The U.S. Department of Justice is challenging an Alabama law making it a felony for doctors to treat transgender people under age 19 with puberty blockers and hormones to affirm their gender identity.

The Justice Department on Friday filed a motion seeking to intervene in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the law and seeking to block it from taking effect on May 8. The Justice Department said the law discriminates against minors by denying them access to medically necessary care.

Alabama Republicans who support the law say it's needed to protect children. A spokeswoman for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said her office is prepared to defend the legislation.

“The law discriminates against transgender minors by unjustifiably denying them access to certain forms of medically necessary care,” the complaint states. “As a result of S.B. 184, medical professionals, parents, and minors old enough to make their own medical decisions are forced to choose between forgoing medically necessary procedures and treatments or facing criminal prosecution."

The lawyer for a Georgia man scheduled to be executed next week says her client has significant cognitive impairments that likely contributed to his crimes and has suffered horrific abuse in prison.

She argues that means his life should be spared. Virgil Delano Presnell Jr. was convicted of killing an 8-year-old girl and raping her 10-year-old friend after abducting them as they walked home from school in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, on May 4, 1976. He is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.

The five-member parole board, which is the only authority in Georgia that can commute a death sentence, has scheduled a closed-door clemency hearing Monday to consider his case.

“Before society makes a man pay the ultimate price for a crime, it must determine if his culpability justifies the cost. In Virgil’s case, it simply does not. Virgil Presnell is profoundly disabled,” his attorney Monet Brewerton-Palmer wrote in a clemency application released on Friday by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

The application acknowledges the seriousness of what Presnell Jr. did and says he's “deeply and profoundly sorry” to the families of the two girls. The application asks the parole board to delay his execution by 90 days so the board can review his application, then it asks the board to commute his sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

A boil advisory remains in effect in Jackson, Mississippi, as people complain of brown water coming from their faucets.

The water crisis in Jackson has stretched over weeks. Residents were left with low or no water pressure after water treatment plants failed during a flooding event in August.

Jackson's mayor says the water pressure issues have been fixed, but it will be days before the boil advisory can be lifted.

Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said on "Face the Nation" that he's been in discussions with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris about getting more funding to make sure the issue is fixed and doesn't happen again.

"It will take a coordinated effort on not only the local, state, but federal levels as well," Lumumba said.

Jackson is home to about 150,000 residents. Many of them have been forced to wait in distribution lines to access packaged water that's been given out by the city and organizations.

ROLLING FORK, Miss. —

A powerful tornado tore through rural Mississippi and Alabama on Friday night, killing at least 13 people, destroying buildings and knocking out power as severe weather that produced hail the size of golf balls moved through several southern states and prompted authorities to warn some in its path that they were in a "life-threatening situation."

Video above: Tornado damage in Rolling Fork, Mississippi

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado caused damage about 60 miles northeast of Jackson, Mississippi. The rural towns of Silver City and Rolling Fork were reporting destruction as the tornado continued sweeping northeast at 70 mph without weakening, racing towards Alabama through towns including Winona and Amory into the night.

Sharkey County Coroner Angelia Easton told ABC News that 13 people were killed by the tornado in Mississippi. Rolling Fork is located in Sharkey County.

ABC News early Saturday reported an additional six deaths, including three in Carroll County, two in Monroe County and one in Humphreys County, citing the county coroners and a Mississippi Highway Patrol trooper. The Associated Press was not immediately able to confirm those fatalities.

The National Weather Service issued an alert as the storm was hitting that didn't mince words: "To protect your life, TAKE COVER NOW!"

“You are in a life-threatening situation,” it warned. "Flying debris may be deadly to those caught without shelter. Mobile homes will be destroyed. Considerable damage to homes, businesses, and vehicles is likely and complete destruction is possible."

Video below: Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs discusses tornado response

Cornel Knight told The Associated Press that he, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter were at a relative’s home in Rolling Fork when the tornado struck. He said the sky was dark but “you could see the direction from every transformer that blew.”

He said it was “eerily quiet” as that happened. Knight said he watched from a doorway until the tornado was, he estimated, less than a mile away. Then he told everyone in the house to take cover in a hallway. He said the tornado struck another relative’s home across a wide corn field from where he was. A wall in that home collapsed and trapped several people inside. As Knight spoke to AP by phone, he said he could see lights from emergency vehicles at the partially collapsed home.

Storm chaser Reed Timmer posted on Twitter that Rolling Fork was in immediate need of emergency personnel and that he was heading with injured residents of the town to a Vicksburg hospital.

The Sharkey-Issaquena Community Hospital on the west side of Rolling Fork was damaged, WAPT reported.

The Sharkey County Sheriff’s Office in Rolling Fork reported gas leaks and people trapped in piles of rubble, according to the Vicksburg News. Some law enforcement units were unaccounted for in Sharkey, according to the the newspaper.

