

After a couple of days without the ventilator and supplemental oxygen, she had to get help. Each day, for three days, she pulled the 20-pound device up a hill from her home to her car parked on the nearby main road. 

Purdy has osteoporosis. Using a cane, she ducked under fallen pines and climbed over collapsed cypresses in her driveway. She carefully crossed the icy mud and gravel path up the hill.

She was afraid she wouldn’t make it, but she did. She drove to a nearby hospital, where staff  charged her ventilator. By the end of that week on Jan. 31, a concerned community member used a chainsaw to cut the fallen limbs and trees, and a neighbor lent her a generator. 

More than two weeks after the ice storm, Yalobusha County residents are still facing persistent power outages and dead trees that loom ominously over bedrooms and porches.

Yalobusha County is in heavily wooded and hilly north central Mississippi, about a two-hour drive north of Jackson on I-55.

On Thursday, more than a third of the county’s roughly 12,500  residents were still without power — including Purdy. Uprooted and mangled trees piled up in many front yards in the county. Clearings and stumps replaced areas that once were densely wooded. County government workers in T-shirts and with bags under their eyes tended to their cold and hungry — residents in an agricultural complex outside Coffeeville. 

Twenty-nine deaths are attributed to the ice storm so far, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency announced Friday.

As of Tuesday morning, roughly 1,100 customers, or 14%, were still without power in Yalobusha County — the second-highest percentage of any county in Mississippi. Only Benton County in the northeast corner of the state had a higher percentage of residents without electricity, at about 33%. 

Yalobusha County officials estimate it will take 60 days to remove all storm debris from local roads with financial help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Mississippi Emergency Management agency.

The cold snap from Fern didn’t last long, but the damage did. Workers are still cleaning up fallen trees and broken limbs. They’re still repairing downed power lines.

“It’s like a tornado went through here,” Purdy said, pointing to stretches of forest where nearly every tree was either bent or snapped. She drove over at least four downed power lines that lay loose on the road like shriveled, black ribbons. Still more hung above the road through bent branches like drooping, thin garlands.

Tempers flare amid ongoing storm recovery

County leaders opened a warming shelter and emergency supplies depot in the county multipurpose building as soon as roads were safe for travel. 

But some locals still without power are criticizing the speed of local leaders’ response, and county officials are trying to be more transparent about the recovery effort. They’re posting regular updates on Facebook. At supervisors’ meetings, they are explaining the process of accepting bids for contracted county work.

Frustrations over the storm recovery have fueled discontent. 

On Thursday, the Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Office shared in a Facebook post that deputies are now guarding linemen, who have been threatened. A later post announced the arrest of Douglas Pullen, who deputies charged with telephone harassment, which they say was directed toward Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Authority and its employees.

At a meeting of the Yalobusha County Board of Supervisors on Thursday, President Cayce Washington said Brad Robison, CEO of Tallahatchie Valley Authority Electric Power Association, relocated his family after receiving death threats. A majority of the remaining Mississippians without power are TVA Electric Power Association customers concentrated in Yalobusha, Tallahatchie, Lafayette, and Panola counties.

As linemen worked their way down country roads in bucket trucks, county officials were choosing contractors to clear the twisted trees in their way. The forest surrounding the community had thinned noticeably, with mangled trunks and sideways branches.

By Thursday morning, the corner conference room on the third floor of the Yalobusha County Circuit Courthouse was full of contractors, some from as far as Texas and as near as Picayune. Washington passed their requests for proposals to the other board members seated in red cushioned high back chairs.

FEMA and the MEMA would help fund debris removal across the county. The county had to hire a company to remove storm debris, a firm to monitor that company, and a consultant to ensure the process follows federal and state guidelines. 

After two hours of deliberation, supervisors approved a debris removal contract with Texas-based TFR Enterprises for roughly $3.4 million, which was calculated by the county based on the contractor’s rate per cubic yard.

The costs of the storm and rural life

For county residents in the more rural neighborhoods, the ice storm’s devastation proved particularly costly. The bucolic charm and affordable living came at the cost of proximity to emergency services. It also meant that people live with energy infrastructure that’s more susceptible to extreme weather.

