From parking lot to playground — and all in a day’s time. That’s exactly what took place at the Little Tree Preschool in Auburn Wednesday as Opelika Lowe’s employees transformed a 50-by-30-foot space into a playground, donating both time and materials to do so.

Charity is not the issue. Jobs are the issue. So says former Tuskegee Mayor and legislator Johnny Ford, who ripped into Gov. Bob Riley Wednesday afternoon after statements made by Riley’s office.

Hours after Arizona’s immigration law has taken effect, Alabama residents will be rallying in support of it at 6 p.m. at the Lee County Courthouse.

A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fishermen. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling

Mobile teenager will be on ESPN’s SportsCenter and The Golf Channel tonight. More importantly, Bobby Wyatt’s name will be etched in the record books.

One of every 15 New Yorkers battled bedbugs last year, officials said Wednesday as they announced a plan to fight the spreading infestation, including a public-awareness campaign and a top entomologist to head the effort.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I decided to really look at my Sprint phone bill and realized how amazingly honest it was.

Interstate 22, connecting Birmingham and Memphis, will be fully completed by 2014. Why should we care?

The heat wave has forced me inside and set me pondering the ghosts of summers past, meandering through the old stomping grounds of my youth. When I was a little girl, summers were lazy days spent playing ball at Felton Little Park and roller skating along cracked College Street sidewalks with a skate key flapping from a string around my neck.

A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fisherman. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling.

A wild well company is working to cap a spewing wellhead that was hit a barge in a coastal inlet.

New York Democrat Charles Rangel made a last-minute effort Tuesday to settle his ethics case and prevent a House trial that could embarrass him and damage the Democratic Party. The talks between Rangel’s lawyer and the House ethics committee’s nonpartisan attorneys were confirmed by ethics Chairman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. Lofgren said she is not involved in the talks.

Without the benefit of their state’s strict new immigration law, officers from a single Arizona county helped deport more than 26,000 immigrants from the U.S. through a federal-local partnership program that has been roundly criticized as fraught with problems. Statistics obtained by The Associated Press show that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was responsible for deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007.

Jefferson County won’t participate in Alabama’s sales tax holiday on back-to-school purchases. County Commission President Bettye Fine Collins made the announcement Tuesday, shortly after the commission voted unanimously to reinstate merit pay increases for county employees. The raises had been suspended for a year because of a financial crisis that led to unpaid furloughs for about 1,000 workers.

Opelika board of education meets