Debating IVF; Hurricane Francine effects

welcome back everybody it's Wednesday September 11th 2024 can you believe it's been 22 years since 911 we'll keep that in our minds today born on this date in 1913 Paul William Bryant of Morrow bottom Arkansas the bear is one of the few folks born outside the state who have to be mentioned here in 1932 former Congressman Sunny Callahan of mobile and in 1953 rock guitarist and singer Tommy Shaw of Montgomery today we'll touch on huge damages and a discrimination lawsuit involving UAB the IVF stuff from last night's debate a man celebrated for his Chipotle dedication and how the hurricane might affect us I'm Mike Morgan and we're down in Alabama a jury has awarded a former UAB research SCI $3.8 million over her discrimination claims while UAB disputed the verdict reports a.com Howard copits the plaintiff in the case was an Iranian FIBA mpur she was employed by UAB to work in a lab for 9 years until she was fired in 2020 she claims she was harassed by a co-worker on a daily basis over her race and national origin being called racial slurs being told to go back to Iran and even having a gun pointed at her and a car driven at her she also claims she complained to her supervisor but was told nothing could be done because he would be fired or killed or would kill himself she claims that to keep her from Talking the supervisor grabbed her by the chin knocked her down and drew blood with his fingernails she said an officer showed up to arrest her causing her to faint and when she woke woke up she was handcuffed by the wrists and ankles on a gurnie in the ER before she was taken to jail overnight the jury ordered UAB to pay $3 million in Damages and the cooworker to pay 500,000 in compensatory damages and 325,000 in punitive damages now in a statement UAB says it doesn't tolerate discrimination and it's considering its next legal steps quote we respectfully disagree with the verdict in this case during last night's presidential debate the candidates waited into this past Spring's controversial invitro fertilization ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court now ever since that decision we've heard people make references to how Alabama has banned IVF treatment of course what actually happened was the state's High Court interpreted the language in Alabama abortion law to mean that embryos have the same rights as children and applied that to a court case involving Frozen embryos that had been accidentally destroyed by a clinic possibly making clinics liable for such incidents in civil and even criminal cases now during Tuesday's debate vice president commo Harris made reference to couples being denied IVF treatment former president Donald Trump responded with his support of the availability of IVF treatments and also that Alabama had responded to the court decision with legislation in two days to keep the clinics open now to clarify all that Trump was right that the Republicans in the legislature and governor's office acted to neutralize the immediate effects of the Court decision although as al.com Howard kopitz reported last night it took 18 days rather than two the issue likely isn't dead yet in our state however the measure that was passed gave IVF clinics a level of immunity when handling human embryos some have called that a Band-Aid and some have said that granting immunity from recourse is rather strong also there still exists the language and statute that led to the Court decision in the first place it probably would cut down dramatically on the number of decisions you have to make if you just had lunch at the same place every day some people do that Dylan wereham of mobile however is way more consistent than most Wham recently won a family trip to Hawaii and a Year's worth of free lunches after eating at Chipotle for 1,000 consecutive days now that's going on three years worth of eating at one place day after day he celebrated the Milestone Monday with the company at the Airport Boulevard location there in Mobile ordering his go-to burrito bowl with double chicken white rice salsa cheese lettuce and a side of guacamole and then announcing on his social media accounts that he and his family were heading to Hawaii the next day it raises the question how does one make it to Chipotle every single day for 1,000 days or even how does one go 1,000 days without having to skip lunch where amam did say that he had to sneak a few burrito bowls into his luggage for a cruise he took a couple years ago hey we're going to take a quick break come back and talk hurricanes with Lee Morgan y'all stay with [Music] us thanks everybody for staying with us today we're going to talk a little bit of weather we have weather reporter Lee Morgan in the virtual studio with us hey how you doing Lee I'm all right how are you good now you've been on here earlier in the summer to talk about the hurricane season and it was supposed to be a real busy one yeah the the good news is it hasn't been a crazy season so far the not quite good news is it's only September 11th so we got plenty more of the heart of hurricane season to go and we have this one storm that's out there what what what's the name I've already forgotten the name of the storm Francine Francine how can you forget Francine all right you know as always when we talk about hurricanes we have to say this is not a live show so we're not going to tell you exactly when 60 mph winds are going to be coming down your street knocking on your front door but Lee if you could give us kind of a general sense of what's going to take place in Alabama today tomorrow as a result of this storm that's going to probably make landfall in Louisiana that's right so we've got hurricane frine it was upgraded to a hurricane uh Tuesday night um it's expected to make landfall uh today anywhere from this afternoon to this evening along the coast of Louisiana it's uh expected to be strengthening originally they thought it might come in as a category 2 hurricane but they've dialed that back a little bit so we'll just have to wait and see because those things can be tricky right up until landfall um from then on it's going to track to the Northeast uh the center of the storm isn't expected to directly move over Alabama it will move to the West in Mississippi but um we'll get some we're on the Eastern side of the storm some people call it the dirty side of the storm and so that means that we you're liable to see wind tropical downpours High Surf rip currents uh power outages down trees and tornadoes so uh today Southwest Alabama is going to be the place to watch that's where you're going to get the rip currents there's could be some moderate to uh minor coastal flooding um it depends you know the track on Tuesday kept shifting East a little bit out of time if that Trend were to continue then some of the impacts for Southwest Alabama could be more than what we're talking about here we could the parts of that area could get you know 4 to 8 inches of rain possibly and you know those are those tropical downpours that just you know are incredible for for a little bit um but really and the Weather Service in National Weather Service in