Video below: Mississippi resident on tornado damage: 'Power out everywhere'

Rolling Fork and the surrounding area has wide expanses of cotton, corn and soybean fields and catfish farming ponds. More than a half-dozen shelters were opened in the state by emergency officials.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a Twitter post Friday night that search and rescue teams were active and that officials were sending more ambulances and emergency assets to those affected.

“Many in the MS Delta need your prayer and God’s protection tonight,” the post said. “Watch weather reports and stay cautious through the night, Mississippi!”

This was a supercell, the nasty type of storms that brew the deadliest tornado and most damaging hail in the United States, said University of Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Walker Ashley. What’s more this a night-time wet one which is “the worst kind,” he said.

Meteorologists saw a big tornado risk coming for the general region, not the specific area, as much as a week in advance, said Ashley, who was discussing it with his colleagues as early as March 17. The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center put out a long-range alert for the area on March 19, he said.

Tornado experts like Ashley have been warning about increased risk exposure in the region because of people building more.

“You mix a particularly socioeconomically vulnerable landscape with a fast-moving, long-track nocturnal tornado, and, disaster will happen,” Ashley said in an email.

Earlier Friday a car was swept away and two passengers drowned in southwestern Missouri during torrential rains that were part of a severe weather system. Authorities said six young adults were in the vehicle that was swept away as the car tried to cross a bridge over a flooded creek in the town of Grovespring.

Four of the six made it out of the water. The body of Devon Holt, 20, of Grovespring, was found at 3:30 a.m., and the body of Alexander Roman-Ranelli, 19, of Springfield, was recovered about six hours later, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Thomas Young said.

The driver told authorities that the rain made it difficult to see that water from a creek had covered the bridge, Young said.

Meanwhile, the search continued in another southwestern Missouri county for a woman who was missing after flash flooding from a small river washed a car off the road. The Logan Rogersville Fire Protection District said there was no sign of the woman. Two others who were in the car were rescued. Crews planned to use boats and have searchers walking along the riverbank.

When a woman’s SUV got swept up in rushing flood waters Friday morning near Granby, Missouri, Layton Hoyer made his way through icy-cold waters to rescue her.

Some parts of southern Missouri saw nearly 3 inches of rain Thursday night and into Friday morning as severe weather hit other areas. A suspected tornado touched down early Friday in north Texas.

Matt Elliott, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said the severe weather was expected across several states.

The Storm Prediction Center warned the greatest threat of tornadoes would come in portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. Storms with damaging winds and hail were forecast from eastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma into parts of southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois.

More than 49,000 customers had lost power in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee as of Friday night, according to poweroutage.us.

In Texas, a suspected tornado struck about 5 a.m. in the southwest corner of Wise County, damaging homes and downing trees and power lines, said Cody Powell, the county's emergency management coordinator. Powell said no injuries were reported.

The weather service had not confirmed a tornado, but damage to homes was also reported in neighboring Parker County, said meteorologist Matt Stalley.

___

Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, Jim Salter in O'Fallon, Missouri, Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, and Jackie Quinn in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.

JACKSON, Miss. —

An 11-year-old Mississippi boy who was shot by a police officer after he called 911 for help is recovering after being released from the hospital, according to his family.

Video above: Carlos Moore, Murry Family attorney, says boy 'did everything right'

The family is calling for the officer to be fired and charged with the shooting.

Aderrien Murry was shot in the chest by an Indianola Police Department officer early Saturday morning while the officer was responding to a domestic disturbance call at the child’s home, according to his mother, Nakala Murry, and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Murry told CNN that the father of another of her children arrived at her home at 4 a.m., "irate."

Concerned about her safety, Murry asked Aderrien to call the police.

Murry said the officer who arrived at the home "had his gun drawn at the front door and asked those inside the home to come outside." Murry said her son was shot coming around the corner of a hallway, into the living room.

"Once he came from around the corner, he got shot," Murry said. "I cannot grasp why. The same cop that told him to come out of the house. (Aderrien) did, and he got shot. He kept asking, 'Why did he shoot me? What did I do wrong?'" she said.

The shooting happened within what felt like "one to two minutes" after the officer asked those in the house to come outside, Murry said.

The boy was given a chest tube and placed on a ventilator at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson after developing a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver because of the shooting, his mother said. He was released from the hospital Wednesday. CNN has reached out to the hospital.

Two other children, including Murry's daughter and 2-year-old nephew, were also in the home at the time of the shooting, she said.

Body camera footage has not been released

Murry's family attorney Carlos Moore told CNN the incident was captured on police body camera.

The attorney said his request for the body camera footage was denied due to "an ongoing investigation."

The body camera video of the incident has not been released publicly.

Moore also said he was told there is a video of the incident from a nearby gas station.

The Indianola Police Department confirmed that the officer involved in the shooting is named Greg Capers but did not provide any additional details on the shooting, telling CNN the police chief was unavailable.

CNN reached out to Capers for comment but did not immediately hear back.