Purdy lives in an area so rural the road doesn’t appear on Google Maps. Mobile homes and shacks sit beside multilevel estates and A-frames. The neighborhood has families from various income brackets.

Purdy also lived through the 1994 winter storm, which caused extensive damage including about $1.3 billion in damaged timber, more than 8,000 downed utility poles, lost water service for 741,000 customers and up to 300,000 Entergy customers without power in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, according to the National Weather Service.

Last week, about five power lines were still down on Purdy’s street, with snapped trees propping up the wires.

“We all like to live in the woods,” Purdy said, “but when this happens, boy, it gets costly.”

Meanwhile, county residents who could not leave their homes are figuring out ways to prepare meals and stay warm without power. They’re also covering unexpected costs for fuel, batteries and trips to the laundromat.

Diane Watson-Williams stayed in a room at the closest available hotel — nearly an hour and a half away in Tunica. She estimated that she has spent more than $1,000 on delivered meals and restaurant takeout.

“It’s been a really rough week and a half,” she said. 

Williams sent some of her family members to stay with a relative in Nashville, but she couldn’t leave her disabled father alone in his home. She was nervous of the loose power lines and meters, and the risk of electrical fires. 

She has been juggling family obligations and work, driving for access to reliable Wi-Fi to complete her work as an escrow agent. Williams said she is grateful to receive regular updates from Tallahatchie Valley EPA, but she wonders where they were immediately after the storm.

“I feel like the county within itself has been forgotten about,” she said. “After those first two nights, it had gotten really cold for me, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Over a half dozen Yalobusha County residents told Mississippi Today they are depleting their savings as local schools and job sites remain closed. Utility poles and trees still block roads across the mostly rural county.

Williams had to throw away hundreds of dollars of food, as well. She hopes her insurance company will reimburse her hotel room cost, but she said the power company wouldn’t confirm the power outage so she could qualify. 

Other residents might face unexpected medical costs. 

Timmy McCoy, a nurse practitioner at Progressive Health of Batesville hospital, has seen an uptick in hypothermia patients. Many patients have also sought care for broken hips and other injuries from falls.

“The only thing that I know that we can do is just pray and keep looking forward,” he said. “The people in Yalobusha have been Yalobusha County strong.”

Volunteers and community groups are also helping residents by providing storm recovery essentials. 

The Yalobusha County Multipurpose Building outside Coffeeville is temporarily a warming center and supply depot.

A crew prepared and served meals with help from World Central Kitchen and Gunny Cole, a Tennessee-based U.S. Marine Corps veteran and perennial volunteer in wake of natural disasters in the region. The American Red Cross donated blankets for distribution. 

Darrel Cole, a county resident, said he has felt immense gratitude for the county government workers who ensured he received a propane tank and other supplies. In the remote area where he lives, many homes had damage to roofs and vehicles. Large branches nearly missed his mobile home but did nick his porch.

“This community stood together,” he said. “It’s a small place. Everybody knows everybody. There’s a lot of people helping out, some that I grew up with, some that I haven’t seen in years.”

Mack Parker, a Lions Club International member, survived the 2021 winter storm that led to a grid failure where he lived in central Texas before he moved to Yalobusha County. He felt more connected to the community in the wake of the winter storm. 

“It’s important to know your neighbor because you never know who is going to be in need,” Parker said. “It’s just been crazy to see the magnitude of it. Everyone has been impacted.”

Update, 2/10/2026: This story has been updated with power outage numbers for Tuesday morning, Feb. 10.

Senate President Pro tem Dean Kirby, a Republican from Pearl, gives an update on school choice, state support for areas devastated by the winter storm, and serving in the position known as “the senators’ senator.” Kirby said the state will help areas hit by Winter Storm Fern, but says damages will be in the billions and full recovery will be a long-term process.

Bill Cork, director of the Mississippi Development Authority, on Monday made the case that Mississippi’s economy is ascendent, citing multi-billion dollar deals, strategic efforts from his office and the governor and new jobs.

