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Wendy Varnado still remembers running behind the mosquito trucks. When she was a child in Edwards, in western Hinds County, in the 1980s, the trucks sprayed a haze of chemicals that mixed with engine smoke to create a dense fog the neighborhood children played in.

These days, mosquito trucks spray an ultra low volume mist that is nearly invisible, and Varnado, the Mississippi state public health entomologist, sees them in a different light. They’re now a tool she can harness against mosquito-borne diseases, including the most common one in Mississippi, West Nile virus.

There are now five confirmed human cases of West Nile virus in Mississippi this year in Hancock, Lincoln and Madison counties. This number is an undercount, Varnado said, because only a small percentage of cases are severe enough to send patients to the hospital where they can be tested. 

While people can be infected with West Nile throughout the mosquito season, human diagnoses peak in August and early September. As Mississippi reports more positive cases of West Nile virus in mosquitoes, an early indicator of impending human infections, experts emphasize the importance of local surveillance and reducing mosquito breeding grounds.

The majority of people who get infected with West Nile virus don’t show any symptoms, said Santos Portugal, an urban entomologist at Mississippi State University. About one in five will develop symptoms like a fever, headaches and body aches. Less than one in a 100 may develop a severe disease that spreads into the nervous system and can cause swelling in the brain. Elderly and immunocompromised people are at higher risk for complications, including chronic fatigue, memory loss and in rare cases, death.

“Mississippians should recognize that West Nile virus is very serious,” Portugal said. “(It’s) not something people should necessarily be afraid of, just something to be understood and do what you can to protect yourself.”

Surveillance and control

Having up-to-date counts of where mosquitoes are infected with West Nile virus is one of the most powerful tools for disease prevention, Varnado told Mississippi Today.

“The mosquitoes tell you everything,” she said. “You can have at least a two week lead time on human cases by monitoring mosquito population, and two weeks is a long time to be able to do some intervention work.”

Out of 82 counties in Mississippi, only 11 have programs to routinely trap mosquitoes and send samples to the Mississippi Department of Health for testing. Nine have reported mosquitoes with West Nile virus.

The patchwork surveillance effort all goes back to funding, Varnado said. Some states have special “mosquito control districts” and raise money through local taxes for their mosquito programs, but Mississippi does not. Many counties contract with an external pest management company for their mosquito control. 

Harrison County is one of the few counties with a dedicated mosquito control program that includes surveillance, mosquito control and education efforts. Director Gene Fayard has a seven person team, including someone dedicated to setting up traps across the county. 

Every week, his team sorts through the collected mosquitoes and sends vials with female mosquitos to the Mississippi Department of Health, which has equipment to test for West Nile and the less common Zika and Chikungunya diseases.

Other personnel handle mosquito management. Mosquito trucks break up a liquid “adulticide” into micron sized droplets that kills adult mosquitoes upon contact. Another option is “larvacide,” which attacks mosquitoes in their juvenile stage. Many larvicides, including the ones found in stores, are based on naturally occurring bacteria that specifically target mosquitoes. 

Of the two methods, larvicide is cheaper, more efficient and often better for the environment, Varnado said. Mosquitoes breed in or around standing water, and in their active months of roughly April to October, a ditch by the side of the road can contain thousands of larvae. 

“It’s just easier to kill a million when they’re in a pothole,” she said.

But, she added, people like to see the mosquito truck, a tangible sign that mosquito control efforts are taking place. 

“The spray truck isn’t the end all be all,” she cautioned. “It’s the surveillance and it’s the larviciding and it’s those prevention and source reduction activities. That’s where you’re gonna get all the bang for your buck.”

Be aware, but ‘don’t be a hermit’

The mosquito species that carries West Nile in Mississippi is Culex quinquefasciatus, also known as the southern house mosquito. As the name suggests, this species is commonly found around human dwellings. 

“This is an urban breeder,” Varnado said. “Things you do around your home make a difference with this mosquito.”

Portugal, who has a focus on mosquito education, said he encourages people to clean up potential breeding grounds around their home. 

He’s met people who didn’t realize the ‘wiggly things in the bucket of water behind the shed’ are actually mosquito larvae, and that dumping the bucket could reduce the presence of mosquitoes around their home. Other common culprits are clogged gutters and storm drains filled with organic matter such as grass clippings. 

The southern house mosquito likes “stinky water” and like most mosquitoes, doesn’t fly far.

“If you go outside and you’re just getting pelted by mosquitoes, depending on the species, there’s a good chance that the breeding source is actually pretty close to where you are,” he said. 

The Harrison County mosquito program also does outreach, including at local schools and community events. They got their first positive mosquito samples in late July, although no human cases yet. As much as he wants people to be aware of the mosquito-borne illnesses, Fayard keeps the danger in perspective. Because there is a relatively small chance of developing a severe case, he doesn’t want to discourage people from spending time outside.

