College football practice has begun, Nick Saban is jovially asking the media to rate him, and it’s Friday.

I almost hate to interrupt this feel-good groove with news, but that’s why we’re here …

Rocket updates

The Saturn 1B rocket at the north Alabama welcome center along I-65 is being prepped for disassembly, reports AL.com’s Paul Gattis.

Bids are out for taking down the rocket, but the U.S. Space & Rocket Center expects the work to be done by the end of October. The rocket is four decades old, and it’s been determined that fixing it up would not be cost-effective.

Meanwhile, symbols of rocket history is hardly going away from the Huntsville area.

The rocket center has broken ground on a new park dedicated to Huntsville rockets. The rockets to be displayed were had been at the rocket center and are currently being restored.

The new park, a $7.9 million project according to the rocket center, will also include a mock-up of the Space Launch System that is currently being managed by Marshall Space Flight Center.

EPA vs. coal ash

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided that the state of Alabama’s plan for coal-ash permitting doesn’t do enough to protect rivers and drinking water, reports AL.com’s Dennis Pillion.

Coal ash contains toxins known to be dangerous and possibly cancer-causing.

The EPA said it let the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, ADEM, know about the issues it has with the permitting plan but that the state hasn’t made any changes to address the concerns, so now it has proposed a formal rejection of the plan.

If that goes through, it means power plants will have to meet federal regulations instead of the state ones, and that’s likely to result in utilities being forced to remove millions of tons of wet coal ash slurry from unlined ponds near rivers in the state.

ADEM has said its coal-ash permits are not less protective than the federal standards.

MLB at Rickwood

Next year’s Major League Baseball game at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field now has an official promotional name.

“MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues” was revealed Thursday at the historic ballpark, reports AL.com’s Greg Garrison. On June 20, 2024, the St. Louis Cardinals will play the San Francisco Giants.

Also announced was the return of the Rickwood Classic, which had been an annual game last played in 2019 in which the Birmingham Barons return to Rickwood, their former home, for a regular-season game. Next year’s Rickwood Classic will take place two days before the the “MLB at Rickwood” game and feature the Barons and Montgomery Biscuits.

Picture this

Thunderstorms caused damage across parts of Alabama Thursday and left tens of thousands without power. The Gadsden area was particularly hard-hit. This photo was taken on Noccalula Road. (William Thornton/AL.com)

By the numbers

108: Home-fire fatalities in Alabama in 2022, according to the Alabama Fire Marshall’s Office. Alabama was tied for the fifth-highest home-fire death rate in 2022 with 1.3 deaths per 100,000 residents.

More Alabama news

Born on this date

In 1941, soul singer Cliff Nobles of Grove Hill.

The podcast

Get this in your email inbox each weekday morning: