Story
US-Led Strikes Hit IS Group as Coalition Grows
American warplanes and drones hit Islamic State group tanks, Humvees, checkpoints and bunkers in airstrikes Friday targeting the extremists in Syria and Iraq, as the U.S.-led coalition expanded to include …
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City & County
Rewind: T.I. Gets Key to Jackson, AG Holder Steps Aside and Life After Lumumba
T.I. could have had whatever he liked in Jackson this week. After traveling to several Jackson schools to talk to local students, the rapper was given the key to the …
Story
Person of the Day
Zero the Blue Heeler
Zero, Swell-O-Phonic owner Ron Chane's blue heeler best bud, has been a Jackson icon practically since birth.
Story
Police, Protesters Scuffle After Ferguson Apology
Police and protesters clashed briefly in Ferguson just hours after the St. Louis suburb's police chief issued an apology to the family of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old who was …
Story
Rain Helps Reduce Threat from California Wildfire
Helpful rains and more than 8,000 firefighters brought solid advances against a huge wildfire in Northern California, leading evacuations to dwindle and the number of threatened homes to fall from …
Story
6 Charter School Applications to be Considered
Mississippi's Charter School Authorizer Board says groups have submitted six eligible applications to open schools in the current cycle.
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Civil Rights
Better Options for JPS’ Boys of Color?
Dr. Cedrick Gray, the eternally upbeat bowtie-wearing superintendent of the Jackson Public Schools, says there was a time when he was a hardheaded little boy coming up in Memphis.
Story
National
Resigning AG Eric Holder Was Key in Mississippi Cases
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's first African American AG and one of the longest-tenured members of first-black-President Barack Obama's cabinet, is stepping down.
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Health Care
Administration Says Hospitals Will Save $5.7B from Unpaid Bills Due to Health Law
Hospitals are projected to save $5.7 billion this year as previously uninsured patients gain coverage through the 2010 health care law, the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.
Entry
NPR: Eric Holder to Announce Resignation
By R.L. NaveU.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is stepping down, National Public Radio is reporting.
Holder is the nation's first African American AG and one of the longest-tenured members of first-black-President Barack Obama's cabinet.
According to NPR: "Two sources familiar with the decision tell NPR that Holder, 63, intends to leave the Justice Department as soon as his successor is confirmed, a process that could run through 2014 and even into next year. A former U.S. government official says Holder has been increasingly "adamant" about his desire to leave soon for fear he otherwise could be locked in to stay for much of the rest of President Obama's second term."
Holder shepherded the USDOJ through rocky times and made civil-rights enforcement a hallmark of his tenure.
Under Holder, several issues and cases out of Mississippi garnered national prominence.
In March 2012, Deryl Dedmon and two co-conspirators from Rankin County became the first individuals charged under a 2009 federal hate-crime law for the murder of James Craig Anderson, a black man from Jackson.
The case of Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder challenged the federal Voting Rights Act, which required a number of states that had histories with racial discrimination in voting. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby cleared the way for several states, including Mississippi, to implement voter-ID laws.
Civil-rights groups had argued, and Holder agreed, that voter ID represented an unconstitutional barrier to exercising voting rights. Mississippi's voter ID law, designed to stop election fraud, was first used in the June 2014 U.S. Senate primary, which resulted in multiple allegations of vote fraud that have yet to be resolved.
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Sierra Leone Cordons Off 3 Areas to Control Ebola
Sierra Leone restricted travel Thursday in three more "hotspots" of Ebola where more than 1 million people live, meaning about a third of the country's population is now under quarantine.
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US-Led Strikes Hit IS-Held Oil Sites in Syria
U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the extremist Islamic State group overnight and early Thursday, killing at least 19 people as the militants released dozens of detainees in …
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Present Leaves
As we celebrate the paper's 12th birthday this week, we offer this as our gift to Jackson. Thank you for inspiring us all these years. And cheers to Trip and …
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City & County
JRA Power Shift Could Affect Farish
The Farish Street project failed to hit its expected stride, and developer David Watkins eventually fell out of favor with JRA, which yanked the master lease from Watkins' control in …
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The Slate
If I was a college football coach, I would rather have 100 Dak Prescotts than one Jameis Winston. Prescott is everything you want in a college athlete.
Story
It’s Time to Truly Invest in Transparency
The City of Jackson recently completed a pretty grueling budget planning process, while the state will soon start a round of budget hearings in anticipation of the upcoming legislative session, …
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City & County
Westward Expansion
West Jackson is full of the kinds of challenges that social-science careers are built on, and the master plan takes all of it into account.
Story
City & County
The Curious Case of Costco, Stadium, Museum, Baseball and Parks
The Jackson Planning Board meeting on Aug. 27 was anything but drab. The widely reported issue of rezoning 50 acres of land that included Smith-Wills Stadium, Jamie Fowler Boyll Park …
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Business
Planting the Seeds of Big Ideas
TEDx Jackson's theme is "Fertile Ground," and includes a wide range of speakers including Joel Bomgar, the founder and CEO of Bomgar, one of the fastest-growing businesses in North America …
