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 rise in officer-involved shootings under Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba, now at nine, and the lack of transparency thereafter posed an issue for the self-proclaimed most radical mayor in America.
2. President Donald Trump plans to hold a rally in Mississippi to support incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith as she fights to hold the seat that Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her to in April.
3. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and a coalition of businesses, public-interest organizations and citizens are speaking out against a draft plan to dam the Pearl River and create a lake development that backers say will help control some local flooding in the Jackson area, while creating both green spaces and lucrative waterfront property for development.
4. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant joined 15 other Republican leaders across the country in signing a brief that asks the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not protect transgender people and that employers have the right to fire them for their gender identity.
5. Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba had a mixed reaction to the recent special legislative session during which Jackson received $50,000 from the BP settlement to repair a bridge on Sherwood Drive and Robin Drive in Fondren.
6. President Donald Trump once described his attorney general, Alabama native Jeff Sessions, as a "dumb Southerner," according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
7. Development often happens in fits and starts in Jackson, but fall 2018 should see a lot of bulldozers and hard hats around town.
8. LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, often breaks out into song when she speaks to a crowd. Two weeks ago, she kicked off a bus ride from Jackson into the Mississippi Delta with a rendition of "Eyes on the Prize."
9. The New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network is pushing a letter-writing campaign against the proposed "One Lake" development and flood-control project along the Pearl River in Jackson.
10. U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel, a Republican Mississippi state senator from Ellisville, kicked off a townhall tour of Mississippi in Petal on Aug. 30.

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