General News

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Former Hewitt-Trussville star Steele Hall signs with Reds

Former Hewitt-Trussville star Steele Hall is officially a major league baseball player.

The Cincinnati Reds announced Friday they had signed the No. 9 overall pick. He signed for $5.75 million, according to MLB.com.

Hall, who started his high school career at Daphne before transferring to Hewitt-Trussville prior to his sophomore season, was named Alabama’s Mr. Baseball in June by the Alabama Sports Writers Association.

The Class 7A Player of the Year hit .484 for the Huskies this spring with eight home runs, 14 doubles, 35 RBIs and 46 runs scored. He also was the MaxPreps Alabama Player of the Year.

Hall is the earliest pick straight from an Alabama high school since pitcher Braxton Garrett from Florence to the Miami Marlins at No. 7 in 2016. The only other higher picks straight from an Alabama high school in the main summer draft are shortstop Condredge Holloway from Lee-Huntsville to the Montreal Expos at No. 4 in 1971 and pitcher Rick James from Coffee-Florence to the Chicago Cubs at No. 6 in 1965.

Hall, who reclassified, is still only 17

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Suspect charged with murder after Birmingham man found dead in Ensley alley

Birmingham police investigate a deadly shooting in the 700 block of 17th Street in Ensley.

A suspect has been charged in the shooting death of a man found in an Ensley alley.

Julius Earl Johnson, 57, is charged with murder in the Thursday slaying of 38-year-old Corey Lavel Tremble.

The Birmingham Police Department’s Crime Reduction Team took Johnson into custody Friday in the 2200 block of 47th Street in Ensley.

Johnson is also charged with certain persons forbidden to possess a firearm.

A passerby found Tremble unresponsive in the 700 block of 17th Street shortly before 3 a.m. Thursday.

Police and firefighters responded to the alley, where Tremble was pronounced dead at 3:37 a.m.

A motive has not been disclosed.

Johnson remains jailed without bond.

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Jackson 4-star QB Landon Duckworth commits to South Carolina again

Jackson 4-star quarterback Landon Duckworth made it official Friday night, recommitting to South Carolina during a ceremony in Jackson.

Duckworth originally committed to the Gamecocks in August of 2023 before decommitting in June of 2024. He chose South Carolina over Auburn this time around.

He is the latest of a flurry of Aggies committing to Power 4 schools, including RB EJ Crowell to Alabama and WR Keeyun Chapman and DBs Keegan Chapman and Jamarrion Gordon to North Carolina.

“He still does things that impress me every day,” Jackson coach Cody Flournoy said of Duckworth earlier this summer. “I’m a defensive guy by trade. So, I’m out there in the spring and summer trying to defend him and he frustrates me so bad because he makes it look so easy. He hits all his passes, reads all the coverages and, if you do have it covered, he just takes off running. It’s hard to defend.”

Duckworth helped Jackson to the Class 4A state football title in 2024 and was named the Back of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association. He completed 67 percent of his passes for 3,439 yards and 39 touchdowns and rushed for 648 yards and 12 TDs. This summer, he was one of the standout performers in the prestigious Elite 11 quarterback competition.

“What you see is what you get,” Flournoy said. “The thing I love most about him is just the kind of person he is. He’s a nice, good dude. He is always smiling, loves to be around people. He has that infectious, happy personality.”

The 6-foot-4 Duckworth is No. 5 on AL.com’s A-List of the top senior prospects in Alabama and on the 247Sports Composite rankings. He is the No. 6-ranked quarterback nationally.

Duckworth also was named the Coastal Alabama Male Athlete of the Year after helping the Jackson basketball team to its second straight state title and participating in Jackson’s winning 4X100 relay team.

Duckworth and Jackson are scheduled to open the season Aug. 22 by hosting Class 6A power Saraland.

More recruiting news

Bessemer City four-star defensive lineman Emanuel Ruffin announced an offer from Penn State. The 6-foot-4, 290-pound rising senior also holds offers that include Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Ohio State, USC, Tennessee and Florida.

North Alabama offered Good Hope tight end Tucker Screws and Deshler linebacker Dayton Sanford.

In basketball, Park Crossing star Maliyah Meeks has picked up plenty of Division I traction in the last few days. Since Tuesday, she’s announced offers from North Alabama, UAB, Akron, Buffalo, Norfolk State, North Carolina A&T, Western Michigan, UT-Martin and Pennsylvania.

