BW Recommends is a rundown of stories you might have missed this week. It offers insight into issues important to our area and sometimes tickles your curiosity.

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For the First Time, Alabama Says Methane ‘Likely’ Caused Fatal Home Explosion Above Coal Mine (Inside Climate News)

The March 2024 explosion in Oak Grove killed the owner of the home, which was above a longwall mine.

What Passed in the Alabama Legislature: March 18-20, 2025 (Alabama Reflector)

Among bills that passed the Legislature this week was one to give paid parental leave to all state employees and educators.

State Library Service Director Fired After Submitting Resignation Letter (Alabama Daily News)

Alabama Public Library Service Director Nancy Pack, who has been under fire as she’s defended local librarians’ ability to control content, submitted her resignation but was fired immediately.

Alabama Bill Makes Chemical Weather Control a Crime: Critic Says There Is No ‘Chemtrail’ Government Conspiracy (AL.com)

Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, proposed a bill to make it a crime to put any chemical, substance or apparatus into the sky to try to affect the weather or sunlight. A legislative committee discussed the bill but did not vote on it. Butler said the bill was needed to stop the federal government from trying to “cram values down our throats that weren’t Alabama values.”

Alabama’s Celebrity Weatherman Pleads for the National Weather Service (Inside Climate News)

James Spann and many other forecasters across the country are speaking out to defend the National Weather Service against deep cuts by the Trump Administration. His message: If NOAA can’t do its job, Spann will be hampered doing his own forecasts because he relies on the agency’s computer models – and its radar maps.

Doctors Told Him He Was Going to Die. Then A.I. Saved His Life. (New York Times)

UAB is among the medical centers where doctors use A.I. to search through old medicines to treat rare diseases.

Birmingham Firefighter Was Killed Because He Witnessed Murder Tied to Damien McDaniel’s Co-Defendant, Records State (AL.com)

Court records reveal the reason for the shooting at a Birmingham firehouse as police arrest two more people in connection with the shootings outside the Hush Lounge.