New semester starts at UA
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Aug. 17
Thousands of students back to the books at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. They return to class today. This year’s enrollment is estimated to be 37,000 students. There are some new changes. The new North Lawn Hall is now open after more than two years of planning and construction. It’s a $32 million building that’s a big step in transforming the old Bryce Hospital grounds that’s now a part of the campus. And a new book store near the stadium is now also open and ready for game day. Students spent much of yesterday looking around and making sure students are ready for their first day.
Dr. Stuart Bell speaks to class
WVUA 23 (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 17
About 100 engineering students got a surprise this morning on their first day of classes at The University of Alabama. University of Alabama President Dr. Stuart Bell dropped in on a classroom at Comer Hall for this morning’s 9:00 class. Dr. Bell challenged the students to plan on being successful by going to every class, working hard and enjoying their university experience.
What Next on Terror and Guns?
Jurist.org – Aug. 17
Just over two months ago we witnessed the worst mass shooting in US history, which, with 49 killed, was also the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. There followed a successful filibuster in the Senate to at least force votes. A rare, dramatic sit-in on the House floor failed. But that was June. Now it seems the country has forgotten. No one wants terrorists to have guns, but the two parties moved on before building on this common ground. While nothing passed Congress, the seeds of a compromise are buried in the failed Senate bills. (JURIST Guest Columnist Fredrick Vars [PDF] of the University of Alabama School of Law, proposes a compromise federal approach to the problem of guns and terrorism)
UA to study companies that went public in 1996
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Aug. 17
The University of Alabama has a $100,000 grant to study companies that went public in 1996. The year the largest number of firms held initial public offerings. The research team will present their findings in November at the Entrepreneurship and Growth Leadership Summit at the Cochran Foundation Conference Center in Kansas City. Prominent CEO’s from businesses in that 1996 pool with investment bankers and venture capitalists will be on hand.
Task force plans action against obesity
Clanton Advertiser – Aug. 17
The Alabama Obesity Task Force held its quarterly meeting on Aug. 17 in the Alabama Power building in Clanton to discuss its efforts against Alabama’s highest obesity. Obesity in Alabama is a problem … During the task force’s Aug. 17 meeting, representatives from the Montgomery Area Food Bank, the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development (UACED) and the Lakeshore Foundation all spoke about ongoing projects that support the Task Force’s mission.
New simulation tool to improve flood forecasting
The Weather Channel – Aug. 17
The flooding now occurring in Louisiana and MS is a stark reminder of how disruptive and potentially unsafe floods can be. NOAA and its partners have developed a new forecasting tool to simulate how water moves throughout the nation’s rivers and streams, paving the way for the biggest improvement in flood forecasting the country has ever seen. Before the National Water Model was put into use, forecasts were only available a few times a day for 4,000 streamflow locations like the one above … The development of this model follows the opening of the National Water Center at the University of Alabama in May 2015. “Currently we reserve about eight percent of the Cray’s capacity for our work”, said Graziano. The new model allows NOAA to issue forecasts for coastal areas as well as inland.
Experts worry Trump’s war on America’s democratic institutions could do long-term damage
Southwest Ontario – Aug. 17
Donald Trump is fond of saying “believe me.” He might as well add: don’t believe anyone else. Trump is running against Hillary Clinton. But he is also waging an extraordinary scorched-earth campaign against America’s democratic institutions, a broad collection of authorities he has made a systematic attempt to delegitimize. None of them, he argues, can be trusted … George Hawley, author of the book Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism and a University of Alabama political science professor, said conservative intellectuals have strategically dealt in anti-establishment populism “with the understanding that they would always be able to remain in control of it.” The Tea Party, he said, was a genuine populist movement whose energy party elites channelled into the kinds of business-friendly policies favoured by the Chamber of Commerce.
EDITORIAL: More trust means a safer community
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 17
Toward the end of Tuesday night’s public forum on community-police relations, a man in the audience at First African Baptist Church took issue with Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steve Anderson’s earlier assertion that the media do not always accurately portray incidents involving law enforcement … Please do not misunderstand. We are not implying that the audience was hostile toward Anderson or the other law enforcement leaders who participated as panelists in the hour-and-a-half-long forum: Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy, University of Alabama Police Chief John Hooks and Northport Police Capt. Keith Carpenter, as well as Michael Whisonant, assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and Roger Stanton, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Birmingham Division.
Warding off trouble
The Legal Genealogist – Aug. 17
Reader David Reed is looking for help in locating specific Michigan death certificates from the late 1800s. It seems that David has found that the certificates he needs were recorded and so are now organized by the wards in Wayne County, Michigan, and without a good overview of the ward boundaries, David is having trouble locating the specific certificates he needs, from 1880 to 1910 … And if that’s not good enough… there really are maps, and they do show the ward boundaries as they were fixed in 1881. One great map collection, for almost any area and time period in the United States, is the collection at the University of Alabama.
Bid on it
Crimson White – Aug. 17
As new sisters ran toward their houses, the University of Alabama’s greek system took another step forward with participation and acceptance of minority students on the rise for the third year in a row.