The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire : Reactions pour in following the passing of Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady and Global Humanitarian

    Rosalynn Carter with Jimmy Carter

    By Stacy M. Brown, For The Washington Informer
    In a wave of condolences, political leaders and public figures expressed their grief and admiration for the late Rosalynn Carter, former first lady and tireless advocate for various social issues. President Joe Biden, visibly moved, shared his sentiments with reporters as he boarded Air Force One in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday night.
    Habitat For Humanity, the Georgia-based charity closely associated with the Carters, expressed sadness at the news. The organization described Carter as a “compassionate and committed champion” who worked tirelessly to help families worldwide.
    The late First Lady and her husband co-founded the Carter Center, which expressed its sorrow in a statement by highlighting their global initiatives to strengthen democracy, settle disputes, advance human rights, and eradicate crippling diseases. The center announced that, instead of flowers, contributions in Carter’s memory could be made to the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program or the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers.
    “He had this great integrity and still does. And she did too,” Biden remarked. “God bless them.” After speaking with the family, Biden learned that Jimmy Carter’s children and grandchildren were by his side during his final moments. The White House later issued an official joint statement from President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, lauding Rosalynn Carter’s inspirational impact on the nation.
    Former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush also paid their respects, praising Carter’s dignity and strength. “There was no greater advocate of President Carter, and their partnership set a wonderful example of loyalty and fidelity,” Bush stated.
U.S. Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia emphasized Carter’s compassionate nature and commitment to various causes. “The State of Georgia and the United States are better places because of Rosalynn Carter,” Ossoff stated. “May Rosalynn Carter’s memory be a blessing.”
    Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged Carter’s redefinition of the First Lady’s role and her life of service, faith, compassion, and moral leadership. “Her legacy will be a beacon for generations to come,” Harris asserted.
    Former first lady Melania Trump expressed her condolences, noting Carter’s meaningful legacy and servant’s heart. “May she rest in peace,” Melania Trump conveyed on X, formerly Twitter.
    Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described Carter as a “saintly and revered public servant,” highlighting her historic diplomatic missions and advocacy for mental health. Pelosi offered condolences to the Carter family.
    Bill and Hillary Clinton, in a joint statement, referred to Carter as a champion of human dignity. They praised her advocacy for mental health and childhood immunization and her work with the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity.
    Former first lady Michelle Obama shared a personal connection, revealing that Carter offered advice during their periodic lunches at the White House. “Today, Barack and I join the world in celebrating the remarkable legacy of a First Lady, philanthropist, and advocate who dedicated her life to lifting up others,” Obama stated.

  • Newswire: Education Department unveils disturbing disparities in pandemic-era schooling

    A teacher instructs students at Superior Vocational High School in Loíza, Puerto Rico. (Tatyana Hopkins/NNPA)

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent



    The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education has released a wealth of data from the 2020–21 school year in a revealing exposé that reveals significant disparities in education access that the coronavirus pandemic challenges have exacerbated. The findings paint a stark picture of inequality in the nation’s educational landscape, prompting urgent calls for comprehensive reform.
“In America, talent and creativity can come from anywhere, but only if we provide equitable educational opportunities to students everywhere,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona emphasized in a release.
    
The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), a mandatory survey of public schools serving preschool to grade 12 students, counts as a critical instrument in assessing equal educational opportunities mandated by federal civil rights laws.
The 2020–21 CRDC, the first since the 2017–18 collection was delayed due to the pandemic, draws from over 17,000 school districts and 97,000 schools, unveiling concerning disparities in education access nationwide.
    
“These new CRDC data reflect troubling differences in students’ experiences in our nation’s schools,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon remarked. “We remain committed to working with school communities to ensure the full civil rights protections that federal law demands.”
    
Key Data Points from the 2020–21 CRDC:
    
Harassment or Bullying:
• K–12 students reported over 42,500 allegations of harassment or bullying based on sex, sexual orientation, race, disability, or religion.
• Racial and gender disparities were evident, with Black students reporting 37% of race-based harassment, while white students reported 68% of sex-based and 70% of disability-based incidents.
    
