The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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The real estate frenzy spurred by the coronavirus pandemic continues, though at a slower pace. Buyers are still competing for a limited supply of housing, driving up prices for affordable properties. The typical home value in the United States was $360,385 in October, 2.4% higher than the year before. Increasing mortgage rates have slowed growth, with prices even declining in some places. But some areas are still seeing price jumps compared to the year before. Stacker compiled a list of cities...
The real estate frenzy spurred by the coronavirus pandemic continues, though at a slower pace. Buyers are still competing for a limited supply of housing, driving up prices for affordable properties. The typical home value in the United States was $360,385 in October, 2.4% higher than the year before. Increasing mortgage rates have slowed growth, with prices even declining in some places. But some areas are still seeing price jumps compared to the year before. Stacker compiled a list of cities...
The real estate frenzy spurred by the coronavirus pandemic continues, though at a slower pace. Buyers are still competing for a limited supply of housing, driving up prices for affordable properties. The typical home value in the United States was $360,385 in October, 2.4% higher than the year before. Increasing mortgage rates have slowed growth, with prices even declining in some places. But some areas are still seeing price jumps compared to the year before. Stacker compiled a list of cities...
A recent study by the University of Southern California revealed that exposure to air pollution can harm children's learning and memory, the LA Post reports. Ammonium nitrate, a specific component of fine particle air pollution primarily produced by agricultural emissions, is associated with decreased learning and memory performance in children aged nine and 10. The comprehensive research analyzed data from 8,500 children nationwide, suggesting potential long-term implications for cognitive...
November 25, 2024 - (Montgomery, Ala.) - Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined an Iowa-led letter, calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to end his last-ditch effort to push the Biden-Harris Administration's agenda through the door before Biden leaves office. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution is meeting this week to negotiate an international plastics agreement. The States are strongly urging Secretary Blinken to not enter into...
Alabama Republican Party Executive Director Reed Phillips will be departing the Party to pursue an exciting new opportunity. Phillips, who has been with ALGOP for nearly a decade, first served as Political Director before being promoted to Executive Director in 2020. During his tenure, Phillips played a pivotal role in growing the Party's influence across Alabama. Under his leadership, the Republican Party increased its share of partisan elected offices across the state from 54% to over 73%,...
Americans are heading into the first holiday season in years where buying less may be the first thing on their minds. And this year, gift lists may exclude one important person: you. Stacker dug into Deloitte's 2024 holiday retail survey to explore the psychology behind Americans' reluctance to self-gift this year. In the modern era, holiday gifting includes a practice that may seem rooted in consumerism—giving ourselves gifts. However, "self-gifting," psychologists say, carries its own importan...
People from all over the world have long come to the United States in search of opportunities. That includes immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and temporary workers and students who come to the U.S. on specialty visas. Among the latter are skilled foreign workers, a select group granted special access by the H-1B visa program, designed to boost innovation and the economy via a "brain gain," according to the Brookings Institute. Since launching in 1990, the program has allowed U.S....
MONTGOMERY – The National League of Cities (NLC) elected two Alabama officials to leadership positions on its board of directors and the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials (NBC-LEO) at its annual business meeting during City Summit on November 17 in Tampa, Florida. Rainbow City Councilmember Clark Hopper II was elected to serve a two-year term on the NLC board and Center Point Mayor Bobby Scott Jr. was elected to serve a one-year term as first vice president of NLC's NBC-LEO. "...
If you've consumed any kind of news in the past few years, you've likely scrolled across the very clickable headline "These are the states that will pay you to move there" a time or two. More than just a headline, the concept of cities offering incentives for people to relocate is a movement that has gained significant momentum in recent years. According to MakeMyMove, more than 5,000 remote workers have made the jump to new states since 2019. And get this: collectively, they've snagged over...
In the search for top-shelf versatility in a vehicle, it's hard to beat the following seven-passenger SUVs. The Acura MDX, Kia Telluride, and Toyota Highlander are among the bestselling on the market, but they've got more than a few competitors that are also worth looking at. Many of today's three-row SUVs sport comfortable passenger and cargo space, the latest safety equipment, and even good off-road capability that will fit anyone's intrepid summer vacation plans. But how do you know which is...
Data breaches are incidents in which confidential information, including consumer data, is stolen from a company or organization. In the first half of 2024, the number of data breach victims surpassed 1 billion, according to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. That's a 490% increase from the same time last year, when the number of recorded victims was about 183 million. If your personal information was exposed in a data breach, the breached company may notify you. It's important to...
Car insurance rates have soared in post-COVID-19 years, and despite many insurance industry experts predicting slower rate hikes in 2024, data from the first half of the year shows a 15% increase in full-coverage premiums. Insurify's data science team projects a total 22% increase in 2024. Rate increases in 2024 are largely a continuation of hikes in 2023, a year that saw full-coverage premiums rise by 24% in response to insurers' record underwriting losses ($33.1 billion) in the year prior....
