Twin moms arrested after house fire kills 3 kids

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                                        Akeevia Abner (L) and Takeevia Abner (R)
ATMORE, AL -Twins sisters are under arrested following an investigation into the house fire that took the lives of three of their small children.
Akeevia Lajoseia Abner and her sister Tekeevia Lajoseialan Abner, ages 18, are charged with three counts each of reckless murder.
"They showed an extreme indifference to these children's lives and created a grave risk of death to the children..." according to a release issued by the Fire Marshal's office.
The children, 3-year old Aniyia Abner, 3-year old Takia Abner and 22-month old Michael Coleman lost their lives when the home they were in caught fire on November 2. 

Atmore firefighters were called to the home on First Street around 8 p.m. that night, but by the time they arrived, the structure was fully engulfed by flames. An investigation revealed that the children had been left home alone.
The fire was apparently started after a stove was left unattended, according to a preliminary report by the Alabama State Fire Marshal's office.
Warrants for the sisters were issued and executed Monday. They were taken to the Escambia County Detention Center. A bond hear has not yet been set.

Why Gingrich Could Win

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By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings."Substance" is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds attending these forums—in their expressions, caught on C-SPAN's cameras, in the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich talk begins. Their disengagement—the tendency to look around the room, chat with their neighbors—vanishes. The room is on high alert.The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth abortion—a history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located support for his views on the dollar.There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, "because stupid people are running America." The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else's remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.Mr. Gingrich predicted, too, that late on Election Night—after it was clear that President Obama had been defeated along with the Democrats in the Senate—the recovery would begin, at once. His audience roared with pleasure. No other Republican candidate could have made the promise so persuasive.Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. "I think I can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total confusion in the economy."When it came time to answer questions from a panel of journalists, he was asked first about energy, one of those vital subjects that don't tend to yield lively commentary. How would Mr. Gingrich's policies differ from those of the current administration?Mr. Gingrich launched into a lethal thumbnail description of the Obama administration's energy policy. The president, he said, had gone to Brazil and told the Brazilians he was really glad they were drilling offshore and that he would like America to be their best customer. "The job of the American president," Mr. Gingrich told the panel, "is not to be a purchasing agent for a foreign country—it's to be a salesman for the United States of America."Associated PressPresidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt GingrichThe former speaker of the House is a dab hand at drawing listeners in, for good reason—he showers them with details, facts and history in a degree no candidate in recent memory has even approached. Audiences have a way of rewarding such trust.No one listening that night to candidate Gingrich's reflections on the menace of radical judges from Lincoln's time on down could have ignored the power of his fiery assessment—including the Dred Scott decision, others by courts today that threaten our national security, and much in between.The Iowa contest ahead is all important for Mr. Gingrich. The same is truer still for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Ms. Bachmann has been looking increasingly aware that her hopes are fading. Mr. Santorum now seems to inhabit a world so nearly exclusive in its focus on family and family values that it's hard to imagine him a successful contender for the presidency of a large and varied nation of Americans with other concerns, the non-family kind included.Then there's Congressman Ron Paul, who last weekend let it be known that if he doesn't like the views of the person who wins the nomination, he won't support the Republican candidate. This is a good reason—one of many—for Mr. Paul to retire himself from further debates. It's a certainty, to put it mildly, that he's not going to be the nominee.It would be passing strange to have as a candidate for the presidency of the United States an envenomed crank who regularly offers justification for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the annihilation of 3,000 Americans. It was an act, Mr. Paul explains in these exculpatory sermonettes, to which the terrorists were driven by American policies. Mr. Paul may get all the fond buddy treatment in the world from his fellow debaters, but few Americans outside of his devoted army of isolationist fanatics will forget these views.That leaves Mitt Romney, and Messrs. Perry, Cain and Gingrich heading the list of competitors for Iowa. Mr. Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from another woman—one who showed up in person, with plenty of detail. Charges of lies, financial motives and conspiracies notwithstanding, it's hard to see how Mr. Cain weathers this disaster. No outsider can know what actually did or did not happen. But all the snorting in the world about Gloria Allred, the accuser's attorney, isn't going to change the impact of this highly specific accusation.Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There's no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich's qualifications all 'round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

