Another big one for Huntsville

Another huge business venture is coming to North Alabama.

AL.com’s Scott Turner reports that pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company is investing more than $6 billion in a site in Huntsville.

The company said it’ll mean 450 new jobs, including those for engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab techs. Of course, there is money to be made during construction, which is expected to take place from next year through 2032.

Lilly CEO David A. Ricks said the plant will make all kinds of drugs, including heart medications, meds for brain illnesses and Lilly’s future entry into the obesity-med market.

A nasty habit

Technically, NCAA and campus rules have been violated many times when Alabama players and fans lit up the traditional victory cigars after beating Tennessee in football. Not that anyone is throwing the book at a longtime college football tradition.

But that’s involving a college ballgame. It’s probably a bad idea to try it in high school these days.

St. Clair County superintendent Rusty St. John said disciplinary actions were taken after Moody High School football players appeared in viral photos smoking cigars in the Protective Stadium locker room after winning the Class 5A state title, reports AL.com’s Ben Thomas.

St. John didn’t specify what actions were taken, but he issued an apology to the Alabama High School Athletic Association and Protective Stadium.

We are a long way from days, experienced by some in this readership I’m sure, when some high schools had student smoking areas.

A baby to raise

The aunt of a 7-month-old girl whose mom was killed in a car wreck is accepting donated breastmilk for the baby, reports AL.com’s Patrick Darrington.

Kayleigh Page of Waterloo died from a crash in Morgan County on Sunday. She was 29 years old. Little Lilah-June survived the wreck.

Now Kayleigh’s sister, Ky, wants to continue feeding Lilah-June breastmilk since that’s what her sister was feeding her.

A GoFundMe was created to help with other expenses for the child and raised $6,000 of the $10,000 goal on the first day.

And now, a little levity

Even aside from being a former college football coach, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville has another powerful political bow in his quiver: his unblemished relationship with President Trump.

He’s always had Trump’s back, and that can serve as a hedge of protection in current GOP politics.

A great example is the White House’s tariff policy.

Since calling President Trump’s first-term trade war with China a “noose” around the neck of Alabama farmers, Tuberville has gone all-in on tariffs this time around, indicating he’s “100-percent” certain that the tariffs will be effective in the long-term.

That’s a bold position that probably has Friedman and Hayek rolling over in their graves and is at odds with most American economic thought since the Herbert Hoover administration. But Tuberville has a deep faith in the president, and he’s managed to avoid joining those who’ve suffered a parting of the ways with Trump.

Until maybe now.

A potential rupture in the alliance is over … which sport gets to be called football.

With the FIFA World Cup coming to North America next year, the president has fostered a warm relationship with the folks at FIFA. They’ve presented him with their brand-new peace prize, and he suggested the NFL change its name because soccer is the real football.

Of course, this was all in fun (I am pretty sure). But it did get applause, and applause can be a powerful motivator.

Tuberville, the former college football coach whose ties to Alabama started when he coached at Auburn, knows that soccer thing wouldn’t play well when he runs for governor next year.

He told a Huffington Post reporter that “We kick the ball too. We’re not changing football in our country.”

Incidentally, American football has just as much a claim on the word as association football (soccer). American football probably descended directly from the sport of rugby football, which sprung up, like soccer, from games played in Europe during the middle ages.

And some historians believe the word football was used because the competitors play the games on foot, and not necessarily because of how much they kick the ball. Although we’ll probably never see proof of that.

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