Digital Alabama News

Brett Favre Says He Has ‘done Nothing Wrong’ In Mississippi Welfare Scandal https://digitalalabamanews.com/brett-favre-says-he-has-done-nothing-wrong-in-mississippi-welfare-scandal/ Brett Favre denied wrongdoing in the Mississippi welfare scandal, speaking out for the first time on the controversy in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying, “I have done nothing wrong and it is past time to set the record straight.” He added that he has “been unjustly smeared in the media.” Favre has been embroiled in Mississippi’s largest public corruption case, one in which tens of millions of dollars earmarked for needy families was misspent. He faces no criminal charges, but his alleged involvement has helped bring the case to broader national attention and cost him endorsement deals. Favre received $1.1 million intended for welfare recipients in exchange for speeches and appearances the state auditor says he never made. And text messages included in court filings last month showed Favre was heavily involved in discussions that resulted in $5 million in welfare money going toward construction of a volleyball facility at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played volleyball. Favre later repaid the $1.1 million, but $228,000 in interest remains in dispute. The money for the appearances and volleyball facility was channeled through a nonprofit called Mississippi Community Education Center run by Nancy New and her son, Zach, who have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators. John Davis, the former head of the state’s Department of Human Services, pleaded guilty on Sept. 22 to federal counts of conspiracy and theft and state counts of conspiracy and fraud against the government and has agreed to testify against others. “No one ever told me, and I did not know, that funds designated for welfare recipients were going to the University or me. I tried to help my alma mater USM, a public Mississippi state university, raise funds for a wellness center,” Favre’s statement, given to Fox News Digital, said. “My goal was and always will be to improve the athletic facilities at my university. “State agencies provided the funds to Nancy New’s charity, the Mississippi Community Education Center, which then gave the funds to the University, all with the full knowledge and approval of other State agencies, including the statewide Institute for Higher Learning, the Governor’s office and the Attorney General’s office. I was told that the legal work to ensure that these funds could be accepted by the university was done by State attorneys and State employees.” The office of state auditor Shad White discovered the misspending and fraud and told Fox News Digital that a grant approved by an attorney in the office for the court used incorrect analysis. “The volleyball court needed to be used to benefit the needy in Hattiesburg,” White said. “And fast-forward to today, what we know now is that the volleyball court has not been used to benefit the needy. So, this is an unallowable use of TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] funds for a few different reasons. And for those reasons, it doesn’t matter that the attorney signed off on this. What matters is that it simply is not an allowable use of TANF funds, and it’s our job in the auditor’s office to point that out when we see it.” Funds from TANF must not be used for “bricks and mortar” projects and White told Fox that there is no proof Favre knew that the money was coming from TANF. However, White said Favre did know the money was coming from programs “geared toward helping the poor.” “Based on the documents that have come out publicly, mainly through filings in the civil case, we can see text messages that show that Mr. Favre knew that the money that was being paid out was coming from John Davis, who is the head of the Mississippi Department of Human Services and also coming from the nonprofit that was receiving money from DHS,” White told Fox News Digital. “So, he knows that it’s government money basically, and he knows that the money is coming from the Department of Human Services.” According to the U.S. Census, one in five people in Mississippi lives in poverty — the worst rate in the nation — including 28 percent of children. Money from the federal government is given to states to distribute to families through TANF. In May 2020, Favre tweeted that he had “never received monies for obligations I didn’t meet” and “was unaware that the money being dispersed was paid for out of funds not intended for that purpose.” But court filings last month suggested he had at least some awareness of where the money was coming from. Filings also suggested that he continually pressed state officials for money to pay for the volleyball facility. “We obviously need your help big time and time is working against us,” Favre texted Gov. Phil Bryant (R) on Sept. 4, 2019. “And we feel that your name is the perfect choice for this facility and we are not taking No for an answer!” “We are going to get there,” the then-governor responded. “This was a great meeting. But we have to follow the law. I am [too] old for Federal Prison.” Favre previously told Mississippi Today that he had not discussed the volleyball facility project with Bryant. Read More…

Biden Says Putin 'totally Miscalculated' By Invading Ukraine But Is A 'rational Actor' | CNN Politics https://digitalalabamanews.com/biden-says-putin-totally-miscalculated-by-invading-ukraine-but-is-a-rational-actor-cnn-politics/ Watch Jake Tapper’s exclusive interview with President Joe Biden on CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday. CNN  —  President Joe Biden said in an exclusive CNN interview Tuesday he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “rational actor” who nonetheless badly misjudged his ability to invade Ukraine and suppress its people. “I think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly,” Biden told Jake Tapper as Russian bombardments on civilian targets in Ukraine signaled another turning point in the months-long war. Tapper’s full interview with Biden airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on “CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper.” Biden, his top officials and fellow Western leaders have spent the past several months debating what steps Putin may take as his troops suffer embarrassing losses on the battlefield in Ukraine. Biden himself warned last week the risk of “nuclear Armageddon” was at its highest point in 60 years. Whether Putin is acting rationally has been a subject of intense debate as leaders work to predict his next steps. While Biden said Tuesday he believed Putin himself was rational, he characterized the Russian leader’s aims in Ukraine – which Putin laid out in an angry speech as he launched the war in February – as ridiculous. “You listen to what he says. If you listen to the speech he made after when that decision was being made, he talked about the whole idea of – he was needed to be the leader of Russia that united all of Russian speakers. I mean, it’s just I just think it’s irrational,” Biden said. Going further, Biden said Putin wrongly believed Ukrainians would submit to Russian invasion – a misjudgment that’s been disproved by fierce resistance inside the country. “I think the speech, his objectives were not rational. I think he thought, Jake, I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated,” Biden said. Indeed, a counteroffensive launched by Ukraine last month was successful in retaking territory previously held by the Russians, including critical transportation hubs. The losses proved the latest major embarrassment for Russia, whose military has struggled over the course of the seven-month war. This week, however, Russia launched one of its fiercest bombing campaigns since invading in late February. At least 19 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded across the country, as far away as the western city of Lviv, hundreds of miles from the war’s main theaters in eastern and southern Ukraine. Biden spoke to Tapper a few hours after meeting virtually with members of the Group of 7 industrialized nations, who heard from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the need to bolster his country’s air defenses amid the new Russian bombardments. Zelensky told the meeting that “common efforts to create an air shield for Ukraine” must be intensified amid a barrage of Russian cruise missile and drone attacks. White House officials have said the US is prepared to further bolster Ukraine’s air defenses, including through missile defense systems that Biden expedited delivery of over the summer. Yet Russia’s intense aerial assault of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and on civilian infrastructure suggested Putin could be employing new tactics meant to terrorize Ukrainians as the winter approaches. Read More…

US Forecast https://digitalalabamanews.com/us-forecast-69/ City/Town, State;Yesterday’s High Temp (F);Yesterday’s Low Temp (F);Today’s High Temp (F);Today’s Low Temp (F);Weather Condition;Wind Direction;Wind Speed (MPH);Humidity (%);Chance of Precip. (%);UV Index Albany, NY;66;47;71;55;Breezy in the p.m.;SSE;11;60%;14%;4 Albuquerque, NM;74;51;76;51;Mostly sunny;NNE;7;32%;0%;5 Anchorage, AK;40;25;36;22;High clouds, chilly;NNE;7;72%;44%;1 Asheville, NC;71;54;66;58;A stray t-shower;SE;7;89%;91%;2 Atlanta, GA;77;62;73;63;A stray p.m. t-storm;S;7;84%;97%;2 Atlantic City, NJ;71;52;70;61;Breezy in the p.m.;S;12;65%;4%;4 Austin, TX;89;69;96;67;Mostly sunny, warm;WSW;5;54%;15%;5 Baltimore, MD;75;53;71;61;Breezy in the p.m.;SSE;10;59%;40%;3 Baton Rouge, LA;85;67;85;69;A couple of t-storms;S;6;80%;91%;1 Billings, MT;67;44;60;41;Partly sunny;SW;7;49%;2%;3 Birmingham, AL;81;62;77;64;A heavy thunderstorm;S;8;78%;96%;3 Bismarck, ND;63;38;57;33;Windy;NW;20;36%;26%;3 Boise, ID;76;45;80;45;Sunny and warm;ENE;7;29%;0%;4 Boston, MA;66;50;73;56;Partly sunny;SSW;8;57%;6%;4 Bridgeport, CT;68;49;70;57;Breezy in the p.m.;S;10;59%;6%;4 Buffalo, NY;71;52;71;59;Breezy;S;15;51%;98%;1 Burlington, VT;62;47;70;54;Breezy in the p.m.;SSE;12;58%;10%;3 Caribou, ME;57;35;65;46;Partly sunny, mild;SSE;6;62%;10%;3 Casper, WY;59;35;62;32;Sunshine;NW;11;41%;1%;4 Charleston, SC;77;67;76;67;A p.m. t-storm;SE;9;80%;94%;1 Charleston, WV;75;52;76;59;Breezy in the p.m.;S;10;70%;98%;3 Charlotte, NC;76;58;72;62;A t-storm around;SE;5;80%;99%;2 Cheyenne, WY;69;38;65;35;Sunny and breezy;NW;16;33%;1%;4 Chicago, IL;70;59;68;45;Thunderstorms;WSW;17;70%;97%;1 Cleveland, OH;75;57;73;57;Windy, a p.m. shower;SSW;18;55%;97%;1 Columbia, SC;76;62;77;65;A stray p.m. t-storm;SSE;6;76%;97%;2 Columbus, OH;73;52;75;53;Windy, a p.m. shower;SW;18;57%;98%;2 Concord, NH;63;38;72;47;Clouds and sun;S;7;62%;8%;4 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX;87;70;92;59;Mostly sunny, warm;N;12;46%;10%;5 Denver, CO;77;44;73;41;Sunny;E;8;28%;1%;4 Des Moines, IA;76;54;70;37;Increasingly windy;WNW;15;51%;33%;4 Detroit, MI;77;56;70;51;Couple of t-storms;SW;13;60%;99%;2 Dodge City, KS;85;48;78;43;Sunshine and nice;N;10;33%;1%;4 Duluth, MN;81;51;57;39;Showers around;W;14;68%;83%;1 El Paso, TX;80;56;84;57;Mostly sunny;NNW;5;38%;0%;5 Fairbanks, AK;35;19;32;17;Clearing and chilly;NNW;5;64%;32%;1 Fargo, ND;78;40;56;30;Increasingly windy;NW;16;48%;27%;1 Grand Junction, CO;75;44;74;44;Plenty of sunshine;E;7;29%;0%;4 Grand Rapids, MI;74;59;66;46;A shower and t-storm;SSW;16;75%;91%;1 Hartford, CT;70;47;72;56;Breezy in the p.m.;S;10;58%;26%;4 Helena, MT;69;45;65;41;Plenty of sunshine;WNW;7;43%;0%;3 Honolulu, HI;86;74;81;71;A couple of showers;WNW;5;79%;90%;2 Houston, TX;85;71;91;71;A t-storm around;SSW;7;69%;55%;5 Indianapolis, IN;74;59;71;47;A heavy p.m. t-storm;WSW;12;59%;93%;2 Jackson, MS;83;60;83;64;Heavy thunderstorms;S;7;79%;99%;2 Jacksonville, FL;88;71;83;69;A t-storm around;E;6;78%;99%;2 Juneau, AK;53;47;51;49;Rain;SE;11;95%;100%;0 Kansas City, MO;79;57;75;47;Periods of sun;NW;9;50%;15%;4 Knoxville, TN;76;55;76;62;Periods of sun, nice;SSW;8;74%;99%;2 Las Vegas, NV;91;65;92;64;Sunny;NNW;6;23%;0%;5 Lexington, KY;75;56;78;56;Breezy;SW;13;64%;96%;3 Little Rock, AR;84;60;86;54;A heavy thunderstorm;NNW;9;61%;66%;4 Long Beach, CA;75;64;75;64;Low clouds breaking;SW;7;74%;28%;4 Los Angeles, CA;76;63;76;62;Low clouds breaking;SSW;6;79%;30%;4 Louisville, KY;76;59;79;54;Thunderstorms;WSW;14;61%;94%;3 Madison, WI;71;57;61;38;Showers around;W;12;71%;89%;1 Memphis, TN;80;62;85;57;A heavy thunderstorm;NW;10;56%;73%;4 Miami, FL;88;79;87;76;A t-storm in spots;E;9;73%;55%;4 Milwaukee, WI;75;60;67;42;Thunderstorms;W;14;70%;96%;2 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN;80;52;62;36;Breezy and cooler;WNW;14;49%;66%;2 Mobile, AL;82;69;80;69;A t-storm or two;SSE;6;84%;95%;1 Montgomery, AL;84;62;74;64;A heavy thunderstorm;S;6;82%;98%;2 Mt. Washington, NH;35;33;45;36;Windy in the morning;SSW;22;74%;9%;4 Nashville, TN;80;59;83;56;Very warm;SSW;11;55%;66%;3 New Orleans, LA;84;72;84;72;A couple of t-storms;SSW;7;77%;91%;2 New York, NY;71;54;70;61;Breezy in the p.m.;S;10;55%;25%;4 Newark, NJ;72;49;72;57;Breezy in the p.m.;S;10;54%;41%;4 Norfolk, VA;72;52;74;62;Lots of sun, nice;SSE;7;65%;25%;4 Oklahoma City, OK;78;62;80;50;Breezy;WNW;14;46%;40%;5 Olympia, WA;67;42;71;41;Mostly sunny, warm;NE;7;70%;3%;3 Omaha, NE;84;50;72;41;Increasingly windy;NW;15;43%;7%;4 Orlando, FL;90;73;87;73;A p.m. t-storm;SE;6;74%;91%;2 Philadelphia, PA;74;52;73;60;Breezy in the p.m.;S;10;56%;27%;3 Phoenix, AZ;92;70;95;70;Plenty of sunshine;NNW;5;29%;0%;5 Pittsburgh, PA;72;51;74;58;A stray p.m. shower;S;10;58%;98%;3 Portland, ME;57;43;64;51;Partly sunny;SSW;7;69%;5%;3 Portland, OR;72;48;77;50;Mostly sunny;NNE;6;54%;3%;3 Providence, RI;68;48;73;53;Partly sunny, nice;S;7;59%;6%;4 Raleigh, NC;73;51;75;61;Partly sunny;SSE;6;67%;81%;4 Reno, NV;81;44;81;44;Sunny and warm;WNW;4;28%;0%;4 Richmond, VA;74;48;74;61;Clouds and sun;SSE;8;62%;77%;4 Roswell, NM;82;54;83;51;Mostly sunny;SW;7;37%;2%;5 Sacramento, CA;89;54;89;54;Mostly sunny, warm;S;5;45%;1%;4 Salt Lake City, UT;78;49;78;49;Sunny and very warm;ESE;7;31%;0%;4 San Antonio, TX;88;69;93;67;Very warm and humid;SSW;6;63%;15%;6 San Diego, CA;71;66;75;66;Low clouds breaking;NNW;8;72%;2%;5 San Francisco, CA;66;55;66;55;Low clouds breaking;WSW;11;74%;1%;3 Savannah, GA;79;68;79;66;Heavy p.m. t-storms;ESE;8;84%;98%;1 Seattle-Tacoma, WA;69;51;70;51;Mostly sunny;NNE;9;60%;3%;3 Sioux Falls, SD;84;46;64;35;Windy and cooler;NW;17;39%;41%;4 Spokane, WA;74;44;75;44;Brilliant sunshine;SE;5;50%;1%;3 Springfield, IL;67;60;71;44;A morning t-storm;W;14;66%;82%;1 St. Louis, MO;76;62;74;48;Thunderstorms;W;10;70%;91%;2 Tampa, FL;90;73;88;73;A t-storm or two;NNE;6;80%;94%;2 Toledo, OH;75;58;71;49;Thunderstorms;WSW;11;60%;96%;2 Tucson, AZ;86;63;89;63;Mostly sunny;E;6;36%;0%;5 Tulsa, OK;79;64;80;49;A morning shower;WNW;7;50%;40%;4 Vero Beach, FL;86;74;87;72;A stray thunderstorm;SE;8;77%;73%;2 Washington, DC;74;50;72;61;Breezy in the p.m.;SSE;10;61%;63%;3 Wichita, KS;84;56;79;45;Partly sunny;N;10;38%;5%;4 Wilmington, DE;73;48;71;59;Breezy in the p.m.;SSE;11;64%;55%;4 _____ Copyright 2022 AccuWeather Read More…

