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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

  1. Cover Story by R.L. Nave: Inside the Abortion Clinic Battle. Exclusive photos from inside the clinic by Trip Burns.
  2. Jacob Fuller exposes county election blunders: City Election Blunders Continue, then County Fixes Election Mistake. The JFP Editorial Board tells local elections officials to Stop Phoning It In and cartoonist Mike Day makes fun of the whole mess.
  3. Mayoral candidate Jonathan Lee officially announced his candidacy this week (he actually announced it in a JFP Interview a month ago. See a video and a photo gallery here.
  4. Days later, Jonathan Lee scuffled with the Jackson Chamber of Commerce when he refused to step aside as an organizer of a weekly forum that the Chamber sponsored, leading the business group to pull its sponsorship
  5. New Jackson City Council President Tony Yarber shook up council committees, and added two new ones.
  6. Ward 7 City Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon talked about infrastructure and the problems hospitals in her ward face with the uninsured in an interview with Jacob Fuller.
  7. Mississippi’s voter ID battle continued with Secretary of State Delbert Hosmann, a Republican and a staunch voter ID fan, going on the defensive after the nopartisan Brennan Center released a report warning about the risks of the new law to state voters.
  8. Jacob Fuller reported on a disturbance by inmates at the Hinds County Detention Center. Also see: Families Fear for Inmates’ Safety and Hinds County Jail Mostly Secured (+Video of Sheriff).
  9. The NAACP held a news conference in Jackson to call for a full investigation of the death of Johnny Lee Butts in Panola County, which may have been racially motivated. Read more: Dead Man’s Family Wants Fairness.
  10. The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office announced indictments of several Jackson men wanted for cocaine distribution. In addition, feds announced that they are seeking two fugitives they’ve indicated for drug conspiracy and money laundering: Aundra “Grayhead” Mason and Julian Michael “Mike” Thompson of Jackson. Several of the men in the indictments were close to former Mayor Frank Melton.
  11. BONUS: Don’t miss Lori Gregory-Garrott’s column about the time she had to open the door to the state’s only abortion clinic. Read to see why the piece went viral nationally this week
MFP Solutions Lab logo

The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.