School Offenses:
• Districts reported approximately 274,700 incidents, with 78% being threats of physical attack without a weapon.
• Public schools reported over 3,000 incidents of rape or attempted rape and sexual assault.
    
Student Discipline:
• About 786,600 K–12 students received in-school suspensions, with Black boys nearly two times more likely than white boys to receive out-of-school suspension or expulsion.
• Students with disabilities, representing 17% of K-12 enrollment, accounted for 29% of students with one or more out-of-school suspensions.
Restraint and Seclusion:
• Approximately 52,800 K–12 students were subjected to physical or mechanical restraint and seclusion, with boys, Black students, and students with disabilities overrepresented.
    
Access to Advanced Courses:
• More than half of high schools nationwide do not offer calculus or computer science, disproportionately affecting Black and Latino students.
• Black students, representing 15% of high school enrollment, accounted for only 10% in AP computer science and 6% in AP mathematics.
    
Access to Teachers and Other School Staff:
• Approximately 522,400 students attended schools where fewer than half of the teachers met state certification requirements, with 66% being Black and Latino students.
• Four percent of high school students attended schools with no school counselors.
    
Access to the Internet and Devices:
    • Students’ Internet access varied by state, with Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia reporting 99% or more of their schools connected to the Internet.
• Florida (66%) and Alaska (52%), respectively, reported the lowest percentage of schools connected to the Internet.

  • Congresswoman Terri Sewell secures $521,000 grant for Greene County Health System

    Congresswoman Terri Sewell visited Eutaw on Friday, November 10, 2023, to announce a grant of $521,000 from HHS for two new generators to the Greene County Health System.

    Sewell said the grant to the hospital and nursing home is part of $42.8 million in earmarked funds for her Congressional District. “When Democrats took over the House of Representatives, we decided to restore ‘earmarked funds’ for needed projects in our districts. This is a helpful way to make sure that beneficial projects in the district get priority funding, under existing programs,” said Sewell.

    “All hospitals, especially rural hospitals are under financial pressure.
    “In my position on the House Ways and Means Committee, I am working to ensure equitable Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to rural hospitals,” said Sewell.

    She also observed that, “The Governor and Alabama Legislature have not agreed to expand Medicaid, under the Affordable Care Act, which would provide basic health insurance to 300,000 Alabamians, who are too rich to qualify for Medicaid and too poor to purchase insurance on the ACA exchanges. This means many residents come to our hospitals and health care facilities without the ability to pay for needed services and pushes our hospitals, like Greene County Hospital, further into operating deficits.”

    Dr. Marcia Pugh, GCHS CEO and Administrator, thanked Congresswoman Sewell for the grant to purchase two new generators to provide electricity for the hospital and nursing home in case of an emergency loss of power.” We have been working on this project for two years, including a complete mapping of the electrical circuits in our buildings, before we could install the new generators,” said Pugh.

    Congresswoman Sewell left the hospital and attended the Greene County Fall Festival on the old Courthouse Square grounds. She made some remarks and took questions from the participants.

     

  • Newswire : Indigenous communities in Africa face eviction by environmental profiteers

     
    Nov. 13, 2023 (GIN) – Kenya’s government is illegally evicting members of the Ogiek community from their ancestral lands in the Mau Forest, to profit from carbon offsetting schemes, human rights lawyers say.
     
    Members of the Ogiek community say they’re living in “absolute fear” over the evictions by the government of Kenyan President William Ruto. “We are calling for an immediate cessation of ongoing demolitions and the evictions,” said Cyrus Maweu, deputy director of Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
     
    “The first day they started bringing down houses using axes, hammers and pangas [machetes],” said Daniel Kobei, executive director of the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program. “They brought down the school, and on the second day they even started burning some houses. Now they have gone back with heavy machines to bring down houses that were not completely destroyed.”
     