“Use repellent, try not to be outdoors at dusk and dawn. That’s the most active time,” he said. “Long pants when possible, but don’t panic, don’t stay inside and be a hermit.”

The Mississippi Supreme Court on Wednesday permanently disbarred Jody Owens, the former Hinds County district attorney who recently resigned after pleading guilty to a federal charge of conspiring to commit bribery. 

The move was expected after the Mississippi Bar sought to suspend Owens from practicing law by filing a complaint with the state’s high court earlier this month. Shortly after, Owens filed a motion indicating he would voluntarily resign. 

Owens pleaded guilty to the federal felony charge in June, two weeks before he was set to go on trial in a case stemming from an FBI operation that rocked Mississippi’s capital city.

Owens learned Wednesday afternoon that he was disbarred from a Mississippi Today reporter. He was working from his private downtown Jackson office, the space that prosecutors said Owens called his “War Room.” 

“In 20 years I did wonderful things with my law license and certainly impacted thousands of lives in Mississippi and I’ll always be proud of that,” he said, referring to the work he did as the former head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mississippi branch.

“The problem right now is the world is so toxic,” he added. “You say ‘SPLC’ and people can’t wait to jump on you.”

The SPLC was recently indicted in Alabama on federal fraud charges.

A native of Terry in southern Hinds County, Owens was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 2006. He won election as Hinds County’s top prosecutor in 2019, besting two rivals in the Democratic primary, and avoided a runoff. 

A self-proclaimed “progressive prosecutor,” Owens eventually caught the eye of federal authorities. Beginning as early as 2023, two undercover FBI agents posed as real estate developers seeking to build a convention center hotel in downtown Jackson on a plot of land for which the city had previously obtained a federal loan to develop.

The agents enlisted an unsuspecting Owens, who has also worked in real estate, to connect them to powerful Jacksonians, including now-former Jackson City Council Member Aaron Banks and former Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, according to a lengthy indictment unveiled in the fall of 2024. 

The two other elected officials also pleaded guilty in connection to the federal bribery case, one week after Owens. 

Owens’ sentencing is set for Oct. 15 before Judge Daniel P. Jordan III in the Southern District of Mississippi. He faces up to five years in prison. 

The now-former attorney isn’t quite ready to reveal what he plans to do next. But he’s recently been taking inspiration from the 1996 movie “The Preacher’s Wife.” 

“As the Whitney Houston song goes, ‘I believe in miracles,’” he said.

Months after Mayor John Horhn warned Mississippi’s capital city faced a hefty budget shortfall, a narrow majority of the Jackson City Council refused to formally declare that is the case. 

On paper, Jackson has a deficit, but that doesn’t mean the city is truly facing a shortfall this year since the administration took steps to curb spending. 

During Tuesday’s council meeting, four of Jackson’s seven council members voted down an order that would have amended the budget for the fiscal year 2026, which ends Sept. 30, in line with a state law requiring municipalities to redo appropriations in the event of lower-than-estimated revenues. 

The city’s Department of Finance and Administration had recommended the council adopt the order because Jackson is projected to bring in about $112 million in revenues to its general fund – $23 million less than the $135 million general fund budget the council passed last fall. 

Council members who rejected the order argued Tuesday that doesn’t mean the city is short on money, with Ward 1 Council Member Ashby Foote pointing to steps the administration took to successfully keep spending in line with real revenues. 

“I’m still not convinced that we’re going to have a deficit, OK?” said Foote, who joined Ward 2 Council Member Tina Clay, Ward 3 Council Member Kenneth Stokes and Ward 4 Council Member Brian Grizzell in opposing the order. 

The vote surprised the city’s chief administrative officer, Pieter Teeuwissen, who had been so concerned about Jackson’s general fund that he ordered a citywide hiring freeze.

But the vote came as affirmation to Clay, the previous chair of the city’s Finance Committee who recently led a series of meetings to understand Jackson’s troubled finances. 

For months, Clay has said Jackson is not facing a deficit and that the council knew when it passed the $135 million general fund budget that it was an estimate – not a reflection of what the city would actually spend. At Tuesday’s meeting, she nodded vigorously when Foote questioned the need for the order. 

“Mr. Foote, I appreciate you, because that’s what I’ve been saying the whole time,” she said. “So no, we don’t really have to do this. It’s just us wanting to do this.” 

Council members Kevin Parkinson of Ward 7, Lashia Brown-Thomas of Ward 6 and Vernon Hartley of Ward 5 voted for the order.

“There is a deficit, so we need to pass this,” Hartley said. 

Jackson’s city budget is about $330 million, with most of the money dedicated for specific uses. The disagreement focuses on the city’s general fund which is made up of local taxes and can be more flexibly spent. 

