032111 by The Vicksburg Post

Monday, March 21, 2011

The Vicksburg Post

Second child, 2, dies Jindal urges bipartisanship on redistricting from I-220 wreck injuries Louisiana legislature

BATON ROUGE (AP) — Gov. Bobby Jindal urged bipartisanship to lawmakers who opened their once-adecade special session Sunday to redraw Louisiana’s political boundaries based on new population data. The redistricting will force some state lawmakers and two congressmen to run against each other if they want to keep their seats. In a short speech, the Republican governor told a joint House and Senate session that the state’s lawmakers have a tradition of working across party lines, and he pushed for that to continue. The GOP took the majority recently in both chambers for the first time since Reconstruction, but the Senate has a Democratic president, and the House has a Democratic chairman of the budget committee and Democratic chairman of the committee that will lead redistricting efforts. “This is a practice that confounds those in Washington, D.C., and other state capitols

The associated press

Gov. Bobby Jindal addresses members of the Louisiana Legislature in Baton Rouge Sunday. where they recognize themselves by their party affiliation first, rather than as Americans first,” Jindal said in his six-minute speech. The governor, whose role in the map redrawing is expected to be minimal, also said while the three-week redistricting

session could become divisive, lawmakers need to be ready to come back together to work on budget and other issues in a regular session that starts late next month. “At the end of this process, we will heal our wounds and we will come together again,”

said Jindal. Battles are brewing about district design after population shifts from Hurricane Katrina, a push for new minority-led districts, a reshuffling of residents to the Baton Rouge area and the need to shrink the congressional delegation by one member. Lawmakers are at odds about whether to redraw seats for the Louisiana Supreme Court and state appeals courts. “We’ve got two major paradigm shifts. You’ve got Republicans in the majority for the first time, and you’ve got dramatic population shifts in the New Orleans area. I expect it to be a little heated before it’s all over,” said Sen. Lydia Jackson, D-Shreveport. The Legislature will be reworking the political maps for the state House and Senate, the Public Service Commission, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the state’s U.S. House delegation and possibly the Louisiana Supreme Court and state appeals courts.

JACKSON — A 2-year-old girl injured in an accident that claimed another child’s life has died, authorities said. Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said that Kendria Wells was gravely injured in Saturday’s accident on I-220 involving a Chevrolet Suburban carrying 10 children to a church function. The coroner said Wells died late Saturday night. Eight-month-old Trinity Wells was pronounced dead at the scene. The other eight children and Trinity Wells’ mother, 30-yearold Tanji Wells, were taken by ambulance to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Police said Kendria Wells was not the daughter of Tanji Wells, but they were related. Jackson Police Department spokeswoman Colendula Green said the SUV had a blowout.

Memphis-based firm to hire 100 in Tupelo

STATE

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tenn.-based company that disassembles jets and recycles the parts has announced plans to hire 100 employees for its new Tupelo location. Universal Asset Management announced on Saturday it is moving its disassembly and warehousing operations from Arkansas to Tupelo. The 100 jobs will be added during the next three years. The average salary is $45,000. Chief Operating Officer Keri Wright said hiring would start today. The company started its Mississippi journey by flying a Boeing 747 to Tupelo. Pilots began the trip from Japan Friday, with a stop in Anchorage, before touching down Saturday in front of an applauding crowd Steve Manley, CEO of the recycling company, was in the crowd. “We’re not used to this attention,” he said.

TUPELO — A Memphis,

State to use dredge material to rebuild marsh ViCkSburg PASCAGOULA (AP) — Proposed marsh restoration projects on the lower Escatawpa River and the northeast corner of Deer Island are the restart of a 2002 plan to use dredged material to nurture the coast’s ecosystem, said a Mississippi Department of Marine Resources official. “This is all about trying to capture as much dredged

material from as many projects as possible,” said George Ramseur of the department’s Office of Coastal Ecology. The program intends to have sites in all three coast counties where dredge material can be used to rebuild marsh instead of it being hauled away, he said. In some cases, dredged material has been dumped offshore

or into landfills, he said. Ramseur cited Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality studies that found that the state lost about 8,500 acres of marsh between 1950 and 1990. Another advantage is that using dredge material for such projects can be less expensive “than it is to basically throw it away,” he said.

Volunteers to set out 800 bags of mangrove seedlings VENICE, La. (AP) — Volunteers plan to set out 800 burlap bags filled with soil, inoculated with oil-eating bacteria and planted with mangrove seedlings and marsh grasses in an area hit hard by the Gulf

of Mexico oil spill. Today, about 30 volunteers will fill the bags at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service compound in Venice. Then Thursday, the same number will take boats for a 10-mile trip

into the Pass a Loutre Wildlife Management Area. The Restore the Earth Foundation, which is leading this trip, led volunteers in December to set out 400 bags of marsh grasses.

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