    “We are living in absolute fear,” said Kobei. “They are really bringing down everything.”
     
    Community leaders fear that houses of cultural significance may be destroyed. “This kind of destruction can bring the extinction of a community,” Kobei underscored.
     
    In a case heard by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Ogiek were found to have ancestral rights to the Mau forest and could rightfully occupy it. In 2022, the Ogieks were awarded US$1.3 million to be paid by the Kenyan government for breaching their rights. 
     
    Dr Justin Kenrick from the Forest People’s Program said that carbon credits and offsetting were key to what was happening. The carbon credit market allows a polluter to emit carbon dioxide or other climate-heating gas and pay a forest owner to capture those emissions through the carbon-absorption power of their trees.
     
    Meanwhile, in neighboring Tanzania, the World Bank is said to be financing a project that purports to protect the environment but has been linked to grave human rights violations, according to Rainforest-Rescue, a nonprofit organization. In the latest report by the California-based Oakland Institute, “Unaccountable & Complicit”, the Institute blames the Bank, which is taxpayer-funded, of “enabling” evictions, rapes and murders near the site of a proposed tourism project it is funding.
     
    The $150 million tourism project will protect the environment and attract more tourists to Ruaha national park, the government says.
     
    Villagers living near Ruaha told Oakland Institute researchers that rangers had killed and beaten cattle herders and fishers, had raped women and confiscated thousands of head of cattle, under the premise that they had encroached on the national park.
     
    To expand the park for tourism revenues, the government announced evictions impacting over 20,000 Indigenous and local communities from legally registered villages.  More than 21,000 people from dozens of villages around Ruaha are also facing eviction by the government, it was claimed.
     
    Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, said: “[The] Regrow project is not about protecting wildlife or conservation. Instead, the bank is financing an oppressive and violent economic growth model based on boosting tourism revenues.”
     
    “The World Bank should have scrutinized the Tanzanian government’s record on human rights before financing it,” she said, citing the case of Nzigiyimana Zabron v. United Republic of Tanzania
    Orders (Re-opening). “The government has been criticized for its handling of forced evictions in northern Tanzania, which “should have triggered internal alarm before the bank decided to finance the project”, added Mittal. “Instead, it looked the other way and continues to do so. It should be held accountable.”
     
    The institute said villagers were told in October 2022 they would have to leave their land despite holding title deeds, which the government has cancelled, claiming the property fell within the boundaries of the national park.
     
    More than 850 villagers have challenged the evictions in Tanzania’s high court.
     

  • Newswire : Nation’s credit card debt passes $1 Trillion 

    By Charlene Crowell

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – For the first time since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) began collecting credit card data, the nation’s related debt reached an all-time high of $1 trillion in 2022. New research released in late October examines how and why this debt grew, but also how emerging trends in card usage affect the day-to-day lives of consumers.  
    While companies charged consumers more than $105 billion in interest and more than $25 billion in fees, average credit card balances per cardholder returned to about $5,300, about the same as before the pandemic. At the same time, more cardholders are being charged late fees, falling behind on payments, and facing higher costs on growing debt.  
    Today nearly one in 10 consumers is caught in what CFPB terms ‘persistent debt’, charged more in interest and fees than they pay toward the principal owed, a pattern that makes each passing month’s charges increasingly harder to avoid. Average credit card minimum payments on revolving credit accounts now reach over $100 per month and are also a contributing factor to rising late fees and overall debt. 
    “With credit card debt crossing the trillion- dollar mark, we will be working to prevent bait-and-switch tactics when it comes to rewards and to increase refinancing activity so consumers can get lower rates,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra.  
    Increased indebtedness also translated into record industry profits, now higher than those reached in pre-pandemic years. Two key factors, according to the report, significantly contributed to industry profitability: an average APR margin of 15.4 percentage points above the prime rate in 2022, and only 10 credit card companies dominating the marketplace.  
    Although the nation has nearly 4,000 credit card issuers, four-fifths – 80 percent – of the card activity was with one of the firms in the top10.  
    The highest credit card APRs are, as with other consumer financial products, among consumers who carry high credit card balances, missed payment(s), or delinquent accounts, and have subprime credit ratings, scores of less than 670 in a range of 300- 850.  Consumers who have filed bankruptcies can also expect that action to affect their credit scores for seven years thereafter.  
    A 2019 report by Experian, one of the nation’s three credit card bureaus, found that more than a third of consumers – 34.8 percent – were classified as subprime. Millennials comprised the largest number of subprime borrowers.   
    According to Experian, “Prime consumers tend to have more mortgages and credit card accounts, while subprime consumers have more student loans and personal loans…Subprime consumers have twice as many personal loan accounts as prime consumers on average. That said, their average balance is less than half of prime consumers’ average balance.” 
    CFPB’s new credit card report found that many cardholders with subprime scores paid 30 to 40 cents in interest and fees per dollar borrowed each year. Further, consumers using reward cards that earn bonus points for frequent usage, earned just 27 percent of rewards at major credit card companies, but paid 94 percent of total interest and fees for carrying debt from month to month.   
    Last year, and for the first time since 2015, CFPB found a spike in over-limit transactions. According to the report, “Recent changes in incidence are also driven by accounts with subprime scores. Over-limit transactions tend to be more common among lower-score cardholders since these cardholders typically have lower credit limits and higher credit utilization than higher-score cardholders, making it more likely that even a modest purchase might exceed their credit limit.” 
    Along with high profits, CFPB’s new report documents a growing consumer shift toward digital communications, websites and mobile apps now used by nearly 80 percent of cardholders to manage card usage and make payments. Among consumers ages 25 and younger, 95 percent used mobile apps for card transactions.    
    Consistent with consumer practices, credit card companies and debt collectors are now relying more on text messaging and email to contact borrowers about past-due balances, in addition to phone calls or postal mail.  
    In separate and independent findings, the New York Federal Reserve’s Liberty Street blog also noted changing credit card practices earlier this year.  
    “[T]here were 18.3 million borrowers behind on a credit card at the end of 2022 compared to 15.8 million at the end of 2019. Instead, the evidence suggests that higher prices and higher interest rates are the more likely culprits driving delinquencies… [O]n a person-level, this financial distress is real, and the delinquent marks will impact their access to credit for years to come.”  
    Charlene Crowell is a senior fellow with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.  

     

  • Newswire : Tim Scott dropped out of Presidential race reportedly without telling his campaign staff

