BINGE
College football fans attending tonight’s BCS championship game will see a public service announcement filmed by University of Alabama students. The anti-binge drinking campaign LessThanUThink was started in 2010 by students in the school’s advertising and public relations department. The organization gained national coverage last April when basketball star Shaquille O’Neal directed a public service announcement. According to the University of Alabama’s website, the public service announcement will be played in the Miami Sun Life Stadium during the first quarter of tonight’s game in an effort to curb binge-drinking. Mariah Fairweather, an Alabama alum and team member who worked on the PSA with Shaq, said having her alma mater and the public service announcement in the stadium on the same night is “like a dream come true.”
ROGERS
Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers has been appointed to the House Committee on Agriculture for the 113th session of Congress. The Saks native has served as representative of Alabama’s Third Congressional District for the past 10 years. The Agriculture Committee has jurisdiction over a wide range of issues that are vital to Alabama’s economy. Since his first term that started in 2003, Rogers has also maintained his Third District Agriculture Advisory Committee. Rogers said the group includes farmers from every county of his district and has been a vital resource for him while in Congress. Agriculture Committee Chairman and Oklahoma representative Frank Lucas said in a release late last week that Rogers “will serve both his East Alabama district and our nation well on the committee.” Along with a senior position with the Agriculture Committee, Rogers is also Chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces on the House Armed Services Committee and a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee.
FIRE
A fire early Sunday morning in Jacksonville has left a home gutted but resulted in no injuries. The Anniston Star reports that the home on Boozer Drive about four miles west of Jacksonville wasn’t occupied when it caught fire early Sunday and burned for more than two hours before firefighters could contain the blaze. Jacksonville Fire Department was called to the scene around 2:30 Sunday morning, and assistant chief Randy Childs told the Star that the cause of the fire is not currently known. Firefighters spent nearly two hours before the fire could be contained. Childs said that while the structure is still standing, the home is “a total loss.” 23 firefighters from Jacksonville, Angel, Weaver, and Alexandria fire departments were on the scene to battle the fire.
RUNNING
A judge in Gadsden has reduced the bond for a woman charged with murder in the running death of her 9-year-old stepdaughter. Etowah County Circuit Judge Billy Ogletree reduced the bond for Jessica Hardin from $500,000 to $150,000. The judge said the original bond was excessive and $150,000 was in line with other non-capital cases. The Gadsden Times reports that if Hardin makes bond, she must remain at her residence unless she receives permission from a community corrections officer to leave. 9-year-old Savannah Hardin collapsed and later died after being made to run for about three hours as punishment for telling a lie. The girl’s grandmother, Joyce Hardin Garrard, is accused of forcing her to run. She is charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty.
JUSTICE
Anniston’s new $15 million justice center is scheduled for completion in mid-March. The more than 57,000-square-foot building will include a jail, the police department and the municipal court. Police Chief Layton McGrady told The Anniston Star that the jail and the administrative and investigative divisions of the police department should move in late March or early April. The new justice center is named for Officer Justin Sollohub, who was killed in the line of duty in August of 2011. Anniston’s old police headquarters and jail will be razed for a parking lot once all divisions have moved to the new justice center.
TOOMERS
A Lee County judge handling the Toomer’s Oaks poisoning case in Auburn will consider a request from prosecutors Wednesday to revoke the bond for 64-year-old Harvey Updyke. The Opelika-Auburn News reports that the district attorney’s office based its request on Updyke being arrested last September when he was accused of threatening an employee at a home improvement store in Hammond, La. Updyke remains free on bond but is under the supervision of his daughter in Louisiana. Lee County Judge Jacob Walker III has ordered Updyke to be present for Wednesday’s hearing. Updyke is an Alabama fan who’s accused of poisoning the historic oaks where Auburn fans celebrate victories.
TERROR
An eastern Alabama high school student faces an attempted assault charge after authorities say he planned to use homemade explosives in a terrorist attack on fellow students at his school. Authorities say 17-year-old Derek Shrout, a student at Russell County High School in Seale, is to appear at a Monday afternoon court hearing in Russell County. Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor tells the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that a search of Shrout’s home found several small tobacco cans and two large cans, all with holes drilled in them and containing pellets. Taylor said other ingredients to complete the small bombs were not found. The sheriff said the devices were just “a step or two away from being ready to explode.” Shrout is the third Alabama high school student to be charged with making terrorist threats after students in Etowah and Lawrence Counties were arrested in December in two separate incidents.
MARCH
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. will be remembered with several events in downtown Montgomery on the King holiday Jan. 21. State Rep. Alvin Holmes organized the events and said there has been some type of commemorative event in Montgomery most years since King was assassinated in 1968. Holmes says there will be a march from the downtown Montgomery post office to the state Capitol starting at 1 p.m. The march will go past the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. King helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott as the church’s pastor in the 1950s. At the end of the march there will be a rally on the Capitol steps near where King spoke at the end of the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March in 1965.
COACH
Oxford High School will begin their search for a new head coach after the former coach accepted a position with Jacksonville State University. Oxford High School principal Trey Holladay said in a release Monday the search will officially begin once he receives a written resignation from former head coach John Grass. Grass served as head coach of the Yellow Jacket football program since 2008 before he accepted a position as offensive coordinator for the JSU Gamecocks last week. Oxford High School officials say that the job opening will be posted to the school’s website and interviews should begin toward the end of January. Holladay plans to have a new coach in place by the first week of February.