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. Instead of fighting the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jackson's high-school students have mobile phones, Ward 2 Councilman Tony Yarber is hoping to convince young people—and all Jacksonians—to use their smart phones to help lower the city's crime rate.
2. Between the city's aging water and sewer systems and sub-freezing weather, broken pipes have become a contentious issue in Jackson.
3. Rep. Cecil Brown singlehandedly tried to amend a spending bill to expand the Medicaid program to cover hundreds of thousands more Mississippians.
4. JPS Superintendent Cedrick Gray announced Monday that the district has met the state’s conditions and the guidelines set forth in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and will keep its accreditation as a result.
5. A House subcommittee may take the wind out of the sails of a so-called religious-freedom proposal that civil-liberties groups feared would lead to legalized discrimination.
6. Chokwe Lumumba died Tuesday, Feb. 25 at St. Dominic's Hospital at the age of 66. So far, no official cause of death is known, other than "heart failure."
7. Jackson chef Derek Emerson, owner of Walker's Drive-in Fondren and Local 463 in Madison, is one of this year's nominees for the James Beard Award for Best Chef.
8. A north Mississippi family says law enforcement are investigating a possible pipe bomb found outside their home on Monday.
9. People never seem to appreciate a good newspaperman until he's gone. Friends, loved ones and longtime readers say Orley Hood was one of the best.
10. Hinds County officials and attorneys for children detained at the county's Henley Young Youth Detention Center are again at odds over how much improvement has taken place at the youth jail in the past two years.

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