Anna Wolfe, Mississippi Today

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba boarded a yacht off the coast of Florida with the top prosecutor in charge of fighting crime in his city and several rowdy out-of-state men who said they wanted to drop millions revitalizing downtown.

Lumumba, who is running for reelection in 2025, had planned to wear his normal suit and tie during this fundraising trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the mayor’s spokesperson said, but the men assured him it was a casual affair. He opted for dark jeans and a black button-up.

As they cruised through the Atlantic on a boat stocked with expensive booze in April, the supposed developers were angling to arrange a deal between Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and the mayor. ...

Throughout February and into March, about nine months before her husband’s reelection bid, Reeves began traveling the state, garnering media attention as she passed out copies of the book to fourth graders.

Reeves hopes that Fred, named after her childhood imaginary friend, and the story of his journey through Mississippi “will help our children to develop the lifelong skills that they need to become successful adults,” she told TV reporters at the March 2022 press conference.

Reeves’ book — 20 pages of stapled white cardstock featuring comic sans font and a green cartoon turtle on the cover — may have taken center stage at last year’s event, but side remarks signal something far more consequential is brewing....

This story was originally published by Mississippi Today

Nearly three years after arrests in the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history, exposing systemic corruption and negligence within Mississippi’s federal safety net grants, advocates and clients say the state’s welfare program still contains widespread flaws.

On Tuesday morning, the Mississippi Legislative Democratic Caucus held the first of several planned hearings to address how the state administers its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program....

A former professional wrestler and defendant in the Mississippi welfare scandal is alleging that he personally witnessed Republican Gov. Phil Bryant instruct an appointee to cut welfare funding to a nonprofit because its director supported Democrat Jim Hood in the 2019 governor’s race.

The allegation that Bryant leveraged his control of welfare spending to punish a political opponent comes in a two-year-old federal court filing released Friday after Mississippi Today successfully motioned to unseal the case.

The account echoes a similar allegation Mississippi Today published just over a week ago that the same nonprofit was forced to fire Hood’s wife in order to keep receiving welfare grant funding....

Former welfare agency director John Davis is set to plead guilty on Thursday to two federal charges and 18 state counts of fraud or conspiracy related to his role in the Mississippi welfare scandal, according to separate federal and state court filings.

The new federal charges pertain to welfare funds Davis allegedly helped funnel to the companies of retired professional wrestler Ted "Teddy" DiBiase Jr., son of famed WWE wrestler Ted "The Million Dollar Man" DiBiase. Davis and Teddy DiBiase Jr. had developed a close relationship during Davis' term as welfare director from 2016 to 2019, as Mississippi Today has reported in its investigative series "The Backchannel."

Davis instructed two nonprofits receiving tens of millions in welfare funds from his department to pay Teddy DiBiase Jr. under what the federal court filing called "sham contracts" to deliver personal development courses to state employees and a program for inner-city youth, “regardless of whether any work had been performed and knowing that no work would ever be performed.”...