Richard Harp couldn’t believe his ears when he learned the massive underground landfill fire near Moody, just a football field away from his home, is still burning and may never be extinguished. Read more.
The city of Birmingham today filed a lawsuit against Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Pettway for not accepting city inmates, according to a filing in Jefferson County Circuit Court. It’s an extraordinary step in a dispute between the two sides that dates back nearly two years and involves the city and county jails, money and politics. Read more.
Many Alabama officials have for generations pushed the false narrative that residents of the state were nearly unanimous in their support for secession prior to the Civil War. Howell Raines, former executive editor of the New York Times and an Alabama native, says otherwise. Read more.
The Alabama Legislature will kick off the 2024 session on Tuesday with work on the state’s two budgets and a host of other issues awaiting them. Lawmakers this year are expected to take up legislation that would create a voucher-like program for schools in the state and possible legislation creating mandatory kindergarten or something very close to it. Legislators may also consider bills on gambling; ethics and trafficking and kidnapping. Read more.
UPDATED — Alabama Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham is introducing a bill in the upcoming session that would require a father either to pay in the rare case that a woman has an abortion in Alabama or to have a vasectomy. Addressing more common issues, Givan’s bill would add exceptions to the state's abortion law in cases of incest and rape and to preserve the health of the mother. Now, the state’s law allows an abortion only to prevent a serious health risk to the mother. Read more.
The Birmingham City Council on Tuesday approved $50,000 to establish an arts enrichment program at a juvenile detention center. The project, a partnership between the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the F. Ross Bell Detention Center, is to include activities such as music, visual arts, expressive writing and dance to address educational disparities. Read more.
Alumni of Birmingham-Southern College have again received a call to contact state legislators, this time to seek a rewrite of last year’s legislation that had been designed to provide a reprieve from the college’s possible closing. Read more.
Daytime soap operas have nothing on politics in Alabama when it comes to drama. After seeing both candidates for Jefferson County treasurer removed from the ballot for the March 5 primary, the Jefferson County Democratic Party is awaiting a ruling from the state Ethics Commission to determine whom it can — or can’t — nominate. Read more.
This post about the mental health effects of reporting on awful news stories kept getting delayed in favor of other timely topics because I figured another news peg would be right around the corner. A risky assumption it was not. Thursday, five journalists witnessed the state-administered suffocation death of an Alabama Death Row prisoner. Few reporters go a career without having to report on a horrific event, such as a war, a mass shooting or even a violent crime with a single victim. According to the Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, the psychological toll of seeing and hearing about the heinousness that people are capable of can include sleeplessness, unwelcomed recurring thoughts of the violence, a sense of impending doom and anger. Read more.
Some advocates said the law’s requirement of an hour-long training on working with people with “invisible” disabilities and sensory needs is a good start. Read more.
