Opinion & Policy

  Welcome to 2025! I am really looking forward to a great year. The Wilsons and I held a “briefing” earlier this week to review our travels from 2024 and to look at the trips we have planned for 2025. So far we have plans for a cruise to the Virgin Islands, a big trip…

    Special to the News Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen convened the Meeting of the Electors for the 2024 General Election, where nine electors cast their votes for Donald Trump for president and JD Vance for vice president. “It is a privilege to be tasked with convening the Meeting of the Electors under…

  Can you believe Christmas will be next week? Where has this year gone? Since there won’t be an edition of the newspaper next week, I’m going to try to spend next week remembering some of the highlights of this past year. I do know that many of my priorities have changed this year, and…

  205 years ago, our great state was admitted as the 22nd state in the United States. On this 205th birthday, also called “Alabama Day,” I wanted to take time to brag on a few highlights of Alabama’s 205 years. On December 14, 1819, Alabama was officially named a state during a constitutional convention held to organize…

  I hope everyone will be careful today since it is a Friday the thirteenth! Not that I am overly superstitious, but I would rather be safe than sorry. Old wives’ tales die hard and may not be around within younger generations these days, but for us older folks we grew up with them. I…

  There is an important deadline coming up for Alabama and other states at the end of December. The American Rescue Plan’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, which provided federal monies to the states during the pandemic, is coming to an end. The past three years each of the states have gotten an enormous…

  The Alabama Department of Education has just released its annual report card on the academic achievement for each individual school system and the state as a whole. The results are in, and the state has made slight improvements from the year before, but there is still much work to do. The state over all…

  Here we are in December! Can you believe how fast this year has flown by? I can remember when it seemed each year just lasted forever! But I now realize it is a matter of age and your outlook. I am looking forward to 2025, but there are still opportunities to close out this…

Special to the News   Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued the following statement last Thursday night after the execution of Carey Dale Grayson at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore: “Alabama has successfully used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out Carey Grayson’s execution. He was convicted and unanimously sentenced to death for the…

Special to the News   Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued the following statement last Thursday night after the execution of Carey Dale Grayson at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore: “Alabama has successfully used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out Carey Grayson’s execution. He was convicted and unanimously sentenced to death for the…