At the Stennis Capitol Press Forum, Cork, who was nominated by Gov. Tate Reeves in December of 2023 to run the state’s economic development agency, gave the audience a recap of MDA’s accomplishments in 2025. He said the state saw over $21 billion in capital investment in 2025, in addition to a $20 billion xAI deal that was announced in early 2026. 

Cork said that he is frequently asked whether Mississippi can deliver the workforce a project needs. He thinks it’s possible to “move the needle for Mississippi by recruiting companies that take lower-skill, lower-wage employees and convert them int0 the high-skill, high-wage, family sustaining careers.” 

He cited Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s workforce development program launched in 2021, as an example of how the state has better positioned itself to meet business needs and attract new investment. This includes changing from corporate incentives that are paid up front to a tax credit system based on metrics such as investment and making sites ready for investors. 

Recently, data centers have been a top source of capital investment for the state and across the South, including a large deal with Amazon for Mississippi. Cork talked about the advanced computing, sophisticated technology, jobs and innovative engineers that come with these projects, benefits beyond the millions of local taxes data centers bring.

Data centers are cropping up all over the South with plentiful land, energy availability and friendlier regulations. In the past few years, five clusters have been announced across Mississippi. But some residents have raised concerns about impacts to the water and air quality, noise pollution, the relatively few jobs these projects bring considering the investment, and primarily, energy utility costs for customers.

Cork said that he does not want data centers to raise electricity rates customers pay. He added that some companies are investing to expand the existing grid, such as Amazon, or provide their own power, such as xAI. In addition, the state is looking to expand energy production.  

“I think the more important question we need to ask about data centers is what is each individual data center doing and scrutinize them on a one-off basis rather than lumping them all into one,” Cork said.

Most of the slides Cork presented on Monday can be seen on MDA’s website. 

Mississippi environmental officials will hold a hearing Feb. 17 where members of the public can comment on a proposed permit to run 41 new turbines at xAI’s facility in Southaven. 

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at Northwest Mississippi Community College’s DeSoto County campus in Southaven.

The public has until the day of the hearing to submit comments to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality through the agency’s website or in writing to the Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board at P.O. Box 2261, Jackson, MS 39225. 

The company, owned by Elon Musk, is looking to add the turbines to its facility that help power large data centers just outside Memphis. The news comes just after Mississippi leaders boasted about a record-setting $20 billion investment from the company to build a new data center in Southaven. With this new investment, the state now has five large data center projects in the works.

In recent months, residents in north Mississippi criticized the state for allowing xAI to run 18 “temporary-mobile” turbines without an air permit. As of Dec.18, xAI had added nine more turbines – bringing the total to 27, MDEQ said, adding that the turbines have “air pollution control devices.”

The agency contends that those turbines fall under an exception that lets the generators run without a permit as long as they operate for less than a year.

The other 41 turbines at the site, though, won’t be temporary, meaning they require an air permit. Specifically, they will have the potential to emit volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide, the hearing notice says. Exposure to those chemicals can lead to a wide range of health impacts, including nausea, headaches and respiratory issues, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Neighbors of the facility have complained about constant humming noises from the turbines since August, despite Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite saying months ago he expected it would be a temporary issue. 

Just north in Memphis, xAI already has faced similar public criticism over using temporary turbines to run its two data centers there. But after receiving pushback from groups such as the NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center, xAI eventually applied for air permits for its Memphis centers before moving the smaller, temporary turbines to Mississippi.

Data centers are sprouting up across the United States to power the AI boom. Recently, there’s been a flurry of projects across the South. While these projects are bringing in billions of dollars in investment, they are also drawing concerns over the large amount of water and energy that these projects demand. 

Does new EPA rule change permit requirements for xAI?

On Jan. 15, the federal Environmental Protection Agency finalized new air pollution standards that include a subcategory for temporary generators. While the new rules create a lower standard for temporary turbines, attorneys and Mississippi regulators disagree over how those requirements apply to the xAI site.

“The rule does not mandate that permitting authorities issue air permits for temporary turbines,” MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer wrote in an email. “That decision remains with each state, based on its own permitting regulations.”

Moreover, “portable” turbines are exempt from Mississippi’s air permitting laws, Schaefer added, saying “nothing in the new EPA rule changes that determination.” 

