Alabama Will Redraw Congressional Map Despite Court Order
Ivey is calling the state legislature back into session.
Analysts: SPLC Fraud, Money Laundering Charges Could Be The Tip Of The Iceberg
'That’s certainly an admission of fraud against the bank,' Byrnes told The Federalist.Unhinged man bites police dog while resisting arrest; cops say man became disruptive amid operation he wasn't even part of
A man was caught on police bodycam video biting an Alabama police dog while resisting arrest last week — and cops said the suspect just showed up and became disruptive during an operation he wasn't even part of.
The Florence Police Department said the Lauderdale County Drug Task Force executed a search warrant in the 200 block of North Locust Street in Florence on Wednesday.
'I can tell you what I had a concern of, and of course, all of the citizens. Those are most of my calls in regard to what happened. It’s all about the dog biting him and when the dog was sicced on him.'
Police said the Florence-Lauderdale SWAT team and the Florence Police Department K-9 Unit assisted.
However, during the execution of the warrant, police said 46-year-old David Culliver arrived on scene.
Believe it or not, police said Culliver wasn't involved in the investigation and actually "inserted himself into the situation."
What's more, cops said Culliver "became belligerent, yelled at officers, and stepped into an active roadway with flowing traffic."
Police said an officer ordered Culliver several times to get out of the roadway so a vehicle wouldn't hit him.
However, cops said Culliver re-entered the roadway and continued disrupting traffic.
At that point, officers told Culliver he was being placed under arrest.
But as officers attempted to handcuff him, police said Culliver pulled away and resisted multiple officers as they tried to place him under arrest.
Soon, a Florence Police K-9 was deployed to help take Culliver into custody.
But Culliver grabbed one of the K-9's legs and bit the K-9, police said.
Officers struck Culliver to get him to release the K-9, cops noted.
Culliver then was taken to the ground and placed in handcuffs, police said, adding that he was taken to a hospital for treatment of K-9 puncture wounds and then booked into the Lauderdale County Detention Center. Police did not detail what, if any, injuries the K-9 may have suffered.
Police released video of the incident showing two bodycam angles; the clip from Officer Two showing the struggle between the suspect and the K-9 begins at the 11:27 mark in the video below. You also can view the full video from Officer Two here.
Content warning: Explicit language.
Police said Culliver was being charged for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and interfering with a police dog.
Police said Culliver's bond was set at $2,500; Culliver was not listed as an inmate, according to jail records accessed Monday afternoon.
Police added that "this footage captures the entirety of the encounter, as opposed to the brief clip currently circulating on social media. Shortened videos shared online often present only a limited perspective and may not fully show the sequence of events. Viewing the complete footage is essential to understanding the full context of the situation and ensuring an accurate representation of what occurred."
Police also said the incident "has been thoroughly reviewed, and the use of force applied has been determined to be justified."
However, Florence City Council President Kaytrina Simmons said several community members reached out to her in anger over the officers' actions, according to WAFF-TV.
Simmons told the station that even after considering the police perspective on the incident, the use of the K-9 is troubling to her: "I'm not a police officer. I can tell you what I had a concern of, and of course, all of the citizens. Those are most of my calls in regard to what happened. It's all about the dog biting him and when the dog was sicced on him."
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Former girls' high school basketball coach hit with 32 sex charges, including 'deviant sexual intercourse with a student'
A grand jury on Tuesday indicted a former Alabama high school girls' basketball coach who's facing 32 sex crime charges in connection with accusations that she sexually abused a student, according to multiple reports.
Paige Adams — former girls' basketball coach at Cold Springs High School — was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Cullman County Jail, according to jail records.
Before the accusations surfaced, Adams was described as 'a great role model for the young people of Cullman County.'
The 35-year-old was charged with two felony crimes: school employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student and school employee having sexual contact with a student under the age of 19, AL.com reported.
Adams also faces 30 misdemeanor counts of a school employee distributing obscene material to a student.
