Top Stories – Page 75 – The Mississippi Link

No opponent, no problem: Jackson State celebrates homecoming after Grambling forfeits

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Grambling’s decision not to travel to Jackson State for Saturday’s football game did not stop the homecoming festivities on the Mississippi campus.

The music was blaring, the barbecue roasting and there were good times all around outside of Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. It looked like a typical JSU homecoming celebration, complete with 70-degree weather, a parade and — of course — a performance by the school’s popular marching band, the Sonic Boom of the South.

There was everything except a football game… […]

USM’s ROTC military training program among 13 on Army’s chopping block

admin 0

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi (AP) — The University of Southern Mississippi is one of 13 schools nationally losing its Army Reserve Officer Training Corp. program at the end of the 2014-2015.

And Gov. Phil Bryant and University of Southern Mississippi President Rodney Bennett want to know why… […]

State Court of Appeals upholds conviction of man in Isle of Capri casino shooting death

admin 0

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — The state Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Louisiana man in the shooting death of an Arkansas businessman at the Isle of Capri casino in 2007.

Weldon Leagea was sentenced to life in prison when he was convicted of capital murder in Harrison County in 2011… […]

Former Klansman Edgar Ray Killen seeks OK from Supreme Court for new trial in 1964 slayings

admin 0

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is considering arguments from a former Ku Klux Klansman convicted in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers.

Edgar Ray Killen says he was denied constitutional rights in his Mississippi trial.

Killen made the same arguments to a federal judge in Mississippi in 2012 and before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans earlier this year. He lost in both courts… […]

Police arrest 17-year-old in Jackson motel slaying of bass fisherman

admin 0

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Jackson police have arrested a teenager in the slaying of 56-year-old bass fisherman James “Jimmy” Johnson on Sunday at a local motel.

Police say in a news release Wednesday that the 17-year-old was arrested Tuesday and charged with capital murder. The teenager is being held in jail pending an initial court appearance…. […]

AP analysis: Former warden Donald Cabana, who died last week, believed Parchman camps had uses

admin 0

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — The Parchman penitentiary Donald Cabana returned to in 2004 when he again became warden looked little like what it had been 13 years before.

He told the story many times of how he didn’t like what he saw — steel and concrete buildings each with 500-600 inmates. The changes had been coming since 1972, when a federal judge took control of a prison system wracked with overcrowding, forced labor and segregation… […]

News Around Mississippi: Trooper runs over horse and flips, fatal motel shooting, fatal wreck

admin 0

The Associated Press
News Briefs From Around The State

Here is a roundup of news and notes from around Mississippi this morning:

In Meridian, the Mississippi Highway Patrol says a trooper’s car hit a horse and overturned — as the officer was answering a report that another driver had hit a horse.
WJTV reports that officials did not identify the trooper, but say he was released after being checked at a hospital in Meridian.

The accident occurred Saturday night on Highway 15 in Jasper County. Officials say another horse ran into the road in front of the squad car… […]

Body found in burned SUV identified as McComb man

admin 0

MAGNOLIA, Mississippi (AP) — Authorities in Pike County have identified a body was found Oct. 1 in a burned SUV.

Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Steve Rushing tells the Enterprise-Journal that the state Crime Lab used DNA to identify the victim was 44-year-old Janice Blackwell Brown of McComb, the vehicle’s owner… […]

Another doctor sought for mental evaluation of Mississippi doctor accused in murder-for-hire plot

admin 0

GREENWOOD, Mississippi (AP) — Prosecutors and the defense team for a Greenwood doctor charged in a murder-for-hire case will talk to a forensic psychiatrist at a state mental hospital about bringing in another doctor to assist in the evaluation of Dr. Arnold Smith.

The Greenwood Commonwealth reports that the decision came Tuesday during a court in Greenwood on the progress of Smith’s mental evaluation… […]

Federal judge cancels hearing for leader of Mississippi chapter of Simon City Royals Jason Bullock

admin 0

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — A federal judge has canceled a pretrial conference that had been scheduled for Thursday for an alleged Mississippi gang leader charged in a racketeering case.

The hearing for Jason Marshall Bullock, also known as “Sir J-Mac,” was scheduled to take place in U.S. District Court in Hattiesburg.

U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett canceled the hearing, but the court website did not say why… […]