Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A Birmingham-based company earned a $2.5 million bonus for completing work early on a bridge to replace a damaged roadway in north Alabama. 

A section of U.S. 231 that closed earlier this year because of an underground landslide south of Huntsville reopened Monday. Traffic now travels on two bridges that were constructed to replace the northbound and southbound sides.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama company has a contract worth nearly $40 million for mine-resistant, laser-equipped vehicles to disarm unexploded bombs and mines at a distance on airfields. The vehicles also have extendable arms to move debris. 

The Pentagon’s list of contracts signed Wednesday includes one for Parsons Government Services Inc. of Huntsville to build 13 fully operational vehicles and three systems of spares by September 2023.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say a man seen brandishing a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters in Alabama was arrested and accused of being drunk. 

Scott Christopher Davis was charged Sunday with public intoxication and possession of a firearm. Huntsville police were called to the protest near Courthouse Square Sunday evening on reports of a man harassing protesters.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A popular Alabama music venue is closing at least through next year amid the COVID-19 public health crisis. 

Huntsville's Tangled String Studios made the announcement on its Facebook page. The post says Tangled String wants to expand its custom guitar business to increase output. The post says Tangled String hopes to reopen for musical acts in 2022 after the COVID-19 crisis has passed.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The federal government’s top prosecutor for Alabama’s Northern District is resigning. 

U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town on Friday announced his resignation, effective Wednesday, July 15. Town said his role as U.S. Attorney “has been the highest honor of my legal career.”

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Space Camp is resuming at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville after shutting down because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Officials say a scaled-back version of the popular program will resume Sunday as students arrive for a week of hands-on lessons and activities related to space travel.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama police chief says out-of-town anarchists escalated tensions during a demonstration that led to police using tear gas and rubber bullets on the crowd. 

Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray said at a Thursday news conference that some people in the crowd were prepared to fight officers at the Wednesday night demonstration in downtown Huntsville.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Police in northern Alabama appeared to use smoke and pepper spray, or another chemical agent, to sweep protesters out of the courthouse square in Huntsville. 

Video of the chaotic scene streamed by WHNT, WAFF and other media outlets showed law enforcement agents wearing gas masks and riot gear advancing on the crowd after protesters refused an order to leave the area.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama-Huntsville’s hockey program has gotten a reprieve — for now.

Athletic director Cade Smith says “numerous individual donors” had combined to raise more than $500,000 this week to help save the program from the chopping block.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's state-owned space museum has permanently cut more than a third of its workforce because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

News outlets report the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville has laid off more than 100 of its 280 full-time employees. A spokesperson says most of its remaining workers also are on furlough. The museum hopes to reopen next week since the state has loosened restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama synagogue has been vandalized with swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti at the start of Passover. 

News outlets report that Huntsville police are investigating after the Etz Chayim temple was desecrated Wednesday night. Photos show at least two Nazi symbols on the exterior of the building along with religious slurs.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Officials are considering whether to relocate a damaged highway that's been closed since last month in north Alabama.

Crews shut down a section of U.S. 231 south of Huntsville about three weeks ago after cracks developed following heavy rains. Workers have tried to fix the road, but repairs are proving difficult.

News outlets report that the Alabama Department of Transportation is now considering shifting the four-lane road slightly eastward rather than repairing the old highway.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Some civic and political groups are urging Huntsville-area officials to stop criminally charging people who have marijuana.

The Huntsville Times reports that the Tennessee Valley Progressive Alliance and 20 other groups sent a letter urging local police and prosecutors to stop enforcing laws against marijuana possession. The letter argues that stopping enforcement would ease racial disparities in policing and allow officials to focus on violent crimes.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's preservation agency is investigating whether pottery shards, bone fragments and spearheads found near where a subdivision is being built in Huntsville might be evidence of an ancient settlement.

Al.com reports the Alabama Historical Commission is reviewing reports from people who raised concerns about items found near a development called Flint Crossing. An Army archaeologist says a decade-old assessment showed significant evidence of a Native American village at the site from roughly 500-900 AD.

Icy roads caused wrecks and school delays in north Alabama after a round of light snow and temperatures in the 20s.

