DEI, traffic cameras, pygmy hippo: Down in Alabama
Auburn’s DEI office
Auburn University is the latest state college to announce the closing of its Office of Inclusion and Diversity, reports AL.com’s Rebecca Griesbach.
Now five institutions have made or announced the move, just months after a new state law was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey that bans DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs. The law requires that colleges be in compliance with the law by Oct. 1.
Auburn officials say its office will close Aug. 15 and that staff will be reassigned to other departments. AU has reported that it was spending around $1.8 million on the diversity office.
Technical problems
The City of Tuskegee’s traffic speeding cameras have drawn complaints and even a lawsuit in the months since they were installed. And now, The Associated Press and CBS42 are reporting that the city has promised full refunds to those fined.
Ticketed drivers number in the hundreds.
The lawsuit claims the cameras incorrectly identified speeding cars. So Tuskegee Mayor Lawrence Haygood said all those fined will get their money back. Use of the system, from the German company Jenoptik, has been suspended.
RIP Alma Powell
Alma Powell, the widow of retired general and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, has passed away, reports AL.com’s William Thornton.
She was born Alma Vivian Johnson in Birmingham, where she attended Parker High School. She and her husband honeymooned at the A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, and she lived in Birmingham again while her husband was deployed during the Vietnam War.
She studied speech pathology and audiology.
Colin Powell died in 2021 of complications with COVID-19.
Alma Powell was 86 years old.
Brand-new pygmy hippo
If you’ve never seen a pygmy hippopotamus — and odds are you haven’t — now’s a good time to see a brand-new one.
Pygmy hippos are an endangered species. The World Conservation Union estimates there are fewer than 3,000 living in the wild. Home for them is West Africa, but they are known to breed well in captivity. And they’re not nearly as big as the hippos we’re familiar with. The pygmies grow to only around 400-600 pounds.
AL.com’s Mike Cason reports that visitors to the Montgomery Zoo can now see a 5-month-old female named Ronda. She’s with mom Asali in the Pygmy Hippo Nursing Suite.
Other adult pygmies are in their exhibit at the zoo’s Africa Realm. Six other pygmy hippos have been born at the Montgomery Zoo over the past eight years. They’ve all been placed at other zoos.
Ronda, a five-month-old pygmy hippopotamus, is on display at the Montgomery Zoo. Pygmy hippos, native to west Africa, are an endangered species, with only about 3,000 in the wild.(Photo by Picasa courtesy of the Montgomery Zoo)
Quoting
“They want to work. They just don’t want to be subjected to punishments if they don’t work.”
By the Numbers
450 feet
That’s about how high a window washer was when he became stuck outside the RSA Tower in Mobile. Mobile Fire-Rescue technicians lifted him to a nearby roof, where he was able to walk into the building without injury.
Firefighters and rescue technicians extricate a man who became stuck when he was washing windows on the RSA Tower somewhere below the 33rd floor when he was working hundreds of feet off the ground at the downtown Mobile, Alabama, building Monday afternoon, July 29, 2024.Mobile Fire-Rescue Department
More Alabama News
Born on This Date
In 1946, the late NASCAR driver and member of the Alabama Gang Neil Bonnett of Hueytown.
On the podcast
Jonathan Sobolewski tells a 1930s-era Alabama story about a man who got in trouble for going on a drunken elephant ride. You can read that grammatically however you want, because both he and the elephant had a little prohibited whiskey before the ride.
You can find “Down in Alabama” wherever you get your podcasts, including these places: