Dustin Cardon

1 week ago | mississippifreepress.org | Dustin Cardon

Each year in early May, the City of Senatobia in northeast Mississippi closes all roads across the two square miles that make up its downtown district in preparation for a flood of some 6,000 people descending on the town for its Five Star City Fest.

2 weeks ago | mississippifreepress.org | Dustin Cardon

Since 2017, dozens of “mega trucks” from across the country have descended upon the small town of Leakesville in southern Mississippi each year on the first Saturday in April, converging on a 900-foot dirt track just outside the city limits. Unlike the tires of monster trucks, which measure up to roughly five and a half feet tall, mega trucks instead run tractor-sized tires built for speed and maneuverability.

1 month ago | mississippifreepress.org | Dustin Cardon

On a sunny day in the mid-1960s, a young Danny Lynn Clark watched as his father, Robert E. Bobby Clark, rumbled down the road toward their family farm in Lucedale, Miss., aboard a rust-red Model A Farmall tractor. The elder Clark had purchased the tractor—a one-plow model produced throughout the 1940s—from a vendor some seven miles away and driven it down the highway to get it to the farm.

1 month ago | mississippifreepress.org | Dustin Cardon |Collin Binkley |Chris Megerian

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the U.S. Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement. Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology.

2 months ago | mississippifreepress.org | Dustin Cardon

Emily Wagster Pettus reported on the Mississippi Legislature for 31 years, attending hundreds of committee meetings and floor debates, covering thousands of bills and interviewing countless lawmakers. The Mississippi Senate honored her with a resolution on the Senate floor on March 6. Pettus started covering the Legislature in 1994 with The Clarion-Ledger before transitioning to reporting for the Associated Press in 2001.