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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will appear in Mississippi to rally Republicans days before statewide elections.

The Republican president’s reelection campaign announced plans for a rally at the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo on Nov. 1, four days before Mississippians go to the polls to elect everything from a governor to county supervisors.

The Trump statement makes no mention of the gubernatorial showdown between Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood. However, Republicans have been hoping for a visit from Trump to boost turnout, and Reeves eagerly greeted the announcement.

“I am proud to welcome President Trump back to Mississippi — a state that is proud to stand behind our President,” Reeves said. “He knows how important it is to defeat Democrat Jim Hood, who supported Hillary Clinton and still works to undermine Trump like the rest of his radical party.”

Reeves has long sought to tie Hood to national Democrats who are unpopular among white voters in Mississippi and tie himself to Trump, who has been popular in the Magnolia State. Hood, though, has tried to emphasize that he would work with Trump and fight the race on local issues. On Friday, Hood said Trump is seeking to rescue Reeves.

“The real reason he’s coming to Mississippi is because Tate Reeves has failed miserably to inspire or excite even his own supporters,” Hood said in a statement. “Tate Reeves can’t hold his own in this race, so he’s looking for someone to hold his hand. And when the president leaves, Tate Reeves will still be here, wallowing in eight years of failed leadership and his inability to do anything to improve the lives of working Mississippians.”

The president will be appearing in the largest city in northeast Mississippi, a region that has historically been Hood’s home base, even as the Democrat has defied the statewide tide toward the GOP.

Trump tweeted support for Reeves on Tuesday and previously on Oct. 3.

“Tate is strong on Crime, tough on Illegal Immigration, and will protect your Second Amendment,” Trump wrote in one Oct. 3 tweet. He continued in another: “He loves our Military and supports our Vets! Get out and Vote for Tate Reeves on November 5th. He has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

Trump traveled to Mississippi in 2018 to campaign for Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, who had been appointed to the Senate by Bryant after longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran retired.

Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, former Fox News contributor Kimberly Guilfoyle, will appear Thursday at the Longleaf Plantation hunting lodge near Hattiesburg to raise money for Reeves. Tickets are $500 each.

Mississippi’s current Republican governor, Phil Bryant, is prohibited by state law from seeking a third term. Two other candidates — independent David Singletary and the Constitution Party’s Bob Hickingbottom — are running low-budget campaigns for governor.

ABERDEEN, Miss. (AP) — A former jail guard in northeast Mississippi says she was fired for being transgender.

Elise Hebert says she was treated differently from other Chickasaw County jail guards, and that supervisors didn’t keep her transgender status secret despite her request.

The lawsuit , filed this month in federal court in Aberdeen, seeks back wages and damages from Chickasaw County.

Hebert says she was frequently belittled by coworkers and supervisors, including Sheriff James Meyers and Warden Brand Huffman. She says she was disciplined for incidents for which other officers weren’t punished, saying the treatment created a hostile work environment violating her civil rights. Hebert says she was fired in 2017 after her paycheck didn’t arrive on time and she couldn’t afford gasoline to drive to work.

ATLANTA (AP) — More than 45 million people across 14 Southern states are now in the midst of what’s being called a “flash drought” that’s cracking farm soil, drying up ponds and raising the risk of wildfires, scientists said Thursday.

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday shows extreme drought conditions in parts of Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and the Florida panhandle. Lesser drought conditions also have expanded in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Overall, nearly 20 percent of the lower 48 U.S. states is experiencing drought conditions.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Health says four more people were confirmed to have West Nile virus, bringing the state’s total this year to 13 cases.

The department said Monday two of the new cases of the mosquito-borne illness are in Forrest County and the others are in Hinds and Rankin counties.

Counties with a single case are Copiah, Jefferson, Jones, Lamar, Leake, Rankin and Smith. Hinds County now has two cases, and Forrest County has four.

