The Jefferson County Commission unanimously agreed to a contract with Big Marketing and Communications today, but not without Commissioner Lashunda Scales again expressing her opposition to contracts that don’t reflect the county’s need to increase its dealings with historically under-represented businesses.

Leaders of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB have big plans to use the recently announced $30 million gift from O’Neal Industries. They want to triple the number of clinical trials.

Alabama’s attorney general Steve Marshall wants the US Supreme Court to weigh in on restricting a certain abortion procedure.

Two new representatives will join the Birmingham City Council next year, after being appointed Tuesday to fill vacancies left when former council members Lashunda Scales and Sheila Tyson were elected to the Jefferson County Commission.

The lawyer for the family of Emantic Bradford Jr. says State Attorney General Steve Marshall did not follow the normal process when he took over the case from Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr.

The fatal police shooting of a young black man at the Riverchase Galleria mall in Hoover has sparked weeks of vigils, protests and racial unrest. For some it has re-opened old wounds in the Birmingham community, decades after the civil rights movement.

The ACLU of Alabama and Alabama NAACP filed public records requests with the Hoover police department and several others across the state. The organizations are looking for information on racial bias training, use of force and body camera policies.

There is plenty of activity in the night sky this weekend. In addition to the Geminid meteor shower, one of the brightest comets of the year will pass overhead.

Local and state leaders turned the first dirt today on a lot that will become a new open-air stadium in downtown Birmingham. The $175 million stadium is part of a larger BJCC expansion.

State Attorney General Steve Marshall announced today his office is taking over the prosecution in the Thanksgiving shootings at the Galleria that left one man fatally shot by a Hoover policeman and two others wounded.