Bob Jones standout Elise McClain added a Division I offer from Howard. She also holds offers that include Alabama A&M, Seton Hall and NC Central.

Hoover star Kristen Winston added an offer from Maryland to her growing list of Division I schools.

In softball, Hazel Green’s Khloe Hunter committed to UAH on Tuesday.

AL.com sports writer Thomas Ashworth contributed to this report.

This post will be updated

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Teacher at Alabama Christian school accused of sex with female student

An Alabama teacher is accused of having sexual relationship with an underage student.

Sarah Huggins Logan, 35, is charged with school employee engaging in a sex act, Tuscaloosa County Violent Crimes Unit officials announced Friday.

Sheriff’s office investigators on Wednesday received a report from the parents of a student at North River Christian Academy, said Capt. Jack Kennedy.

The parents reported they had discovered their juvenile daughter had been involved in a sexual relationship with a teacher. The school teaches students in grades pre-K through 12th.

TCVU’s Sexual Assault Section assumed the investigation.

After conducting interviews and recovering evidence, they obtained warrants for Logan. She was taken into custody Friday.

Kennedy said the school has cooperated in the investigation, and Logan is no longer employed at the school.

The investigation is ongoing, and more charges are expected.

There is a possibility of other victims, Kennedy said, and anyone who was a victim or has further information is asked to call the investigators at 205-464-8690.

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Astronomer places Andy Byron, Kristin Cabot on leave after viral Coldplay scandal

Just hours after Astronomer posted a statement they would launch an investigation in CEO Andy Byron and chief people officer Kristin Cabot caught in an embrace at a Coldplay concert, it is being reported both have been put on leave pending the investigation.

Axios, citing a source familiar with the situation, first reported the news.

In addition, the company said the Byron apology circulating on social media was is fake and another employee, Alyssa Stoddard, who many had misidentified, was not at the event.

“Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding,” the statement read earlier Friday. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability. The Board of Directors has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.”

The statement comes after Coldplay’s Chris Martin pointed out if the two who ducked out of the way of the camera were “having an affair or (are) just very shy.”

Byron and Cabot – both married – were those identified in the video. Byron ducked out of the frame while Cabot covered her face and turned around.

Byron became CEO of Astronomer in 2023, whereas Cabot, according to her now-defunct LinkedIn, joined Astronomer in November 2024.

Astronomer is a private data infrastructure and operations company.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.

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Amazon warns 200 million Prime customers of recent login info scam

Fake emails claiming your Amazon Prime subscription will automatically renew are being sent to customers’ inbox.

According to reports, more than 200 million have been warned by Amazon.

In some instances, the email may include personal information, tempting customers to believe in the legitimacy of the email. In fact, as Malwarebytes reports, some emails include a “cancel subscription.” Others, as seen here, show an “update payment method” button.

If a scammer gets your information, they have access to details they can use to login to the Amazon site and purchase items.

“We’ve recently noticed an increase in customers reporting fake emails about Amazon Prime membership subscriptions. We want to help you stay protected by sharing important information about these scams,” Amazon’s warnings said.

Here’s what you can do:

  • If you receive an email, don’t click on the links.
  • If you are unsure, Malwarebytes suggest checking the “Message Centre” under your account. All company-issued messages appear here as well.
  • Report the scam to Amazon.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.

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Remembering one of the state’s most dominant runs of championship success

It’s not only one of the most dominant runs in Alabama high school sports, but it’s etched in national volleyball history.

AL.com fans overwhelmingly voted Bayside Academy’s record of 21 consecutive championships as the most unbreakable record in AHSAA volleyball history.

Tuesday’s poll of the most unbreakable records, which included five additional historic marks, saw the Admirals’ championship streak garner 92% of the overall vote.

RELATED: Remembering a historic prep career for one of the state’s top basketball stars

Bayside Academy’s mark of 21 state championships is the longest in high school girls volleyball history and one of 31 programs in the nation to win at least 20 state titles in a row.

The longest streak of state titles by any team is Jackson (Miss.) Prep’s boys and girls swimming team, which won 45 titles from 1974 to 2018.

Bayside Academy’s streak is 21 of the program’s AHSAA-record 31 titles, with 28 coming under Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame inductee Ann Schilling.

A historic streak began in the 2002 season, when Bayside Academy was a Class 2A program after previously winning eight state titles in Class 1A and two more in 2A; the Admirals’ first championship came in 1981, 11 years after the school was founded.

