Sen. Tommy Tuberville has since reversed course, ultimately voting in favor of the revised government funding package after initially opposing an earlier version alongside a small bloc of hard-right Republicans. His switch spared him from standing as one of the few GOP senators formally recorded against the final deal, even as his earlier objections echoed…

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama House of Representatives has passed a bill that would require protesters wearing medical masks to show a doctor’s note to law enforcement upon request, expanding a decades-old anti-mask provision that traces its roots to efforts to curb Ku Klux Klan activity. House Bill 168, sponsored by Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville,…

BESSEMER, Ala. — Alabama education officials have suspended the Bessemer City Board of Education from regular meetings and stripped it of governing power, deepening state intervention in a school system based in one of the most crime‑plagued cities in the country. In internal notices sent this month, board members were told they are “suspended for…

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital has performed its first robotic kidney transplant, a milestone that puts the state’s largest hospital in the vanguard of a fast‑growing shift to robot‑assisted surgery across Birmingham and the Southeast. On Jan. 15, UAB transplant surgeons Michael Hanaway, M.D., and Muhammad Rabbani, M.D., used a…

HOOVER, Ala. — A Tuscaloosa County rape suspect is in custody after an hours-long standoff at a Hoover motel ended when the man fell through an attic space into a room as officers closed in, authorities said Monday. Hoover police officers and tactical units responded to the motel after learning the man, wanted on rape…

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated 19 Alabama counties as primary natural disaster areas due to prolonged severe drought, opening access to emergency loans for farmers battered by low yields and hay shortages. Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate announced the Jan. 8 declaration by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, which covers Barbour,…