Grammy-nominated R&B singer Angie Stone has died at the age of 63 following a car crash in Alabama, her daughter, Diamond Stone, has confirmed.
“My mommy is gone,” Diamond shared in an emotional Facebook post.
According to media reports, Stone suffered fatal injuries when a van she was traveling in overturned early Saturday after a performance.
Stone, celebrated for hits like No More Rain (In This Cloud) and Wish I Didn’t Miss You, was a three-time Grammy nominee. Her career began in the 1970s as part of the pioneering female hip-hop trio The Sequence, best known for Funk You Up, which climbed to No. 15 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles chart.
Her daughter, who performs under the name Ladi Diamond, expressed her devastation on social media, describing herself as feeling “numb.” Just hours before, she had requested prayers for her family while traveling.
A spokesperson for the late artist told the BBC that Stone’s family had traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, and planned to release more details soon.
Guy Todd Williams, known as Rahiem from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, disclosed that approximately nine other passengers were in the van at the time of the accident.
“She left her indelible mark on the music industry, initially as a member of the legendary rap group Sequence,” Williams stated.
He confirmed that Stone was the only fatality in the crash.
The BBC has reached out to Montgomery police for additional details on the incident.
Beyond her contributions to music, Stone also found success in the film industry. She made her movie debut in The Hot Chick (2002), starring Rob Schneider, Rachel McAdams, and Anna Faris, and later appeared in The Fighting Temptations (2003) alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé.
Lands, a Democrat, won the House of Representatives seat in a suburban area that used to be held by the Republican party. He defeated Teddy Powell, the Republican candidate, in a clear and strong way. Democrats were happy about her win because they think it shows how important reproductive rights are for the 2024 elections.
“Voters want a change, and I think they are fed up with women not getting the freedom to make their own choices about their health care,” Lands said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
Alabama says it’s not allowed to have an abortion at any time during a pregnancy, even if the pregnancy happened because of rape. After a few weeks of pausing in vitro fertilization services in the state, Lands finally won the case. This happened because the Alabama Supreme Court said that frozen embryos are the same as children.
Lands, a counselor for mental health, also talked about education and making the economy better. But she was very passionate about opposing the state’s law against abortion, and sometimes shared very personal stories to explain why. She told people about her experience of getting an abortion 20 years ago. The doctors found out that the baby had a genetic disorder called trisomy 13 and wouldn’t be able to live.
Lands decided to share her own story after talking to a woman who had to go to a different state to get an abortion because of the same fetal diagnosis.
I noticed similarities in our story. I told her my story. The story shows that after twenty years, women have less freedom compared to before.
As she went from house to house in the area, Lands noticed that many women were sharing their own experiences. Some were similar to hers. Some people had miscarriages or had trouble getting pregnant.
I think a lot of women’s and family health problems can make people feel very alone. And I hope that maybe by talking about this, we can make people see that these things happen a lot. – Lands said.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who is managing President Joe Biden’s campaign for 2024, said that the results in Alabama are a strong warning for Trump. She said that voters do not support his efforts to limit reproductive health care.
John Wahl, who is the chairperson of the Republican Party in Alabama, disagreed that the race results show what will happen in other areas. He said not many people voted in the election in a place where both Democrats and Republicans could win.
“Wahl said that pretending this election represents the whole state of Alabama is not honest. It shows a lack of understanding of politics or an attempt to trick voters. ”
Land won in a district that is more middle-of-the-road in politics compared to other districts held by the GOP. The Madison County district includes some of Madison and Huntsville. Huntsville is where the Army’s Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center are located. In 2020, Donald Trump got 62% of the votes in Alabama, but only got about 53% in Madison County.
Almost 6,000 people voted in Tuesday’s special election. In 2022, over 14,000 people voted when Lands lost to Republican David Cole. The job in the government became available again because Cole quit and admitted to cheating in an election by renting a small space to say he lived there when he actually didn’t.
Previous United States Senator Doug Jones, the last Democrat to win a big election in Alabama, said that Land’s win was partially because people were angry about the extreme policies that the Republican party in the state put in place.
“They are going too far. ” “They are doing too much. ” You say the government should take strong action. “This government in Alabama wants to control every part of people’s lives,” Jones said.
He said that Lands’ win could be good for Democrats in future Alabama elections, but he warned not to read too much into it. Jones won the special election in 2017, but lost to the current U. SSenator in 2020. Tommy Tuberville is a person’s name.
“People thought my win in the 2017 election was a big deal, but Alabama didn’t actually become a blue state. ” Jones said that he doesn’t want to completely change the state in one direction or the other. He said that it’s not good for the state to have only one political party in charge, no matter which party it is.
