Two additional teenagers have been arrested in connection with the January shooting that killed a Wilkinson County high school student. Sixteen-year-olds Kevin Slack and Marion McNabb were taken into custody over the weekend. They, along with 18-year-old J’monta Franklin, face charges of murder and aggravated assault. The victim, Najee Bates, was a passenger in a car traveling along Highway 24 near Centerville on January 19 when the vehicle was shot at. Deputies reported that two other passengers, brothers Tony Brown Jr. and Marcus Green Jr., were also in the car and survived.
A bill to expand high-dosage tutoring has been approved by the Louisiana Senate Education Committee. The legislation, authored by Senator Patrick McMath, would increase funding for the program from 30 million dollars to 45 million dollars and extend services from kindergarten through fifth grade to kindergarten through eighth grade. State education officials say high-dosage tutoring has played a major role in Louisiana’s recovery from COVID-19 learning loss, contributing to broad support for the expansion.
Negotiations continue among Mississippi lawmakers as they work to finalize a teacher pay raise before the legislative session ends. Some legislators say unexpected budget pressures, including increased Medicaid costs, may influence the final size of the raise. A proposal in the state Senate includes a 6,000-dollar raise for K–12 teachers over three years, with an additional 3,000 dollars for special education teachers.
The Louisiana House Criminal Justice Committee has advanced a bill that would impose a prison sentence of one to five years for possessing, producing, or distributing deepfake images depicting nude minors. Representative Brian Fontenot introduced the legislation after a 13-year-old girl in his district was victimized by an artificially generated explicit image. The bill is named the Ivy Daniels Act.
The Mississippi River at Natchez-Vidalia is at 39.47 feet and rising.
