Category Archives: Alabama

‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’

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Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen

Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection last November during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture.

Nine months later Smith has been singled out for another undesirable distinction. If the state of Alabama has its way, he will become the test dummy for an execution method that has never before been used in judicial killings and which veterinarians consider unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for animals – death by nitrogen gas.

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Ex-Alabama deputy sheriff sentenced to prison for sexual assault on woman in his custody

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Joshua Davidson given sentence of 12 and a half years for attack while on duty as a Dallas county deputy sheriff

A former Alabama deputy sheriff has been sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in his custody.

On 30 January 2020, while on duty as a Dallas county deputy sheriff, 33-year-old Joshua Davidson placed a woman in custody following a traffic stop. He drove her down a dark road to a desolate location where he forced her to perform oral sex on him against her will, the justice department said in a statement.

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Alabama priest ‘groomed young girls’ before fleeing to Italy with 18-year-old

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Alex Crow was previously accused of acting inappropriately with students and remains under orders by archdiocese to return home

A Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who fled to Europe with a recent high school graduate whom he met through his work has drawn scrutiny from law enforcement and been told to stop presenting himself in public as a cleric.

Alex Crow, an expert in the theological study of demons and exorcism, is suspected of having “groomed [multiple] young girls” before going to Italy with an 18-year-old, according to an interview that local sheriff Paul Burch recently gave to Fox Nation’s Nancy Grace. The teen’s family has been trying to convince her to return home.

In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at ascasupport.org. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International.

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Three white men face assault charges in Alabama riverfront brawl

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One man in custody and two others expected to surrender after a group of white men attacked a Black boat worker in Montgomery

Three arrest warrants were issued on Tuesday by authorities in Montgomery, Alabama, relating to the chaotic riverfront brawl that broke out on Saturday during which punches were thrown, people were hit with chairs, and others were thrown into the river.

Montgomery police chief Darryl Albert announced on Tuesday that one man is in custody and two others were expected to turn themselves in. Montgomery mayor Steven Reed said none of the three are residents of the city.

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Trump faces four criminal counts as six co-conspirators listed in January 6 indictment – as it happened

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Special counsel Jack Smith to seek speedy trial and says January 6 was ‘fueled by lies’

University of Virginia political guru Larry Sabato took a look at the New York Times/Siena College poll released today, and what he found does not look good for Democrats:

The firm behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline said today that it expects work on the controversial natural gas conduit to be completed by the end of the year.

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Carlee Russell charged after admitting she fabricated kidnapping

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Alabama authorities file criminal charges after Russell says story that she was kidnapped after checking on toddler was hoax

Authorities in Alabama said on Friday they had filed criminal charges against a woman who confessed to fabricating a story that she was kidnapped after stopping to check on a toddler she saw walking on the side of an interstate highway.

Carlee Russell was charged with misdemeanor false reporting to law enforcement and falsely reporting an incident.

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Carlee Russell admits she wasn’t abducted and didn’t see child on road

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Alabama woman could face charges for fabricating story, police say, as they try to determine where she was for two days

A woman in Alabama has confessed to fabricating a story that she was kidnapped after stopping to check on a toddler she saw walking on the side of the interstate.

Carlee Russell’s attorney, Emory Anthony, provided a statement to police on Monday saying there was no kidnapping.

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Alabama due to resume executions despite botching three last year

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James Barber due to die on Friday but granddaughter of Dorothy Epps, the woman he murdered, doesn’t want it to happen

Alabama is due to resume executions on Thursday despite botching three last year and after a review of capital punishment practices in the southern state was largely kept from public view.

The inmate set to die by lethal injection by 6am on Friday is James Barber. Now 54, he was convicted of the murder of Dorothy Epps, who was 75, in 2001.

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Alabama police investigate mystery of woman’s missing 48 hours

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Boyfriend hits back at skeptics and insists ‘Carlee’ Russell, 25, fought off ‘kidnapper’ after stopping to check on child on highway

Police in Hoover, Alabama, are trying to pin down exactly what happened to Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell, the 25-year-old woman who set off a two-day search after she stopped to check on a child who was walking along a highway on Thursday and disappeared.

And as investigators carry out that process, Russell’s boyfriend issued a strongly worded statement in which he asserted that she had to fight off at least one abductor to come back home alive.

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Alabama woman missing after reporting lost child on highway returns home

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‘Carlee’ Nichole Russell went missing for two days after she stopped to check on a toddler walking on side of highway

An Alabama woman who went missing after calling 911 about a child she reported spotting on a highway has returned home after a two-day search.

On Thursday, the Hoover police department received a call at 9.34pm from 25-year-old Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell on I-459 south near mile marker 11. According to the police, Russell reported that she saw a toddler walking on the side of the interstate.

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Alabama inmate pleads guilty to jailbreak with help from guard he had affair with

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Casey Cole White escaped from county jail last year helped by Vicky White, who died from self-inflicted gunshot wound

An Alabama jail detainee charged in the death of a high-ranking guard who helped him escape while he engaged in an affair with her pleaded guilty Thursday to the escape in exchange for having the murder case dismissed.

Casey Cole White, 39, entered the plea agreement in Lauderdale county court, avoiding a June trial on the charge of felony murder in the death of Vicky White, the assistant director of corrections at the local jail. He continues to await trial on a separate murder charge.

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Two arrested and charged with murder over Alabama shooting that killed four

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Investigators make announcement following deadly shooting at 16th birthday party in small town of Dadeville on Saturday

Two people were arrested and charged with murder in connection with a shooting that killed four people at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Alabama last weekend, investigators announced on Wednesday.

It was the first police news conference since the day after the shooting, which happened on Saturday. The district attorney, Mike Segrest, said the pair would be charged as adults and prosecutors would ask a judge to hold them without bail.

Associated Press contributed reporting

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Four people killed and 28 injured in Alabama shooting at birthday party

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Most of the victims teenagers from shooting at dance studio during 16th birthday party in Dadeville

At least four people were killed, including a high school football player, in a shooting that erupted during a birthday party held inside a dance studio in the small town of Dadeville, Alabama, state police and local news media said.

More than 28 people were injured, some critically, during the shooting about 60 miles (100km) north-east of the state capital of Montgomery, authorities said. The shooting started shortly after 10.30pm on Saturday.

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Deadly storms and tornadoes kill at least 29 people in several US states

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Monster storm system struck at least eight states over the weekend, prompting at least 50 preliminary reports of tornadoes

As many as 29 people have been killed after a slew of tornadoes tore through parts of the southern and midwestern US in recent days, leaving immense destruction and debris in its path, according to officials.

A monster storm system struck at least eight states over the weekend, prompting at least 50 preliminary reports of tornadoes. The states affected include Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Delaware and Alabama.

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Mississippi tornado: death toll of 25 highest in the state in 21st century

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Fatalities from tornado the worst in 50 years, with more severe storms expected in the region on Sunday

Devastating storms and at least one large tornado which ripped through rural Mississippi on Friday night left 25 people dead in the state, dozens injured and rescue workers hauling people from rubble throughout Saturday, as the state reeled from its highest tornado-related death toll in decades.

Severe weather pounded several southern states overnight as the centers of destruction emerged on Saturday morning as the small, majority Black towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City in the Mississippi delta.

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‘We have to remain vigilant’: Biden warns of ‘hate and extremism’ in the US

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The president spoke in Selma at the site of ‘Bloody Sunday’ that led to passage of historic voting rights legislation nearly 60 years ago

Joe Biden paid tribute to the heroes of the “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march nearly 60 years ago and used its annual commemoration to warn of an ongoing threat to US democracy from election deniers and the erosion of voting rights.

The US president joined thousands of people in Selma, Alabama to mark the movement that led to the passage of landmark voting rights legislation shortly after peaceful marchers were brutally attacked by law enforcement on a bridge though town.

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Remains found in car in creek identified as US student who went missing in 1976

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Ford Pinto found in Alabama belonged to Kyle Clinkscales, 22, who disappeared nearly 50 years ago

Skeletal remains inside a car discovered in a creek a little more than a year ago belonged to an Auburn University student who had disappeared in 1976, authorities have confirmed, closing the book on a missing person case that had puzzled investigators for nearly five decades.

Kyle Clinkscales, 22, was last seen alive at a bar where he worked in his home town of LaGrange, Georgia, on the night of 27 January 1976. He was planning to drive back to school in Alabama about 35 miles away in his white 1974 Ford Pinto, but he never arrived.

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Alabama takes steps toward using nitrogen as new execution method

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But critics decry death penalty ‘experimentation’ that state is developing after a series of botched lethal injections

Alabama is close to completing a protocol that will use nitrogen gas as a new form of execution in the state, officials have said, amid warnings from advocacy groups that it is an experimental move after botched lethal injections.

On Wednesday, Alabama commissioner John Hamm, who heads the state’s prison systems, told the Associated Press, “We’re close. We’re close,” in reference to the new execution method. Hamm added that the protocol should be completed by the end of this year.

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US airport worker warned before being sucked into jet engine

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Alabama crew had ‘safety huddle’ about how to move around the plane and employee who was killed received warning to stay back

A worker at an airport in Alabama who died after being sucked into a jet engine this past New Year’s Eve had been warned repeatedly about the dangers of going near it, federal investigators revealed this week.

The Montgomery regional airport employee, along with other colleagues of the facility’s ground crew, had undergone a “safety huddle” about how to move around the plane at the center of the case 10 minutes before it arrived at the gate on 31 December, and there was another similar briefing just before the aircraft arrived at the gate, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a report Monday.

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Town where Martin Luther King Jr made historic march reels from tornado

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Residents of Selma, Alabama, find resilience in civil rights leader’s legacy as US marks MLK Day

As the US marked Martin Luther King Jr Day on Monday, the town of Selma, Alabama, that hosted his historic 1965 march was still reeling from a tornado that destroyed buildings, swept away roofs and tossed around mobile homes.

Thursday’s twister in Selma was categorized as EF-2, indicating “significant”, and about 40 miles away in Autauga county, where it claimed seven lives – including four from the same family – it was EF-3 or “severe”.

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