A state prosecutor says Alabama’s speaker of the house is going on trial for alleged crimes and not due to politics. Alabama Public Radio’s Pat Duggins has more on the case against Mike Hubbard.
Acting Attorney W. Van Davis says a grand jury indicted House Speaker Mike Hubbard based on the evidence. He’s responding to accusations that his case against Hubbard is for political reasons. Hubbard faces twenty three charges of ethics violations. Specifically, the grand jury says there’s evidence the Speaker used his office for political gain. Davis says Hubbard's indictment came shortly before the election only because a four-year statute of limitations was about to expire. The prosecutor says he’s responding to what he called false statements made by Hubbard. There’s speculation that one defense the speaker might make is that his actions benefited the state and not himself.
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has announced a pharmaceutical company will build a manufacturing facility in Birmingham. Bentley says Oxford Pharmaceuticals LLC is expected to open in 2016. The company manufactures generic drugs. Bentley says the company will employ 200 people when it is fully operational. The governor made the announcement at the Birmingham Business Alliance's annual governor's luncheon. The group says that state and local governments have tentatively awarded five million dollars in incentives for the project.
The Alabama Department of Transportation is advertising for bids to complete making four lanes on U.S. 431 from Interstate 85 in Opelika to the Florida line. The last two-lane stretch goes through Eufaula's historic district, and some residents are trying to stop the project. State Transportation Director John Cooper plans to discuss the project with Eufaula residents tonight.
Storyteller and writer Kathryn Tucker Windham has been selected for induction into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame. Windham was a newspaper reporter in Birmingham and Selma before becoming a well-known author and storyteller. Windham died in 2011 at the age of 93. During a tribute story on APR, author and University of Alabama Professor Rick Bragg talked about Windham’s ability to make each story sound like she was making it up, no matter how many times she told it…
“She was just standing up there in front of the microphone, and she’d said ‘you know, this just occurred to me,’ and she would start to talk about it. It sounded that way. Like it was… like she thought about it…over tea.”
Windham wrote twenty nine books, including "13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey" and "Alabama: One Big Front Porch."
