FOCUS: #MSWelfare/TANF Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration • Housing & Evictions
Deputy Editor Azia Wiggins reflects on Black Maternal Health Week and confronts her own thoughts of being a Black pregnant woman in America.
The fate of a U.S. Justice Department effort to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act on behalf of Mississippians caught up in the State’s troubled mental health system rests on the decision of three judges in New Orleans.
“Politicians and policy makers know the end of Roe will mean drastic changes within the state, and they aren’t doing anything to prepare or to address Mississippi’s current social woes,” sociologist Kimberly Kelly writes.
Dr. Karla McCullough, executive director of the Juanita Sims Doty Foundation, says Mississippi should embed core “humanizing factors” into our varying service support systems to improve relations and engagement within our communities, especially communities of color.
For the second year in a row, Mississippi House leadership has once again killed an extension of postpartum Medicaid benefits, likely guaranteeing that many low-income people will lose health insurance benefits only two months after giving birth.
Rhea Williams-Bishop, director of Mississippi and New Orleans programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, believes that the richness of Mississippi’s soil should be passed down to every young person in the state, cultivating generations of healthy eaters.
The omicron surge has likely passed its tipping point in Mississippi, declining on a quick trajectory comparable to delta’s sudden fall. New cases have fallen sharply this week, but surveillance in the state’s hospital system is a more valuable sign of decreasing transmission.
The 2022 Legislative Session has been remarkably rapid, compared to some of the gridlock seen in the Mississippi Capitol during the pandemic era. With the deadline for general bills to pass out of their original chamber approaching this Thursday, some of the session’s most significant goals are already checked off.
Solar energy is on the rise in southeastern states, but Mississippi is lagging behind; less than 1 percent of the state’s electricity comes from solar power. Our region and nation remain heavily dependent on dirty, expensive fossil fuels. Fortunately, Mississippi has a secret weapon in the fight for affordable, clean energy: rural electric cooperatives.
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The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).