The unofficial start of the summer travel season means more cars on the road today.
The American Automobile Association expected thirty eight million motorists to drive at least fifty miles from home over Memorial Day. Today means a lot of those return trips, making for crowded conditions on Alabama’s roads and highways.
Triple-A spokesman Clay Ingram says the end of a vacation can lead to a list of concerns as people get behind the wheel to come home…
“I think probably one of the biggest one is fatigue. I think people are going to be tired from their restful vacation, as you mentioned, and that’s a pretty common thing, that we are tired at the end of it.”
Ingram says one factor prompting extra Memorial Day traffic is lower gasoline prices. Motorists are paying forty cents a gallon less than they were a year ago. That’s despite a sixty cent per gallon hike at the gas pump since February.
Testimony will resume tomorrow in the ethics case of Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.
Hubbard is accused of using his political positions to make money and soliciting financial favors from lobbyists. Hubbard’s lawyers contest the transactions were legal. Hubbard also denies any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors are calling on more of Hubbard’s political friends to testify tomorrow.
Hubbard will be automatically be removed from office if he is convicted of any of the 23 felony charges.
May is Foster Care Month in Alabama. The state says there over five thousand children in foster homes in the state. That number is on the rise in Alabama, due to drug use.
Nancy Buckner is the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources. She says foster care month helps to highlight the constructive influence that foster parents can have in children’s lives.
“Foster parents are really stand-ins for the parents so to speak. They’re there to nurture them children, to hold them, to mold them, to guide them, to give them the things that all children need growing up.”
Another potential resource for foster children is Alabama’s Fostering Hope Scholarship Act. The act helps qualified foster children afford tuition at any technical, two-year, or four-year academic institution in Alabama. Qualified youths can apply for such assistance until they are 26 years old.