Alabama News

A weather alert was issued by the National Weather Service on Monday at 12:50 p.m. for strong thunderstorms until 1:30 p.m. for Jackson County.

Residents may experience wind gusts of up to 50 mph.

“At 12:49 p.m., Doppler radar tracked a strong thunderstorm near Stevenson, or 11 miles west of Bridgeport, moving southeast at 5 mph,” says the weather service. “Gusty winds could knock down tree limbs and blow around unsecured objects.”

Locations impacted by the alert include Bridgeport, Stevenson, Bass, Fabius, Fackler and Russell Cave National Monument.

The weather service comments, “Torrential rainfall is also occurring with this storm and may lead to localized flooding. Do not drive your vehicle through flooded roadways. Frequent cloud to ground lightning is occurring with this storm. Lightning can strike 10 miles away from a thunderstorm. Seek a safe shelter inside a building or vehicle.”

When lightning looms: Expert safety tips for thunderstorms

Each year, lightning strikes the United States approximately 25 million times, with the majority of these electrifying events occurring during the summer months. Unfortunately, lightning is responsible for claiming the lives of approximately 20 people annually, as reported by the weather service. The threat of lightning becomes more pronounced as thunderstorms draw nearer, peaking when the storm is directly overhead and gradually waning as it moves away.

To ensure your safety during a thunderstorm, keep these recommendations in mind:

Lightning safety plan:

• When venturing outdoors, it’s vital to establish a clear plan for seeking shelter in case of lightning.
• Monitor the sky for threatening signs and listen for the sound of thunder. If thunder is audible, it’s an indication that lightning is nearby.
• Seek shelter promptly in a safe location, preferably indoors.

Indoors safety measures:

• Once you’re indoors, avoid using corded phones, electrical devices, plumbing fixtures, and stay away from windows and doors.
• These precautions help reduce the risk of electrical surges, as lightning can follow conductive pathways.

Wait for the all-clear:

• After the last lightning strike or thunderclap, wait at least 30 minutes before resuming outdoor activities.
• Lightning can strike even when a storm has seemingly passed, so exercise caution.

When indoor shelter isn’t available:

If you find yourself outdoors without access to indoor shelter during a thunderstorm, take these steps to maximize your safety:

• Avoid open fields, hilltops, or ridge crests, which expose you to greater lightning risk.
• Steer clear of tall, isolated trees and other prominent objects. In forested areas, stay close to lower stands of trees.
• If you’re in a group, ensure that individuals are spaced out to prevent lightning current from transferring between people.
• Camping in an open setting during a thunderstorm is strongly discouraged. If no alternative exists, set up camp in a valley, ravine, or other low-lying areas. Remember that a tent offers no protection against lightning.
• Do not approach water bodies, wet objects, or metal items. Although water and metal do not attract lightning, they conduct electricity effectively and can pose significant risks.

In summary, when facing the threat of lightning, vigilance and preparedness are your best allies. By following these guidelines, you can significantly reduce the chances of lightning-related accidents and prioritize your safety.

Navigating rainy roads: Safety tips for wet weather

When heavy rain strikes, safety is paramount. Equip yourself with these guidelines from the weather service to navigate wet roads and avoid hazards:

Beware of swollen waterways:

In heavy rain, refrain from parking or walking near culverts or drainage ditches, where swift-moving water can pose a grave danger.

Maintain safe driving distances:

Use the two-second rule to maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you and allow an extra two seconds in heavy rain.

Slow down and stay cautious:

On wet roads, slowing down is paramount. Gradually ease off the accelerator and avoid abrupt braking to prevent skidding.

Choose your lane wisely:

Stick to the middle lanes to minimize the risk of hydroplaning. Outer lanes are more prone to accumulating water.

Visibility matters:

Enhance your visibility in heavy rain by activating your headlights. Be particularly vigilant for vehicles in blind spots, as rain-smeared windows can obscure them.

Watch out for slippery roads:

The initial half-hour of rain is when roads are slickest due to a mixture of rain, grime, and oil. Exercise heightened caution during this period.

Keep a safe distance from large vehicles:

Don’t follow large trucks or buses too closely. The spray created by their large tires reduces your vision. Take care when passing them as well; if you must pass, do so quickly and safely.

Mind your windshield wipers:

Heavy rain can overload the wiper blades. When visibility is so limited that the edges of the road or other vehicles cannot be seen at a safe distance, it is time to pull over and wait for the rain to ease up. It is best to stop at rest areas or other protected areas.

When stopping by the roadside is your only option, position your vehicle as far off the road as possible, ideally beyond guardrails. Keep your headlights on and activate emergency flashers to alert other drivers of your position.

In the face of heavy rain, these precautions can make a significant difference in ensuring your safety on the road. Remember to stay informed about weather conditions and heed guidance from local authorities for a secure journey.

Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service.

Hoka just introduced its smoothest trail running shoe to date, the super-stylish Challenger 8, available in men’s, women’s and extended sizes.

The Hoka Challenger 8 is an upgraded version of its predecessor, the Challenger 7, both of which are great options for those who love running on various terrains. According to Hoka, the new Challenger 8 has an increased drop and improved fit in the forefoot and instep. Not to mention, it now features amplified traction with an updated lug design. However, the Challenger 7 is a cheaper buy as it is now on sale.

RELATED: HOKA just secretly dropped the all new Arahi 8 stability running shoe

Both the men’s Challenger 8 and women’s shoe each come in four designs each to perfectly make any one’s style.

“Built at the intersection of road and trail, the Challenger 8 delivers all the smooth cushioning and confidence-inspiring traction you’ll need to tackle a variety of terrain. A gravel-grinding workhorse loved for its hyper cushy ride, we’ve added even more foam underfoot and improved the fit since our last iteration. Finished with a minimal mesh upper, plush collar and durable rubber toe cap, we’ve reimagined the orientation of our multi-directional lugs to ensure the best all-terrain ride yet,” Hoka states.

Those interested can checkout the men’s Challenger 8 here and women’s Challenger 8 here.

Starbucks customers may have noticed a change in the last few years.

In an effort to adapt stores to Covid-era habits of take-out ordering, the coffee chain removed comfortable seating, blocked electrical outlets, and transformed stores into stations for mobile pickup orders.

Now, CNN reports Starbucks is trying to lure back customers by renovating 1,000 stores with comfortable chairs, couches, tables and power outlets in the next year.

“It’s creating comfortable seating where people want to come in. It’s not just the quick grab and go concept,” Mike Grams, Starbucks’ chief operating officer, told CNN in an interview. “Maybe over past years, we lost our way a little bit on that.”

Community coffeehouse

Starbucks has plans to return to its roots as a community coffeehouse.

Earlier this year, the coffee chain announced a wave of changes, including reserving bathrooms for paying customers and downsizing its overly complex menu.

Another change: Offering free refills of hot or iced coffee to customers, as long as they order the beverage to drink on the premises.

So far, Starbucks says the free refills strategy is working and more customers are sticking around.

Axios reports Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said he was “pleased at the early reaction to changes we’ve made from both customers and partners.”

Niccol, who joined the company in September, is focused on implementing a wave of changes to reposition the coffee chain after a turbulent year, reports the Wall Street Journal.

It will now cost more to mail a letter.

The price of Forever Stamps -which can be used in perpetuity regardless of future changes – went up today (July 14th). Stamps are now 73 cents, 5 cents higher than the previous price of 68 cents.

Stamps last increased in January when they rose from 66 cents to 68 cents. In 2023, the price of a Forever Stamp rose from 63 cents to 66 cents.

At the time of the announcement in April, USPS said the increase was needed to “achieve…financial stability.”

“As changes in the mailing and shipping marketplace continue, these price adjustments are needed to achieve the financial stability sought by the organization’s Delivering for America 10-year plan. USPS prices remain among the most affordable in the world,” USPS said in a statement.

Other price increases include:

• Letters (1 oz.) – 68 cents to 73 cents
• Letters (metered 1 oz.) – 64 cents to 69 cents
• Domestic postcards – 53 cents to 56 cents
• International postcards – $1.55 to $1.65
• The additional ounce price for a single-piece letter will go from 23 cents to 28 cents.

You can go here to see a complete list of USPS prices, go here.

Miss Kay is setting the record straight.

She isn’t dead.

Kay Robertson, the star of “Duck Dynasty,” made an appearance on a recent episode of the “Duck Call Room” podcast.

“I’m tired of being dead,” the matriarch of “Duck Dynasty” joked.

Kay Robertson has suffered from her own health struggles. Last month, Willie Robertson said, “Kay is not in the best of health. We’re trying to help her out as much as we can.”

The “Duck Dynasty” matriarch, 77, was not in attendance for the premiere party of “Duck Dynasty: The Revival” on June 1 in Monroe, Louisiana.

“Yeah, I’m not the only one that died,” Kay Robertson said in reference to an AI photo of herself. “That woman did, too.”

Al Robertson joined Kay Robertson on the podcast.

“Tales of your demise have been greatly exaggerated, ‘cause you’re here today. So this is the proof-of-life video,” Al Robertson said.

The Robertsons revealed just how much they have adjusted to life without the late Phil Robertson.

“Obviously this was an hard deal for all of us, but it was especially hard for Mom,” Al Robertson said.

“She said, ‘I’m tired of people saying how good I look. My husband just died. It’s not like I’m back on the market.’

