Forkland News

If you enjoy entering Ron Rash's mountains, Charles Frazier's woods and Dorothy Allison's backwoods, you'll be glad to encounter the riverine territory in Alabama where author Marlin Barton sets "The Cross Garden," a novel with crime at its heart.

The story is a dark one, car ried by secrets, revenge and re demption down a slow-moving river, through deep woods and traffic-sparse streets in small-town rural west Alabama.

On a beautiful late afternoon in early May, Dedrick Benison and Michael Calvin are quietly surveying the house that came crashing down around them just a week before.

At least one of the massive tornadoes that killed hundreds across the South this week was a devastating EF-5 storm, according to an analysis Friday by the National Weather Service, which suspects several others also were the worst of the worst.

At least one of the massive tornadoes that killed hundreds across the South this week was a devastating EF-5 storm, according to an analysis Friday by the National Weather Service, which suspects several others also were the worst of the worst.