Police confirmed a suspect had been taken into custody after the attack at St Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Birmingham
A shooting at a church in a suburb of one of Alabama’s major cities left two people dead and two others wounded on Thursday, police said, adding a suspect was quickly taken into custody.
The shooting erupted inside St Stephen’s Episcopal church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills.
Continue reading...The pair’s disappearance, the first believed to have been captured in Ukraine, would add another layer of complexity to US efforts against Russia
Two American volunteers in Ukraine have gone missing and are feared to have been taken prisoner by Russia, officials and family members said on Wednesday.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, are both US military veterans who had been living in Alabama and went to Ukraine to assist with war efforts. Relatives have been in contact with Senate and House offices seeking information on the men’s whereabouts.
Continue reading...Friends of Vicky White are baffled why she fled with her murder suspect boyfriend, before killing herself as police closed in
Maybe it was because she had endured the loss of two longtime partners over the last several years. Or perhaps she feared – if she didn’t go through with it – her loved ones would be killed.
Whatever the case, James Ballentine hopes there’s a good explanation for why his neighbor of nearly 40 years, Vicky White, ignited a romantic affair with an inmate of the rural Alabama jail where she was the assistant director, and helped him escape, before she shot herself to death as police closed in 11 days later and about 300 miles away. It was a story that captured national and global attention.
Continue reading...A federal judge has blocked part of a law that makes it a felony to give gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones to minors
An Alabama law that makes it a felony to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones to transgender minors has been blocked by a federal judge while affirming other aspects of the state’s “Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act”.
US district judge Liles Burke issued a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the medication ban, which took effect on 8 May, while a lawsuit against the bill goes forward.
Continue reading...Casey Cole White, 38, being held on capital murder charge, and Vicki White left detention center on Friday
The US Marshals Service said on Sunday it was offering up to $10,000 for information about an escaped inmate and a “missing and endangered” correctional officer who disappeared on Friday after the two left a jail in north Alabama.
Casey Cole White, 38, had been jailed on a capital murder charge in the Lauderdale county detention center in Florence, Alabama, about 75 miles west of Huntsville.
Continue reading...Vicki White disappeared while escorting an inmate being held on capital murder charges, and inmate Casey White also missing
A prison official from Alabama was missing after escorting an inmate to a courthouse for a hearing.
The Lauderdale county sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post on Saturday that Vicki White, an assistant director of corrections, disappeared while escorting an inmate being held on capital murder charges. The inmate was also missing.
Continue reading...One criminalizes medical care for trans youth and another requires students to use bathrooms that match birth certificates
The governor of Alabama on Friday signed into law two controversial bills: one that criminalizes healthcare providers who offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth and another that requires students to use bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates.
Kay Ivey, a Republican, said she “believed very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl”.
Continue reading...Elsewhere, a unionization vote by Alabama workers is pending as hundreds of votes were challenged
Amazon workers in New York are close to voting to form a union – a major win for labor activists who have failed in previous efforts to organize at the tech giant that is now the second largest private employer in the US.
Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island will find out on Friday whether or not they want to form a union, Amazon’s first in the US where it now employs over one million people.
Continue reading...Powerful late-winter storm comes with predicted snowfall up to about 13in and potential to cause travel issues and outages
A powerful late-winter storm combining rivers of moisture and frigid temperatures – a phenomenon known to some as a “bomb cyclone” – was expected to dump snow from the US deep south all the way to the Canadian border over the weekend, forecasters said.
With forecast snowfall ranging from about 4in in northern Alabama and Mississippi to about 13in in northern Maine, forecasters expected travel problems and power outages across much of the eastern US.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Continue reading...US vice president takes to Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama as congressional efforts to restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act falter
US vice president Kamala Harris visited Selma, Alabama on Sunday to commemorate a defining moment in the fight for the right to vote, making her trip as congressional efforts to restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act have faltered.
Under a blazing blue sky, Harris took the stage at the foot of the bridge where in 1965 white state troopers attacked Black voting rights marchers attempting to cross.
Continue reading...The sheriff of Macon county, Alabama, thought he was too strong and healthy to worry. Then he got Covid
Every morning before the dew has dried on Andre Brunson’s 80 acres of land along Alabama’s Uphapee Creek, he swings his pickup truck out on to the gravel road leading from his house in Alabama.
