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Miss Mississippi delegates prepare for first night of preliminary competition

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Miss Mississippi delegates prepare for first night of preliminary competition


JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The Miss Mississippi delegates have been in Vicksburg since Sunday.

Monday night, all 39 rolled through downtown Vicksburg along with Miss Mississippi Vivian O’Neal for the annual parade. Beginning Wednesday night they will take the stage for the first night of preliminary competition.

We talked with three more delegates about Service Initiatives and why they participate in Miss Mississippi.

13 delegates will compete in Talent Wednesday night.(WLBT)

This is the sixth year Miss Hattiesburg, Katelyn Perry, will compete at Miss Mississippi. Perry says she has grown personally, and each year, she comes back to give it another try.

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“I have a very successful 501c3 that I wouldn’t have started if it wasn’t for the confidence that I gained through this organization,” Perry said. “I am getting a Masters’s Degree right now, completely debt-free. I started accumulating scholarship dollars when I was just 12 years old because of this organization.”

Perry has formed a non-profit, Crowns for a Cause, to help raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals her Service Initiative.

“We have 150 ambassadors from more than 20 states, and I’m able to teach them about why service is so important, and while we do that we advocate for CMN hospitals”, Perry said.

Miss Key to the South Karsyn Ulmer was a semi-finalist in 2023. This is her third year at Miss Mississippi.

Ulmer said, “I almost didn’t come back. I actually waited and competed in the very last prelim.”

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Her Service Initiative is Joyce’s Journey named in honor of her aunt.

The delegates have been divided into three separate groups for preliminary competition.
The delegates have been divided into three separate groups for preliminary competition.(WLBT)

“My Aunt Joyce, she had Cerebral Palsy, among other disabilities, and I remember being a young girl and going into places with her in public and just seeing people kind of look at her differently, and I hated it because at the end of the day, she was my best friend,” said Ulmer.

Miss Mississippi State University Morgan Nelson is back for a second time. She was also a semi-finalist in 2023.

Nelson said, “It’s truly an opportunity that I want to promote to all girls, young women who look like me and who don’t look like me to be a representative of the state.”

Miss MSU says she wants to help eliminate health disparities and chronic conditions through her Service Initiative.

“Don’t Sugarcoat It encourages Mississippians to just try to eat healthy just for a day,” Nelson said.

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Miss Hattiesburg and Miss Key to the South compete in Talent Thursday night. They will be singing. Miss Mississippi State competes in Talent Friday night. She will be dancing.

Each of the six semi-finalists from 2023 received $2,000 scholarships from the Miss Mississippi Corporation. That includes four of the delegates who are back this year, Miss Hattiesburg Katelyn Perry, Miss USM Kat Adcox, Miss Key to the South Karsyn Ulmer, and Miss MSU Morgan Nelson.

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Mississippi Lottery Mississippi Match 5, Cash 3 results for Jan. 13, 2026

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Mississippi Lottery Mississippi Match 5, Cash 3 results for Jan. 13, 2026


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The Mississippi Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Jan. 13, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Mississippi Match 5 numbers from Jan. 13 drawing

01-06-11-25-30

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Check Mississippi Match 5 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash 3 numbers from Jan. 13 drawing

Midday: 7-4-3, FB: 2

Evening: 1-6-7, FB: 3

Check Cash 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash 4 numbers from Jan. 13 drawing

Midday: 2-1-0-2, FB: 2

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Evening: 2-5-3-8, FB: 3

Check Cash 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash Pop numbers from Jan. 13 drawing

Midday: 03

Evening: 14

Check Cash Pop payouts and previous drawings here.

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Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

Story continues below gallery.

Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize

Winnings of $599 or less can be claimed at any authorized Mississippi Lottery retailer.

Prizes between $600 and $99,999, may be claimed at the Mississippi Lottery Headquarters or by mail. Mississippi Lottery Winner Claim form, proper identification (ID) and the original ticket must be provided for all claims of $600 or more. If mailing, send required documentation to:

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Mississippi Lottery Corporation

P.O. Box 321462

Flowood, MS

39232

If your prize is $100,000 or more, the claim must be made in person at the Mississippi Lottery headquarters. Please bring identification, such as a government-issued photo ID and a Social Security card to verify your identity. Winners of large prizes may also have the option of setting up electronic funds transfer (EFT) for direct deposits into a bank account.

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Mississippi Lottery Headquarters

1080 River Oaks Drive, Bldg. B-100

Flowood, MS

39232

Mississippi Lottery prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing date. For detailed instructions and necessary forms, please visit the Mississippi Lottery claim page.

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When are the Mississippi Lottery drawings held?

  • Cash 3: Daily at 2:30 p.m. (Midday) and 9:30 p.m. (Evening).
  • Cash 4: Daily at 2:30 p.m. (Midday) and 9:30 p.m. (Evening).
  • Match 5: Daily at 9:30 p.m. CT.
  • Cash Pop: Daily at 2:30 p.m. (Midday) and 9:30 p.m. (Evening).

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Mississippi editor. You can send feedback using this form.