Adams was released from jail after posting a $225,000 bond but is required to wear an electronic monitor.
"This 32-count grand jury indictment speaks for itself," Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker told WIAT-TV Tuesday.
WIAT obtained court records Wednesday stating that Adams asked the student to send her obscene material depicting sexual activity on at least two occasions, only days before she resigned March 25.
The outlet added that Adams sent obscene material to the student at least 28 times between Feb. 13 and March 9.
Adams — who was in her first year as the varsity girls' basketball coach at Cold Springs High School after being hired in March 2025 — resigned last month, and she was "escorted from school property," according to AL.com.
Cullman County Schools Superintendent Shane Barnette stated last month, "Our sole focus is protecting the students of Cullman County Schools. We are going to do what is always right, as we always have."
1819 News reported that Barnette said of Adams, "This is the first formal complaint I have received regarding this employee. As soon as the concern was raised, an investigation was initiated. The employee chose to resign at that time."
Before the accusations surfaced, Barnette called Adams "a great role model for the young people of Cullman County," according to 1819 News.
WIAT reported that Adams' husband filed for divorce April 6 — just two weeks before she was arrested.
Adams' husband — the boys' basketball coach at Cold Springs High School — requested sole custody of their child, according to WIAT.
According to court documents, Adams and her husband had been married since 2015, but they separated in March when she resigned.
In April 2025, Adams' husband said he was excited that she was hired as the girls' basketball coach at the same school as him.
Adams' husband previously told the Cullman Tribune, "Now we can be at the same place on a nightly basis. Secondly, being a head coach can be difficult at times. Us being at the same place and being able to support each other through the ups and downs was important to us."
"And lastly, getting to have a front-row seat to watch Paige starting her journey as the head girls' coach at Cold Springs is special to me," the husband said.
Authorities did not disclose the age of the alleged victim or if the teen was a student at Cold Springs High School.
Adams' arraignment hearing is scheduled for May 22.
The Cullman County Sheriff's Office and the Cullman County Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.
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Librarian refuses to move LGBTQ+ propaganda away from kids — and seals her fate
Radicals in Alabama appear to have found a gray-haired figure around which to rally to oppose the broader conservative effort to shield American children from mature and perverse content.
The Rutherford County Library Board removed Luanne James from her position as director of the library system after she refused to fulfill her duties and move hundreds of titles containing inappropriate content — ranging from a book targeting adolescents about sexual activity to books about "genderfluidity" and transgenderism — from the kids' section to the adult section.
'I stand by my decision.'
The usual suspects have characterized the bespectacled obstructionist as a free-speech champion and her termination as unlawful.
How it started
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) repeatedly expressed concern in 2023 over children's exposure to "inappropriate, sexually suggestive materials without adequate means of parental supervision" in her state's taxpayer-funded libraries.
Ivey noted in a Sept. 1, 2023, letter to the director of the Alabama Public Library Service that the growing parental concern underpinning her own would not be remedied by removing books containing inappropriate content, including radical "gender transition" propaganda, but rather by "ensuring that these books are placed in an appropriate location."
In the same spirit, the Alabama Legislative Services Agency proposed rule changes to the APLS in 2024 that would make libraries' state funding conditional on moving content "inappropriate" for kids to an adult section.
Last month, the APLS board of trustees said that the Legislative Services Agency approved the change, reported AL.com.
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Rutherford County Library board meeting documents reveal that Luanne James expressed a willingness to relocate some thematically and graphically mature titles but dug in her heels to keep numerous provocative works of LGBT agitprop in the juvenile sections of her county's libraries.
The Murfreesboro Daily News Journal reported that among the over 130 titles that James refused to move are:
- "Pride in Sports," an LGBT activist book by a lesbian couple that apparently attempts to normalize non-straight sexual preferences and sex-rejection procedures;
- "Welcome to Your Period," a book about menstruation that contains illustrations of female body parts and claims that doctors can administer drugs to "try to block or stop periods and other physical changes" for "transgender children," which the authors claim "have existed for as long as time";
- "The Every Body Book," a book that discusses and illustrates various body parts while pushing gender ideology on kids; and
- "Lily and Dunkin," a story about a romance involving an 8th-grade boy deluded into thinking he's really a girl.