Jones said we need competition, and Marilyn brought that.
The highest court in the state decided last week that frozen embryos have the same rights as children, and people can get in trouble for destroying them.
At least three clinics stopped doing IVF treatment after the decision.
On Friday, Mr. Trump asked Alabama to find a quick solution.
“We want to help parents have babies more easily, not make it difficult. This means we support making fertility treatments like IVF available in every State in America,” said the ex-president on his Truth Social platform.
“Most Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-Life Americans, like myself, strongly support IVF for couples who want to have a baby. ”
On Friday, Alabama’s Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said he does not plan to punish IVF providers and their families, which may help ease worries in the state.
This was the first time Mr Trump spoke about the issue. He said he opposes a decision that some Republicans worry could hurt their chances of winning votes from women in the suburbs and swing voters.
Mr Trump is the top candidate to win the Republican nomination for the November election and one of the most important people in the party.
The National Republican Senate Committee, which helps members get elected to Congress, told candidates to express support for IVF and work on making it more accessible. This shows that they want to move away from the Alabama ruling.
No Republican Senate candidates want to limit access to fertility treatments, according to Jason Thielman, the committee’s director, in a memo obtained by CBS, the BBC’s US partner.
The memo mentioned a survey done by Kellyanne Conway, who used to work for the president, to show that most people support access to IVF.
Several Senate candidates, like Kari Lake in Arizona, spoke out in favor of making the treatment available to the public after the memo was distributed.
Nikki Haley, the only other person trying to be the Republican nominee, at first seemed to support the decision when she said she thinks frozen embryos are babies. Later, she said she didn’t agree with the court’s decision.
While IVF is not banned in Alabama, some doctors have stopped offering fertility services because they are worried about getting in trouble with the law.
The highest court in the state made it and all the judges are from the Republican party.
Democrats are using the Alabama case in their campaign to show that if their opponents win in November, they will try to take away women’s rights.
Mr Biden wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the Alabama decision was only able to happen because of the 2022 ruling by the US Supreme Court, which has three judges appointed by Trump, to cancel abortion rights.
Many conservatives were happy that Roe v Wade ended, but it made Democrats want to vote more and Republicans had trouble with their message.
A recent decision by the Alabama Supreme Court says that frozen embryos are like children. This means that someone could get in trouble for accidentally destroying them. This has caused more debate about reproductive medicine in the US.
The biggest hospital in the southern US state has stopped offering IVF services because they are worried they could get in trouble with the law.
The hospital will keep taking eggs from women’s ovaries. But it said it would stop the next part of the IVF process, when the eggs are joined with sperm before being placed in the uterus.
“We are sad because this will make it harder for our patients to have a baby with IVF,” said the top medical provider in the state.
“But we need to consider whether our patients and our doctors could get in trouble with the law or have to pay penalties for following the usual IVF treatments. ”
Conservative groups were happy with the decision. They believe that even the smallest embryo should be protected by law.
Why did this case go to court and what was the court’s decision.
The case comes from a lawsuit filed by three couples because their embryos were lost at a fertility clinic in 2020.
A person went into the room where the baby cells were kept, touched them, and accidentally let them fall. Therefore, the embryos were broken down.
The couples wanted to take legal action against the Center for Reproductive Medicine and the Mobile Infirmary Association for the death of their child, according to the state’s law about the death of a minor. The law protects unborn babies, but does not specifically protect embryos made through IVF.
The court decided that the embryos were not considered a person or child, and the lawsuit for wrongful death could not continue.
The Alabama Supreme Court agreed with the couples and said that frozen embryos are like children.
The law says that it applies to all babies who have died, even if they were still in their mother’s belly.
Agreeing with most people, Chief Justice Tom Parker said that all people have God’s image from even before they are born, and their lives should not be taken away because it would erase God’s glory.
In an extraordinary medical event, a woman in the United States with the uncommon condition of having two uteruses gave birth on two consecutive days, marking a rare “one in a million” pregnancy that involved 20 hours of labor.
Kelsey Hatcher, aged 32, experienced the unique joy of welcoming a daughter on Tuesday, followed by the birth of another daughter on Wednesday, both at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital.
Celebrating this remarkable occurrence, Ms. Hatcher took to social media to announce the birth of her “miracle babies,” praising the medical team for their outstanding work.
The newborns are fraternal twins, uniquely born on different days, a rarity in itself.
Following the unexpected but joyous events, Ms. Hatcher shared that her family had returned home, ready to celebrate the holiday season. Initially, she had anticipated a Christmas delivery.
