Bundle up and take our weekly quiz: Down in Alabama
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(Don’t get the Week in Review Quiz near the bottom.)
Birmingham violence
It was another violent weekend in Birmingham, enough to put this year’s homicide rate back on pace with what the city had last year.
AL.com’s Carol Robinson reports that over a 24-hour span beginning around midday Saturday, five killings were reported. That makes 10 homicides in nine days.
That gives Birmingham 29 homicides so far in 2024, with three being ruled justifiable. There’ve been 36 total in Jefferson County.
A basketball state
Yesterday was Selection Sunday in the world of college basketball, and four men’s teams are headed to the NCAA Tournament.
Two teams are going from the same city: Both Samford and UAB won their respective conference tournaments to extend their postseasons.
Auburn beat Florida Sunday to win the SEC Tournament and was rewarded, if you can call it that, with a No. 4 seed in the East Region and date with No. 13 seed Yale in Spokane, Washington.
Note: Auburn coach Bruce Pearl didn’t sound as if he considered it a big reward for the SEC champ to travel as far as one can travel and still remain in the contiguous 48.
Alabama picked up an at-large bid, a fourth seed and a matchup with Charleston in the West Region. The Tide and the Blazers are also traveling to play in Spokane. Auburn and UAB are both in the East and would face one another if the Tigers take care of Yale and UAB upsets San Diego State.
Samford is the school that got lucky with travel, at least relative to the others. The NCAA deciders are sending the Bulldogs to Salt Lake City.
On the women’s side, No. 8 seed Alabama will face Florida State in the first round in Austin, Texas, and Auburn has a play-in game against Arizona in Storrs, Conn.
A March chill
Depending on when you listen to this and where you are in the state, it might be about as warm as it’s going to get today.
AL.com’s Leigh Morgan reported that we’re getting some late-season cold weather. Downright bone-chilling, in my opinion at least, with tonight’s low temperatures ranging from the low- to mid-30s in Lower Alabama down into the 20s across the lower Tennessee Valley.
Watch your peaches, because that means freeze warnings for almost the entire state.
Just hang in there. It’ll warm up on Tuesday, and by Wednesday you might see 70 again. But tonight, check on your neighbors and make sure you bring in your plants, pets and kids.
Quoting
“As someone who loved going to the library growing up, it’s so disappointing to see what’s happening in my hometown, where the library’s director was fired for simply fulfilling an open records request. Libraries should be havens for curious kids to learn, not political battlegrounds.”
More Birmingham news
Born on this date
In 1922, Civil Rights activist Fred Shuttlesworth of Mount Meigs.
In 1941, R&B legend Wilson Pickett of Prattville.
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