In 2018, Mississippi had 50 human cases of West Nile virus, with no deaths. In 2017, the state had 63 cases with two deaths.

State epidemiologist, Dr. Paul Byers says most cases occur between July and September.

Symptoms may include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, rash, muscle weakness or swollen lymph nodes.

TUNICA, Miss. (AP) — A northern Mississippi sheriff says he believes a woman and two children are dead after a sport utility vehicle went into the Mississippi River.

Tunica County Sheriff K.C. Hamp tells WMC-TV that 29-year-old Symphony Wilson of Tunica dropped friends off at work Sunday at the Fitz Casino. The SUV then went off a road and into the river. Hamp says he believes it was an accident.

The 2-year-old boy and the 5-year-old girl with Wilson were not her children.

Hamp says a casino employee jumped into the river to try to rescue them, but a current carried the SUV about 100 yards (91 meters) offshore. He says it was under about 30 feet (9 meters) of water.

An Arkansas state police dive team was called to help recover the vehicle.

VICKSBURG, Miss.— The Mississippi River Commission will host a public meeting aboard the Motor Vessel MISSISSIPPI Aug. 21 from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the city front in Vicksburg.

This meeting is open to the public. Interested parties are invited to present their views on matters affecting the water resources infrastructure needs in the valley, including flood control, the Mississippi River and Tributaries project and other water resources challenges.

The agenda for the public meeting is as follows:
1. The president of the commission provides a summary report on national and regional issues affecting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and commission programs and projects on the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
2. District commander provides an overview for the commission on current project issues in the respective area.
3. Local organizations and members of the public provide comments on issues affecting the commission and the USACE programs and projects.
The Mississippi River Commission, established in 1879, is composed of seven members, each nominated
by the President of the United States and vetted by the Senate. Three of the organization’s members are officers of the USACE; one member is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and three members are civilians, two of whom are civil engineers.

General duties of the commission include recommending policy and work programs, studying and
reporting on the necessity for modifications or additions to the flood control and navigation project and conducting semi-annual inspection trips. The authority of the commission extends the entire length of the Mississippi River from its headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, to Head of Passes, Louisiana, where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

The public hearing process is unique to the Mississippi River Commission and the USACE. The purpose of the public meetings is to maintain a dialogue between watershed interests, the public and the USACE. Presentations by the public are made orally, and a copy of the remarks is presented to the commission for official record and written response.

The benefits of hearing the issues and concerns first hand through the public hearing process are invaluable to the commission and the USACE. Also, the interaction with congressional, federal and state interests, local boards and non-government organizations and the public is crucial to the decision-making process for the nation’s water resources.

The Mississippi River Commission brings critical engineering representation to the drainage basin, which impacts 41% of the United States and includes 1.25 million square miles, over 250 tributaries, 31 states
and two Canadian provinces.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Forecasters are warning about days of scorching, dangerous heat gripping a wide swath of the U.S. South and Midwest, where the heat index on Monday eclipsed 120 degrees (48.9 Celsius) in one town and climbed nearly that high in others.

“It feels like hell is what it feels like,” said Junae Brooks, who runs Junae’s Grocery in Holly Bluff, Mississippi. Around her, many of her customers kept cool with wet rags around their necks or by wearing straw hats.

Some of the most oppressive conditions were in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

The heat index soared to 121 degrees (49.4 Celsius) by late afternoon in Clarksdale, Mississippi; and to 119 degrees (48.3 Celsius) in West Memphis, Arkansas, the weather service reported. Similar readings were expected in eastern Oklahoma.

In Alabama, the temperature hit 100 degrees with a heat index of 106 degrees by mid-afternoon in Birmingham, the state’s largest city.

Heat exhaustion and heat stroke were the leading threats.

“You are more likely to develop a heat illness quicker in this type of weather, when it’s really humid and hot,” said Gary Chatelain, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Shreveport, Louisiana, where a wet summer contributed to high humidity.