A UAB obstetrician spoke about the uniqueness of this case, noting that such events are so rare that many in the field may never encounter them in their entire careers.
Diagnosed with a double uterus, known medically as uterus didelphys, at the age of 17, Ms. Hatcher was part of a small group, as this condition affects only 0.3% of women.
Becoming pregnant in both uteruses simultaneously, known as a dicavitary pregnancy, is an even more extraordinary occurrence, with the UAB citing the odds as “one in a million.”
Instances like these are exceedingly rare worldwide. In a similar case reported in 2019, a woman in Bangladesh gave birth to twins almost a month after having a premature baby, a story shared with the BBC by a local doctor.
Prior to this remarkable pregnancy, Ms. Hatcher had three healthy pregnancies. This time, she initially believed she was pregnant in just one uterus until a routine ultrasound unexpectedly revealed a second baby in the other uterus.
“I gasped… We just could not believe it,” she recalled.
She went on to document her unusual journey on Instagram. One update at 38 weeks asked: “What the heck?! HOW have we made it this far?!”
Image caption,Kelsey, pictured here with her newborns and husband Caleb, first thought she was pregnant in only one womb
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) characterized Ms. Hatcher’s pregnancy as standard, despite its unique nature.
Professor Richard Davis, who supervised the birth, noted that each infant benefited from having its own uterus, providing ample room for growth and development, a contrast to normal twin pregnancies.
Ms. Hatcher’s labor, initiated at 39 weeks, necessitated heightened vigilance and documentation in the hospital, including increased staff involvement.
Dr. Shweta Patel from UAB’s obstetrics and gynecology department remarked that this aspect was the most unconventional in Ms. Hatcher’s situation.
According to Dr. Patel, the medical team had limited specific guidelines or data to reference, compelling them to rely on their general expertise in standard pregnancies.
She confirmed that the babies truly possessed a “mind of their own” and were born using distinct techniques.
On December 19, at approximately 19:45 local time, Roxi was born vaginally. Over ten hours later, Rebel, the second, arrived via C-section.
According to Prof. Davis, the girls might be referred to as fraternal twins, a term that describes babies that are created from individual eggs that are fertilized by individual sperm.
“At the end of the day, it was two babies in one belly at the same time,” he said. “They just had different apartments.”
Mason Sisk was a 14-year-old boy in September 2019 when his family was killed in their home in Elkmont, Alabama.
Four years later, he was convicted of causing the death of five people, and it was considered the most serious type of murder. Now 18 years old, Sisk will spend their life in prison and will not have a chance to be released.
The judge, Chadwick Wise, gave the toughest punishment for the killings, which he described as horrifying, disturbing, and filled with pure evil. Since Sisk was under 18 years old at the time of the murders, he couldn’t be given the death penalty.
The people who were hurt were his dad, John Wayne Sisk, who is 38 years old, his mom, Mary Sisk, who is 35 years old, and his three brothers and sisters: Kane, who is six years old, Aurora, who is four years old, and Colson, who is only six months old.
All five people in the family were shot in the head and died.
Sisk first told the police that he was playing video games in the basement of his family’s house when he heard the sound of gunshots. He said he didn’t see the killers since they had already left by the time he went upstairs.
But only a few hours later, Sisk admitted to the murders during questioning by the sheriff’s deputies. He said in a video shown to the jury that he was tired of all the fighting and yeah, he killed them.
Sisk’s lawyers tried to say that the confession was forced, and that the interrogators used a sneaky method to trick the teenager.
They also pointed out that the person asking the questions, former Sheriff Mike Blakely, was found guilty of stealing and leveraging his position for personal benefit in 2021.
A group of people called a jury decided that Sisk is responsible for all five murders in April. He was given a punishment of being in prison for the rest of his life on Thursday.
I can count on one hand the five most dangerous people that I have ever encountered in my career, and Mason Sisk is the most dangerous among them,” said District Attorney Brian CT Jones to reporters outside the courthouse.
Judge Wise’s decision will make sure that this dangerous person will not be a danger to our children.
An eight-year-old boy in Montgomery, Alabama has been arrested after he robbed a car at gunpoint and then got into a chase with police.
Per WSFA, Maj. Saba Coleman of the Montgomery Police Department said officers responded to reports of a car theft earlier this week. Following a police chase that ended with the child crashing into another vehicle and fleeing on foot, the unidentified minor was taken into custody at the Montgomery County Youth Detention Facility.