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The synagogue means something special to Southern Jews — which makes the Mississippi arson that much darker

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The synagogue means something special to Southern Jews — which makes the Mississippi arson that much darker


The arsonist who confessed to burning a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, told police he targeted the building because of its “Jewish ties.”

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What an odd phrase, I thought. As if there was nothing more than a flimsy connection between the building he aimed to destroy and the living tradition contained within it.

For those of us raised in one of the small Jewish communities scattered across the South, nothing could be further from reality. I grew up in Louisiana, attending a Reform temple that was very similar to the one the arsonist called a “synagogue of Satan.” Baton Rouge, like Jackson, isn’t a small town, but both cities’ Jewish communities aren’t big enough for a day school or a kosher butcher. There’s no mikveh, and no chevra kadisha. Like so many other tiny communities scattered throughout the region, we did not have a Jewish Community Center, a Jewish bookstore or a Jewish museum.

And so our synagogues had to be everything to everyone, all at once.

We listened to the blast of the shofar in the same auditorium where we giggled late into the night at youth group lock-ins. We learned our first Hebrew words in the same classroom where we organized against KKK Grand Wizard David Duke’s political campaigns. We played fierce basketball games against each other in the same space where we came together to mourn the murder of Yitzhak Rabin.

The synagogue gave us our only access to kosher corned beef sandwiches and parent-approved teenage crushes; our only chance to sit in a sukkah or watch our fingernails glow in the flames of a Havdalah candle; our only opportunity to hear firsthand testimony from Holocaust survivors.

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As Jewish minorities in the Bible Belt, some of us encountered open antisemitism; others simply learned what it meant to feel subtly, but perpetually, like an outsider. We were navigating a world where “Merry Christmas” was the default greeting and our sports teams recited the Lord’s Prayer before every game. Where we had to explain, again, why we missed school for Yom Kippur. The synagogue was where we went to feel completely at ease in our Jewish skin.

This is another part of what makes Southern Judaism so unique: just like their members, the synagogues themselves form an incredibly tight-knit network, so we have all spent time in one another’s sanctuaries and social halls. Reading coverage of the fire, I was bemused but not surprised to learn that the temple president is an old camp friend.

Decades ago, I celebrated friends’ bar and bat mitzvahs at Beth Israel and spent weekends there for North American Federation of Temple Youth conclaves. Now, my daughter is invited to those friends’ children’s rites of passage, sitting in the same pews where we once whispered loudly to each other behind tattered prayerbooks. For so many of us, Sunday’s fire was not just another horrific act of antisemitism. It was an attack on our very identity, an attempt to destroy the place where it has been formed, practiced and passed down for generations.

But Southern synagogues have survived violence and trauma before. And in the wake of this outrage, I take comfort in the fact that so often, when tragedy has stricken, we have been comforted and cared for not only by fellow Jews across the region but also by allies of other faiths.

When a hurricane rendered my childhood synagogue unusable, the Baptist church next door offered us their space for High Holiday services. Without being asked, they draped large cloths over the crosses in the sanctuary so that we would feel more comfortable. After the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, the imam of the local mosque reached out to our rabbi to invite the congregation to an interfaith service of prayer and peace.

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And so it has been in the aftermath of the Jackson fire. Within hours, faith leaders from across the city had reached out, offering the dislocated Jewish community their spaces for services. Outside the charred entrance, bouquets of flowers lay on the ground. Someone left a simple note: “I’m so very sorry.”

The arsonist may have aimed to sever the “Jewish ties” Jackson Jews have to their community’s physical home, to the holy books and sacred artifacts kept inside it. But he grossly underestimated so much: our long legacy of resilience; the unbreakable commitment we have to our faith and our values; and most importantly, the Jewish — and Southern — tradition of caring for one’s neighbor, of standing arm in arm to overcome injustice and hatred.





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What we know about the alleged arson at Mississippi’s largest and oldest synagogue | CNN

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What we know about the alleged arson at Mississippi’s largest and oldest synagogue | CNN


It’s the oldest synagogue in Mississippi, a thriving religious center that has served Jackson’s small but vibrant Jewish community for more than half a century.

Now, the Beth Israel synagogue is indefinitely closed, its historic interiors blackened with ash, after authorities say a man set a fire in the building’s library in the early hours of Saturday morning. The FBI says the suspect confessed to attacking the historic synagogue “due to (the) building’s Jewish ties.”

This is the second time the synagogue, which serves a congregation first established in Jackson in 1860, has been attacked with fire, according to its website. In 1967, the building was bombed by members of the Klu Klux Klan, who also bombed the rabbi’s home just months later. The building is also home to the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which supports Jewish communities in 13 southern states.

The 19-year-old suspect in Saturday’s attack was arrested at a hospital after his father called the FBI, saying his son confessed to him. Location data from a family tracking app helped corroborate his confession.

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No one else is believed to have been inside the building and no injuries have been reported from the fire.

Stephen Spencer Pittman has been charged with “arson of property used in interstate commerce or used in an activity affecting interstate commerce,” according to a criminal complaint filed Monday.

