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. Officials with the Hinds County Sheriff's Office are blasting a decision from the state corrections commissioner to end a program that provides inmate labor to the county.
2. U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate will sentence John Louis Blalack and Robert Henry Rice, both residents of Brandon, for their roles in a series of crimes targeting African Americans in Jackson.
3. Charles Graham, the lone Democratic candidate for secretary of state, wants to offset the harmful effects of voter ID by introducing early voting.
4. Willie Jerome Manning has been on death row for more than two decades, facing the possibility of execution for two sets of murders that occurred about one month apart.
5. Even without the emergency declaration he sought, Mayor Tony Yarber's administration is moving forward with applying for state and federal money to fix Jackson's crumbling infrastructure.
6. The Downtown Business Association is hosting the Capitol Street Dine and Dash, an event celebrating the recent completion of new paving and landscaping work on the street and sidewalks of Capitol Street, Saturday, May 16, from 1 to 5 p.m.
7. Earlier this year, House Speaker Philip Gunn led the charge when lawmakers pushed through an alternative proposed amendment known as 42A.
8. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and other Republican leaders are pushing to place an initiative on this year's ballot that would put a limit of two consecutive four-year terms on each of the 174 state legislative seats and the eight statewide elected offices.
9. Each year, the JFP highlights some of Jackson's best and brightest teens, and each year, the list grows and grows.
10. Deirdra Harris Glover hopes to combat misconceptions about comic books and comic-book readers with Graphic Content, a monthly book club that meets at Offbeat novelty shop in midtown to discuss comics, graphic novels and, more often than not, social issues.

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