Have a great weekend — and be careful in all that shopping traffic.

Today’s report follows in podcast and text form. Thanks for reading (or listening),

Ike

No. 1 in executions

Alabama led the nation in executions this year, topping Texas by one, reports AL.com’s Ivana Hrynkiw.

The non-profit Death Penalty Information Center confirmed the stats in its annual year-end report. Nine states executed 25 inmates in 2024. Alabama, using the new nitrogen hypoxia execution method, put six people to death. Texas followed with five. Missouri and Oklahoma executed four each while South Carolina executed two and Georgia, Utah, Florida and Indiana each executed one.

On the front end of the Death Row pipeline, Alabama sentenced four people to death this year. Nationally, 26 people were placed on Death Row.

Using nitrogen gas did create some controversy, particularly after the first use ever of the method against convicted killer Kenneth Smith. Smith, who chose nitrogen over lethal injection, thrashed on the gurney for several minutes before dying. Alabama officials have defending the method, arguing that Smith’s actions were due to his holding his breath while the gas was being applied.

Carload of guns

Here’s our periodic reminder to lock up your guns and keep them inaccessible to folks who are up to no good.

Obviously, accidental shootings are the worst consequence of not putting away firearms. But you don’t want to lose a gun, either. And there are bad guys who make part of their living stealing guns out of trucks.

Here’s an alleged example:

Homewood Police chased and arrested two men who are suspected of 18 vehicle burglaries overnight in Moody, reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson.

Officers say their vehicle contained 10 guns, three that already been confirmed as stolen, as well as drugs.

Both the men already had outstanding warrants from the U.S. Marshals and Mississippi law-enforcement agencies.

Hogtied in Morgan County

There’s a stereotype about tough rural Southern law enforcement. In Lacey’s Spring on Thursday night, civilians apparently showed they were no shrinking violets.

AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz reports that, according to the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office, civilians stopped a vehicle leaving the scene of several traffic wrecks, then, when one of the vehicle’s occupants tried to fight, hogtied him and held him at gunpoint until deputies arrived.

The other occupant of the vehicle escaped on foot. Authorities were searching for him.

Reactor plant slowdown

A nuclear-reactor project has been paused, and the City of Gadsden is assuring its citizens that the $232 million project and associated jobs are still coming, reports AL.com’s William Thornton.

City officials and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. have said the plant’s operations wouldn’t involve radioactive material. The plan is for Ultra Safe to produce non-radiological modules that will be taken to construction sites before radioactive material is added to the reactors.

The plant was announced in June 2023. Ultra Safe filed Chapter 11 this October. The project is on hold while the company is in court.

Plans have been to have the facility running by 2027.

More Alabama News

Born on This Date

In 1899, U.S. Sen. and Congressman John Sparkman of Hartselle. He was Adlai Stevenson’s running mate in his 1952 presidential loss to Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1901, engineer and physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff of Tuscaloosa. He was the man behind Van de Graaff generators.

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