Tag Archives: Mississippi

EF-4 Tornado carves a path through Mississippi into Alabama leaving 26 dead

Mississippi Tornadoes

Luke 21:25 ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘There’s nothing left’: Deep South tornadoes kill 26
  • A powerful tornado cut a devastating path through Mississippi, killing at least 25 people, injuring dozens, and flattening entire blocks as it carved a path of destruction for more than an hour. One person was killed in Alabama.
  • The tornado devastated a swath of the Mississippi Delta town of Rolling Fork, reducing homes to piles of rubble, flipping cars on their sides and toppling the town’s water tower.
  • “There’s nothing left,” said Wonder Bolden, holding her granddaughter
  • Based on early data, the tornado received a preliminary EF-4 rating
  • An EF-4 tornado has top wind gusts between 166 mph and 200 mph (265 kph and 320 kph), according to the service.
  • Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves issued a State of Emergency and vowed to help rebuild as he headed to view the damage in an area speckled with wide expanses of cotton, corn and soybean fields and catfish farming ponds. President Joe Biden also promised federal help, describing the damage as “heartbreaking.”

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Tornadoes tear through the South: Reports of 42 twisters touching down

Tornado Threat

Luke 21:25 ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves

Important Takeaways:

  • Winter storm latest: Deadly tornadoes strike South, snow slams north
  • More tornadoes were expected on Wednesday in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as the storm moves east.
  • The tornado threat also extended into the Florida Panhandle Wednesday night, with tornadoes possible overnight in the region.
  • This comes after at least 42 tornadoes touched down across the South since Tuesday afternoon in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. A woman and her 8-year-old son were killed when one of those tornadoes swept through Pecan Farms, Louisiana, on Tuesday, according to local officials.

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As Drought now effects half the country the Mississippi is seeing record low water levels

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Before and after: See how the Mississippi River and its tributaries have dropped to record lows
  • Drone video of the Mississippi River near Memphis shows how far the mighty river has contracted away from its banks.
  • The river dropped to minus-10.75 feet there earlier this week, according to data from the National Weather Service, which was the lowest level ever recorded in Memphis.
  • Half of the contiguous US is covered by moderate or worse drought conditions – the third-highest value of the year so far and the highest since March.

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Mississippi declares national emergency after major flooding and clean water crisis

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Jackson water crisis: 180,000 without drinking water as treatment plant fails following floods
  • A failure of a main water treatment plant in the wake of severe flooding last week has left much of the entire town of Jackson, Mississippi without reliable drinking water.
  • Both Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Gov. Reeves have declared a state of emergency in Jackson and mobilized local and state resources to meet the challenge of now providing water to the city’s 180,000 residents.
  • Jackson received over 9 inches of rain in two days and a total of over 10 inches over four days. Hundreds fled their homes as water rose to doorsteps and, in some cases, pushed indoors.

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Pearl River expected to crest. Mayor urges residents to get out now, declares National Emergency

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Mississippi mayor urges residents to ‘get out now’ as state braces for river flooding after record rainfall
  • “If you are capable of getting out now, get out now,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said in a news conference
  • He said it’s possible for 100 to 150 homes to be impacted in floods from the Pearl River and warned locals to head for higher ground or go to city shelters.
  • Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency Saturday in anticipation of the Pearl River flooding, now forecast to crest at 35.5 feet Monday morning
  • Mississippi has been grappling with flash flooding since Aug. 22. So far, 42 homes, nine businesses, five farms and 43 public roads have been reported as damaged, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said in its initial assessment.
  • Some areas got 14 inches of rain in a 72-hour timeframe as the state saw record rainfall, the agency said.

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Justices debate abortion rights in U.S. Supreme Court showdown

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing arguments in a case on whether to gut abortion rights in America as it weighs Mississippi’s bid to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is hearing at least 70 minutes of oral arguments in the southern state’s appeal to revive its ban on abortion starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Lower courts blocked the Republican-backed law.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, challenged the law and has the support of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. A ruling is expected by the end of next June.

Roe v. Wade recognized that the right to personal privacy under the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy. The Supreme Court in a 1992 ruling called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey reaffirmed abortion rights and prohibited laws imposing an “undue burden” on abortion access.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer quoted from the Supreme Court’s Casey ruling, which stated that the court should not bow to political pressure in overturning Roe and that such a ruling would “subvert the court’s legitimacy.”

“The right of a woman to choose, the right to control her own body, has been clearly set since Casey and never challenged. You want us to reject that line of viability and adopt something different,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Sotomayor said Mississippi brought its new challenge purely because of changes on the Supreme Court, which has become more conservative.