Justice Department Urges Supreme Court To Reject Trump Request Over Seized Mar-A-Lago Documents https://digitalalabamanews.com/justice-department-urges-supreme-court-to-reject-trump-request-over-seized-mar-a-lago-documents/ WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to reject former President Donald Trump‘s request to allow the special master reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago access to those marked as classified. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers that Trump would suffer “no harm at all” if the documents are temporarily withheld from the special master. Addressing Trump’s potential ownership stake in the documents, including possible assertions of attorney-client privilege of executive privilege, Prelogar said Trump had “no plausible claims.” Whatever the court decides in weighing Trump’s relatively narrow request, it will not affect the Justice Department’s access to the same documents in its criminal investigation. The more than 100 classified documents are just a small portion of the 11,000 records seized by federal agents amid concerns that Trump had unlawfully retained official White House records after leaving office. Documents seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Department of Justice via AP The high court is reviewing a Sept. 21 decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that barred the special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, from reviewing the documents. Trump had not contested a separate part of the ruling that allowed the Justice Department to use the documents. A decision by the Supreme Court is due at any time. Prelogar said the case only arose because of an “unusual — indeed unprecedented — order” that was issued by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in response to Trump’s lawsuit filed after the government search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in early August. Cannon prevented the government from using the documents as part of a criminal investigation, a decision partly blocked by the appeals court, and appointed the special master to review them. “This application concerns an unprecedented order by the district court restricting the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in an ongoing criminal investigation and directing the dissemination of those records outside the Executive Branch for a special-master review,” Prelogar wrote. Trump’s lawyers had said the appeal’s court’s decision to block access to the special master “impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master.” They added that “any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a president’s home erodes public confidence in our system of justice.” The appeals court said certain documents are deemed classified because they contain information that could harm national security, and for that reason people may have access to them only if they need to know that information. Under federal law, official White House records are federal property and must be handed over to the National Archives when the president leaves office. Trump says he did nothing improper and wants Dearie to determine the status of the documents, including those marked as classified. Although the Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices he appointed, Trump has not recently fared well in other emergency applications, including his attempt to prevent White House documents from being handed over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and his bid to avoid disclosure of his financial records to prosecutors in New York. Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News Digital. Read More…

Archives Pushes Back On Trump Claims That Other Presidents Mishandled Records https://digitalalabamanews.com/archives-pushes-back-on-trump-claims-that-other-presidents-mishandled-records/ The National Archives, without naming former President Trump, pushed back Tuesday on claims he made over the weekend that other past presidents had mishandled their White House records with the help of the agency. Trump had previously claimed his predecessor, former President Obama, had mishandled his own records, but expanded that claim during rallies in Arizona and New Mexico to include several prior presidents, including Republicans. At one point Trump even claimed, without evidence, that records from President George H.W. Bush’s administration were stored in a Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley “with no security and a broken front door.” The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said Tuesday that while records are transported to president’s libraries, any temporary storage has “met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees.” It added that any insinuations that records were stored in substandard conditions “are false and misleading.” At another point during the rallies Trump also accused former President Clinton of losing nuclear codes and said that he kept classified recordings in his sock. While Clinton did store some tapes in his sock drawer while serving as president, he did not leave office with the recordings in tow. The statement from Archives is the second in less than a month to address how it handles records as Trump makes a number of false claims about other presidents’ record handling amid legal trouble of his own. During an Aug. 8 search of his Mar-a-Lago home, the FBI seized more than 100 classified records stored there along, with more than 10,000 government records. The Archives noted that other presidents have not taken records, but rather coordinated with the agency to have relevant materials transported to their presidential library. “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in accordance with the Presidential Records Act, assumed physical and legal custody of the Presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, when those Presidents left office,” the agency said Tuesday. “NARA securely moved these records to temporary facilities that NARA leased from the General Services Administration (GSA), near the locations of the future Presidential Libraries that former Presidents built for NARA.” Archives in September similarly explained the process for transporting Obama’s records following accusations from Trump his records were mishandled. Read More…

Legal Roundup: McDonald’s Faces Allegations Of Cleaning Chemicals Swapped For Coffee, JBS Settles In Pork Price-Fixing Case And More https://digitalalabamanews.com/legal-roundup-mcdonalds-faces-allegations-of-cleaning-chemicals-swapped-for-coffee-jbs-settles-in-pork-price-fixing-case-and-more/ Customer claims to have been served cleaning chemicals instead of coffee at an Alabama McDonald’s. McDonald’s Coffee Swapped for Cleaning Products? The case: Sherry Head ordered a caramel macchiato at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Dothan, Alabama. She claims she was instead served cleaning chemicals. Head is suing McDonald’s for $13 million in an Alabama circuit court, according to AL.com. Head seeks “$3 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages.” Scorecard: The case has recently been filed and has not reached a resolution. Takeaway: According to attorneys, the plaintiff “is suffering from injuries to her mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, digestive tract, and other internal organs, as well as ‘anxiety, fear and mental anguish,’” AL.com reported. Attorneys also say that Head “has been diagnosed with scarring and narrowing in her throat, difficulty swallowing, chronic gastritis, acid reflux and abdominal pain. She may need surgery to preserve her ability to swallow.” The owner/operator of the Dothan McDonald’s says the company has conducted “a thorough investigation to understand the facts.” $20M Settlement in Pork Price-fixing Case The case: Plaintiffs in a pork antitrust class action filed in Minnesota district court claimed that JBS Foods and “co-conspirators conspired and combined to fix, raise, maintain, and stabilize the price of Pork products, as of January 1, 2009, with the intent and expected result of increasing prices of Pork products in the United States,” according to the class action’s website OverchargedForPork.com. The suit targeted practices from 2009 to 2021. JBS is based in Brazil with U.S. offices in Colorado. Scorecard: JBS will pay $20 million to settle the suit, according to the Associated Press. Takeaway: The federal judge who approved the settlement “also ruled that nearly $7 million of the settlement will go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers for their work in the case,” the AP reported. “The pork lawsuit is one of several price-fixing lawsuits making their way through the courts. Meat producers have also been accused of inflating beef and chicken prices, and several multimillion-dollar settlements have been announced in those cases.” Amazon Accused of Price Fixing in California Antitrust Claim The case: After an investigation that began in 2020, California state attorney general Rob Bonta has filed suit against Amazon in San Francisco federal court claiming that “the online retail giant’s contracts with third-party sellers and wholesalers inflate prices, stifle competition and violate the state’s antitrust and unfair competition laws,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Bonta wishes to stop policies that “prevent merchants from offering lower prices through competitors’ websites” such as Target and Walmart. Scorecard: The case has recently been filed and has not reached a resolution. Takeaway: This is Amazon’s greatest legal challenge to date, according to the WSJ. “Because California is the nation’s most populous state and biggest economy, its business regulations have long swayed how companies operate across the country.” In addition to $2,500 for each code violation, the suit asks the court to prevent Amazon from continuing those practices and appoint a compliance monitor. Pfizer Hit with Racial Discrimination Suit The case: Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals, filed suit against Pfizer in the Southern District Court of New York, claiming that the pharmaceutical’s Breakthrough Fellowship Program violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and New York law, according to The Wall Street Journal. The internship, designed to provide opportunities for “Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic and Native Americans,” allegedly discriminates against whites and Asians. “Do No Harm says the law applies to Pfizer since it participates in Medicaid, Medicare, and programs funded by the National Institutes of Health. New York state and city also prohibit businesses from racially discriminating in job-training programs and internships such as Pfizer’s,” according to the WSJ. Scorecard: The case has recently been filed and has not reached a resolution. Takeaway: The WSJ noted that in October 2022, SCOTUS is set to hear a case alleging racial preferences in college admissions at Harvard, and the Pfizer suit “underscores why the Justices need to make clear that racial preferences are invidious no matter the motive.” According to Reuters, the Do No Harm lawsuit “seeks injunctions barring Pfizer from making race a factor in obtaining fellowships, and preventing it from filling the 2023 class under current eligibility rules. It also seeks $1 in nominal damages.” & Jared Shelly is a journalist based in Philadelphia. He can be reached at [email protected] Read More…

Auburn Drops One Spot On ESPN College Football Power Index After Loss At No. 1 Georgia https://digitalalabamanews.com/auburn-drops-one-spot-on-espn-college-football-power-index-after-loss-at-no-1-georgia/ Another anemic offensive performance dropped Auburn (3-3, 1-2 SEC) from No. 48 to No. 50 in ESPN’s College Football Power Index following Saturday’s 42-10 loss against Georgia at Sanford Stadium. Auburn was ranked #11 in the preseason. The Tigers fell to #27 after beating Mercer and to #40 after a comeback win against San Jose State before losing by 29 points against Penn State, which dropped the Tigers to #51 in the weekly rankings developed by the network in 2013 to predict game and season outcomes. Auburn dropped to #52 after the overtime win against Missouri. Head coach Bryan Harsin’s squad went up to #51 after blowing a 17-0 lead in a 21-17 loss against LSU before the 32-point defeat against the defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs. Read More Auburn Football: Goodman: Bryan Harsin proving Doug Barfield wasn’t so bad Bryan Harsin left searching for answers, “hope” after blowout loss to Georgia Robby Ashford learns tough lessons from the 42-10 Georgia loss The Tigers have the most challenging remaining schedule in America, starting a visit to No. 9 Ole Miss (6-0, 2-0) for an 11 am CT kickoff at Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium. The Football Power Index gives the Rebels an 85.5 percent chance of beating Auburn. It’d be a rare win because the Tigers are 13-2 in Oxford and have won six straight, including last season’s 31-20 win at Jordan-Hare Stadium. “They’re a very good opponent. It is going to be a challenge for us as we get ready for these guys to go on the road and again handle the noise, handle the travel,” Harsin said. We haven’t handled all those things. We have an early ball game, so it comes back to us, what we have to do this week and our focus and how we get prepared to go out there and play another undefeated team.” During the preseason, the FPI had the Tigers projected 7.4 wins to 4.6 losses. This week the FPI has Auburn with 5.0 wins and 7.0 losses, with games against the Rebels, Arkansas, Texas A &M, Western Kentucky, and the Iron Bowl against Alabama remaining on the schedule. Auburn has a 30.8% chance of winning six or more games and becoming bowl eligible, according to the FPI. Ole Miss has an offensive efficiency rating of 82.7%, 12th in the nation, compared to Auburn at 43.0 % at 87th. The Rebels put up over 50 points in last week’s win against Vanderbilt, while Auburn has scored 48 points in three SEC games. Auburn will have to find a way to score more points if they’re going to upset the highly favored Rebels. “The one thing for Ole Miss is that they go fast. That’s not always the key factor in the game; for us, it’s just about execution,” Harsin said. “It’s about staying on the field and putting the ball in a position where we can sustain those drives, execute our third downs, create field position and ultimately get in the red zone and find ways to score.” If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Legal Experts: Russia Link To Trump Documents Means It https://digitalalabamanews.com/legal-experts-russia-link-to-trump-documents-means-it/ Former President Donald Trump sought to cut a deal with the National Archives to trade records he took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago late last year for “sensitive” documents about the FBI investigation of his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, according to The New York Times. The exchange never happened but Trump floated the idea to his aides. The National Archives had pressed Trump to return the documents stored at his Florida estate, but Trump spent a year and a half delaying their requests. He was upset with the National Archives’ unwillingness to hand over the documents that ostensibly backed his claims in the Russia probe, per the Times.  Upon entering the White House, Trump formed a habit of bringing documents back to his bedroom, according to the report. Halfway through his term, tracking files in the White House became an obstacle and, by his third year, some documents ended up in places where they should not have been, according to individuals familiar with the situation who spoke with the Times. At the end of his presidency, White House counsel Pat Cipollone called for Trump to return documents that “had piled up in boxes in the White House,” according to archives officials the Times reported.  The top lawyer for the National Archives, Gary Stern, also demanded that Trump return the classified files from Mar-a-Lago in a letter in 2021.  “It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the White House over the course of President Trump’s last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the administration that they need to be,” Stern wrote. Throughout the year, Stern continued to press Trump’s team to have him hand over the boxes. He even spoke with the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and three lawyers who worked in the White House counsel’s Office. At the end of last year, as Stern pushed for Trump to return the documents, Trump told Meadows that the boxes he took from the White House merely contained newspaper clippings and personal items.  Even such documents seen by Trump while in office were considered presidential records, the Archives informed Trump’s team. Still, Trump did not return any boxes.  Ex-White House advisor Eric Herschmann also told Trump near the end of last year that he could encounter “significant legal problems” if he didn’t return the records, according to the Times. Trump repeatedly told his advisors that the boxes were “mine” but ultimately agreed to go through the files in December 2021, per the Times. Stern was later told the boxes were ready to be retrieved  Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. Trump’s representatives had not informed Stern that the boxes included classified files. When the Archives’ personnel started opening the boxes in a room that was not suitable for handling secret material, they quickly moved the boxes to specially secured areas, according to the Times.  Soon after, the agency informed the Justice Department that classified materials may have been mishandled, which led federal authorities to open an investigation into the former president. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen reacted to the New York Times report describing the whole issue as “absolutely crazy” on MSNBC on Sunday. “The fact that we have to sit there, and play this game with a former president of the United States? ‘I want my documents back?’ He’s not entitled to them,” Cohen said. The longtime Trump fixer argued that anyone else would be in jail “in 24 hours” if they did what Trump is accused of. “He’s playing the art of the deal, where he says ‘I will trade you this for that,’ — this is beyond unheard of,” he said. Former U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance told MSNBC that the report strengthens the DOJ’s case for a possible indictment. “Whether it’s technically extortion, whether it is some other misconduct, nothing about this is seemly for a former president,” she said. “He’s not entitled to engage in a back-and-forth court to get materials he wants but is not entitled to. This deserves the highest level of scrutiny from the Justice Department and, increasingly its more an issue of when, not if, there will be a prosecution.” New York University Law Professor Ryan Goodman tweeted that the report “significantly strengthen the criminal case — and are the type of aggravating factors that push DOJ toward indictment.” Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, agreed that the report was “damning” evidence against the former president. “Those are incredibly damning statements that go directly to knowledge and intent,” he told MSNBC. “And you can be sure that the DOJ prosecutors are doing what I’m doing, which is listening to this. This is making it that much easier to prove the only element that could pose any real difficulty for the Department of Justice in bringing a case [against] the Mar-a-Lago documents.” Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks called the former president “delusional” for thinking he could exchange the Mar-a-Lago documents for the information on the Russia probe. “My suspicion is they do not exist,” she told MSNBC on Monday. “So, let’s take that first. Secondly, you cannot steal something to barter. It does go back to what happened in Ukraine where he was trying to say, okay, I’ll give you what you’re legally entitled to, the funding, if you do this terrible thing for me and make up something about Joe Biden. That is not how America is supposed to be doing business. That is illegal in every aspect.” Trump, who has long called the Department of Justice’s investigation into his campaign ties to Russia a “hoax”, is now under a different investigation by the department. This time, the DOJ is looking into whether Trump broke three federal laws including the Espionage Act when it comes to his handling of classified information. Read More…

