STATE HEADLINES:

SESSIONS IMMIGRATION: U. S. Senator Jeff Sessions met yesterday with a top U. S. Department of Homeland Security Official in Birmingham. He is encouraging the Bush Administration to increase the number of state troopers authorized to enforce Federal Immigration Laws in Alabama. Since 2003, the state has had 21 troopers trained to look for violations. After their meeting, Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson and Senator Sessions announced that number will increase to 25. Those officers must undergo a five week training course to master the basics of immigration law and learn to dicipher law and learn to decipher between legal and illegal immigrants. INDIGENT DEFENSE FUNDS: Also making state headlines, there is a report that Alabama will no longer pay what are called the "over-head expenses" of court appointed lawyers who defend indigent people. The report appeared in the Decatur Daily. "Overhead Expenses" are the costs of operating a lawyers office. Defense lawyers will still be paid 40-dollars an hour for out of court work on a case, 60-dollars an hour for courtroom defense and other fees to which they may be entitled. In certain cases, a defense lawyer can even get approval from the trial judge for money to hire a specialist. ALABAMA DOT UPDATE: A new Bill that will place the State Department of Transportation under the direction of a permanent director could make for a smoother ride in Alabama. The proposal would end up changing existing DOT committees to a nine commissioner group made up of one representative from each highway department. Those committee members would then answer to a permanent director which some say would make the department run much more efficiently. Studies show having a permanent director has been successful in both Mississippi and in Georgia.