An Alabama man has been sentenced to three years in prison after being accused of assaulting two men. A-P-R’s Stan Ingold reports they were arguing over hot dogs.
Florence police Detective Justin Wright tells the TimesDaily, 66-year-old George Weakley "Old School" Rhodes Jr. was drinking alcohol with two men in June when one of them refused to share hot dogs with the others.
Wright says the argument turned violent, and Rhodes injured the two men with a piece of lumber with a nail in it. Both men were hospitalized and later released.
Rhodes pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree assault. He previously served a five-year sentence for manslaughter.
Time is running out if you want to speak out about the settlement from the 2010 Gulf oil spill.
Residents have until the end of the day today to express their concerns over the deal between BP, the Gulf States and the federal government. The goal of the settlement is a dollar for dollar restoration of the damage done by the spill. Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden** says all accounts will be taken into full consideration.
“Every single one of those comments that we receive in writing or orally, ultimately we present to the court. Ultimately, we take every single one ; we evaluate those carefully, we work with the states, we work with the federal trustees; we decide if there’s anything there that would cause us to change the consent decree, and that happens sometimes.”
The proposed consent decree reduces the maximum funds available through the federal RESTORE Act, which was passed to manage the payment of damage. The original eleven billion dollar figure would go down to four billion.
There's a shift going on in the South. Churches are losing their grip on a region where they could long set community standards. The change is evident in the central Alabama town of Sylacauga where bars can now open on Sunday because of a recent citywide vote. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows 19 percent of Southerners don't identify with any organized religion, up 6 percentage points since 2007.