West Tennessee man sentenced in 2 small-town bank robberies Region News

Alabama environmental agency reaches deal with 3M

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Department of Environmental Management announced Friday that it has reached an agreement with chemical giant 3M regarding cleanup of “forever chemicals” at its plant in Decatur and at multiple sites in northwest part of the state.

The state environmental agency said under the interim consent order that the company must assess waste sites in Morgan and Lawrence counties and cleanup sites contaminated with a class of chemical compounds commonly known as perand polyfluoroalkyl substances. The substances are in a family known as “forever chemicals” because they do not degrade in the environment.

The company must also put in place a system to monitor, test and research the effects of exposure.

DOJ: Beatings of Alabama inmates go ignored

One prisoner who died had intracranial bleeding, nose and eye socket fractures and six teeth knocked out. Corrections officers who had brutalized him said he fell from a bunk bed.

Another inmate defecated on himself after a guard struck him 19 times with a baton, even though he was handcuffed.

And then there was a prisoner who begged for a corrections officer to kill him after he was also beaten with a baton while handcuffed.

Those atrocities were detailed in a 28-page report on the Alabama prison system that was released Thursday by the Justice Department, which said that corrections officers frequently used excessive force. The cycle of violence infringes on prisoners’ constitutional right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, the report said.

Choctaw chief chosen to help design new Mississippi flag

JACKSON, Miss. — The chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians will help design a new Mississippi state flag that does not include the Confederate battle emblem.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced Friday that he is appointing Chief Cyrus Ben and two other people to a nine-member flag commission.

Mississippi legislators voted in late June to retire the last state flag in the U.S. with the rebel emblem that’s widely condemned racist. The change came after national protests over racial injustice sparked new debates about the public display of Confederate symbols.

JACKSON, Tenn. — A West Tennessee man has been sentenced to more than 38 years in federal prison for using a gun during two small-town bank robberies.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Jackson said Gene Allen Howell, 39, was sentenced Monday after he was convicted last year of aggravated bank robbery, using a firearm during a crime of violence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.