“Will this institution survive the stench this creates?” Sotomayor asked, saying that it would give the impression that the Constitution and its interpretation is based purely on politics. “If people think it is all political … how will the court survive?”

Anti-abortion advocates believe they are closer than ever to overturning Roe, a longstanding goal for Christian conservatives.

Mississippi’s is one of a series of restrictive abortion laws passed in Republican-governed states in recent years. The Supreme Court on Nov. 1 heard arguments over a Texas law banning abortion at around six weeks of pregnancy but has not yet issued a ruling.

Hundreds of protesters from both sides of the abortion debate rallied outside the white marble neoclassical courthouse ahead of the arguments. Anti-abortion protesters held huge signs reading “abortion is murder,” some carrying Christian crosses. Abortion rights activists chanted “what do we want? Abortion access. When do we want it? Now.”

FETAL VIABILITY

The Roe and Casey decisions determined that states cannot ban abortion before a fetus is viable outside the womb, generally viewed by doctors as between 24 and 28 weeks.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether viability was a central issue in the Roe or Casey rulings.

Mississippi’s 15-week ban directly challenged the viability finding. Even if the court does not explicitly overturn Roe, any ruling letting states ban abortion before fetal viability outside the womb would raise questions about how early states could prohibit the procedure. In the 1992 Casey ruling, the court said Roe’s “central holding” was that viability was the earliest point at which states could ban abortion.

While urging the court to overturn Roe, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, has said the justices could uphold its law by finding that a 15-week ban does not impose an undue burden. Such a ruling would wipe out the viability standard embraced in the Roe and Casey decisions, meaning the justices would have to consider where to draw the line.

Abortion rights advocates have said such a decision would eviscerate Roe, making it easier for conservative states to impose sweeping abortion restrictions.

Mississippi is among 12 states with so-called trigger laws designed to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Additional states also likely would move quickly to curtail abortion access.

If Roe were overturned or limited, large swathes of America could return to an era in which women who want to end a pregnancy face the choice of undergoing a potentially dangerous illegal abortion, traveling long distances to a state where the procedure remains legal and available or buying abortion pills online. The procedure would remain legal in liberal-leaning states, 15 of which have laws protecting abortion rights.

Abortion remains a contentious issue in the United States, as in many countries. In a June Reuters/Ipsos poll, 52% of U.S. adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in most or all cases.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Gabriella Borter, Jan Wolfe and Julia Harte; Editing by Will Dunham)

In U.S. Supreme Court case, the past could be the future on abortion

By Lawrence Hurley

OXFORD, Miss. (Reuters) – Just months before she was set to start law school in the summer of 1973, Barbara Phillips was shocked to learn she was pregnant.

Then 24, she wanted an abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court had legalized abortion nationwide months earlier with its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling recognizing a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. But abortions were not legally available at the time in Mississippi, where she lived in the small town of Port Gibson.

Phillips, a Black woman enmeshed in the civil rights movement, could feel her dream of becoming a lawyer slipping away.

“It was devastating. I was desperate,” Phillips said, sitting on the patio of her cozy one-story house in Oxford, a college town about 160 miles (260 km) north of Jackson, Mississippi’s capital.

At the time of the Roe ruling, 46 of the 50 U.S. states had some sort of criminal prohibitions on abortion. Access often was limited to wealthy and well-connected women, who tended to be white.

With a feminist group’s help, Phillips located a doctor in New York willing to provide an abortion. New York before Roe was the only state that let out-of-state women obtain abortions. She flew there for the procedure.

Now 72, Phillips does not regret her abortion. She went on to attend Northwestern law school in Chicago and realize her goal of becoming a civil rights lawyer, with a long career. Years later, she had a son when she felt the time was right.

“I was determined to decide for myself what I wanted to do with my life and my body,” Phillips said.

U.S. abortion rights are under attack unlike any time since the Roe ruling, with Republican-backed restrictions being passed in numerous states. The Supreme Court on Dec. 1 is set to hear arguments in a case in which Mississippi is seeking to revive its law, blocked by lower courts, banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi has raised the stakes by explicitly asking the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Such a ruling could turn back the clock in Mississippi, which currently has just one abortion clinic, and other states to the kind of environment on abortion access that Phillips experienced nearly a half century ago.

Large swathes of America could return to an era in which women who want to end a pregnancy face the choice of undergoing a potentially dangerous illegal abortion, traveling long distances to a state where the procedure remains legal and available or buying abortion pills online.

