7 Things: Data center deal causes more controversy in Alabama, Tuberville and Wahl call for wider interstate and less taxes, Trump is trying to be nice, and more…

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October 2, 2026

7. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban said that despite the reporting to the contrary, NIL was NOT why he retired, saying “that’s not why I got out of coaching” after three years of the system and an NFL salary-cap background, and that at 72 “it was just time for me” to have a life with Miss Terry and avoid “riding the program down,” with the last comment being the most telling.

6. Alabama’s Gulf of America Act took effect Oct. 1, requiring state and local employees; now the irrelevant staffers at WBHM and aldotcom continue whining about using “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico,” and aldotcom has now brought in FIRE’s Aaron Terr who called compelled speech “a very serious violation of the First Amendment,” which it clearly is not.

5. Gov. Kay Ivey and ALEA warned that illegal kratom is being sold in gas stations and vape shops as “feel-good” drinks, after Operation Southern Shield seized about 123,000 doses, and packaged kratom was found in the separate death investigations of Ole Miss students Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strange, 20.

4. Governor-elect National Championship-winning Coach U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) believes Montgomery and Birmingham are out of control, that as governor he will back police, demand accurate crime reporting, and call President Trump for National Guard backup like Memphis, where he said homicides fell 37 percent, and that if judges, mayors, or chiefs block him “there will be hell to pay.”

3. President Donald Trump was at a Peterbilt factory in Denton, Texas, suggesting that U.S. is “trying to be nice” to Iran’s current leader because “for the most part, their leaders are gone” and “we don’t know who the hell to deal with,” while predicting “We’ll win very easily,” possibly “right after the election, but maybe before,” and claiming Iran’s currency is “valueless,” its Navy is gone, “all 159 ships are lying beautifully at the bottom of the sea,” and “their manufacturing capacity is dead” but Fox News also reports the U.S. is sending the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, about 10,000 sailors and Marines, to the Middle East by late November.

2. Republican candidates are entering the last month of the 2026 election in Alabama with strong pitches; lieutenant governor nominee John Wahl thinks Alabama should phase out the state income tax to compete with Florida and Tennessee, while Governor-elect National Championship-winning Coach U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) wants to “three-lane all the interstates” over 10 years and “find ways” to pay for it.

1. The Lowndes County Commission is nearing an allegedly unrequested 2 billion dollar tax incentive (which Governor-elect National Championship-winning Coach U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) has said shoud stop) for Nvidia-backed Cloverleaf’s Project Red Clay in Selma, but the proximity to a 1965 Selma march campsite has drawn opposition, with Dr. Charles Steele Jr., the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. saying “our history has always been priced cheap.”

Dale Jackson is a thought leader for Yellowhammer News and hosts a talk show from 5-9 a.m. weekdays on WVNN.