Wisconsin Gov Bids To Make Abortion A Central Issue In Race https://digitalalabamanews.com/wisconsin-gov-bids-to-make-abortion-a-central-issue-in-race/ FILE – Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels speaks as he appears with former President Donald Trump at a rally in Waukesha, Wis., on Aug. 5, 2022. Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, that he wouldn’t sign a bill that keeps in place the state’s 1849 ban on abortion but creates new exceptions for rape and incest. Evers faces Michels, who supported the 1849 ban before changing positions after he won the Republican primary and now says he would sign a bill granting exceptions. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File) The Associated Press By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday that he wouldn’t sign a bill creating exceptions for rape and incest if it would keep in place the state’s 1849 abortion ban. Evers faces Republican Tim Michels, who supported the 1849 ban before changing positions after he won the Republican primary and now says he would sign a bill granting exceptions. “I wouldn’t sign it because that leaves the underlying law in place which is a ban on abortion,” Evers said in response to a question at a Rotary Club of Milwaukee event co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Press Club and Wispolitics.com. The Wisconsin Legislature is controlled by Republicans, some of whom have voiced support for granting rape and incest exceptions to the state law that came into play after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That ruling left it up to states to determine whether abortion should be legal. Political Cartoons In line with Democrats across the country, Evers has tried to make abortion a central issue in the race that polls show is about even. Polls have also shown a wide majority of Wisconsin voters support keeping abortion legal and at the very least having rape and incest exceptions. Evers has twice called special sessions of the Legislature seeking to repeal the 1849 ban and create a way to put the question before voters. Republicans rejected both proposals. Evers said Tuesday the Wisconsin Legislature should codify Roe v. Wade. Evers also supports a lawsuit filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul seeking to overturn the state ban, which passed before women had the right to vote and before the Civil War. Evers, in his comments before taking questions, repeatedly branded Michels as too “radical” and “dangerous” for the state. He singled out his long-held support of the total abortion ban, a position that Michels changed last month. “Obviously he supports that and he won’t even support exceptions for rape and incest,” Evers said of a total abortion ban. “To me that’s radical.” Michels’ spokesperson Anna Kelly did not immediately return a message seeking comment. He also cited Michels’ opposition to so-called red flag laws that would allow judges to take guns and other weapons away from people deemed to be a danger, as well as his comments questioning the integrity of the 2020 election. Michels, unlike other Republicans, has not called for President Joe Biden’s victory to be decertified. But Michels, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has said that “maybe” the 2020 election was stolen and he has not unconditionally said if he will accept results of the Nov. 8 election. Biden’s victory in Wisconsin has withstood multiple reviews, recounts and lawsuits. Evers, who has vetoed more bills than any other governor in modern Wisconsin history, also touted his roll as a block on the GOP-controlled Legislature. Evers also highlighted his promise to increase funding for local governments, a move that would require approval by the Legislature. Evers also defended his response to violent protests in Kenosha in 2020 that erupted after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man. Michels has been hammering Evers on his response to the violence, saying that he didn’t act quickly enough to quell the violence. “I did everything I was asked to do and I would do it again if I needed to do it,” Evers said, nothing that he called up the Wisconsin National Guard when it was requested. Michels has also blamed Evers for paroles of convicted murderers and others granted by the state parole commission. When asked about paroles, Evers deflected criticism by noting that any decision to grant parole is not up to the governor but the commission which operates independently of him. Michels has called on Evers to stop all paroles and pardons. Michels has been invited to attend a similar event to take questions ahead of the election, but has not responded, said past Milwaukee Press Club President Corri Hess. Kelly did not respond to questions about whether Michels would attend a future event. Evers and Michels are scheduled to meet for their first and only debate before the election on Friday. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Read More…

‘Star Wars’ Actor Endorses Evan McMullin As A ‘force For Change’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/star-wars-actor-endorses-evan-mcmullin-as-a-force-for-change/ Mark Hamill, known for his role as Luke Skywalker, will appear with the independent Senate candidate on a Zoom call with supporters. In this Dec. 16, 2019, file photo, Mark Hamill arrives at the world premiere of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in Los Angeles. The actor, known for his role as Luke Skywalker, has endorsed independent Senate candidate Evan McMullin (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File).   | Oct. 11, 2022, 6:42 p.m. Mark Hamill has picked a side in Utah’s U.S. Senate race — and it’s neither red or blue. The actor, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the “Star Wars” film franchise, has endorsed independent candidate Evan McMullin in his race against incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Lee. He will join McMullin on a Zoom call with supporters Thursday. In a tweet Monday, Hamill, noting he filmed the 2017 comedy-drama film “Brigsby Bear” in the state, said, “I like I like @EvanMcMullin SO much, it makes me wish I lived in Utah so I could vote for him!” “I fully endorse Evan McMullin for U.S. Senate. Evan is a force for change at a time when our country desperately needs it,” Hamill said in a news release. “Utah is a great state and deserves far better than Mike Lee. Evan McMullin is the right man for this job — for Utah and for our country.” Hamill has in years past been outspoken in his opposition to former President Donald Trump. During the 2020 election, a political action committee created by current and former Republicans to defeat Trump, the Lincoln Project, ran ads voiced by Hamill and his “Star Wars” co-star Harrison Ford. And on Twitter, has repeatedly criticized Trump. Beginning in 2017, he read numerous of the then-president’s tweets in the voice of Batman’s Joker. Hamill dubbed Trump “the Trumpster.” Trump isn’t the only Republican that Hamill has criticized. In 2012, he took to Twitter to speak out against then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney, calling him a “snake oil salesman.” I’ve never seen a candidate for President lie more than Romney.He lies effortlessly, shamelessly.This snake oil salesman must be defeated!!! — Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) October 4, 2012 After Romney’s votes to convict Trump, Hamill changed his tune on the Republican, tweeting in July that he is “the conscience of the GOP.” In an August interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, McMullin said he has made connections with a number of celebrities “who come from different political backgrounds, but who share a concern about extremism in American politics,” including Hamill. Over the course of the Trump presidency, McMullin has formed relationships with celebrities like Hamill as they criticized Trump and his supporters on Twitter. He stood with comedian Jim Gaffigan on Twitter in criticizing Trump during the 2020 election and appeared on a podcast with Sophia Bush of “One Tree Hill” that same year. Bush congratulated McMullin on his wedding last summer. “The Force is with us!” McMullin said of Hamill’s endorsement in a statement. “As a huge Star Wars fan, I welcome support from a Jedi in this critical fight. I’m also grateful to Mark for his endorsement in this race — he recognizes how vital it is we bring change to Washington.” Read More…

IMF Warns Of Slowing Growth, Rising Market Risks As Finance Officials Meet https://digitalalabamanews.com/imf-warns-of-slowing-growth-rising-market-risks-as-finance-officials-meet/ WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday that colliding pressures from inflation, war-driven energy and food crises and sharply higher interest rates were pushing the world to the brink of recession and threatening financial market stability. In gloomy reports issued at the start of the first in-person International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in three years, the IMF urged central banks to keep up their fight against inflation despite the pain caused by monetary tightening and the rise in the U.S. dollar to a two-decade high, the two main drivers of a recent bout of financial market volatility. Cutting its 2023 global growth forecasts further, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook that countries representing a third of world output could be in recession next year. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com “The three largest economies, the United States, China and the euro area, will continue to stall,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, said in a statement. “In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession.” The IMF said Global GDP growth next year will slow to 2.7%, compared, down from its July forecast of 2.9%, as higher interest rates slow the U.S. economy, Europe struggles with spiking gas prices and China contends with continued COVID-19 lockdowns and a weakening property sector. The global lender maintained its 2022 growth forecast at 3.2%, reflecting stronger-than-expected output in Europe but a weaker performance in the United States, after torrid 6.0% global growth last year as the COVID-19 pandemic eased. Some key European economies will fall into “technical recession” next year, including Germany and Italy, as energy price spikes and shortages slam output. China’s growth outlooks also were downgraded as it struggles with continued COVID-19 lockdowns and a weakening property sector, where a deeper downturn would slow growth further, the IMF said. The growing economic pressures, coupled with tightening liquidity, stubborn inflation and lingering financial vulnerabilities, are increasing the risks of disorderly asset repricings and financial market contagions, the IMF said in its Global Financial Stability Report. “It’s difficult to think of a time where uncertainty was so high,” Tobias Adrian, the IMF’s monetary and capital markets director, told Reuters in an interview. “We have to go back decades to see so much conflict in the world, and at the same time inflation is extremely high.” The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas Finance officials from the IMF’s 190 member countries this week are grappling with these uncertainties from differing economic positions in Washington, along with food and energy crises prompted by the war in Ukraine and other global challenges including massive clean energy financing needs. PRIORITY: INFLATION The IMF said central bankers had a delicate balancing act to fight inflation without over-tightening, which could push the global economy into an “unnecessarily severe recession” and heap economic pain on emerging markets that are seeing their currencies fall sharply against the dollar. But Gourinchas said controlling inflation was the bigger priority and letting up too soon would undermine central banks’ “hard-won credibility.” “What we are recommending is that central banks stay the course. Now that doesn’t mean that they should accelerate compared to what they’ve been doing,” Gourinchas said in a news conference, adding that it was “a bit early” to shift course. “I think right now our advice is, ‘let’s make sure we see a decisive decline in inflation.'” The IMF forecast that global headline consumer price inflation would peak at 9.5% in the third quarter of 2022, declining to 4.7% by the fourth quarter of 2023. But the outlook could darken considerably if the world economy is hit by a “plausible combination of shocks,” including a 30% spike in oil prices from current levels, the IMF said, pushing global growth down to 1.0% next year – a level associated with widely falling real incomes. Other components of this “downside scenario” include a steep drop-off in Chinese property sector investment, a sharp tightening of financial conditions brought on by emerging market currency depreciations and a continued overheating of labor markets that results in lower potential output. The IMF put a 25% probability of global growth falling below 2% next year – a phenomenon that has occurred only five times since 1970 – and said there was more than a 10% chance of a global GDP contraction. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More…

Greek Fest 2022 In Mobile: Here’s What You Need To Know https://digitalalabamanews.com/greek-fest-2022-in-mobile-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church welcomes back the Mobile Greek Fest from Oct. 13-16 offering church tours, Greek dance shows, live music and delicious… The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church welcomes back the Mobile Greek Fest from Oct. 13-16 offering church tours, Greek dance shows, live music and delicious food. by: Brett Greenberg Posted: Oct 11, 2022 / 01:07 PM CDT Updated: Oct 11, 2022 / 01:07 PM CDT MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church welcomes back the Mobile Greek Fest from Oct. 13-16 offering church tours, Greek dance shows, live music and delicious food. The festival has been in the city of Mobile since 1962 when the first Greek Night was hosted by a group of parishioners, according to the festival’s website. “For Greeks here in Mobile, the Festival allows us to share with the city the culture that is so important to us,” read the website. “Having our youth engage in the exhibition of Greek Dance, inviting Greek bands to play live music, and serving foods that each of our Yia Yia’s (Grandmothers) have taught us to cook allows us to connect our roots and share them with you as our neighbors.” The festival will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, the festival will be open from noon to 4 p.m. The church is located at 50 S. Ann St. Mobile, AL 36604. You can check out the full menu on the website. Among the food offered, there are several pastries, dinners and beverages including imported Greek beer. Full menu of food and drinks offered during the Greek Fest. (via https://greekfestmobile.com/home/menu2021/) Stay ahead of the biggest stories, breaking news and weather in Mobile, Pensacola and across the Gulf Coast and Alabama. Download the WKRG News 5 news app and be sure to turn on push alerts. Latest Videos More Local News Read More…

Experts Slam Florida Surgeon General’s Warning On Coronavirus Vaccines https://digitalalabamanews.com/experts-slam-florida-surgeon-generals-warning-on-coronavirus-vaccines/ The guidance from the Florida health department came in a terse release at 6:12 on Friday evening, ahead of a three-day weekend: Joseph Ladapo, the state’s top health official, warned young adult men to stop taking coronavirus vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, citing an “abnormally high risk” of heart-related deaths. But Ladapo’s recommendation — extrapolated from a short state analysis that has not been peer-reviewed, carries no authors and warns that its findings are “preliminary” and “should be interpreted with caution” — was swiftly condemned by medical and public health leaders, who said the Florida surgeon general’s announcement was politics masquerading as science and could lead Americans to forgo lifesaving interventions. More than a dozen experts interviewed by The Washington Post — including specialists in vaccines, patient safety and study design — listed concerns with Florida’s analysis, saying it relies on information gleaned from frequently inaccurate death certificates rather than medical records, skews the results by trying to exclude anyone with covid-19 or a covid-related death, and draws conclusions from a total of 20 cardiac-related deaths in men 18-to-39 that occurred within four weeks of vaccination. Experts noted the deaths might have been caused by other factors, including underlying illnesses or undetected covid. “We’re talking about a very small number of deaths. An extra death or two would potentially change these results,” said Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and co-author of a patient-safety textbook used in many medical schools. “I’m hesitant to even call it a paper; it isn’t published anywhere. The idea that [the analysis] … is being used to change policy — it does not have the scientific chops to do that.” “If you submitted that to a peer-reviewed journal, unless you were paying them to publish it, it would get rejected,” added Daniel Salmon, who leads the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He called Florida’s report “a dangerous thing to do.” Twitter briefly removed Ladapo’s post touting the study over the weekend, citing it as misinformation, before restoring it hours later; the tweet has since been shared more than 50,000 times, cheered by anti-vaccine advocates and amplified by conservative media highlighting Ladapo’s claim that his state will “not be silent on the truth.” The firestorm has put a spotlight on Ladapo, a Harvard-trained physician and researcher who had not specialized in infectious disease but rose to prominence after writing a number of op-eds in the Wall Street Journal questioning coronavirus vaccines, mask-wearing and other interventions. The columns caught the attention of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who late last summer offered Ladapo the job of overseeing a roughly 15,000-person health department in the nation’s third-most-populous state. As surgeon general, Ladapo’s efforts to discourage parents from getting their children vaccinated, challenge mask mandates and oppose gender dysphoria treatments for children have been opposed by medical associations, such as the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Those stances have also won accolades from conservatives and helped the governor burnish his credentials as a populist conservative as he runs for reelection and positions himself for the 2024 GOP presidential contest. In an interview Monday, Ladapo defended the vaccine study as an overdue effort to investigate risks associated with the vaccines. He has argued that high levels of immunity to the virus raise fresh questions about the shots’ risks versus benefits. The Florida analysis sought to explore the relationship between the shots and cardiac-related deaths, as well as deaths from all causes, by examining the death certificates of Florida residents 18 and older who died within 25-weeks of vaccination between December 2020 and June 2022. “This should have been done by anyone who had the ability to do it, in terms of the data and the technical expertise,” Ladapo said. Ladapo declined to name who worked on the analysis — saying that was a “fake issue” — and suggested it did not need to be submitted to a journal or go through peer review. “The point of this analysis was to look at a question that was important to answer,” he said. In fact, the link between conditions known as myocarditis and pericarditis, which are types of heart inflammation, and the messenger RNA coronavirus vaccines has been and continues to be heavily researched across several continents. “We’ve all been asking these questions,” said Peter Marks, the top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration. “We already know that myocarditis and pericarditis are somewhat increased in younger males who get the vaccine, but we also know that it’s far outweighed by the benefits.” Salmon, who previously oversaw vaccine safety for the federal government’s National Vaccine Program Office, agreed that there are real, but rare, heart risks associated with the vaccines — an issue he knows well because he is leading a global study of it. But Salmon said he would still recommend the vaccines for adult men under 40, including for his two sons in that age group. “The vaccines are not perfect, but the benefits still outweigh the risks,” he said. Both the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said the vaccines can cause heart inflammation in rare cases, but the symptoms are temporary, with cases generally resolved within hours or days. Large-scale observational studies on hundreds of millions of vaccine recipients have shown that while heart inflammation can be a rare side effect of the messenger RNA vaccines that disproportionately affect young men, the small number of deaths in that age group and protective effects of the vaccines at preventing severe covid, outweigh those risks. Ladapo told The Post that he hoped his mentors at Harvard, such as health economist David Cutler, would support the methods used in Florida’s study. But reached by phone Monday evening, Cutler criticized the vaccine study as deeply flawed, and said he worried it would discourage people who could benefit from the shots. Cutler said he was proud of Ladapo’s work as a student and supported his inquisitiveness, including his initial Wall Street Journal essays raising questions about the long-term risks of lockdowns, and more recently, his efforts to probe whether vaccines might cause harms. “We should never be afraid of asking questions, no matter how strong the received wisdom,” he said. But Cutler said Florida’s vaccine study had severe methodological problems. “If I was a reviewer at a journal, I would recommend rejecting it,” Cutler said, adding that Ladapo was wrong to base Florida’s vaccine policy on it. “Anytime you tell people to do something incorrect, you risk causing harm,” Cutler added, saying the Florida surgeon general has increasingly staked out positions on vaccines and other public health issues that aren’t backed by rigorous data. “Some of his statements have become more strident than the evidence warrants.” In May 2022, Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo said on “Tucker Carlson Today” that physicians are “indoctrinated” about vaccines in medical school. (Video: “Tucker Carlson Today”/ Fox Nation) Ladapo’s positions have won him a growing following in conservative circles, however, particularly his claims that doctors are “indoctrinated” about vaccines in medical school and that “greed” is motivating them to recommend shots for many conditions. “I never thought I would listen to a surgeon general of any kind, and certainly not a state surgeon general, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you appear,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in May, when hosting Ladapo for a nearly hour-long conversation on his daytime talk show. “I think a lot of people — I’m speaking, for myself for sure — believe you much more than health authorities that we hear in Washington.” “More than the surgeon general of the country, I hope so,” Ladapo responded, chuckling. “Only one of these two is telling the truth.” Born in Nigeria before moving to the United States as a young child, Ladapo became a star athlete who ran track at Wake Forest University, then went to Harvard for a joint medical degree and PhD. In 2008, Ladapo told a Harvard publication he felt lucky “to have been here and able to benefit and grow in this tremendously rich environment.” But he was already wrestling with some of the questions that now define his career. “One day, I think we will look back and be amazed at the crudeness of the methods we once used to make decisions about our patients’ lives,” Ladapo wrote in 2010 as a second-year medical resident. After leaving Harvard, he took jobs first at New York University and then, the University of California at Los Angeles, where he became a tenured professor and mostly focused on research, winning multiple federal grants while still seeing patients about one day a week. Ladapo took some traditionally liberal positions in those years, posting on Facebook that he had signed petitions in 2016 criticizing the media for using terms like “alt-right” and “nationalism” instead of “White supremacist.” He also urged Republicans not to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 and decried the Trump administration’s efforts to separate migrant families at the border in 2018. “Access to basic care is something every human should have,” Ladapo wrote on Facebook in 2017, as doctors mobilized to fight ACA repeal. Five people who had collaborated closely with Ladapo on research said he had seemed on a similar path as many of his colleagues, if more willing to em...

