Aug 18, 2023

Congratulations on making it to Friday, especially if you're a teacher or student digging into the new academic year. Let's get to some news and then make the weekend count ...

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It didn't take Ider Police Officer Garry Chapman long to see the difference you can make in public service, even in small-town Alabama.

Chapman graduated early this month from the Northeast Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. His dad, Duane Chapman, who everybody knows as TV's Dog the Bounty Hunter, was in the state for that event.

On Garry Chapman's first day on the force this week he made a traffic stop, reports AL.com's William Thornton.

During the stop, Officer Chapman found a boy in the car who had been reported missing more than a week ago in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The boy was returned and the woman driving the car was charged with interference with child custody. She also has a past charge of chemical endangerment of a child, according to police.

Ider Police Chief Stephen Malone, quote, “Being able to make the call to this boy’s guardian, letting them know he’s safe and on his way home, is one the most rewarding parts of this job.”

A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge placed a temporary hold on licensing of businesses by the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission as some companies plead their cases over being denied a license, reports AL.com's Mike Cason.

Judge James Anderson acknowledged that the legislature has authorized the production, sale and use of medical marijuana and that licensing problems have been slowing down the process of making it happen.

He scheduled a hearing on the issue for Aug. 28.

Newly published research shows that a modified pig kidney worked for a seven-day study at UAB, reports AL.com's Amy Yurkanin. At the same time, a hospital in New York has announced it had a transplanted pig kidney work for longer than a month.

Clinical trials haven't begun for pig-organ transplants. This particular UAB patient had been declared brain-dead and had a history of kidney disease.

UAB has now performed three pig-kidney transplants.

“I love Michael Oher. He’s like part of our family. And I love the Tuohys. I think it’s sad. I certainly don’t claim to understand all the ins and outs of adoption, conservatory, all of that. But I know what I witnessed, and I witnessed a family that totally took in a young man. And I think without that, there is no story."

Current Auburn University head football coach Hugh Freeze, who was the coach at Briarcrest Christian School in Tennessee during Oher's time there, on the legal rift between the people who were portrayed in the movie "The Blind Side."

In 1958, actor Reg E. Cathey of Montgomery

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