Carla Crowder's unexpected courtroom experience in 2019 — representing Alvin Kennard, who spent 36 years in prison for a minor theft due to Alabama’s “three strikes” law — reshaped the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

Skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers and rising household electric bills are injecting a wave of attention into who is getting elected to watch over electric utilities.

A Texas man has been executed for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her 8-year-old son nearly 13 years ago.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has commuted the death sentence of a 75-year-old inmate who was set to be executed this week even though he was not in the building when the victim was killed during a 1991 robbery.

Some Republican legislators are pushing to limit state environmental regulations.

The parents of an Alabama girl who was killed at Camp Mystic are seeking more safety oversight on summer camps.

Charles “Sonny” Burton faces execution in Alabama for his role in a 1991 robbery in which a man was fatally shot, even though Burton did not fire the gun or witness the killing.

Brown University has placed its campus police chief on leave as it reviews security policies following a tragic shooting.

The commission that oversees Alabama Public Television voted to continue paying its contract with PBS.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is urging the board that oversees Alabama Public Television to delay a decision to sever ties with PBS.

Following a mass shooting in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, that killed two people and injured 12 others, Gov. Kay Ivey has announced that the state will increase its role in public safety efforts in the city.

Alabama has executed a man by nitrogen gas for the 1997 fatal shooting of a gas station employee.

Alabama is scheduled to execute Geoffrey West on Thursday for the 1997 murder of Margaret Berry.

Alabama has scheduled a September execution with nitrogen gas for a man convicted of killing a gas station attendant during a 1997 robbery.

Professors and students at the University of Alabama say that a new an anti-diversity, equity and inclusion law has already caused significant harm on campus less than a year after going into effect.

Tommy Tuberville is a U.S. senator running for Alabama governor.

Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville says he’s running for governor of Alabama next year.

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville plans to run for governor of Alabama in 2026, according to people familiar with his plans.

Alabama has executed a man who said he was guilty of a woman's rape and murder and deserved to die.

Arkansas has enacted a law making it the first state banning pharmacy benefit managers from owning a pharmacy in the state.

An Alabama teen who narrowly survived a fierce shark attack last year is asking her state's lawmakers to support the creation of a new alert system.

Alabama legislators unanimously passed a bill on Tuesday that would expedite access to Medicaid for pregnant women.

At least half of U.S. states now outlaw devices that can convert pistols into machine guns.

Alabama lawmakers approved a ban on Glock switches and other conversion devices that convert semi-automatic weapons into machine guns.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison after noting questions about his case.

Alabama and a small but growing number of other GOP-led states are pushing to enact more laws this year to legally define the two sexes based on observations of genitals at birth.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has ordered that flags at the U.S. Capitol be raised to their full height on Inauguration Day.

A man convicted of killing three people in workplace shootings has been executed with nitrogen gas in Alabama.

On the eve of a vote on union representation at Volkswagen’s Tennessee factory, Gov. Bill Lee and five other southern governors are telling workers that voting for a union will put jobs in jeopardy.

At least one fertility clinic in Alabama has resumed in vitro fertilization treatments.

Alabama has a new law protecting in vitro fertilization providers from legal liability.

Alabama lawmakers have passed legislation that was quickly signed by Gov. Kay Ivey to protect clinics that provide in vitro fertilization from lawsuits in response to a ruling last month from the State's Supreme Court that frozen embryos have the rights of children under the state’s wrongful death law.

Alabama lawmakers have advanced legislation to protect in vitro fertilization providers.

In vitro fertilization patients in Alabama described the heartbreak and anger after a state court decision that called into question the future of IVF in the state.

Alabama lawmakers have begun scrambling for ways to protect in vitro fertilization services after a state Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos could be considered children under state law.

Alabama has executed an inmate for the shooting death of a man during a 1993 robbery.

Across the country, books and lessons that represent different families and identities are increasingly the target of conservative pushback — even when they're for the youngest of learners.

Alabama plans to execute an inmate for the 2001 beating death of a woman as the state seeks to carry out its first lethal injection after a pause following a string of problems with inserting the IVs.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves traveled to Alabama for a Republican fundraising event as people in his state were still reeling from death, injury and destruction from back-to-back storms.

