On Tuesday, Trump announced his intention to change the body of water’s name saying it had a, “beautiful ring to it.” Trump claimed the potential alteration was because America did most of the work in the gulf and it was “ours.”
“We do most of the work there it’s ours…we’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump stated.
The announcement quickly received approval from congressional Republican members.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-GA, posted online that she would be introducing legislation “ASAP“ to officially enshrine the name change.
According to the Associated Press, while Trump could potentially change the Gulf of Mexico’s name the decision would not be unilateral. And if the name was revised other countries would not have to go along with it.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, professed his approval of the announcement on X.
U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-AL, also posted on X saying, “Proud to represent Alabama’s First District on the beautiful GULF OF AMERICA.”
U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, R-GA, told Fox News that the name for the Gulf of Mexico did not matter to him as much as the enforcement of laws in the area.
While the move was praised by some Republicans the Daily Show decided to have some fun at the prospect of the gulf being renamed.
Host Desi Lydic joked that the Gulf of Mexico being renamed was one of the common sense policies Americans were waiting for but the change could have a nice ring to it.
“I guess Gulf of America does have a ring to it,” Lydic said. “As in, there was another horrific oil spill in the Gulf of America.”
A suspect has been charged in the weekend shooting death of a 43-year-old man in Selma, the city’s first homicide of 2025.
Jadarius Moore, 31, is charged with murder in the killing of David Lewis.
The deadly shooting happened Saturday evening in the area of Minter Avenue and Keller Avenue.
Witnesses told police that Moore retrieved a gun from a vehicle while Lewis was in a shed.
When Lewis exited the shed, according to court documents, Moore fired a shot, and everybody started running. He then fired a second shot, and that is when Lewis collapsed.
Lewis was taken to Vaughan Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 6:46 p.m.
Witnesses told investigators that the shooting stemmed from an ongoing “beef” between two communities.
“This unfortunate incident is Selma’s first murder (of 2025) and I hope our last,’’ said Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. “I offer my sincere condolences to the family and friends during this time of loss.”
Anyone with additional information is asked to Selma detectives at 334-876-1273.
Alexander spent three seasons with the Crimson Tide, primarily as a reserve. He was a five-star linebacker in the 2022 recruiting class, ranked as the No. 18 overall prospect and No. 1 edge rusher, per the 247Sports Composite.
Alexander is an Alabaster native.
He tallied eight tackles over his three seasons with the Crimson Tide before entering the transfer portal. Alexander was moved to inside linebacker during his time at Alabama, a position that became crowded heading into 2025 with Justin Jefferson and Deontae Lawson returning as well as Alabama bringing in Nikhai Hill-Green from Colorado.
The Crimson Tide has returned most of its defensive starters for 2025, including three on the defensive line, two at linebacker and several at defensive back. That has prompted some reserve players to look elsewhere via thr
Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29, 2024, at age 100, has been a landmark figure in Southern Baptist politics since his 1976 presidential campaign.
The nation will continue to honor him this week, as his body will lie in state in the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol, and with a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.
As Carter finished his only term as president in 1980, his fellow Southern Baptists were shifting politically to the right, even though many voted for him in 1976 and were excited by having a “born-again” Christian in the White House.
Starting in 1979, a series of votes at the annual Southern Baptist Convention led the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to the right politically, as biblical “inerrantists” took control of denominational agencies including the six seminaries. A series of conservative SBC presidents were elected on a platform of getting rid of “liberal drift” in the denomination.
Carter, who had been a life-long loyal Southern Baptist, was viewed as part of that leftward political drift.
Carter eventually declared that he was no longer a Southern Baptist and threw his support behind a competing movement of moderates leaving the denomination, called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
In 1993, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship held a major meeting at the BJCC in Birmingham. Carter was the keynote speaker.
Carter called for ordaining more women, keeping church and state separate and encouraging individual religious freedom.
“When we enforce conformity on others, it saps away their freedom,” Carter said to an audience of more than 6,000 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center.
Largely because he professed his faith publicly as a born-again Christian, Carter won admiring support from evangelicals that helped him oust President Gerald Ford in 1976.
But during his presidency, Carter angered conservative Southern Baptists. By the 1980 election, conservative Southern Baptists were avidly supporting Ronald Reagan and helped him defeat Carter.
