Alabama

A day after reporting his four young children missing, a shrimp fisherman broke down and confessed that he threw them off an 80-foot-high bridge to their deaths, authorities said Wednesday. Lam Luong, 37, was charged with four counts of capital murder, and divers searched the murky waters for the bodies of the youngsters, who ranged in age from 4 months to 3 years.

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was released on bond from a federal prison Friday, saying he remains upbeat despite serving nine months for corruption. Leaving the prison in a black sport utility vehicle, he stopped on a road outside the lockup to comment. He wore a ragged shirt that appeared to be prison clothing. "I may have lost my freedom for a while, but I never lost faith," Siegelman, 62, told reporters.

Strong thunderstorms toppled trees, knocked out power and damaged homes Friday in Mississippi and Alabama, while flooding in Kentucky forced evacuations and killed a 2-year-old girl. Across Mississippi, fast-moving storms unleashed possible tornadoes, heavy rain and some hail. Power failures were reported in several communities, including Jackson and downtown Vicksburg. Tate Moudy of Brandon, east of Jackson, had just walked into the Southern States Utility Trailer Sales office on U.S.

After nearly 14 long and sometimes embarrassing years as the national torchbearer for municipal bankruptcy, Orange County may soon lose that distinction thanks to a financial disaster elsewhere that could dwarf its debacle. Jefferson County, Ala., was weighing its options this week in the wake of a looming bond crisis that recently forced it to skip a $53-million sewer bond payment -- sending the county's credit rating tumbling to the lowest junk status.

It was an unlikely setting for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain to campaign in Monday: the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where black protesters were beaten in a 1965 march for voting rights. McCain joined hands later with black women who sang gospel spirituals to him as they rode a ferry across the muddy Alabama River near Gee's Bend, a community famous for its quilts and for its role in the civil rights struggle.

A tornado pulverized a high school in southern Alabama on Thursday, toppling the roof and killing at least five people as students sought shelter in the hallways. With power still out in most of the city of 21,000, shaken officials in Enterprise called a brief news conference Thursday night to announce a dawn-to-dusk curfew and plead with residents to stay off the streets so rescue vehicles could easily get to the ruins of Enterprise High School.

As Enterprise High School's football field swarmed with Black Hawk helicopters and armed National Guard soldiers Friday, Ben Powell thought of the last time he saw Katie Strunk. "We were sitting in history," the 10th-grader said. "She was smiling. She always smiled." Ben had a crush on Katie, who was among eight students who died at their school Thursday when a tornado slammed into the main building, ripping off concrete roofs and flattening cinder-block walls.

Residents of this city devastated by a tornado that killed eight high school students paused from recovery efforts Sunday to mourn at church services, where some lined up to hug and offer words of encouragement for the school superintendent. First Baptist Church parishioners gave Supt. Jim Reese a standing ovation after the pastor thanked him for his service to the community.

An 81-year-old woman was among 27 alleged crack cocaine dealers arrested in police raids in Mobile County. Bayou La Batre Police Chief John Joyner said police received information from an informant that Margie Steiner was dealing drugs. She was placed under surveillance and was videotaped selling crack cocaine, officers said.

Two former college students were each sentenced Monday to eight years in federal prison for a string of rural church fires that began as a prank during a night of drinking. A third friend, who wasn't involved in all of the fires, was sentenced to seven years. Dressed in orange jail uniforms with shackles around their feet, each man apologized for the blazes, which they set during a night of drinking and illegal hunting. "I'm truly sorry for that," said Matthew Cloyd, 21.