JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A suspect in an arson fire at a synagogue that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan decades ago admitted to targeting the historic institution because it’s a Jewish house of worship and confessed what he had done to his father, who turned him in to authorities after observing burn marks on his son’s ankles, hands and face, the FBI said Monday.
Stephen Pittman was charged with maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive. The 19-year-old suspect confessed to lighting a fire inside the building, which he referred to as “the synagogue of Satan,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Mississippi on Monday.
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Burnt debris from a fire at the Beth Israel Congregation glint in the sun on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
A note attached to a bundle of flowers left outside the Beth Israel Congregation reads, I am so very sorry," on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
/// Boards cover the charred remains of the Beth Israel Congregation library, which was set on fire early Saturday morning, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Mississippi. (AP Photo / Sophie Bates)
Caution tape and flowers cover the entrance to the Beth Israel Congregation, a synagogue that was set on fire early Saturday morning, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
FILE - This Nov. 2, 2018 photo shows an armed Hinds County Sheriff's deputy outside of the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, file)
At a first appearance hearing Monday in federal court, a public defender was appointed for Pittman, who attended via video conference call from a hospital bed. Both of his hands were visibly bandaged. He told the judge that he was a high school graduate and had three semesters of college.
Prosecutors said he could face five to 20 years in prison if convicted. When the judge read him his rights, Pittman said, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Pittman is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary and detention hearing on Jan. 20.
Mike Scott, the public defender representing Pittman, did not immediately return The Associated Press' request for comment late Monday.
“This news puts a face and name to this tragedy, but does not change our resolve to proudly — even defiantly — continue Jewish life in Jackson in the face of hatred,” the Beth Israel Congregation wrote in a statement.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said she has instructed prosecutors to seek “severe penalties,” according to a statement provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Mississippi,
The fire ripped through the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday. No congregants or firefighters were injured. Security camera video released Monday by the synagogue showed a masked and hooded man using a gas can to pour liquid on the floor and a couch in the building’s lobby.
The weekend fire badly damaged the 165-year-old synagogue’s library and administrative offices. Five Torahs — the sacred scrolls with the text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — located inside the sanctuary were being assessed for smoke damage. Two Torahs inside the library, where the most severe damage was done, were destroyed. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was behind glass and was not damaged in the fire, according to the congregation.
The suspect’s father contacted the FBI and said his son had confessed to setting the building on fire. Pittman had texted his father a photo of the rear of the synagogue before the fire, with the message, “There's a furnace in the back.” His father had pleaded with his son to return home, but “Pittman replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and ‘I did my research,’” the affidavit said.
During an interview with investigators, Pittman said he had stopped at a gas station on his way to the synagogue to purchase the gas used in the fire. He also took the license plate off his vehicle at the gas station. He used an ax to break out a window of the synagogue, poured gas inside and used a torch lighter to start the fire, the FBI affidavit said.
The FBI later recovered a burned cellphone believed to be Pittman’s and took possession of a hand torch that a congregant had found.
Yellow police tape on Monday blocked off the entrances to the synagogue building, which was surrounded by broken glass and soot. Bouquets of flowers were laid on the ground at the building's entrance — including one with a note that said, “I'm so very sorry.”
The congregation's president, Zach Shemper, has vowed to rebuild the synagogue and said several churches had offered their spaces for worship during the rebuilding process. Shemper attended Pittman's court appearance Monday but didn't comment afterward.
With just several hundred people in the community, it has never been particularly easy being Jewish in Mississippi’s capital city, but members of Beth Israel have taken special pride in keeping their traditions alive in the heart of the Deep South.
Nearly every aspect of Jewish life in Jackson could be found under Beth Israel's roof. The midcentury modern building not only housed the congregation but also the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit provider of social services and philanthropy that is the hub of Jewish society in most U.S. cities. The building also is home to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which provides resources to Jewish communities in 13 southern states. A Holocaust memorial was outdoors behind the synagogue building.
Because Jewish children throughout the South have attended summer camp for decades in Utica, Mississippi, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Jackson, many retain a fond connection to the state and its Jewish community.
“Jackson is the capital city, and that synagogue is the capital synagogue in Mississippi,” said Rabbi Gary Zola, a historian of American Jewry who taught at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. “I would call it the flagship, though when we talk about places like New York and Los Angeles, it probably seems like Hicksville.”
Beth Israel as a congregation was founded in 1860 and acquired its first property, where it built Mississippi's first synagogue, after the Civil War. In 1967, the synagogue moved to its current location.
It was bombed by local KKK members not long after relocating, and then two months after that, the home of the synagogue's leader, Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, was bombed because of his outspoken opposition to segregation and racism.
At a time when opposition to racial segregation could be dangerous in the Deep South, many Beth Israel congregants hoped the rabbi would just stay quiet, but Nussbaum was unshakable in believing he was doing the right thing by supporting civil rights, Zola said.
“He had this strong, strong sense of justice,” Zola said.
Martin contributed to this report from Atlanta. Schneider reported from Orlando, Florida. Follow him on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social
Burnt debris from a fire at the Beth Israel Congregation glint in the sun on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
A note attached to a bundle of flowers left outside the Beth Israel Congregation reads, I am so very sorry," on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
/// Boards cover the charred remains of the Beth Israel Congregation library, which was set on fire early Saturday morning, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Mississippi. (AP Photo / Sophie Bates)
Caution tape and flowers cover the entrance to the Beth Israel Congregation, a synagogue that was set on fire early Saturday morning, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
FILE - This Nov. 2, 2018 photo shows an armed Hinds County Sheriff's deputy outside of the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, file)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Laurie Buckhout, a 2024 congressional candidate who fell just short of unseating North Carolina Democratic Rep. Don Davis, will get another chance this year after winning Tuesday’s Republican primary for a district recently redrawn favorably for the GOP.
