JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi NAACP is asking federal judges to redraw the state House and Senate districts that were approved by the Justice Department last month. The group also wants the judges to set new legislative elections in 2013, two years ahead of the normal schedule.
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) — The story of David O. Dodd is relatively unknown outside of Arkansas, but the teenage spy who chose to hang rather than betray the Confederate cause is a folk hero to many in his home state.
Street signs and an elementary school in the state capital have long borne Dodd's name, and admirers gather at his grave each year to pay tribute to Dodd's life and death.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The foreperson of the jury that convicted a teenager in a fiery attack on a middle school classmate told a judge Friday she was subjected to racial harassment during deliberations that she described as chaotic and confrontational.
The other five jurors, also interviewed Friday by Circuit Judge Matthew Destry, said they didn't recall intense racial animosity but most agreed some racial issues flared in the case. The teenager who was set on fire, Michael Brewer, is white; the one convicted of aggravated battery in June, Matthew Bent, is black.
CHULA VISTA, California (AP) — The family of a 32-year-old mother of five shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent as he rode on her car's hood in suburban San Diego has filed a wrongful death claim against the agency, saying the agent had a long history of misconduct in a previous law enforcement job and should not have been on the street.
Attorney Eugene Iredale filed the claim Friday with the Border Patrol on behalf of Valeria "Munique" Tachiquin Alvarado and provided a copy to The Associated Press.