Alabama families could soon pay less at the grocery store after lawmakers gave final passage to a landmark bill to gradually remove half of the 4% state sales tax on food by September 2024.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has replaced her director of early childhood education over the use of a teacher training book that the Republican governor denounced as teaching “woke concepts” because of language about inclusion for all families and battling racism.

Law enforcement officers are imploring people in an Alabama town to come forward with information about a shooting that killed four people and injured 28 others during a teenager’s birthday party.

With U.S. overdose fatalities at an all-time high, state legislatures are considering tougher penalties for possession of fentanyl, the powerful opioid linked to most of the deaths.

The head of Alabama’s prison system said Wednesday that a protocol for using nitrogen gas to carry out executions should be ready this year.

Alabama has changed death penalty procedures to give the prison system longer to carry out executions — a move that comes after a string of troubled lethal injections in the state — and also eliminated an automatic review for trial errors.

The Sunday after a tornado devastated much of the historic city of Selma, church congregations raised up prayers of gratitude for lives spared and prayers of comfort for lives lost elsewhere to the storm that tore across the South.

An annual report on capital punishment says public support and use of the death penalty continued a more than two-decade decline in the U.S. in 2022.

A federal judge will decide whether to block Mississippi from using three drugs when it puts inmates to death.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is seeking a pause in executions and ordering a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system after an unprecedented third failed lethal injection.

Alabama started and then stopped another lethal injection because prison workers were unable to establish the intravenous lines needed to administer a deadly dose.

A record 12 women will take their seats as their states' highest-ranking elected officials when the nation's governors are sworn in this winter.

Sarah Collins Rudolph lost an eye and has pieces of glass inside her body from a Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed her sister and three other Black girls inside an Alabama church 59 years ago.

An Alabama inmate convicted of killing his former girlfriend decades ago has been executed despite pleas from the victim’s family to spare his life.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey says the state will proceed with plans to execute a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend decades ago, despite a request from the victim’s family to spare the inmate's life.

Alabama officials said they are moving forward with plans to build two supersize prisons despite a bond sale falling more than $200 million short of expectations.

Police say a 70-year-old man who fatally shot three elderly people at a church potluck dinner in Alabama had attended services there previously.

The effort to officially celebrate Juneteenth as a paid holiday has faced skepticism inside legislatures that have largely chosen symbolic gestures to recognize the holiday while curtailing certain conversations on race and racism.

Georgia takes center stage in Tuesday’s primary elections as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger try to fight back challengers endorsed by Donald Trump.

Alabama’s Republican primary has become a race to the right, with candidates staking out extreme positions on abortion, immigration and LGBTQ issues.

The bombshell leak of a draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the landmark Roe v.

When President Joe Biden visits a Lockheed Martin plant on Tuesday that manufactures an antitank weapons system, he’s certain to herald the U.S.-made arms as a gamechanger in Ukraine’s stiff resistance to the Russian invasion.

Two families with transgender teens and two physicians have sued the state of Alabama to block a law that makes it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity.

Transgender kids and their parents say they feel attacked by a wave of Republican-sponsored legislation and policies aimed at trans youth.

Mercedes-Benz has opened a new electric vehicle battery factory near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that will create up to 600 new jobs.

Alabama has executed an inmate for a 1996 murder after a divided U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state, clearing the way for the man to receive a lethal injection.

A federal appeals court has blocked the state of Alabama from executing an inmate convicted of killing a driver who gave him a ride.

A federal judge has blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees of federal contractors.

Ex-President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Slovenia has become the third Republican candidate to announce a challenge to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey in next year’s gubernatorial primary.

Alabama's governor is honoring the state's first Black poet laureate, a creative writing teacher from Birmingham who delves into the pain and difficulty of being Black in America.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has extended through the end of the October a COVID-19 state of emergency that relaxes some health care regulations to help hospitals cope with coronavirus patients.

Alaska has activated emergency crisis protocols that allow 20 health care facilities to ration care if needed.

