Your Birmingham Election Roundup
Birmingham’s mayoral race is now a two-man contest. Mayor William Bell and school board member Randall Woodfin came out on top in a field of 12 candidates. They’ll go head-to-head in a runoff October 3rd. We hear about that race and other results from Tuesday’s election with WBHM’s city government reporter Sherrel Wheeler Stewart.
Judge orders new Alabama Senate map after ruling found racial gerrymandering
U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, issued the ruling Monday putting a new court-selected map in place for the 2026 and 2030 elections.
Construction on Meta’s largest data center brings 600% crash spike, chaos to rural Louisiana
An investigation from the Gulf States Newsroom found that trucks contracted to work at the Meta facility are causing delays and dangerous roads in Holly Ridge.
Bessemer City Council approves rezoning for a massive data center, dividing a community
After the Bessemer City Council voted 5-2 to rezone nearly 700 acres of agricultural land for the “hyperscale” server farm, a dissenting council member said city officials who signed non-disclosure agreements weren’t being transparent with citizens.
Alabama Public Television meeting draws protesters in Birmingham over discussion of disaffiliating from PBS
Some members of the Alabama Educational Television Commission, which oversees APT, said disaffiliation is needed because the network has to cut costs after the Trump administration eliminated all funding for public media this summer.
Gov. Kay Ivey urges delay on PBS decision by public TV board
The Republican governor sent a letter to the Alabama Educational Television Commission ahead of a Nov. 18 meeting in which commissioners were expected to discuss disaffiliation.
A proposed Bessemer data center faces new hurdles: a ‘road to nowhere’ and the Birmingham darter
With the City Council in Bessemer scheduled to vote Tuesday on a “hyperscale” data center, challenges from an environmental group and the Alabama Department of Transportation present potential obstacles for the wildly unpopular project.