News outlets reported multiple crashes on elevated roads and overpasses early Wednesday near Huntsville, including Interstates 565 and 65. No serious injuries were reported, but traffic was slow in areas.

At least two dozen school systems opened two hours late as a precaution to give time for icy patches to thaw. A few government offices and businesses also delayed opening.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Huntsville housing officials aren’t saying what they will do about independent testing that found high levels of radioactive gas in public housing.

The testing found high levels of radon in apartments owned by the Huntsville Housing Authority, Al.com reported.

Reporters tested for cancer-causing radon last year, with the help of public housing tenants as part of a national investigation into radon in public housing.

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — Mobile's mayor is proposing to annex 13,000 residents into the city.

The proposal — if it happens — would make the south Alabama city the second-largest in Alabama, Al.com reported.

Mobile, with a population just under 190,000, is currently the fourth-largest city in Alabama behind Birmingham, Huntsville and Montgomery.

But there has been opposition to the idea among Mobile city council members.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Huntsville Hospital Health System and Urgent Team Urgent Care & Walk-In Centers are forming a partnership to create a network of urgent care and family care centers in North Alabama.

COURTLAND, Ala. (AP) — Lockheed Martin says it will base its hypersonics weapons program in north Alabama, where about 275 new jobs will be added over the next three years.

The company held a ceremony Monday in Courtland, where two new buildings will be constructed to serve as a manufacturing and management home for work focusing on super high-speed weapons.

A statement from the Maryland-based Lockheed Martin says 72 new jobs will be located in Courtland, and 200 positions will be added in Huntsville. Additional growth is expected.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Leaders in Huntsville are saying no to a proposal to allow electric scooters in the north Alabama city.

News outlets report that City Council members rejected a move to bring a scooter pilot program to downtown on a 3-2 vote during a meeting Thursday night.

The scooters have drawn complaints about safety and other problems in some cities, including Atlanta. But they're also popular with riders who use them as cheap, efficient transportation.

NASA picked Alabama's "Rocket City" on Friday to lead development of the next moon lander for astronauts. 

Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville beat out Johnson Space Center in Houston, which managed the Apollo lunar lander a half-century ago.

The new lunar lander — not yet built or even designed — is meant to carry an American woman and a man to the moon's south pole by 2024. Under the plan, the astronauts will depart for the surface from a small space station around the moon and return there.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Geological Survey says Alabama experienced an earthquake over the weekend, but it's likely nobody even knew.

Al.com quotes U.S. Geological officials as saying they detected a small earthquake Sunday just outside of Huntsville, Alabama. The quake was a magnitude 2.3 — three times smaller than the 7.1 earthquake that rocked Southern California last week.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Toyota says it will scrap plans to build the Corolla compact car at a new factory under construction in Alabama. Instead it will build a new unspecified SUV at the plant it's building with Mazda in Huntsville.

The company said Wednesday that the decision is being made in response to growing demand for SUVs and light trucks. For the first half of this year, Corolla sales are down 5.3 percent, to just under 153,000.

Toyota will continue to build Corollas at its factory in Blue Springs, Mississippi.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man has been arrested after police say he bit off a woman's finger during a fight.

News outlets report that 48-year-old Shay Michael Thome of Huntsville was arrested Saturday and charged with first-degree assault.

Police say the victim knows Thome's wife, and some men tackled Thome after the woman was bitten. A jail booking photo shows Thome's face was cut in several places.

Information about the woman's condition was not immediately available Sunday.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A teenager says a kayaking trip down an Alabama river ended with him and his friends being beaten and threatened with sexual assault.

News outlets quote 18-year-old Collins Nelson of Huntsville as saying he and other friends were on the Flint River in northern Alabama on Sunday when another kayaker began yelling and calling him a "sissy boy."

Nelson says the taunting included a threat to sexually assault a female who was with his group. He says the man and other adults attacked his group a little farther downstream.

(Huntsville, AL)-- Most people are wrapping up the school year, but one business in Huntsville has reason for people to spend their summers inside the classroom. 

Campus No. 805 has taken over the old S.R. Butler High School and turned it into an indoor playground for adults. It hosts multiple kinds of local businesses ranging from breweries, to tattoo artists, to axe-throwing arenas.

Check out the kind of fun you never thought you could have at school!