On Monday evening, the Indianola Board of Aldermen voted to place Capers on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, according to the family attorney.

In a statement over the weekend, the MBI said the agency is “currently assessing this critical incident and gathering evidence” and would turn over its findings to the state attorney general’s office after the investigation is complete.

On Wednesday, MBI spokesperson Bailey Martin declined to answer additional questions, telling CNN in an email, “Due to this being an open and ongoing investigation, no further comment will be made.”

CNN has contacted the District Attorney's Office for the Fourth Circuit Court and the Mississippi Attorney General's Office for comment.

Family angry police officer remains employed by the department

Murry said that after her son was shot, she placed her hand on his wound to apply pressure as he "sang gospel songs and prayed while bleeding out." The officer, she said, tried to help render first aid and placed his hand on top of hers to try to stop Aderrien's bleeding.

When an ambulance arrived, medics were "very attentive," she said.

"Aderrien came within an inch of losing his life," Moore said. "It's not OK for a cop to do this and get away with this. The mother asked Aderrien to call the police on her daughter’s father. He walked out of his room as directed by the police and he got shot."

Murry said police told her that her daughter's father was taken into custody later in the day on Saturday but eventually released because she had not filed a police report against him.

"When was I going to have time to do that? I was in the hospital with my son," she said, reacting to the news of the man's release from custody.

Four days after the shooting, Murry told CNN that "no one came to the hospital from the police station" nor had she spoken to any police investigators about the shooting.

"I'm just happy my son is alive," she said through tears.

Moore told CNN that he is furious that Capers remains employed by the Indianola Police Department.

"We believe that the city and the officer should be liable to Aderrien Murray, for the damages they have caused," the attorney said.

Moore said they will hold a sit-in protest at the Indianola City Hall on Thursday morning.

Indianola is a small, mostly African American town with 31% of the population below the poverty line. It lies in the Mississippi Delta, about 100 miles north of Jackson.

JACKSON, Miss. —

The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 has died in hospice care in Louisiana, a coroner's report shows. Carolyn Bryant Donham was 88 years old.

Related video above: 1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found

Donham died Tuesday night in Westlake, Louisiana, according to a death report filed Thursday in Calcasieu Parish Coroner's Office in Louisiana.

Till's kidnapping and killing became a catalyst for the civil rights movement when his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago after his brutalized body was pulled from a river in Mississippi. Jet magazine published photos.

Till traveled from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi in August 1955. Donham – then named Carolyn Bryant – accused him of making improper advances on her at a grocery store in the small community of Money. The Rev. Wheeler Parker, a cousin of Till who was there, has said 14-year-old Till whistled at the woman, an act that flew in the face of Mississippi's racist social codes of the era.

Evidence indicates a woman identified Till to her then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, who killed the teenager. An all-white jury acquitted the two white men in the killing, but the men later confessed in an interview with Look magazine.

In an unpublished memoir obtained by The Associated Press in 2022, Donham said she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till. Donham was 21 at the time.

The contents of the 99-page manuscript, titled "I am More Than A Wolf Whistle," were first reported by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Historian and author Timothy Tyson of Durham, who said he obtained a copy from Donham while interviewing her in 2008, provided a copy to the AP.

Tyson had placed the manuscript in an archive at the University of North Carolina with the agreement that it not be made public for decades, though he said he gave it to the FBI during an investigation the agency concluded last year.

He said he decided to make it public now following the recent discovery of an arrest warrant on kidnapping charges that were issued for Donham in 1955 but never served.

___

Associated Press writer Allen G. Breed in Wake Forest, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

Two white men in Mississippi are facing charges after they allegedly chased and shot at a Black FedEx driver delivering packages in their neighborhood.

The FedEx driver, 24-year-old D'Monterrio Gibson, says he was delivering packages in Brookhaven, Mississippi, late last month. While he was wearing a FedEx uniform, the truck he was driving that day was a Hertz rental van with company markings on the side.

He said he had just finished a delivery around 7 p.m. on Jan. 24 when he noticed a white pickup truck approaching his van. The truck began honking its horn.

Gibson ignored the truck and continued driving through the neighborhood. That's when he encountered a man standing in the road with a gun pointed at him. The man indicated that he wanted Gibson to stop the truck.

"So I just started shaking my head like, no, I'm not going to stop. And I ducked behind the steering wheel and I swerve around him as well," Gibson told WLBT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi. "As I swerve around him, he starts firing shots at the back of my vehicle. And I'm hearing all the shots and I'm just ducking, because I don't know if they're coming inside or nothing."

According to NBC News, Gibson called his manager at FedEx, who told him to return to the distribution center. He says the pickup truck continued to follow him until he reached the interstate.

At that point, Gibson called the police to report what happened. According to CNN, a dispatcher told him that they had just received a call about a suspicious person at the same address.