In December, a consultant estimated the budget the council passed would result in a shortfall if the administration did not make changes to rein in spending. Teeuwissen and the city’s budget office followed suit, with budget documents provided to the council on Tuesday showing Jackson won’t spend more than it takes in this year. 

Nonetheless, Parkinson pointed out that the fiscal year 2026 budget still shows the original inflated estimate of $135 million. If the council did not vote for the order, Parkinson fretted, a future audit could flag the city for having a deficit this year. 

“We will not have all the revenues that we initially forecasted that we would have when we passed the budget,” he said, adding he believed, “we are therefore required to amend the budget.”

A federal government commission is set to release by Friday its decision on a proposed natural gas pipeline that would cross the full width of Mississippi.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. and Southern Natural Gas Co., both a part of the giant Kinder Morgan network, are looking to build the new infrastructure to increase gas capacity in the southeastern United States.

The project would connect to already existing pipelines and transport gas from Greenville across 10 Mississippi counties — Washington, Humphreys, Holmes, Attala, Leake, Neshoba, Newton, Lauderdale and Clarke — to Butler, Alabama. The company would also build new compressor stations in Humphreys, Attala and Lauderdale counties.

The 206 miles of new pipeline would provide up to 1.5 billion cubic feet a day of added transportation capacity, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The $1.7-billion project would create 750 temporary jobs and 15 permanent positions, according to Kinder Morgan.

FERC, which is in charge of approving interstate transmission projects such as this, released a final environmental study of the project in June. The agency wrote that while the project would have “some limited adverse environmental impacts,” mitigation measures would render those effects “less than significant.”

In a March letter, environmental groups, including Mississippi Rising Coalition, questioned the project’s impact on the over 2,000 water bodies it would cross and said it would “irreparably harm wildlife habitat.”

“(The proposal) will lock the Southeast into decades more of reliance on a dirty, volatile, and expensive form of energy that comes at a particularly high price for those on or near the Projects,” the groups wrote.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, whose reservation in Neshoba County is adjacent to the planned route, also expressed concerns. Melanie Carson, the tribal historic preservation officer, said the pipeline companies have offered little communication despite the route’s proximity to tribal land. One of her biggest concerns is that the infrastructure would cross the Pearl River, a valued natural resource for the tribe.

“At the end of the day, we feel like we were not properly consulted,” Carson said. “Just sending me an email to read stuff is not proper consultation. I’ve had no meetings with these people for the Mississippi Crossing (project).”

In March, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs criticized the companies for not engaging with MBCI, and wrote that the proposed route overlaps with tribal land in Leake County. But both Tennessee Pipeline Gas Co. and FERC disagreed — the latter suggested in its June study that the pipeline wouldn’t impact historic property.

Carson argued the agency lacks the institutional knowledge to make such a determination.

“We’re looking for not just how it’s going to affect us modern day, but how it potentially affects parts of our history that we want to keep intact and things that we use today for cultural reasons,” she said.

‘Let’s make the best of it‘

For the last 30 years, Tony Kinton has owned land in Leake County where he hunts and grows timber. A nature writer and photographer, the 77-year-old described the 200-acre property as a sanctuary.

“I mostly just go up there to kind of remember who I am,” Kinton said.

A couple years ago, he said, he received a letter saying that a proposed pipeline would go across his property. While Kinton said he would have preferred to keep his land undisturbed, he soon recognized he had little choice in the matter.

In the 1940s, Congress gave gas companies the ability to acquire land for pipelines through eminent domain, a process landowners can challenge in court.

Kinton said the companies were “professional and gracious,” working with him to adjust the route through his property to avoid any spring heads or hardwood forest. He also said he negotiated a price but couldn’t disclose the amount. While the pipeline would ultimately go through a patch of pine trees on Kinton’s land, he figured that was the best outcome he could manage.

“It’s going to happen, so let’s make the best of it,” he told Mississippi Today. “Like I say, I’d rather have the trees than the check. But that’s sentiment, that’s not necessarily a financial thing.”

Multiple people have received letters giving notice of an anticipated civil lawsuit by the family of Nolan Xavier Wells, a community college football player whose body was found near Horn Island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast two days after he went there with friends to celebrate the Fourth of July. 

A copy of the letter was provided to some news organizations by recipients, and was published. The attorney who sent the letter, Gary Bufkin, was not immediately available for comment Tuesday and he did not confirm that he sent the letter to the other outlets. 

The letters direct recipients to immediately preserve all evidence in their possession, control or custody in their original form. They are also directed to suspend any automatic deletion or overwrite functions on cellphones, computers, video cameras and other devices. 