Republicans are using money from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for projects on conservatives' wish lists.

The U.S. Gulf Coast is glowing like a bad sunburn on maps that show COVID-19 trouble spots in red.

Australia’s most populous state on Monday reported its worst day of the pandemic with 478 new COVID-19 infections and seven deaths.

The remnants of Fred are expected to regenerate back into a tropical storm over the warm Gulf of Mexico waters Sunday.

The National Hurricane Center said Fred has regained tropical storm status in the Gulf of Mexico as parts of the Caribbean began seeing impacts from tropical depression Grace.

Poland has sent one million COVID-19 vaccines to Sydney where the delta variant continues to spread, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.

Republicans are responding with hostility to new masking guidance from public health officials.

The U.S. Department of Education approved Georgia’s plans to use $1.4 billion in federal coronavirus relief money.

Republican lawmakers are under increasing pressure to persuade vaccine skeptics to roll up their sleeves and take the shots as a new, more contagious COVID-19 variant sends caseloads soaring.

South Korea has reported a new daily high for coronavirus cases, putting pressure on authorities to extend their toughest distancing rules.

The U.S. surgeon general says he's worried about what lies ahead with cases of COVID-19 increasing in every state, millions still unvaccinated and a highly contagious virus variant spreading rapidly.

New COVID-19 cases per day in the U.S. have doubled over the past three weeks, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings.

Fifteen Republican governors have sent a letter to the U.S. Commerce Secretary, urging that the U.S. Census bureau release redistricting data as soon as possible.

An Alabama state trooper arrested last week on charges he raped an 11-year-old girl had been kicked out of the FBI amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations but was hired anyway with the apparent help of a forged bureau letter that scrubbed his record clean.

Alabama is marking the 10th anniversary of a horrific tornado outbreak that killed more than 250 people statewide.

Ten years haven't filled the voids created by a massive tornado outbreak that killed more than 320 people in six states a decade ago.

The U.S. 7th Fleet that operates throughout the Indo-Pacific says more than 14,000 of its service members have received their full doses of the coronavirus vaccine, which it began administering on January 5.

South Korea’s daily increase in coronavirus infections exceeded 500 for the fourth straight day, a pace unseen since January, as experts raise concern about another viral surge amid a slow rollout in vaccines.

But his medical care could soon become illegal in Alabama as Republican lawmakers seek to criminalize gender transition treatments for people under 19. Opponents, including parents and trans youth, say such measures interfere with medical decisions and target trans individuals for the sake of politics. He said he was unaware such treatments were already happening in Alabama when he first introduced the bill last year. Ad“The whole point is to protect kids,” said Shelnutt, who acknowledged after the Senate vote that he never spoke with a trans youth while preparing the bill. You are asking me to arrest the folks I know saved my kid’s life,” Fuller told a legislative committee.

But Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison announced Tuesday he is dropping the state’s mask mandate immediately, a day earlier than previously announced. Gretchen Whitmer to ask whether the White House has considered surging additional vaccines to states with rapidly increasing infection rates. Kay Ivey intends for her state’s mask mandate to end on April 9 as planned, though she urged people to wear masks as a matter of personal responsibility. Eric Holcomb, to reconsider dropping the state’s mask mandate.

Officials found “heavy, heavy damage” in parts of the city’s historic district, Newnan Fire Chief Stephen Brown told a news conference. One of the victims in the hard-hit town of Ohatchee, a small community of about 1,170 people in eastern Alabama, was Dwight Jennings' neighbor. AdBad weather wasn't limited to Georgia and Alabama. ___Chandler reported from Shelby County, Alabama. Associated Press journalists Kevin McGill in New Orleans; Desiree Mathurin in Atlanta; Jeff Martin in Marietta, Georgia; Butch Dill in Ohatchee, Alabama; and Rebecca Santana in New Orleans, contributed to this report.

