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Pistols are displayed in a New Jersey gun shop on Feb. 11, 2023. An Alabama House committee last week rejected a bill that would have required parents to secure firearms in households with children present. (Aristide Economopoulos for New Jersey Monitor) The leading cause of preventable death for Alabama children is guns. Let me say that again in active voice. Guns kill Alabama kids more than anything else we can prevent. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE And we refuse to act. Our lawmakers treat these dangerous weapons as props and charms. They pose with them in campaign ads, where they cosplay as hunters and militia members. It’s all part of the deadly fantasy that justice comes from a gun and not the law or the courts. It leads to the fatal delusion that every American — no matter their inexperience or lack of training — can be trusted with a firearm. That’s led to Alabama lawmakers hauling down basic gun safety laws, making a state with an unacceptably high rate ...

Isidro Gonzalez holds the American flag during a protest of anti-immigrant legislation in the Alabama Legislature on Feb. 22, 2025 in Birmingham, Alabama. About 500 people attended the rally. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector) BIRMINGHAM — Nine-year-old Callan Medina joined his parents and at least 500 immigrants and supporters in Birmingham Saturday for a simple reason.  “They like it here,” Medina said. The protest at Railroad Park in support of immigrants comes as the Trump administration is moving to rapidly deport those without legal status and as the Alabama Legislature has advanced several bills targeting immigrants in the 2025 session. The bills would ban driver’s licenses from at least two states issued to migrants in the country without permission; ban transporting immigrants without status into Alabama and require law enforcement to collect DNA and fingerprints from detained migrants.  Callan Medina holds a sign at a protest of anti-immigration bills in the ...

A Philadelphia poll worker demonstrates security steps for handling ballots before November’s presidential election. States have relied on federal partners to boost election security. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images) The Trump administration has begun dismantling the nation’s defenses against foreign interference in voting, a sweeping retreat that has alarmed state and local election officials. The administration is shuttering the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and last week cut more than 100 positions at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. President Donald Trump signed the law creating the agency in 2018. Among its goals is helping state and local officials protect voting systems. Secretaries of state and municipal clerks fear those moves could expose voter registration databases and other critical election systems to hacking — and put the lives of election officials at risk. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE In Pennsylvania, Republican Secret...

The front of Hugo L Black Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama on August 15, 2023. A witness for the state argued against linking Mobile and the Black Belt as a single community of interest, saying historical racism isn't the only factor in demographic disparities. (Jemma Stephenson/Alabama Reflector) BIRMINGHAM — A witness for the Alabama attorney general’s office said historic racism might play a role but isn’t the only factor in achievement gaps between demographics in a trial over the state’s congressional map on Friday. Kentucky State University political science professor Wilfred Reilly, who authored three books criticizing progressive politics, suggested historical racism does not mean Mobile and the Black Belt can be considered the same community of interest today.  “There’s some relationship [between Mobile and a Black Belt county] … The relationship is lesser than the relationship between Mobile County and Baldwin County,” Reilly said. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SU...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2021. Paxton sued the federal government in September over the Biden administration’s addition of a gender identity-related disorder to the disabilities protected under a section of a 1973 federal law. Republican attorneys general from 16 other states joined the lawsuit. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) This story originally appeared on Stateline . Amid a public backlash over the potential loss of disability protections, 17 Republican state attorneys general submitted a new court filing Thursday to clarify their position in a lawsuit that seeks to strike down part of a federal law that safeguards disabled people from discrimination. The lawsuit, filed in September, targets the Biden administration’s addition of a gender identity-related disorder to the disabilities protected under a portion of federal law known as Section 504. The AGs, in a joint status report filed with a U.S. District C...

The skyline of Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville Utilities, a city-owned electric utility in north Alabama, said that it sent letters to 255 customers earlier this month informing that that an executive order from President Donald Trump had cost them federal assistance with energy bills. (Jeremy Edwards/Getty Images) This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News , a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here . About 2,000 low-income households in Alabama are poised to lose federal assistance to help them pay high energy bills, under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. For many of the recipients, the $100 credit had already been applied to their power bill. Now, with the funding removed, that amount will instead be added to their next bill. Huntsville Utilities, a city-owned electric utility in north Alabama, told Inside Climate News that it had sent letters to 255 such custom...

Sen. Keith Kelley, R-Anniston, speaks to a colleague on the floor of the Alabama Senate on Feb. 4, 2025 in Montgomery, Alabama. The Alabama Legislature began its 2025 regular session on Tuesday. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) The Alabama Senate passed a bill 31-0 Thursday to allow people experiencing suicidal thoughts to surrender a firearm to a licensed gun dealer. SB 40 , sponsored by Sen. Keith Kelley, R-Anniston, would provide liability protection for Federal Firearms License dealers who choose to participate in the Safer Together Program, where they may accept surrendered firearms from community members. “Because it’s all voluntary, we hope that more gun owners will do that. More gun shop, retailers will be willing to do that, and so the veteran or the individual going through the crisis can go in and store those arms safely,” Kelley said after the Senate adjourned. The bill is named after two veterans, Houston Lee Tumlin and Hunter Chase Whitley, who died by suicide after r...