In 1979 conservative Southern Baptists elected the Rev. Adrian Rogers, the first in a series of denominational presidents who vowed to curb alleged liberalism in seminaries and mission boards.
Rogers then visited Carter at the Oval Office. “I was proud to meet with the president of my convention,” Carter recalled. “He said, “Mr. President, I hope you’ve given up your secular humanism and become a Christian again.’ I thought I was still a Christian.”
Carter said that nearly every issue – women’s rights, abortion, SALT II negotiations (the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II was a 1979 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to limit nuclear weapons) and the organization of the Department of Education – was viewed as a religious litmus test by Southern Baptist Convention leaders in his term.
He said leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination were treating Bill Clinton, also a Southern Baptist, the same way. “When I see what’s happening to Clinton, I see the same thing that happened to me,” he said.
Carter warned the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship not to be overconfident about breaking away from, at the time, the 15-million-member Southern Baptist Convention.
“It would be a mistake for us to come here in a self-congratulatory mood,” he said. “We can’t come here filled with self-satisfaction because we have broken away. We’ve got to keep searching our souls and saying, “What can we do?’ ”
He urged cooperation, reaching out to other denominations and avoiding competitiveness and duplication of programs.
Carter, a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., spoke of his lifelong commitment to the Baptist principles of local church autonomy and church and state separation. He said those were being dissipated by the Southern Baptist denominational trend toward demanding conformity and melding church and state interests.
“My religious heritage means a lot to me,” Carter said. “The last few years Rosalynn and I have been in a quandary about what to do. In the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, my wife and I have found a home.” Mrs. Carter sat on the platform next to her husband.
Carter said he was almost “totally ignorant” of Southern Baptist infighting until he became alarmed a few years earlier by what he said was an increasing tone of militarism in the Sunday school literature he taught from.
Noting that many Baptist churches still oppose women clergy, Carter said CBF should do more to encourage women ministers. “There’s a tremendous reservoir of untapped talent and inspiration,” he said.
Top leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention opposed ordaining women on the grounds the Apostle Paul preached against women leading churches.
Before Carter came to the podium in Birmingham, the Rev. Dan Vestal, pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, appealed for funds to pay the $200,000 cost of the convention. “Frankly, we need $25 from each registrant,” he said.
Before Vestal led a prayer, Carter pulled out his wallet and thumbed out a bill, which he handed to the platform usher as a pianist played offertory music.
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship formed in 1991 as a way for churches to fund Southern Baptist agencies and send missionaries without contributing money through the conservative-controlled denomination budget.
By 2008, Carter had a new concept. He organized the New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta, a meeting of politically like-minded moderate Baptists including Black Baptist denominations that tried to counteract the conservative influence of the SBC. Carter delivered the keynote there too. Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore also spoke.
In 2009, Carter returned to Birmingham to speak at a meeting of the New Baptist Covenant at 16th Street Baptist Church.
“There is no way for us to ignore Jesus’ emphasis on the poor, the brokenhearted,’’ Carter told the Southeast regional meeting of the New Baptist Covenant, which he helped found in 2008 with an interracial, inter-denominational gathering that drew 15,000 in Atlanta.
‘’I have found this evolution of the New Baptist Covenant to be the highlight of my religious life,’’ Carter said.
He spoke at a worship service that was followed by workshops on poverty and racism.
‘’It’s not an accident that God led us to Birmingham and this institute,’’ Carter said during a breakfast at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
He recalled a time when racial prejudice was rampant in Baptist churches, and theologians defended separate worship.
‘’The Baptist church was a stalwart defender of segregation,’’ he said. ‘’It was ingrained in our conscience.’’
Carter said he hoped the meeting would help churches work better together. ‘’I would like to see a complete breakdown in separation of people,” he said.
He encouraged Baptists of different races to share worship. ‘’I hope in the future the barriers will be broken down,” Carter said.
In an interview with The Birmingham News in 2009, Carter talked about his hope for ultimate unity.
‘’There’s a strong inclination among Baptists to come back together,’’ Carter said. ‘’Many people who are Southern Baptists want to reach out to others.’’
At Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., where Carter taught Sunday school, 10 percent of the budget went to mission work – 5 percent to Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and 5 percent to the Southern Baptist Convention’s mission work, Carter said. ‘’Our church is still a member of the Southern Baptist Convention,’’ Carter said at the time.
Carter declared his disagreement with and disappointment with the Southern Baptist Convention as it grew more conservative, and was especially aggrieved when the Southern Baptist Convention added language to its statement of beliefs that specifically interpreted the Bible as opposing women as senior pastors.
‘’I’ve always felt women should play an equal role in the church,’’ Carter said. ‘’It was incompatible with what my wife and I believe. Rosalynn and I have expressed our displeasure.’’
Carter believed the Southern Baptist Convention had also come to place too much emphasis on the power of the pastor.
‘’I’ve always thought that pastors should be servants of the church,’’ Carter said.
But Carter said he welcomed Southern Baptists at the New Baptist Covenant gatherings, though few came. ‘’My inclination is to reach out with friendship and love,’’ he said. ‘’I’m a Southerner, a Baptist and an evangelical. I don’t feel I’m affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.’’
But he kept that personal separation ‘’without any animosity,’’ he said.
Carter’s beloved Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is still alive and well, although much smaller than than the SBC and more often overlooked.
Former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn visited a Habitat For Humanity community in Fairfield, Ala., Friday October 8, 2010 to help put the finishing touches on the home of Ted and Wanda Harville. The Carters worked on that house, visited others, and spoke to reporters. (File/AL.com/Joe Songer-The Birmingham News) bnbn
EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week, AL.com will explore the best of high school sports in Alabama. We hope you join the conversation.
Everything about Michael Pierce screams defensive lineman. The Daphne native is the largest Baltimore Raven at 355 pounds. But his infectious personality is just as big.
There’s something exciting about a package arriving on your doorstep. But what if you didn’t place an order and something just shows up? It’s not normal but should you really be concerned?
Yes, according to federal officials.
The Federal Trade Commission said scammers are sending people fake “luxury” items like rings, beauty products or even Bluetooth speakers. It’s part of what’s known as a “brushing scam,” because the scammers use the deliveries to “brush up” on their sales and write bogus reviews.
Here’s how it works:
Scammers or sellers of knock-off merchandise find your address or other personal information online then send you goods you never ordered and use your information to write a fake online review about their products using your name, giving them credibility and potentially boosting their sales.
Why does it matter if they write a fake review in your name? According to the FTC, if you got a package you didn’t order, it likely means someone has your personal information, making you more vulnerable to identity theft.
What you should do if you get an unexpected package:
Change passwords on all your online shopping accounts in case they were compromised. If the package came from Amazon or another online marketplace, send the platform a message so they can investigate removing the seller.
Check your credit weekly for free at AnnualCreditReport.com to monitor the information in your credit report and check for signs of identity theft.
Don’t contact the sender. If you search online for the sender and reach out, anyone who responds will likely try to get more sensitive information from you to try to steal your money.
Got a package you didn’t order? Keep the merchandise and report fake reviews and scams to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The UAB Blazers are now 2-1 in conference play and 9-7 overall after an 81-69 victory over the Tulane Green Wave led by an excellent performance from senior forward Yaxel Lendeborg.
Lendeborg ended the game with 25 points, 13 rebounds and an impressive eight assists which left him two short of what would’ve been UAB’s first triple-double since 2009. He also added two blocks and steals respectively on defense.
With a smile on his face, Lendeborg said “It hurts, you know, some of the guys on the bench were telling me about it with a few minutes to go an I had to make a decision between trying to get the win and trying to get those extra assists, so I had to go for the win.”
Despite a near-historic night for his best player, head coach Andy Kennedy says he expects more from him.
“I expect more. Isn’t it crazy? Isn’t it stupid of me?… I just want him to be more assertive. I feel like he gives into contact sometimes,” adding “it’s a lot of people in that lane there, especially against the zone (defense) but if you can get in there and play through it then you have an advantage at the basket.”
Complementing Lendeborg’s big night was guard Tony Toney, who finished with 15 points, all from a career-high five three-point makes and added four rebounds and two assists.
Three-point shooting has never been a strength for the 6-foot-2 senior, but to this point in the season, his three-point percentage has jumped ten percent from 28 percent to a 38 percent rate of makes.
