Sen. Richard Shelby’s official ascension as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday was much more than a Capitol Hill version of musical chairs. The committee is one of the most powerful in Washington, controlling the levers of federal spending, at least in the upper chamber. “It’s a reasonably big deal,” said William Stewart, […]

A long-suffering minority party pulls off a major upset in a special election for the U.S. Senate, fueling hopes among partisans of major gains in the upcoming midterm elections. Alabama and Doug Jones? Try, Massachusetts and Scott Brown. Like Democrat Jones in 2017, Republican Brown in 2010 stunned the political establishment by beating a candidate […]

Both haters and defenders of President Donald Trump seized on this week’s bombshell Washington Post report that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team told the president’s lawyers he is not a “target” of the long-running Russia probe. Trump’s supporters contend it is evidence that breathless media speculation about “collusion” is overblown. Trump critics counter that Trump’s […]

Battles between trial lawyers and business interests in court races are nothing new in Alabama, but campaign finance reports filed Tuesday suggest this year’s fight will play out within the Republican Party. Chief Justice Lyn Stuart, who got the job after Roy Moore resigned and is seeking a full six-year term, reported raising $105,750 in […]

The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday gaveled out the 2018 legislative session — a session that was “among the most successful in recent years,” according to Speaker Mac McCutcheon (R-Monrovia). Aided by rising tax revenue from an improving economy, lawmakers passed budgets for education and the rest of government without the knock-down, drag-out fights […]

The list of 2018 Yellowhammer Women of Impact includes the governor, business leaders, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and educators. But it is quite possible that the woman who has touched the most lives is Brittany Howard, a 29-year-old Alabama native who is a founding member of the musical sensation Alabama Shakes. It took about two years for […]

How do you know when you’ve made it? When your employer names a program after you. That is what happened last year to Cathy Randall, the longtime director of the University of Alabama’s computer-based honors program. It now is called the Catherine J. Randall Research Scholars Program. Randall isn’t just the director of the program. […]

Alabama legislators on Tuesday continued a contentious debate over a bill to change the state’s ethics law, advanced the education budget and delayed action on a racial profiling bill. Lawmakers have just just one more day left before wrapping up the 2018 session. Here are the highlights from Tuesday: The big story: The Senate called […]

Alexia Borden’s trajectory at Alabama Power has been rapid and in one direction — up. Borden last year became senior vice president and general counsel of Alabama Power, only a year after joining the company. She is both the youngest person and first woman ever to hold the position. She also is a 2018 Yellowhammer […]

With the end in sight for the 2018 legislative session, the Alabama House of Representatives wrapped up a long day Thursday that included debates over school security, racial profiling and the Ten Commandments. The session is scheduled to conclude next week. Here is a roundup of Thursday’s action in the Legislature: The big story: After […]

This summer, Debbie Long will call it a career at Protective Life Corp. What a career it has been. Long, who also is a 2018 Yellowhammer Woman of Impact, served as executive vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary of the insurance company before taking on a part-time advisory role this year. She is […]

The Alabama Legislature on Wednesday killed gun legislation, passed a budget and contemplated the pay disparity between men and women. In addition, a controversial proposal to exempt economic development officials from lobbying laws advanced. The passage of the general fund budget is a sign the 2018 session is gliding toward a close. Here is a […]

Another year, another census report showing blistering growth in Baldwin County. The Census Bureau population estimates released Thursday show that the coastal Alabama county added another 5,119 people from July 2016 to July last year. That was the most of any Alabama county, ahead of the 4,734 increase posted by second-place Madison County. Since the […]

Peggy Sutton did not start out wanting to create a powerhouse food business. She just wanted to eat like her grandparents did. Sutton, a 2018 Yellowhammer Woman of Impact, planted grains at her home in Fitzpatrick about 15 years ago and waited for them to sprout. Before the Industrial Revolution, most people made flour from […]

At home, Rep. Martha Roby (R-Montgomery) is preparing for a primary in which she faces allegations that she is insufficiently conservative. In Washington last week, a right-leaning think tank singled her out for her conservatism. Roby, in her fourth term representing the 2nd Congressional District in the Montgomery area and the Wiregrass, was one of […]

A race for the Alabama Supreme Court has opened a rare rift between pro-business organizations that normally march in lockstep. ProgressPAC, the political action committee of the Business Council of Alabama, has endorsed Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart for the position held until January by Justice Glenn Murdock. She faces Circuit Court Judge Debra […]

Nancy Collat Goedecke is a powerhouse not just in the business world, but the philanthropic sphere, as well. She also is a 2018 Yellowhammer Woman of Impact.

The Alabama Legislature on Thursday completed a monumental day of legislating that including debates over the education budget, raising teacher pay, adding new protections for children at unlicensed day care centers and reforming juvenile justice. As significant as those developments were, however, it is likely that the legislative action that will generate the most discussion […]

Guns — and school safety — took center stage in Montgomery Wednesday on a day when a shooting coincidentally took place at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital Highlands. A legislative committee also voted in favor of a bill aimed at chipping away at racial profiling by police. Here is a summary of the […]

In three years as chairwoman of the Alabama Republican Party, Terry Lathan has presided over a party that dominates state politics. Under her supervision in 2016, the party delivered a landslide victory for President Donald Trump in the Heart of Dixie.

When Martha Roby launched her first campaign for Congress in 2010, the complete list of women who had represented Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives comprised Elizabeth Andrews and … that’s it. In 93 years since the first American woman took office in Congress, the Heart of Dixie had produced just one female representative […]

Augusta Dowd disproves the conventional wisdom that taking time off to raise children spells career death in high-powered fields like the law. Dowd, the president of the Alabama State Bar, did just that. Dowd, honored as a Yellowhammer 2018 Woman of Impact, began practicing law at the Birmingham firm of Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville […]

Editor’s note: This is a round-up of the day’s major events in Montgomery. Republican legislative leaders in Alabama on Thursday continued to execute the election-year game plan they set for the legislative session — no frills, no controversy and get home in plenty of time to campaign for re-election. Committees in the state House of […]

If selling construction tools is not the kind of thing you would expect female entrepreneurs to do, you don’t know the Head family of Birmingham. Maryam “Mimi” Head bought the Ram Tool Construction Supply Co. in 1984 with no prior distribution experience and methodically built the small company into a major force in the Southeast, […]