Jefferson County files largest government bankruptcy in U.S. history

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Jefferson County Commission president David Carrington looks over the Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing in the doorway of his office at the Jefferson County Courthouse. Jefferson County announced it will file bankruptcy after the Jefferson County Commission met for several hours in a closed door session Wednesday November 9, 2011. It will be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Jefferson County, facing $4.23 billion in debt and running short of cash, gave up Wednesday on reaching a deal with its creditors and immediately filed the largest government bankruptcy in U.S. history.
The 4-1 vote to seek protection under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code came on the 365th day since the current commission took office. That year was dominated by sometimes frantic negotiations with Wall Street banks that over the past decade loaned and refinanced more debt than the county had the ability to repay.
Supporting the move were Commission President David Carrington and commissioners Sandra Little Brown, Joe Knight and Jimmie Stephens. Commissioner George Bowman voted no.
"Bankruptcy is sometimes a measure of last resort," Knight said. "In my mind, we have reached that last resort."
At 4:29 p.m., moments after the vote, county attorneys filed the petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Chief Bankruptcy Judge Thomas B. Bennett will handle the case and set a hearing for 10 a.m. today.
Late Wednesday, county attorneys filed a raft of documents, listing nearly 200 pages of businesses and individuals to whom Jefferson County owes money. Those pages carried the names of more than 5,000 creditors. The largest creditor is JPMorgan Chase & Co., which owns about $1 billion of the county's $3.14 billion debt for sewer construction.
Besides the sewer debt, the county owes $814 million in school-construction debt and another $305 million in general-obligation warrants.
The bankruptcy decision came after commissioners spent about 11 hours over two days huddled behind closed doors on the fourth floor of the Jefferson County Courthouse in Birmingham with their lawyers discussing legal options, including an ongoing attempt to reach a settlement with sewer-debt creditors.
By Wednesday afternoon, they gave up on the settlement, emerged from their closed session and moved down to the second-floor Commission Chamber to vote in favor of bankruptcy -- something Gov. Robert Bentley and many of Birmingham's key business leaders had urged them to avoid.
In doing so, Jefferson County's collapse earned a place in the history books, far eclipsing the previous biggest municipal bankruptcy -- a $1.7 billion filing by Orange County, California, in 1994 -- even when inflation is factored in.
Rebuke from Bentley
Jefferson County's action brought sharp criticism.
Bentley was interviewing candidates for state school superintendent when he got the news.
"I am extremely disappointed in the action that was taken by the commission today," the governor said. "We feel everything was put into place to save the county from bankruptcy and to help the ratepayers and keep this embarrassing situation from occurring in the state of Alabama.
"What we're going to do now is to try to control the damage to our state."

