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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Despite Stiff Opposition, an Alabama City Changes Its Laws to Accommodate Data Centers (Inside Climate News)

Residents in and around Bessemer expressed continued disapproval of a plan to build a 14.5 million square foot data center in their back yards. Now, the city is one step closer to final approval. Despite vocal opposition from residents, local and state environmental groups and the NAACP, the entire council—save one absent member—voted to amend the city’s zoning code to allow the location of data centers in areas designated for light industrial use.

‘They Just Disappeared’: Alabama Public Schools Lose 5,700 Students, 2,100 Unaccounted For (Alabama Daily News)

Alabama public schools are seeing their steepest enrollment decline in 40 years — a drop expected to cost the state 500 to 700 teacher positions next year, according to State Superintendent Eric Mackey.

Most Americans Who Rely on Obamacare Live in Republican Areas (The New York Times)

More than 23 million Americans are currently enrolled in Obamacare plans, and nearly all of them will face higher health care costs next year if extra federal funding for subsidies expires, as scheduled, on Dec. 31.

Alabama’s John Carroll High School Unveils $15 Million in Renovations, Heisman Logo on its Football Field (Birmingham Times)

John Carroll Catholic High School showed off the $15 million renovation of its athletic facilities and unveiled the first official Heisman Memorial Trophy plaque to honor alumnus Pat Sullivan, who starred as a Cavalier and at Auburn University in the late 1960s and early ’70s. John Carroll is the only high school in the nation authorized to display the official Heisman logo on its football field.

Construction Begins on $22 Million Road Project Near Birmingham (AL.com)

A multimillion-dollar transportation project is underway in Jefferson County. Last month, the Alabama Department of Transportation announced a $22 million Diverging Diamond Interchange project in McCalla, south of Birmingham. ALDOT said the modern interchange style, first installed in Springfield, Missouri, in 2009, could significantly reduce crashes while also being cost-effective and efficient.

The project will transform Exit 104 on Interstate 59/20 at McAshan Drive and offer access to the Rock Mountain Lakes community along with the Jefferson Metropolitan Park.

Jesse L. Douglas, Aide to King in Marches From Selma, Dies at 90 (The New York Times)

A lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. and a fellow preacher, Douglas played a vital role in organizing voting-rights protests in 1965 that began with “Bloody Sunday.”

The Complicated Case of Jorge Ruiz (ProPublica)

 When 19-year-old Jorge Ruiz walked into the Autauga County Jail in handcuffs on Oct. 28, 2018, he wasn’t a typical suspect. He was out of place and in big trouble in a deeply conservative part of Alabama.

That morning, he’d been driving about 70 miles per hour in a 55 zone when he crossed the center line of a two-lane rural highway. His Ford pickup collided head-on with a Honda Civic, killing the woman behind the wheel. Paramedics took Ruiz to the hospital, where a blood test found a trace amount of alcohol, well below the legal threshold for intoxication. But rather than charging him with manslaughter, which typically would be the most extreme charge brought under the circumstances, police went further. They arrested him for murder.