When heading for his eight-hour shift, he packs his bulletproof vest, gun, flashlight and now – since coronavirus sent him to the hospital in January – an asthma inhaler and a nebulizer.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands in US face evacuation orders as storm makes first landfall in Cuba, sparking fears of floods and mudslides
Hurricane Ida rapidly gained strength on Friday evening as communities in southern Louisiana braced for a major category 4 storm with sustained winds of about 140mph and tens of thousands of residents were placed under mandatory evacuation orders.
The hurricane is due to make landfall in the US on Sunday, with officials warning of a “life-altering storm”. The cities of New Orleans and Lafayette, as well as the state capital, Baton Rouge, are under threat from Ida, which is forecast to reach the US somewhere between the parishes of Terrebone and St Mary, slightly west of New Orleans.
Continue reading...Former president held rally in Cullman, Alabama, a city struggling to cope with cases and hospitalisations
At his rally in Alabama on Saturday night, Donald Trump heard the unusual sound of booing and jeering aimed his way, after he told supporters: “I recommend taking the vaccines.”
Related: Tennessee radio host who criticised vaccine efforts dies of Covid-19
Continue reading...Ex-president to support of Mo Brooks, who is running for Senate and sympathised with man who threatened to blow up US Capitol
Donald Trump was due to stage a rally in Alabama on Saturday night, in a city that has declared a Covid emergency and in support of a congressman who both backed Trump’s attempt to overturn the election and this week sympathised with a man who threatened to blow up the US Capitol.
Related: Capitol bomb claim suspect charged with weapon of mass destruction threat
Continue reading...Covid-19 hospitalizations continued to surge among America’s deep south states on Monday as health officials urge unvaccinated residents to receive the shot and intensive care units near capacity in multiple locations, prompting fears of a surge close to the numbers of last winter.
The state of Louisiana now leads the nation in new Covid cases as the Delta variant rips through a region with some of the lowest vaccination rates in the US. Last Friday, the Louisiana department of health announced a daily increase of 6,116 positive Covid cases, with 2,421 people now hospitalized with the virus including 277 on ventilators. With just 37% of residents fully vaccinated, state data indicated that unvaccinated people accounted for 90% of hospitalizations in the state. 181 people died from the virus in Louisiana last week.
Continue reading...Daily Covid-19 cases in the US moved above 100,000 a day for the first time since February, higher than the levels of last summer when vaccines were not available, and came as health officials sounded alarm over lagging rates of vaccination driving the surge of the infectious Delta variant.
The seven-day average of hospital admissions has also increased more than 40% from the week before, with health workers describing frustration and exhaustion as hospitals in Covid hotspots were again overwhelmed with patients, almost 20 months into the pandemic in the US.
Continue reading...Alabama’s Kay Ivey says surge in new infections is due to a reluctance among many in state to get inoculated
The Republican governor of Alabama has said it is “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for rising cases of Covid-19, amid concern that months of misinformation over the need and efficacy of vaccines is fueling a resurgence of coronavirus infections in several states.
Kay Ivey said that vaccines are “the greatest weapon we have to fight Covid” and added that a surge in new cases of the coronavirus in Alabama is due to a reluctance among many people in the state to get inoculated.
Continue reading...Ten people died in 15-vehicle crash, including eight children from youth home, and two more people died when a tree fell on their house
Eight children travelling in a van from a home for abused or neglected children have been killed in a multi-vehicle crash that also killed a man and his baby in another vehicle as tropical depression Claudette claimed 13 lives in Alabama.
The crash happened on Saturday about 35 miles (55km) south of Montgomery and was likely caused by vehicles hydroplaning in very wet conditions, authorities said.
Continue reading...Health experts emphasize need for even those who have had disease to get inoculated
New cases of Covid-19 are declining across most of the US, even in some states with vaccine-hesitant populations.
But almost all states where cases are rising have lower-than-average vaccination rates and experts warned on Sunday that relief from the coronavirus pandemic could be fleeting in regions where few people get inoculated.
Continue reading...Ray Lambert, a US army medic who survived multiple wounds on D-Day and was saluted by a president on the 75th anniversary of the battle, died on Friday. He was 100.
Lambert died at home in Seven Lakes, North Carolina, with his wife and daughter by his side, said neighbor and friend Dr Darrell Simpkins. The physician, who accompanied Lambert to France in June 2019, said the veteran succumbed to an aggressive form of facial cancer and congestive heart failure.
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