The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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NASA and Boeing hosted a news conference with mission leadership on Thursday, July 25, to provide the latest status of the agency's Boeing Crew Flight Test aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The spaceship was supposed to return to Earth weeks ago; but has been stranded there due to a series of helium leaks and issues with the thrusters/ While astronauts on the ship have been working on fixing the leaks, NASA and Boeing have been performing ground testing of the Reaction Control...
On Thursday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) joined U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) in introducing the Ensuring Continuity in Veterans' Health Act to require the VA to consider continuity of healthcare when deciding whether seeing a provider in the community is in a veteran's best medical interest. This legislation follows Senator Tuberville's recent letter to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough urging him to reassess recent actions taken by the...
On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) spoke with members of the Alabama press corps about his growing concerns about the struggling farm economy. Tuberville said that "We have lost 150,000 farms since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office." Republicans and Democrats in Congress are at an impasse about differences in farm policy. This is largely over the size of the food assistance programs that are tied to the farm bill in Congress. The resulting partisan gridlock has made...
Nobody was more pleased when the 91st Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo (ADSFR) added flounder to the CCA Alabama Live Weigh-In competition than Dr. Sean Powers, head rodeo judge and Director of the Stokes School of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of South Alabama. Powers watched the southern flounder populations plummet in the 2010s and has witnessed a gradual rebound of the populations. He said the last four years of flounder catches at the ADSFR are encouraging. "I'm...
(Montgomery, Ala) -Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the conviction of a Pike County man on possession of child pornography. Yuchen Wu, 34, of Troy, and a Chinese national, pleaded guilty in Pike County Circuit Court to one count of possession of obscene matter depicting a person under the age of 17. "Child pornography is a scourge on our society and must be pursued and punished relentlessly," said Attorney General Marshall. "Children who are victims of this depravity spend a...
Since the days of silent film, music has been instrumental in setting the mood for moviegoers. It is one of the many ways audiences are able to determine whether a scene is meant to be serious, spooky, or hysterical. While many aspects of filmmaking have changed and modernized since the turn of the 20th century, the importance of songs has not. A perfectly placed track—whether it's tear-jerking lyrics over a moving melody or a fast-paced power ballad that pulls audiences into the a...
For decades, the field of artificial intelligence seemed stagnant. Researchers started gaining momentum in the early 2010s as deep learning proved useful in real-world applications such as speech recognition. The real inflection point, however, did not come until November 2022, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT. The chatbot represented a huge leap in AI's capabilities. The ability to build intelligent systems out of computer chips, a goal that seemed decades away, now seems within reach. ChatGPT's...
Throughout the history of college sports, money has always stoked controversy. Since the NCAA was formed, student-athletes have been prevented from earning anything apart from their scholarships. No jobs or sponsorships allowed. And yet, over and over, numerous pay-to-play scandals saturated the billion-dollar landscape. Within the last two decades alone, high-profile players from major institutions were caught selling memorabilia, taking thousands of dollars from marketing representatives, and...
With trucks carrying more than 70% of America's freight by weight, they're an essential part of the nation's transportation of goods. The long-haul drivers behind the wheel, who are responsible for getting those goods from point A to point B, are also essential. They often have grueling routes that require them to sleep in their cabs while driving cross-country—if, that is, they can find a place to park. Confronted with strict work and rest hours regulations, many truckers, unable to find s...
What makes a great golf course? Is it the conditions? The architecture? The difficulty? In most cases, there's more than one specific answer. Whether playing 18 holes at your local municipal course or enjoying the day at a pristine country club, there are a few guidelines and factors to consider when ranking your links experience. On the technical side, it's important to consider a course's variety—its obstacles (a well-placed bunker or water hazard), its distances (a diverse group of par-3s a...
The Major League Baseball draft is unique among professional sports drafts. The 30 organizations pick teenagers and college students who will not join their big league clubs for years—if ever. These athletes will spend that time honing their craft in the minor leagues, where long bus rides and minuscule paychecks are the norm. A few will move quickly up the ranks, seizing playing time opportunities to advance their careers and making their names known to scouts, fans, and other observers a...
Way.com reports that top earners among the highest-paid athletes include: - Cristiano Ronaldo– $260 million - Jon Rahm – $218 million - Lionel Messi – $135 million - LeBron James – $128 million - Giannis Antetokounmpo – $111 million Observations - The fact that the top two athletes based in Saudi Arabia are on this list shows their financial might. - It's cool to see two basketball players on the list. It shows how well the NBA is doing financially. Soccer Stars Dominate Soccer players a...