The current count of Bayside Academy’s state championships by classification is…

Class 6A: 1

Class 5A: 2

Class 4A: 2

Class 3A: 10

Class 2A: 9

Class 1A: 6

Before the streak was snapped with a loss to eventual Class 6A champion Mountain Brook in the 2023 state semifinals, Bayside’s 2001 championship loss to Geraldine was the last time the Admirals didn’t come home with a championship.

Now, the Admirals are among the ranks of Class 7A and playing in their seventh classification as a program.

Last season saw the Admirals go 32-12 with a loss to eventual Class 7A runner-up Bob Jones in the state tournament, also landing a pair of all-state nods in Grier Broughton and Haley Robinson.

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Alabama parole board accepts new guidelines, will allow inmates to submit videos

Alabama may soon let prisoners have a say at their parole hearings, but their original crime will carry more weight under new guidelines.

The three-member Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles voted on Thursday to adopt new guidelines for who should be released from the state’s overcrowded prisons.

The new guidelines are stricter in terms of how they rank an inmate for parole readiness, weighing the inmate’s original crime more heavily than the previous guidelines and putting more emphasis on behavior in prison.

“Alabama already has one of the lowest parole grant rates in the country and one of the highest violent crime rates,” said attorney Lauren Faraino, who has gone before the board many times to argue for clients to be released on parole.

“If endless incarceration worked, we’d be the safest state in America. This isn’t reform. It’s regression. Its fear-driven policy cloaked in bureaucratic language. And it’s going to keep making Alabama citizens less safe.”

State law requires the board to look at the parole guidelines as an aide to decide who to release, but doesn’t require the board to follow the guidelines’ recommendations.

The proposed guidelines were released in May, and Alabamians were encouraged to submit comments to the board for review until July 4. After the review period, the board made several small changes to the guidelines before adopting them. According to the bureau, which supervises the 45,000 people on probation, parole and other supervised release throughout the state, there were 53 responses during the public comment period.

The initial revisions primarily concern how the board should weigh an inmate’s behavior and disciplinary record, their participation in treatment and programs while in prison, and their original offense.

Board members accepted one of the changes that came from a comment asking to add education completed while in prison as a factor.

Another change they accepted was an ask to add status for inmates who were juvenile offenders at the time of their offense.

The bureau also said the board was working on a standardized process for all inmates up for parole to have the option to submit a prerecorded video statement. That change would mean inmates would have a say in their hearing, as currently Alabama doesn’t allow incarcerated people to attend their own parole hearings.

Currently, some lawyers who are familiar with the board’s process do create videos of their incarcerated clients. But it’s rare, and inmates without a lawyer to bring a laptop into the prison aren’t afforded the same opportunity.

The guidelines update comes several years after they were due by state law. But today the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles — a separate entity from the board — said the guidelines were “considered” to be revised in early 2024 but the board “voted to make no changes at that time.”

At a meeting with lawmakers from the bipartisan Joint Prison Oversight Committee in the fall of 2024, then-parole board Chairperson Leigh Gwathney talked about the board’s existing guidelines, which Gwathney said were set in 2018 prior to her appointment and had last been revised in 2020.

At the time, Gwathney said that she didn’t know who set them or their reasoning.

Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, pointed out at the meeting that Alabama law requires the board to review the guidelines every three years, seek public comment and share them on the parole board website. “You’re about two years overdue,” said England at that October meeting.

“Fair enough,” Gwathney replied.

At the time, she said the guidelines revision was an “ongoing conversation.”

Gov. Kay Ivey did not reappoint Gwathney to the parole board when her term expired this summer. Her new man for the job, Hal Nash, had his first day at the board on Tuesday. Nash most recently worked as the former chief corrections deputy for Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

How the guidelines work

The parole guidelines consist of a scoresheet, with numbers correlating to how someone fits into the score that can show if a person would be a good candidate for parole. The higher someone scores, the less likely they are to be recommended for parole.

The old guidelines recommended inmates with a score of up to 7 be recommended for parole, and over 8 be denied. The revised guidelines make it slightly tougher to get a positive recommendation. They call for a score of up to 5 be recommended for parole, but a score of 6 to 8 would now be considered neutral and could be recommended for either a grant or denial. A score over 9 would be grounds for a denial.

Other guideline changes in the revised version posted on the bureau’s website revolve around behavior in prison. Previously, the guidelines scored an inmate based on if they had no disciplinaries, and how many violent or non-violent ones were accumulated throughout the year. The revised guidelines make a disciplinary offense involving violence within the last 12 months a score of 3, versus the previous score of 2.

