Birmingham Council Approves Cameras to Help Fight Crime
Birmingham police will soon have some extra help to spot crime. The Birmingham City Council Tuesday approved an agreement with Alabama Power to install 100 cameras around the city. The service and equipment will cost $672,000. The city will pay Alabama Power Company that amount over five years.
The vote comes as the city continues to wrestle with an increase in violent crime.
Hunter Williams, chairman of the council’s public safety committee, says the cameras will work alongside the city’s shot spotter devices. Those detect the sound of bullets and alert police, but Williams says police need more.
“Right now, we have an audible shot spotter in place, but we are blind to see what’s going on as those shots ring out,” he says. “So, what this will do, it will couple with that so that we will have eyes and ears.”
Williams says the cameras will be connected to police dispatch and Jefferson County’s shared crime monitoring system.
The council’s vote on the cameras was unanimous.
Postal traffic to US drops more than 80% after trade exemption rule ends, UN agency says
The de minimis rule that allowed small packages worth less than $800 to be exempt from tariffs ended on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025.
Colombia’s lone Amazon port faces drying river and rising tensions with Peru
Colombia's only Amazon port town could soon be cut off from the river that keeps it alive. As drought and a shifting river spark a tense border dispute with Peru, locals are scrambling to adapt—and politicians are raising flags, literally.
Sunday Puzzle: Common denominator
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe plays the puzzle with Weekend Edition puzzlemaster Will Shortz along with listener Cynthia Rose of Littleton, Colorado.
South Korea says it has reached a deal with the US for the release of workers in a Georgia plant
More than 300 South Korean workers were detained in an immigration raid on Thursday. Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said South Korea plans to send a charter plane to bring the workers home.
Hitch a ride to the moon in a rusty old car and ‘The Couch in the Yard’
As the sun sets in a small town, a family loads up their rusty old car with the spare couch in their yard. When it breaks down in the mountains, what else is there to do but fly it to the moon?
The silent killer increases your risk of stroke and dementia. Here’s how to control it
New recommendations for early treatment for hypertension to prevent strokes, heart attacks and dementia come as an experimental medication is shown to lower blood pressure in hard to treat patients.