WHAT IS CHAPTER 9?
The purpose of Chapter 9 bankruptcy is to provide a financially distressed municipality protection from its creditors while it develops a plan for adjusting its debts. The next steps in that legal process include:
• Notice of the filing is advertised in the federal register and a newspaper.
• Creditors file any objections, and the court holds hearings.
• The county develops its repayment plan.
• Creditors form a committee and make suggestions.
• The bankruptcy judge rules on the plan.
Source: U.S. Bankruptcy CourtHe said he anticipates that Jefferson County's bankruptcy will drive up borrowing costs for governments across the state.
John Young Jr., the court-appointed receiver who has been running the county sewer system since September 2010, called the commissioners' decision a "catastrophic mistake."
"This decision by the Jefferson County Commission has devastating consequences for wastewater customers, citizens of Jefferson County and the state as a whole," Young said. "All of those involved except the commissioners wanted the settlement and were working to make a settlement a reality. This decision will cost wastewater customers billions of dollars."
Young, who has been paid more than $1 million over the past 14 months to run the system, contended that "the state of Alabama desperately wanted a settlement, the creditors wanted a settlement, the business community wanted a settlement, and the commissioners just turned their backs and walked away.
"This utterly irresponsible act makes the dark cloud hanging over Jefferson County even darker."
Young said a proposed settlement agreement, which contained about $1 billion in concessions from sewer-debt creditors, is no longer on the table.
Bowman, the only member of the commission to oppose bankruptcy, said he thought the county should have kept working toward a settlement with creditors.
Some, though, supported the county's move.
Kenneth Klee, the Los Angeles-based bankruptcy law expert hired to advise the county, said commissioners had run out of alternatives.
"The county had reached a point in its negotiations with the creditors where it believed that good faith negotiations had come to impasse and no further negotiations to reach a central result were possible, and the time had come to take a step to go into Chapter 9 to resolve its differences," Klee said. "The county has no option. It has to look out for the best interests of its citizens and a consensual resolution was not possible."
Robert Brooks, a professor of financial management at the University of Alabama, called bankruptcy the county's best option.
"One of the problems here is that the creditors are some of these large investment banks that appear culpable in Jefferson County's financial woes," he said. "No longer is Jefferson County looking across the table from people they rightfully should not trust."
State Sen. Slade Blackwell, R-Mountain Brook, said Jefferson County's bankruptcy will have negative ramifications on the county and state for decades to come.
"Filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history will undoubtedly make it increasingly difficult for Jefferson County and the state of Alabama to grow and expand in economic development," he said. "Bankruptcy will not wipe away the county's debt and will only escalate spending by the county on legal expenses."
More than debt
While Jefferson County's debt was crippling, in the end it was as much the county's regular budget that pushed commissioners to file for bankruptcy.
The state Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that an occupational tax enacted by the Alabama Legislature was flawed and struck that tax down, draining about $66 million from the county's budget. The county already had cut $95 million -- or 30 percent -- from the current year's general fund budget, and was faced with making another $40 million cut by Dec. 1.
[Click here to download this timeline chart as a PDF.]The Jefferson County delegation to the Legislature could not reach any agreement on how to fill the void in the county's budget, and also could not reach agreement on supporting legislative action that would have been needed to enact a settlement with the sewer-debt creditors.
Alabama's constitution limits county governments to only those powers they are specifically granted by the Legislature, and the local delegation's lack of consensus on potential solutions left commissioners with few options.
Lawmakers came within one vote earlier this year of permitting the county to levy a new, limited occupational tax, but state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, objected. That effectively killed the proposal, which required unanimous support of the local delegation.
Bentley had been working with legislative leaders as recently as Tuesday to help find a solution for Jefferson County's crisis. On Wednesday he said he would drop plans to call a special session to help the county.
"I believe you pay your debts," he said. "That's what I told them and I still believe that."
Jefferson County's financial affairs began to melt down publicly in February 2008, when the nationwide credit crunch cause its debt obligations to skyrocket.
Since then, negotiations with creditors have failed to resolve the crisis.
In a Bankruptcy Court filing late Wednesday, county officials contended they had worked tirelessly for 3½ years to overcome "unprecedented financial obstacles without seeking bankruptcy protection."
However, the document said, "... the county needs to resolve its outstanding liabilities comprehensively and in a single forum. Accordingly, the county has filed the instant case under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code as a last resort and in a good faith effort to adjust its debts for the benefit of its creditors and citizens."
Carrington said the Chapter 9 filing would not interfere with the county's delivery of essential services to its citizens or payment to employees and vendors.
He added that the county is working with advisers to prepare a Chapter 9 plan to adjust the county's debt and to emerge from Chapter 9 as soon as it can.