“I was like, Mom, they’re not saying … ‘Do you wanna date?’ they’re saying, ‘You look amazing.’”

“Well, I thought I should look sad,” Kay Robertson replied.

Phil Robertson died May 25 after suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Kay Robertson’s health issues popped up in April when son Jase Robertson said he feared for his mother after an infection as a result of a fall.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter@Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.

Dylan Watts has a 7.25 earned-run average after two seasons with the Auburn baseball team. But that inflated number didn’t scare Major League Baseball scouts, who like his 6-foot-4 frame and approaching 100-mph fastball.

On Monday, the Toronto Blue Jays selected the right-handed pitcher with the 202nd selection in the MLB First-Year Player Draft.

Watts made 17 relief appearances in his second season at Auburn in 2025. He had a 2-1 record, 7.39 ERA and two saves for the Tigers. In 28 innings, Watts struck out 28 while yielding 32 hits and 11 walks.

A native of Enumclaw, Washington, Watts came to Auburn from Tacoma Community College. In 2023 for Tacoma, Watts had a 3-0 record with an 0.23 ERA in 14 games.

Watts chose the Tigers over the Milwaukee Brewers, who picked the pitcher in the 18th round of the 2023 MLB draft.

Watts was the second straight pick from Auburn by the Blue Jays. Toronto took Tigers infielder Eric Snow at No. 172 in the sixth round before taking Watts in the seventh round.

Those Monday picks came after the Baltimore Orioles chose catcher/outfielder Ike Irish at No. 19 on Sunday night.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.

A Tennessee woman was killed in a Covington County crash that injured seven others, including three teens.

The wreck happened at 12:50 p.m. Sunday on Alabama 55 near the 42-mile marker, about four miles northwest of Red Level.

Alabama Law Enforcement Capt. Jeremy Burkett said Dessie S. Medley, 75, of Speedwell, Tenn., was a passenger in a Honda CRV that was struck by a Mercedes-Benz GLC300 driven by 39-year-old Joseph R. O’Bryantof Moundville.

Medley was pronounced dead on the scene.

The driver of the Honda, 53-year-old Dana K. Rose, passenger Riley S. Collett, 23, and an 18-year-old passenger were also injured and taken Andalusia Health.

Mercedes driver Bryant and passenger Lindsay A. O’Bryant, 42, were both injured and taken to Andalusia Health for their injuries.

A 13-year-old and 16-year-old, who were also both passengers in Bryant’s vehicle, were also injured and transported to a local area hospital for medical treatment.

The crash remains under investigation by state troopers.

Dear Eric: In a recent column you wrote, “Sometimes, when our opinions about people change, any little thing they do can become a point of annoyance.” OK, I get it. And yes, it has happened to me. So, how do we deal with that emotional response? Is it maturity? Is it to expand our nature to tolerate?

– Feeling Guilty

Dear Feeling Guilty: Acceptance – of ourselves and others – is a good first step. Accept that you feel annoyed by a person. You have feelings and you’re allowed to feel them. And accept that they are who they are and they’re under no obligation to change to fit your mood. I find that empathy often follows. When we stop seeing other people as obstacles to our own happiness and start to see them as fellow travelers, we open the door to a deeper understanding of why they’re acting the way they act or how they see the world and we can experience empathy instead of annoyance. Does this mean that you’re going to like it? No indeedy-do. But this thought process can help put others’ behavior in context.

Read more Asking Eric and other advice columns.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.

PRAIRIE ISLAND INDIAN COMMUNITY, Minn. (AP) — Some Native Americans traditionally bestow bald eagle feathers at ceremonies to mark achievements, such as graduations, and as a form of reverence for the bird they hold sacred as a messenger to the Creator.

This year, many are doing so with elevated pride and hope. The bald eagle is now the official bird of the United States, nearly 250 years after it was first used as a symbol of the newly founded nation that’s deeply polarized politically today.

“The eagle is finally getting the respect it deserves. Maybe when the nation looks at the eagle that way, maybe there will be less division,” said Jim Thunder Hawk. He’s the Dakota culture and language manager for the Prairie Island Indian Community, a small Mdewakanton Sioux band on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.

This wide, unruffled stretch of water framed by wooded bluffs is prime bald eagle territory. The size of Minnesota’s population of the majestic, white-head-and-tail birds that are exclusive to North America is second only to that of Alaska.

The legislation that made the eagle official came from members of Minnesota’s Congressional delegation. The federal act recognizes the eagles’ centrality in most Indigenous peoples’ “spiritual lives and sacred belief systems,” and a replica of it is on display at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota, 40 miles (65 kilometers) downriver from the Prairie Island community, which partners with the center in eagle care.