Do News Organizations Call Racist Things Racist Now? It’s Still A Mixed Bag https://digitalalabamanews.com/do-news-organizations-call-racist-things-racist-now-its-still-a-mixed-bag/ Oct. 11, 2022, 1:49 p.m. Saying Democrats want to give African Americans money as thanks for all the crimes they’ve committed against white people — is that racist? Or still just “racially charged”? On Saturday, at a Trump-led rally in Nevada for Republican candidates, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville said something really, really racist. Some people say, well, [Democrats are] soft on crime. They’re not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! Tuberville: They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that! Bullshit! pic.twitter.com/W3mOP5vte7 — Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022 That’s one of the more nakedly racist things an elected federal official has claimed in a while: that Democrats in favor of reparations for the descendants of enslaved African Americans actually just want to reward them for their success committing crimes against the sort of people who go to Trump rallies — i.e., white people. At a much lower level of importance, Tuberville — an ex-football coach whose official Senate website lists his name as “Coach Tommy Tuberville” — also yelled “Bullshit!” into a microphone. That’s the sort of thing politicians used to do significantly less often — and when it did happen, it was nearly always considered newsworthy. I thought this might be an opportunity for two bits of pulse-taking of the American news media: Over the past decade — and especially after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 — news organizations have said repeatedly that it was a time of “racial reckoning” in their line of work. While that term covers a lot of ground — including the diversification of their newsrooms and their sources — one element was that outlets would be more willing to identify racist acts as, well, racist, rather than hiding behind euphemisms like “racially charged” or “controversial” or “widely criticized.” Did news organizations call Tuberville’s racist comments “racist”? American mass media has a long tradition of not printing or broadcasting profanity, expletives, swear words — whatever your term of preference. That norm developed in a time of monopoly or near-monopoly media — one or two newspapers per town, three TV networks — who sought to avoid offending the public; alternative media was always more willing to print those four-letter words. The Internet has destroyed the idea of monopoly news media — other options are always around the corner. Did news organizations share Tuberville’s use of “Bullshit!” with their readers? You can think of these debates as politically liberal vs. conservative: e.g., liberals are more likely to be willing to label a comment racist than conservatives. Or you can think of them as stylistically liberal vs. conservative: whether 20th-century norms of language use are to be maintained or evolved. Either way, these are both questions where each reporter, editor, and institution had to make an actual decision on how to communicate the news to readers. So let’s see what decisions they made! I’ll rate each one on a scale of 1 to 10 on what I’ll call a Boldness Quotient, with 1 being (politically? stylistically? culturally?) conservative and 10 being the boldest opposite.1 Just to be clear: I’m not trying to say here that a 10 is always the “correct” score, or that a 1 is always wrong. There’s still room for distinctive institutional approaches to, say, swearing or not swearing at your readers. But I think it’s a potentially useful way to look at a newsroom’s broader thinking. Politico Playbook: It would be hard to write this in a more seen-it-all, church-of-the-savvy Playbook style: Speaking at the Nevada rally, Sen. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-Ala.) raised eyebrows with this comment: “They want reparations because they think the people who do the crime are owed that,” he said. “Bullshit!” “Raised eyebrows”! I’m imagining what Politico Playbook would have been like during the civil rights movement: Speaking on Raleigh television, JESSE HELMS raised eyebrows with this comment: “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that has thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic and commerce and interfere with other men’s rights.” Treating overt racism as merely eyebrow-raising earns it a 1 on the Boldness Quotient for race — while printing the expletive at hand merits a 10. RACISM: 1   /   PROFANITY: 10 NPR: The broadcaster says the comments “promote a racist narrative,” which is pretty close to calling it flat-out “racist.” But when it came time to swear, NPR opted for “Bull****!” RACISM: 7   /   PROFANITY: 5 USA Today: “GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville promotes racist narrative about Black people, crime at Trump rally,” reads the headline. The lede says Tuberville “pushed a racist narrative.” No mention of the profanity, euphemistically or otherwise. RACISM: 10   /   PROFANITY: 1 ABC News’ The Note: In the same spirit as Playbook, The Note is a newsletter-born, insider-positioned institution, so it’s not surprising they took a similar “made headlines” tack: During a rally in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday, Trump echoed his party’s campaign season rhetoric by tearing into Democrats over high inflation and claiming an “invasion” is happening at the southern border. Meanwhile, Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville also joined the event and made headlines over his claims that Democrats are “pro-crime” and that “they want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that!” RACISM: 1   /   PROFANITY: 1 BuzzFeed News: Fitting its brand priors, BuzzFeed was happy to call it racist — in the headline, in the subhead, and in the lede: Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is being roundly condemned by prominent Black groups for racist comments he made at a Trump rally in Nevada over the weekend in which he said the descendants of enslaved people were criminals. The kicker terms it “Tuberville’s sweeping and unabashed racism.” Also, they print the full “bullshit.” RACISM: 10   /   PROFANITY: 10 HuffPost: It’s right in the headline: “GOP Senator Makes Racist Comment Equating Black People To Criminals.” But the story body isn’t as sure, going with “Tuberville’s remarks about reparations played into racist stereotypes about Black people committing crimes.” Also: “He ended his appearance with a profanity as the crowd cheered.” RACISM: 8   /   PROFANITY: 1 The Daily Beast: Like BuzzFeed, The Daily Beast is clear and direct: “Sen. Tommy Tuberville Goes on Racist Rant Over ‘Reparations,’” plus calling it “a false — and racist — tirade” in the lede. They also quote the full “Bullshit!” in the story, though rendered as “BULLSH*T!” in the subhead. RACISM: 10   /   PROFANITY: 10 Rolling Stone: Led by former Beast editor Noah Shachtman, Rolling Stone goes as far as anyone: a headline of “Watch Trump Crowd Eat Up Sen. Tuberville’s Bizarre Racist Tirade,” plus phrases like “a wildly racist, white nationalist tirade,” “his unhinged rant,” and “racist tropes.” Also, Rolling Stone is no prude when it comes to swearing. RACISM: 10   /   PROFANITY: 10 Vanity Fair: They’re comfortable with “bullshit,” but not with calling it racist; they fall back on labeling it the “Alabama senator’s inflammatory ‘pro-crime’ statement,” which was “widely condemned.” RACISM: 2   /   PROFANITY: 10 New York Daily News: The tabloid refers to Tuberville’s words as “the racist remark,” but only in the second graf. It’s also only willing to go with “bulls–t.” RACISM: 8   /   PROFANITY: 5 CBS News: CBS seems to be operating from an old playbook, going no stronger than “controversial” and, yep, “racially-charged.” Also, “Bulls**t.” RACISM: 2   /   PROFANITY: 5 NBC News: NBC puts the accusations of racism in other people’s quotes, from the headline (“NAACP denounces ‘flat out racist’ remarks by GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville at Trump rally,” “The Alabama Republican was criticized for suggesting over the weekend that descendants of Black slaves are criminals”) on down. They also use “Bulls—.” RACISM: 4   /   PROFANITY: 5 The Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser: Pulling no punches, starting with the headline: “Sen. Tommy Tuberville silent amid uproar over racist remarks made at Nevada event.” Then the lede: “U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama remained silent Monday amid criticism of racist remarks he made at a Nevada rally on Saturday.” But “Bull—.” RACISM: 10   /   PROFANITY: 5 Washington Examiner: The conservative outlet’s headline makes no judgment (“GOP senator claims Democrats want reparations for those who ‘do the crime’”) and the lede only says the comments “made waves.” (Like a gentle breeze, or like an ocean-bed earthquake?) The only person quoted calling the comments racist is CNN’s Abby Phillip, which fits nicely into a CNN-is-so-woke worldview. (“Bulls*!”) RACISM: 1   /   PROFANITY: 5 Fox News: A remarkable spin here. As best I can tell, foxnews.com didn’t run any stories on Tuberville’s comments themselves. Instead, it ran a story two days later about a Black host of “The View” who called Tuberville’s comments racist — under the headline “’The View’ host Sunny Hostin fumes over being called racist on social media.” “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin rejected being called a racist on social media during Monday’s episode because she called out “racism” and said it was being “used as a political wedge issue.” During a discussion about Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s, R-Ala., remarks at a Trump rally in Nevada, he said Democrats were “pro-crime” and that “they want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.” “Yeah those repa...

King Charles III To Be Crowned May 6 Next Year At Westminster Abbey, Palace Says https://digitalalabamanews.com/king-charles-iii-to-be-crowned-may-6-next-year-at-westminster-abbey-palace-says/ My lords and members of the House of Commons, I am deeply grateful for the addresses of condolence by the House of Lords and the House of commons, which so touchingly encompass what our late sovereign, my beloved mother, the Queen meant to us all as Shakespeare says of the earlier queen Elizabeth. She was *** pattern to all princes living as I stand before you Today. I cannot help but feel the weight of history which surrounds us, and which reminds us of the vital parliamentary traditions to which members of both houses dedicate yourselves with such personal commitment for the betterment of us all. King Charles III to be crowned May 6 next year at Westminster Abbey, palace says King Charles III will be crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 6 in a ceremony that will embrace the past but look to the modern world after the 70-year reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II.Tuesday’s announcement from Buckingham Palace comes amid speculation that the coronation will be shorter and less extravagant than the three-hour ceremony that installed Elizabeth in 1953, in keeping with Charles’ plans for a slimmed down monarchy. While the palace provided few details, British media reported that the guest list would be pared to 2,000 from 8,000.Charles will be crowned in a solemn religious ceremony conducted by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, the palace said in a statement. Camilla, the queen consort, will be crowned alongside her husband.“The coronation will reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry,’’ the palace said.Video below: Coin portrait of King Charles III unveiledCharles will be anointed with holy oil before receiving the orb, scepter and coronation ring. Camilla will also be anointed with holy oil and crowned, as was Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.The palace is planning the coronation, known as Operation Golden Orb, as Charles and his heir, Prince William, seek to demonstrate that the monarchy is still relevant in modern, multi-cultural Britain. While there was widespread respect for Elizabeth, as demonstrated by the tens of thousands of people who waited hours to file past her coffin, there is no guarantee that reverence will transfer to Charles.Organizers should be shooting for a ceremony that’s about an hour long, in line with last month’s “immensely moving” funeral for the queen, said royal historian Robert Lacey, author of “Majesty: Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor.”“One has to remember, too, while all the reverence and gravity of the Queen’s funeral was very much focused on tribute to her, a coronation is a tribute to an institution rather than a person, with whom quite a lot of thoughtful people in this country disagree,’’ Lacey told the BBC.Video below: King, prince greet mourners paying respects to Queen Elizabeth IIWhile most of the coronation ceremony, which has changed little in the past 1,000 years, is expected to remain intact, some of the more fussy trappings of pomp and circumstance may be trimmed as Britain struggles with soaring inflation and the fallout from the war in Ukraine. The optics are important.“The idea of this very opulent coronation coming on the back of a winter of austerity, cost-of-living crisis, but also, I think, a sense that having thousands of foreign dignitaries flying in on airplanes that guzzle oil and petrol or whatever they guzzle to the coronation of the environment-loving monarch — all of those things could chime very awkwardly,” said Anna Whitelock, a professor of history of modern monarchy at City University London, told the BBC.The ceremony traditionally takes place some months after the monarch’s accession to the throne, providing time to mourn his predecessor and organize the event. Charles is expected to sign a proclamation formally declaring the date of the ceremony at a meeting of his senior advisers, known as the Privy Council, later this year. King Charles III will be crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 6 in a ceremony that will embrace the past but look to the modern world after the 70-year reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Tuesday’s announcement from Buckingham Palace comes amid speculation that the coronation will be shorter and less extravagant than the three-hour ceremony that installed Elizabeth in 1953, in keeping with Charles’ plans for a slimmed down monarchy. While the palace provided few details, British media reported that the guest list would be pared to 2,000 from 8,000. Charles will be crowned in a solemn religious ceremony conducted by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, the palace said in a statement. Camilla, the queen consort, will be crowned alongside her husband. “The coronation will reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry,’’ the palace said. Video below: Coin portrait of King Charles III unveiled Charles will be anointed with holy oil before receiving the orb, scepter and coronation ring. Camilla will also be anointed with holy oil and crowned, as was Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The palace is planning the coronation, known as Operation Golden Orb, as Charles and his heir, Prince William, seek to demonstrate that the monarchy is still relevant in modern, multi-cultural Britain. While there was widespread respect for Elizabeth, as demonstrated by the tens of thousands of people who waited hours to file past her coffin, there is no guarantee that reverence will transfer to Charles. Organizers should be shooting for a ceremony that’s about an hour long, in line with last month’s “immensely moving” funeral for the queen, said royal historian Robert Lacey, author of “Majesty: Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor.” “One has to remember, too, while all the reverence and gravity of the Queen’s funeral was very much focused on tribute to her, a coronation is a tribute to an institution rather than a person, with whom quite a lot of thoughtful people in this country disagree,’’ Lacey told the BBC. Video below: King, prince greet mourners paying respects to Queen Elizabeth II While most of the coronation ceremony, which has changed little in the past 1,000 years, is expected to remain intact, some of the more fussy trappings of pomp and circumstance may be trimmed as Britain struggles with soaring inflation and the fallout from the war in Ukraine. The optics are important. “The idea of this very opulent coronation coming on the back of a winter of austerity, cost-of-living crisis, but also, I think, a sense that having thousands of foreign dignitaries flying in on airplanes that guzzle oil and petrol or whatever they guzzle to the coronation of the environment-loving monarch — all of those things could chime very awkwardly,” said Anna Whitelock, a professor of history of modern monarchy at City University London, told the BBC. The ceremony traditionally takes place some months after the monarch’s accession to the throne, providing time to mourn his predecessor and organize the event. Charles is expected to sign a proclamation formally declaring the date of the ceremony at a meeting of his senior advisers, known as the Privy Council, later this year. Read More…

