Warming real-estate market

Home sales in Alabama jumped higher in July, reports AL.com’s Margaret Kates.

With the Federal Reserve expected to loosen the money supply next month, mortgage interest rates began their adjustment downward last month, with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate falling nearly a quarter point to 6.73%. That led to 6,316 home sales during the month — a 13.1-percent increase over June’s total.

While home sale are only a 0.9-percent increase over July 2023, it’s the first month to see a year-over-year increase since the Fed started raising rates in 2022 to fight inflation.

Not this year

A judge’s order clarified that a new law disqualifying some felons from voting won’t go into effect until after this election, reports AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz.

The law was originally written to affect people convicted of crimes against election workers and election officials, and it was amended to include other felons, including those convicted of attempted crimes.

The law included an implementation date of Oct. 1, well before the Nov. 5 election. But a fairly new Alabama Constitutional amendment says that laws affecting elections can’t change within six months of an election.

So two men convicted of attempted murder filed a lawsuit requesting the law not go into effect until after the election. Attorney General Steve Marshall indicated in court filings last week that the new law will be enforced beginning Nov. 6. That led the Montgomery County Circuit Court judge to dismiss the case since their disqualifications were no longer in effect.

Welcome home, Lulu

Shark attack survivor Lulu Gribbin is headed home to Mountain Brook on Saturday, reports AL.com’s Greg Garrison.

15-year-old Lulu’s been in hospitals since June 7, when she and a friend were bitten off a Walton County, Florida, beach. Another woman, Elisabeth Foley, lost a foot that day in an attack a few miles away.

Lulu lost her left hand and most of her right leg. She’s gone through weeks of physical therapy and has been learning to use a prosthetic hand and leg.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, folks are going to wear purple clothes and line the roadways from Bromberg’s in Mountain Brook, along Montevallo Road then Church Street in the Crestline neighborhood. That’s the route Lulu and her family will be taking home.

By the Numbers

8,000

That’s how many books the Ozark Dale County Library staff reviewed in order to make sure they complied with new guidelines from the Alabama Public Library Service. The library closed for four weeks for the work. The staff found no books in the library’s collection with obscene, sexually explicit or other materials deemed inappropriate for minors.

More Alabama News

Born on This Date

In 1907, character actor Oliver McGowan of Kipling.

In 1947, former Congressman Bud Cramer of Huntsville.

In 1947, former Grateful Dead singer Donna Godchaux of Florence.

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