7. A swatting call led to a dangerous situation at a Pell City Walmart as 911 operators are told that there are three shooters in the store which led to dozens officers showing up on the scene prepared to take them out. Pell City police Chief Clay Morris accurately calls out how dangerous this is: “There was an overwhelming response immediately entering a Walmart thinking there’s an active shooter and no one inside the store has any idea.”

6. The next session of the Alabama Legislature will see its fair share of minor bills addressing issues that normally would not come up, this year one of those bills will make pretending to be abducted a felony. This is all in response to the Carlee Russell saga, so State Sen. April Weaver (R-Brierfield) and Rep. Mike Shaw (R-Hoover) want to make faking an abduction a Class C felony that could lead to 10 years in prison.

5. To show how mangled the gambling issue in Alabama is, a legislator has taken to aldotcom to make the argument that he will vote for gambling in the Legislature but vote against it on a ballot measure. Newly elected State Rep. Bryan Brinyark (R-Northport) says he is challenging his colleagues to “set their personal beliefs aside and cast a vote that empowers the people to choose.”

4. The case in Washington, D.C., against former President Donald Trump for “election interference” has been removed from the federal docket for the time being. While many are arguing this shows that the case may be doomed, it is actually being removed as issues on presidential immunity are resolved at the Supreme Court. Trump still faces three other criminal cases and his New York hush money trial will move forward this month.

3. U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) passed a bill through the U.S. House of Representatives that would deport illegal immigrants who are convicted of driving under the influence. While Moore was able to get 70 Democrats to vote for the bill, that means 150 Democrats said to allow drunk-driving illegals to stay.

2. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the first governor in the nation to back up his support of Texas’ plan to thwart illegal border entries by sending more National Guard soldiers to the border from their state to secure the border. DeSantis is sending 1,000 soldiers with the goal of helping Texas “fortify this border, help them strengthen the barricades, help them add barriers, help them add the wire that they need” and added, “the states have to band together” but no other state, including Alabama, has sent more troops to the border since the Supreme Court ruled federal agents may remove the razor wire the Texas National Guard had to placed at the border.

1. Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl has laid out the priorities of the Alabama Legislature’s Republican members and it includes school choice, capping property taxes, blunting various Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) measures in government and in public schools, granting parents more information about their children’s education, protecting women’s spaces, and election integrity issues. All these measures have the broad support of the Alabama public, but support for gambling bills is noticeably absent.

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Dale Jackson is a thought leader for Yellowhammer News and hosts a talk show from 5-9 a.m. weekdays on WVNN, on Talk 99.5 from 10-11 a.m., and on Talk Radio 103.9 FM/730AM WUMP from noon to 1 p.m.