5 Birmingham Area High School Football Games To Watch In Week 9 https://digitalalabamanews.com/5-birmingham-area-high-school-football-games-to-watch-in-week-9/ Here are five games to watch in the Birmingham area this week as region play continues. The complete schedule follows. HELENA (6-1, 3-1) AT CALERA (3-4, 2-3) Helena’s Derrick Wilson (73) puts the pressure on Chelsea’s Carter Dotson (14) during the AHSAA Kickoff game at Crampon Bowl in Montgomery, Ala. , August 18, 2022. (Marvin Gentry | preps@al.com) Time/location: Friday, 7 p.m., Ricky M. Cairns Memorial Stadium, Calera Last week: Helena was idle while Calera beat Briarwood Christian 31-28 in double overtime. The skinny: Helena leads the series 5-1 and won last year’s game 31-21. Helena has qualified for the Class 6A playoffs in Region 3 and could still earn a home game by finishing in the top two of four teams to earn spots. Calera must win to stay in playoff contention. The Helena defense allows only 19 points a game behind a front 7 that includes linemen Derrick Wilson and Xavier Guy while backers Nathan Thomason and Mason Johnson are key stoppers. Desmon James and Kevin Pinkard anchor the defensive backfield. QB Dalton Lewellyn has targets in WRs Hunter Hale and Torrey Ward. AJ Horstead is a gritty runner, but RB Jordan Washington is the bell cow, elusive and a load to stop. Calera WRs Braylyn Farrington (6-100 yards, TD last week) and K.D. Young (4-50 yards, TD last week) are the primary targets for QB Preston Stokes (20-32, 221 yards, 3 TDs last week). The running duties are handled by Amari Brundidge (13-72 yards last week) and Daniel Brown. The Eagles front 7 includes Curtis Oliver-Avery on the line with Michael Banks-Mason, Mason Green and DeKendrick Bennett at LB. Michael Benson is key at DB. HOMEWOOD (5-2, 4-0) AT PELHAM (4-3, 3-1) Homewood’s Woods Ray gets set during the second half of the Pinson Valley at Homewood high school football game in Homewood, Ala., Friday, Sept. 23, 2022. (Vasha Hunt | preps.al.com)Vasha Hunt Time/location: Friday, 7 p.m., Ned Bearden Stadium, Pelham Last week: Homewood beat Chilton County 31-10 and Pelham downed Benjamin Russell 30-20. The skinny: Homewood leads the series 15-7, but Pelham won last year’s game 10-7. Both teams have qualified for the Class 6A playoffs in Region 3 and both could still earn home games by finishing in the top two of four teams. A Homewood win guarantees the top seed in the region for the Patriots. Homewood QB Woods Ray (74-of-134, 1,163 yards, 10 TDs passing, 50-245 yards, 3 TDs rushing) has strong WR targets in Jackson Parris (29-560 yards, 3 TDs) and Charlie Reeves (18-285 yards, 5 TDs) while Calyb Colbert (61-262, 4 TDs rushing) leads the ground game. The defense is key with OLB Talton Thomas (58 tackles, 4 sacks, INT) along with a strong defensive backfield that includes CB Parking Sansing (43 tackles, INT) and S Clay Burdeshaw (42 tackles, INT). Pelham QB Clayton Mains (81-158, 1,140 yards, 9 TDs passing, 63-383, 6 TDs rushing) triggers the offense. Receivers Kamari Hollis (21-273, TD) and Trey Corkill (11-137, 3 TDs) are the top targets now that Darius Copeland is out for the season. Jackson Davenport keys the OL. Jamal Miles (28 tackles, 4 PBUs) is a 3-star shutdown DB while Will Felton (31 tackles, 6 sacks, INT) anchors the DL with LBs Bishop Rellah (40 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 INT) and Seth Branham (82 tackles, 6 TFL) looking for something to hit. ISABELLA (6-1, 4-1) AT VINCENT (7-1, 4-1) Vincent’s Zac Carlisle, Blake Allums, coach Lucas Westherford, Nolan Kratz and Gavin Kratz talk to reporters during Birmingham area high school football media days at Thompson High School in Alabaster, Ala., Monday, July 11, 2022. (Dennis Victory | preps@al.com) Time/location: Friday, 7 p.m., Harold Garrett Stadium, Harpersville Last week: Isabella beat Ranburne 34-7 and Vincent downed Woodland 39-0. The skinny: Vincent leads the series 6-1, but the teams haven’t played since 2011, a 72-42 Vincent victory, which is a team record for points scored. Both teams are safely in the Class 2A playoffs and this game should determine which team gains the important No. 2 seed to host the first round. B.B. Comer should have the region title locked up with wins over both. Isabella RBs Zac Chapman and DreVon Lee along with QB Eli Kendrick — running and throwing — key the offense that averages 45.6 points a game. Lee and Chapman are also dangerous catching passes out of the backfield while WR Dawson Edwards. Lots of two-way players on defense, including Colton Conway, Lee and Edwards. Garrett Traywick and Tyler Mims are also stalwarts. Vincent QB-Blake Allums (57-95, 981 yards, 21 TDs passing) keys the offense that averages 48.1 points a game. RB Rykelus Robertson (102-1,163 yards, 11 TDs) is tough to stop behind an OL anchored by Jacob Carter. WRs Tray Youngblood (23-475 yards, 8 TDs) and Zac Carlisle (16-262 yards, 8 TDs) grab most of the passes. The defense may be even better, allowing only 12 points a game with 4 shutouts. Easton Fields (31 tackles, 6 TFL) heads the front while LBs Zack Wright (101 tackles, 8 TFL, 4 INT) and Ray Albright (57 tackles, 16 TFL, 2 sacks) are the leading tacklers. Zac Carlisle (27 tackles, 4 INT) and Tray Youngblood (41 tackles, 3 TFL, INT) handle the back end. LEEDS (7-0, 4-0) AT MOODY (8-0, 4-0) Leeds’ Kavion Henderson is a 4-star recruit. (Mark Almond | preps@al.com) Time/location: Friday, 7 p.m., Bill Morris Stadium, Moody Last week: Class 5A No. 2 Leeds beat Alexandria 23-7 and No. 3 Moody beat St. Clair County 42-14. The skinny: Leeds has a 12-2 all-time series lead and won 33-19 last season. Both teams are assured of playoff spots and this game should decide the top seed for Region 6. Leeds has a powerful ground game with QB Jarod Latta along with ATH Conner Nelson crucial to the attack. Miles Jones, Jaelyn Felder and Jeremiah Hunter are capable with the ball in their hands. Kicker Jackson Arthur could be a difference-maker, booting 3 field goals last week (36, 31 and 31 yards). The defense has been strong all season, allowing only 63 points (9 per game). CJ Douglas — he was also selected Homecoming King — and Zane Hood (INT last week) are strong at DB while the DL is stellar. 4-star Kavion Henderson, Chris Burge (caused 2 rumbles last week) and Joseph Stone present an impressive front. QB Cole McCarty (108-144, 2,177 yards, 32 TDs passing, 33-221 yards, 2 TDs rushing) is the key to the Moody offense that averages 47.8 points a game. He throws to WR and 3-star recruit Davion Dozier (33-841 yards, 15 TDs) and Kolby Seymour (36-736 yards, 11 TDs) while Blaine Burke (102-1,066 yards, 6 TDs) runs behind the OL anchored by Mason Myers, an Arkansas State commit. LB Zane Smith (75 tackles, 5 TFL, 2 sacks, INT) is the leading tackler while 4-star DB A’mon Lane (36 tackles), DB AJ Madison (50 tackles, 2 TFL), LB Gavyn Baker (29 tackles, 6 TFL) and DE Carson Dillashaw (34 tackles) have held opponents to 14.1 points a game. OXFORD (4-3, 3-1) AT CLAY-CHALKVILLE (6-1, 4-0) With the blocking of Clay-Chalkville’s Matthew Yafondo (left) and Ormond Wallace, Deion Gunn runs the ball after intercepting a Pinson Valley pass in Pinson, Ala., Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. (Mark Almond | preps@al.com) Time/location: Friday, 7 p.m., Cougar Stadium, Clay Last week: Oxford was idle while Class 6A second-ranked Clay-Chalkville beat Huffman 62-0. The skinny: Clay-Chalkville leads the series 12-5 and won the last meeting 26-21 in 2019. The top seed in Class 6A, Region 6 should is Clay-Chalkville’s to lose while Oxford is still fighting for a playoff spot. Oxford will be tested by a strong Clay-Chalkville defense. The Oxford offense is led by QB Mason Mims while Nick Richardson and Judd Syer are his favorite targets. ATH DK Wilson is a threat with the ball and RB Caleb Wynn heads the ground game. Emari Carroll is a stalwart at defensive back while Mike Battle and Hudson Gilman key the front 7 with Caleb Tinner and Keenan Britt manning the defensive line. The Clay-Chalkville defense has surrendered only 56 points (8 per game) with 3 shutouts. LBs DJ Barber (77 tackles, 4 TFL) and Matthew Yafondo (69 tackles, 4.5 TFL) are the leading tacklers while Devin Finley (8.5 TFL, 5 sacks), Jamon Smith (6.5 TFL, 2.5 sacks) and Randalle Cole (35 tackles, 11.5 TFL, 3 sacks) are stoppers on the DL. Ormond Wallace and Camaran Jones are DB keys. The offense features QB Kamari McClellan (99-122, 1,178 yards, 14 TDs) throwing to Jaylen Mbakwe (16-358 yards, 5 TDs) and Mario Craver (25-438 yards, 8 TDs) — they also help at DB. Rodreckus Johnson (8 TDs) and Aaron Osley (5 TDs) run behind an OL anchored by Pierre White and AJ Williams. BIRMINGHAM AREA SCHEDULE (All games at 7 p.m. unless noted) THURSDAY Hayden at Ramsay FRIDAY Bessemer Academy at Fort Dale Bessemer City at Central-Tuscaloosa Briarwood Christian at Benjamin Russell Carver at Pleasant Grove Chelsea at Hoover Cordova at Oak Grove Corner at Curry Cornerstone Christian at Meadowview Fairfield at Wenonah Fultondale at Good Hope Helena at Calera Hewitt-Trussville at Spain Park Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa at Paul W. Bryant Homewood at Pelham Hueytown at Northridge Isabella at Vincent Jackson Academy at Banks Academy Leeds at Moody McAdory at Brookwood Midfield at Carbon Hill Montevallo at Holt Mountain Brook at Mortimer Jordan Oxford at Clay-Chalkville Parker at Minor Pell City at Huffman Shades Valley at Pinson Valley Shelby County at Marbury Thompson at Tuscaloosa County Vestavia Hills at Oak Mountain Woodlawn at Gardendale If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Joseph Goodman: Bryan Harsin Proving Doug Barfield Wasn’t So Bad https://digitalalabamanews.com/joseph-goodman-bryan-harsin-proving-doug-barfield-wasnt-so-bad/ Bryan Harsin is giving Auburn a new appreciation for Doug Barfield. Can’t really frame what’s happening this season any better than that. At least Barfield could recruit. At least Barfield lasted five seasons. At least Barfield had a winning record in the SEC. And so maybe it’s time to view Barfield’s run from 1976 to 1980 from a new perspective. He was the worst, but not anymore. At best, Harsin is Barfield on a bad day in his final season. And then there’s this. Who had Barfield’s reputation aging better than that of former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville? These are tough hours for Auburn, and it’s all hard to watch. Senator Tuberville is dead wrong for his racist rhetoric on the campaign trail, and Harsin is a dead man walking when it comes to coaching football on The Plains. Sad times. Long days. Auburn (3-3, 1-2 in the SEC) is a bad Mountain West football team as it enters the seventh weekend of the 2022 season. It’s No.9 Ole Miss on Saturday in Oxford, Mississippi, and then the Tigers enter a bye week. That would be a good time to promote associate head coach Zac Etheridge to interim head coach, and officially be done with one of the worst hires in the history of SEC football. Please, just let us all move on from this heartache. RELATED: The pressing issue Auburn’s offense must resolve RELATED: Former Auburn football star blasts Tommy Tuberville RELATED: Lane Kiffin responds to coaching rumors GOODMAN: Sideshow is over, Tennessee Week is here for Alabama Here’s what people are worried about with Harsin. It’s that his desolation of Auburn football is the beginning of some dark age for the Tigers. Is there a path back into the light after this season? These are valid fears, but history points to hope. History points to Barfield, who was Shug Jordan’s offensive coordinator before being promoted to head coach in 1976. Barfield might not have been the best hire, but at least he kept Auburn’s recruiting pipelines open. Those pipelines run deep even if they’ve been redirected elsewhere for a time. It’s not just Alabama and Georgia that have taken advantage of Auburn’s troubles over the last few years. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who has strong ties in Alabama, has pulled elite recruits away from Auburn as well. Barfield faced similar challenges during his tenure. In 1976, Barfield’s first season, Georgia won the SEC championship. Alabama won the next three and also claimed national championships in 1978 and 1979. Georgia of course won it all in 1980 (Barfield’s last season at Auburn), and then Clemson, with Alabama native Danny Ford as the coach, went 12-0 in 1981 and was awarded the national championship for that season. Despite all that, Auburn hired the man who would become arguably the best coach in program history, Pat Dye. Dye was at Wyoming before Auburn, but was a two-time All-American at Georgia during his playing days and coached under Paul Bryant at Alabama. Dye knew what he was doing the day he was hired, in other words. Harsin was expected to learn as he went, but it was obvious early on he didn’t have the talent for such things. The pandemic didn’t help his cause, and while Harsin’s lack of leadership destroyed Auburn from within, Alabama’s Nick Saban landed the top-rated signing class of the recruiting-service era. The year before, in 2020, Georgia, Alabama and Clemson finished the recruiting cycle one, two and three. Harsin was hired in December of 2020 and Alabama won a national championship a few weeks later. Georgia won it all in 2021, and last week smoked Auburn 42-10. It was bad. Harsin attempted a fake punt in the first quarter with the game tied. Auburn was at its own 34-yard line. There’s no telling what he’ll try against Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss, but Harsin’s coaching decisions are like watching a 12-year-old kid on a sugar binge play Madden NFL at 3:30 in the morning. Entering Week 7 of the 2022 season, Georgia is ranked No.1 in the country and Alabama is ranked No.3. The next coach at Auburn is going to have to go head-to-head with Alabama’s Saban and Georgia’s Smart on the recruiting trail, and come away with some wins. That’s where the rebuilding begins. With Dye, Auburn lost to No.1 Georgia 19-14 in 1982, but then upset Alabama 23-22 the next week at Legion Field. Since that victory, Auburn is 20-20 against Alabama in the Iron Bowl. As I wrote a couple weeks back, Auburn is still an elite football school despite the up and down years of Malzahn and now the tragedy of Harsin. Auburn isn’t Nebraska. Is the culture at Auburn too toxic to hire a good coach? That’s the biggest question facing Auburn football this season. Behind the scenes, Auburn can no longer waste time with its political in-fighting. It needs to impress a good coach with a strong plan for success … that maybe also includes an NIL war chest a la Texas A&M. Considering the prestige of Auburn football in relation to the guy former athletics director Allen Greene hired to replace Gus Malzahn, Harsin very well could represent the worst hire in SEC football history. Is that Auburn’s fault? Is that Greene’s fault? It’s more like a combination of factors, and they include the fact that Alabama and Georgia are currently among the best-run programs in the country. Don’t compare Harsin to Barfield, though. Harsin is worse. Harsin is more like JB “Ears” Whitworth, who is considered one of the worst coaches in Alabama football history. Whitworth kept Bart Starr on the bench his senior season. Harsin ran off Bo Nix. It’s never as bad as it seems, though. After Barfield came Dye. After Whitworth, Alabama brought home Bryant. Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

MCPSS Magnet School Applications Now Open For 2023-2024 School Year https://digitalalabamanews.com/mcpss-magnet-school-applications-now-open-for-2023-2024-school-year/ MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — The start of the 2023-2024 school year is less than a year away, meaning it’s about time to start thinking of what school your child will be attending next year. The magnet school applications for next school year have officially opened. The Mobile County Public School System has nine magnet schools, including three elementary schools, five middle schools and one high school. Each school offers its students different opportunities and specialties to explore. Students are selected for magnet schools through a lottery-style computer-based system and must meet set entrance criteria. The nine schools include: Elementary Schools: Council Traditional School “This National Blue Ribbon School offers the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme, and emphasizes accelerated academics and communications skills.” Eichold-Mertz School of Math, Science and Technology “This National Blue Ribbon school provides an ideal learning environment for students interested in an accelerated, laboratory-based mathematics, science and technology curriculum.” Old Shell Road School of Creative and Performing Arts “Creative and performing arts programs such as dance, drama, art and music are infused into academic classes at this National Blue Ribbon school to enhance student achievement.” Middle Schools: Barton Academy for Advanced World Studies “Housed in Alabama’s oldest public school building, it focuses on global studies and entrepreneurship, taught through a project-based curricular approach and serves grades 6-9.” Clarke-Shaw School of Math, Science and Technology “Students are encouraged to learn through accelerated, laboratory-based science, mathematics and technology courses at this National Blue Ribbon school.” Denton Magnet School of Technology “Students are prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century through a technology-driven curriculum that focuses on communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking.” Dunbar School of Creative and Performing Arts “A strong academic curriculum is enhanced with arts electives in band, strings, piano, guitar, chorus, dance, baton, art, ceramics, musical theater and drama.” Phillips Preparatory School “This National Blue Ribbon school features the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, and an accelerated college preparatory curriculum that provides opportunities for academic exploration and broad-based enrichment opportunities.” High Schools: Leflore Magnet High School “LeFlore features a rejuvenated and enhanced fine arts program, including dance, theater, band, and chorus, while also offering specialized academies in pre-law, health sciences and public service.” Parents can apply on the MCPSS website through Nov. 7. Stay ahead of the biggest stories, breaking news and weather in Mobile, Pensacola and across the Gulf Coast and Alabama. Download the WKRG News 5 news app and be sure to turn on push alerts. Read More…