Mississippi’s abortion law is not the only one being tested at the Supreme Court. The justices on Nov. 1 heard arguments in challenges to a Texas law banning abortion at about six weeks of pregnancy, but have not yet ruled.

TRIGGER LAWS

Mississippi is one of a dozen states with so-called trigger laws that would immediately ban abortion in all or most cases if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

Many are in the South, so a Mississippi woman would be unable to obtain an abortion in neighboring Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee or Alabama. The nearest states where abortion would remain legal, at least in the short term, would be Illinois and Florida.

The average distance a Mississippi woman would need to drive to reach a clinic would increase from 78 miles to 380 miles (125 to 610 km) each way, according to Guttmacher.

While some abortion rights advocates fear a return to grisly illegal back-alley abortions, there has been an important development since the pre-Roe era: abortion pills. Mississippi is among 19 states imposing restrictions on medication-induced abortions.

Mississippi officials are cagey on what a post-Roe world might look like. Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who asked the court to overturn Roe, declined an interview request, as did Republican Governor Tate Reeves.

Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson, who as a Republican state legislator helped shepherd the 2018 passage of the 15-week ban, called Roe v. Wade “antiquated, old law based on antiquated and old science.”

Gipson in an interview declined to answer questions about what Mississippi – or the southeastern United States – would be like without abortion rights, focusing on the specifics of the 15-week ban.

“It’s a false narrative to paint this as a picture of an outright ban throughout the southeast,” Gipson said, noting that the Supreme Court does not have to formally overturn Roe to uphold Mississippi’s law.

In court papers, Fitch said scientific advances, including contested claims that a fetus can detect pain early in a pregnancy, emphasize how Roe and a subsequent 1992 decision that reaffirmed abortion rights are “decades out of date.”

Abortion rights advocates have said any ruling upholding Mississippi’s law would effectively gut Roe, giving states unfettered power to limit or ban the procedure.

Phillips worries about a revival of dangerous, unregulated abortions that imperil women’s lives.

“I’m afraid that many more women and girls will be in back alleys,” Phillips said. “I’m worried we are going to find them in country roads, dead.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

Mississippi set to carry out state’s first execution since 2012

(Reuters) – Mississippi is scheduled to carry out its first execution in nine years on Wednesday when it puts to death a man convicted of killing his estranged wife and sexually assaulting his stepdaughter during a standoff with police in 2010.

David Cox, 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. local time at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman for the death of his wife Kim Cox.

Cox would be the first inmate executed in Mississippi since 2012 and the ninth executed in the United States in 2021. Mississippi is among the U.S. states that have had recent difficulties in buying lethal-injection drugs from pharmaceutical companies unwilling to supply them for executions.

Cox had petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for all attorneys to be removed from the case and all appeals on his behalf to be halted. In 2018, Cox wrote a letter to the court’s chief justice, saying that he was “a guilty man worthy of death.”

On May 14, 2010, Cox bought a gun and went to his sister-in-law’s Sherman, Mississippi, home where his estranged wife, their two children and his stepdaughter lived. Cox shot his way into the home and took his wife and two of the children hostage for more than eight hours, prosecutors said.

During the standoff with police, Cox shot his wife in the stomach and arm. As she lay dying for several hours, he sexually assaulted his stepdaughter three times in front of her. He also refused medical treatment for his wife, forcing her to beg for her life to hostage negotiators, court documents showed.

Police entered the home early the next morning and arrested Cox. A jury sentenced him to die in 2012 after he pleaded guilty to all eight charges he faced, including capital murder.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

U.S. Supreme Court to hear challenge to Texas abortion ban

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on Nov. 1 a challenge by President Joe Biden’s administration and abortion providers to a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure – a case that will determine the fate of the toughest abortion law in the United States.

It is the second major abortion case that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has scheduled for the coming months, with arguments set for Dec. 1 over the legality of a restrictive Mississippi abortion law.

The Texas and Mississippi measures are among a series of Republican-backed laws passed at the state level limiting abortion rights – coming at a time when abortion opponents are hoping that the Supreme Court will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade that legalized the procedure nationwide.

Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the Texas attorney general on Thursday signaled that he also would like to see that ruling fall.

The justices on Friday deferred a decision on the Biden administration’s request that the justices block the Texas law while the litigation continues, prompting a dissent from liberal Justice Sotomayor. Lower courts already have blocked the Mississippi law.

It is rare that the Supreme Court would, as it did in this case, decide to hear arguments while bypassing lower courts that were already considering the Texas dispute, indicating that the justices have deemed the matter of high public importance and requiring immediate review.

