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Jefferson County to fix faulty Tornado Sirens, Crimson Tide to get more practice time?

Residents of Birmingham are still picking up the pieces following a Christmas night tornado that hit a suburb southwest of town. Jefferson County is working to fix storm sirens that didn’t go off as the storm closed in. The County Commission blames the failure on maintenance projects that have fallen behind as the county comes out of a multi-billion dollar bankruptcy. The National Weather Service confirms an EF-2 tornado with one hundred and thirty mile an hour winds hit that Birmingham suburb. ?

Three Alabama cities are among the 25 best in the country for getting what they pay for when it comes to their police departments. That’s according to a new study from finance website WalletHub. They calculated the best return on investment for city police departments. Birmingham was ranked the ninth best in the country, with Montgomery and Mobile both making the top 25. Jill Gonzalez is a spokesperson for WalletHub. She says all three cities face high poverty rates, high unemployment rates and low median incomes.

“Usually, when all those three things are combined, that’s when we really see the crime rates rise. In Montgomery and Mobile, police forces are really trying to be as effective and efficient as possible, getting the most bang out of the taxpayers’ buck.”

The study based police efficiency on area crime rates versus per-capita police spending.

The Alabama Crimson Tide is getting ready to face the Clemson Tigers for Monday’s college football championship. And, starting today, the Tide has the option of more practice time. Class gets under today at Clemson and NCAA rules limit teams to twenty hours of practice a week when school is in session. Alabama students don’t return for the spring term until next week, so the Tide can practice as much as it wants. Coach Nick Saban says his team will need to be ready to face Coach Dabo Swinney and the Tigers…

“Clearly Clemson is a team that is good in all facets of the game—very, very good offensive team, great defensive team—play well on special teams, very well coached—Dabo has done an outstanding job.”

The Tide will likely be without cornerback Tony Brown, who remains on suspension for an unspecified team rules violation. Coach Swinney says defensive end Shaq Lawson may return for Monday’s game. ?

Fans of the Crimson Tide and the Jacksonville State Gamecocks are all crossing their fingers. Both teams are playing for national titles. Alabama faces Clemson for the College Football Championship in Arizona on Monday. Jacksonville State plays North Dakota for the FCS title on Saturday. If both the Tide and the Gamecocks win, it’ll be only the second time in Alabama history that two schools from the state have held both titles at the same time. Alabama and Jacksonville State did it back in 1992. Georgia is the only other state to win twin titles. Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern both won in 1990.

And Here's the forecast from WVUA's Richard Scott..

Pat Duggins is news director for Alabama Public Radio.
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