Pat Duggins

Alabama Public Radio news director Pat Duggins, and Center for Public Television student videographers Jeb Brackner and Wilson Weirich, ventured to Montgomery to interview Nelson Malden, who was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s barber. Pat produced a radio version for air on Alabama Public Radio, while Brackner and Weirich produced this short documentary in a collaborative effort between APR and CPT.

Areas of Alabama are cleaning up after what’s called significant damage from tornadoes last night. The National Weather Service in Huntsville says at least three confirmed tornadoes hit the area. Rooves were ripped off and power lines torn down, but there are no reports of injuries. Alabama Power says nearly ten thousand customers spent the night without power, with Calhoun County being the hardest hit spot. The athletic director at Jacksonville State University reports there was significant damage to the campus. The school’s Coliseum suffered damage, but it’s still standing.

The director of the state Ethics Commission says a bill before Alabama lawmakers could weaken ethics enforcement in the state. “Considerably,” chairman Tom Albritton says of the potential damage. The House of Representatives approved a bill to exempt economic developers from the definition of “lobbyist” under the state ethics law.

Supporters argue it is needed to help Alabama compete with other states for projects and factories by keeping developers' activity confidential. Critics said it opens up an exemption in the ethics law that governs interactions with government officials.

Concordia College Alabama will close its doors at the end of the spring semester. The Selma Times-Journal reports the faculty, staff and the student body were informed of the decision last week. Dr. James Lyons delivered the news. He’s the college's chief transition officer and interim president. The school was founded in 1922 and has a current student population of around four hundred. It is Selma's only four-year college accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

All sides are picking up the pieces following the postponed execution of Alabama death row inmate Doyle Lee Hamm. State officials called off the lethal injection process after the medical team unsuccessfully tried to find a usable vein to administer the three drug cocktail used in capital punishment. Technicians worked to insert the needle repeatedly in the prisoner’s legs, ankles, and groin in a process that caused Hamm severe bleeding and pain.

Two North Alabama's newspapers are cutting back on their paper editions. The Decatur Daily and the Times Daily report they are discontinuing print editions on Saturdays and Mondays beginning next month. Publisher Clint Shelton says the change is due to the rising cost of newsprint and the changing habits of its readers, who are turning more to the online edition of the newspapers. “While the frequency of the print edition is changing,” says Shelton. “The newspaper's commitment to covering news, sports, events and stories every day of the week remains a 24/7 priority."

You can add one more unusual memorial to Alabama, which is known for a list of them. The city of Eufaula is adding to the list with a monument to a fish. Officials in the lakeside town on the Georgia border have unveiled a 12-foot-tall replica of a largemouth bass to celebrate its claim as the "Big Bass Capital of the World." Bass fishing draws thousands of people to Lake Eufaula each year, and the state tourism agency awarded a grant to construct the monument. It was unveiled Tuesday.

Health officials in Alabama are investigating fifty four flu-related deaths. The list includes one child. Data from the Alabama Department of Public Health shows the bulk of the deaths have occurred in the Northern District of the state and in Jefferson County. Both areas have combined for twenty three flu-related deaths in the state. AL.com quotes the ADPH which says nine deaths tied to the flu were reported in northeastern and east central Alabama, while the west central and east regions have four each. Mobile only has one reported flu-related death to the ADPH.

Dennis Edwards, the lead singer of the Motown group The Temptations, has died at the age of seventy four.

The Fairfield, Alabama native joined the band in 1968 and went onto to record hits including “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” “I Can’t Get Next to You,” and “Cloud Nine.” Edwards’ family confirmed to CBS News that the singer died yesterday in Chicago. A cause of death was not revealed. Edwards would have turned seventy five years old today.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay in the case of convicted Alabama killer Vernon Madison. His legal team has argued that the inmate should be spared because he has developed dementia and can't remember killing a police officer three decades ago. Madison was sentenced to death for the 1985 killing of Mobile Police officer Julius Schulte. The lawman had responded to a report of a missing child placed by Madison's then-girlfriend. Prosecutors said Madison crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his police car.

As the nation honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior this weekend, southern states are banding together to promote civil rights tourism. Fourteen states stretching from Kansas to Delaware, including all of the Deep South, are joining to promote the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. The monument highlights about one hundred and thirty sites linked to the modern civil rights movement. The list includes the hotel in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated to the birthplace of the confederacy. The joint effort is being unveiled as part of the MLK holiday weekend.

“We can’t react to every statement, every Tweet that the President feels necessary to put out,” says actor and activist Danny Glover following alleged racist statements by President Trump.

Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin confirmed that Mr. Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa as ****hole countries. The reported statement prompted outrage and demands for a Presidential apology from lawmakers and officials in the U.S., Africa and elsewhere.

The lawsuit over Alabama’s voter ID law may not be over just yet. Groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, are appealing a federal judge's dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the measure. U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler tossed out the lawsuit on Wednesday, saying the state had provided free voter IDs to people who did not have them.

Alabama’s U.S. Senate race is over…now, is Roy Moore gearing up for a race for Governor? The state of Alabama officially certified Democrat Doug Jones as the state’s new U.S. Senator after a Montgomery judge rejected Moore’s request for a restraining order. The twice removed chief justice alleges irregularities. Political observers think Moore may be setting himself up for a race for Governor. A Moore spokesman dropped a hint about it on CNN last night. Moore's campaign was plagued by accusations of sexual assault and child molestation.

Alabama Republican Roy Moore is losing the battle for campaign cash to Democrat Doug Jones—badly. That from the latest Federal election funding report as the candidates for Alabama’s junior U.S. Senate seat make the final sprint to Election Day on December twelfth. Moore raised under two million dollars during October and most of November, according to the report. During that same time, Doug Jones raised almost ten million.

Alabama’s Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Doug Jones is trying to shore up support among black voters. Alabamians head to the polls in just over a week to choose between Jones and twice removed Chief Justice Roy Moore for the state’s junior seat in the Senate. Jones will participate in today’s Christmas parade in Selma. He’s appealing for an end to the divisiveness that has long been part of the state's politics. Jones is attempting to be the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in 25 years, but it's an uphill fight.

The University of West Alabama takes a big step forward toward opening its own charter school today, amid some concerns that the school may siphon state funding from existing schools in the area.

Pre-registration begins today for Sumter County students from Kindergarten to eighth grade who are interested in attending the new University Charter School.

Members of the Alabama Public Charter School Commission met with school officials in Livingston last month to sign the charter for the new facility, which will teach science, math, technology, and art.

President Donald Trump is deflecting questions about whether Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore should drop out due to sexual misconduct allegations against him. Trump, who has been traveling in Asia, says he hasn't had time to see television news coverage about Moore because he's usually too busy reading documents. The story has produced a wave of concern among anxious GOP officials in Washington but little more than a collective shrug from many Republicans in Alabama. The state is holding a special election on December twelfth to fill the junior U.S.