Alabama’s sluggish job market continues its slow climb
Montgomery Advertiser – June 17
Alabama’s jobless rate stayed flat at 6.1 percent in May as job growth was balanced by a slight uptick in the number of people looking for work, according figures released Friday by the state. The unemployment rate was also 6.1 percent in May 2015, but the labor force has swelled by 40,548 people in that time. . . . Executives statewide are confident in Alabama’s economic growth but far less so about the U.S. outlook, according to the latest quarterly survey by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama. Executives here form their plans for hiring, capital investment and more based on those opinions about the economy’s direction.
Those who serve should never be subject to hate
Modesto Bee (Calif.) – June 17
Ignorance is ugly, hateful and can be dangerous. But what does ignorance look like? It looks like preachers in Sacramento and Arizona vilifying the victims of a massacre. It looks like a meme of Donald Trump, criticizing anyone who disagrees with him. It looks like a noose. When he was running for county supervisor, Luis Molina created a public Facebook page. Recently, a noose and a photo of Trump were posted there by a Patterson resident named Justen Mackenroth. The noose was accompanied by the words, “The system can be fixed, all you need is some wood and a little rope.” … Nooses are well-known symbols of racial hatred in the south, like the Confederate battle flag. But University of Alabama law professor Richard Delgado, writing in a Harvard legal journal, noted the same is true for Latinos; nearly 600 were lynched throughout the Southwest in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
University of Alabama President’s List and Dean’s List Spring 2016
Tuscaloosa News – June 18
PRESIDENT’S LIST: Alabama – Abbeville: Emily A Abernathy; Addison: Morgan Marie Smothers; Alabaster: Alex S Carter, Amanda R Cavender, Riley Andrew Cockerill, Laura H Fulmer, Elise N Helton, Luke A Hester, Rachel E Irvin, Natalie Layton, Brooke E Patton, Erin Hutter Roberts, Warren M Snell, Frances Claire Victory, Thomas Elliott Ward.
Alabama highway deaths up sharply; distracted driving could be factor
Tuscaloosa News – June 18
The driver who Alabama State Trooper Reginal King ticketed on U.S. Highway 82 East Thursday afternoon was traveling 80 miles per hour in a 65-mile hour zone, not far from the spot where two young girls were killed in a crash the previous week … The Center for Advanced Public Safety at the University of Alabama compiles crash and other safety data for the state, including the numbers reported by the troopers and local police departments. According to the center, there have were 357 fatal crashes statewide between January and May, up 26 percent from 283 during that period last year.
Witt highlights campus achievements
Tuscaloosa News – June 17
The University of Alabama System board of trustees on Friday honored outgoing Chancellor Robert Witt and approved tuition increases of around 3 to 4 percent for the fall. Witt, who is scheduled to retire Aug. 31, used his comments during his last board meeting to highlight achievements at the system’s the three campuses, including enrollment growth at UA and the University of Alabama in Huntsville and research grants recently secured by UAB.
Tuscaloosa News (gallery) – June 18
How to deal with a tragedy like the Orlando Shooting
WVUA 23 (Tuscaloosa) – June 17
With the tragic shooting that happened in Orlando, there are many people throughout the country who lost a loved one, or who are worried about something like this happening to them. University of Alabama assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine John Burkhardt says most adults know how to deal with stressful situations and develop their own coping mechanisms, but even adults may show signs of fear and stress when it comes to tragic situations.
THE PORT RAIL: World War I and the lost generation
Tuscaloosa News – June 18
A few weeks ago I used the phrase “no man’s land” in this column. It has an eerie sound to it. No man’s land. It was the battlefield between the lines of trenches dug by both Allies and the Germans confronting each other on the Western Front during the First World War, 1914-1918. (Larry Clayton is a retired University of Alabama history professor. Readers can email him at larryclayton7@gmail.com.)
UA gets new Sports Research Center
WAAY-ABC 31 (Huntsville) – June 18, 2016
The University of Alabama is getting a new sports research center. The idea is to improve performance for athletes from all around the world. The center got the green light Friday morning from the Board of Trustees. The focus will be to reduce injuries and speed up recovery. It will also look at performance enhancement and nutrition.
Youth at People’s Summit discuss war, Sanders, Clinton
World Socialist Website – June 18
While the bulk of those attending the People’s Summit were middle-aged and middle class, mainly long-time participants in protest movements focused on the environment or various identity issues as well as trade unionists close to the bureaucracy, there was a smaller layer of young people who came into politics with the Bernie Sanders campaign … Kanisha DiCicco, a 19-year-old student at the University of Alabama, came to the conference with the group United Students Against Sweatshops. When asked what she thinks about war, she said, “I think it’s unnecessary. I think it’s a waste of money. I think it’s a waste of resources.
Rolling with the ‘Tide’ at the University of Alabama
VOA Radio News – June 18
Pablo Ramos is from Spain. He says friends studying at Spanish universities tell him their experiences are very limited. “Their college experience is basically just going to class. Everything after that is just extra and it’s completely up to them.” Ramos thought he too would be limited to the normal experience of a Spanish university. But just before his last year of high school in Ibiza, a friend of Ramos’ family suggested that he finish high school in the United States. . . . While studying at St. Andrew’s, Ramos became friends with the son of the Dean of Engineering at a university just a few hours away. That university was the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. . . . Some of Ramos’s friends thought he must be insane to go to school in Alabama. Yet this did not stop him from starting an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering there in 2014.