Oct 25, 2024

It's quiz day, so don't overlook the link below.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading,

Ike

Looking for the podcast? Click here or check other options below.

Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond is leaving the job and has accepted a position with another police department, reports AL.com's Carol Robinson.

He said it's been something he's been thinking and praying about for a few months and that it is not in response to recent calls for BPD changes amid what could be a record year for homicides.

The local Fraternal Order of Police has said it was considering a vote of "no confidence" in BPD's leadership of the department over low morale and other issues. State Rep. Juandalynn Givan and a Birmingham Black Lives Matter co-founder are among those who've called for Thurmond to be removed since last month's mass shooting at Five Points South.

Thurmond has been with the force 25 years and was appointed chief by Mayor Randall Woodfin in June 2022.

Deputy Chief Michael Pickett was named interim chief.

You've read here before that rural Alabama has been facing dwindling numbers of hospitals and emergency rooms. In many places now, if something bad happens to you, you have a long way to go to get that level of medical care.

And beginning today in one rural county, reports AL.com's Savannah Tryens-Fernandes, there is only one ambulance to get you there.

In all 890 square miles of Pickens County, there's now one operating ambulance. According to the Aliceville Fire Department, they're trying to figure out a way to get a second one going again but that the funds aren't there.

This unfortunately isn't an outlier story. According to the Rural Health Research and Policy Centers, 64 of Alabama's 67 counties are considered "ambulance deserts."

In Pickens County, the only hospital closed in 2020. That has meant less revenue for the ambulance service and fewer EMTs working in the county.

A man who attended the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile has moved on to big things. Specifically, on to a very, very, very big number.

AL.com's Heather Gann reports that Luke Durant has discovered the largest known prime number.

Prime numbers, you may recall, are numbers that are divisible only by themselves and 1. Six isn't a prime number because you can divide it by 2 or 3 and get a whole number. But 3, 5 and 7 are prime numbers. So are 11, 13 and 17. As you keep going higher, prime numbers are spaced out more and more so that before you know it, you're dealing with really big numbers.

Durant, who's now in San Jose, Calif., used graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used for digital graphics and AI, to find a prime number that has more than 41 million digits.

Let that sink in. The number one trillion has 13 digits. Durant's prime number has 41 million digits.

For short, our math friends are calling the number M136279841. That name's easier to work into conversation at parties.

The discovery accomplished a few things. It might have broadened the scope of how GPUs could be used in math. If somebody discovers a use for such extremely high prime numbers, it's now known and waiting to be used. And Durant won a $3,000 research award that he said he plans to donate to the Alabama School of Math and Science.

Test your knowledge of the past week's worth of news by taking our weekly quiz.

“I knew that was a privilege that I needed not to waste.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook, to the Wall Street Journal, about attending Auburn University.

$18.5 billion

That's how much in holiday sales the Alabama Retail Association is expecting in the state during November and December.

If you miss that feeling of sitting down with in-depth, local reporting, consider subscribing to the Huntsville Times, Birmingham News, or Mobile Press-Register.

By subscribing, you’ll get a new daily digital edition in an email link, or you can use an app to download the new edition every day on your smartphone or tablet. You also get exclusive access to stories written for our subscribers.

“Down in Alabama” listeners get your first month free by going to al.com/digitalsubscription/exclusive and enter the promo code DIA24.

Alabama Democratic Vice Chair Tabitha Isner joins us to take the weekly Alabama News Quiz.

You can find “Down in Alabama” wherever you get your podcasts, including these places:

We appreciate you for taking the time to read today. Hope you're able to check back soon. Meantime, reply to this email with any suggestions you might have.

If you're so inclined, we'd love it if you'd forward to friends who might be interested in reading. (And if you're someone who's been forwarded this newsletter, we encourage you to subscribe and get this in your inbox every day.)