Category: Regional News

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi House and Senate negotiators said Thursday that they have agreed on a proposed medical marijuana program. Leaders are expected to ask Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to call the Legislature into session to put the plan into law.

The step comes months after the Mississippi Supreme Court tossed out a medical marijuana initiative that voters approved last November. Justices ruled in May that Mississippi’s initiative process was out of date and the medical marijuana proposal was not properly on the ballot.

The legislative proposal is not identical to the voter-approved initiative. The proposal would allow local governments to limit where the marijuana could be grown, processed or sold. That was not in Initiative 65.

The two lead negotiators — Republican Sen. Kevin Blackwell of Southaven and Republican Rep. Lee Yancey of Brandon — said Thursday that passing a bill would take a three-fifths majority because of tax provisions, and leaders of the House and Senate believe they have have enough votes lined up.

Yancey said the proposed program would help people with debilitating illnesses such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis or cancer.

“This is compassionate relief,” Yancey said. “This is not a recreational thing.”

Yancey said that if the bill becomes law, cities and counties would be have 90 days to opt out of allowing medical marijuana growing sites, processing facilities and dispensaries. But if local governing boards decide to do so, voters could petition for an election to overturn that decision.

Blackwell said if a city or county opts out of allowing facilities, people who live in those places would still be able to possess and use medical marijuana.

Blackwell said negotiating details of the bill was a long process.

“It’s not a perfect bill, by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.

Some details:

— Marijuana for medicinal use could only be grown indoors.

— The state Department of Agriculture would be in charge of licensing and regulating businesses that grow, process or transport the products. Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson has said he does not want the department to have that role as long as marijuana is illegal under federal law. Yancey said the Agriculture Department could set a contract with another entity, such as the Board of Pharmacy, to handle the duties.

— The state Department of Health would regulate medical marijuana testing facilities and research facilities. It also would license the physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and optometrists who recommend medical marijuana for patients. The Health Department also would license patients who receive medical marijuana and the caregivers who might need to buy it for them. The license for a patient or caregiver would cost $25 a year, and each caregiver also would pay $37 for an annual criminal background check.

— The Department of Revenue would regulate dispensaries.

— Cultivation businesses, where the plants are grown, would have to have at least some owners who are Mississippi residents.

— One person or business could own no more than one cultivation site, one processing site and five dispensaries.

— Medical marijuana could be smoked, used in products such as creams or drops or used in food products such as gummies or drinks. Limits would be set on how many one person could obtain in a month.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The board that governs Mississippi’s public universities has voted to prohibit schools from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students and staff.

The Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning took the vote on Friday, said Caron Blanton, communications director for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning. At an earlier meeting on Aug. 27, the board voted not to require public university students to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Board members decided to vote again because there was confusion about whether officials at individual schools could choose to mandate the shots if they wished to, Blanton said.

“Except for clinical settings within institutions, centers, departments, and programs, institutions are directed to refrain from mandating the COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of enrollment or employment,” the new motion passed Friday reads.

The clinical exception means that the policy adopted by the University of Mississippi Medical Center, which already announced that it will require students and staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 1, will stay in place.

Friday’s meeting took place during the board’s annual retreat away from Jackson. It was not livestreamed, so the public could not hear what was discussed.

During the livestreamed August meeting, nine board members said the vaccine should not be mandated. Many said they support students getting the COVID-19 vaccine, but that shots should be voluntary.

The board’s two physician members, Dr. Alfred McNair Jr. and Dr. Steven Cunningham, were the only two board members who voted to mandate vaccinations.

Mississippi’s public universities already mandate that students be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, according to Institutions of Higher Learning bylaws. Students studying in a health-related field must be vaccinated against hepatitis B.

Some Mississippi cities, including the capital of Jackson, have required workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Jackson Mayor Antar Lumumba extended a deadline for city workers to show proof of vaccination until Oct. 15.

The extension also applies to contractors and subcontractors who are paid in whole or in part from funds provided under a city contract, WLBT-TV reported.

Those who choose not to provide proof of vaccination must undergo weekly testing at their own expense. Employees who don’t show their vaccination status must also wear masks at all times while at work.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn Mississippi’s ban on voting rights for people convicted of some felonies — a case that could affect thousands of people.

The original list of disenfranchising crimes was put into the Mississippi Constitution in 1890 because people writing the constitution believed those crimes “were disproportionately committed by African Americans,” according to written arguments by attorneys challenging the ban. The attorneys also argue that the disenfranchisement continues to disproportionately hurt Black people.

Attorneys representing the state say Mississippi dropped burglary from the list of disenfranchising crimes in 1950 and added murder and rape to the list in 1968. They say in written arguments that those changes “cured any discriminatory taint on the original provision.”

The Mississippi Constitution strips voting rights from people convicted of 10 felonies, including forgery, arson and bigamy. The attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level bad check writing.

In the case being heard Wednesday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the plaintiffs do not challenge disenfranchisement of people convicted of murder or rape.