“He works. Man, I’m proud. I just like to see guys in the gym and then be rewarded for that,” Kennedy said. “Toney works, that’s why he’s gotten better, that’s why he’s played more. He made a career-high five and all of them, I thought, were big. The timing of them was big. When AJ (Vasquez) is out there’s a void to fill as it relates to our perimeter shooting and I thought he filled that void.
Despite ending in a comfortable win for the Blazers, Tulane kept the game close for most of the night. The Green Wave’s Asher Woods and Kaleb Banks scored 16 points each, with Banks having a double-double of his own with 12 rebounds.
UAB continues to improve through this early stretch of conference play but will need to be at their best in the coming weeks as they make trips to Florida Atlantic, South Florida and rival Memphis, currently ranked 21st in the country.
The Blazers’ next game is at Florida Atlantic on Sunday at 4:00 and will be broadcast nationally on ESPN.
The Birmingham Police Department’s end-of-the year crime suppression push led to the arrests of 66 people on felony charges and the seizure of 20 guns.
Operation Close Out, which has been an ongoing initiative in the city for at least 11 years, began Nov. 26 and ended Tuesday, Dec. 31.
Police officials on Tuesday announced the results of that operation, which consisted of roughly 50 officers working together– often in smaller teams – to saturate problem areas.
Those officers were additional resources who were not subject to answering 911 calls for service during their shift. They were strictly proactive.
For the first time, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office partnered with BPD for Operation Close Out.
Sgt. LaQuitta Wade said the police department deployed the Special Operations Bureau, formed by Interim Police Chief Michael Pickett, throughout the holiday period.
Birmingham police officials meet every day to look at crime and crime trends for the previous 24 hours, and Operation Close Out targeted those areas.
The 66 felony arrests included a total of 80 charges.
Additionally, officers made 21 misdemeanor arrests on a total of 235 charges.
Of the 29 guns seized, two were stolen and one was modified with a machine conversion device.
Officers collectively performed 149 business checks, field interviews and citizen contacts, Wade said.
They also made 167 traffic stops, issuing 94 citations, impounding 25 vehicles and recovering seven stolen vehicles.
The operation also yielded the seizure of illegal drugs, including cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and marijuana.
Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at 100, was born, raised and died in Georgia, but he had a special place in his heart for Alabama.
In a 2009 interview with The Birmingham News, Carter talked about his childhood visits to Birmingham, arriving by train.
Carter, born in 1924, came to Birmingham every summer for at least a week during the 1930s as a pre-teen, he said. On one of those trips, Carter remembered hearing and reading about Will Rogers dying in a plane crash.
‘’My parents would put us on the train, me and my sister, and put a tag on our neck, saying where we going and where we were from,’’ Carter said.
‘’I used to come to Birmingham when I was 10, 11, 12, 13,’’ Carter said. ‘’My father’s oldest sister lived there.’’
His father’s sister was married to Will Fleming, a publisher of Sunday School material for the Southern Baptist Convention.
‘’Before it was moved to Nashville, it was printed in Birmingham,’’ Carter said.
Fleming owned a home in the Hollywood section of Homewood, he recalled.
The Flemings would pick him up at the Birmingham Terminal when the train arrived.
He recalled he was on one of his trips to Birmingham on Aug. 15, 1935, when Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post died in a plane crash in the Alaska Territory.
But those Depression-era train trips weren’t his last memories of Birmingham. He returned numerous times.
In 1993, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship held a major meeting at the BJCC in Birmingham. Carter, who had recently distanced himself from the Southern Baptist Convention and endorsed the CBF, was the keynote speaker.
Carter returned again for a New Baptist Covenant event he helped organize at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 2009.
In the fall of 2010, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, cut the ribbon on a Habitat for Humanity home in Wylam, and put some sweat equity into a Habitat house in Fairfield, nailing the address number to the porch and putting on the front door knob.
Carter, dressed in blue jeans and a button-up blue shirt, used a power drill to place house numbers on a column in front of the two-story house on the tree-lined street. Homeowner Ted Harville worked alongside the Carters.
“It’s a nice house,” Carter said. “I told them if they move out, let me know, I might move in here.”