Most of the letter’s pages are dedicated to the types of evidence recipients should save, broken down by nearly 20 categories, which generally fall into communications; photos, audio and video recordings; metadata for content; records about place and location; and law enforcement and prosecutorial records. 

Bufkin is representing Wells’ estate in Jackson County Chancery Court. The teenager’s mother Christine Wonsley was appointed administrator the week of his funeral. 

Ridgeland-based Carroll Bufkin PLCC, Bufkin’s firm, is working with national civil rights attorney Ben Crump, whom Christine and Elmore Wonsley hired days after Wells’ death. 

Crump’s firm is investigating the death of the Black teenager and pushing for autopsy and other investigative records. A Mississippi-based firm is handling estate matters in state court because Crump is not admitted to practice law in Mississippi. 

A spokesperson from Crump’s office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. 

The letters are dated July 20, the same day of the 18-year-old’s funeral in Ocean Springs attended by hundreds of people, including family, friends, teammates and community members. 

On Tuesday, the estate’s attorney sent several subpoenas to technology companies that run social media applications including Facebook, TikTok and SnapChat.  

Wells celebrated the Fourth of July with others by taking a boat to Horn Island, a Gulf Coast barrier island where people dock boats, wade in the water and walk on the shore of the barrier island. Hundreds of people were on the island that day, according to photos and videos.

He was reported missing after he did not return to Ocean Springs. Investigators have said his friends told them he wanted to stay behind to talk with a woman and that he planned to get a boat ride off the island. Two days later, a U.S. park ranger found his body off the northwestern tip of the barrier island that is about 8 miles offshore.

Last week, a few county and state officials commented about Wells’ case, some for the first time.

Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath, who previously met with Wells’ parents,  repeated in a Thursday video statement what she previously relayed to the family, that the state’s autopsy report would not be released publicly until grand jury review. 

McIlrath said state rules direct investigators and prosecutors not to make comments or release information that could affect the integrity of those processes.

“I understand the public’s urgency to understand what happened to Nolan. But we are not taking time for time’s sake,” she said. “We are taking the time required to complete the work this investigation demands.” 

Grand juries listen to evidence presented by prosecutors to decide whether anyone should be indicted on criminal charges and potentially go to trial. Their proceedings are not open to the public, and jurors are prohibited from talking about grand jury proceedings and disclosure of any indictments cannot be made until six months after final adjournment, according to state rules.

McIlrath did not say in the video whether the law enforcement investigation is complete or when the next grand jury will be convened. Generally, grand juries meet a few times a year across the state, and its members are chosen randomly from a list of registered voters in the county.  

Jackson County does not list its grand jury terms online. Neighboring Harrison and Hancock counties are in a separate circuit district and their grand juries meet twice a year, according to the circuit court directory and terms list published by the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office. 

The same day McIlrath released her statement, state Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell spoke with Mississippi Public Broadcasting about the Wells case, including how law enforcement handles investigations and why updates are generally not quickly shared with the public. 

He mentioned that the FBI is investigating threats against people involved in the case, including witnesses, Wells’ family, and local and state public officials. Tindell reminded people that intimidating witnesses and public officials is a felony. 

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch released a statement after Tindell’s interview extending prayers to Wells’ family and standing by the professionalism of law enforcement, the district attorney and other local leaders working on the case. 

Like Tindell and McIlrath, Fitch asked for people to respect the integrity of the investigation process, saying that efforts to intimidate, disrupt or interfere with the work of law enforcement and prosecutors or threaten their well-being “will be taken seriously and we will hold those who make them accountable.”

Also on Thursday, Gov. Tate Reeves made his first public comments about Wells on X, but he did not mention the teenager or offer condolences to his parents. 

Instead, Reeves accused the family’s attorney, Crump, of lying about facts in the case and about Mississippi. The governor extended the criticism to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has spoken in support of Wells’ family, including at the funeral. Reeves wrote that “Crump, Sharpton and their ilk don’t care about facts” – facts that he is confident will be released from the Jackson County investigators and the State Medical Examiner’s Office. 

The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame’s induction weekend is this weekend and the Clevelands discuss all of the Class of 2026, including former Mississippi State and NFL great Glen Collins. Collins joins us in studio to discuss his career, which began at at Whitten Junior High, continued at Jim Hill High School and then State. His second year at Mississippi State coincided with Rick’s first year at the Clarion Ledger when Rick was the Mississippi State beat writer. They share some poignant memories.

As public opposition to data centers has grown in Mississippi, the government economic incentives available to companies have come under increasing scrutiny online and in city hall meetings. 

Data centers are eligible for state and local tax incentives that proponents and some officials say are essential to bring projects to the state, but critics disagree.

Standard data center tax exemptions

Most data centers, such as xAI, Compass and AVAIO, have opted for the data center tax exemption created by the Legislature. This does not require further special legislation for a company to receive it.

