Legislators must fund more state troopers
Montgomery Advertiser – Aug. 3
Apocalyptic. Nuclear option. That’s not bombast from GOP presidential candidates on the Obama administration’s recent deal with Iran. It’s the straight-up assessment by Spencer Collier, Secretary of Law Enforcement, of the cuts state lawmakers approved for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency in the General Fund budget last spring. The Legislature, which so far this year has been unable to responsibly handle its budgetary duties, slashed $16 million from the agency’s funding for the next fiscal year, from $55 million to $39 million. Gov. Robert Bentley rightly vetoed the draconian cuts to ALEA and other state agencies. Had he not, as the Advertiser’s Brian Lyman reported, the department would have had to close all but three driver’s license offices and lay off two-thirds of its civilian workforce, meanwhile trying to avoid more depletion in the perilously thin ranks of Alabama state troopers by shifting personnel from other law enforcement areas. That’s the same dangerous shell-game law enforcement leaders have been forced to play since at least 2010, as hiring freezes, anemic state funding and attrition culled trooper numbers to a low of 289 in 2014. The personnel transfers and a federal grant have brought those numbers higher, to about 431 this year. But that’s still fewer than half the 1,016 troopers needed to cover the state’s 67 counties, according to a University of Alabama study.
Men And Women Surveyed Say They’re Capable Of Platonic Friendships
Vocativ – July 30
“When Harry Met Sally” famously suggested that men and women can’t be friends—but a new study finds that people are actually optimistic about the potential for strictly platonic co-ed pals. There’s just one catch: They also think that most male-female friendships harbor secret sexual attraction. A study from the University of Alabama released this month surveyed college students and found that both men and women largely believe that truly platonic opposite-sex friendships are possible. Then researchers had to go shatter all illusions of humanity triumphing over baser desires and ask those same undergraduates to estimate how often co-ed friendships contain hidden desires. Overall participants estimated that in approximately 63 percent of male-female friendships, one person secretly wants to get in the other’s pants. Now, before you give the side-eye to your best bud of the opposite sex, consider that this doesn’t actually mean that sexual attraction happens in 63 percent of male-female friendships—it only tells us that that’s how often people think it happens (Which, OK, might still give you reason for side-eye). There were no notable sex differences in that overall estimate, but the participants did predict a greater share of men than women harboring secret attractions in male-female friendships (61 percent compared to 54 percent).
MyCentralOregon.com – Aug. 3
Bustle.com – July 31