WEST ALABAMA MONDAY BRIEFING
It is Monday, July 17, 2023, and another work week is underway, but this week it begins without a severe weather threat or a heat alert. However, as the week progresses, the combination of increasing temperatures and high humidity could produce afternoon heat indices near 105 or higher Wednesday through Friday.
Today will be mostly sunny with highs in the low to mid-90s. Tonight mostly clear skies will have a low in the low 70s.
Topping the News:
The Alabama Legislature begins a special session to redraw congressional districts. The U-S Supreme Court has ordered state lawmakers to create a 2nd majority/minority district to end gerrymandering in Alabama. The high court ruled the current map violated voting rights law. The deadline to complete the task is Friday.
Tuscaloosa Police are continuing to investigate a shooting at Jaycee Park on Kicker Road Saturday night. Officers were called to the park around 9:13 p.m., just hours after the Alberta Unity Day event ended. When they arrived on the scene, they found a man in a park restroom who had been shot. He was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center with life threatening injuries. No other information has been released.
Carlethia “Carlee” Russell is back home, two days after she went missing on I459 in Jefferson County. On Saturday she was found alive and taken to UAB Hospital. Questions still surround her disappearance.
You may have noticed a hazy tint to the sky this morning. It is smoke from those huge ongoing Canadian wildfires that has made its way south. Satellite maps show the smoke covering all of West Alabama but ABC3340 Chief Meteorologist James Spann tells us it will remain at elevation and not impact air quality. Also, for the next few days, minor flooding from last week’s torrential rains will continue along the Sucarnoochee River at Livingston.
The Tuscaloosa City School system is hosting a job fair between 10 and 2 today at Central High School on 15th Street. The system is looking to hire some 30 certified teachers and 30 support personnel. Interviews will be conducted during the event.
The back-to-school sales tax holiday will be just after midnight Friday morning and run through midnight Sunday night this coming weekend. A release from the Alabama Retail Association says this year marks the seventh time the annual tax holiday will take place during the third weekend of July. For a full list of eligible and noneligible items, click here.
On the U.S House floor West Alabama Democrat Congresswoman Terri Sewell is speaking out against six Republican amendments to the defense budget she is calling extremism. She claims they attack diversity and inclusion in the military. Sewell voted against the defense budget because she claims the GOP amendments rip basic healthcare away from service members and make bigotry and discrimination a centerpiece of defense policy.
60-year-old John A. Mills of Navoo in Walker County, was killed yesterday in a one car crash on Alabama 69 in Cullman County. His vehicle left the roadway and struck a tree. He was not wearing a seatbelt.
In Sports:
The countdown to the college football season officially begins today when the four-day SEC Media Days gets underway this morning in Nashville, First up is LSU Coach Brian Kelley, followed by Missouri Coach Eliah Drinkwitz with Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher rounding out day one. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey will begin the day with a state of the conference address.
Auburn Coach Hugh Freeze is tomorrow. Tide Coach Nick Saban appears Wednesday.
Have a magnificent Monday!!
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