    Tim Scott campaigning

    By: NewsOne staff

    Tim Scott’s suspension of his presidential campaign came as a “surprise” to his campaign staff members, his allies and his supporters, the latter of whom were sent a last-minute fundraising solicitation shortly before the Republican Senator from South Carolina made his announcement, according to reports.
    Scott, who was never able to be a serious polling threat to front-runner Donald Trump, let alone several other candidates, made his announcement Sunday afternoon during an interview on Fox News conducted by Republican and former South Carolina U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy.
    “When I go back to Iowa it will not be as a presidential candidate,” Scott told Gowdy, who appeared to react as if he was not expecting to hear that breaking news. “The voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet … They’re telling me, ‘not now, Tim.’ I don’t think they’re saying, Trey, ‘no,’ but I do they’re saying, ‘not now.’”
    The announcement was apparently either unplanned or top secret among campaign staffers who theoretically should have known Scott planned to quit.
    Politico reported that “[multiple campaign staff members confirmed … that they had no prior knowledge of Scott’s decision before he” announced that he was dropping out of the race on live television.
    Also from Politico: Scott’s Sunday night announcement came after he canceled a scheduled swing through Iowa this weekend, a change the campaign on Friday attributed to him having the flu. Scott started the interview by saying he was “looking forward to getting back on the campaign trail” after he recovers from the flu before adding that he would no longer be a candidate.
    While it’s naive to assume that the upper levels of Scott’s campaign were blindsided by his announcement, previous suspensions of presidential campaigns — both in this current and past political cycles — have been absent of such reports of a “surprise.”
    In part because he was never able to break through on the polling front, political analysts predicted Scott’s campaign suspension as being inevitable. Only the timing of it was in question.
    Scott was noncommittal about which candidate he’d endorse for the Republican presidential nomination and encouraged voters to do their own research.
    Scott’s announcement to suspend his campaign came just days after he finally made good on his promise to reveal his long-spoken-about girlfriend. He posed with Mindy Noce, a design and renovation manager in Charleston, South Carolina, following a lackluster performance in the third Republican primary debate on Wednesday night.
    With Republican donors reportedly pressing the issue of Scott being single while seeking the presidency, his bachelorhood dominated headlines in September as Scott was unable to avoid the scrutiny of being unmarried.
    Beyond his personal life, Scott displayed an astounding tone-deafness during the third debate – and, by extension, his short-lived campaign – by doubling down on his presidential promise for a national abortion ban less than 24 hours after voters in Ohio cast ballots to defeat such a proposition.
    Scott’s staunch refusal to acknowledge racism in America certainly didn’t help his cause, as evidenced by the way he recently scolded a Black congregation in a Chicago church that he suggested was overly focused on race — a tactic that polling showed resonated with white voters, in particular.
    Nadia Brown, a political scientist and professor at Georgetown University, described Scott last week to ABC News in terms of a political and racial token. “What Tim Scott and those of his ilk are doing, they’re trying to play on these emotional push pins that most African Americans don’t see. It’s not landing for them,” Brown said. “I think that is a call out to other conservatives, particularly white conservatives, who want to say, ‘I have a Black senator,’ or, ‘I feel comfortable voting for a Black candidate.’” 
    The remaining Republican candidates for president include Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

  • Newswire: Crowded race for new 2nd. Congressional District settles at 21

     Alabama Congressional Districts

     

    By: Jacob Holmes, Alabama Political Reporter

     

    The field of candidates is set for what will be a hotly contested race for Alabama’s newly drawn Second Congressional District. By the end of the day Friday, 21 candidates had qualified in the district that is expected to lean Democratic.
    As of 5 p.m. Friday, the 13 Democratic candidates were:
    James Averhart, a retired U.S. Marine and former 2020 congressional candidate;
    Rep. Napoleon Bracy, Jr., D-Prichard;
    Sen. Merika Coleman, D- Pleasant Grove;
    House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville;
    Shomari Figures, a former deputy chief of staff to the U.S. attorney general and the son of Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile;
    Brian Gary;
    Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham;
    Rep. Jeremy Gray, D-Opelika;
    Phyllis Harvey-Hall, an education consultant and 2020 and 2022 congressional candidate;
    Willie J. Lenard;
    Vimal Patel;
    Larry Darnell Simpson;
    Darryl Sinkfield.
    Eight (8) Republicans qualified for the seat: 
    Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore;
    former Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road;
    Caroleene Dobson;
    Karla M. DuPriest;
    Wallace Gilberry, former University of Alabama and NFL player;
    Hampton Harris;
    Stacey T. Shepperson;
    Belinda Thomas, Newton City Council member.
    The end of qualifying was closely watched Friday as major candidates such as Coleman finally formally announced her campaign, while Democrat State Sen. Kirk Hatcher, one of the few candidates to actually reside in the district, announced he had decided to pull out of the race.
    The new 2nd Alabama Congressional District runs across the sate from east to west, including: Russell, Bullock, Barbour, Macon, Montgomery, Pike, Butler, Conecha, Monroe, Washington and parts of Clarke and Mobile counties.