Jefferson County's Series 2024 sewer warrant refinancing has been awarded The Bond Buyer's Southeast Region Deal of the Year. The County's sewer warrant issue is a finalist to be named the national Deal of the Year with the winner expected to be named in December. Jefferson County's sewer warrant debt refinance checked a number of boxes for The Bond Buyer's awards criteria and is considered a great turnaround story for the County that achieved significant ratepayer savings while reducing risk...
The holiday season feels a little less jolly considering the amount of waste generated by gift-giving. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the amount of household garbage in the U.S. increases by 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year's. After the decorations come down, all that waste heads to landfills, producing a significant contributor to climate change: methane gas. "Greening" the holidays is essential, and one simple tip is to think more about how sustainable the materials are in...
There's nothing quite like hitting the open road in a lifted truck, but not if you're worried about getting stopped by the cops. Every state has its own lifted truck laws, and no two states are exactly alike. Even if you plan on spending most of your time off-road, you need to comply with your state's rules and guidelines for lifted trucks. You may scoff at the idea of anyone telling you what you can and can't do with your truck, but these laws put an emphasis on safety. They're designed to...
In recent Alabama elections observers could predict how Alabamians vote simply by eyeballing them with better than 80% accuracy. 82 to 84% of White voters voted for the Republican candidate and 90 to 94% of Black voters voted for the Democratic candidate. That trend may be changing according to the Alabama Republican Party's post-election analysis. ALGOP reports that they have made significant gains with Black voters – particularly in rural areas. The Alabama GOP picked up three seats in d...
The 2024 General Election results have been certified by the Alabama State Canvassing Board. The canvassing board consists of Governor Kay Ivey, Secretary of State Wes Allen, and Attorney General Steve Marshall. "On November 5, Alabamians cast 2,265,090 ballots for president in a fair, secure, and transparent election," Secretary Allen said. "This election was administered with election integrity as the top priority, and I am proud to officially certify the results today." The certified...
When pilot Kenneth Arnold took off from Chehalis, Washington, in his single-engine airplane one afternoon in June 1947, he was looking for a lost military aircraft that had crashed. But what he found was something completely different—something that would set off a cultural obsession in the U.S. that persists today. While flying around Mount Rainier, Arnold reportedly encountered nine curious, wingless objects speeding through the sky at 1,200 mph, faster than any plane at the time could. Arnold...
It seems there isn't a day that goes by without a headline about contaminated food resulting in a recall or outbreak. In mid-November 2024, the Food and Drug Administration began investigating an E. coli outbreak from organic carrots sold at popular grocery stores like Kroger, Wegmans, Sprouts, and Trader Joe's, affecting people in more than a third of U.S. states. Earlier in 2024, a listeria outbreak from Boar's Head deli meats resulted in the recall of 7 million pounds of meat, 61 reported...
November 27, 2024 - Four years ago the military determined that the best place to locate Space Command was at Huntsville, Alabama's Redstone Arsenal. This decision was based on a nonpartisan analysis by a Pentagon team that evaluated a dozen contenders for the site. Huntsville won going away. Then Joseph R. Biden became President of the United States and national security concerns became subordinate to political concerns. Alabama was a red state that had voted for President Donald J. Trump (R);...
Today is the official observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. The original Thanksgiving holiday occurred 403 years ago. Most of the attendees were member of a Christian radical religious separatist group we now call Pilgrim and their Wampanoag Indian neighbors. The Pilgrims were supposed to have gone to the already established English colony in Jamestown, Virginia; but being religious dissenters enroute to America they announced their intention to form their own separate colony on the Hudson....
The holiday shopping season can be the most wonderful time of year for consumers—but it's the most important time of year for small business owners. Yet many small business owners find themselves in a tight spot, as the growth of online shopping transforms major retailers into the go-to for shoppers seeking both convenience and good deals. While e-commerce platforms take precedence, many small businesses don't even have a website—and those that do may lack digital accessibility. This puts the...
Pivot counties are the 206 counties nationwide Ballotpedia identified as having voted for Barack Obama (D) in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Media and political observers sometimes refer to these counties as swing counties. Trump won 179 pivot counties in all three of his presidential runs and won 175 of them by a larger margin in 2024 than in 2020. Harris won by a smaller margin than Biden in seven of the nine pivot counties they each won. Overall, pivot...
What is one of the busiest days of the year in many Veterinary Hospitals? If you guessed the Friday after Thanksgiving, then give yourself a high five. While Thanksgiving is a wonderful time for families to get together and enjoy bountiful food, that same food can be harmful to some of our pets if they eat to much or the wrong foods. Fatty foods are hard for many animals to digest, turkey (and other) bones can damage your pet's digestive tract, and holiday sweets can contain ingredients that are...
