Person of the Day
Jim Hood
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has quietly been locking horns with Web giant Google Inc. for well over a year, but the fight has started to brim over in recent …
Business
Mayor Wants to Move $76.5 Million from Trustmark
After banking with Trustmark for at least three decades, the City of Jackson is looking to make a change.
LGBT
Southern LGBTs Get Good, Bad News
Despite new information about social and economic disparities facing lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender people in the South, Mississippi continues to make slow, steady progress toward equality.
City & County
Future Cloudy for Both Welfare Receivers Testing Dirty
One in 40—that's the likelihood that a person participating in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Programs, a monthly subsidy program for poor and working-class families, in Mississippi is a drug …
City & County
County Wants Fewer Detained Youth
William Skinner recently fired off a letter to a federal judge in Jackson saying that Hinds County officials are trying to usurp his authority over the detention and release of …
Roundup: Foote Beats Carson, Human Rights Resolution OK'd
Ashby Foote defeated Dorsey Carson tonight by a 106-vote margin to win the race for Jackson Ward 1 councilman.
City & County
Mud Flies Late in Ward 1 Race
Residents of northeast Jackson's Ward 1 are heading to the polls once more to select their representative to the city council.
Books
Bryan Stevenson
The founding attorney for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson works in a broken system of justice. The indigent clients EJI represents deal with issues such as mental …
City & County
James Anderson Hate Murder Fallout Continues
Sarah Adelia Graves and Shelbie Brooke Richards, who are white, pleaded guilty in federal court in Jackson to charges associated with the murder of James Craig Anderson, a black man …
City & County
Dorsey Carson Releases Taxes, Slams Ashby Foote on Liens
Dorsey Carson, one of two candidates running to fill the Jackson Ward 1 seat, is taking his opponent, investment advisor Ashby Foote, to the mat over Foote's history of not …
City & County
Stokes Resignation to Prompt Ward 3 Election
As expected, Ward 3 Councilwoman LaRita Cooper-Stokes tendered her resignation from the Jackson City Council last night to take a seat on the bench as a county judge.
City & County
Fireworks Over Siemens, Human Rights
The Jackson City Council approved a $7,200 pyrotechnic display for Thalia Mara Hall for New Year's Eve. But the real fireworks came later on in the meeting, when the council …
Politics
Making Mississippi 420 Friendly
The potential of cannabis as an appetite stimulant is among the key arguments from proponents of rolling back legal restrictions for marijuana for its medicinal purposes.
Civil Rights
Activists Want City Human Rights Commission
In the aftermath of a string of extrajudicial killings, including Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York, advocates in Jackson want to charter a commission to protect …
Fondren Hotel Project Withdrawn
The developer of a hotel slated for Fondren has withdrawn the project.
Civil Rights
Ferguson: An American Moment
What started organically in Ferguson with mad, disconnected young African American boys and girls, as a series of unorganized nightly actions, has matured over the past 100 days into a …
City & County
It's Carson, Foote In Ward 1 Runoff
Dorsey Carson, an attorney specializing in construction businesses, faces financier Ashby Foote in a runoff for Jackson Ward 1 councilman.
Business
Waging Battle Against the Minimum Wage
Today, the campaign for $15 has spread to 150 cities and 33 countries. City councils in Seattle and San Francisco have raised the minimum wage to $15 in those cities.
LGBT
Looking Way, Way Into Gay Marriage's Future in Mississippi
Predictably, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves—as most federal judges appointed by Presidents Clinton and Obama did before him—last night ruled that same-sex couples in Mississippi should be allowed to marry.
Person of the Day
Doris Whitaker
The word pastoral has several meanings. In one sense, the word means to give spiritual or religious guidance. In another way, it evokes the shepherding of grazing animals. Doris Whitaker, …
Two Hinds County Judge Runoffs Today
Today, some Hinds County voters are returning to the polls for two runoffs for two county judge seats.
State
Gov. Bryant’s Ring-Toss Budget
Like the stuffed birds that will make an appearance at Thanksgiving dinner this week, Gov. Phil Bryant has fattened up state spending in his latest executive budget recommendation.
Person of the Day
Neil Carter
Neil Carter has the distinction of writing about secular humanism while living in the reddest of Deep South states. Being a former evangelical makes him even more of a novelty.