The next day, Gibson and his boss at FedEx went to the Brookhaven Police Department to file a report. There, they showed police photos of the bullet holes that were left behind by shots fired the day before.

The suspects in the incident, Gregory Case and his son, Brandon Case, were not arrested until Feb. 1 — more than a week after the shooting. The Mississippi Free Press reports that they were allowed to turn themselves in.

Police charged Gregory Case with conspiracy and Brandon Case with aggravated assault.

Attorneys for Gibson say that the charges against the Cases are too lenient.

"Had it been a black father and son duo that shot at a white young man doing his job, do you think they would've allowed them a week to rest at home comfortably? No, they would've been immediately arrested that night and put in jail, and their bonds would've been much higher than $75,000 and $150,000 and their charge would've been attempted murder, because that's what it was," attorney Carlos Moore said. "They shot several times into that van, trying to kill Mr. Gibson, and he had done nothing wrong. He was simply Black while working."

The case contains similarities to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was gunned down while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, in February 2020. Greg McMichael and his son Travis McMichael chased after Arbery because they suspected him of committing a series of robberies in the area. Travis McMichael fatally shot Arbery during a struggle over a firearm. They were convicted of Arbery's murder late last year and face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A Mississippi fire chief died of COVID-19 this week, the same day a legal agreement was reached that allowed his family to seek treatment for the virus with Ivermectin, according to WTVA-TV.

The news outlet reports that Wayne Doyle, the chief of the Lowndes County District 3 Volunteer Fire Department, died of COVID-19 on Tuesday.

WTVA says Doyle had been hospitalized with the virus at North Mississippi Medical Center in the town of Tupelo. His family had asked the hospital to treat Doyle with Ivermectin — an anti-parasitic drug that has not been proven as an effective treatment against COVID-19. According to WCBI-TV hospital reportedly refused to offer the treatments.

On Tuesday, an agreement was reportedly reached that allowed Doyle's family to move him from North Mississippi Medical Center to another hospital that would offer him Ivermectin. However, Doyle died before his family could move him to another facility.

According to an obituary for Doyle, he served as a volunteer firefighter for 40 years and also owned a local construction company. WTVA says first responders escorted Doyle as his body was taken to a local funeral home.

Ivermectin is a drug commonly used as an anti-parasitic. While several clinical trials have taken place to gauge its effectiveness in fighting COVID-19, the FDA has not issued approval for its use in treating the virus.

Despite the lack of FDA approval for use with COVID-19, the use of Ivermectin has skyrocketed in recent months as media members like Joe Rogan have touted the drug. Late last year, livestock feed stores reported a shortage of Ivermectin products meant for use with large animals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also issued warnings about the non-clinical use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19, noting that it had seen an increase in calls to poison control centers for Ivermectin overdoses.

In May, the Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments from Mississippi's case, Dobbs v. Jackson's Women's Health Organization, in an attempt to ban abortion after 15 weeks.

This decision came around the same time Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the country's strictest ban on abortion into law, known as the Senate Bill-8. The law prohibits women from getting the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy or when cardiac activity is detected.

In a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court declined to block the Texas ban, effectively changing the precedent of the 1973 landmark decision of Roe v. Wade that made abortion a constitutional right. The law forced many clinics to close and incentivizes individuals to enforce the ban by placing a $10,000 bounty on anyone who helps women get an abortion.

After the Supreme Court's ruling, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas to protect the constitutional rights of women.

Also, in early October, a federal judge issued an order to block the law, but Abbott immediately appealed the decision.

Similarly, Mississippi's only abortion clinic is in jeopardy. In the South and Midwest, where abortion is already difficult to access, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will eliminate the procedure entirely.

In December, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether to uphold Mississippi's abortion restriction. The court generally releases the majority of its decisions in mid-June.

In this episode of Clarified, learn about how the 48-year precedent of Roe v. Wade is being challenged.

A microchip helped identify a dog found in Mississippi that had been missing since 2014 from Florida.

Kelly Weissinger found the little Maltese and posted photos in the group "Rankin County, MS Lost and Found Pets ONLY" on Facebook. The dog was taken to a veterinary hospital where veterinarians discovered she had been microchipped, which allowed them to contact the owner, Brigitte Bourgoignie.

Bourgoignie, who lives in Miami, said seven years ago, she stepped out to the grocery store, and when she returned, her dog, Sissi, was gone. Bourgoignie said Sissi, who is now 14 years old, was not known to bolt out the door or run away. She said she took Sissi everywhere with her and considered her to be like a best friend.

A call was issued for someone to take Sissi from Mississippi to her home in Miami. Brandon Tyler, from North Carolina, was in Arkansas visiting family when he saw a story on a website that helps people connect for transporting pets. Tyler said he lost his cat in 2016, and always hoped someone would bring his cat back, so now he's helping reunite pets with their owners.

Tyler came to Mississippi and picked Sissi up from the vet Wednesday morning. He said he's excited to get her back to her owner. Tyler even stopped to buy Sissi a toy to cuddle with during the long ride back to Florida.

