Oct 21, 2024

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We've been hearing all about Georgia's record-breaking surge of early voters, some heading to the polls weeks before the Nov. 5 Election Day. Across another state line, some Florida precincts begin voting today.

That remains a foreign concept in Alabama. And AL.com's John Sharp reports that key players in the state would like things to stay like they are.

Alabama is now one of only three states in the union that don't have early voting. Mississippi and New Hampshire are the other two.

Last week, Alabama's top election official, Secretary of State Wes Allen, reinforced his position on the issue: “Since before I was elected as Secretary of State, I have been clear that I believe in Election Day, not election month.”

Some Democrats in recent years have sponsored bills that would introduce early voting, but such a measure would need GOP support in Alabama's Republican-controlled Legislature. Republican state party chair John Wahl said Alabama doesn't need early voting for the reasons other states do. He said the state is able to count all its votes on Election Day and that absentee voting takes care of voters who can't make it to their polling place on the big day.

“Whenever possible, we should have Election Day, not Election Month,” he said.

Especially around fireworks holidays such as the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve, you hear police and public officials warn people not to fire guns into the air. Of course, that holds for very day of the year. A basic understanding of physics tells us why.

And we ought not take for granted that we won't get caught, either.

On Friday night, a girl sitting in a car outside Rip Hewes Stadium in Dothan was struck by a bullet, reports AL.com's Heather Gann.

Police said she was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

By then the investigation was underway. There were reports of gunfire on a nearby street, and the direction matched up with the bullet's angle of entry into the vehicle. Police say they obtained a search warrant for a house and inside found a 9mm and ammunition that matched casings they had found out in the street.

Police arrested two people on unrelated charges while they await forensic testing.

A steel processing plant north of Mobile faces a $750,000 fine and three years' probation, reports Margaret Kates for the Mobile Register.

AM/NS Calvert pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act. The company admitted to knowingly failing to report a violation regarding emissions back in 2017. U.S. District Court Judge Kristi DuBose handed down the sentence last week.

The company also reached a 2018 civil settlement with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

Longtime Mobile news anchor Mel Showers has passed away, reports AL.com's Heather Gann.

Showers was at WKRG-TV for nearly 50 years beginning as a part-timer in 1969. He became co-anchor of the station's morning show in 1981 and began anchoring the evening news in 1990.

He's an Alabama Broadcasters Association Hall of Famer and a winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Journalist of Distinction Award.

Mel Showers was 78 years old.

Here are the answers and results to Friday's Alabama news quiz:

In a civil case regarding Alabama's purging of voter rolls, a federal judge ordered Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen to:

Pause the program until after the Nov. 5 election 69.1%

End the program 26.4%

Turn the program over to the attorney general 4.5%

Hand-deliver ballots to everyone in the state regardless of voting status 0.0%

Country superstar Clint Black will headline Mobile's New Year's Eve celebration, which also features the dropping of this item.

MoonPie 95.5%

Replica battleship 3.0%

Goo Goo Cluster 1.1%

Mosquito 0.4%

This marching band has been invited to perform at the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade:

The Marching Pride of the University of North Alabama 55.8%

The Maroon & White Band of Alabama A&M 22.3%

The Marching Southerners of Jacksonville State University 11.3%

The Sound of the South of Troy University 10.6%

Lilly Ledbetter, the namesake of the 2009 Fair Pay Act, which broadened recourse for victims of sex-based pay discrimination, dies this past week. Her original lawsuit stemmed from her employment at this Alabama workplace.

The Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden 92.8%

The Walmart in Enterprise 3.4%

Farm Fresh Foods in Guntersville 1.9%

The Dixie Mafia in Phenix City 1.9%

This week Alabamians could see the comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which was passing through our little corner of the universe for the first time in more than 80,000 years. To see it, which general direction did you need to look?

West 43.8%

North 32.5%

East 12.8%

South 10.9%

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