NATIONAL BRIEFS

MISSISSIPPI: Three admit hate crimes

Three white men involved in the beating and fatal rundown of a black man in Jackson pleaded guilty Thursday to federal hate crimes and admitted to a months-long pattern of brutal harassment against blacks a day after one of them pleaded guilty in state court to a murder charge. Dylan Butler, 20, Deryl Dedmon, 19, and John Aaron Rice, 19, entered the pleas in federal court to conspiracy to commit a hate crime and to committing a hate crime. The three are from the Jackson suburb of Brandon, and were accused of going to the majority-black capital city on numerous occasions to harass or assault black people. The harassment began in April 2011, culminating in the death of James Craig Anderson, 47, a car plant worker, on June 26. Butler and Rice were accused of driving around Jackson and throwing beer bottles at people before meeting up with Dedmon the night Anderson was run over. Dedmon, in entering his guilty plea to the state charges on Wednesday, admitted he and a group of white teens were partying in Puckett, outside Jackson, when he suggested they find a black man to harass. They found Anderson outside a hotel. Dedmon, 19, received two life sentences on those charges.

ARKANSAS: 5 found dead after fire nearby

The bodies of a mother and her four children were found Thursday in a duplex in Jacksonville, and authorities were investigating whether they were killed by smoke inhalation from an overnight fire nearby. A maintenance worker found the bodies around 7 a.m., an hour after firefighters first knocked on the door to follow up on a neighbor's report of smelling smoke. Foul play was not suspected but authorities hadn't confirmed the cause of death for Marilyn Beavers, 31; her son Dequan Singleton, 11; and daughters Sydni Singleton, 9; Haylee Beavers, 7; and Emily Beavers, 4.

WISCONSIN: Booms caused by 1.5 quake?

A minor earthquake occurred this week near Clintonville, where researchers have been investigating a series of unexplained booming sounds, the U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday. The 1.5 magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday. Loud booming noises have been known to accompany earthquakes, a geophysicist said.