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Refugee Resettlement, Lead Poisoning and Farm Day

A Muslim advocacy group is asking to meet with  Governor Robert Bentley about statements he made on a refugee resettlement program that they call insensitive.

During his State of the State address Tuesday, Bentley criticized the federal refugee resettlement program for not disclosing refugees' background information to officials in states they settle in.

Bentley mentioned terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, and said one of the killers and some refugees in Alabama came from "terrorist nations."

The executive director of the Alabama chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that labeling a predominantly Muslim country a terrorist nation promotes prejudice.

The lead poisoning situation in Alabama is coming more into focus. APR’s Pat Duggins says the state’s health department has details on the blood tests conducted throughout Alabama…

The Alabama Department of Public Health says twenty four thousand children in our state tested positive for having lead in their blood. Two hundred and twenty seven of those cases were high enough to be considered a health hazard. The agency broke down its results by zipcode. One area in Tuscaloosa had thirteen children who tested positive, Mobile had a single case, which was down from the one hundred and thirty four children who had lead in their blood in 2010. Selma had two in 2014, which is an improvement over the twenty seven cases the year before. Huntsville had three, down from eighteen in 2011. Health officials say children can be exposed to lead from sources like old paint manufactured before 1950

Alabama’s agriculture industry will be the star of the show in the town of Atmore today. Farm Day 2016 gets underway this morning at the Grace Fellowship Church. New technologies and techniques will be showcased to help the state’s farmers do their jobs better and make more money at it. Kim Wilkins is the Regional Extension Agent in Southwest Alabama for Agronomic Crops. She says all of the exhibits and speakers will help farmers prepare for the next season.

“Each year we try to provide a lot of information. Just kind of an update on what’s going on in the row-crop community and anything our farmers need to be looking for or be aware of in the coming year, and kind of just give them an update and help them prepare for the upcoming season.”

Topics will include the economic outlook for the year, controlling diseases and insects that attack crops, and price protections for corn.

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