City & County
Mayor Yarber: FBI Has Not Questioned Me
The meaning behind several cryptic tweets from Mayor Tony Yarber on Friday came into focus today as Yarber addressed rumors that he and other city hall officials could be targets …
Immigration
Immigration Advocates (More or Less) Applaud Obama's Plan
President Obama's Immigration Accountability Executive Action focuses on toughening border protections against people entering the U.S. illegally, deporting people who have been convicted of felonies and expanding previous executive action …
City & County
Chokwe Lumumba Center Opens with Ferguson Talk
Last night, the Chokwe Lumumba Center for Economic Democracy and Development opened to the public with its first public event: a town hall meeting about protests in Ferguson, Mo. sparked …
City & County
The Fire Next Time
City Council President De’Keither Stamps said last week’s fire at the state-owned Ag Museum, which Jackson fire crews extinguished, is a prime example of why the state should be kicking …
Hickingbottom Joins Ward 1 Race
The field is set for the special election to replace Quentin Whitwell as Jackson Ward 1 Councilman. The last man—all six candidates are men—in is Bob Hickingbottom.
Politics
The Perils of Deregulating MDOC
Not long after Chris Epps took over as the commissioner of the state prison system, the Mississippi Legislature passed a bill that removed the Mississippi Department of Corrections from the …
A Living Document
The West Jackson Master Plan, which started a year a and a half ago, is complete. Planners hope the end product—the West Jackson Planning Guidebook—will act as a kind of …
Politics
Hinds Election Snafu Could Bring Sanctions Against Commissioners
The Hinds County supervisors are calling on the local district attorney and the state attorney general to sanction the county election commission for failure to order the number of ballots …
Business
Democrat Baria Wants Legislative MDOC Hearings
A Democratic lawmaker wants the Legislature to look deeper into the allegations of corruption that have ensnared longtime Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps.
City & County
Let's Get Ethical ... Ethical
Operation Shoestring, a Jackson-based nonprofit that supports children and families, will highlight the meaning of ethical leadership at its annual Conversation About Community luncheon on Monday, Nov. 17.
City & County
MDOC Scandal Highlights Privatization Problems
With the nation's largest private prison operators earning more than $3 billion in revenue, private-prison and government watchdogs say the opportunity for the brand of corruption alleged against Epps and …
City & County
Man Objects to No-Gun Airport Signs
On Oct. 6, Adam Brock filed a lawsuit in Hinds County Circuit Court alleging that signs posted in Jackson Medgar-Wiley International Airport violate state law.
Person of the Day
Rep. Bennie Thompson
Three heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi will posthumously receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom thanks to Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
Politics
Chris Epps, Ex-Prison Boss, Pleads Not Guilty in Corruption Case
Christopher B. Epps, the former director of Mississippi's prison system, sat in federal courthouse as some of the people around him made small talk, some even joking about the charges …
Business
Epps, McCrory Indictment Outlines MDOC Bribery Scheme
Christopher Epps, the long-tenured commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and former Rankin County School Board President Cecil McCrory will be arraigned later today on a 49-count indictment in …
Indictment: Rankin County Businessman Bribed MDOC's Epps for Prison Contracts
Christopher Epps, the long-tenured commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and former Rankin County School Board President Cecil McCrory will be arraigned this later today on a 49-count indictment …
Vaccine Truthiness
It was October 2009, and political and cultural critic Bill Maher, who is known for his progressive views on most everything, locked horns on his HBO show with Bill Frist, …
City & County
City Rethinks Problem Properties
Since August, more than 200 Jackson lots have been declared menaces to public health, safety and welfare.
Business
Capitol Street’s Catch-22
At close to 5 p.m. on Sept. 24, water spouted high into the air from a 12-inch water main into the air, flooding Capitol Street in downtown Jackson.
Business
Yarber, Council Push to Ban the Box for Convictions
Mayor Tony Yarber announced that the city would look to end the practice of asking about applicants' criminal records and to encourage public and private employers to do the same.
Development
Stokes, Graham Blast New Jail Planning Committee
In response to the seemingly never-ending bad news out of the Raymond Detention Center, county officials this morning took an incremental first step toward finding a solution.
City & County
How to End Persistent Poverty
In Mississippi, he points out, half the state's 82 counties have experienced persistent poverty, where at least 20 percent of the people have lived in poverty for three decades.
How to Be a Stand-Up Guy Against Domestic Violence
Since March, a group of about 10 men from various walks of life have been meeting once a month around the Jackson area. The men represent a spectrum of experiences …
Editor's Note
An Open Letter to My Sister, and Men Everywhere
The danger in expecting women to meet some standard of purity or respectability is that when some man decides that a woman's purity is compromised because of her low-cut dress …
City & County
Richard Sellers: Schooling the City Council
Richard Sellers comes from a long family line of educators. Currently a special-education teacher at Brandon High School and a member of the Mississippi Army National Guard, Sellers, 31, believes …
Crime
Death Row Prisoner Manning in Court Today
Willie Jerome Manning, a Mississippi death-row inmate, will argue before the state's high court Monday that he deserves a new trial because his lawyer's poor performance and faulty evidence contributing …