Mobile um was becoming increasingly concerned about the threat for tornadoes so sometime today I would not be shocked if we see a tornado watch for part of South Southwest Alabama we're going to really have to watch those rain bands coming on Shore because those are notorious for spawning really quick spin up tornadoes um and we've seen that happen we haven't dealt with that in a while here um but it's time it's our time and then so that sh threat is going to shift to the north into the East uh tonight and into Thursday and on Thursday there's a risk that more of Alabama north and Central parts of the state as well as South Alabama could see some of those quick hitting tornadoes so it's something to watch keep an eye on things in addition like I'm going to I'm nowhere near the coast but I'm going to be charging my stuff tomorrow my phone my computer to make sure cuz you just never know a tree branch Could Fall In The Wind and knock the power out the good news is the weather service at least in north and Central Alabama isn't exp expecting too many issues with flooding that's because most of the state is either in a level one or level two drought so it take a whole lot of rain to flood some spots now that didn't mean the spots that always flood won't flood that could still happen and then if you happen to be one of those spots where those storms train one after the other hit you you know know you're in one of those rain bands that doesn't move then you could see some flooding anyway just make sure you're paying attention to what's going on uh to today and tomorrow and maybe into Friday just depends on how fast this thing moves it's supposed to weaken pretty quickly once it makes landfall so you know once it gets farther in it'll weaken quickly to a tropical storm and then a depression so hopefully by Friday it's clearing out and on Saturday things will be back to normal again yeah and things go really well I mean this could be a positive event for some uh really dry places in Alabama yes let's hope that's our best case scenario that we get some beneficial rain some cooler temperatures we can't argue about that and that the there's no tornadoes that those don't materialize and that areas along the coast don't have to do you know there is I should add I didn't add this earlier this is like one of the main things there's a tropical storm warning along the Alabama coast and there's also a storm surge watch so um as of this recording the National Hurricane Center was saying 2 to four feet of storm surge would be possible along the Alabama coast and Mobile Bay so that's something to watch out for hopefully that does not materialize and hopefully this thing is just kind of falls apart before it makes landfall so fingers crossed yeah definitely just definitely check your latest but regardless of how this goes today is a terrible time to go uh swimming at the beach yes and then our turnaround Don't Drown rules are in effect yes because there could be there could be some local flooding in the in the especially in the places that typically flood can I say about one good thing please um on Tuesday night I got to see it and evidently a lot of people on Twitter actually saw it the sunset was amazing yeah I was going to ask you about that if that's related yes some of those high clouds coming in at least where I am um and I know lots of places in North and Central Alabama reporting really pretty sunsets now not that won't be the case today but um you know we got to look for our positives where we can find them absolutely and if you're prepared for a few hours of our outages just in case wherever you are um so what else is go what else is going on do you need to tell us anything long-term when's it going to get real cold I don't know November December never feels like we always ask this in September it's like it's football season so we expect to wear jackets you know I know and all the fall stuff keeps coming out you know and you want to have your pumpkin spice and no but no you know Thursday if we're lucky and we don't have tornadoes it could be rainy and cooler and we could pretend it's almost like fall for a while but you got a while wait I did want to add something about her hurricane season we've only had um six name storms a b CDE e f so far this year four of them have become hurricanes and if Francine uh does what it's supposed to do all of this year's storms will have made landfall somewhere all of the Hurricanes this year have made landfall somewhere um two of them already in the United States we had Debbie hit Florida and we had hit Texas and then we had Ernesto which hit Bermuda um and then Francine looks likely to hit Louisiana and then two tropical storms that hit Mexico so we're like six for six in h in a tropical storm impacts so far this season well this this high percentage turnout of of of even though it's a low number of hurricanes would you say that the the warm Gulf you know it's famously it's it's record high are being recorded in some places that has to impact the ability to develop right that's probably that that F right I'm gonna it C it certainly doesn't hurt now you know uh forecasters and hurricane watchers have been kind of flabbergasted that it hasn't been busier so far I'm hey I'm going to knock on something I don't want it to be busier but the Outlook at least from Noah was calling for 17 to 24 name storms as tropical storms and hurricanes before the season's over and the season ends November the 30th we've had six name storms so far um although I think we're slightly ahead by a few days for the number of hurricanes this season if you look at all the numbers but as compared to a typical season so if this you know if this forecast were to verify for 17 to 24 Nam storms we got to it's going to get a lot busier before the season ends and really we've just got this month in October cuz activity typically starts to really decline in November although we have had hurricanes in November so we'll just have to watch part of the thing is there's been a lot of dry air over the Tropical Atlantic although as you said uh the ocean or sea surface temperatures have been at record near record levels in a lot of places also the storm track has kind of shifted North and storms are coming off you know a lot of times you get this what they call a wave train of disturbances coming off the coast of Africa and they've been coming rolling off the coast but in a slightly different place and it hasn't been as favorable for them to develop so some weird funky things have happened to keep this hurricane the worst of the worst so far knock on wood for from materializing so we'll just have to see if those Trends hold please hold until November the 30th and Beyond things could be worse than high and dry all right well thanks Lee for coming on and cluing Us in to what's going on yeah pay attention to the weather you guys um you know we just you just never know when these tornadoes could spin up charge your stuff and everything will be fine thanks everybody for listening to us we will be back here again tomorrow until then y'all come on by and see what we're doing on the internet at al.com [Music]