He has been charged with first-degree robbery, attempting to elude, and firearm possession. Coleman said the firearm used in the carjacking was recovered by officers at the scene. No injuries were reported, but the child apparently refused to pull over for police during the chase.
“Whenever I realized it was a little boy, I knew I had to follow them and make sure no one got hit and that he got caught because don’t want him driving all over Montgomery, causing more accidents or hurting himself or hurting other people,” said witness Snake Knapp, who noted he saw the child pick up two adults at one point during the incident. “I think parents just really need to know where their kids are, what their kids are doing, and just talk to them about these kinds of things.”
The news comes less than two months after a 10-year-old stole an SUV and got involved in a car chase with the Michigan State Police. According to authorities in that case, the child took the vehicle in an effort to drive to Detroit to see their mother. When they were pulled over by officers, they attempted to flee on foot before being taken into custody.
Following the shooting at a 16th birthday celebration in Alabama over the weekend that left four people dead and 32 injured, two teenage males have been charged with murder.
According to the police, Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, were detained on Tuesday night.
Four counts of reckless murder have been brought against each defendant, according to the authorities, and additional charges are anticipated.
The suspects would face adult-level charges, according to a prosecutor.
Officials gave relatively little details at a press briefing on Wednesday, saying that the investigation into the shooting on Saturday in Dadeville was only getting started. There was no mention of a motivation or the kind of weapon used.
Four of the 32 injured people are still being treated at hospitals, and four of them are currently in serious condition, according to the police.
“We are going to make sure everyone of those victims has justice and not just the deceased,” Sergeant Jeremy Burkett of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) said.
The agency added: ” These individuals have been charged after a complex and thorough investigation was conducted with assistance from a multitude of law enforcement agencies.”
Until Wednesday, police had offered few details since the shooting on any suspects in the case.
The deceased victims have been identified as Marsiah Collins, 19; Phil Dowdell, 18; Corbin Holston, 23; and Shaunkivia Smith, 17.
Mr Dowdell died trying to save his sister Alexis, his family has said. He was a star athlete on his high school’s American football team and had been due to graduate to go to Jacksonville State University on a sports scholarship.
One of his friends and school football teammate told the BBC: “Phil to me was an amazing friend. God’s got an angel.”
There were about 50 people at the party, which was held at a local dance studio.
Dadeville, a town of roughly 3,000 residents, is about 60 miles (100 km) northeast of the state capital of Montgomery.
According to statement made by Alexis Dowdell to the BBC, her brother saved the birthday girl at the Alabama party where four people were shot to death. Then, in her arms, he passed away.
When her 18-year-old brother Phil Dowdell learned that there was a pistol present at the party, he went to pick up his sister Alexis Dowdell, who was celebrating her 16th birthday in a dance studio in a remote part of Dadeville.
LaTonya Allen, her mother, was aware of the gossip as well. She claimed to have turned on the lights, gone to the DJ booth, and requested that anyone bringing a weapon leave the celebration.
But when no-one spoke up, she turned the lights back off.
The gunfire erupted shortly after. “All of a sudden you hear gunshots and you just see everybody running towards the door and people falling and screaming,” Alexis told the BBC.
Her brother Phil pushed her to the ground, she said, before the two became separated in the chaos.
She was able to escape the venue and took cover outside before someone came to help her up. Alexis said she hid behind another building in case the attacker was still on the loose.
When she eventually went back inside, she discovered that her brother had been shot.
He had lost a lot of blood. She stayed with him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was unable to talk, though he opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows as she cradled him in her arms.
“The last thing I told him was to stay strong,” she said.
She added that her birthday would never be the same.Media caption,
Watch: Girl survives being shot three times in Alabama
Thirty-two others were injured in Saturday night’s attack at the party in Dadeville, a small, close-knit town of roughly 3,000.
Police have yet to name a suspect or a motive and have urged the public to come forward with information. Alexis and her mother said they did not know what had led to the shooting.
The city’s local pastor told the BBC the gunman was still at large.
Jimmy Frank Goodman Sr, the mayor of Dadeville, told the BBC that the scene at the hospital after the shooting was chaotic, even worse than what he had witnessed during his time serving in the Vietnam War.
“There were people crying, bodies going into the emergency room and bloody clothes on the ground,” he said.
Image caption, A vigil was held for the victims on Sunday
The oldest of three siblings, Phil Dowdell was remembered by members of his community as a star athlete and a loyal friend. He had been due to go to Jacksonville State University on a sports scholarship.
Alexis said she had enjoyed watching her brother play football and sharing laughs with him. He always used to open the door for others and come into her room to apologise whenever the two of them had fought, she said.
