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Lawyers Named in Impeachment Investigation, School Bus Camera, Gamma Rays

High-profile lawyers have been named to both sides in the impeachment investigation against Governor Robert Bentley, and Alabama's taxpayers will foot the bill.

Bentley's office announced  that it is hiring Ross Garber, who represented the governors of South Carolina and Connecticut during impeachment proceedings.                     

Alabama's House Judiciary Committee named Birmingham attorney Jackson Sharman as its special counsel. That's a role he had with the U.S. House Banking Committee for the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.

Judiciary Chairman Mike Jones said Sharman will lead the investigation to determine if Bentley committed impeachable offenses. Twenty-three House members signed impeachment articles accusing the governor of corruption and neglect of duty after Bentley admitted making inappropriate remarks to a former aide.

Alabama school buses are getting an extra set of eyes. A new law allows school districts to install cameras on the stop signs of buses to record traffic violators. Corporal Jess Thornton is a spokesman for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. He says the cameras will work more like a traffic light camera...

“It’ll be reviewed, but it won’t alert law enforcement or then based off the vehicle and then write the ticket. All the evidence will be there on camera with the picture, with identifying information and that person will probably get a ticket in the mail.”

Thornton adds that the cameras will not only reduce reckless driving, but make it safer for kid to walk to the bus alone.

Scientists are holding a workshop on the University of Alabama at Huntsville’s campus this week to study gamma rays. This type of radiation is normally seen in outer space. But these gamma rays are produced during thunderstorms. A workshop at UAH will study this homegrown variety of gamma rays and proposed instruments to study them. Michael Briggs is a principal research scientist with UAH. He says this can help scientists understand where these are coming from…  

“They reveal some of the most energetic processes in the universe.  So x-rays are showing us the electric fields in thunderstorms are strong enough to accelerate to such high energies that they also emit gamma rays.”

TGFs are flashes of the most powerful radiation in the universe and they can come from any storm.  Data shows that gamma rays were even produced by the weakest storms. The workshop will continue through Friday.

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