Statewide News – Page 25 – The Mississippi Link

2 more junior colleges announce tuition hikes

Two more Mississippi community colleges have announced tuition increases for the fall semester.

Northeast Mississippi Community College and Itawamba Community College announced its board of trustees approved the higher fees at meetings in April.

Earlier this month, Copiah-Lincoln Community College said tuition would be going up for the 2013-14 school year. The tuition for a fulltime student will increase $125 per semester to $1,100. […]

Mississippi jobless rate dips as fewer seek work

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Mississippi’s unemployment rate dipped in April, but mainly because fewer people were looking for work.

However, a separate survey of employer payrolls continued to rise, suggesting Mississippi’s slow climb out of recession continues.

Both sets of figures were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The jobless rate fell to 9.1 percent from 9.4 percent in March. Mississippi continued to have the third-highest unemployment rate among states. […]

Vicksburg toddler run over and killed by aunt

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A 2-year-old girl died Sunday after being hit by a car at a family gathering.

Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey told the Vicksburg Post that Carmyia Buck was pronounced dead of abdominal trauma at River Region Medical Center.

Huskey says no autopsy has been ordered.

Police Chief Walter Armstrong says the child was struck by a car driven by her aunt, 27-year-old Ebonay Brown, just before 7 p.m. […]

USDA revokes Collins Zoo exhibitor license

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has revoked the exhibitor license from the Collins Zoo.

Over the years the USDA has cited zoo owners Gus and Betty White for a wide range of violations to include failing to safely handle animals, failure to provide adequate veterinarian care and cages holding dangerous animals lacking structural integrity.

In January of 2012 the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks seized tigers, cougars, leopards, a monkey, and some wolves from the zoo. […]

Only abortion clinic in Miss. fights to stay open

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It can’t meet the mandates of a 2012 state law and the governor wants to shut it down, but Mississippi’s only abortion clinic is not about to quietly retreat.

The clinic’s owners are fighting on a legal front, with a federal lawsuit against the state, and supporters and staff are trying to make inroads on site – urging patients to call elected officials and peppering state-required counseling with their own views and information.

Protesters, too, are zeroing in on the clinic. A national anti-abortion group, Operation Save America, has targeted Mississippi as a state where it hopes to end abortion, and it has sent people from as far as Colorado and Nevada to protest. Congregants from local churches pray outside the clinic several days a week. Some hold fetus posters and use microphones to call out to patients. […]

Possible suspect arrested in murder of Clinton man

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Clinton police have arrested a possible suspect in connection with the shooting death of a 21-year-old man.

The Clarion-Ledger reports that Mark Nichols’ body was discovered Saturday night on the side of a road in Clinton. Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said Nichols was killed by a single gunshot wound to his head.

Clinton’s interim police chief, Mike Warren, said investigators planned to question Tommy Bass, of Clinton, in connection with the case before determining whether to charge him in the killing. […]

Mississippi offers free fishing weekend

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The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is offering a statewide free fishing weekend June 1-2.

It kicks off National Fishing and Boating Week, which celebrates the importance of recreational boating and fishing in enhancing quality of life and conserving the country’s natural resources.

The Vicksburg Post reports the department, the Mississippi Wildlife Federation and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science will also host the 11th annual Katfishin’ Kids Fishing Rodeo on June 1. […]

Site of 1963 Woolworth’s Sit-In gets Freedom Trail Marker

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On Tuesday, May 28, the newest marker on the Mississippi Freedom Trail was unveiled on East Capitol Street in downtown Jackson. The marker was erected at the site of the 1963 Woolworth’s store, where a historic sit-in by civil rights activists occurred.

Led by Tougaloo College students and faculty, the Woolworth’s sit-in on May 28, 1963, became one of the iconic moments of the Civil Rights movement.

A white mob threatened and attacked the activists and doused them with condiments over the course of several hours. Jackson Daily News photographer Fred Blackwell took images that, to this day, are synonymous with the movement and white resistance to it. […]

Ala. man guilty in Miss. slaying of 81-year-old woman

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An Alabama man has been found guilty in the 2010 murder of an 81-year-old woman from Clinton, Miss.

Forty-one-year-old James Cobb Hutto was convicted of capital murder by a jury that deliberated Saturday for around two hours. He could face the death penalty.

Ethel Simpson’s body was found Sept. 17, 2010, near Edwards, Miss. She had died of blunt force trauma. […]

Man charged with animal cruelty, gives up 104 dogs

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Authorities said a Mississippi man has been charged with animal cruelty a day after surrendering 104 dogs to a rescue organization, but the man denied mistreating the animals.

The Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society of South Mississippi said in a news release that the dogs were in “horrible conditions” in Tylertown with some “sharing cages with the decomposing bodies of dead dogs and puppies.”

The dogs, mostly Boston terriers, dachshunds, Yorkshire terriers and Chihuahuas, were taken on May 20 to the Humane Society of South Mississippi in Gulfport after the owner signed them over. […]