"This little girl has been through so much," Tyler said about Sissi.

Bourgoignie said she has no idea how Sissi got from Florida to Mississippi, or what she's done during the past seven years. Once she is reunited with Sissi, she plans to spend every possible moment with her. Bourgoignie, a children's book author, plans to write a book about Sissi and what she imagined her dog did while she was gone.

Bourgoignie is originally from France and said she spoke to Sissi only in French, so she's curious to see if Sissi will now respond to English.

Watch the video above for the full story.

Authorities say a woman's skeletal remains were identified 44 years after her murder.

According to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, the woman long known to investigators as "Escatawpa Jane Doe," has been identified as Clara Birdlong.

Birdlong was found in 1977 at a Mississippi construction site and investigators believe she was a victim of the most prolific killer in U.S. history, the late Samuel Little.

The department said hunters found Birdlong's remains near a highway in Jackson County on Dec. 27, 1977. She was a short Black woman with a distinctive front gold tooth and probably wore a wig.

Officials say she was discovered about three or four months after she was killed.

Authorities said throughout the years, "several facial reconstructions and computer composites were created in an effort to help identify her."

A breakthrough came in January 2021 when authorities in Mississippi contracted a Texas DNA research facility to create a family tree based off Birdlong's DNA. They then traced it to a cousin in Mississippi, who connected them to her 93-year-old grandmother.

The grandmother told investigators that her cousin was born around 1933 and went missing from Leflore County sometime in the 1970’s.

"Another distant cousin in Texas said Clara went by the nickname “Nuttin,” and described her as a small woman who had a gold front tooth and wore a wig," the sheriff's department said. "The cousin also recalled Clara disappeared in the 1970’s."

In August, a woman in LeFlore County who remembered Birdlong told investigators that the victim the county in the 70’s with a Black man "who claimed to be passing through Mississippi on his way to Florida."

Birdlong was never seen or heard from again, investigators said.

In September, investigators confirmed that Birdlong's DNA matched that of the grandmother.

The sheriff's department considers Little to be the prime suspect.

Her cause of death is undetermined.

Discovering prehistoric artifacts is amazing enough. But finding them deep in the belly of a massive alligator -- that's something else.Shane Smith, owner of Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City, Mississippi, was digging through the stomach of a 13-foot-5-inch alligator when he found a couple of objects he just couldn't place. The animal was brought in for processing of its meat and skin.The items both turned out to be Native American artifacts dating back thousands of years, which he said he later discovered from an expert."My first instinct was like, no way. There's no way this is possible," Smith told CNN. "You naturally think that, 'Oh, my gosh, this alligator, either ate an Indian or ate an animal that the Indian shot.' But, you know, obviously the alligator is not thousands of years old."Smith thought the objects -- a projectile point that was part of a hunting tool and something that looked like a fishing lure -- were interesting enough, so he posted about it on the store's Facebook page.Geologist James Starnes looked at photos of the artifacts and was able to tell quite a bit about their history, based on his research of Native American artifacts found in the Mississippi Delta. Starnes is the director of surface geology and surface mapping for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.He described the objects as a plummet, which is a tear-shaped metal object of unknown use, and an "atlatl dart point," which is a spear or dart used for hunting, Starnes said."We've had Native American inhabitants in North America, especially Mississippi, going back probably 12,000-plus years," he said. "This technology was the technology that they would have brought with them."The use of the plummet is "hotly debated" among experts, Starnes said. It looks like a fishing weight or a net weight, which is what some argue it was used for.But it's made of hematite, an "exotic" material that could have come from as far away as the Great Lakes region, Starnes said. Using an object that was so "ornate" for something utilitarian such as fishing seems unusual, he added.The plummet appears to be from the late archaic cultural period, which was from 1,000 to 2,000 BC, Starnes said.The brown-colored rock, which was part of the atlatl dart point, would have served as the base for the hunting tool, Starnes said. He described it as a base with an arrowhead attached at the tip."These things were made before the advent of bows and arrows in North America," he said.Now, the bigger question: How did these artifacts get into a giant alligator's stomach?Alligators are known for eating all sorts of things. This big one had fish bones and scales, teeth, the bones of small mammals, hundreds of persimmon fruit seeds and rocks, Smith said. The rocks ranged in size from a quarter to a silver dollar, he said.This alligator was captured Sept. 2 by John Hamilton, who found it in Eagle Lake, north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Smith said.Between the gator's captor, Smith and others, the group estimated this alligator was 80 to 100 years old, Smith said.While the contents of its stomach were something noteworthy, there was one other weird thing Smith recently found in an alligator.Another large alligator, also found in 2021, had a "45-caliber bullet inside of his stomach," Smith said. "The weird thing about that is the bullet had not been fired from a gun. It was just a clean bullet, so you wonder how it got there."Finding artifacts of this age is common in this region of Mississippi, says Starnes."Since this area was so heavily populated over such a long period of time, artifacts show up in some very unusual places," Starnes said. "They can erode from the surface, or they can be exposed because of things like rain events, construction projects."The use of stone was popular in the archaic time period, he said."You could imagine that one of these sites having this much stone material is just eroding out of the bank, pretty easy pickings for an alligator, especially looking for her, you know, just something to ingest," he said. "Alligators will pretty much eat anything."