Fact Check: National Archvies Debunks Trump's False Claim About Bush Documents – ABC17NEWS https://digitalalabamanews.com/fact-check-national-archvies-debunks-trumps-false-claim-about-bush-documents-abc17news/ By Daniel Dale, CNN First, former President Donald Trump tried a false claim about the document-handling practices of former President Barack Obama. Now, Trump is making the same false claim about other former presidents. In August, after the FBI recovered classified documents and numerous other presidential records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort in Florida, Trump declared that Obama had taken millions of presidential documents to Chicago. The National Archives and Records Administration quickly debunked his assertion, explaining it was NARA itself, not Obama, that took the documents to a NARA-managed facility in the Chicago area. Then, at rallies in Nevada and Arizona this weekend, Trump not only repeated the false claim about Obama but added near-identical dishonesty about previous presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Most dramatically, Trump said, “George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant; where they combined them. So they’re in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant.” Trump added, “A Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley. With no security and a broken front door.” Trump also claimed that “Bill Clinton took millions of documents from the White House to a former car dealership in Arkansas” and that “George W. Bush stored 68 million pages in a warehouse in Texas.” Facts First: All of these Trump claims are false. George H.W. Bush did not take millions of documents to a former bowling alley and Chinese restaurant. Rather, the National Archives and Records Administration took Bush’s presidential documents to this facility prior to the opening of the Bush presidential library in the same city. Trump’s claims about Clinton and George W. Bush are inaccurate in precisely the same way: NARA, not the former presidents themselves, put the documents in temporary storage at NARA-managed facilities at the former car dealership in Arkansas and the warehouse in Texas. And Trump was also wrong that there was “no security” at the facility where the elder Bush’s documents were housed: the facility was heavily secured, according to a news report at the time. So there is no equivalence between Trump’s handling of presidential documents and those of his predecessors. In the others’ cases, the presidential documents were in NARA’s possession and stored securely and professionally. In Trump’s case, the presidential documents found in haphazard amateur storage at Mar-a-Lago were in Trump’s own possession, despite numerous attempts by both NARA and the Justice Department to get them back. NARA sent CNN a statement on Tuesday, after the initial publication of this article, confirming that Trump’s claims are false. The statement said that NARA had possession of Bush, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Ronald Reagan presidential records after those presidents left office and that NARA moved the records to temporary facilities NARA leased near the locations of their future presidential libraries. The statement continued: “All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees. Reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.” Trump’s claims about George H.W. Bush Trump urged the authorities to “look into what took place” with George H.W. Bush and presidential documents. But there is nothing of substance to investigate: the National Archives and Records Administration has been forthright since the 1990s about where it temporarily stored Bush documents before his permanent library opened. In fact, the NARA official who was in charge of the transition of the Bush documents to the permanent library publicly joked about the temporary facility at the time. “I’ve told reporters this for the last four years: It’s not just a bowling alley; it’s a bowling alley and a Chinese restaurant,” David Alsobrook said. While the temporary College Station, Texas, location made for a fun story, there was nothing unusual about NARA’s use of such a building. NARA needs lots of space to house presidential documents before presidents’ permanent libraries are built, so it finds and modifies large nearby facilities that often have formerly housed other activities. Someone listening to Trump’s rally comments might have pictured documents from the first Bush administration being scattered carelessly in bowling lanes. But that’s not what happened. The Washington Post reported in 1993: “There aren’t any lanes anymore. No gutters, no pins, no beer. Thanks to a rush remodeling job after last November’s election, there are a few simple offices, a massive, fire-resistant vault and row after row of steel shelves filled with cardboard boxes and wooden crates.” As NARA’s Tuesday statement said, there was also extensive security. The Associated Press reported in 1994: “Uniformed guards patrol the premises. There are closed-circuit television monitors and sophisticated electronic detectors along walls and doors. Some printed material is classified and will remain so for years; it is open only to those with top-secret clearances.” Robert Holzweiss, who began working on the George H.W. Bush library in 1996 and is now deputy director, told People magazine for an article in early 2022: “When I got involved the temporary facility for the Bush museum was in College Station, Texas, in an old bowling alley. Without the alleys it was perfect, it was like a warehouse. They just built a secure space within to house the classified material.” Bush died in 2018. His son Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who ran against Trump in 2016 for the Republican presidential nomination, wrote on Twitter in response to Trump’s claims about the late president: “I am so confused. My dad enjoyed a good Chinese meal and enjoyed the challenge of 7 10 split. What the heck is up with you?” Trump’s false claims about Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Trump’s rally claims about former presidents Clinton and George W. Bush are false for the exact same reason as Trump’s claims about Obama and the elder Bush are false. That former Balch Motor Company building in Little Rock, Arkansas, where millions of Clinton presidential documents were stored? Again, it was the National Archives and Records Administration that took the documents to this facility, which NARA managed, in advance of the opening of Clinton’s library in the same city. That warehouse in Lewisville, Texas where millions of the younger Bush’s presidential documents were stored? It was a NARA-managed facility, used to store documents while Bush’s permanent library was being readied in nearby Dallas. Update: This article has been updated to add NARA’s Tuesday statement. The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Read More…

Trump Lawyer Who Vouched For Documents Meets With FBI https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-lawyer-who-vouched-for-documents-meets-with-fbi/ WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for former president Donald Trump who signed a letter stating that a “diligent search” for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been given back to the government has spoken with the FBI, according to a person familiar with the matter. Christina Bobb told federal investigators during Friday’s interview that she had not drafted the letter but that another Trump lawyer who she said actually prepared it had asked her to sign it in her role as a designated custodian of Trump’s records, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The process is of interest to investigators because the Justice Department says the letter was untrue in asserting that all classified records sought by the government had been located and returned. Though the letter, and 38 documents bearing classification markings, were presented to FBI and Justice Department officials during a June 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago, agents returned to the Florida estate with a search warrant on Aug. 8 and seized about 100 additional classified records. According to an August court filing, the signed certification letter was presented to investigators who visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to collect additional classified material from the home. The Justice Department had weeks earlier issued a subpoena for the records after it says it developed evidence that more classified documents remained at the estate beyond those contained in 15 boxes recovered in January by the National Archives and Records Administration. The letter produced for investigators asserted that, in response to the subpoena, “a diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida” and that “any and all responsive documents accompany this certification.” The letter also included the caveat that the statements in it were true “based upon the information that has been provided to me.” FILE – President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen from the media van in the presidential motorcade in Palm Beach, Fla., March 24, 2018, en route to Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Christina Bobb, a lawyer for former president Donald Trump who signed a letter stating that a “diligent search” for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been given back to the government has spoken with the FBI, according to a person familiar with the matter. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Carolyn Kaster At the time, the FBI was presented with an envelope containing 38 documents with classification markings, including at the top-secret level. But agents began to suspect that they had not received the entire stash of records, and returned two months later with a warrant. Bobb told the FBI that the letter was actually drafted and prepared by another of Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, and that he had asked her to sign it in her capacity as custodian of the records, according to the person. Corcoran did not immediately return an email and phone message on Tuesday. Spokespeople for the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment, and Bobb did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment. The interview was first reported by NBC News. The person familiar with it said it was a voluntary discussion with investigators and did not take place before a grand jury, and that she is not regarded as a target of the investigation. The Justice Department has said that, beyond investigating possible crimes in the retention of the documents themselves, it is also investigating whether anyone sought to obstruct its probe. It is not clear if anyone will be charged. _____ Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More…

Comedian Almost Hit With Beer Can After Being Heckled By Audience Member, Viral Video Shows https://digitalalabamanews.com/comedian-almost-hit-with-beer-can-after-being-heckled-by-audience-member-viral-video-shows/ POINT PLEASANT, N.J. (WPIX) – A comedian performing at a New Jersey comedy club was nearly hit by a can of beer thrown by an audience member after an uncomfortable exchange with a heckler. But instead of letting it get to her, the young comedian picked up the can and chugged the remaining beer. Ariel Elias was on the stage at Uncle Vinnie’s Comedy Club in Point Pleasant Beach at around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night when a woman in the audience began asking Elias who she voted for in the 2020 presidential election. “Did you vote for Donald Trump?” the woman asked, as seen in video shared by Elias on social media. The comedian tried to brush it off with a joke, replying, “Why would you ask me that knowing I’m the only Jew in this room? Are you trying to get me killed?!” “So you voted for Biden?” the woman yelled back. “I dunno. What does it matter?” Elias responded. “Yes, you did!” the heckler replied. “I could just tell by your jokes you voted for Biden.” “I can tell by the fact that you’re still talking, when nobody wants you to, that you voted for Trump,” Elias fired back, eliciting cheers from the crowd. A few seconds pass, and then a beer goes flying across the stage. The drink whizzed by Elias and exploded on a brick wall behind her. Elias was startled at first, and appeared to gasp, before picking up the can and chugging the rest of the beer, the video shows. Club co-owner Dino Ibelli said the beer was hurled by the audience member’s husband. The club’s management has filed a police report, and they’ve banned the customer from the venue. “She handled it like a pro,” Ibelli told Nexstar’s WPIX of Elias. “That’s adrenaline. You can’t write that. Afterward, she was a bit shaken.” Just before the beer was thrown, Ibelli said he warned the audience member — allegedly a Trump supporter — to pipe down or leave after she interrupted Elias’ set. She decided to leave, but when Ibelli turned his back, he heard the can hit the wall, and someone pointed out the perpetrator, he said. “Thank God nobody got hurt,” Ibelli said. “If I see [the alleged perpetrator] again, he won’t make it through the door.” WPIX reached out to Elias and Point Pleasant police but did not immediately receive a response. On Twitter, however, Elias joked that this may have been the best thing to happen to her. “I’d really appreciate it if anyone could please just let my teachers know that chugging a beer has in fact been great for my career,” she joked on Twitter. The incident also caught the eye of Jimmy Kimmel, who awarded Elias “five stars for this flawless performance.” “Can I make my late night debut on your show?” Elias then asked Kimmel. “Absolutely,” he responded. The show’s producers are currently in touch with Elias, Deadline confirmed, and are looking to book her for an upcoming episode. Read More…

Students Protest University Of Florida Presidential Finalist Ben Sasse's Visit To School | CNN https://digitalalabamanews.com/students-protest-university-of-florida-presidential-finalist-ben-sasses-visit-to-school-cnn/ CNN  —  Students at the University of Florida protested the visit of Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska – the likely new president of the university – to the school Monday. Students protested Sasse during an open forum on the university’s campus in Gainesville on Monday afternoon, according to the university’s newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator. Sasse plans to resign from the Senate by the end of the year to take a job as the president of the University of Florida, CNN reported last week Sasse was scheduled to host three open forums Monday afternoon, according to the university’s website. According to the Independent Florida Alligator, Sasse left a forum about 15 minutes early at which point about 300 protesters entered the ballroom where the event was taking place. Protesters called Sasse homophobic and racist, The Independent Florida Alligator reported. Video obtained by CNN shows protesters chanting “Hey hey. Ho ho. Ben Sasse has got to go,” during Sasse’s visit. Last week, the university’s presidential search committee voted unanimously to name Sasse as its sole finalist for president of the university, a source told CNN. Sasse would replace Kent Fuchs, who is leaving the position after eight years to become a professor at the school. Sasse was president of Midland University, a Lutheran liberal arts school in Nebraska, before his election to the Senate in 2014. Ethan Eibe is a sophomore at the University of Florida who was covering the protest for the Independent Florida Alligator. He told CNN that he talked to several people who participated in the protest. “Many are concerned with Sasse’s past comments that show he is not in favor of same-sex marriage and abortion. When it comes to a community as diverse as UF, students overall don’t feel he is a good fit,” Eibe told CNN Monday. “They consider him a political appointee essentially. They believe it’s a bad look on the board of trustees that named him the sole finalist out of 700 candidates.” The University of Florida would not comment on Sasse’s visit to the school Monday. Meanwhile, CNN has reached out to Sasse’s office but has not received a response. According to the university’s handbook, the president serves as the chief executive officer of the school and oversees all university activities. Read More…

Dow Pops 400 Points As It Tries To Snap 4-Day Losing Streak https://digitalalabamanews.com/dow-pops-400-points-as-it-tries-to-snap-4-day-losing-streak/ Credit Suisse shares fall on report of U.S. tax probe U.S.-listed shares of Credit Suisse fell more than 2% after Bloomberg News reported that the embattled European bank was facing a U.S. tax investigation and a Senate inquiry. The stock is now down more than 54% year to date. Credit Suisse later confirmed the report, saying in a statement: “Credit Suisse does not tolerate tax evasion. We have implemented extensive enhancements since 2014, to root out individuals who seek to conceal assets from tax authorities. … Credit Suisse is cooperating extensively with US authorities, including the US Senate and US Department of Justice, and will continue to do so.” — Fred Imbert JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup shares hit fresh 52-week lows ahead of bank earnings (L-R) Chairman, President, and CEO of The PNC Financial Services Group William Demchak, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jamie Dimon, CEO of Citigroup Jane Fraser, Chairman and CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan, Chairman and CEO of Truist Financial Corporation William Rogers Jr., and President and CEO of Wells Fargo & Company Charles Scharf testify during a hearing before the House Committee on Financial Services at Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on September 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Holding Megabanks Accountable: Oversight of America’s Largest Consumer Facing Banks.” Alex Wong | Getty Images The three biggest U.S. banks by assets each hit fresh 52-week lows Tuesday on concern that an economic downturn will force the companies to build reserves for bad loans. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup set the new lows just days before the industry kicks off third-quarter earnings on Oct. 14. While the outlook for banks’ revenue from interest income has actually been improving as the Federal Reserve increases rates, that has also spooked investors concerned that the Fed will inadvertently trigger a recession. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon added to the concerns Monday when he told CNBC that the U.S. was likely headed towards a recession by next year. “There is a disconnect between near-term fundamentals and stock performance because the key driver of strong fundamentals is the continued rise in interest rates,” JPMorgan banking analyst Vivek Juneja said Tuesday in a research note. “However, [the] sharp rise in rates is raising concerns about a hard landing (recession.)” Investors are waiting for banks to “rip off the proverbial Band-Aid” and begin to build loan loss reserves commensurate with a recession, as well as revise deposit costs higher, UBS bank analyst Erika Najarian said Tuesday in a note. Fund managers are “waiting for a more `cathartic’ moment that would signal the stocks have troughed,” said Najarian. —Hugh Son Recession next year is ‘a coin flip,’ wealth manager says With the potential for a recession next year, with Sandi Bragar, chief client officer at Aspiriant, said equity values could fall with a wide range given the uncertainty. “It’s a coin flip of whether we’re in a recession or not next year,” she said. “Knowing that, we think there’s a wide range of fair values for equities given the macro situation.” Her comments echo the sentiment across Wall Street and among retail investors, as market participants feel increasingly uneasy over a potential recessionary period coming with the Federal Reserve continuing to increase interest rates in a bid to hamper inflation. But she also said there’s “money to be made” for investors aware of how the market is moving. “There’s cash on the sidelines that’s eager to get to work,” she added. Investors know that there’s a lottery payoff if you can time the market with when the Fed will pivot.” — Alex Harring Mester cautions of recession danger for U.S. economy Cleveland Federal Reserve President Loretta Mester cautioned Tuesday that a slowing economy combined with tightening monetary policy could produce a recession ahead. “With growth well below trend over the next couple of years, it is possible that a shock could push the U.S. economy into recession for a time,” the central bank official said in remarks prepared for a speech in New York. Nevertheless, Mester said tackling inflation is paramount if the U.S. economy is going to achieve sustained growth with full employment and stable prices. “Despite some moderation on the demand side of the economy and nascent signs of improvement in supply side conditions, there has been no progress on inflation,” she said. “None of this is painless, but the high inflation we are experiencing is already inflicting pain on many people,” Mester added. She said she is advocating an even higher trajectory for interest rates than the median outlook of other Fed policymakers as she is concerned that the Fed has not made progress in its inflation fight. Mester, who is a voting member of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said the danger of doing too little to halt inflation is greater than the danger of doing too much that likely will slow growth. —Jeff Cox Stocks rebound, reversing earlier losses to trade higher The S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted large rebounds Tuesday, reversing earlier losses that pushed the S&P 500 to a multiyear low and the Nasdaq to a 52-week low. At midday, the S&P 500 was up 0.21% and the Nasdaq rose 0.02% to trade flat. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up about 260 points, or 0.89%. —Carmen Reinicke Amgen pops after Morgan Stanley upgrades stock Amgen shares jumped 5.6% during day trading after Morgan Stanley upgraded the biopharmaceutical company’s stock because of its “defensive positioning.” The firm upped its price target to $279 from $257, which would mean it would trade about 22.2% higher than where it did at Monday’s close. Analyst Matthew Harrison wrote in a Tuesday note to clients the optimistic outlook stemmed from the differentiation potential of obesity medication AMG133 and AMJEVITA, which is used for multiple inflammatory diseases, being on track for a January 2023 launch. — Alex Harring Cryptocurrency prices hold steady as investors wait for key inflation data this week Bitcoin and ether were slightly lower on Tuesday as investors refrained from taking any bets ahead of key inflation data due later this week. Bitcoin was last was last lower by 1% at $19,027.69, according to Coin Metrics. Its volatility has been uncharacteristically low for about a month, while the VIX is climbing to its highest level since the summer. Ether fell 2% to $1,281.30. — Tanaya Macheel U.S. 10-year yield backs off highs as traders watch U.K. market The 10-year Treasury yield eased back off its highs in late morning trading, as traders keep a wary eye on the U.K. gilt market. The yield on the U.S. benchmark hit 4% in overnight trading, as British gilt yields shot higher. The Bank of England in the early morning calmed the market slightly after it announced it was expanding its bond buying plan. The U.S. 10-year yield fell gradually in U.S. trading to 3.91%. “This is the first time in years the U.K. is drivng the global bond market. Let’s hope it’s not off a cliff,” said Michael Schumacher of Wells Fargo. Yields move opposite price. Schumacher said the U.S. yield was simply retracing its earlier move, and was not driven lower by news. But the Treasury market remains glued to gilts, and the focus is on actions of the Bank of England. The central bank said it would add index-linked gilts to its purchases but still plans to end its purchases Oct. 14. “They’ve got to get rid of that date. Your first priority if you’re a central bank is to stabilize the bond market,” he said. “they’re going to do the buy program through the 14th and quickly get back to sales. They’ll have to get rid of that date quickly.” –Patti Domm Uber slides following new Labor Department proposal Gig economy stocks fell sharply on Tuesday after the Department of Labor released a proposed rule that could cause the companies to classify drivers employees instead of independent contractors. Shares of Uber fell more than 12%, while Lyft dropped 13.5%. Doordash fell nearly 10%. Read more about the proposed rule here. — Jesse Pound S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both notch 52-week lows The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both fell to multi-year lows on Tuesday as the broader market sold off on growth fears. The S&P 500 hit the lowest level since November 2020, nearing a two-year low for the index. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid to a new 52-week low. Technology and semiconductor companies led the declines. Technology companies are sensitive to rising interest rates, and semiconductors are falling after the Biden Administration limited manufacturing sales to China. Major technology ETFs notched multi-year lows, with the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund hitting its lowest level since November 2020 and the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF falling to lows not seen since May 2020. Top semiconductor ETFs also fell to lowest levels since November 2020. —Carmen Reinicke, Gina Francolla Barclays cuts Apple price target 8% Barclays cut Apple’s price target 8% to $155, which implies the stock’s value will grow 10% over the next year. The firm called a 3% upside on hardware revenue, showing growth despite headwinds due to international markets getting hit by the surging U.S. dollar. Barclays also noted a strong upside for new MacBooks and smaller one for the new iPhone line. App store revenue declined for the first time ever, Barclays predicted. — Alex Harring Stocks slump at market open All three major indexes fell at the market open on Tuesday as investors weighed upcoming inflation data and earnings reports that will give more information on the state of the U.S. economy. The Dow Jones Industri...

