Thursday Morning News Briefing

Thunderstorms are rumbling across the state line and moving into Alabama this morning, but the storms carrying warnings with them are in the southern counties of Alabama and Mississippi.  In West AL, there is a marginal one-in-five risk for damaging winds up to 60 mph and quarter size hail. Stay tuned to Operation Storm Watch on air and click on tuscaloosathread.com for updates and possible warnings through 3:00 p.m.

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12 years ago, today Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox told CNN he didn’t recognize the city he had grown up in due to the destruction left by an EF4 tornado with 190 mph winds. 

15 percent of Tuscaloosa was damaged and destroyed and 52 people perished on April 27, 2011. The National Weather Service determined the path length of the violent tornado, one of 62 to strike Alabama that day, to be 80.68 miles with a maximum damage path width of 1.5 miles.

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Last year, Tuscaloosa ranked number one in the country for the most reported cases of Identity theft with 1,123 cases. Alabama, as a state, ranks in the top 10 with a 110% increase in ID theft since 2019.

According to the Federal Trade Commission the major reason for the increase here and around the nation is more people are using their home computers to pay bills, fill out government forms and order products. The FTC reports that less than half of Americans use adequate computer safety precautions. 

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All six suspects in the mass shooting in Dadeville earlier this month have been denied bond based on implementation of "Aniah's Law."

Passed last year, the law is meant to deny bail to violent offenders accused of crimes ranging from human trafficking to murder. Four were killed in the shooting and 32 injured during the incident at a "Sweet 16" birthday party in the Dadeville's downtown. Four are still recovering in the hospital with critical injuries.

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Alabama Football fans from the late 1950s thru the 1970s well-remember Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s Sunday afternoon Tide Football Coaches Show.

Each week host Charlie Thornton always had difficulty tearing open a Golden Flake Potato Chip bag to promote the sponsor. Now Birmingham's Golden Flake manufacturing faculty will close July 3 leaving 274 unemployed.

The chips will be manufactured at other plants owned by UTZ, a Pennsylvania based company that bought Golden Flake. 

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The University of Alabama's sixth-annual giving event, known as "Bama Blitz," raised over $2 million from the donations of 1,400+ individuals, according to a university release.

Bama Blitz is a three-day event geared towards providing funding and exposure to Alabama's underserved programs and other projects on campus.