FOCUS: #MSWelfare/TANF Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration • Housing & Evictions
Mississippi election officials will be able to purge names from voter rolls more easily if Gov. Tate Reeves signs House Bill 1310 into law.
Jackson residents who commit local misdemeanor offenses could soon appear before an unelected, Mississippi Supreme Court-appointed municipal judge from any part of the State after the Mississippi Legislature sent the final version of House Bill 1020 to Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk. If signed, the bill would take some authority away from elected judges and prosecutors over the 83% Black city’s capitol district.
Mississippi Free Press’ attorney Rob McDuff said in a May 2022 statement that the Mississippi Open Meetings Act requires that other meetings of legislators, like the Republican Caucus, be open to the public when they constitute a quorum and are discussing public business.”
Mississippi State Senator Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, is sponsoring Senate Bill 2082, which would suspend child-support payments for those in prison for more than six months.
Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell has defeated longtime U.S. House Rep. Steven Palazzo in the Republican primary runoff for Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District.
Juneteenth commemorates the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people were freed.
Only days into the semester, some school districts in South Mississippi are walking back their decision to make masking optional. Yesterday, the Lamar County School District announced that two of its schools, Oak Grove High School and Purvis High School, were shutting their doors on Monday and going all-virtual until Aug. 16 “due to the high transmission rate of COVID-19.”
The nearly 25,000 Mississippians who use Medicaid health insurance to cover pregnancy will continue to lose their health benefits just 60 days after birth, after a proposed extension fell casualty to a long session of gamesmanship over control of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid. Dr. Charlene Collier, OB-GYN and director of the Mississippi Maternal Mortality Committee, says the 60-day Medicaid cutoff is illogical at best, and deadly at worst.
Sen. Brice Wiggins, a prominent Republican member of the Mississippi Senate from Pascagoula, broke ranks with most members of his party in the state today as he criticized President Donald Trump’s ongoing pardon spree.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
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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).