All results / Stories / Ashton Pittman
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The Night Immigration Agents Took Two Madison Children's Father
Around 2 a.m., Joshua Quinn's phone rang, waking him. "They took him! They took him! They took him!" cried the voice of an 11-year-old boy Quinn was helping mentor at The BARS Institute, which he started to help young boys of color in Mississippi's capital city.
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As ICE Raided, Children Cried and Educators Scrambled
At Scott Central High School about 20 minutes from Sebastopol, Superintendent McGee started getting calls from the public schools in Morton that ICE had raided the Koch Foods plant there. "Hey, what do we do? Somebody came to pick a child up, but they're not on the sign-out list," McGee recalled a school official saying.
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Medicaid Expansion Debate at Center of Waller v. Reeves Runoff
Bill Waller Jr. supports what he calls "Medicaid reform," which would bring affordable health-care options to about 300,000 working Mississippians whose households make too much for traditional Medicaid, but not enough for subsidized private insurance.
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Men and Corporate Donors Dominate in GOP Runoff for Governor
More than $3 million has flowed to the two candidates in Mississippi's Republican primary runoff since July 27—and the bulk of that money came from political action committees, corporations and men.
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Under Reeves, Mississippi Now the Last State With No Equal-Pay Law
Under Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi became the only state without an equal-pay law. Three equal-pay bills died this year in the Mississippi Senate, where Reeves has significant say over which bills make it to a vote.
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‘Hispanic Project’ Seeded Dangerous Poultry Jobs
In the mid-1980s, Shannon Evans took a job at a rural poultry plant in Mississippi. There, she witnessed a parade of slime-soaked horrors, including amputations.
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Judge: Mississippi Violates Civil Rights of Those With Mental Illness
Mississippi must make sweeping changes to its mental-health system so that people with severe mental illness have access to treatment in their own communities rather than being unnecessarily institutionalized in state hospitals, a federal judge in Jackson ruled Wednesday morning.
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Ex-Mississippi Governor Mabus Endorses Kamala Harris for President
Former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus endorsed U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary in a Friday statement that her campaign sent out to members of the press.
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State News: Charter Schools Legal; OK to Sell 'Veggie Burgers'; Hughes-Hosemann Debate Ahead
Stacey Abrams, who nearly made history in Georgia's race for governor last year, is helping Democrats who are running for statewide office in Mississippi this year.
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Expanded Vouchers Not OK with Either Lt. Gov. Candidate, Short Debate Reveals
The Republican and Democratic candidates for Mississippi lieutenant governor found more to agree than disagree on in Thursday night's 30-minute debate, with similar positions on teacher pay, private-school vouchers and transparency.
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Jeb Bush Headlining Big-Money Lunch for Reeves After Voucher, Charter Victories
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush plans to travel to Belden, Miss., next month to help raise money for the state's Republican nominee for governor, Tate Reeves, at a high-dollar luncheon.
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Hood Denies Dem AG Nominee Claim He's 'Working' to Elect GOP Opponent
Jennifer Riley Collins, the woman who hopes to succeed fellow Democrat Jim Hood in the Mississippi Attorney General's office, is accusing him of working to help her Republican opponent. Hood, the Democratic nominee for governor, denies the charge.
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Hood Says Reeves Blocked Vaping Bills After E-Cig Donations; Lt. Gov. Denies
Democratic Mississippi governor candidate Jim Hood claims his opponent, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, has blocked bills to regulate vaping after receiving campaign donations from vaping companies; Reeves denies it.
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Mississippi Leaders React to Trump Impeachment Inquiry; MAE Endorses Hood
Democratic Mississippi Congressman and U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson supports an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and U.S. House Rep. Steven Palazzo dismissed concerns about Trump urging the Ukraine president to launch an investigation into possible 2020 opponent Joe Biden.
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'Almost Social Terrorism': Abortion Clinic Protests Hurt Their Business, Owners Say
Clinic workers, as well as Fondren residents and business owners urged the Jackson City Council to pass an ordinance that would limit some of the protesters' activities outside Mississippi's only abortion clinic.
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Jackson Restricts Anti-Abortion Activists With New Buffer Zone, Noise Law
Anti-abortion protesters in Jackson will now have to voice their concerns standing at least 15 feet away from the Jackson Women's Health Organization in Fondren, and will no longer be able to engage in loud activities, such as shouting or using loud-speaker systems to get their message out.
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The Thin Line Between LGBT and Racist Hate
Echoes of Mississippi's discriminatory history continue to make themselves heard, sometimes in the form of so-called "religious liberty" laws that give businesses and organization wide berth to invoke their religion to justify discriminating against LGBT people.
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Rep. Palazzo: Caged Kids Getting ‘Best Treatment of Their Lives,’ Despite Deaths
When 7-year-old Guatemalan child Jakelin Caal died of shock and dehydration while in Customs and Border Patrol custody on Dec. 8, 2018, she was the first child to die in U.S. immigration custody in a decade.
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Mississippi's Six-Week Abortion Ban at 5th Circuit Appeals Court Today
Mississippi's ban on abortions after a heartbeat becomes detectable could be revived if a three-judge panel in New Orleans decides to reverse a Jackson federal judge's earlier ruling that the law is unconstitutional.
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Scandals Dog Tate Reeves, Donald Trump as They Endorse Each Other
Tate Reeves gladly accepted Donald Trump's endorsement in the race for Mississippi governor. Both men are at the center of separate allegations of scandal and misuse of taxpayer funds.