BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — An Alabama appeals court last week upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by incarcerated workers who alleged the state punishes them for refusing forced labor, dealing a setback to efforts to enforce a 2022 constitutional amendment banning slavery and involuntary servitude in all forms. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled Dec.…

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — As Alabama lawmakers and voters debate marijuana reforms amid President Donald Trump’s push to reclassify the drug, the Alabama Policy Institute has emerged as a leading conservative voice urging the state to keep cannabis illegal. The Birmingham-based nonprofit, founded in 1989, routinely lobbies against medical expansion and recreational measures, calling them gateways…

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A Democratic state representative has prefiled legislation that would let Alabama voters decide whether to abolish the death penalty, thrusting the issue back into the spotlight in a state with one of the nation’s most aggressive execution records and a prison system under federal condemnation for rampant violence. State Rep. Chris England,…

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A faint rumble in the dead of night jolted sleepy residents southwest of Tuscaloosa, as a magnitude 2.1 earthquake struck just after 12:53 a.m. Saturday, rattling nerves in a state where the ground occasionally betrays its calm exterior. The quake’s epicenter sat 11 kilometers (7 miles) southwest of Tuscaloosa, at a shallow…

TRUSSVILLE, Ala. — A man was shot to death early Saturday in the parking lot of Velma’s, the storied Gadsden Highway bar that has loomed large in Trussville’s nightlife — and reputation — for generations. Trussville police said officers were called around 1 a.m. to the 1900 block of Gadsden Highway, where they found a…

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Birmingham has graduated the largest police academy class in its history, a milestone city leaders say is part of a broader push to pull the city back from record-setting violence in the years after the George Floyd protests and the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. The Birmingham Police Department celebrated…