Mississippi Edition
4/8/21 - Dispelling Vaccine Myths | Grocery Tax | Book Club: Carolyn Brown | Cyber Crimes Task Force
Health leaders continue to address vaccine hesitancy.
And, most states don’t have a sales tax on groceries. But, Alabama and Mississippi do. And that money could go a long way for low-income residents.
Then, in our Book Club, one of the country’s largest collections of children’s literature can be found at the University of Southern Mississippi. Now there’s a book about all those books.
Plus, the AG's office teams up with the Secret Service to fight cyber fraud.
Segment 1:
Doctors with the Mississippi Department of Health and the University of Mississippi Medical Center are working to dispel myths about the coronavirus vaccines. The efforts are part of a targeted approach to increase vaccinations within communities of color. During the early stages of the pandemic, Black and Native Mississippians were hit disproportionately hard by the virus. Since the vaccine rollout, two major challenges have emerged in the attempt to inoculate communities of color: access and hesitancy.
Segment 2:
Politicians on both sides of the aisle in Mississippi and Alabama have been trying – and failing – to cut the grocery tax for over a decade. It’s a sales tax that impacts low-income families the most and the majority of states don’t have it. Mississippi’s latest attempt to slash it failed when the Legislative Session ended last week. Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom reports on why the tax is so hard to get rid of and how Louisiana did it.
Segment 3:
The University of Southern Mississippi houses one of the largest collections of children’s literature in the country and we have Lena De Grummond to thank. Spending most of her adult life as a librarian in Louisiana, de Grummond was forced to retire at age 65. She was offered a job teaching Children’s literature at Southern Miss and, in an effort to reward her hard-working adult students, began soliciting materials from children’s authors and illustrators around the country. Carolyn J. Brown is one of the editors of the new book, “A De Grummond Primer: Highlights of the Children’s Literature Collection. She says De Grummond never intended to start a collection.
Segment 4:
Cyber crime is on the rise in Mississippi, including wire fraud, ransomware, and use of crypto-currency in illegal transactions. Now, the state's chief legal officer is partnering with the Secret Service to target these crimes. Attorney General Lynn Fitch says her office will use this new partnership to prosecute the growing number of cyber crimes.