  • Newswire: Racial disparities highlighted as October breaks global temperature record

    Polar bear surrounded by melting ice flows


    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    Weather officials and experts have confirmed that last month was the hottest October ever globally, surpassing pre-industrial averages by a staggering 1.7 degrees Celsius (3.1 degrees Fahrenheit), weather officials confirmed. This milestone marks the fifth consecutive month of record-breaking temperatures, setting the stage for the hottest year ever recorded.
    The extent of the temperature surge, which exceeded the previous record set in 2019 by 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit), has astonished experts.
And as extreme weather patterns increasingly become the new normal, it is not surprising to find that African Americans are disproportionately affected. Research from the Gallup Center on Black Voices underscored the disparities in confidence, preparedness, and resource accessibility between racial and ethnic groups. Black and Hispanic Americans report lower levels of confidence in their preparedness and less access to vital resources compared to their white counterparts.
    While most respondents across all racial and ethnic groups agree that they have access to reliable weather warnings and someone to call for help during extreme weather events, the margin is narrower for Black and Hispanic Americans. White Americans outpace both groups by approximately ten percentage points on each measure, indicating a higher level of preparedness and ability to recover.
    According to Gallup, the most significant divide emerges in the perception of community support during natural disasters or extreme weather events. Compared to white Americans, Hispanic adults lag by 13 percentage points, while Black adults fall behind by 18 points. Relocation statistics, which show that 14% of Black Americans and 11% of Hispanic Americans have relocated, either temporarily or permanently, due to extreme weather events, are further evidence of this disparity.
The climate crisis is exacerbating these disparities, with the Copernicus Climate Change Service noting that a contributing factor is the reduced capacity of oceans to mitigate global warming, which is historically responsible for absorbing up to 90% of excess heat from climate change. This drop in oceanic regulation and El Niño’s effect (a natural climate cycle that raises ocean temperatures temporarily and changes global weather patterns) make it look like more warming is coming in the coming months.
    According to Gallup researchers, 2023 has seen a notable increase in unusual weather events like floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, tornadoes, and wildfires. This trend is expected to continue, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicating a high likelihood of an increased frequency and severity of such events in the coming decades.
    “2023 has been a notable year for abnormal weather events, which have caused considerable impact to life and property,” Gallup researchers concluded. “According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is very likely that these types of events – floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, tornadoes, wildfires and more – will increase in frequency and/or severity in the coming decades.”

  • At latest hearing, Electronic Bingo trial date postponed again to early 2024

    By: John Zippert, Co-Publisher

    At a November 2nd hearing on the status of the case of the State of Alabama vs. Electronic Bingo machine providers, owners and charities, Judge Arthur Haynes postponed the pre-trial hearing until January 11, 2024. At this hearing, the judge said he would set a trial date, probably sixty (60) days later, in early March 2024.

    Judge Haynes, a specially appointed retired Circuit Court Judge, postponed the pre-trial hearing because both sides agreed that all depositions and visits to the bingo halls had not been completed. This decision prolongs the life of electronic bingo into next year and extends the six-year legal effort of the State of Alabama to end the use of bingo machines, as illegal slot machines, in Greene County.

    At the hearing, Judge Haynes raised the issue of the lawsuit and injunction by Sheriff Benison to institute new “Bookend Bingo rules” in Greene County. Haynes asked the parties if he should consolidate the cases since they were similar in saying that the current gaming machines were illegal and needed to be replaced.

    Attorney H. E. Nix, representing Sheriff Benison, did not agree with consolidating the cases. Nix argued that the Sheriff is not opposed to the current rules but feels these new rules will conform better to the rulings of the Supreme Court concerning bingo. Nix also argued that the Sheriff clearly defines in the new rules an “electronic marking machine’ for bingo. These machines are approved in Constitutional Amendment 743, which allows for electronic forms of bingo in Greene County.

    The State of Alabama has not approved the new “Bookend Bingo” rules for Greene County. Assistant Attorney General Kackleman, who represents the State of Alabama, said that he was aware of the Sheriff’s plan to change the rules but would not comment on whether these rules would comply with state law and the supreme Court’s rulings defining bingo.

    The machine owners, operators and charities were not convinced that the Sheriff’s new rules would be accepted and give legal sanction to the electronic bingo operations under Constitutional Amendment 743.If the Sheriff’s new bingo rules are adopted, the State of Alabama may have to take new legal action against the same defendants in the original case to end bingo under the new rules, if they are unacceptable.