The standard incentive includes a 10-year exemption on sales and use taxes for certain initial construction materials and equipment needed to operate a data center, exemptions on income taxes and franchise taxes. 

To qualify for these incentives, the company needs to be approved by the Mississippi Development Authority, make a minimum investment of $20 million, create at least 20 full-time jobs that pay 125% of the average annual state wage. The average state salary is currently about $49,700.

These tax exemptions are similar to others Mississippi offers to qualifying agricultural, industrial and aerospace companies. 

A sales tax exemption is the most common exemption states offer to data centers. Servers are usually a data center’s most expensive equipment and must be replaced every few years. 

Data center sales tax exemptions are part of a long history of sales tax exemptions for manufacturing equipment, according to Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, an industry group. He says that not taxing what a business uses to create its products allows it to continue investing in the facility, generating more economic activity. 

According to the National Coalition of State Legislators, a nonpartisan group that provides policy and research support to state legislators, 38 states offer direct tax incentives to data centers. While the length, breadth and terms of these incentives vary broadly, all 38 offer some sales tax exemption on information technology equipment.

The Mississippi statute requires certification from MDA, contracts with recapture clauses, documentation proving the company’s financial position and an annual review. If an audit finds the company is not following the requirements, it can lose its exempt status and may face additional penalties. While some states do not have end dates for their incentives, salary requirements or claw-back provisions, Mississippi does. 

“This is a performance contract, and MDA administers it as one. Legislative oversight, annual review and state Auditor jurisdiction provide additional layers of accountability. The system is designed to function in the public interest even when no one is watching closely,” MDA said in a statement.

However, some critics say the state’s data center incentive program is too generous.

“You’re abating the majority of taxes by not taxing equipment because equipment is the most expensive thing,” said Kasia Tarczynska, a research analyst at Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research center focused on economic development accountability, especially government incentives for private businesses.

The Center for Economic Accountability, an advocacy organization, named Compass data center in Meridian the “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” due to the “breadth and length” of the tax breaks the company would receive. 

“It’s deeply irresponsible for Mississippi’s politicians and bureaucrats to give away a decade’s worth of tax revenues just so they can brag to voters about ‘high-tech job creation,” John Mozena, the center’s president, said.

“The Mississippi program is in a way unique because this program also exempts companies from income tax and property tax,” Tarczynska said.

In 2019, a few years before the AI boom, the Legislature lowered the requirements for data centers to qualify for Mississippi’s tax incentives. The minimum investment was lowered from $50 million to $20 million. The minimum number of new jobs was lowered from 50 to 20 and the average salary required was reduced from 150% to 125% of the average annual state wage.

At the time, legislators said this change was necessary to attract more data centers to the state and was requested by MDA. MDA did not comment on why the change was needed.

Tarczynska believes the change was likely because the data center industry looked very different from today.

“Back then the data center industry was much smaller, the projects were tiny, they were not as capital intensive as what we are experiencing now. Therefore, you have this requirement of $20 million. So basically this was created for an industry that doesn’t exist anymore,” Tarczynska said.

Another concern for Tarczynska is local agreements that she says provide a “huge property tax abatement” to companies.

Local tax incentives 

Data centers and other companies often sign an agreement with local governments to receive an abatement on property, or ad valorem, taxes. 

Each year a county tax assessor estimates the value of all real and personal property, which for data centers includes the land, buildings, servers and other computing equipment. That valuation determines the property taxes owed. Property taxes make up 75% of a typical Mississippi county’s revenue according to the Mississippi State University Extension. 

Under the fee-in-lieu agreements, a company can pay as little as one-third of the taxes owed for that year. The money is then distributed to the school district, city and county based on the tax rate for that year.

The agreements begin once an investment of at least $60 million has been made and a center is operational. The company can receive property tax abatements for up to 30 years but each individual piece of property can only receive the abatement for up to 10 years.

Amazon will start making fee-in-lieu payments to Madison County in 2027 for its five completed data centers. The company will pay an estimated $28 million in 2027 with payments increasing as the company opens additional buildings over the next few years. In the first 10 years, it’s estimated the data centers will bring in over $1 billion for the county, school districts, city and community college. 

Madison County is the only county in Mississippi to tie the fee-in-lieu percentage to specific project benchmarks. The company must create 700 jobs by 2036 and maintain that number for five years and invest $10 billion by 2030 or it will pay a higher fee. It is also the only county to make the estimated fee-in-lieu payments public. 

Amazon’s 2024 incentive package

Senate bill 2001, the 2024 incentive package the Legislature passed for Amazon Web Services, grabbed headlines with the announcement the company was investing $10 billion in the state, at that time the largest investment in state history. Since then, other companies have taken the state’s more automatic, statutory incentives.  

