COVID 1 year anniversary: Chapter 1 - Flatten the curve. Safer at home. An essential business?
Updated Mar 13, 2021;
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500,000 cases. 10,000 deaths. A world of change.
Alabama reported its first case of COVID-19 on March 13, 2020. The months that followed saw shutdowns, closures, mass testing, growing hospitalizations and – above all – uncertainty.
For the next four days we will be looking back at the pandemic year, what happened, what we knew and what’s changed.
Today is March through May, a spring that changed Alabama, the U.S. and the world.
DCH Regional Medical Center opened a drive through testing facility for the Covid-19 virus Monday, March 16, 2020, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Tuscaloosa had three confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of Monday morning. A person who has given a saliva sample drops the cup containing his saliva into a bag which the nurse will seal up and forward for testing. (Gary Cosby Jr./The Tuscaloosa News via AP)AP
Did you know Alabama has a state mascot and it’s an insect?
Updated Mar 12, 2021;
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Like most states, Alabama has lots of designated symbols, such as a state flower – the camellia – and bird – yellowhammer. But did you know our state honors several insects, as well? Yep, and they include the official state mascot, which is a beautiful yellow-and-black butterfly.
Yet many people don’t even realize Alabama has a mascot. So how did Alabama come to have a butterfly as its symbol?
In 1989, the Alabama Legislature passed Act 89-676, making the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail its official mascot.
The move came at the behest of officials from the City of Selma, who had designated the city the Butterfly Capital of Alabama in 1982. To celebrate this distinction, Selma erected dozens of butterfly sculptures around the city painted by various artists and more recently added a colorful butterfly mural.
Biden betting Bessemer Amazon union could help bring back America’s middle class
Updated Mar 12, 2021;
Posted Mar 12, 2021
Activists in New York City came out to show their support on Feb. 27, 2021, for the approximately 6,000 Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who will vote by mail on whether to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The move would make them the first union at an Amazon facility in the country. (Ron Adar/SOPA Images via Zuma Press/TNS)TNS
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By Will Bunch The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) and Tribune Media Services
In Bessemer, Alabama, on a morning in 1983, I saw America’s future even if I was utterly clueless about it at the time. I was a cub reporter for the Birmingham News, ambushed by a breathless editor when I walked into the newsroom. He said the second-richest man in the world as he’d just read in The Wall Street Journal was in our area and I needed to rac
By Greg Garrison
AL.com
He was 36.
His mother, Mary Latimore of Birmingham, said she was unable to reach him Tuesday night or Wednesday morning and asked for a wellness check. He was found dead at his home by Atlanta Police just after noon on Wednesday.
Mrs. Latimore said her son suffered from congestive heart failure.
“He had been hospitalized several times,” she said. “I assume his heart just gave out on him.”
She said he was salutatorian at Woodlawn High School, where he graduated in 2002. He earned his bachelor’s degree in communications from Tennessee State University. He worked at several jobs in journalism, including as a page designer for Alabama Media Group, publisher of AL.com, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press-Register, from 2012-2014.
Atlanta Voice editor Marshall Latimore, Birmingham native and Woodlawn grad, dies al.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from al.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.