On Friday, former state Representative Fred "Coach" Plump (D-Fairfield) was sentenced by federal Judge Scott Coogler to one year in prison for his role in a kickback scheme that transferred $200,000 intended for underprivileged children. Plump received $400,000 in taxpayer dollars over a four-year period from then State John Rogers (D-Birmingham) intended for the Piper Davis Youth Baseball league Plump has long operated. Instead of spending the money on the children, Coach Plump gave half of it...
American roads are dominated by gasoline-powered vehicles, but that is gradually changing. The government is placing increasingly strict requirements for vehicle emissions on car manufacturers, which has accelerated their output of electric vehicles (EVs). At the same time, U.S. consumers are driving demand for EVs, buying more every year. However, interest and adoption rates are uneven across the country. There are many barriers to buying EVs, including higher purchase prices, concerns about ra...
Up until a few years ago, when people visited Lavalier's Berry Patch outside Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to pick strawberries, lingonberries, and apples, Stuart Lavalier would tell them to look for a red building next to County Road 91 to find the turn-off to his farm. Now, he tells them to look for the solar panels. In early 2022, Lavalier received a $17,000 federal grant to install three solar arrays that make 27 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power his entire farm. Lavalier is one of...
As baby boomers age, the majority want to continue living independently in their homes, otherwise known as aging in place. About 78% of homeowners over the age of 60 prefer this option over moving into a senior or assisted-living facility, according to a 2024 survey from real estate company Redfin. Many Americans want to age in place to preserve a sense of independence, remain connected to existing communities, and avoid the high cost of long-term care. The median monthly cost of an...
Fewer than 60 current student-athletes qualified to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games for Team USA, all of whom will officially compete in the international games. For most of these students, the Paris games, which will be held from July 26 through Aug. 11, will mark the first time they compete in the Olympics. They join a larger list of more than 300 former student-athletes who will also represent Team USA this year. Some schools, like Stanford, Princeton and Harvard, have multiple...
On Friday, U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Alabama), a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, voted to advance the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The bill includes more than $80 million in targeted funding to modernize and upgrade critical transportation infrastructure in communities across Alabama, including $50 million personally secured by the Senator. "Since taking office, I've promised to work...
Kamala Harris has burst onto the scene as a virtual unknown. Yes, she served as the attorney general and senator from California before joining Biden on the ticket in 2020, but who has heard of her over the last four years.? What do Americans know about Vice President Harris? Well, nothing, that's what she's got going in her favor. Just wait. But even as an unknown, she still has the highest disapproval ratings of any vice president in history. Trump has higher approval ratings than her, and...
I thought about it last fall before a two-day hobby convention in September—our first in several years due to COVID. This trip was to neighboring Georgia, so not too far. I remembered years ago being invited as part of the Alabama delegation to a Christian citizenship conference in Washington. I remember the exact year since I’ve often referred to a prayer breakfast we had with Chaplain Richard Halverson from the U.S. Senate. He said he didn’t hear many prayers for public officials in his itine...
Historians place a lot of importance on primary sources. And in “This Glorious Struggle” George Washington’s Revolutionary War Letters that is edited by Edward G. Lengel, we get an at once entertaining, insightful, and informative collection of George Washington’s Revolutionary War Correspondence. That is to say, primary sources from Washington, himself. As these letters and military orders show General Washington as being just as human as the everyday person with him expressing concern about t...
When did man first believe in God? Or gods? If some scientists' interpretation of an ice age figure found in a cave in Germany are correct, then there might not be an age where humanity did not believe in the existence of a divinity, In 1939 in a cave in Germany archaeologists found the rarest of relics. The figurine of a cave lion (a now extinct species of mane less lion common to Eurasia in the Ice Age) with human characteristic was carved from an ivory tusk 40,000 years ago. Man did not have...
On Friday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) introduced the Alabama Underwater Forest National Marine Sanctuary Act. This bill would preserve a submerged ancient forest, largely comprised of cypress trees, that was discovered near Gulf Shores, Alabama, after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Senator Tuberville's effort would designate the underwater forest as a National Marine Sanctuary-effectively safeguarding the environmental ecosystem created in the underwater forest. U.S. Representative...
The Alabama Attorney General's Office is the primary consumer protection agency in the state of Alabama. In that role, on Friday Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) announced the Circuit Court of Shelby County has granted a preliminary injunction against Legend Windows, LLC and individuals affiliated with the business, Jody Ray Whitworth, Bobby Ray Whitworth, and Robin Simmons Willard. The company has taken $181,000 from consumers in an alleged scam. Friday's action comes after the court...
The Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor is reporting that fighting between two rival warlords in Sudan has escalated to an all-out civil war that has threatened the food security of close to a million people. In April 2023 fighting began in the capital city of Khartoum between forces loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-BURHAN, the top commander of the Sudanese armed forces, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, "Hemedti", who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a militia with a long history of...