JACKSON, Miss. —

The Mississippi State Department of Health has received reports of eight pregnant women dying from COVID-19 in the past several weeks, according to State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.

Dobbs said all of the women were unvaccinated. The babies were born premature, but are alive, Dobbs said.

"COVID is especially problematic and dangerous for pregnant women. We also know it can be deadly for the baby in the womb," Dobbs said. "With COVID, we've seen a doubling of the rate of fetal demise, or the death of the baby in the womb after 20 weeks. It's been a real tragedy."

Dobbs said the COVID-19 vaccines are "remarkably" effective in preventing deaths in pregnant women and their unborn babies. The state health department is working to get the message to pregnant women that the vaccine is safe and available to protect "the most vulnerable in our community."

Health officials added 1,934 new COVID-19 cases to Mississippi's tally and 102 additional deaths on Wednesday. Dobbs said nearly half of Mississippians have received at least one dose.

State epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said, after a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, the number of deaths lags behind.

"In August, over 93,000 cases to date. Some of the cases reported now still have deaths from that August timeframe, so it continues to increase," Byers said.

Byers said there has also been a decrease in the number of students and teachers who are on quarantine after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

As Louisiana reels from a fourth COVID-19 wave — with the highest single-day cases since the pandemic began — hospitals in the state are preparing for yet another public health crisis with Hurricane Ida battering the coast. The Louisiana governor said this hurricane will be one of the strongest to hit the state in more than 150 years.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said evacuation of hospitals in threatened areas — something that would normally be considered — is impractical with COVID-19 patients.

“That isn’t possible. We don’t have any place to bring those patients. Not in state, not out of state,” Edwards said.

More than 2,600 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized across Louisiana, according to state data. The seven-day average has begun to decline in recent days, having reached nearly 2,700 hospitalizations — the peak from April 2020.

Video above: Louisiana hospitals prepare for Hurricane Ida's arrival

"We have been talking to hospitals to make sure that their generators are working, that they have way more water on hand than normal, that they have PPE on hand," Edwards said.

Officials decided against evacuating New Orleans hospitals. There’s little room for their patients elsewhere, with hospitals from Texas to Florida already dealing with a spike in coronavirus patients, according to Dr. Jennifer Avengo, the city’s health director.

At the state's largest hospital system, Ochsner Health System, officials ordered 10 days worth of fuel, food, drugs and other supplies and have backup fuel contracts for its generators. One positive was that the number of COVID-19 patients had dropped from 988 to 836 over the past week — a 15% decline.

Some hospitals appeared to have evacuated their most critical patients ahead of the storm, as they prepared to lose power. According to The Advocate, the Ochsner Health System evacuated 17 of its most critically ill patients from three hospitals, with 100 patients remaining at those locations.

In Mississippi, workers at Singing River Gulfport expected to have to raise flood gates to keep rising water out of the hospital that is full of COVID-19 patients, the vast majority of whom aren't vaccinated, said facilities director Randall Cobb.

Complicating matters, he said, was that the hospital is short-staffed because of the pandemic and also expects to get a flood of patients suffering from ailments that typically follow any hurricane: broken bones, heart attacks, breathing problems and lacerations.

“It's going to be bad. It's going to be really bad,” Cobb said.

Located a few miles from the coast, the hospital has enough generator fuel, food and other supplies to operate on its own for at least 96 hours, he said, and it will help anyone who has a serious, life-threatening condition. But officials were trying to get the word out that people with less severe medical problems should go to special-needs storm shelters or contact emergency management.

“It’s very stressful because it’s too late if we have not thought of everything. Patients are counting on the medical care but also on the facility to be available,” Cobb said.

President Joe Biden approved a federal emergency declaration for Louisiana ahead of the storm. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said FEMA plans to send nearly 150 medical personnel and almost 50 ambulances to the Gulf Coast to assist strained hospitals.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CHICAGO — Last week marked what would have been Emmett Till’s 80^th birthday had he not been killed by a group of white men in Mississippi in 1955.

The 14-year-old Black teen was murdered after being accused of whistling at a white woman at a grocery store. The crime shocked the senses and shined a spotlight on the racial violence against Black people in the Jim Crow south.

The church where his funeral service was held has long been an important part of Black history, and more than six decades later, there are renewed efforts to preserve the church that changed the civil rights movement.

“So, the balcony was like a square, so it went from the pulpit. There was a choir stand all the way around,” explained Sharon Roberts.

