Hot enough
To remind us all that this has been a fairly normal July, we’re now in a heat wave that could bring you the highest temperatures you’ve seen this year, reports AL.com weather reporter Leigh Morgan.
Between now and Wednesday, Alabama could make its first serious foray into triple digits. The heat index will top a hundred and push 105-110 almost everywhere the next two days.
Much of Central and North Alabama were already under a heat advisory through Tuesday evening.
So hydrate, find some shade, try to stay out of the midday sun, and maybe keep an extra shirt or two in the truck.
Come Thursday, the heat might back off just a little, closer to 90 than 100 in most places.
Saturday’s Blue Alert
You may have received a Blue Alert on your device Saturday. That is sent when a law-enforcement officer is shot, the suspect is at large, and authorities believe there is a danger to the public.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency issued the alert seeking a suspect in the shooting of a Scottsboro police officer, reports AL.com’s Tandra Smith.
Daniel Victor McCarn was taken into custody later Saturday.
Early Saturday morning Scottsboro police responded to a domestic call. According to police, McCarn fled in a vehicle, leading to a police chase. They said he crashed, left his vehicle, and opened fire on police, striking one officer.
The Clarion Newspaper reported that injuries to the unnamed officer were not life-threatening.
A really long manhunt
A man indicted in 2008 in Jefferson County on child-sex charges who’s been on the lam ever since was arrested by U.S. Marshals down in Sarasota County, Fla., reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson.
Authorities said that during those 17 years more than 30 task-force officers and senior inspectors worked the case to search for Jay Kloss.
Kloss was 50 years old when he disappeared from Birmingham and 67 years old when he was arrested on Friday. Investigators used age-progression photos from the FBI’s Birmingham Field Office to match him up with recent photos. They said developments broke in the case nearly a year ago, and this month they confirmed his identity.
Authorities said the arrest took place without incident.
Democrats and Republicans
The old adage says that even at the national level that “all politics is local.”
Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O’Neill was known for using that one, although it predates him by at least a few decades.
And it’s often not an unhealthy thing for representatives to maintain a connection with state leaders or consider how an issue is going to play back home.
But now we’re years down the road, and national left-right politics permeate our lives. It’s also really, really easy to follow. It’s what everybody’s talking about on TV and social media, it’s easy for us to cast ideologies in terms of good an evil and, frankly, it just makes for sexier news and analysis than your average city council meeting.
In some ways, when you’re talking local politics, you might start to suggest that “all politics is national.”
It’s not a brand-new thing in Alabama, but AL.com’s John Sharp has a report out that shows left-right politics is reaching into more places you wouldn’t expect.
Bryan Taunton is running for mayor in Sylacauga. He said he doesn’t remember, when he ran previously, ever being asked whether he was conservative or liberal, but this time around voters want to know his position on national politics.
In Baldwin County, the officially non-partisan city-level elections are inching toward … partisan.
Republican groups have organized candidate forums, the Baldwin County Democrats have endorsed candidates in Bay Minette and Daphne, and a Fairhope council candidate has included the GOP elephant symbol on his campaign visuals.
Is the trend good or bad? That’s your call. Nonpartisan elections, supporters point out, cost less with the lack of primaries and primary run-offs and reward public service over stated ideology.
Baldwin County GOP Chair Kathy Morelock, however, points out that issues extend beyond development and traffic. Voters want to know where candidates stand on social issues that are both national and local, she said, and those voters understand how the parties typically align on those issues.
Indeed, in Fairhope and other places around the state there is an ongoing debate over where to draw the lines on sexual material in the children’s section of libraries.
Quiz answers
You can join us on the Down in Alabama podcast and take the quiz in person. Just email imorgan@al.com with the word “quiz” in the subject line and we’ll try to put you on the schedule. We record via internet on Thursday afternoons.
Here’s how readers did on Friday’s Alabama News Quiz:
Overall results
- Five out of five: 19.0%
- Four out of five: 29.4%
- Three out of five: 28.2%
- Two out of five: 16.0%
- One out of five: 6.7%
- None out of five: 0.7%
Some residents of this small Alabama town are still struggling with extensive home repairs two years after a violent hailstorm.
- Camp Hill (CORRECT) 51.4%
- Carbon Hill 24.4%
- Oak Hill 13.2%
- Spring Hill 11.0%
This establishment — a first for Alabama — is expected to open in Florence late next year.
- A Hard Rock hotel (CORRECT) 81.3%
- An In-N-Out Burger 13.0%
- A LegoLand 4.2%
- An Arnold’s Drive-In 1.5%
According to a WalletHub study, what is the “most stressed” among Alabama’s larger cities?
- Birmingham (CORRECT) 66.8%
- Montgomery 13.2%
- Huntsville 10.5%
- Mobile 9.5%
Immigration-enforcement arrests have been increasing statewide — but most noticeably in this two-county area.
- Mobile and Baldwin (CORRECT) 81.4%
- Jefferson and Shelby 11.1%
- Limestone and Madison 4.5%
- Houston and Geneva 3.0%
This week marked the 125th anniversary of the birth of this Alabamian, whom some consider America’s quintessential “flapper” of the Roaring 20s.
- Zelda Fitzgerald (CORRECT) 55.8%
- Tallulah Bankhead 38.9%
- Louise Fletcher 4.0%
- Kay Ivey 1.3%
What’s in a Name?
Escambia County
A geographic peculiarity with Escambia County is that it shares the name of another county right over the state line in Florida. Florida’s Escambia County was organized first, although Florida wasn’t a state yet, in 1821 and covered half of what would become the Sunshine State. Escambia County, Alabama, was formed from parts of Baldwin and Conecuh counties in 1868.
The only obvious part of the name’s origin is that it comes from the Escambia River, although that waterway is known as the Conecuh River in Alabama.
Conecuh and Escambia — the counties, rivers and words — seem to cross over a few times in this story.
As to the origin of the word Escambia, there are different theories depending on from which American Indian tribe’s language the theorists believe it was derived.
Let’s start with the Choctaw. William A. Read’s “Indian Place Names in Alabama” offers theories that involve the Choctaw word oski (for cane) and either amo (to gather) or ambeha (to be in). As some have interpreted, it would’ve meant “canebreak” or a thicket of cane.
Meanwhile, Alabama’s Escambia County, on its website, credits the Creek Indians with naming the river “Shambia,” which means clearwater.
Let’s add one more theory: The Florida archives include a description and history of Florida’s Escambia County that was written in the 1930s. It suggests that “probably” the county received its name from the river, which received its name from — according to the description — a Spanish word “cambrir,” which it said means “to barter.”
We’re really doubting that one.
If we get to pick one, I’m going with the Choctaw words meaning canebrake. That’s an entirely reasonable word for a river, particularly one in this region in the 19th century.
And what about “Conecuh,” the county from which Escambia was created and the river that flows into the Escambia?
Again, there are several theories. I’ll mention this one: It comes from the Creek words for “canebreak.”
I think we might be on to something there.
More Alabama News
Born on This Date
In 1984, Houston Texans head coach and former Crimson Tide All-American DeMeco Ryans of Bessemer.
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