Amanda Garcia, an attorney who led the Southern Environmental Law Center’s fight against xAI in Memphis, said MDEQ is misinterpreting the new rules. She argued the rule doesn’t create an exemption for portable turbines. The new standards lower the regulatory burden for temporary turbines, but the EPA still requires them to have permits, Garcia said. 

“While that burden may be reduced, EPA does not leave it up to states to decide whether to require permits for temporary turbines,” she said. “State air agencies are not free to follow less stringent rules than EPA’s, and MDEQ must comply with the Clean Air Act.”

Mississippi Today has made multiple attempts to clarify with the EPA its own standards. In November, when asked whether MDEQ was following federal law, EPA instead blamed Democrats for the recently ended federal government shutdown, adding that it was working “expeditiously” to finalize its new rule. 

When reached on Jan. 29, the agency again provided little clarity, telling Mississippi Today instead to ask the state environmental agency about specific cases.

“It should be noted that source-specific air permitting questions are necessarily case-specific, often because their answers depend on a variety of factors and applicable requirements that may differ depending on the specific location of the source,” the EPA replied in an email.

In a recent interview on Fox Business, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency was working “very closely” with officials in Shelby County, Tennessee – where Memphis is located – and Mississippi “as they go through their permitting process to allow xAI to go forward.” Speeding the permitting process to “unleash energy dominance” is a “top priority” for President Donald Trump, Zeldin added. 

Seeing who is at the front door before you open it can mean the difference between danger and safety, or even life and death for a domestic violence survivor. 

To help victims stay safe and potentially document the presence of an abuser, the state attorney general’s office on Monday announced a partnership with Amazon, which is donating 1,000 Ring doorbell and outdoor video cameras to the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“When that victim is going through that long, hard journey to survivorship, anything we can all do that helps restore their sense of security, their safety and their peace of mind is so important,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch during a press conference. 

The domestic violence coalition will distribute the cameras to the state’s dozen domestic violence service organizations to get them to survivors across Mississippi. Each camera comes with a complimentary subscription that covers the lifetime of the device. 

Joy Jones, executive director of the coalition, said the Ring cameras will go to people who have left a shelter and are in independent or transitional housing.

The coalition received the cameras toward the end of last year, and some of the service organizations started giving them out to survivors for Christmas.

“They’re not just cameras,” Jones said. “They’ll help survivors reclaim a sense of control and security in their homes.” 

In addition, the donated cameras can help domestic abuse survivors navigate the justice system. 

Fitch said the donated cameras could be valuable for survivors who have a domestic abuse protection order and are trying to keep an abuser from getting near them. If that person comes onto their property, the camera could capture the individual’s presence, verifying that the order has been violated.

Ashla Hudson, a member of the domestic violence coalition, sees the donated cameras as a way to help keep victims and survivors aware of their surroundings and support their safety. 

She is the mother of Carlos Collins, a nurse who lived in Jackson and was allegedly killed by an ex-partner in April 2024. Hudson said her son’s Ring camera captured footage of his attack, and that video is a key part of the murder case. The first degree murder trial for Marcus Johnson, who allegedly shot Collins multiple times, began Monday in Hinds County Circuit Court. 

“If something does happen, (the footage) can strengthen their cases,” Hudson said about how Ring cameras can be useful for survivors. 

Fitch is among several attorneys general who have partnered with Ring and domestic violence coalitions to receive donated cameras from the company in recent weeks.  

Ring has collaborated with the National Network to End Domestic Violence since 2022. The company has donated nearly $12 million worth of doorbell and outdoor cameras to over 750 nonprofit organizations, said Terreta Rodgers, head of community engagement for Amazon in Mississippi. 

The technology company started its donation program in 2021 after learning from a Texas domestic violence organization that reported success with Ring. One of the survivors who received a camera was able to activate her safety plan when her camera alerted her that her abuser was at her residence with a weapon, Rodgers said. 

Fitch said she has made domestic violence a priority during her time as attorney general through resources through the office’s Bureau of Victim Assistance, registries for law enforcement and the courts to track domestic violence incidents and protection orders and training for law enforcement to handle domestic violence calls.