Roberts grew up in the south side of Chicago church.

“This is kind of where the church started. My great grandfather built this," she said.

When her great grandfather built the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, it was the first of its kind in the Midwest and intended to be a place to heal.

“He came here to start Robert’s Temple, a holiness church. It wasn't heard of back then and it was needed for what they called a wicked city here in Chicago,” said Roberts, who is now the church secretary and in charge with preservation efforts.

The halls are adorned with images of decades past.

But it was the brutal murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager, in Mississippi in 1955 that thrust this house of God into the history books.

“The unfortunate death of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who was accused of whistling at a white woman down in Mississippi, visiting his family and friends down there, was taken in the middle of the night by the husband and friends of this woman," Roberts recalled.

The men were charged with viciously beating the teen, lynching him, and tying him to a cotton gin before throwing his body into a river.

“So, right here, back when there were about 40 stairs, a staircase to come from downstairs up. And that's where his casket was brought up and laid here,” said Roberts.

His mother, a member of Roberts Temple, brought him back to Chicago for the funeral. The service drew some 50,0000 visitors. It was a galvanizing moment.

“His mother was very, very certain that she wanted an open casket so the world could see what had happened to her son.”

The church was recently added to America’s 11 most endangered historic places list.

So, last month when the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced more than $3 million in grants to 40 sites and organizations through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, Roberts Temple church was at the top of the list.

“Our top awardee this year is Robert's Temple,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Leggs says the grant was an important opportunity to elevate the many ways that Black women have contributed to civil rights.

“Emmett Till's mother in 1955, when she made the decision to have an open-casket funeral that not only showcased and demonstrated her character, her self-determination, her activism, but it was a catalytic moment in the American civil rights movement,” Roberts said.

To restore the building and reimagine its use, Roberts says they will take the building back in time.

“This is just, it's unbelievable because this will be the first phase of preserving a historic place. So, we'll start there. And then our goal is to transform, renovate, restore the church back to 1955,” said Roberts.

Beyond restoring the church to what it looked like during Emmett Till’s funeral, they hope to gain national landmark status as well.

“We're just happy to still be here for the community. We're small in number, very small membership, but we're mighty and we plan to be here forever," Roberts said.

It’s an opportunity to preserve the past for the future.

Several national retailers say they’ll continue to require face coverings in their stores even as Texas and some other states lift mask requirements.

Both the Lone Star State and Mississippi announced Tuesday that they’d end their face mask requirements in public spaces and said they’d allow businesses to reopen at 100% capacity as COVID-19 cases dip across the country.

Other states have taken similar actions, despite warnings from public health officials that the pandemic is far from over and easing restrictions threatens the nation’s recovery.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, criticized these states for lifting their mask mandates, calling the decision “inexplicable” and “ill-advised.”

Though these states aren’t requiring their residents to wear masks, many national stores are continuing to ask all customers to do so, at least for now.

Below is a list of major retailers continuing mask policies:

Target

A Target spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the company is still requiring its guests and employees to wear masks or face coverings in all of its stores, except for guests with underlying medical conditions and young children. And as more Americans get vaccinated for COVID-19, Target is still asking those who have received a vaccine to wear masks and follow all social distancing guidelines.

Kroger

Kroger, the country’s largest chain of groceries, said in a statement Thursday that it will continue to require everyone in its stores to wear masks until “all our frontline grocery associates can receive the COVID-19 vaccine.” The company owns stores under different names as well, including King Soopers, Ralphs and Dillons. It’s also advocating for federal, state and local officials to prioritize grocery workers in vaccine rollout plans.

CVS

CVS said in a statement Thursday that its face covering policy remains in effect at all of its pharmacies nationwide, based on federal public health recommendations. The company said, “if a customer is not wearing a mask or face covering, we will refer them to our signage and ask that they help protect themselves and those around them by listening to the experts and heeding the call to wear a face covering.”

Walgreens

Like CVS, fellow pharmacy chain Walgreens says its masking policy is not changing. It still requires team members and customers to wear masks, unless doing so would inhibit the individual’s health or if the person is under 2 years old. “We have signage on doors and make announcements over the store's public address system to remind customers that face covers are required,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

ALDI

ALDI, a grocery chain which has locations in both Texas and Mississippi, said it doesn’t plan to make any adjustments to its safety measures at this time. A company spokesperson said in a statement, “For the health and well-being of the communities we serve and for the protection of our employees, we will maintain our current nationwide policy requiring all employees and customers to wear a face covering when shopping in our stores.”

Starbucks

Starbucks will also keep enforcing its face mask requirements for its staff and customers. In a statement, a spokesperson said the coffee company will “continue to make decisions rooted in facts and science and are committed to meeting or exceeding public health mandates.”

Others

Reports from USA Today, Bloomberg and CBS News show additional companies, like Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Macy’s are also continuing their mask mandates. We’ve reached out to them for confirmation and are waiting to hear back.