    The lawsuit defendants pointed out that there was an arbitrary and selective law enforcement approach between the Attorney General’s treatment of bingo operations in white controlled Houston County and Black politically controlled Greene County. The defendants want to argue this case of selective enforcement as a denial of equal rights for Greene County under the equal justice clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

    It was also noted during this process, that Sheriff Benison has suspended payments of bingo funds to public agencies and charities in Greene County since May of 2023. No monthly payments of bingo machine fee proceeds have been made to the County Commission, Board of Education, municipalities, and other charitable groups since the end of May. The Sheriff is still collecting revenues from the bingo operators. He says he is using these funds to pay for legal defense.

    The Sheriff was distributing an average of $600,000 a month to public agencies and charities. He sent a letter in early June saying he was temporarily suspending payments beginning in June of 2023. Payments have been suspended for five months (June – October 2023) with no assurance of when they will be restored. The school system, County Commission, hospital, and municipalities have had to develop their budgets for the 2023-24 fiscal year, without any assurance of revenues from bingo.

  • US Navy Lt. Commander (retired) Joe Ann Hutton is Veteran’s Day guest speaker Annual Veterans Appreciation Program held in Eutaw

    Submitted by Miriam Leftwich
    Girl Scout Troop 408 and United Purposes take great pride in acknowledging great men and women who served our country. Veterans Appreciation Day was held on Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 3 PM at the Eutaw Activity Center. MSG (Ret) Kelvin B. Scott served as the Master of Ceremony.
    The crowd was greeted by MSG Scott and Pastor Laramie Long, a member of the 287th Combat HET Company, opened with the Invocation. The Girl Scouts led the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the singing of the National Anthem that was beautifully rendered by Mrs. Carole Fleming. There was a moment of silence as musician/artist Mr. Marvin Turner performed Taps during the Memorial Tribute to our deceased Veterans.
    Lieutenant Commander (Retired) United States Navy Joe Ann Hutton was cordially introduced to the gathering by Mrs Miriam Leftwich, program coordinator. LCDR Hutton expressed gratitude to her family, who attended in great numbers, her classmates of Eutaw High Class of 1993, her colleagues, the organizers, and all in attendance. Her message was heartfelt as she spoke of her journey. A young girl from Eutaw, AL migrating from the William McKinley Branch Heights Community. The youngest child of Mr. & Mrs. Steven and Dorothy Hutton, leaving her six other siblings two weeks after high school to take on a new journey as a member of the United States Navy where she retired after 30 years of honorable service.
    LCDR Hutton noted the following: “In 1918 at the end of World War I, at the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, November 11th was originally called Armistice Day and regarded as a tribute to the Americans who scarified their lives during World War I only.
    “It was not until 1954, after World War II and the Korean War that November 11th was named Veterans Day, a special holiday that honors all veterans whose service is recorded in past conflicts and those currently serving around the world to protect us at this very moment.
    “So let us never forget those who fought and are fighting for our freedom, let us remember their sacrifices. As I look out into the audience, I see and recognize many veterans. You may also recognize one as a relative, a neighbor, a friend, or even a colleague. Each veteran here has contributed to this nation and has earned this nation’s permanent gratitude for supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America.”
    All veterans present were asked to stand and be recognized. Each veteran received a token of appreciation. Other door prizes were awarded to individuals present. A delicious meal was also served.
    The program organizers would like to extend special appreciation to the following sponsors: Girl Scout Troop #408; United Purposes; Black Belt Law Group; Colvin & Daniel Trucking Co.; T.S.P. Support League; Banks & Co.; Alfa Insurance; Morrison’s Food Est.; Mrs. Joycelyn Steele (cake); Chic Event Design & Decor; CFC Photography; MK Prints (program); McInnis Mortuary Gospel Program; Greene County Democrat; Whats Happening in Greene County; Mr. Marvin Turner; Mrs. Carole Fleming.