3 Alabama BBQ Joints Make Top Ranks + 3 More Underrated Restaurants We Love | The Bama Buzz https://digitalalabamanews.com/3-alabama-bbq-joints-make-top-ranks-3-more-underrated-restaurants-we-love-the-bama-buzz/ What’s your go-to side dish? (The Bama Buzz) One thing about Alabama is that we know how to grill up some tasty BBQ. Southern Living has recognized three of our BBQ joints in their top 50. Keep reading to find out what are the top restaurants and which ones we think deserve to be on that list as well. Top 50 Up for ribs? (Dreamland) There’s A LOT of BBQ in the South. Even after the pandemic when many restaurants had to shut down, the BBQ market continued to thrive. Southern Living mentioned how resilient BBQ restaurants have been these past few years. We’d make the argument that this success is because you can’t go wrong with the sweet and tangy flavor of a BBQ sandwich. Take a look at who Southern Living ranked as having top-notch BBQ in Alabama: #32: Dreamland Bar-B-Que—Tuscaloosa, AL: Dreamland first opened its doors in 1958 selling burgers, but soon realized their specialty was BBQ. Now, look at them! #23. Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q—Decatur, AL: Run by Chris Lilly, one of the top-ranked pitmasters, this joint is known for its white sauce. #7. Archibald’s Bar-B-Q—Northport, AL: A down-home restaurant for the perfect college town meal. 3 underrated BBQ joints You can’t go wrong with pulled pork. (Full Moon) There’s no denying that Alabama is known for its BBQ joints with highly popular places including Full Moon and Jim N’ Nicks. Even Food Netwood has covered Gadsden, Alabama’s BBQ competition. In no particular order, we gathered some of our favorite spots to get BBQ in the state. 1. SAW’s That sauce is calling your name! (The Bama Buzz) According to Bham Now’s Nowie Awards, SAW’s was voted on by the audience as THE best BBQ in Birmingham. Don’t believe me? Head to any one of the five locations in the city to try their stuffed tatters. The potatoes are as big as your head and the flavors will always be a 10/10. Location: Find your nearest SAW’s Website 2. LawLer’s Barbeque Anyone who lives in the Tennesse Valley has heard of LawLer’s. Out of the 13 total locations, seven of them are located in the valley—it’s THAT good. Although this BBQ joint is growing it still has that ma-and-pop feel that comes with exceptional-tasting food. Location: Find your nearest LawLer’s Website 3. Sonny’s BBQ It’s always sonny in Mobile! While that might not be true, Sonny’s BBQ having the best oak-smoked meat is a truthful statement. One thing everyone loves about Sonny’s is that this BBQ joint also has phenomenal sides. Location: 770 Schillinger Rd S, Mobile, AL 36695 Hours: Sunday-Thursday 11AM–9:30PM | Friday-Saturday 11AM–10PM Website BONUS: These 15 Alabama towns named most charming + 5 of them we love Do you have a favorite BBQ you think we missed? Share your thoughts with us on Facebook or Instagram. Summer Guffey Lover of Weiss Lake in the summertime and camping at Cheaha in the autumn. Articles: 71 Read More…

Israel Says Historic Agreement Made With Lebanon On Maritime Borders https://digitalalabamanews.com/israel-says-historic-agreement-made-with-lebanon-on-maritime-borders/ JERUSALEM — Israeli and Lebanese leaders appear to have agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal that will let both countries exploit gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, potentially ending a decades-long dispute over their maritime border, easing growing military tensions and providing a desperately needed source of income to Lebanon’s collapsing economy. The agreement, which needs formal approval in both countries, was hailed by leaders in Beirut and Jerusalem as a historic breakthrough. It is the first agreement on border demarcation between the two nations. “This is an historic achievement that will strengthen Israel’s security, inject billions into Israel’s economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement Tuesday. Lebanese leaders have yet to make an official announcement on the deal, but President Michel Aoun said in a tweet Tuesday that “the final version of the offer is satisfactory for Lebanon and answers its demands and preserves its rights to its natural wealth.” Later, he tweeted that he had received a phone call from President Biden “in which he congratulated [Aoun] on the conclusion of the negotiations.” “If everything goes well, [Washington’s] efforts could imminently lead to a historic deal,” Elias Bou Saab, Lebanon’s lead negotiator on the issue and deputy parliament speaker, told Reuters after receiving the text of the deal from American officials Tuesday. Officials hope the agreement, if finalized, will cool intensifying tensions along the frontier. Hezbollah, the Iran-allied militant group that controls southern Lebanon, has threatened to attack a new offshore gas facility that Israel is readying for production in what Lebanon claims are disputed waters. The group has launched drones toward the gas field more than once, including three unmanned aircraft that were shot down by Israel in early July. In the face of Hezbollah’s threats to strike should Israel begin pumping natural gas from the Karish Field, Defense Minister Benny Gantz put troops on high alert after the maritime border talks ran into last-minute disputes last week. Hezbollah, which along with its allies, holds the largest bloc in parliament, had no immediate comment on the draft of the agreement. A media officer for the group told The Washington Post that Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah is likely to talk about the deal in a speech scheduled for Tuesday. “Today we’ll find out,” the official said. The agreement would define only the offshore boundary between the sworn enemies, not the 50-mile land border that remains in dispute after multiple wars and continues to be patrolled by a United Nations monitoring force after more than four decades. The maritime frontier has proved to be equally contentious in recent years, particularly after gas deposits were discovered in the sea bed inside the 330-square mile region. Israel, which has already developed gas fields in nearby waters, strung a line of buoys three miles out from a rocky cliff near the U.N. headquarters. Beirut condemned the move as a unilateral provocation. Resolving the dispute — which has gained urgency as the risk of conflict rose and Lebanon’s economic free fall has grown more critical — has been a regional priority for the Biden administration. The president’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein, brokered talks over the past year with the goal of giving countries fair access to the area. The deal comes as gas discoveries are remaking the energy map of the Mediterranean just as Europe is looking for alternate sources in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Gas diplomacy may also be thawing Israel’s tense relationship with Turkey, for example, as the two countries seek to revive long-abandoned plans for a pipeline through Turkey to Europe. Details of the agreement were not made public Tuesday. But reports of its broad terms in recent weeks suggest that it clarifies the lines of exclusive economic zones for both countries. Lebanon would gain access to promising fields in previously disputed waters; Israel would be free to begin operating the Karish well with Lebanon’s agreement. Lebanese officials have said the final deal would not have them in direct partnership with Israel, and it was unclear how royalties would be split from the one area, the Qana Field, which lies partially in Israeli waters. Lebanon in 2017 issued licenses to move forward with offshore oil and gas development for two of the 10 blocks in the Mediterranean, including Qana, and officials were moving quickly to advance the process. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati met Tuesday morning with Energy Minister Walid Fayyad and a delegation from French oil giant Total. Fayyad expressed hope that the deal will benefit Lebanon and grant it its “rights and full share in Qana Field without sharing it with anyone,” according to state media. He also emphasized the need to begin exploration and development, which often take years, as soon as possible. “Logistical issues take time but work will begin immediately,” he said. Lebanon’s leaders and public hope the deal will pave the way for gas exploration and bring in much-needed revenue to the country, which has been hit by sharp economic decline and a banking crisis that have ravaged the local currency and left much of the country out of work. In a place previously an oasis for opulence, people sifting through trash cans for food is now a common sight in the capital Beirut. The World Food Program said in a report last month that an estimated 33 percent of Lebanese now lack minimum dietary provisions. Access to gas fields could mean export revenue and energy sources for a country where electricity is now an expensive luxury and some Lebanese have begun joining Syrians and other migrants in perilous boat journeys to Europe. Israel hopes access to the gas deposits will help pull Lebanon back from the brink of collapse and reduce the risk of another all out war. “Such a field would weaken Lebanese dependency on Iran, restrain Hezbollah and bring regional stability,” Lapid told his cabinet earlier this month. In Israel, which does not have diplomatic relations with Lebanon, it was unclear what steps the government needed to take to ratify the agreement. Legal experts said the deal could be enacted simply on the approval of the cabinet, most of whom have signaled enthusiasm for a draft they said benefits both countries. They pushed back on some right-wing lawmakers, including former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who blasted the government for “surrendering” to Hezbollah. But Israel is holding national elections in less than a month, and some officials, including alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, have said in the past that such an important agreement should go before the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Bennett, as Lapid’s partner in the government, still holds an effective veto in the cabinet. His office said Tuesday that he will make a decision on the agreement after reading the draft and consulting with security officials. Dadouch reported from Beirut. Read More…

