Jackson Free Press

There's never a slow news week in Jackson, Miss., and last week was no exception. Here are the local stories JFP reporters brought you in case you missed them:

1. Senate bill 2141, known as the "Nonpartisan School Board Election Act," proposed changing state law to allow the electorate to choose school-board members in municipal school districts, such as Jackson Public Schools. Senators amended the bill by a vote of 50-1 Thursday to instead create a commission to study the issue.
2. The House Rules Committee on Thursday blocked a Medicaid bill that had already been passed by the Senate. Senate Bill 2207 didn't include expansion but it did have sections that Democrats could try to amend to add it.
3. Senators voted 49-2 Thursday for House Bill 894, which lets the Public Service Commission approve a multi-year rate plan for the Kemper coal plant. They voted 46-5 for House Bill 1134, which allows Mississippi Power to sell up to $1 billion in bonds to pay for Kemper construction and financing costs over $2.4 billion.
4. The Mississippi House debated Thursday on HB 625, which would exempt guns and ammunition manufactured in Mississippi from enforcement of federal gun restrictions. Later, the Senate considered SB 2975, which seeks to put restrictions on drugs used to induce first-trimester abortions.
5. The Mississippi House passed House Bill 958 Wednesday, which would let boards create policies authorizing employees, including cafeteria workers and janitors, carry concealed weapons on campus. A previous version of the bill limited the number of employees with weapons at each school, but the bill passed provides no limit.
6. A powerful twister tore a path across at least three counties, injuring more than 80 people. Read the full story here.
7. A day after informally notifying Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney of the federal government's rejection of the state's proposal to run a health-insurance exchange, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlined its reasons in a letter to Chaney.
8. Delta State University agreed to provide a location on its campus to the Cleveland Music Foundation for the Mississippi Grammy Museum. The museum, styled after Los Angeles' Grammy Museum, would use interactive exhibits to commemorate Mississippi's musical heritage and attract tourists to the Delta region.
9. The state Senate passed Senate Bill 2806, which adds the term "cultural retail" to the definition of a tourism project to qualify for the tourism project sales tax incentive fund.
10. The Mississippi Senate passed a bill Monday that would make unregistered sex offenders wear GPS tracking bracelets and require local governments to notify the public when offenders move to their neighborhood.

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