The prior guidelines rank the severity of an inmate’s original offense as ‘low’, ‘moderate’, or ‘high’, with ‘low’ scoring a zero and ‘high’ scoring a 2. The new guidelines put more weight on some original crimes, proposing the scoring of a ‘low’ offense as a 1 and adding a ‘very high’ offense level with a score of 4.

Sex offenses will now be considered as ‘very high,’ while any case with a victim must be scored as ‘high’ or ‘very high.’ Felony crimes involving injury will be considered ‘very high,’ too.

Under the previous leadership, the parole board had long ignored its own guidelines. In 2023, the board finished the year with a staggering 8% parole rate — the lowest in recent years. That same year, the board’s own guidelines recommended about an 80% grant rate. In 2024, the parole rate jumped to 20%, but the guidelines still suggested between 75%-90% of eligible applicants be paroled.

The board is on track for a 21% grant rate this year.

Faraino said the new guidelines will not improve the board’s grant rate.

“These revised parole guidelines are nothing more than fear masquerading as policy,” she said.

“This cannot be what the legislature had in mind when it called for a review of the guidelines. In any other area of public life, we would never accept a scoring system this flawed, this slanted, and this untethered from results.”

According to Friday’s press release, there will be a review committee to see how the guidelines work once they’re enacted. The committee was established “to support the Board in analyzing parole data and its relationship to the revised guidelines” and will meet every three months to assess the guidelines and provide insights.

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Alabama police find man wanted for sex crimes living in a church hundreds of miles away

DeKalb County investigators on Wednesday arrested a man wanted for multiple sex crimes in Mobile County.

Christopher Keith Nichelson,47, of Fort Payne, was discovered living in a church in DeKalb County.

On Wednesday, July 16, investigators received information from an anonymous caller that Nichelson, who was wanted in Mobile County, was living in a church in DeKalb County, according to a recent release.

They determined that Nichelson had arrest warrants out of Mobile County for sodomy first degree, rape first degree, and sex abuse of child less than twelve.

Upon arrival at the church, officers found Nichelson sitting in his vehicle.

Nichelson was detained and told investigators that his name was “Kevin,” according to the release.

Once Nichelson’s identity was confirmed, he was arrested for his warrants and is scheduled to be extradited back to Mobile County.

The church where Nichelson was staying was not involved in hiding him from law enforcement and they were fully cooperative, investigators said.

They were unaware that he was wanted and Nichelson was not around children during the time he was living at the church, according to the release.

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Birmingham public radio faces ‘uncharted future’ after ‘devastating’ funding cuts

Birmingham’s public radio station, WBHM, will lose 10% of its annual operating budget under a bill passed by Congress early Friday.

Lawmakers voted to rescind $1.1 billion in funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

“Community support has always been the backbone of public media, and now it’s everything,” WBHM executive director Will Dahlberg said.

“Following the decision by Congress to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WBHM and public media stations across the country enter into an uncharted future.

“This is a devastating decision for the millions of people who rely on public media every single day, including those in and around the heart of Alabama.”

Dahlberg said the bill, backed by President Trump, would leave WBHM with a nearly $400,000 budget gap over the next two years.

“While there is a lot to figure out in the days ahead, the commitment of the WBHM team to serve our community will not change, even if the formula for how we carry out that mission does,” Dahlberg said.

Wayne Reid, executive director of Alabama Public Television, said APT would lost just over $2.8 million, about 13% of its budget.

The bill cancelled a total of $9 billion – the money for public broadcasting plus $7.9 billion in foreign aid.

Republicans were almost unanimous in passing the bill by narrow margins over united opposition from Democrats.

The bill passed the House 216-213 early Friday.

Alabama’s five Republican members – Reps. Robert Aderholt, Barry Moore, Gary Palmer, Mike Rogers, and Dale Strong – all voted in favor of the bill.

“I’ve long called for NPR’s funding to be cut – your taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to promote left-wing propaganda. I am proud to work with my Republican colleagues to restore fiscal sanity,” Strong posted on social media.

The two Democrats – Reps. Shomari Figures and Terri Sewell – voted no.

All but two Republicans voted in favor of the bill and all Democrats opposed.

Friday was the deadline to pass the bill, or the funds would have been released.

The Senate had passed the bill 51-48 on Thursday. Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville voted in favor of it.

It goes to Trump, who can sign it into law.

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