“AWS’s project did not come through the standard data center program. It came through a special session of this Legislature that started in January 2024, and it was different by design,” said Bill Cork, the executive director of MDA, at a recent state AI task force meeting.

While the bill does not explicitly name Amazon, to qualify for the incentives another company would need to invest at least $10 billion, create 1,000 new jobs paying at least 125% of the state’s average annual wage, among other requirements. So far, Amazon is the only data center developer meeting those requirements. 

The legislation was passed under the Mississippi Major Economic Impact Act. Legislators use the act to provide incentives tailored to individual projects, such as Continental Tires and Amplify Cell Technologies. 

In the bill, the Legislature approved $44 million through appropriations, mostly for workforce development; a $215 million loan to Madison County for infrastructure work and other incentives. Most notably, a permanent exemption on sales and use taxes for equipment purchases was provided.

It also includes clawback provisions for the state to recoup money if Amazon does not hold up its end of the deal. 

“They require annual performance to unlock each successive year. The state built in the equivalent of a continuous performance review, giving it ongoing leverage throughout a multi-decade relationship,” MDA said in a statement to Mississippi Today.. 

A report from the state economist’s office found the initial investment would bring in $41.3 million in state revenue during the construction phase and $153.7 million in the first 15 years of operation. Amazon has since announced an additional $15 billion investment to build more centers in the state. MDA estimates that the Amazon data centers have a $3.3 billion impact on the state’s annual GDP, which was $165 billion in 2025. 

Pros and cons of incentives

Data centers can be a significant source of revenue for local governments by directly paying taxes and experts say that they generate additional business and tax revenue in the community.

“You’re generating a significant amount of local property tax revenue and local business tax revenue. Data centers create these significant ecosystems around them that far outweigh the cost of the sales tax exemption program itself,” Diorio said.

A report from the accounting firm PwC, commissioned by the coalition, estimated that existing data centers in Mississippi directly contributed $141 million in state and local taxes in 2024, a 29% increase year over year.  

“We very much see the economic activity that data centers generate far surpass the cost of the exemptions that they get. But it’s a critical tool helping to ensure that the state remains competitive, especially in comparison to its neighbors,” Diorio said.

“The incentive is not a gift. It is the entry fee for a competition that Mississippi did not design and cannot sit out,” according to MDA. 

“Tax incentives, the primary tool used in large corporate deals, do not redirect existing revenue away from small businesses or anyone else. They represent revenue the state would not have collected if the company had located elsewhere,” MDA added.

But some analysts argue that companies decide where to locate for a range of factors and that local tax incentives are not a primary one.

“Oftentimes public officials are providing what we call subsidies to projects that would happen even without these subsidies,” Tarczynska said.

A 2025 report from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, estimated that 70% of data centers in that state would still have been built without tax exemptions. It calculated the state lost out on $474.2 million in fiscal year 2025 from the exemption. However, the report also found that the exemption resulted in over $1.2 billion value added to the state economy.

The report acknowledged that while incentives might not be the first consideration for where to locate a data center, “a lack of incentives, or a repeal of existing incentives, may signal a negative business climate and may create an atmosphere of uncertainty for firms planning to relocate or expand.”

What’s next for incentives in Mississippi?

Other states are starting to reevaluate their data center incentives. In June, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker paused the state’s data center incentive program and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested a repeal of sales tax exemptions for data centers. 

While some Mississippi leaders have begun to consider whether there needs to be additional data center regulations, many have said the incentive structure is working well with data centers bringing in transformational tax revenue for cities, counties and school districts.

“It’s going to greatly impact our total operating budget. We’ve seen some flat revenues the last year or so,” said Meridian Mayor Percy Bland at a July meeting of an AI task force the Mississippi Legislature created. “We see over the next eight to 10 years our budget doubling in size with what Compass’s investment is going to be for the city of Meridian.”

Dirty blankets lined the rails of the Grand Chateau apartments, left behind by residents after power to their homes was shut off by Entergy last week.

The owner of the apartment complex said the building was supposed to be vacant. But when power got disconnected, at least a dozen people still living there were left vulnerable to the heat.

City officials have stepped in to help the residents escape the near triple-digit temperatures by giving them access to a cooling center and, now, temporary housing.

“Nobody needs to live in those circumstances. So I got into action and helped those people get out,” said Ward 2 City Council Member Tina Clay.

She visited the apartment complex Friday night and called the situation heartbreaking. That’s when she stepped up not as a city council member, she said, but as a concerned citizen. 

Other city residents began bringing water and ice for the complex’s residents. The situation became more alarming when one resident had to be transported to the hospital for heat exertion. 