CDC still asking people to mask up

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is continuing to ask Americans to mask up when in public spaces to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to prevent any more spikes in cases. Click here to learn more about masking.

JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. —

For decades, the two little grave markers sat side by side in a Mississippi Coast cemetery, identified only as Baby Jane and Baby Jane II.

The infants, both "Jane Does," were found on different occasions, in 1982 and 1988, in Jackson County rivers and buried by community members, after investigators found no leads in either case.

Then late last year, investigators were able to identify Baby Jane through DNA testing, almost 40 years after her death. This week, investigators exhumed Baby Jane II from her resting place in Jackson County Memorial Park in Pascagoula, with hopes of finding her true name.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell said in a news release that the remains of the infant have been sent to the Mississippi Crime Lab. Once her DNA is collected, investigators hope to use it to build a family tree.

Baby Jane II was found in the Pascagoula River on June 28, 1988, by two men fishing near the wildlife management area in Wade. The child was found tangled in a fishing line.

An autopsy showed that the baby, 3 to 5 weeks old at the time, had died by drowning.

The case has had a devastating impact on the community, even years later.

Gina Marshall was just a young girl at the time, living a couple of miles from where Baby Jane II was found. She remembers crossing the bridge over the Pascagoula River to get to summer school that day. Shortly after she arrived at school, the infant was found.

From that day on, Marshall said, she always had a sickening feeling when crossing the bridge or visiting the river with her family.

"This is something I have carried with me many years, and still to this day tear up over it," she said. "I pray they can find her identity."

Related video: Baby in Wisconsin exhumed who died in 1989

What made the case more painful is that the baby girl was the second child found in a Jackson County river in a decade.

Baby Jane, an 18-month-old infant, was found on Dec. 5, 1982, floating in the Escatawpa River wearing a pink and white checkered dress and a diaper.

In December 2020, DNA testing finally identified her as Alisha Ann Heinrich. Heinrich had gone missing from the Joplin, Missouri, area around Thanksgiving 1982, along with her 23-year-old mother, Gwendolyn Mae Clemons, according to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. Clemons was planning to start a new life in Florida.

Clemons is also believed dead but her body has never been found. A man who was traveling with the mother and daughter was a suspect in their disappearance, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department said last year. The man has since died.

Season of Justice Corporation, a Baltimore, Maryland, nonprofit, is covering the cost of the lab work for Baby Jane II. Redgrave Research Forensic Services in Athol, Massachusetts, will attempt to build a profile of the child's family history.

The owners of the Jackson County Memorial Park donated the cost of the baby's exhumation.

Marshall said seeing Baby Jane identified has given her hope that DNA testing will be the key to finding out the identity of the second anonymous child.

"It's going to be bittersweet, I'm sure," she said. "The thought of her not having an identity, I think, makes this the saddest. She wasn't a nobody — she belonged somewhere. She would be approximately 33 right now, probably with children of her own, had she been given the chance."

___

Willingham is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

A series of tornadoes in the southeastern U.S. left at least five people dead on Thursday and caused extensive property damage throughout the region.

The five confirmed deaths all occurred in Alabama near the town of Ohatchee, located east of Birmingham. However, the damage wrought by the storms was seen as far west as Mississippi and as far east as Georgia.

According to the Weather Channel, the west Georgia town of Newnan had also seen significant storm damage as of Thursday night.

The Weather Channel says the system had produced at least eight confirmed tornadoes on Thursday — six in Alabama, and one each in Mississippi and Tennessee.

Video shared on social media showed enormous funnel clouds and the extensive property damage left behind by the storms.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. —

Video above: Birmingham-Southern College student rescued from flooded apartments

A deluge that dumped more than 7 inches of rain in a few hours and spawned at least three tornadoes eased Wednesday but left homeowners and workers to clean up a wide area across the Southeast.

With heavy rains still falling in the Florida Panhandle, crews inland used shovels and heavy machines to remove downed trees, limbs and other debris that covered roads and bridges once floodwaters receded in metro Birmingham. Some schools in Alabama's largest city opened late or held classes online because of high water.

Nearly the entire state of Alabama received at least half an inch of rain on Tuesday, and areas south of Birmingham got more than 7 inches, forecasters said. Rainfall totals of more than 1 inches were common across Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

Homes were damaged from Texas to Virginia, and about 100,000 homes and businesses remained without power at midday Wednesday. That was down from more than 240,000 outages earlier. Teams from the National Weather Service confirmed that three weak tornadoes had struck central Alabama, but no widespread damage occurred.

Storms have been responsible for at least three deaths and dozens of injuries this week. In Mississippi, forecasters confirmed 12 tornadoes Sunday evening and night.

The National Weather Service's prediction center warned Wednesday morning that flash flooding could also now affect the central Gulf Coast with storms shifting southeast and rain continuing to soak much of the region. Forecasters issued flood warnings for rivers and streams throughout the region.