By Brian Lyman | Editor
“That baseline is 1,020 cases. They're basing a $1.7 billion program that's on the brink of what could happen to it based on 1,020 cases We do 750,000 transactions a year, and that sample is what we're going to have to live and die by.” - Brandon Hardin, SNAP director, Alabama Department of Human Resources
Brandon Hardin, Alabama SNAP Director, speaking at the Department of Human Resources meeting on July 23, 2026, in the Gordon Persons Building in Montgomery, Alabama. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Anna Barrett
State officials plan to ask the federal government for a two-year delay on a penalty that could cost the state over $174.3 million. The changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have led to 80,000 Alabamians losing access to the program. The penalty is based on an error rate that last November amounted to about $4,300 in about $142 million in SNAP benefits.
A person behind bars. (Getty Images)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
By Ralph Chapoco
A federal judge Thursday ended an 11-year consent decree between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice over Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka. The state entered the decree in 2015 after the DOJ published a scathing report uncovering sexual abuse and harassment of women incarcerated in the facility. The state and the DOJ had already agreed to terminate 38 of the 44 provisions in the decree in 2024.
A woman scratches a measles rash. (Getty Images
HEALTHCARE
By Anna Barrett
The Alabama Department of Public Health said Thursday that an Alabamian living and working outside the state had contracted measles. Officials said the unnamed individual, who was unvaccinated, is not connected to any exposures in the state. Measles cases have skyrocketed around the country in recent years. Officials last year said a child in north Alabama had contracted the highly contagious disease, though the child later recovered.
ICYMI
Five Alabama law enforcement agencies could lose access to criminal justice database | Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
As national death rate dips, some states did better than others | Tim Henderson, Stateline
Commentary: ‘E Pluribus Unum’ is not a slogan. It’s a choice. | Tim Storey, National Conference of State Legislatures and Sue Urahan, Pew Charitable Trusts
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