We hope you've enjoyed the special presentation of False Fall. We now return to the regularly scheduled programming of Dog Days. Weekly quiz answers are down near the bottom. Thanks for reading, Ike Morgan |
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A Friday night football season opener brought stunning grief to a family, school and community after Morgan Academy junior quarterback Caden Tellier suffered a head injury and then died on Saturday, reports AL.com's Ben Thomas. Morgan Academy is in Selma. Details of the injury haven't been released yet, but head of school Dr. Bryan Oliver said Tellier was airlifted to UAB after a tackle that led to a critical brain injury. Then Saturday afternoon, his family issued a statement on social media: “Our boy, Caden Tellier, has met Jesus face to face. We appreciate all of your prayers, and we covet them for the hard days ahead.” Caden Tellier was only 16 years old. |
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The largest church in Alabama is putting down more permanent roots in Daphne, reports AL.com's Margaret Kates for The Birmingham News daily digital edition. Church of the Highlands paid $4.6 million for 27 acres off Hwy 181. Construction on the new campus is expected to begin next spring and be finished by summer 2026. The church has been holding Sunday services locally since 2018. Already, up to 900 people are attending services at the Daphne Civic Center. Church of the Highlands has more than 20 locations in Alabama and Georgia. |
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The Southern pine beetle is having quite a summer. The Alabama Forestry Commission has issued an alert on the bad bug after having identified nearly 5,000 "trouble spots" in the state, reports AL.com's Lawrence Specker. The "trouble spots" average about 191 dead trees each. It adds up to what the AFC is calling a pine-beetle epidemic, the worst we've had in 23 years. Counties with the most spots identified so far are Bibb, Calhoun, Choctaw, Clay Colbert, Coosa, Franklin, Lamar, Lawrence, Marion, Perry, Randolph, Talladega and Winston. The AFC's announcement said the worst outbreaks include part of Bankhead National Forest and the Oakmulgee District of the Talladega National Forest. Pine beetles will usually colonize a damaged or otherwise compromised pine tree, laying eggs and tunneling under the bark and often killing it. The U.S. Forest Service said the outbreak of 1999-2002 cost the timber industry more than a billion dollars. And we still used paper back then. Ways to fight include clearing the infested areas and using or burning the pine that's cut. |
The transfer portal, as it is known to do, has led to some colorful quotes in sports stories over the past week or so, reports AL.com's Nick Kelly. A big one was when Chuck Martin, who coaches The Other Miami (the one in Ohio), accused Alabama of illegally recruiting a place kicker. Lou Groza Award winner Graham Nicholson transferred from The Other Miami to the Tide after the spring. Martin: “Alabama stole our kicker. They illegally recruited our kicker and stole him from us, and that’s a fact. We act like it’s not. We live in this la-la world, like ‘Hey, let’s not talk...’ I don’t know why. Everybody knows what’s going on.” Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was asked to respond. He did: “I don’t know anything about that, I guess, that comment. He entered the portal and we reached out to him, so that’s how it goes, right? We did everything that we were supposed to.” And then over the weekend, ESPN's Nick Saban, who some might remember once coached the Tide himself, remarked about folks from other schools who were looking to pick up players as he left the program: “When I retired, there were people camped out in Tuscaloosa to get players to go in the portal. If they wanted to look at somebody tampering, they should have done a little investigation right there.” |
In 1916, "mob queen" Virginia Hill of Lipscomb. She's most associated with Bugsy Siegel and has been played in movies by Dyan Cannon and Annette Bening. In 1959, retired astronaut Kay Hire of Mobile. |
Here are the answers and results of Friday's news-review quiz: What unofficial weather phenomenon has much of Alabama experienced this week? False Fall 67.1% Blue moon chill 19.1% Indian Summer 11.0% False Spring 2.9% Keith Urban recently played a free pop-up concert in the parking lot of what establishment? Buc-ee's 94.2% Wawa 4.6% Stuckey's 0.6% Wesley's Booby Trap 0.6% Carnival Cruise Lines recently announced its first-ever cruise out of Mobile that will terminate in this city. Seattle 75.1% Rio de Janeiro 16.2% Myrtle Beach 5.2% Cape Cod 3.5% The Flora-Bama Lounge on the Gulf Coast at the Florida-Alabama line recently celebrated the anniversary of its beginning. How long has it been around? 60 years 69.4% 40 years 20.2% 80 years 6.9% 100 years 3.5% The mayor and city council of this Alabama city have been at each other for years. Meetings have led to tension, insults and even a punch. A recent effort to bring charges against the mayor for withholding city information failed, and there is a lawsuit to have him impeached. What city am I referring to? Tarrant 90.2% Fort Payne 4.0% Eastaboga 3.5% Ozark 2.3% |
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