Ms Allen said her son made her proud “in every way”.
“A piece of my heart is ripped out,” she said. “He was supposed to graduate next month. Instead of me going to graduation I’ll be going to the cemetery to see my son.”
Shaunkivia Smith, 17, Marsiah Collins, 19, and Corbin Holston, 23, were also killed.
Relatives and friends of Ms Smith said she had been about to graduate from high school.
Mr Collins was a varsity football player who hoped to become a lawyer. Mr Holston came to the party to check on a family member once he heard trouble was brewing, his family said.
The flags outside Dadeville High School have been lowered to half-mast. A vigil was held on Sunday for all four victims. Hundreds of people, including some who were injured in the shooting, attended.
Casey Davis, a deputy superintendent at the local board of education, said clergy and grief counsellors would be available to the community.
The US has seen more than 160 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines such events as ones in which four or more people are shot.
The T-6B Texan II aircraft, which took off from Naval Air Station (NAS) Whiting Field in Florida on Tuesday morning, crashed near Naval Outlying Landing Field Barin in Foley.
According to NAS Whiting Field public affairs, the Navy instructor pilot and student aviator in the plane were forced to eject at around 10:50 a.m. local time, with only minor injuries reported.
The cause of the crash was unknown at the time, and the incident is being investigated.
The T-6B, a two-seat turboprop used to train Navy and Marine Corps pilots, has been involved in several mishaps in the past few years, including an October 2020 crash that killed the two occupants aboard. That accident also happened near Foley.
Prior to that, a trainer plane from Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, crashed in May 2019 in Oklahoma, with both pilots ejecting.
The Navy in 2022 had 17 Class A manned aviation mishaps — incidents in which someone is killed or that involves damages of $2.5 million or more — up from 10 mishaps in 2021, according to Naval Safety Command data.
The 2022 number reflects the service’s highesttotal Class A manned mishaps since 2014’s 15 mishaps.
Police in the US state of Alabama have arrested an 82-year-old woman over an outstanding rubbish bill.
Martha Louis Menefield said she was confused as officers handcuffed her and arrested her on Sunday.
The amount that led to her arrest was reportedly $77.80 (£63.28).
In a statement on Facebook, City of Valley police said they treated Ms Menefield respectfully and that they had notified her several times that she had not paid the bill for three months.
“Ms Menefield was treated respectfully by our officers in the performance of their duties and was released on a bond as prescribed by the violation,” said Mike Reynolds, police chief for the City of Valley in Alabama, in the statement, which has drawn significant criticism online.
People from Alabama and across the country denounced the police department in the comments section.
“Everybody who played a role in arresting this 82-year-old Valley, Alabama resident must be held accountable for their actions,” wrote Donald Watkins, a former attorney in the state, in one example.
“You’re not kidding?” she asked the officer. But when the police explained that he was indeed there to arrest her over the unpaid bill, Ms Menefield said, “I was upset because I didn’t know why they would come and arrest me.”
Once in handcuffs, one of the officers “kind of whispered it to me: ‘Don’t cry’”, she said. She recalled telling an officer: “How would you feel if they came and arrested your grandmama?”
Following her arrest, she was taken to the Valley police department and temporarily held before she was released on bond.
“I was in a little cage-like thing at the police station,” Ms Menefield told CBS News. “And I said, ‘Y’all put me in this cage? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Mr Reynolds did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.
In his Facebook statement, Mr Reynolds wrote that city officials had attempted to contact Ms Menefield about her bill multiple times.
He said that she had received a citation in August for the unpaid bills, and that the city’s code enforcement department “tried to call Ms Menefield several times and attempted to contact her in person at her residence.”
Officials left a notice on her door, Mr Reynolds said, providing contact information and an advisory that she was required to appear in court in September.
“A warrant for Failure to Pay Trash was issued when she did not appear in court,” Mr Reynolds said, adding that Ms Menefield also had her trash services suspended three times in the past two years.
Ms Menefield told CBS News that she did not know the bill in question had not been paid, and that she had never received a notice to appear in court.
Officials in Alabama have halted the lethal injection execution of a prisoner on death row because they couldn’t find a vein before the midnight deadline.
Alabama corrections commissioner John Hamm said the decision to call off the scheduled execution of Alan Miller was made after it became clear they could not get the process underway in time.
The last-minute reprieve came nearly three hours after the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to go ahead.
“Due to time constraints resulting from the lateness of the court proceedings, the execution was called off once it was determined the condemned inmate’s veins could not be accessed in accordance with our protocol before the expiration of the death warrant,” Mr Hamm said.