Alabama Board of Education plans to choose leader today

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Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley questions state school superintendent hopeful Mark A. Bounds of South Carolina during a meeting of the State Board of Education in Montgomery, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Members of the Alabama Board of Education expect to vote to hire a new state school superintendent Thursday after wrapping up more than four hours of interviews with three finalists for the job Wednesday evening.
All nine members of the board, including Gov. Robert Bentley, asked questions about education funding, teaching philosophy, politics and other issues.
Board members are seeking a candidate to replace Joe Morton, who retired Aug. 31 after seven years as Alabama's superintendent.
Board members questioned South Carolina deputy superintendent Mark Bounds and Alabama Deputy Superintendents Tommy Bice and Craig Pouncey. A fourth candidate, Byron Garrett of Maryland, was out of the country and was not available to be interviewed, apparently losing out on a shot at the job.
The board members voted Wednesday night to pick the new superintendent from the candidates interviewed Thursday and to not talk with Garrett.
Alabama state school superintendent hopeful Mark A. Bounds. center, of South Carolina, addresses Wednesday's meeting of the State Board of Education. The SBOE is interviewing candidates to replace Joseph Morton who retired Aug. 31 after seven years as Alabama's top educator. SBOE members at rear are: (L-R at table) Betty Peters, Stephanie Bell, Yvette Richardson and Larry Craven.
"I liked all three of them," the governor said after the meeting but said he had not decided who he would vote for Thursday morning. "I think we interviewed three very good candidates. They all answered the questions we asked."
At one point board member Charles Elliott, a Republican from Decatur, said he was ready to vote Wednesday evening, but he later voted with other board members to wait until Thursday.
"I do have a candidate. I feel like this time tomorrow we will have a superintendent," Elliott said. He would not say which of the candidates he favored.
Board members seemed to like all three candidates and were very familiar with Bice and Pouncey, who often make presentations at board meetings. All three candidates promised to work closely with the board.
They also said they favor adoption of national standards in math and English, known as Common Core, but all had some reservations about the national standards.
Pouncey said the state will be at a disadvantage if it does not adopt the standards in English and math, comparing it to a football team deciding to keep playing with 11 players even though all other teams had changed to 12 players. School board members plan to discuss the standards Thursday after voting on a new superintendent.
The candidates were asked how they would handle the budget crisis facing Alabama.
Bounds said schools need to think about new ways to provide services for students, such as partnering with private companies to provide glasses for students.
"We don't have the energy and resources for Alabama to do everything for every school," Bounds said.
Bice, who once taught at the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega said all students deserve an education regardless of physical disabilities or lack of money.
He told board member Ella Bell of Montgomery, who represents the economically disadvantaged Black Belt region, that he would work to help students in her district.
"I've yet to meet a teacher in the Black Belt that doesn't want what you want for students," Bice told Bell.

Oak Grove High School student charged with capital murder in parents' slaying

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Share Email Print  Drew Brennan Thacker (Jefferson County Sheriff's Office)
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Alabama - A 17-year-old Oak Grove High School student is formally charged with capital murder in the slaying of his parents.
Jefferson County sheriff's deputies obtained the warrant this afternoon against Drew Brennan Thacker.
Thacker is being held without bond in the Jefferson County Jail, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian.
"A kid murdering anyone is hard to understand but to take the lives of his own parents is pretty twisted," Christian said. "God rest their souls. Our hearts and prayers go out to the surviving brother and extended family members."
Deputies were called to the home in the 9900 block of Taylor's Ferry Road just after 9 p.m. Tuesday on a report of a shooting.
They discovered the bodies of Ronnie and Barbara Thacker, ages 53 and 55, dead inside the home. Both had been shot in the head with a .45-caliber pistol, which was recovered from inside the home.
Drew Thacker's brother, 20-year-old Luke Thacker, told deputies his brother called him at 3:30 p.m. and asked if he wanted to go get something to eat. His brother acted normal while they were at a fast-food restaurant, Luke Thacker told deputies, like nothing had happened. The two then went to visit friends.
When they got home around 9 p.m., they pulled up to the home. The suspect told his brother not to go inside. When he asked why, the suspect told him he had shot and had killed their parents.
The brothers got into a physical altercation, Christian said. The suspect told him they had pushed him too far and he could not take it anymore.
The other brother ran next door to ask for help, and the suspect fled in his father's truck. Drew Thacker was taken into custody a short time later at an Adger home.