More of the same is in store for Tuesday, when heat and humidity will again make for dangerous heat indexes over a wide area. However, an approaching cool front should help ease the intense heat by Wednesday in some areas, Chatelain said.

“If you’re going out in the summer, prepare for the worst,” he said.

In the Mississippi Delta, farmers had no choice but to work in the fields Monday as they scrambled to clear debris and make repairs after floodwaters inundated the region in recent months, Brooks said. Farmers just now able to reach their land.

“The mosquitoes the gnats, the spiders, the snakes — all of them — have been way worse this year,” Brooks said.

In Alabama and Tennessee, high school football coaches were adjusting practice schedules Monday and Tuesday, with some moving the workouts indoors and others conducting training in the early morning or evening, The Tennessean reported .

Cooling stations were open in several cities, including Tulsa, Memphis, and Little Rock, Arkansas, officials said.

In northern Alabama, forecasters with the weather service’s Huntsville office said Monday they issued the first “excessive heat warning” for the area in more than seven years. Such a warning is more serious than a heat advisory.

The region hardest-hit by the heat wave could experience many more days each year when the heat index soars as the effects of climate change increase, scientists say.

Historically, cities such as Austin, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; and Tallahassee, Florida experience less than a week’s worth of days each year when the heat index is over 105 degrees (41 Celsius).

If no action is taken to stop climate change, the number of days when it’s that hot will soar in those cities and others, according to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Killer Heat in the United States .” By midcentury, Austin would see 59 days of such extreme heat in an average year. The number of days would increase to 57 in Baton Rouge; 52 in Jackson; and 50 in Tallahassee.

Southern states would feel the brunt of increasingly dangerous heat in coming years, said Astrid Caldas, one of the study’s authors.

“Texas and Florida stand out, but also of course Louisiana, and Mississippi and the whole area all the way up to North Carolina,” said Caldas, a climate scientist.

MORTON, Miss. (AP) — The Latest on immigration raids at Mississippi food processing plants (all times local):

2:15 p.m.

U.S. immigration officials say raids at seven food processing plants in Mississippi resulted in 680 arrests.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Matthew Albence told The Associated Press that the arrest count from Wednesday’s raids may make it the largest workplace sting in more than a decade and probably the largest ever for a single state.

Authorities say about 600 agents fanned out across the plants, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing. They targeted several companies.

The raids happened in small towns near Jackson with a workforce made up largely of Latino immigrants. The towns hit include Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastapol.

9:45 a.m.

U.S. immigration officials have launched raids at several Mississippi food processing plants.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Wednesday that search warrants were executed at seven locations across the state targeting several companies. They include the Morton plant of poultry producer Koch Foods Inc., which has no relation to Charles and David Koch. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because details of the operation were not intended for publication.

The official says owners as well as employees are targeted in a federal criminal investigation.

The AP witnessed dozens of agents ready to process the workers inside a military facility in Flowood, Miss., with seven lines, one for each location.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi health officials said the state, like others nationwide, is seeing an outbreak of contagious liver disease Hepatitis A and urging people to get vaccinated.

Twenty-three cases of the disease have been confirmed in Mississippi since April, State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said in a statement Wednesday. Over the nine previous years, Mississippi averaged about five cases a year.

Hepatitis A spreads through food or drink contaminated with feces of an infected person, personal and sexual contact with an infected person, and sharing objects with someone who is infected. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting; yellowing of the skin and eyes; and stomach pain, low appetite and fever.

The state Health Department has investigated all cases to identify others who have been in contact and vaccinate them, Byers said.

People most at risk include recreational drug users, current or recent jail inmates, men who have sex with men, and people who are homeless, according to Byers.

Vaccines are available for people without insurance at county health departments. They’re also available at medical offices and pharmacies. Spread of the disease can also be prevented by keeping clean, including thoroughly washing hands after using the bathroom.

Cases have been reported in 14 counties statewide, with 61% of those infected hospitalized.