By Brian Lyman | Editor
Thank you all so much for your generosity in our fall fundraiser. We’re just about $500 away from our goal. If you can give, consider a small, tax-deductible contribution. Honestly, I’d love to go out with 100 five-dollar donations.
Cam Ward, director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles speaks at the opening of a new facility last week at Perry County PREP Center. (Courtesy Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
By Ralph Chapoco
The Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles last week opened a training center designed to train people on parole or probation on welding and manufacturing jobs. The center, operated with J.F. Ingram State Technical College, should expand education programs, and officials hope it will allow students to later obtain jobs. The program is part of a broader push to reduce recidivism in the state by 2030.
Alabama Finance Director Bill Poole speaking to members of the press on Jan. 14, 2026, in the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Alabama. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Andrea Tinker
Alabama Finance Director Bill Poole Monday announced he would step down by the end of the week Poole, a former chair of the Alabama House’s education budget committee, was named to the position by Gov. Kay Ivey in 2021. Poole’s departure comes as Ivey’s time in the governor’s office is ending and ahead of budgets that many officials, including Poole, have said may be difficult. The department said those were not factors in Poole’s decision.
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ELECTIONS 2026
By Jonathan Shorman
President Donald Trump’s sprawling effort to identify and remove noncitizen voters is colliding with federal law and the reality that noncitizen voting is rare. A Supreme Court ruling last week that allowed states to use a federal database to hunt for noncitizen votings came during a period when most states are forbidden from conducting mass purges of voter rolls. The real impact of the court decision, experts say, could come after the election.
ICYMI
The signs offer quick cash for homes. But states want more oversight. | Kevin Hardy, Stateline
‘Dumbfounds us all’: Congress struggles with policies rippling from AI development | David Lightman, DC Bureau
Trump administration revokes $810M approved by Congress for refugee aid and more | Jennifer Shutt, DC Bureau
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