To regain voting rights in Mississippi now, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or must win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. Legislators in recent years have passed a small number of bills to restore voting rights. Bills to restore suffrage to 28 people were filed this year. Two of those passed, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves let both become law without his signature.

Federal lawsuits were filed in Mississippi in 2017 and 2018 seeking automatic restoration of voting rights for people who had finished serving sentences for disenfranchising crimes.

The case being heard Wednesday is from the lawsuit filed in 2017.

A panel of 5th Circuit judges heard arguments in December 2019 from the other case, which makes different arguments. That panel has not issued a ruling.

The Sentencing Project, a national advocacy group that seeks to eliminate racial disparities in the criminal justice system, said in a 2020 report that more than 5 million people in the United States are disenfranchised because of criminal convictions. It said that includes more than 8% of adults in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. The report also said Mississippi is one of seven states where more than one in seven Black people is disenfranchised, or twice the national average.

In November 2018, Florida voters adopted a state constitutional amendment to automatically restore voting rights to most convicted felons once they complete their sentences, with the exception of those convicted of murder or sex offenses. It was estimated to affect more than 1 million people, although many voting rights advocates were outraged by a court ruling that later found that a Floridian’s right could not be restored until all fines, restitution and legal fees were paid.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Tropical Depression Nicholas hovered over Louisiana on Wednesday, dumping heavy rain on a region struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida and swamping coastal Mississippi, Alabama and northwest Florida.

Flash flooding and tornadoes were possible near the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said. Flash flood watches also were posted in coastal Alabama and the Florida panhandle. In Louisiana, the rainfall complicated an already difficult recovery at homes ripped open by Ida on Aug. 29. Thousands remain without power in Texas and Louisiana.

“I’m not sure at this point what it looks like,” said Edith Anthony, whose home in LaPlace, a New Orleans suburb between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, lost part of its roof while getting about 2 to 3 feet of flood water two weeks ago.

They still don’t have electricity, and couldn’t arrange for a tarp to cover the roof before Nicholas blew in. Now she and her husband are staying in a Mobile, Alabama, hotel, preparing to return this weekend to what’s left of their home.

Nicholas dumped nearly 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain in Galveston, Texas, after making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, the 14th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Houston reported more than 6 inches (15 centimeters). Forecasters warned people along the central Gulf Coast that up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) are possible through Friday.

In Louisiana, flash floods will be possible through Thursday morning, but the rain is forecast to linger for days.

“We’re going to be in a wet weather pattern well into next week,” said meteorologist Christopher Brannan at the National Weather Service. He said Nicholas, now a tropical depression, will likely stall over southwest Louisiana while it dissipates into a a remnant low pressure system.

The storm was forecast to dump as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain from southeast Louisiana into the Florida panhandle through Friday, with 10 inches (25 centimeters) possible in isolated areas.

Gov. John Bel Edwards warned people to take Nicholas seriously, even though it was no longer a hurricane.

“This is a very serious storm, particularly in those areas that were so heavily impacted by Hurricane Ida,” Edwards said Tuesday.

Ida peeled open the tin roof of Terry and Patti Dardar’s home in the small Louisiana community of Pointe-aux-Chenes, and then Nicholas made things much worse, soaking the upstairs. They still don’t have power or piped-in water, but the rain enabled their son Terren and their grandchildren to collect badly needed water in jugs. They poured it through a strainer into a huge plastic container and hauled it up to the house, where a pump powered by a generator brought the water inside.

Patti Dardar said the family is doing its best with what it has left.

“We ain’t got no other place,” she said. “This is our home.”

More than 112,000 electricity customers were still without power in Texas on Wednesday morning, including 75,000 in the Houston area. At its peak, more than half a million homes and businesses were without power in Texas. In Louisiana, 75,000 were still without power more than two weeks after Ida.

Energy companies working to restore power didn’t expect Nicholas to affect their restoration promises. Crews cannot operate when lightning or high winds are nearby, but they quickly get working once conditions improve, Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said.

Joe Ticheli, manager and CEO of South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association, said rain really doesn’t stop the linemen, who are outfitted with slicker suits and grit.

“These are tough guys, and they relish all of this,” he said. The coop services about 21,000 customers across five parishes including parts of the hard-hit Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes. Ticheli said the coop has returned power to about 75% of its customers with the remaining 25% mostly in the hardest-hit parts of southern Terrebonne parish.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man has been sentenced to life without parole in the capital murder of another man whose body was found last year floating in the Pascagoula River.

Joseph Paul McLeod, 34, of Pascagoula, pleaded guilty to killing Dustin Suttles, 29, on Tuesday before Circuit Court Judge Dale Harkey, The Sun Herald reported.

He is one of four men charged in the homicide of Suttles, who was from Gautier, whose body was found Sept. 22, 2020. The other three men were initially charged with accessory after the fact to capital murder, but their charges were later upgraded to capital murder.

The other three suspects are in jail without bond awaiting grand jury action, the sheriff’s office said.