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. The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees named Alfred Rankins Jr., the current Alcorn State University president, as the new IHL commissioner on Friday, March 23.
2. With the new addition to the Lumumba family, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba is taking paternity leave from March 22, 2018, to April 3, 2018.
3. Gov. Phil Bryant defended his decision on Wednesday, March 21, to appoint Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith to fill U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran’s soon-to-be vacated seat.
4. Mike Hurst's goal to "eject" violent criminals into federal court and then prisons outside the state is much like Project Exile in Richmond, Va., in the 1990s, which sent felons into "exile" for firearm violations.
5. Lawmakers sent Gov. Phil Bryant a measure that will expand re-entry reforms in the state’s criminal-justice system with a March 26 deadline to sign.
6. Commissioner Jess Dickinson says the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services needs $35 million more in state funds if the agency is to stay out of “galactic trouble.”
7. U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves blocked Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban for 10 days, less than 24 hours after Gov. Phil Bryant signed it into law.
8. The "One Lake" flood-control and development project could go to the public for comment as soon as April, board attorney Keith Turner told the Rankin Hinds Flood Control District last Monday.
9. Indigent defendants accused of felonies in 10 county-court systems do not consistently receive legal representation, as required in the 6th Amendment, a study by the Mississippi Public Defender Task Force finds.
10. The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics announced last week that officials will now respond to the scene of every suspected overdose in the state in order to assist coroners and medical examiners in reporting deaths by opioid overdose.

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