Across the southeast

Prisons chief prepared for jail over backlogs

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama prisons chief Richard Allen said he's willing to do time on the other side of a cell door if a state judge sends him to jail. A judge raised that threat in an order for a prompt end to a backlog of state inmates in county jails.

On the job only since February, Mr. Allen said his department is doing everything it can to end the backlog but that there's only so much he can do in the short term because the problem goes beyond his agency.

"I can't do what I can't do," he told The Associated Press. "If I have to go to jail, I'm prepared to go to jail."

His comments follow a May 11 written statement in which he said he would not consider "jeopardizing public safety just to save myself from being thrown in jail."

He said moving high-security inmates into unsecured sites with available beds would be too risky.

Judge William Shashy issued the order threatening jail if Mr. Allen doesn't follow a time line to remove the entire backlog from the jails by Sept. 5.

Grand Ole Opry singer dies in van accident

FT. DEPOSIT, ALA. - Billy Walker, the Grand Ole Opry legend whose hits included Charlie's Shoes and Cross the Brazos at Waco, died in a wreck along an Alabama interstate Sunday. He was 77.

Mr. Walker was killed along with his wife and two of his band members when a van they were riding in ran off Interstate 65 south of Montgomery and overturned, state troopers said.

Killed were Bettie Walker, 61, and Charles Lilly Jr., 44, both of Hendersonville, Tenn., and Daniel Patton Sr., 40, of Hermitage, Tenn.

Mr. Walker's grandson, Joshua Brooks, 21, also of Hendersonville, was injured. He was in critical condition at an Alabama hospital, officials said.

The group was on its way back to the Nashville area after performing at a show near Gulf Shores, said Tom Bowers, the manager of the Hendersonville Funeral Home.

Storm-damaged hotel makes way for resort

BILOXI, MISS. - The Grand Casino's Island View Hotel was demolished Sunday to make room for a new resort on the waterfront property.

Workers used 400 pounds of explosives to take down the 12-story hotel, which housed 500 rooms, retail shops and a restaurant before Hurricane Katrina damaged the building nearly nine months ago.

Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway pressed the buttons to trigger the implosion shortly before 7 a.m. A crowd of more than 100, watching from behind a chain-link fence, erupted in cheers as the hotel dissolved into a cloud of dust and a pile of debris.

"It's not the end of something," Mr. Holloway said of the hotel, which opened in 1995. "I think it's just the beginning of greater and bigger things to come on this location."

In mid-August, Harrah's Entertainment plans to open a new casino in a hotel across the street from where the Island View Hotel stood. Harrah's, which acquired Grand Casino Biloxi last year, is expected to announce its plans for the site of the demolished hotel late this summer.