Ellington

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. Mississippi will use millions in taxpayer dollars to fund private schools after Republican leaders in the Legislature secretly slipped funds into a bill for state construction projects.
2. An abortion-rights group is asking a federal judge to block a Mississippi law that will ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy.
3. Chuck Patterson founded the Jackson Black Pages, which connects Jacksonians with black-owned local businesses through its website so they can put money back into their local communities.
4. Mississippi lawmakers are working to redraw the lines of a state senate district that two federal courts ruled dilutes black voting power.
5. Mississippi lawmakers on March 28 gave final approval to a $1,500 pay raise for the state's public school teachers beginning July 1, sending it to Gov. Phil Bryant for his approval or veto.
6. The Mississippi Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it is closing 34 local bridges that inspectors found to be unsafe.
7. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Michael Avenatti submitted false personal and business tax returns to The People's Bank in Mississippi to obtain $4.1 million in loans for his law firm and a coffee business.
8. When the state Senate first passed Senate Bill 2770 in February, senators only voted to give teachers a $1,000 pay raise over two years.
9. At a Tupelo campaign stop on Monday, Mississippi State Rep. Mark Baker, a Republican candidate for attorney general, said the 1965 Voting Rights Act violated Mississippi's "sovereignty."
10. John O'Neal Jr., a civil-rights activist, playwright and actor who cofounded the Free Southern Theater and Junebug Productions, died of vascular disease on Feb. 15 in New Orleans. He was 78.

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