Jul 12, 2024

The quiz is back this week, so don't forget to use it to catch up on recent headlines. If you prefer an oral quiz to a written one, check out the podcast, where weather reporter Leigh Morgan takes it.

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Sometimes it can pay to be a public servant. Those who've stuck around for the second term of Kay Ivey's administration have seen it pay off pretty well.

AL.com's Mike Cason reports that most of Ivey's cabinet positions have seen pay increases from 17% to 40%.

Ivey communications director Gina Maiola said it's standard practice for the Governor's Office to evaluate the salaries as a new term begins.

According to the state's Open Alabama website, the administration's biggest jump in salary, by percent, came at the office of the Department of Corrections Commission. John Hamm makes $242,000 annually, which is 43% more than his predecessor received in 2021.

Commerce Secretary Ellen McNair makes $239,784, 40% more than her predecessor made. At least five other cabinet positions saw increases of 39%.

A Muslim civil-rights group is voicing its support for a Death Row inmate's request for there to be no autopsy on his body after his execution, reports AL.com's Kent Faulk.

Keith Edmund Gavin is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection next week. He's filed suit to stop the usual autopsy, he said, in accordance with his Muslim faith. This week the Council on American-Islamic Relations urged Alabama officials in a statement to go along with Gavin's request.

An Alabama Attorney General's Office official has said there's an effort to work something out.

Gavin was on parole for murder in Illinois when, in March 1988, he killed William Clayton Jr., who had stopped at an ATM machine in downtown Centre, Alabama, to withdraw money and take his wife out to dinner.

A Muslim civil-rights group is voicing its support for a Death Row inmate's request for there to be no autopsy on his body after his execution, reports AL.com's Kent Faulk.

Keith Edmund Gavin is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection next week. He's filed suit to stop the usual autopsy, he said, in accordance with his Muslim faith. This week the Council on American-Islamic Relations urged Alabama officials in a statement to go along with Gavin's request.

An Alabama Attorney General's Office official has said there's an effort to work something out.

Gavin was on parole for murder in Illinois when, in March 1988, he killed William Clayton Jr., who had stopped at an ATM machine in downtown Centre, Alabama, to withdraw money and take his wife out to dinner.

Photo by Bob Carlton

Been paying attention to the news? Here's a good way to review some of the headlines we've seen in Alabama over the past week or so.

In 1932, Otis Davis of Tuscaloosa, 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the 400 meters.

We chat with weather reporter Leigh Morgan -- and persuade her to take the news-review quiz.

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

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