Opinion

More details have been released regarding Bobbi Kristina’s special appearance at this Sunday’s 2012 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas. As previously reported, her mother Whitney Houston will be honored with the Billboard Millennium Award in a musical tribute.  Jordin Sparks and John Legend are set to perform in the tribute, while Bobbi Kristina, and …

GUNTOWN – (AP) The fallout continues even after suspected murderer and kidnapper Adam Mayes took his own life on Thursday, May 10. Officials said days of searching for the two young girls and the man who killed their mother and sister led to the kind of terrain that favors the hunted – high hardwoods and …

  By Monica Land OCEAN SPRINGS – Grief counselors were on hand Monday morning at Ocean Springs High School (OSH) after a 17-year-old student was killed and two of his friends injured in an accident late Sunday night. Detective Lt. John Flowers said Daegan L. Stallworth, a sophomore and football player at OSH, was pronounced …

HATTIESBURG – (AP) The Southern Mississippi athletic department’s debt nearly doubled between the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year and fall 2011, a newspaper reported Sunday. An audit acquired through a public records request shows that the department owed $439,255 in fall 2010 and $790,398 last fall, The Hattiesburg American reported. Football was the only …

From The Mississippi Link Newswire PICAYUNE – The case of a domestic dispute that turned violent will be presented to a Pearl River County Grand Jury, although charges against the 12-year-old boy involved are not likely. The Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that the 12-year-old shot his father in the neck because he thought …

By Monica Land OCEAN SPRINGS – A 23-year-old man is being held on a $75,000 bond after he allegedly held up a Subway restaurant at gunpoint. K’Darius Akeemy Lee was taken into custody Friday morning after running away from police on foot after the robbery, authorities said. Lt. John Flowers of the Ocean Springs Police …

By Monica Land PASCAGOULA – A Jackson County is dead after authorities said he drowned while crabbing and fishing in a bayou behind his home early Friday morning. Forty-six-year-old Roy Edward Bell, Jr. was pronounced dead at the scene after family members pulled him from the water. Lt. James Massey of the Pascagoula Police Department …

HATTIESBURG – (AP) As Mississippi school districts prepare to implement new federal school lunch rules next year, most also will increase lunch prices. The Forrest County School District will probably up the price of a lunch from $2.25 to $2.50. That doesn’t sit well with parent Sheila Thomas, who has three sons who pay for …

WASHINGTON (AP) – For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer. Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI …

JACKSON – (AP) The Mississippi NAACP is asking federal officials to block what will likely become the state’s new voter ID law, contending it will violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act by diminishing the voting strength of minorities. Because of Mississippi’s history of racial discrimination, the state is required to get federal approval for any …

STARKVILLE – (AP) Mississippi State baseball coach John Cohen has been suspended for Friday’s game against Florida for violating the Southeastern Conference’s sportsmanship rules. A release from the SEC said the violation occurred following Mississippi State’s 8-7 loss to Alabama on Sunday, when Cohen received a post-game ejection. The suspension also prohibited Cohen from being …

By Monica Land BLUE SPRINGS – One day after being added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards said Adam Christopher Mayes shot himself in the head. He died later at a local hospital. Authorities also confirmed that the two girls he allegedly kidnapped, Alexandria Bain, 12, and her 8-year-old sister, …

News Briefs From Across The State By Monica Land Victim stabbed in the face Authorities are searching for a man who allegedly stabbed a family member Tuesday during an altercation that started at the PACE Head Start graduation at the University of Southern Mississippi. Head Start Director Peggy Ainsworth tells the Hattiesburg American she was …

From The Mississippi Link Newswire OXFORD – For the 10th time in the history of the program, the Ole Miss men’s tennis team will host the NCAA first and second rounds at the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center May 12-13. The Rebels are the No. 13 seed in the NCAA 64-team bracket. Coming to Oxford for the …

FAIRHOPE, Ala. (AP) Southern Miss football player Jamal Woodyard was arrested last Friday in Fairhope, Ala., and charged with second-degree robbery, the Mobile Press-Register reports. The report says that Woodyard was among three men who robbed an individual at 7:30 p.m. May 4, on the 500 block of North Section Street in Fairhope. Police told …

By Monica Land GALLMAN – The search for a missing woman – with ties to Carroll County – has taken a national turn as her story has appeared on the ‘America’s Most Wanted’ website. Sixty-five-year-old Linda Gail Reed, a bookkeeper for Moore Fabrications, in Gallman, left work about 7 p.m., on April 29 telling her …

JACKSON – (AP) A former Mississippi mayor and prison warden has been sentenced to seven months behind bars for telling an inmate to lie to investigators about sex they had in a hotel room in 2009. Grady Sims, who served as the mayor of Walnut Grove in central Mississippi for 31 years, told a judge …

WASHINGTON – (AP) President Barack Obama reversed his position on gay marriage on Wednesday, becoming the first president to endorse the politically explosive idea and injecting a polarizing issue into the 2012 race for the White House. Obama’s announcement – coming after initially supporting gay marriage in 1996, only to reverse himself by 2004 and …

CLAY COUNTY, Miss. – Funeral services are planned tomorrow at 1 p.m. in Prairie for a U.S. Marine who died after a training exercise in North Carolina on April 30. Military officials said Carlous Perry, a 30-year-old Staff Sergeant, from West Point, had just completed physical training in Camp Lejeune when he reportedly suffered a …

News Briefs From Across The State No suspects in custody Authorities say a Nebraska man has died after being shot while driving on Interstate 55 in north Mississippi. Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Joey Miller said the man’s identity is being withheld pending the notification of his family. Miller said approximately five shots were fired early …

By Monica Land JACKSON – ‘American Idol’ kicks off tonight with one less singer, but 18-year-old Brandon country rocker, Skylar Laine, said she has no regrets. The Mississippi native was voted off last week in a move that left ‘Idol’ judge Jennifer Lopez in tears. Laine said it was sad at first being voted off, …

By Monica Land COLUMBUS – A 73-year-old man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping his granddaughter nearly two years ago. It only took a jury 15 minutes to decide David Arthur Gill’s fate during his trial in Lowndes County Circuit Court. Gill’s granddaughter, and the friend she told about the incidents, …

Special To The Mississippi Link JACKSON – The Mississippi Legislature recently honored the state’s first African-American women judges. The concurrent resolution recognized Hinds County Chancellors Denise Owens and Patricia Wise, Fourth District Circuit Judge Betty W. Sanders, Sixth District Circuit Judge Lillie Blackmon Sanders, and Court of Appeals Judge Ermea J. Russell. House Concurrent Resolution …

By Monica Land  TCHULA – Funeral services were held Saturday for Mississippi’s first black Republican female mayor, Yvonne Rayford Brown. Brown, 59, died of cancer on Monday, April 23, at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Columbus. The funeral began at 10 a.m. May 5, at New Jerusalem Church in Jackson. Brown is survived by her daughters, …

BILOXI – (AP) Mike Gillich Jr., a former Biloxi striptease lounge owner who helped plot the 1987 Dixie Mafia murders of a judge and the judge’s wife, has died. Bradford O’Keefe Funeral Homes in Biloxi confirmed Gillich’s death. His funeral service will be private, said funeral director Whitney Lang. Gillich died Saturday, April 28 of …