The Texas measure bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant. It makes an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest.

The Biden administration sued in September, challenging the legality of the Texas law. In taking up the case, the Supreme Court said it will resolve whether the federal government is permitted to bring a lawsuit against the state or other parties to prohibit the abortion ban from being enforced.

The other challenge that the justices took up, filed by Texas abortion providers, asks the court to decide whether the design of the state’s law, which allows private citizens rather than the government to enforce the ban, is permissible. The providers, as well as the administration, have said the law is designed to evade federal court review.

Mississippi’s law bans abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Rulings in that case and the Texas case are due by the end of June 2022, but could come sooner.

The Supreme Court previously allowed the Texas law to be enforced in the challenge brought by abortion providers. In that 5-4 decision on Sept. 1, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts expressed skepticism about how the law is enforced and joined the three liberal justices in dissent.

The Texas law is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the state.

Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits. Critics have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters, a characterization its proponents reject.

The Biden administration had asked the Supreme Court to quickly restore a federal judge’s Oct. 6 order temporarily blocking the law. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put that order on hold a few days later.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

In political crosshairs, U.S. Supreme Court weighs abortion and guns

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Just before midnight on Sept. 1, the debate over whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority will dramatically change life in America took on a new ferocity when the justices let a near-total ban on abortion in Texas take effect.

The intense scrutiny of the court will only increase when the justices – six conservatives and three liberals – open their new nine-month term on Monday. They have taken up cases that could enable them to overturn abortion rights established in a landmark ruling 48 years ago and also expand gun rights – two cherished goals of American conservatives.

In addition, there are cases scheduled that could expand religious rights, building on several rulings in recent years.

These contentious cases come at a time when opinion surveys show that public approval of the court is waning even as a commission named by President Joe Biden explores recommending changes such as expanding the number of justices or imposing term limits in place of their lifetime appointments.

Some justices have given speeches rebutting criticism of the court and questions about its legitimacy as a nonpolitical institution. Its junior-most member Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative confirmed by Senate Republicans only days before the 2020 presidential election, said this month the court “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.”

“There’s no doubt that the court’s legitimacy is under threat right now,” lawyer Kannon Shanmugam, who frequently argues cases at the court, said at an event organized by the conservative Federalist Society. “The level of rhetoric and criticism of the court is higher than I can certainly remember at any point in my career.”

The court’s late-night 5-4 decision not to block the Republican-backed Texas law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy put abortion-rights advocates including Biden on high alert.

The justices now have a chance to go even further. They will hear a case on Dec. 1 in which Mississippi is defending its law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s Republican attorney general is asking the court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and ended an era when some states banned it.

In another blockbuster case, the justices could make it easier for people to obtain permits to carry handguns outside the home, a major expansion of firearms rights. They will consider on Nov. 3 whether to invalidate a New York state regulation that lets people obtain a concealed-carry permit only if they can show they need a gun for self-defense.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

Former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three conservative justices including Barrett who tilted the court further rightward, with the help of maneuvering by a key fellow Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell.

The Democratic-led Congress has held two hearings in recent months on how the court has increasingly decided major issues, including the Texas abortion one, with late-night emergency decisions using its “shadow docket” process that lacks customary public oral arguments.

“The Supreme Court has now shown that it’s willing to allow even facially unconstitutional laws to take effect when the law is aligned with certain ideological preferences,” Democrat Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chairman, said on Wednesday.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito in a speech on Thursday objected to criticism that portrays the court’s members as a “dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods.”

“This portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution,” Alito said.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas last month said judges are “asking for trouble” if they wade into political issues. Thomas has previously said Roe v. Wade should be overturned, as many conservatives have sought.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer noted in a May speech that the court’s legitimacy relies in part on avoiding major upheavals in the law when people have come to rely on existing precedents.

“The law might not be perfect but if you’re changing it all the time people won’t know what to do, and the more you change it the more people will ask to have it changed,” Breyer said.

Abortion rights advocates have cited the fact that Roe v. Wade has been in place for almost a half century as one reason not to overturn it.

Breyer, at 83 the court’s oldest member, himself is the focus of attention. Some liberal activists have urged him to retire so Biden can appoint a younger liberal who could serve for decades. Breyer has said he has not decided when he will retire.

George Mason University law professor Jenn Mascott, a former Thomas law clerk, said the justices should not be swayed by public opinion.

“What the justices have said they want to do is decide each case on the rule the law,” Mascott said. “I don’t think they should be thinking that the perception would be that they are too partisan one way or another.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)