Pittman’s father contacted the FBI Saturday and told the agency his son had confessed to setting the building on fire, says the complaint.

The suspect was found at a local hospital with non-life-threatening burn injuries, Charles Felton, chief of investigations for the Jackson Fire Department’s Arson Investigation Division said.

A public defender was appointed to represent the 19-year-old at his first court appearance Monday afternoon. He appeared in federal court via video call from his hospital bed, with both his hands visibly bandaged, according to The Associated Press.

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He said he had graduated high school and attended three semesters of college, reports the AP.

Pittman was released to the custody of the US Marshals Service and is scheduled to appear in court again on January 20, court records show.

If Pittman is convicted, he could face anywhere between five and 20 years in prison, the Department of Justice said in a news release. He acted alone, according to the DOJ.

CNN has reached out to Pittman’s public defender for comment.

CCTV footage shows someone started a fire inside the synagogue early Saturday morning, according to the criminal complaint. The document includes an image showing a “hooded individual” seen “walking in the interior of the building pouring contents from what appeared to be a gas container.”

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Pittman told authorities he first stopped at a gas station to buy the gas he used to set the blaze, according to the complaint. At the gas station, he took the license plate off his vehicle, he told authorities.

Once he was at the building, he used an axe to break one of the synagogue’s windows, poured gas inside, and used a torch lighter to start a fire.

The Jackson Fire Department responded to the fire shortly after 3 a.m., where they found flames billowing from the windows. They requested fire investigators, who classified the blaze as “incendiary” based on “fire patterns and video surveillance.”

Investigators determined the fire started in the synagogue’s library, which sustained extensive damage, and continued toward the sanctuary, Felton said. There is smoke damage throughout the building, he said — so the congregation won’t be able to return for some time.

“The fire resulted in extensive damage to a significant portion of the building and rendered it inoperable for an indefinite period of time,” the criminal complaint says.

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Pittman’s confessions, both to his father and to police, were corroborated by location data and physical evidence, the complaint says.

Data from Life360 — an app that provides real time GPS tracking — shows Pittman traveled from his home in Madison County, then stopped at a gas station in Ridgeland before proceeding to the synagogue, according to the complaint.

He texted his father a photo of the rear of the building, says the complaint. He wrote to his father: “There’s a furnace in the back”; “Btw my plate is off”; “Hoodie is on”; and “And they have the best cameras.” When his father pleaded with him to return home, Pittman replied, “I did my research,” says the complaint.

Later in the day, his father saw burns on Pittman’s ankles, hands and face, says the complaint. When he confronted his son, Pittman confessed to lighting a fire inside the building — and laughed as he did so, according to the complaint.

The FBI found a burned cell phone at the synagogue they believe is Pittman’s, as well as a hand torch.

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In his interviews with the FBI and other investigators, Pittman called the building the “synagogue of Satan.” He “ultimately confessed to lighting a fire inside the building due to the building’s Jewish ties,” reads the criminal complaint.

He told his father that he “finally got them” when he confessed to the crime, says the complaint.

Zach Shemper, the congregation’s president, told CNN Monday law enforcement informed him the suspect in the arson attack posted antisemitic comments online. He said he hadn’t seen the posts himself.

Attorney General Pam Bondi characterized the attack as a “disgusting act of anti-Semitic violence” in the DOJ’s news release.

Jackson Mayor John Horhn condemned “acts of antisemitism, racism, and religious hatred” in a statement after the attack.

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The synagogue sustained significant damage during the attack, and it’s unclear when it’ll be able to reopen.

Photos show the building’s walls and floor covered with ash, with piles of damaged items heaped together.

Several Torah scrolls were destroyed in the fire, according to the American Jewish Committee, which condemned the incident as a “hateful act.”

Shemper said it could take at least a year to repair the building. In the meantime, multiple churches have offered their spaces to Beth Israel.

He said he felt both “sadness” and “anger” when he learned about the blaze.

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“When something like this happens so catastrophic, your mind goes 100 miles an hour in every direction you can think of,” Shemper said. “For someone to hurt the safe space that we hold as a congregation, it’s just so detrimental and catastrophic.”

The synagogue served around 170 households as of 2021, according to the Institute for Southern Jewish Life. In addition to providing a home for Jackson’s Jewish community, the institution also served a role in the 20th century civil rights movement. Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, the congregation’s leader from the 1950s to the 70s, supported civil rights activists and helped found an interracial group of clergy to help rebuild Black churches attacked by white supremacists, according to the institute. It was his activism that eventually caught the attention of the KKK, whose members attacked the synagogue and his home, the institute said.

Michele Schipper, one of the congregation’s past presidents, said she was both emotionally distraught and committed to maintaining Jewish community in Jackson.

“I’m devastated,” she said. “We’re all devastated, but we are ready to rebuild, and with the support and outreach from our community, we will continue to be a vibrant Jewish community in Jackson, Mississippi.”

Correction:
An earlier version of this story misidentified the source of the confessions. It was the suspect, Stephen Spencer Pittman, according to court documents.

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