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. There was a key moment during the final mayoral debate between Mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba and former opponent Jonathan Lee when Lumumba defused Lee's main line of criticism by explaining how City Hall works.
2. Othor Cain, chairman of the board of directors at Jackson-based HIV/AIDS nonprofit Grace House, pointed to the upward trend in HIV infection rates for men, particularly black men who have sex with men.
3. Since the Affordable Care Act passed and President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have attempted to repeal the law more than three dozen times.
4. Voice of Calvary Ministries President Phil Reed gave a June 6 presentation about the Neighborhood Stabilization Program at the King Edward Hotel.
5. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says Google is an “accessory before the fact” to online sales of illegal pharmaceuticals.
6. We at the JFP want to shine a spotlight on a few men who make Jackson a little cleaner, brighter, compassionate, smarter or a little more delicious.
7. When a new law goes into effect on July 1, it's going to feel like the Wild West in Mississippi. Not only because the law permits individuals to carry guns and other weapons in plain view and without a permit but also because the law is so vague that the courts will likely be barraged with lawsuits over its nuances.
8. Fifty years after the assassination of Medgar Evers, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson came together to celebrate Evers' life.
9. The Jackson City Council approved $1.75 million in tax-increment financing for a $53-million, 205-room luxury Westin hotel that would face Congress Street.
10. AAA puts the national average for regular gasoline at $3.64 a gallon, up from $3.57 this time last year. But Mississippi, with an average of $3.27 a gallon, is one of three states that, along with Alabama ($3.26) and South Carolina ($3.20), is dragging that average down.

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