To James' chagrin, the board decided in an 8-3 vote on March 16 to move over 100 of the inappropriate LGBT titles to the adult section.
James noted in a letter to the board two days later that "restricting access to these materials through subjective relocation or removal constitutes a violation of the community’s right to information and a direct infringement on the principles of free speech."
"I will not comply with the Board's decision to relocate these books," wrote James. "Doing so would violate the First Amendment right of all citizens of Rutherford County and myself."
How it's going
Having proven unwilling to do her job, James was relieved of it on March 30.
The board's 8-3 vote to kick James to the curb was met by a mix of applause by detractors and furious booing by supporters at the packed Rutherford County Courthouse. James later said, "I stand by my decision," reported the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal.
Cody York said in a statement obtained by the Daily News Journal that James' "refusal to implement a lawful directive of the Rutherford County Library Board constitutes insubordination."
Nashville attorney Chuck Mangelsdorf said, "Her termination we believe is completely unlawful," and said James is "a guardian of the First Amendment."
PEN America said in a statement that it "stands with Rutherford County Library System Director Luanne James in her refusal to banish LGBTQ+ children’s books from access by relocating them to the adult section. Children and teens deserve access to diverse books that represent their identities and stories and books that introduce young people to new ideas and perspectives."
Kasey Meehan, the director of PEN America's Freedom to Read program, claimed that James' "story will echo from the courthouse in Murfreesboro, Tenn., across the country as emblematic of the fight against censorship and suppression," reported the Advocate.
Supporters have already crowdfunded over $72,000 on GoFundMe for James.
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'Pure insanity': Alabama news anchor under fire for quoting Islamic terrorist during sign-off
An Alabama news anchor drew fierce backlash after she quoted the founder of a designated terrorist organization during her on-air sign-off.
During a Thursday evening broadcast on Birmingham's ABC 33/40, WBMA-LD, Ashonti Ford, 38, told viewers, "Before we go, a quote from the founder of the Islamic Brotherhood: 'The quieter you become, the more you're able to hear.'"
'The intent of our closing segment is always to end the newscast on a positive and thoughtful note.'
Ford was quoting the late Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) reacted to the on-air moment, writing in a post on X, "Pure insanity. The Radical Muslim Brotherhood is a TERRORIST ORGANIZATION."
One X user responded, "Who made the decision to use the quote? That clown has to go!"
"She needs to be terminated!!" another individual wrote in response to Ford's comments.
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In January, the State and Treasury Departments designated Muslim Brotherhood branches as Specially Designated Global Terrorist groups.
Jeff Cox, a news director for ABC 33/40, which Sinclair Broadcast Group operates, apologized for the quotation on Monday, AL.com reported.
"The intent of our closing segment is always to end the newscast on a positive and thoughtful note," Cox said. "The quote included that evening was not intended to convey any political or ideological message."
"However, we understand it was perceived that way and on behalf of the station, I sincerely apologize to those who were offended," Cox added.
He asserted that Ford had no role in selecting the quote and stated that the matter was addressed internally.
"Although this quote was read by Ashonti Ford, Ashonti had nothing to do with the selection," Cox continued. "We have addressed the matter internally, and we are making adjustments to ensure our content consistently meets our editorial standards moving forward."
A Sinclair spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "ABC 33/40 is reinforcing its editorial review protocols to ensure content aligns with the station's standards."
"ABC 33/40 has an established editorial process for reviewing content. In this case, that process fell short, and the station has taken steps to strengthen it moving forward," the spokesperson continued. "The station's on-air talent was not involved in the selection of the quote. This was an editorial matter, which has been addressed through our internal processes."
Ford was not disciplined and remains on air, according to Fox News Digital.
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