Aug 15, 2024

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Ike Morgan

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The mayor of Tarrant has had run-ins with members of the city council. He's had a legal battle over his multiple suspensions of the police chief, who's been reinstated. And now the city clerk says she has filed criminal charges against the mayor.

AL.com's Joseph D. Bryant reports that city clerk Laverne Knight said Mayor Wayman Newton is blocking her access to records.

The two have been at odds over questions the clerk raised about several documents, including one regarding the hiring of a public-works director.

Mayor Newton accused Knight of conspiring with the council against him. Knight said she just needs to do her job.

And Chief Major said he believes the warrants are legitimate and not political.

A football player at New Brockton High School who collapsed during practice and died Tuesday was identified as 14-year-old Semaj Wilkins, according to the Coffee County coroner and reported by WTVY.

Wilkins was a freshman at the school. Details are still scarce, with the Coffee County Sheriff's Department, New Brockton Police and the district attorney investigating.

An item made it through a U.S. Senate committee that'll put $47 million toward the dredging project that'll deepen the Mobile Bay shipping channel, reports AL.com's Margaret Kates.

The Alabama Port Authority announced that Sen. Katie Britt had put her support behind that $47 million for operation and maintenance, another $400,000 to analyze sediment flow and an addition to this year's Water Resources Development Act calling for dredged material to be put to "beneficial use."

You can see more on that story at the Mobile Press-Register's daily digital edition.

The latest variant of COVID has been on the upswing across the country, and at least one Alabama school has switched to virtual learning, reports AL.com's Williesha Morris.

JAG High School in Montgomery planned to keep students and teachers home yesterday and today, with numerous staff members sick with the virus.

Alabama is one of 17 states listed by the CDC as having a "high" level of COVID infections. That agency now recommends that people who get sick with COVID head back to work or school after they've gone 24 hours with no fever without taking medicine. That has replaced previous recommendations of longer isolation periods.

“If you coach with integrity, don’t demean kids, you won’t cross that line. I’m not saying you can’t slap them on the butt. I don’t mean you can’t holler at them. I just think that’s the extent of it. You can raise your voice. In the latter years, I cut the cussing out. I don’t cuss kids like I used to.”

Rush Propst, reflecting on coaching high school football and how the treatment of players has changed, in light of recent controversy at his former school, Hoover High.

3,251

That's how many of Alabama's registered voters Secretary of State Wes Allen said have been issued non-citizen identification numbers (it is a crime for non-citizens to register to vote). Allen did say it's possible that some could have become naturalized citizens since receiving those IDs. He's sent his list to the Alabama Attorney General's Office for investigation.

In 1925, country music pioneer Rose Maddox of Boaz.

In 1937, former Congressman Ronnie Flippo of Florence.

In 1944, R&B singer/songwriter/producer Frederick Knight of Birmingham.

A short story on comedian Carrot Top's ill-fated tour stop in Alabama.

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