Soon after, efforts began to relocate residents from the dilapidated brick building on West Capitol Street. With the help fo state officials, Jackson Mayor John Horhn opened a cooling center Monday at the Jackson Police Training Academy on St. Charles Street, nearly two miles from the apartment complex, and is available to all Jackson residents. 

The city found money to help relocate displaced residents but it was not immediately clear how much money and where it came from. By Sunday, the complex was empty and residents were split among Matt’s House, a shelter for women and children, and temporary hotel housing. Stewpot Community Services is working alongside Matt’s House to shelter those affected. The nonprofit also donated 25 cots to the city’s cooling center and is helping provide meals.

“These hot days are dangerous for all of us, but especially for those who have no reprieve from the high temperatures,” the Rev. Jill Buckley, executive director of Stewpot, said in a statement from the city. “We are glad to work with the city to provide relief for our neighbors.” 

In a statement, Entergy said the power was disconnected after alleged signs of meter tampering were discovered. Power will remain disconnected until the property owner completes the necessary repairs. It remains uncertain when power will be restored.

The utility added that the complex still had two active accounts at the time of disconnection. 

Grand Chateau property owner Ramesh Ramchandran said eviction notices were handed out in May 2025, and units at the property were supposed to be unoccupied. 

Ramchandran told Mississippi Today that various efforts were made to renovate the property after residents were evicted. He said security issues caused delays. 

According to Ramchandran, the building was supposed to be boarded up and utilities cut off. He said squatters have been a longtime problem and added to the renovation delays.

On Monday, wooden boards covered most of the complex’s windows. The city posted notices on shuttered windows ordering the premises be vacated within 30 days of July 24. 

Ramchandran said he has previously called on the city to help in the renovation process.

Ward 5 City Council Member Vernon Hartley disputed Ramchandran’s claims. He said the city had tried to contact Ramchandran as late as September regarding code violations. Hartley added that the city can only do so much when it comes to matters regarding private property. 

“The City of Jackson cannot be just caretakers for everybody’s circumstances. We want to help in time of need, but that help has to be balanced,” Hartley said. “We’re limited by funding, and we’re also limited by law.”

Hartley added that city officials are trying to identify similar situations across Jackson.

The Medgar Evers Library reopened Tuesday during a day packed with activities for Jackson children.

Mississippi Today previously reported that multiple branches in the Jackson/Hinds Library System had maintenance issues, including the Evers branch in northwest Jackson.

The library closed for two months for air conditioning repairs. David Burks Jr., vice-chairman of the Jackson/Hinds Library System’s board of trustees, confirmed that the building has a new HVAC system.

“People come here for everything, so we wanted to make sure we got it up and running,” he said during a back-to-school event at the library.

The library will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday to Thursday, and from  9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

On their first day back, the library held a Back-to-School Bash. Branch manager Anne Sanders said at least 400 children from the area attended for a day of music, food and fun.

Music blasted in the library and the parking lot as children enjoyed a variety of activities: face painting; making arts and crafts; a bouncy castle; a dance party; interactive storytime and more. They also enjoyed popcorn, hot dogs and hamburgers. Donations made it possible for the library to give away hundreds of bags full of school supplies.

Sanders said the staff is overjoyed to get back to regular programming. 

“It’s just an explosion of excitement,” she said. “We’re all just so glad to be back.”

She said when the library was closed, people called every day asking when it would reopen. Seeing the children happy and the community coming together was her favorite part of the day.

Sanders had help from over a dozen volunteers, one of whom was retired nurse Idessa Chiplin. 

“We couldn’t wait until it opened back up again, because the people are like family,” Chiplin said.

Timothy White brought five children from The Youth Outreach Company to the event. His nonprofit organization provides enrichment and activities for at-risk Jackson youth. 

Now that the library is open, he plans to bring a group of over 40 to 50 kids when the afterschool program begins in September.

“We got a room right here that we can do 20 to 30 kids at a time that we can tutor, mentor, help with homework. If they need help with reading, math, science or anything like that, we have a bigger area … at this library right here,” he said.

“I bring them here, pack it up, because they don’t have nothing to do at these apartment complexes,” he added.

Shaw native Johnny Parker, the soon-to-be Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer, rates as quite likely the most influential strength and conditioning coach in American sports history. That is no exaggeration.

Parker, 79, remembers the Christmas gift from 65 years ago that started him on a career path that led to four Super Bowls and three Super Bowl championship rings.

“My momma and daddy got me a set of weights and changed my life,” Parker recalled. “Part of the instruction book told me to measure and weigh myself before I got started, and so I did. I was 5 feet, 11 and a half inches tall. I weighed a robust 105 pounds. My arms were 10 inches around.”

Older folks will understand this: Parker was skinnier than the poor guy always getting sand kicked in his face in the “before” part of the before-and-after Charles Atlas magazine ads. When Parker first got started with his new set of weights, he could only lift the bar. The weights were too much for him to handle.

