Langford speaks to column: Mayor Larry Langford addressed a column in Birmingham News that describes Langford’s plan to bring electronic bingo to Birmingham as “misguided.” Langford said that “whenever Birmingham asks for something, you can always count on an editorial” to tell the council how to vote.
“If they’re against gambling so much, how come [...]

J. Whitson and his brother have been taping some of the fantastic bands that have appeared at Birmingham’s Bottletree Café for a while now. They did that in anticipation of airing their footage on Alabama Public Television, for a show called “We Have Signal.” Wednesday night, at Bottletree, they’re hosting a preview of sorts [...]

Central Alabama Pride, Inc. filed a complaint (read it here) against Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford in federal court yesterday.
The complaint stems from a May incident in which Mayor Langford threatened to deny the gay advocacy group’s parade permit for Pride Week. Langford also refused to sign a proclamation relating to the event, and he failed [...]

This worthy cause/benefit will be our Weekly Pick for Thursday, August 21, but we wanted to go ahead and give you a heads-up.

Alfredo Colin is a married father of four who has worked at La Paz Restaurant in Crestline for the past 10 years. Last Wednesday, Colin had to have a large [...]

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford set out plans for an adult education and job training initiative called the Birmingham Family Investment Center at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. The mayor proposed to pay for the program by delaying his $6 million college scholarship program for a year and reallocating the money to the new center. However, the [...]

Just after Sterlin “Satan” Magee sat down behind his hi-hats and strapped on his guitar, he widened his eyes at the audience in the crowded party barn at Gip’s Place as if to say, “Here we go.”
And go he did.
Satan, along with harmonica virtuoso Adam Gussow and drummer David Laycock, laid into the kind of [...]

By Birmingham Weekly Contributing Editor Mark Kelly
In the Weekly’s running Electoral College tally, Democrat Barack Obama has increased his lead over Republican John McCain since our last snapshot of the race two weeks ago, adding three electoral votes to his total and expanding his margin from 96 to 102 votes. Even so, our poll averages [...]

Last week, the Birmingham City Council approved a plan from Mayor Larry Langford to make bus fares free for the summer, but in a special-called meeting Wednesday night, many of them expressed second thoughts.
Councilors Steven Hoyt, Carole Smitherman, Valerie Abbott and Carol Duncan said that the council passed the mayor’s proposal too quickly, without having [...]

Leaders to adorn sackcloth and ashes to fight crime

At Tuesday’s Birmingham City Council meeting, Mayor Larry Langford proclaimed Friday, April 25, a “day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes” in Birmingham.
FOLLOW THIS STORY: Langford sports sackcloth, ashes, Rolex (click here)

Birmingham Weekly reported two weeks ago that the mayor purchased 2,000 burlap sacks for ministers and [...]

In their Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Race Beat, journalists Hank Klibanoff and Gene Roberts interviewed the journalists that covered the Civil Rights Movement to reveal how they responded (slowly at first) to the desegregation of the South. They also use private correspondence and unpublished articles to show how the media didn’t respond. The full picture [...]