Good afternoon! It’s a beautiful day in our part of the world — enjoy it while you can, because it won’t last. For now, here’s some news…

Bingo retrial re-deliberation restarts. A member of the jury has been dismissed in the bingo corruption retrial in Montgomery, forcing Federal Judge Myron Thompson to appoint an alternate and restarting the deliberations from scratch. The case went to the jury late Wednesady afternoon. Jurors are deciding the fate of dog-track owner Milton McGregor and five other defendants, who were charged of offering or receiving bribes for legislative votes to legalize electronic bingo.

Stormy weather ahead. The National Weather Service has placed metro Birmingham at the very southern end of a large area designated as a moderate risk for severe thinderstorms on Friday. More troubling is the probablility index: the NWS estimates that 45 percent of that area will have severe weather within 25 miles from any given point. The moderate risk area stretches through the Mid-South, all the way up to Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis. The NWS may change the designation to high risk for the center of that area, roughly including the Kentucky cities of Louisville, Lexington, Bowling Green, Glasgow and Elizabethtown, as well as metro Nashville and Cincinnati. In our area, the storms could start as early as noon Friday, ending sometime overnight. There main threat will be straight-line winds, but tornadoes are a definite possibility, even more so north of here. Walker County Schools have already announced they will dismiss at 1 p.m. Friday, and others are expected to follow suit. We will be keeping a close eye on this situation, with regular updates.

Bachus critic dies. Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and entrepreneur who recently called for Congressman Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, to resign, has died at age 43. Breitbart was found collapsed near his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles while walking his dog, the Associated Press was told by his father-in-law, veteran actor Orson Bean (a regular on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and a panelist on the original version of “To Tell The Truth”). Breitbart got his start working for Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report, then helped start up The Huffington Report before striking out on his own. Nationally, Breitbart was known as a combative conservative who broke the stories about fraudulent activity in voter resognation by the activist group ACORN, and later the explicit Twitter posts by Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., that led to his resignation. Breitbart promoted the book “Throw Them All Out” by Peter Schweizer that detailed stock and options trades by Bachus, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and also publicly demanded that Bachus resign. No word on the cause of Breitbart’s death, though Bean said he had heart trouble in the past year.

Sports: Just for kicks. Fultondale travels to Center Point in boys soccer action this afternoon, while Mortimer Jordan plays baseball at Clay-Chalkville tonight.