“I was so skinny you could almost see through me,” Parker has said. “I had no self-esteem, no confidence in myself. My dream, like a lot of Mississippi boys, was to play high school football. I never became a great player, but I played. And however good I became, it was because of those weights.”

Parker, a Methodist preacher’s son, added 75 pounds of muscle. He became a starting lineman in football and threw the discus in track and field. His self-esteem soared. He still wasn’t college football material, so he attended Ole Miss and eventually got his degree in history. His plan was to teach, but the opportunity to also coach football presented itself, and that meant a few more bucks a month.

So he became a history teaching assistant football coach at Indianola Academy, a few miles from his hometown. And there, he set out to change lives just as that Christmas present from his parents had changed his.

One life he changed was that of Steve Yarbrough, the acclaimed Mississippi novelist from Indianola who has won far more literary awards than Parker won Super Bowl rings. Yarbrough stumbled into Parker’s Indianola Academy weight room as a ninth grader in 1971. He now says that day changed his life.

“I didn’t necessarily need to succeed at football, but I longed to succeed at something,” Yarbrough has written. “I am convinced that if I had not met Johnny Parker when I did, the rest of my life would have taken a very different course.”

Long story made short: In Parker’s weight room and on the football field, Yarbrough gained the self-confidence he had lacked. He became a star high school lineman, good enough to earn a college scholarship to Delta State. Football wasn’t his future, but now he had one. He found a reason to believe in himself.

The same lessons he learned in Parker’s weight room – lessons about hard work, dedication, persistence – would serve him in writing literature.  “Johnny Parker changed my life,” Yarbrough says. “I am by no means the only one who feels that way.”

Another is longtime high school football coach Joey Hawkins, who won four state championships at Jackson Academy and is now the head coach at Columbia Academy. Hawkins played for Parker at Indianola.

“The main thing that Coach Parker taught us was how to have a commitment to excellence on a daily basis,” Hawkins said. “He showed us how much hard work would pay off. He was a disciplinarian that showed tough love. He touched all of our lives. I love the man.”

So, you might ask, how does an assistant coach/history teacher at tiny Indianola Academy go on to helping NFL teams reach four Super Bowls and win three? Turns out, Parker practiced what he preached in terms of dedication, persistence and hard work. To all that add this: an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The more Parker learned about the science of strength and conditioning, the more he wanted to learn, which took him to Russia, where he studied under Russian Olympic coaches.

Understand, strength coach is a relatively new term in sports. As recently as 50 years ago, there weren’t many at all. Parker was South Carolina’s first in 1976, hired by Paul Dietzel. Indiana hired him in 1977, where he worked with Lee Corso in football and Bobby Knight in basketball. Then it was on to LSU. Then Ole Miss under Steve Sloan.

When it comes to career advancement, connections help, too. In 1984, with his injury-prone New York Giants struggling to win football games, Bill Parcells knew he needed to try something different. The Giants had never had a strength and conditioning coach, but Parcells decided they needed one and launched a nationwide search. Parcells was good friends with Knight, the Indiana basketball legend. Knight told Parcells about Parker. Halfway through a subsequent job interview, Knight knew he had his man.

The rest is NFL history. From 3-12-1 in 1983, the Giants advanced to 8-7, then 10-6 and then, in 1986, 14-2 and Super Bowl champions. I covered that 1987 Super Bowl, when Parcells credited Parker’s strength and conditioning program as the most crucial element in the Giants turnaround. Parcells said Parker’s program made his team bigger, stronger and more durable. But it was more than that, Parcells said. “The weight program has unified our team,” he said.

The Giants won another Super Bowl in 1990. And when Parcells moved from New York to the New England Patriots, Parker went with him and coached in another Super Bowl. Later in his career, Parker earned another Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and John Gruden.

Since his 2008 retirement, and especially in recent years, Parker has struggled mightily with his health, battling cancer among other serious health issues. Friends had been hoping against hope Parker could make the trip from Cleveland, Ohio, where he now lives, for Saturday night’s induction. A private plane had been secured for the trip. On Monday, Parker’s doctors made the final decision that Parker is just too sick to make the journey.

Nevertheless, his former Indianola Academy Colonels from more than half a century ago will fill several tables at Saturday night’s ceremonies at the Clyde Muse Center in Pearl. They will hear his taped remarks where he is asked about his career accomplishments. 

“I don’t know that I did much of anything,” Parker will say. “You know, good coaches coach football. Great coaches coach people. … If I have anything to be proud of it would be that I did fairly well at coaching people, not football.”

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More to read:

• Steve Yarbrough on Johnny Parker.

• The MSHOF Class of 2026.

• Hall of Fame Induction weekend activities.