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Two candidates vie for State Board of Education District 8 GOP nomination

The Alabama State Board of Education voting on a resolution at its May 8 meeting in the Gordon Pearsons Building in Montgomery, Alabama. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) Republican voters in north Alabama will pick between the chair of an Alabama Moms for Liberty chapter and a candidate running a low-profile campaign to represent them on the State Board of Education. Voters in the district, which covers Limestone, Madison, DeKalb and Jackson counties, will have to choose between Emily Jones and William Matthews. According to the Alabama Secretary of State’s website, Jones had 20,354 (42.31%) votes and Matthews had 15,504 (32.23%) votes in official returns in the May 19th primary. The winner of the runoff will face Democratic nominee Shatika Armstrong. The winner of the election will succeed incumbent Wayne Reynolds, who is not seeking re-election.  GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SU...
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Most mass shooters show warning signs before attacks, study finds

A grad student stands by the sculpture 'Infinite Possibility' outside the Brown University's Engineering Research Center, restricted by crime scene tape, on Dec. 14, 2025, after a mass shooting there. People who carry out mass public shootings often display observable warning signs long before an attack, according to a new study. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current) People who carry out mass public shootings often display observable warning signs long before an attack, but those signals are frequently fragmented across friends, family members, coworkers and institutions, making them difficult to piece together, according to a new study from the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a nonpartisan public policy think tank. The report, which analyzed a sample of 171 mass public shootings in the United States between 1999 and 2024, such as those at workplaces, schools or shopping malls, found that these attacks are ...
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How do courts let cruel and unusual punishments persist? By ignoring the cruelty

The Guardian or Authority of Law, created by sculptor James Earle Fraser, rests on the side of the U.S. Supreme Court on September 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday allowed two lower court rulings blocking Alabama's use of nitrogen gas executions to stand. (Al Drago/Getty Images) Nitrogen gas executions are cruel. That’s been clear since January 2024, when Corrections officials strapped a mask over Kenneth Eugene Smith and suffocated him to death . Smith convulsed and struggled for breath over the course of many minutes. Did this lead to any reflection about what happened in Holman prison? No. The Alabama attorney general congratulated the state on a “ textbook ” execution. Alabama did it six more times, ignoring the mounting evidence of torture in the procedure. That’s really all you need to see the brutality of nitrogen gas executions. Not a court ruling. Not that you could expect the nation’s high court to acknowledge that. As t...
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Alabama Republican Party rules for Tommy Tuberville in residency challenge

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville gives an acceptance speech after he wins the Republican nomination for Alabama's governor at his primary election victory tailgate at the Vulcan Park in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 19, 2026. The Alabama Republican Party Sunday rejected a challenge to Tuberville's residency in the state. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) The Alabama Republican Party Sunday rejected a challenge to U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s residency from his former primary opponent Ken McFeeters, keeping him the GOP gubernatorial nominee.  Scott Stadthagen, chair of the Alabama Republican Party (ALGOP), announced the ruling of the the 21-member steering committee on Sunday afternoon. Stadthagen, a member of the committee, did not vote because there was not a tie.  “We looked at it with the facts. The contest was unsuccessful and Coach Tuberville will be our nominee for governor,” Stadthagen said. “I want to make it crystal clear: Under my leadership as chairman of the Republican Par...
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A voter’s guide to the Democratic and Republican U.S. Senate runoffs

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, 2025. Alabama voters on Tuesday will choose party nominees for the U.S. Senate, a seat left vacant by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) Both Democratic and Republican voters Tuesday will choose nominees in the contest to succeed U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.  Aside from former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones’ tenure from 2017 to 2021, the seat has been held by Republicans for the past 30 years.  U.S. Senate Republican runoff candidates U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, and Jared Hudson, a Navy SEAL, speaking at the Shelby County Republican Party runoff candidate forum May 26, 2026, in Pelham, Alabama, at the Pelham Civic Complex. (photos and graphic by Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) Republican runoff Republican voters will choose between U.S. Rep. Barry Moore of Enterprise and former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson. Moore led the six-candidate field on May 19 with 188,82...
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‘The Dumocrats are at it again’: Trump attack on California election offers midterm preview

An election worker processes mail-in ballots for the June 2, 2026 California state primary election at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 5, 2026 in City of Industry, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) California often takes days or even weeks to tally votes after its elections, a product of measures to protect voters and a deluge of mail ballots dropped off on Election Day. Incomplete vote totals reported in the hours after polls close don’t always reflect final results. None of this is evidence of fraud. But President Donald Trump has spent more than a week baselessly alleging malfeasance in California’s June 2 primary election, in which votes were still being counted as of June 11, offering a window into how he may approach the November midterm elections. Trump has claimed repeatedly, without evidence, that Democrats are stealing the election, even though the state is a party stronghold. California’s long count is a well-known feature of its e...
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Republican candidates in northwestern Alabama House district go to runoff

The chamber of the Alabama House of Representatives in the Alabama Statehouse is seen on April 8, 2026. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) Republican voters in a northwest Alabama House district will choose between a former city official and a travel ball coordinator to represent them in the State House. Voters in House District 17, which includes Lamar, Marion and Winston Counties, will choose between Phillip Segraves, the former mayor of Guin, who received 3,616 (49.72%) votes in the May 19 GOP primary, and Micheal Beck, a travel ball coordinator, who had 1,936 (26.62%) votes in official returns. Beck said in an interview Friday one of the main issues in the race has been gambling. “Every dollar, every dime spent on gambling is money taken away from putting food on people’s table,” he said. “Because you go look at this thing, the people that are gambling the most are the people that need the money the most, because they’re trying to hit it big. And so what it does is it ma...
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