Mike Espy gave the Jackson Free Press a tour of his work office in 2018, where hangs a portrait of historic Mississippi civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer—one of his personal heroes. Photo by Ashton Pittman

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. When journalists focus on actual issues, as we all should do, it's much harder for any politicians to quip and jab their way through campaigns and win with very little focus on real issues.
2. The Jackson Department of Public Works has identified over 100 sewer failures throughout the city. It will cost the City of Jackson around $5 million to fix half of them.
3. Phil Bryant is not the first Mississippi governor to actively support a state's efforts to secede from a union. But he is the first to so actively involve himself in a U.S. ally's own secession plans.
4. The first field hearing on the Mississippi ICE raids touched on the impact of the raids on local economies, the cost of carrying them out, and back wages owed to workers, but it did not discuss the role of for-profit prison companies in immigration detention.
5. Mississippi State University unveiled permanent POW/MIA chairs of honor inside Davis Wade Stadium, Humphrey Coliseum and Dudy Noble Field in honor of service members on Veterans Day.
6. Alta Woods, a neighborhood in south Jackson, was once a prominent community of attorneys, politicians and public figures. Residents would like it to return to its former glory, but it'll take a group effort from young and old alike.
7. ‪After Democrat Mike Espy kicked off his 2020 U.S. Senate campaign, he talked with the Jackson Free Press about what went wrong in 2018—and what he plans to do differently this time.
8. The Boys and Girls Club of Central Mississippi recently won a grant from national nonprofit KaBOOM! for the installation of a new playground at the Boys and Girls Club of Central Mississippi Capital Unit in Jackson.
9. Shreveport, La., native Richard Morris (pictured) brought Rocket Fizz, a California-based specialty soda and candy franchise, to Mississippi with the opening of a new store at the Outlets of Mississippi on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
10. A small clan of white supremacists unintentionally helped a Mississippi anti-racism organization raise more than $30,000 in just six days after filming a propaganda video around the memorial of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old victim of a 1955 civil-rights murder.

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