The Terminal

Birmingham drops down in “dangerous” list

Andre Natta — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:52:45 +0000

While Birmingham still resides among the top ten most dangerous cities rankings compiled by CQ Press, it has moved down the list. After spending two years at #6, Alabama’s largest city dropped two spaces to #8. The annual list is quite controversial to the point where even the folks who provide the data on which the results are based, the FBI, don’t necessarily agree with it - take a look at how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers it for instance (they finished 4^th BTW).

Langford arrested on federal charges

Andre Natta — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:14:23 +0000

The first work day after the Thanksgiving holiday began with Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford being arrested on federal charges early this morning. The 101-count indictment was unsealed today during a news conference held by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin. We do know that he is being held at the Jefferson County Courthouse. There is a press conference scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. We’re assuming that NBC 13 and myFoxAL.com will cover the conference live.

We’re going to take our time on this one, so we’ll also invite you to follow this breaking news story across the local media spectrum:

NBC 13, Fox 6, CBS 42, ABC 33/40, Birmingham Weekly, The Birmingham News.

Photo: Bob Farley/f8Photo.org

Happy Thanksgiving Birmingham!

Andre Natta — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:31:57 +0000

Best wishes to you and yours on this day of Thanksgiving from Birmingham’s hub - and prayers for those affected by the continuing crisis in Mumbai…

We just have one question to ask today, and you can click on it to take you over to Magic City Question to answer if you feel so inclined:

What are you thankful for?

Publix shoppers in Hoover, take note

Andre Natta — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:37:59 +0000

The newest location of the Lakeland, FL-based grocery chain opens next week (12.3) along Highway 31, but the shopping center as a whole represents the effects of the economy on commercial real estate as ABC 33/40 reports on their website.

You go, Raven!

Andre Natta — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:27:15 +0000

The big story from yesterday’s Birmingham City Council meeting was the hiring of a 13 year-old as a consultant by Mayor Larry Langford - well, sort of.

Raven Hatcher (of no relation to the mayor’s executive assistant Terri Hatcher) actually turns 14 on Friday. This means that she will be able to apply for a work permit and receive $10,000 as a consultant to the city’s parks and recreation department after presenting her suggestions for improvements to Ensley Park to the Council. NBC13 is reporting on their morning show that $5,000 of the total amount will be placed into a college scholarship fund for the W.J. Christian School student.

The girl’s good fortune and suggestions did not prevent some from offering a wide range of comments on AL.com’s blog post about the story, causing the website to not accept more comment early yesterday evening after several violations of the site’s community rules. We’d recommend watching the interview that Joseph Bryant did with Hatcher yesterday.

On the hub: New faces and questions

Andre Natta — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:45:47 +0000

Well, there’s a familiar one in there as well. One thing you’ll no doubt notice as you return from the holiday weekend next week is a couple of changes to the front page so those of you that visit the site regularly know what’s going on elsewhere on The Terminal. However, for the time being:

You’ve got until noon tomorrow to enter for a chance to win tickets to The Duke Spirit show at The Bottletree this weekend;

Terri’s returned and so has In Love With, and just in time for the holidays;

It seems a lot of folks are in love with Josh’s review of Maki Fresh;

and we’re wondering what favorite Thanksgiving dish are you looking forward to having on your table come Thursday?

And we’ll give you two ways to let us know if you’re coming out to Speakeasy on December 5 - Facebook and Upcoming.

Feed the hub!

Andre Natta — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:48:07 +0000

As we begin to finally move forward with some changes to the site in the coming days, I wanted to make sure that The Terminal was doing everything that it could represent as many of Birmingham’s voices as possible. So I wanted to make you aware of something that we announced via our newsletter on Friday evening - a chance for you to help us feed Birmingham’s hub.

Now that I’ve got your attention, jump with me and I’ll explain just what that means…

It means that we want your help in telling Birmingham’s daily story to everyone, without your necessarily making the commitment to joining our band of contributors (though if you think you’re interested, let us know). We need help sharing information about what’s going on throughout metro Birmingham. We are currently accepting news or info related posts only, though we will be expanding this to include photos and videos as well.

This site exists to give a voice to all in The Magic City whether in telling or discussing the story, and there is no better way to improve what we do than by inviting you to share. The Rumble still exists and it will see it’s upgrades complete in the coming days, meaning that if you really don’t want to give us your real name or email when giving us a story to follow up, you won’t have to (plus, no more spam!).

We’ll make it easier to find this new submission form in the coming weeks as well - for now though we’re just going to see how it does in the coming days.