Read This: How to Get Around the Opelika Daily News

New here, or just haven’t looked around in a while? The Opelika Daily News has added a lot over the past few weeks: an events calendar, new beats with their own reporters, world news, and tools that update themselves throughout the day. This page shows you where everything is. The numbers in each picture match the numbered list under it.

1. The menu

ODN top menu with numbered callouts
The menu bar at the top of every page.
  1. 📖 Read This: brings you back to this guide from any page.
  2. About: Meet the Staff, How We Use Viktor AI and our Corrections & Editorial Standards.
  3. Events: the full events calendar, months ahead.
  4. Markets: mortgage rates, Treasury yields, the fed funds rate and crypto, each stamped with the date its source published it.
  5. Area Development: the Opelika Economic Development Tracker, a running record of the plants, jobs and projects coming to town, organized by industry.
  6. Archives: Browse the Archives, Past Posts and Categories. More on those below.
  7. Contact: send us a tip, a correction or a story idea.

2. The sidebar

On a computer the sidebar runs down the right side of every page. On a phone it sits below the stories, so scroll down to find it.

ODN sidebar widgets with numbered callouts
The sidebar tools, pulled out side by side.
  1. Read This: the red button at the top of the sidebar brings you back to this guide.
  2. Opelika Weather: current conditions, today’s high, low and chance of rain, and tomorrow’s forecast. Updated every three hours from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
  3. Search: type a name, a place or a topic and press the magnifying glass.
  4. Past Posts: jumps to our recent-stories list.
  5. This Week in Opelika: the next 10 days of events at a glance, with a link to the full calendar.
  6. Today’s Best Gas Prices: the three cheapest places for regular in Opelika, the cheapest diesel, and the U.S. average. Updated twice a day from prices drivers report to GasBuddy, with national averages from AAA.

3. What’s happening: the events calendar

ODN events calendar page with callouts
The Events page, sorted by day.
  1. Events are grouped by day: Today, Tomorrow, then each date after that. Scroll down to see months ahead, including city meetings, school and college sports, theater, markets, festivals and civic events. The calendar updates twice a day.
  2. Have an event? Email jerry@opelikadailynews.com with the date, time, place and a link, and we’ll add it.

Want the week in one read? Every Monday we post Upcoming Events & Dates.

4. Meet the reporters

Look for these names on the stories. Editor Jerry Katz runs the newsroom, and six AI-assisted bylines help him cover the beats:

  • Michael A. Genda: Opelika city government, including City Council, Planning Commission and the boards.
  • Helen Holmes: real estate, with home sales, rentals and a market check on the 1st of each month.
  • Bobbi Baller: sports, from Opelika and Auburn high schools to Auburn University. Sports now has four sections: Auburn Football, Auburn Basketball, Auburn Sports (volleyball, soccer, baseball and more) and Prep Sports.
  • Jake Spear: entertainment, including theater, TV, movies, books and games.
  • Al K. Traz: police and crime.
  • Miles Abroad: world news.

Yes, the names are puns, and yes, we had fun with them. The backstories are fiction and the portraits are illustrations, but the reporting is real. Every story is built from named sources and reviewed by Jerry before it runs. Get the whole cast, and the fine print, on Meet the Staff.

5. New: World News

Some stories that start far away still land here, at the gas pump, in the markets and in the lives of families with loved ones overseas. Miles Abroad files two or three times a week, with roundups that cover several subjects in one story, sourced to named outlets and official statements. The first one, Wars, talks and oil chokepoints: A Mideast and Ukraine update, maps where each conflict stands and why Alabama diesel just hit a record. Find every one in World News.

6. Finding a story

ODN search box and search results with callouts
Searching for “Auburn.”
  1. Type what you’re looking for into the Search box in the sidebar.
  2. The results list the newest stories first, with the byline, date and section on each one.
ODN Categories page with callout
The Categories page.

Browse by subject. Categories lists every section, including Sports, Police Reports, Opelika City Government, Opelika Schools, Real Estate, Entertainment, World News and more. Each one shows how many stories it has and its three newest headlines. Click a section name to see all of it (1).

ODN Browse the Archives page with callout
Browse the Archives, organized by year and month.

Browse by date. Browse the Archives holds every story back to 2002, organized by year and month. Pick a month to see everything published then (1). For the last few weeks, Past Posts is the quickest look back.

7. Our weekly schedule

  • Weekdays: local news from Opelika, Auburn and Lee County.
  • Mondays: Upcoming Events & Dates, the Opelika Police Report and From the Archives, a look back at a story from our past.
  • Saturday mornings: the Prep Scoreboard, with Friday night’s high school scores and standings.
  • The 1st of each month: Helen Holmes’s Lee County real estate market check.

8. Follow along and talk to us

Follow us on Facebook, X (@OpelikaDaily), Instagram (@opelikadailynews), Bluesky and LinkedIn. Have a tip, an event, a correction or something you want us to cover? Email jerry@opelikadailynews.com. Want to reach Opelika readers? Ask us about the ad spots in the sidebar.

This page is updated as we add new features.

Verified by MonsterInsights