5 Coastal Alabama Football Games To Watch In Week 9 https://digitalalabamanews.com/5-coastal-alabama-football-games-to-watch-in-week-9/ Here is a look at 5 key games involving Coastal Alabama football teams in Week 9 of the season. The complete schedule follows. BLOUNT (2-5) AT ST. PAUL’S (3-4) Time/location: 7 p.m. Friday, E.E. Delaney Stadium, Mobile Last week: Blount lost to Theodore 35-0; St. Paul’s defeated Robertsdale 39-14 On the air: TV – WJTC-UTV 44; Radio – WNSP-FM 105.5 Region standings: Blount is 2-3 in Class 6A, Region 1; St. Paul’s is 3-2 The skinny: St. Paul’s is currently tied with McGill-Toolen for the fourth and final Region 1 playoff spot behind Saraland, Theodore and Spanish Fort. The Saints have the tiebreaker edge on McGill by virtue of their head-to-head win. Blount is one game back. … St. Paul’s leads the overall series with the Leopards 6-2 and has won three straight. … Blount has lost three straight games this season and scored just six points in the process. The Leopards have been outscored 82-6 during that stretch. Last week against the Bobcats, Antonio Robinson-Jackson completed 10-of-15 passes for 92 yards and rushed 10 times for 49 yards. Head coach Josh Harris returned to the Blount sideline last week after spending four games on leave. … The Saints ended a modest two-game skid last week at Robertsdale. Anthony Jones and Drew Williamson scored two touchdowns apiece, while Bay Lane added another. St. Paul’s led 32-0 at the half and played reserves in the second half. The Saints are trying to extend a streak of 12 consecutive playoff berths. The last time St. Paul’s didn’t make the postseason was 2009. The Mary G. Montgomery Vikings take the field after an hour and a half weather delay during a prep football game, Thursday, September 8, 2022, in Semmes, Ala. (Scott Donaldson | al.com)Scott Donaldson/al.com DAPHNE (3-4) AT MARY G. MONTGOMERY (4-4) Time/location: 7 p.m. Friday, Emile Grider Memorial Stadium, Semmes Last week: Daphne lost to Fairhope 26-7; MGM beat Baker 37-20 On the Air: NA Region standings: Daphne is 3-1 in Class 7A, Region 1; Mary G. Montgomery is 3-2 The skinny: Mary G. Montgomery has lost all seven previous meetings against Daphne. The Vikings have been outscored 247-77 in those games. … Daphne is coming off losses to its two biggest rivals, Spanish Fort and Fairhope. The Trojans have scored 149 points this season but also given up exactly 149. The seven points in last week’s loss marked the Trojans’ lowest output of the season. Nick Clark scored the only TD on an 8-yard run. Former Alabama star Kenny King is 45-28 in his seventh year at his high school alma mater. … Mary G. Montgomery has won four straight games in a season for the first time since start of 2007. That year, the Vikings beat Citronelle, Baker, Alma Bryant and Blount before closing the year with 6 straight losses. Zach Golson’s team is trying to end a 19-year playoff drought. Last week, Colby Gould led the defense with 11 tackles and 3 TFL. QB Jared Hollins is completing 69 percent of his passes for 1,815 yards and 20 TDs. He also has scored 5 rushing TDs. He’s been intercepted just 3 times. WR James Bolton has 53 receptions for 1,131 yards and 13 TDs – an average of 21 yards per catch. Keshun Johnson (635 yards, 6 TDs) is the leading rusher. Williamson head coach Antonio Coleman meets with the defense during a timeout in the first half of a prep football game Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala. (Mike Kittrell | preps@al.com) FAITH ACADEMY (6-1) AT WILLIAMSON (6-2) Time/location: 7 p.m. Friday, Hornet Stadium, Mobile Last week: Faith Academy defeated Pike Liberal Arts 41-0; Williamson defeated Citronelle 20-0 On the air: NA Region standings: Faith Academy is 4-1 in Class 5A, Region 1; Williamson is 4-2 The skinny: Game is being played at Baker High School. … Faith is a game back of region leader UMS-Wright (5-0) and a half game back of second-place Gulf Shores (5-1) in the playoff race. The Dolphins have the tiebreaker on the Rams. Williamson is a game back of Faith and currently in the fourth and final playoff spot. … The two teams have split eight previous meetings. … Faith has reeled off six straight wins, and none have been close. The Rams have outscored their last six opponents 182-13 with three shutouts since losing 22-12 at Gulf Shores on Sept. 2. QB Jarrett Daughtry is completing 71 percent of his passes for 1,221 yards and 12 TDs. He did not play in last week’s win over Pike Liberal Arts. Christian Burnette has rushed for 375 yards and 5 TDs. Tynean Goodwill has 4 TD receptions and Dorian Smith and Tyrell Dotson have 3 each. Veteran coach Jack French is 301-134-2 in 39 years as a head coach in Alabama and Mississippi. … The Williamson defense has allowed 83 points this season – 51 of which game against Gulf Shores. The Lions have shut out four opponents and held two others to just six points. Ellis McGaskin rushed for 2 TDs last week against Citronelle. Tyrek Gaines also scored. Yusef Clark intercepted a pass. Jackson’s Tychius Caves runs for yardage during the St. Michael vs Jackson football game, Thursday, September 2, 2021, in Fairhope, Ala. (Scott Donaldson | al.com)Scott Donaldson/al.com JACKSON (5-2) AT ST. MICHAEL (5-3) Time/location: 7 p.m. Thursday, Fairhope Municipal Stadium, Fairhope Last week: Jackson defeated Satsuma 55-0; St. Michael defeated Wilcox Central 49-6 On the air: NA Region standings: St. Michael is 4-1 in Class 4A, Region 1; Jackson is 3-2 The skinny: St. Michael could clinch the school’s first playoff berth with a win and set up a probable showdown for the Region 1 title at T.R. Miller on Oct. 21. … The teams have split their previous two meetings. The Cardinals won last year 24-21. … The Aggies have won four straight games since back-to-back losses to Orange Beach and T.R. Miller. Cody Flournoy is 28-16 in his fourth season at Jackson. Freshman QB Landon Duckworth is completing 50 percent of his passes for 1,169 yards and 13 TDs. He’s been intercepted 5 times. He also has 5 rushing TDs. Tychius Caves leads the team in rushing with 498 yards and 7 TDs. Micah Jones (18 receptions, 471 yards, 8 TDs) is the team’s leading receiver. LB Jalen Pickens leads the defense with 105 tackles, including 15 for a loss. … The Cardinals have scored 49 points in each of their last two games after registering just seven in a loss to Class 6A McGill-Toolen on Sept. 23. Senior QB Josh Murphy is 92-of-150 for 1,419 yards and 12 TDs. He’s been intercepted 4 times. Braylan Green has 39 receptions for 603 yards and 3 TDs. Ezra Sexton has 655 yards rushing and 8 TDs and 27 receptions for 532 yards and 5 TDs. Moe Faiupu has 18 receptions for 244 yards and 2 TDs, 28 rushes for 164 yards and 6 TDs and is 6-of-9 passing for 100 yards and 2 TDs. The defense is led by Clay Barr (64 tackles, 11 TFL, 4 sacks) and Tyler Cella (72 tackles, 3 TFL). Theodore High’s Brayden Jenkins pushes away from Opelika High’s Jaylan Peters for a touchdown during a high school football game in Opelika, Ala., Friday, Sept 23, 2022. (Julie Bennett | preps@al.com)Julie Bennett | preps@al.com THEODORE (7-0) AT MCGILL-TOOLEN (4-3) Time/location: 7 p.m. Friday, Archbishop Lipscomb Stadium, Mobile Last week: Theodore defeated Blount 35-0; McGill-Toolen lost at Spanish Fort 33-24 On the air: Radio — Archangel Radio 1410 AM Region standings: Theodore is 5-0 in Class 6A, Region 1; McGill-Toolen is 3-2 The skinny: Theodore is a half game behind region frontrunner Saraland (6-0). Those two teams play at Theodore next week. McGill is tied for the fourth and final playoff spot with St. Paul’s, though the Saints have a head-to-head advantage over the Yellow Jackets. McGill hasn’t missed the postseason since 2014. … This is the fourth straight road game for the Bobcats. They finish the regular season with two straight at home (Saraland, St. Paul’s). In last week’s win, Cameron Rigby threw touchdown passes to Kamrean Johnson and Trey Sullivan and Demon Jones, Brayden Jenkins and Braxton Clark scored on the ground. The Bobcats held Blount to 160 total yards, including 2.8 yards per carry on 24 rushing attempts. Eric Collier is 65-40 in his 10th year as head coach at Theodore. … McGill had its 4-game win streak snapped last week at Spanish Fort. Alex Shamburger had a pair of interceptions for the Yellow Jackets. Sophomore QB Andrew Murchison was 16-of-25 for 158 yards and 3 TDs to lead the offense. WEEK 9 COASTAL ALABAMA SCHEDULE All games scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m. Thursday’s Games B.C. Rain at LeFlore (at Ladd) (MCPSS-TV) Jackson at St. Michael Friday’s Games Alma Bryant at Fairhope Baldwin County at Murphy (at Ladd) Bayside Academy at Escambia County Blount at St. Paul’s Chickasaw at Washington County Clarke County at St. Luke’s Clarke Prep at Pickens Academy Daphne at Mary G. Montgomery Davidson at Foley (WHEP-1310 AM in Foley) Elberta at Vigor (at Theodore) Excel at Hillcrest-Evergreen Faith Academy at Williamson (at Baker) Flomaton at Mobile Christian Jackson Academy at Banks Academy J.F. Shields at Southern Choctaw Leroy at Fruitdale McIntosh at Millry Monroe County at Cottage Hill Morgan Academy at Monroe Academy Patrician Academy at Escambia Academy Theodore at McGill-Toolen Thomasville at W.S. Neal T.R. Miller at Satsuma Snook Christian at Wilcox Academy Spanish Fort at Robertsdale UMS-Wright at Citronelle (Sports Talk 99.5 FM) Wilcox Central at Orange Beach If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Auburn’s Poor Run-Blocking Has Tank Bigsby Mired In Mediocrity https://digitalalabamanews.com/auburns-poor-run-blocking-has-tank-bigsby-mired-in-mediocrity/ Auburn’s offense has a crack in its foundation. The Tigers spent all offseason talking up the idea of building their offense around star running back Tank Bigsby, but the team has been unable to get its preseason first-team All-SEC back going through the first half of its schedule. The run game has struggled to find its footing, and Bigsby’s numbers have been mired in mediocrity six games into the season. “That’s the key to what we have to do up front is just not give up penetration and get those backs a chance to get started,” Auburn coach Bryan Harsin said. “They’ll do something with it.” Read more Auburn football: The pressing issue Auburn’s offense must resolve against Ole Miss Goodman: Bryan Harsin proving Doug Barfield wasn’t so bad Bryan Harsin left searching for answers, “hope” after blowout loss to Georgia To this point, though, Bigsby hasn’t been able to do much with the ball in his hands. The junior is 12th in the SEC in rushing this season, with 345 yards and four touchdowns, but he’s 15th in the conference in rushing yards per game (57.5). He ranks 111th nationally in yards per carry (4.37), but he’s averaging just 2.94 yards per carry in four games against Power 5 competition, which is 36th among SEC rushers this season and the worst among qualifying SEC running backs. The only SEC players with a worse rushing per-carry average against Power 5 teams this season are quarterbacks: Texas A&M’s Max Johnson, Missouri’s Brady Cook and South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler. In those four games against quality competition — Penn State, Missouri, LSU and Georgia — Bigsby has averaged just 36.75 yards per contest. His numbers against Power 5 opponents have gone down in each season; he averaged 6.04 yards per carry and 83.4 yards per game in 2020 when he was the SEC Freshman of the Year, and last year those numbers dropped to 4.25 yards per carry and 78 yards per game against Power 5 opponents. Bigsby has not had a 100-yard rushing performance since Auburn’s season-opener against Mercer, when he ran for 147 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries. His last 100-yard game against an FBS opponent was last year’s loss at South Carolina, when he had 164 yards on 22 carries. His 19 yards on 10 carries (1.9 yards per attempt) last weekend at Georgia marked his worst rushing performance since his college debut in 2020, when he ran for just 15 yards on six carries (2.5 yards per carry) in a win against Kentucky. Against the Bulldogs, four of Bigsby’s nine carries went for 1 yard, no gain or a loss of yards. A week earlier against LSU, when he ran for 45 yards on 12 carries, five of them gained 1 yard or fewer (two more carries picked up just 2 yards). As Harsin aptly put it between those two games, it has been a lot of “feast or famine” for Auburn in the run game of late, and the substandard numbers don’t just fall on Bigsby’s shoulders; it’s about how the offensive line does in front of him, too. Too often, Bigsby faces first contact behind the line of scrimmage and has to shed defenders just to produce a short gain. “Penetration slows the backs down,” Harsin said. “And depending on the run scheme — whatever it is, there’s different schemes — but you don’t want to give up penetration. That’s what’s happened to us at times. As far as adjusting, blocking is a fundamental of the game, probably the most important one. That goes back to footwork, that goes back to aiming points, it goes back to what the defense is trying to do to you, it goes back to how you prepare yourself each and every week — how we get our guys prepared.… You’ve got to be better up front; you don’t want to give up penetration. “It’s not always that you’re moving and denting that defense all the time. But it gives your backs a chance when they can get to the line of scrimmage and be able to see and find a window. Sometimes it’s 2, 4 yards, but then you get some really good push, and it can be 8 or 18, it can be big runs.” Those bigger runs have been harder to come by. In its four games against Power 5 opponents, Auburn has just three runs of at least 20 yards and no carries of 30-plus yards, though the Tigers do have 17 carries between 10 and 19 yards during that stretch. Bigsby has just three of those runs of 10-plus yards: a 12-yarder against Penn State, a 14-yarder against Missouri and a 23-yarder against LSU. Overall, though, Auburn’s 4.1 yards per carry this season is 76th among FBS teams and on pace to be the program’s worst mark since the dreaded 2012 season (4.07 yards per carry). Any time you draw comparisons to that season, it’s suboptimal, but this year’s Auburn team seems to be doing so more and more this fall—and this time, it’s regarding an aspect that was supposed to be this offense’s strength, its foundation, in Year 2 under Harsin. “Ultimately your game is going to come down to what the guys do up front — the fundamentals of how they play and block,” Harsin said. “…There were some good things that we did do. Now we have got to get all 11 guys doing that together. I think that is the key moving forward, really focusing on that, but our guys work very hard at it. They will get better at it. We are not where we are where we need to be. We have got to go back to work this week to improve in those areas.” Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Meyers Mocks Trump For Making Midterm Endorsement Speeches All About Him, Like A Best Man’s ‘Drunken Toast’ (Video) – IMDb https://digitalalabamanews.com/meyers-mocks-trump-for-making-midterm-endorsement-speeches-all-about-him-like-a-best-mans-drunken-toast-video-imdb/ Meyers Mocks Trump for Making Midterm Endorsement Speeches All About Him, Like a Best Man’s ‘Drunken Toast’ (Video) 11 October 2022 by Andi Ortiz The Wrap Donald Trump is on the campaign trail for several GOP candidates ahead of the midterm elections in a few weeks. But Seth Meyers can’t help but notice that most of the time, the twice impeached former president isn’t exactly campaigning for them. “Even though Trump is theoretically supposed to be there to campaign for other candidates, he always, without exception, makes it about himself,” Meyers mocked on Monday night. “He’s like the best man at a wedding who gives a drunken toast about how awesome he is.” Also Read: Seth Meyers Relentlessly Mocks Revelations That Trump ‘Loudly Complained’ About Rudy Giuliani’s Bathroom Smells (Video) Naturally, Seth broke out his Trump impression to act out exactly how he thought that speech might go, culminating in Trump’s beloved catchphrase, “Lock her up!” But, using specific examples, the late night host called up footage from campaign stops Trump See full article at The Wrap » IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb’s opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy. Read More…

Stillman College Baseball Tops Wiley In HBCU Classic At Pittsburgh's PNC Park https://digitalalabamanews.com/stillman-college-baseball-tops-wiley-in-hbcu-classic-at-pittsburghs-pnc-park/ Skip to main content Pelham, AL Hoover, AL Vestavia Hills, AL Birmingham, AL Mountain Brook, AL Trussville, AL Meridian, MS Montgomery, AL Huntsville, AL Dallas-Hiram, GA Alabama Top National News See All Communities PITTSBURGH, PA — Stillman College baseball won a high-scoring affair on one of the biggest stages in professional baseball Monday night with a 16-11 win over Wiley College at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park in the HBCU Baseball Classic. Click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter and breaking news alerts. The Tigers got on the board first in the exhibition contest after Bobby Woodard led off the night with a single and scored on a wild pitch. Find out what’s happening in Tuscaloosawith free, real-time updates from Patch. Moments later, Bilal Whittle — son of Tigers baseball coach Terrance Whittle — scored on a deep sac fly by Kobe Lewis, marking his first of four RBI on the evening. He then added a 2-run single in the bottom of the second, followed by a Sam Fleming RBI single to put the Tigers up 5-0. The Wildcats clawed back, however, taking advantage of Stillman’s struggles out of the bullpen to go up 9-7 in the top of the fourth. Find out what’s happening in Tuscaloosawith free, real-time updates from Patch. This, however, provided an exciting atmosphere in a big league ballpark that ultimately saw the Tigers come out with the victory. In the bottom of the fifth inning Lewis singled in a run, followed by a Josh Ervin single to tie the game, 9-9. The RBI single was then followed by a two-run single from Jared Hines to right to give Stillman the lead 11-9. Ervin came up big again in the sixth inning, beating out an infield single that scored two on a hit-and-run. Ervin would lead Stillman at the dish with a 3-for-6 night, while Lewis and Hines each had two hits. The Tigers were also able to work 12 pitchers on the mound during the exhibition game, with Steven Oates getting the start. Oates, Griff Minor and Isidro Jimenez Rosario each pitched one no-hit inning. Bobby Woodard was credited with the win after quieting the Wiley bats in the fifth inning. “We were really excited about having an opportunity to play here, what it does for our program and what it does for our school in terms of getting us more visibility in this part of the country,” Coach Whittle said following the win. “It was great to be here with the revelry that the park has and the excitement the park gives off the players and the fans. One of the best parts about it was the foul ball chasing. I think everyone got a kick out of that and hearing the applause when a kid got the ball. That made the atmosphere any better.” In addition to the players getting a taste of the big leagues, Stillman College President Cynthia Warrick was also honored by getting to throw out the first pitch. As Patch previously reported, Warrick is set to retire next year. “We want to thank the [HBCU] Collaborative for inviting us. We got a chance to showcase our school, showcase our athletes, talk about our brand a little bit and also help bring some students to Stillman College,” Coach Whittle said. The team will remain in Pittsburgh until Wednesday and will use the trip as an opportunity to visit local high school students to talk about HBCU opportunities. Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts. The rules of replying: Be respectful. This is a space for friendly local discussions. No racist, discriminatory, vulgar or threatening language will be tolerated. Be transparent. Use your real name, and back up your claims. Keep it local and relevant. Make sure your replies stay on topic. Review the Patch Community Guidelines. Read More…

Trump Lawyer Met With FBI In Mar-A-Lago Probe https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-lawyer-met-with-fbi-in-mar-a-lago-probe/ Trump lawyer met with FBI in Mar-a-Lago probe Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP) A lawyer for former president Donald Trump who signed a letter stating that a “diligent search” for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been given back to the government has spoken with the FBI, according to a person familiar with the matter. Christina Bobb told federal investigators during Friday’s interview that she had not drafted the letter but that another Trump lawyer who she said actually prepared it had asked her to sign it in her role as a designated custodian for Trump’s records, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The process is of interest to investigators because the Justice Department says the letter was untrue in asserting that all classified records sought by the government had been located and returned. Though the letter, and 38 documents bearing classification markings, were presented to FBI and Justice Department officials during a June 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago, agents returned to the Florida estate with a search warrant on Aug. 8 and seized about 100 additional classified records. According to a court filing last month, the signed certification letter presented to investigators who went to Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to recover classified material after earlier issuing a subpoena for them said that “a diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida” and that “any and all responsive documents accompany this certification.” FILE – An aerial view of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 31, 2022. A federal judge has appointed Raymond Dearie, a veteran New York jurist to serve as an independent arbiter and review records seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s home last month. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) The letter also included the caveat that the statements in it were true “based upon the information that has been provided to me.” At the time, the FBI was presented with an envelope containing 38 documents with classification markings, including at the top-secret level. But agents began to suspect that they had not received the entire stash of records, and returned two months later with a warrant. Bobb told the FBI that the letter was actually drafted and prepared by another of Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, and that he had asked her to sign it in her capacity as custodian, according to the person. Corcoran did not immediately return an email and phone message on Tuesday. Spokespeople for the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment, and Bobb did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment. The interview was first reported by NBC News. The person familiar with it said it was a voluntary discussion with investigators and did not take place before a grand jury, and that she is not regarded as a target of the investigation. The Justice Department has said that, beyond investigating possible crimes in the retention of the documents themselves, it is also investigating whether anyone sought to obstruct its probe. It is not clear if anyone will be charged. Read more U.S. news Read More…