The Latest: Gov.: No special session on Mississippi flag

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant says he will not call Mississippi lawmakers back to the Capitol to consider removing a Confederate battle emblem from the state flag.

Bryant said Thursday that he calls special sessions only for legislators to respond to a natural disaster or to handle a large economic development project.

The head of the Legislative Black Caucus, Democratic Sen. Kenny Wayne Jones, had called on Bryant earlier Thursday to set a special session to bring "true dialogue and full resolution" on redesigning a flag that many see as racially divisive.

After a monument to Confederacy President Jefferson Davis was vandalized in Richmond, Virginia, people on both sides of the Confederate flag issue have gathered at the site.

On Thursday afternoon, a small group from the Southern heritage advocacy group Virginia Flaggers waved Confederate flags next to the monument, which had been spray-painted with the words "Black Lives Matter."

The South Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans vows to fight lawmakers who want to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds.

The family of suspected church gunman Dylann Roof has released a statement saying they know people are asking questions about Roof, but they do not want to say anything because victims' families are still grieving.

The first funerals began Thursday for some of the nine people killed in what police say was a racially motivated attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston last week.

College of Charleston President Glenn McConnell, a former South Carolina senator and Civil War buff, says he supports removing the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds.

McConnell, as the state Senate's former leader, was instrumental in forging the 2000 compromise that took the flag off the Statehouse dome and put a square version at the Confederate Soldiers Monument out front.

McConnell hoped to avoid commenting until after the funerals of his former colleague, Sen. Clementa Pinckney, and the "eight other Christian martyrs killed by a hateful terrorist," but decided to break his silence following numerous requests.

"The time has come to revisit the issue of the Confederate soldier's flag, which a number of our citizens regard as offensive," said McConnell, a senator for more than three decades and a long-time Civil War re-enactor.

Outside, law enforcement officers checked each person's bag as a line of people formed.

Five uniformed law enforcement officers, several wearing vests, stood in front of the church where the first funeral for a victim of the massacre at a historic black church in South Carolina is to be held soon.

The state Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed a replacement for Charleston County Chief Magistrate James Gosnell