Buckhout defeated four other candidates competing for the Republican nomination in the 1st Congressional District. The victory sets up a rematch with Democratic Rep. Don Davis, who defeated Buckhout in the 2024 general election by less than 2 percentage points. Davis faced no primary opposition.
Since then, the Republican-controlled General Assembly altered the 1st District as part of President Donald Trump’s multistate redistricting campaign ahead of the 2026 elections to retain the House.
A now more right-leaning 1st District covers all or parts of 25 counties from the coast inland to Raleigh’s outer suburbs.
Buckhout is a retired U.S. Army colonel who started a military technology consulting company before later selling it and moving to North Carolina.
Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House districts.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley each won their party’s U.S. Senate nominations in North Carolina on Tuesday, setting them up for a fall campaign that could determine control of Congress' upper chamber.
Whatley and Cooper are seeking the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who chose last June not to seek a third term. The two announced their campaigns weeks later and easily won their respective primary elections over crowded fields.
Cooper’s candidacy brought optimism to Democrats aiming to take back the Senate this year with a net gain of four seats. Whatley, who is also a former state Republican chairman, entered the race when President Donald Trump endorsed him after Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, declined to run.
North Carolina, a traditional battleground where Democrats have been able to hold the governor’s seat even as voters helped send Trump to the White House, was one of three states kicking off this year’s midterm elections, along with Texas and Arkansas. Tuesday’s slate of primaries came against the backdrop of the U.S. and Israel attack on Iran, which began over the weekend.
North Carolina’s election this year could be crucial for determining which party controls the U.S. Senate, where Republicans currently have the majority. The seat is open because Tillis decided to retire after clashing with Trump and the president threatened to support a primary challenger. Political experts say a typhoon of outside money could make the race the most expensive Senate campaigns in U.S. history, perhaps reaching $1 billion.
Many Democrats see Cooper, who served two terms as governor and has been successful in state politics for decades, as the party’s best shot at victory. Democrats think their most likely path to regaining the Senate majority includes winning in North Carolina, Maine, Alaska and Ohio.
Whatley promises to keep pushing Trump’s agenda if elected, one that he says has cut taxes and spending and restored U.S. military might.
“His leadership has changed our country, and I am proud to stand with him in the fight to secure our border, to strengthen our economy, and put America first,” Whatley said while giving his nomination acceptance speech in Charlotte.
Moments later in his own speech in Raleigh, Cooper said inflation and health care cuts caused by Republican policies are hurting North Carolina residents.
“These are not ordinary times. Everyday people are being left behind,” Cooper said. “And we see the chaos that’s coming out of Washington only making it worse.”
Some primary voters say Congress needs Democratic control as a counterweight to Trump and what they consider disastrous policies.
“I just think we’re not headed in the right direction as a country, so I needed to express that opinion,” said Shailendra Prakash, 65, of Raleigh, an unaffiliated voter who chose to vote in the Democratic primary on Tuesday and picked Cooper. “My hope is that it needs to flip.”
Republican voter Lisa Weaver, 64, of Apex, said she was picking Whatley because as the former RNC chairman, “he’s in tune with the issues that we care most about” and would assist the president.
“It’s not that I love everything that Trump does, but I do believe in the framework that he is offering for our country,” Weaver said.
A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in North Carolina since 2008. Meanwhile, Cooper, 68, hasn’t lost a North Carolina election going back to first running for the state House in the mid-1980s, leading to 16 years as attorney general and eight as governor through 2024.
Whatley, 57, previously worked in President George W. Bush’s administration, for then-North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole and as an energy lobbyist.
Whatley, Trump and other Republicans have blistered Cooper on criminal justice matters, accusing him of promoting soft-on-crime policies while governor. They’ve repeatedly highlighted last August’s fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train. Trump identified Zarutska’s mother in attendance at last week’s State of the Union address.
The fall election will be “a choice between a conservative champion for North Carolina, who will be an ally for President Trump in the Senate, or a champion for the failed policies of the left,” Whatley said Tuesday night.
Cooper told reporters recently that his career is about “prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars.”
In turn, Cooper and his allies have centered campaign attacks on Whatley’s allegiance to the president and to his past lobbying, with Cooper calling him an "out-of-touch D.C. insider.”
Repeating recent comments, Cooper said Tuesday night that if elected he would be a “strong, independent senator who will work with this president when I can and stand up to him when the people need me to.”
Tuesday’s election also included primary elections in all but one of North Carolina’s U.S. House districts. They include a five-candidate Republican primary in the northeastern 1st Congressional District, which is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis, who faced no primary opposition.
The Republican-controlled General Assembly created last fall a more right-leaning 1st District to join Trump’s multistate redistricting campaign ahead of the 2026 elections to retain the House. Davis won in 2024 by less than 2 percentage points.
Associated Press journalists Erik Verduzco in Charlotte and Allen G. Breed in Raleigh contributed to this report.
In this image from video provided by WNCT, Laurie Buckhout speaks during a debate with Republican candidates running in the primary for North Carolina’s Congressional District 1, in Greenville, N.C., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (WNCT via AP)
This combo image shows North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate former Gov. Roy Cooper, left, and Republican candidate former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, both speaking at separate primary election night watch parties Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey, Erik Verduzco)
North Carolina Republican Senate candidate former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate former Gov. Roy Cooper speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey)
North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate former Gov. Roy Cooper speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey)
From left, Viet Tran, Lorena Castillo-Ritz and John Steward pose for a photo together at the primary election night watch party for former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
People attend the primary election night watch party for former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
North Carolina Republican Senate candidate former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
