WVAS Local

   It is one day after a major winter storm hit the South yesterday, draping snow over all of Central Alabama. While road conditions have improved, don’t be deceived into thinking things are back to normal. Dangerous patches of ice still exist which can send vehicles off the roadway. Most County emergency management agencies in the river region are still reporting impassable roadways. Montgomery City officials say Interstates 85 and 65 are now passable, but great caution should be used while traveling.

   A combination of frigid temperatures and snowfall are coming together today to create hazardous conditions. A state of emergency has been issued by Governor Kay Ivey as emergency officials prepare for what could be icy roads late this afternoon through tonight. The National Weather Service is calling for Central Alabama to get as much as two inches of snow and that includes the Montgomery area. Because of that, the Montgomery County Public School System has announced the school will close two hours early today.

   Governor Kay Ivey Thursday declared a State Public Health Emergency as the flu virus continues to spread across the state. According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, emergency departments and outpatient clinics are seeing very high volumes of patients. The statement notes that this is not a pandemic flu situation, but a major seasonal flu outbreak. Governor Ivey has implemented the Public Health Emergency where healthcare facilities can follow emergency operation plans and administer alternative standards of care if necessary.

      A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Alabama's requirement to show photo identification at the polls. U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler on Wednesday ruled the provision does not violate the Voting Rights Act. Alabama in 2014 began requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls.

 Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, in her first State of the State address since scandal catapulted her into the governor's office, told legislators Tuesday that the state has turned the page after a cloud of controversy covered state government for much of the past two years. Amid a rosier budget projection, Ivey's speech focused on the state's economic recovery and laid out a legislative agenda that included pay raises for teachers and state employees, increased funding for state prisons to avert a federal takeover of the state system, and developing rural broadband.

Alabama lawmakers return to Montgomery to begin the 2018 legislative session. Legislators convene at noon today to begin a session under an election year backdrop. Lawmakers and state offices are up for election in 2018. The session will be dominated by two major budgetary issues: prisons and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Alabama is facing a court order to improve mental health care in prisons. The state will have to pick up some of the cost of the insurance program if Congress does not renew funding.

   A death investigation is underway in Montgomery after two men were found shot to death Saturday. Just before 4 pm that day police and fire medics were called to the 400-block of Maury Street in reference to subjects shot. Police say they found two men with fatal gunshot wounds at the scene. A third adult male was taken to a local hospital with a non life-threatening bullet wound. The initial investigation indicates the people involved may have known each other and that this was not a random act. No arrests have been made.

   The Alabama Education Association has reached a settlement agreement with the Alabama State Department of Education in a lawsuit it filed on behalf of Montgomery Public School employees. In a statement from the AEA, the organization said the agreement will require a written intervention plan from the state superintendent by January 26th. It also stipulates that the Montgomery County Board of Education will be allowed to hire an interim schools superintendent within 30 days of the executed agreement and a permanent superintendent by May 30th of this year.

   Alabama state troopers investigated nearly two dozen fatal traffic crashes during the long holiday period, fewer deaths than reported a year earlier. Alabama Law Enforcement Agency officials said yesterday they investigated 23 traffic accident-related deaths during the Christmas and New Year's holiday travel period. That period ran from Saturday, December 16 to midnight, Monday, January first. During the same period in 2016, the number was 31 fatalities. Of those that were killed, 16 were drivers, four were passengers, two-pedestrians and one bicyclist.