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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In One of the Nation’s Most Polluted Communities, Trump Terminates Funding for Air Monitoring (Inside Climate News)

A $75,000 grant to monitor the air in heavily polluted north Birmingham was terminated because it no longer aligned with current EPA priorities.

The executive director of the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution, which applied for the grant, said she was not surprised by the news. The application had specifically stated that the grant would provide services to a Black community disproportionately affected by the pollution.

For decades, residents in the community have breathed heavily polluted air from a nearby coke plant, and the area had been declared a federal hazardous waste Superfund site after it was determined that waste soil laced with arsenic, lead and benzo(a)pyrene had been spread around neighborhood homes as yard fill.

Former Justice Jay Mitchell Announces Run for Alabama AG (Alabama Reflector)

Jay Mitchell, a Republican who served on the Alabama Supreme Court from 2019 until his resignation in May, is campaigning for Alabama attorney general.

He is running for the office that is being left vacant by Attorney General Steve Marshall, who has announced he is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.

Mitchell in his campaign launch video describes himself as a “law and order conservative with the guts to protect our constitution.”

Mitchell is the justice who wrote the majority opinion ruling that paused in-vitro fertilization in Alabama last year, finding that Alabama law had no exceptions for frozen embryos in its laws protecting unborn children.

Ivey Taps Cynthia Almond to Lead Public Service Commission (Alabama Daily News)

State Rep. Cynthia Lee Almond, R-Tuscaloosa, will be taking the lead spot on the three-member commission that regulates Alabama’s utilities after Twinkle Cavanaugh stepped down to join the Trump administration as the state director for rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Almond is a lawyer and owner of a title company as well as representing House District 63 since 2021. Her legal experience is in estate planning, probate, business law and real estate. Almond will resign from the Legislature on June 15 and join the PSC the next day.

2025 Pride Month: Inside Birmingham’s Underground LGBTQ+ Ballroom Extravaganza (Birmingham Times)

Get a peek inside the world of Ballroom – a Black and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture of support and balls – through the At the Code Red Ribbon KiKi Ball held recently in Birmingham.

Judge Ends Legal Chaos That Locked Two Alabama Mayors in Bitter Feud (AL.com)

A Jefferson County Circuit Court judge has settled a months-long feud between the mayor of Lipscomb and the town’s City Council over who has the authority to hire a city attorney for Lipscomb – and it’s the mayor.

The judge ruled that the city’s longtime attorney can stay in that job until at least the fall. He set a hearing for Sept. 3 – after the municipal election – to hear more arguments in the case.

Birmingham Water Works Investigation Finds Employees Stole, Resold Copper From Warehouse (WBRC)

Birmingham Police are investigating the theft of copper from the Birmingham Water Works that could have been valued close to $2 million. Management at the BWW began investigating allegations of theft by a group of its employees and then referred the case to the Birmingham Police.