(AP Photo/Butch Dill)A string of deadly tornadoes roared through Alabama on Thursday, toppling trees, demolishing homes and knocking out power to thousands, part of a broad swath of violent weather sweeping across the Deep South. In the city of Pelham, James Dunaway said he initially ignored the tornado warning when it came over his phone. “Thinking of everyone in Alabama and all of those impacted by the severe weather across the South tonight. Kay Ivey issued an emergency declaration for 46 counties as the severe weather approached, and officials opened shelters in and around Birmingham. Associated Press writer Kim Chandler in Montgomery and photographer Butch Dill in Alabama contributed to this report.

Henry McMaster remains firmly opposed to the Medicaid expansion. The bump in federal funding would last two years for the states that join the Medicaid expansion. Laura Kelley this year called for legalizing medical use of marijuana and using the tax revenue to pay for expanding Medicaid. "It’s a nonstarter, and we will continue to oppose the liberal wish list item of Medicaid expansion,” he said. Kay Ivey left open the possibility of expanding Medicaid at some point in the future, but there are no plans to do so.

But no serious damage or injuries were immediately reported in North Carolina from the storms near High Point and Charlotte, which both had tornado warnings. Forecasters worried the storms would intensify as they move into South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday afternoon, but they mostly stayed below severe limits. In South Carolina, the severe weather threat led the state Senate president to caution senators to stay home Thursday while urging staff to work remotely for their safety. House Speaker Jay Lucas kept his promise from the day before to meet less than an hour Thursday so members could beat the severe storms home. ___Associated Press writers Tom Foreman Jr. in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

More than 70,000 homes and businesses were without power from Texas to Alabama, and radar showed additional storms moving across the region as initial cleanup work began. AdLarge vaccination clinics where hundreds of people an hour can get shots without leaving their vehicles were canceled in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. In the Mississippi capital of Jackson, state employees were warned to head to stairwells if they hear weather sirens. At least two waves of storms were likely, forecasters said, and the worst might not hit until a cold front passes overnight. Elsewhere, the severe weather threat led the South Carolina Senate president to caution senators to state home Thursday while urging staff to work remotely for their safety.

AdHe also sanctioned a bill that makes the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines easier. However, the actual numbers of COVID-19 cases, like elsewhere in the world, are thought to be far higher, in part due to limited testing. Murphy, who’s running for re-election this, said the state’s COVID-19 trends are headed in the right direction, though they’ve been up a bit this week. ___SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s governor says all adults in the state will be eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines on April 1. Ad___PHOENIX — Arizona on Wednesday reported 830 confirmed coronavirus cases and 78 deaths, following two days of no new deaths.

Eric Holcomb received his COVID-19 vaccine shot Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the opening of the state’s first mass vaccination clinic. Holcomb wore a face mask in the front passenger seat of an SUV while getting the shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the drive-through clinic. Ad___TORONTO — Canada is getting a fourth vaccine to prevent COVID-19, approving the Johnson & Johnson shot that works with just one dose. Canada has pre-purchased 10 million Johnson & Johnson doses, with options to buy another 28 million. The U.S. approved the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last month.

(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Zoo has vaccinated nine great apes for the coronavirus after a troop of gorillas in its Safari Park became infected. AdThere have been no new community cases of the virus found in Auckland or elsewhere in New Zealand for the past five days. Ad___SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah will open up COVID-19 vaccine appointments to people ages 50 and older on Monday. ___JACKSON, Miss.-- People ages 50 and older in Mississippi are now eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine, Gov. — Arkansas’ highest court and the governor are at odds over whether judges, prosecutors and other court employees should be immediately eligible for the coronavirus vaccine.

The governor signed two 30-year lease agreements with separate entities of CoreCivic, one of the nation’s largest private prison companies. While President Joe Biden has ordered the federal system to eliminate the use of private prisons, these facilities will only be built and owned by private companies. AdIvey called the new prisons “the cornerstone” of improving the state’s troubled system, replacing aging prisons that are costly to maintain. “Alabama is about to spend 3 billion dollars over 30 years on building new prisons that won’t fix the problems within our prison system,” tweeted Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa. “It is astounding that Governor Ivey is prioritizing fiscally irresponsible and devastating contracts for prisons that do not address our most urgent needs as Alabamians,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, Alabama Students Against Prisons, the Ordinary Peoples Society and others wrote in a letter to lawmakers.