Alabama

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Thousands gathered in this river city in 1940 to dedicate a new bridge in honor of white supremacist Edmund Pettus, a Confederate general and reputed Ku Klux Klan leader. Just 25 years later, the bridge became a global landmark when civil rights marchers were beaten at its base.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Long a symbol of pride to some and hatred to others, the Confederate battle flag is losing its place of official prominence 155 years after rebellious Southern states lost a war to perpetuate slavery.

Mississippi’s Republican-controlled Legislature voted Sunday to remove the Civil War emblem from the state flag, a move that was both years in the making and notable for its swiftness amid a national debate over racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Mississippi’s was the last state flag to include the design.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — With Alabama’s coronavirus caseload worsening while casinos, churches and more reopen, the state’s most recognizable person had some stern words about bringing COVID-19 under control.

HEADLAND, Ala. (AP) — Suspected tornadoes killed at least two people as severe weather blasted the Deep South, and a house fire believed started by lightning claimed a third person, officials said Monday.

Jerry Oliver Williams, 61, died late Sunday night when winds flipped the home Williams shared with his wife and child in a rural Alabama county, authorities said. The area was under a tornado warning at the time.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The threat of strong tornadoes and other damaging weather on Easter posed a double-edged safety dilemma for Deep South communities deciding how to protect residents during the coronavirus pandemic.

An outbreak of severe thunderstorms was likely Sunday from Louisiana through the Tennessee Valley, the National Weather Service said. More than 4.5 million people live in the area where dangerous weather was most likely, including Birmingham and Jackson, Mississippi, the Storm Prediction Center said on its website.

Washington, Mar 15 (PTI) After months of intense debate, an American state legislature has voted to lift the decades-old ban on yoga, reflecting on the increasing acceptance and popularity of the age-old Indian practice, but prohibited the use of namaste at a time when world leaders are adopting this way of greeting amid fears of the spread of coronavirus.

Pushed by conservative groups, the Alabama Board of Education in 1993 had voted to prohibit yoga, along with hypnosis and meditation in public schools in the state.

MARION, Ala. (AP) — Della Simpson Maynor remembers the mounted police officer cracking her elbow with a baton. She recalls the panicked marchers unable to escape the onslaught, and the scuffle between officers and a young church deacon who was trying to protect his mother and grandfather. Most of all, she remembers the gunshot.

Two weeks before Bloody Sunday — the clash in Selma on March 7, 1965, that helped propel passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — there was a march in this small town 30 miles away.

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A man convicted as an accomplice in the 2004 killings of three police officers in Alabama who were shot by another man was executed Thursday evening.

Inmate Nathaniel Woods, 43, was pronounced dead at 9:01 p.m. CST Thursday following a lethal injection at the state prison in Atmore, authorities said. The inmate had no last words before the chemicals began flowing, but appeared to arrange his hands in a sign of his Islamic faith.

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — Jeff Sessions, making new strides to regain his former Senate seat, faced renewed criticism from Donald Trump that could be his biggest hurdle after the president appeared to mock his former attorney general for being forced into a primary runoff.

Trump broke his silence on Sessions’ race in Alabama, again lashing out at his former ally over his 2017 recusal from the Russia investigation. The newest Twitter scolding by Trump could further damage Sessions’ hopes of mounting a political resurrection in the state where he had long been a conservative icon.

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Joe Biden received a warm reception Sunday in this crucible of the civil rights movement as he and other Democratic presidential hopefuls appealed for black support in a town where demonstrators were once beaten for marching for the right to vote.