May. 05, 2025

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Alabama is set to become the first state with a cell-phone alert system for shark attacks, reports AL.com's John Sharp.

A bill was passed by the legislature late last week, and Gov. Kay Ivey has already indicated she'll sign it.

It's called Lulu's Law, after shark-attack victim Lulu Gribbin of Mountain Brook. She lost a leg and a hand after being attacked a couple hours after another shark attack took place a few miles away in the Florida Panhandle.

The system will work like Amber Alerts, sending an alert to cell phones in the area when a shark attack is reported.

State Sen. Vivian Figures, a Mobile Democrat, proposed an amendment to have alerts sent also for shark sightings by some official authority. Republicans shut it down, however, and kept the threshold at attacks.

Where to draw that line could make a dramatic swing in the number of alerts that are sent out. Depending on how hard you're looking, there could be a whole lot of shark sightings along the Gulf Coast. And if it's limited to shark attacks along the Alabama coast ... well, according to the International Shark Attack file, we've had 10 confirmed shark attacks over the past 187 years.

Freshman Congressman Shomari Figures, a Mobile Democrat, has joined with Georgia Republican Congressman Brian Jack on a bill to provide grants up to $5 million for rural hospitals, reports AL.com's Savannah Tryens-Fernandes.

Figures claims that six more rural hospitals could close in his District 2. Take away Mobile and Montgomery hospitals, and it would leave just two others across the 13-counties district.

Rural hospital financial troubles are well-documented in Alabama. A lot of the trouble has been attributed to the cost of serving uninsured patients. For several years Democrats have argued that a solution would be in the expansion of Medicaid in the state.

The final Bo Bikes Bama ride took place over the weekend, reports AL.com's Jerry Humphrey III.

The annual bike ride started the year after the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak. It has raised more than $2.5 million for the Alabama Governor’s Emergency Relief Fund, which has helped repair hundreds of homes and has built dozens of storm shelters over the years.

The finale was a wet one on Saturday. Among the riders reportedly taking place were Desmond Howard and Ken Griffey Jr. The routes were in the Auburn area.

Said Jackson before he pedaled off for Saturday's 60-miler: “This foundation has built a ton of homes, and we have been able to put tornado warning systems in rural areas where there wasn’t any. We have helped rebuild people’s lives and this is what this event is all about.” 

Overall results

Five out of five: 23.1%

Four out of five: 29.8%

Three out of five: 31.3%

Two out of five: 11.4%

One out of five: 3.6%

None out of five: 0.8%

State troopers responded to a call this week concerning a crash on I-85 between Auburn and Tuskegee and this sighted along the roadway.

Kangaroo 95.1%

Alligator 3.6%

Ostrich 1.0%

Sprocket the Trash Pandas mascot 0.3%

A bobcat briefly attacked a man's head in Wilcox County before realizing he'd jumped on a person and leaving. What had the man been doing?

Turkey hunting 70.7%

Cleaning fish 15.5%

Sleeping 11.4%

Playing with a head-sized ball of yarn 2.3%

Ella Langley of Hope Hull was recently named New Female Artist of the Year by the Academy of Country Music. Last year she had a huge hit with what fellow Alabamian?

Riley Green 48.7%

Jason Isbell 39.1%

Jamey Johnson 9.8%

Richard Scrushy 2.3%

According to state Sen. Roger Smitherman, why did he request to have the entire General Fund budget read aloud, taking up the final hours of Tuesday's Legislative workday, before the Senate voted on it?

To slow down the process and spend more time on all Legislation 66.3%

To give a couple of late-arriving Democrats time to make it for the vote 25.9%

To kill time until the budget-signing afterparty at Wind Creek Montgomery 4.1%

So sight-impaired senators could give it one last review 3.6%

Recently, Mobile native Alexis Herman passed away. She had served as the first Black U.S. Secretary of Labor in this president's cabinet.

Bill Clinton 74.1%

George W. Bush 13.2%

Barack Obama 11.7%

Donald Trump 1.0%

“President Trump impersonated a transgender weightlifter in a speech to graduates at the University of Alabama which is a sentence so stupid it couldn’t even get into the University of Alabama.”

Saturday Night Live cast member Michael Che, during the show's “Weekend Update” segment.

In 1967, former NFL fullback Brad Baxter of Dothan.

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