“If you grew up in the United States, eagles were a part of your everyday life,” said Tiffany Ploehn, who as the center’s avian care director supervises its four resident bald eagles. “Everyone has some sort of connection.”

Fierce symbols of strength and spiritual uplift

A bald eagle, its wings and talons spread wide, has graced the Great Seal of the United States since 1782, and appears on passport covers, the $1 bill, military insignia, and myriad different images in pop culture.

But a prolific collector of eagle memorabilia based in Wabasha realized recently that, while the United States had an official animal (the bison) and flower (the rose), the eagle was getting no formal credit. Several Minnesota legislators sponsored a bill to remedy that and then-President Joe Biden’s signature made it official in December.

With their massive wingspan and stern curved beak, bald eagles are widely used as symbols of strength and power. In reality, they spend 95% of their day perched high in trees, though when they hunt they can spot a rabbit 3 miles (5 kilometers) away, Ploehn said.

For many Native Americans, the soaring eagle represents far more; it delivers their prayers to the Creator and even intercedes on their behalf.

“My grandma told me that we honor eagles because they saved the Ojibwe people when the Creator wanted to turn on them. The eagle, he can fly high, so he went to speak with the Creator to make things right,” said Sadie Erickson, who is Ojibwe and Mdewakanton Sioux.

Marking life milestones with eagle feathers

Erickson and a dozen other high school graduates received a bald eagle feather at an early July celebration by the riverbank at Prairie Island.

Thunder Hawk said a prayer in the Dakota language urging the high school graduates and graduates receiving higher education degrees to “always remember who you are and where you come from.”

Then they lined up and a relative tied a feather — traditionally on the left side, the heart’s side — as tribal members sang and drummed to celebrate them.

“It just feels like I went through a new step of life,” said Jayvionna Buck.

Growing up on Prairie Island, she recalled her mother excitedly pointing out every eagle.

“She would genuinely just yell at me, ‘Eagle!’ But it’s just a special occurrence for us to see,” Buck said. “We love seeing it, and normally when we do, we just offer tobacco to show our respects.”

Some Native Americans honor the eagle by taking it as their ceremonial name. Derek Walking Eagle, whose Lakota name is “Eagle Thunder,” celebrated the graduates wearing a woven medallion representing the bird.

To him, eagles are like relatives that connect him to his future and afterlife.

“Being able to carry on to the spirit world … that’s who guides you. It’s the eagle,” Walking Eagle said.

That deep respect attaches to the feathers, too.

“It’s the highest respect you can bestow on a person, from your family and from your people, from your tribe,” Thunder Hawk said. “We teach the person receiving the feather that they have to honor and respect the eagle. And we tell them why.”

Persistent troubles, but new hope

In many Native cultures, killing an eagle is “blasphemous,” he said. It is also a federal offense.

Historically, Sioux warriors would lure an eagle with rabbit or other food, pluck a few feathers and release it, said Thunder Hawk, who grew up in South Dakota.

Today, there’s a nationwide program that legally distributes eagle feathers and parts exclusively to tribal members, though it’s very backlogged. U.S. wildlife and tribal officials worry that killings and illegal trafficking of eagles for their feathers is on the rise, especially in the West.

In Minnesota, eagles are most often harmed by road accidents and eating poison – results of shrinking wildlife habitat that brings them in closer contact with humans, said Lori Arent, interim director of the University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center.

The center treats about 200 injured bald eagles each year. Of those they can save, most are eventually released back into the wild. Permanently disabled birds that lose an eye or whose wings are too badly fractured to fly are cared for there or at other educational institutions like the Wabasha eagle center.

The official designation could help more Americans understand how their behaviors inadvertently harm eagles, Arent said. Littering by a highway, for instance, attracts rodents that lure eagles, which then can be struck by vehicles. Fishing or hunting with tackles and ammunition containing lead exposes the eagles eating those fish or deer remains to fatal metal poisoning.

Humans have lost the ability to coexist in harmony with the natural world, Thunder Hawk said, voicing a concern shared by Indigenous people from the Chilean Andes to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

He hopes more people might now approach the eagle with the same reverence he was taught. It’s what leads him to offer sage or dried red willow bark every time he spots one as a “thank you for allowing me to see you and for you to hear my prayers and my thoughts.”

Erickson, the new graduate, shares that optimism.

“I feel like that kind of shows that we’re strong and united as a country,” she said by the Mississippi, her new feather nestled in her hair.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The SEC will have a new sound in 2025, thanks to Bailey Zimmerman and Luke Combs.

The two country music stars lend their vocals to the SEC on ANC anthem, ‘Backup Plan’, a song they released in May.

On Monday, during the first day of SEC Media Days, ESPN shared the song on social media.

Combs, of course, is no stranger to SEC football. In 2021, “South On Ya” served as the SEC Network’s song of choice.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.