The metro area of Huntsville led Alabama's population growth last year according to census data from July 2014 to July 2015.
The Rocket City added more than 4,000 people over a one-year span, the most in the state. That pushed the city to just under 445,000 residents.
According to the data, Baldwin County added almost as many new residents as Huntsville with 3,996. That marked a 2 percent growth in the one-year span, the fastest rate of growth in the state.
The data also reveals that about one-third of the state's metropolitan areas lost residents. The Florence-Muscle Shoals area reported the biggest population decrease, losing 593 residents.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville is generating controversy with its choice for commencement speaker. A-P-R student reporter Tori Martinez reports, some students are upset that the honor is going to Alabama U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions…
Students at U-A-H have started an online petition protesting Sessions as the keynote speaker. The petition at change-dot-org cites Sessions’ ratings on education and civil rights.
The creators of the petition also discuss the relationship the Alabama senator has with current G-O-P presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
Sessions is chair of the Trump campaign’s National Security Advisory Committee. A petition was posted over the weekend and now there are nearly five-hundred signatures.
UAH junior Dalton Hicks and UAH graduate Victoria Forrester started the petition.
Despite the petition the school stood by its decision to have Sessions as the graduation speaker for the May 1 event at the Von Braun Center.
Lawmakers and other community leaders will learn policy strategies on mental illness today.
They will attend a workshop hosted by the Health Minds Network and is called Hidden in Plain View: the Human and Economic Costs of Mental Illness. The measure would make insurance cover mental illness in the same way that it covers other illnesses.
Linnea Conely is a consultant with Summa Source at Auburn Montgomery. She says policy can help to address the three main issues the conference hopes to educate people about.
“Some of the issues that will be highlighted are the number of mentally ill who go to jail, the problem of mentally ill finding housing, and the issue of getting enough access, physically the access to care issue.”
The conference will take place at the Renaissance hotel in Montgomery. The event is open to the public but attendees have to register online.