Multi-Million Dollar Grant
Governor Kay Ivey and other Alabama leaders are celebrating a financial win for the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project.
State and local officials are meeting at the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf Of Mexico to commemorate a 550-million-dollar federal grant for the development along I-10.
The goal of the project is to increase the capacity of the interstate in Mobile and Baldwin counties by constructing a new six-lane bridge over the Mobile River.
It would also widen several existing bridges across Mobile Bay to eight lanes.
ADPH Newborn Screenings
Alabama health officials are taking extra steps to make sure babies grow up healthy.
The state's Department of Public Health expanded its newborn screening policy yesterday to include two new tests.
The agency will screen for M-S-P1and Pompe disease.
They are two treatable, but rare, genetic disorders that can be deadly or extremely severe if they are not caught early.
State health experts are partnering with the University of Alabama at Birmingham to evaluate these two disorders in order to help inform providers and families about treatment methods.
House Bill 23
A bill pre-filed in the Alabama Legislature would require a person to have a permit to legally carry certain firearms like assault weapons. It's called House Bill 23 and it's sponsored by State Representative Kenyatte Hassell who says the bill would place authority back into the hands of law enforcement and hold lawbreakers accountable.
Hassell says he’s witnessed people showing assault weapons in public.
Birmingham’s mayor Randall Woodfin recently attended a council meeting with an AR-15, calling for more legislation like this. As it stands, anyone 19 or older who is legally allowed to own a firearm can carry, openly or concealed, without a permit.
LuLu’s Law
Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt on Tuesday, introduced a new bill that would codify the threat of shark attacks on the same level as other emergency warnings.
The proposed legislation would be known as Lulu's Law, in honor of Mountain Brook teenager Lulu Gribbon, who was seriously injured in a shark attack along the Florida Panhandle on June 7.
According to Britt, Lulu's law would encourage EMA officials to quickly issue warnings via mobile phone messages similar to Amber Alerts.
Thousands Removed from Medicaid
New figures released by the Alabama Medicaid Agency show more than 251-thousand low-income residents have been removed from Medicaid health insurance coverage since last summer.
That was when federal pandemic-era protections for Medicaid enrollment expired.
The report for the month of May, 2024 also showed roughly one-million Alabamians were still enrolled in the low-cost health care program, but that was down by 18.3 percent from the same period last year.
