Posts by Will Blakely

A leaked email shows a newly elected delegate to the United Methodist Church’s General Conference congratulating other UMC clergy within the Alabama-West Florida Conference for moving forward with a rule that makes it more difficult for traditional churches to disaffiliate from the denomination while retaining church property.

Bishop David Graves of the United Methodist Church’s Alabama-West Florida Conference delivered the opening remarks at the annual conference on Sunday as churches in the state's southern half continue to weigh disaffiliation from the denomination.

A discernment team for Mountain Brook’s Canterbury United Methodist Church recommended the over-4,000-member congregation remain in the United Methodist Church (UMC) in spite of over 500 traditional Methodist churches in Alabama choosing to leave the denomination so far. 

Trustees for the Alabama-West Florida Conference (AWFC) of the United Methodist Church (UMC) released an updated disaffiliation eligibility policy on Tuesday, which conservative Methodist leaders are calling a “nail in the coffin” for conservative churches in the conference who are seeking to leave the denomination while retaining church property.

The author of the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) recent annual report, which listed several parental rights organizations as “hate groups” along with the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, met with a Biden administration counterterrorism official in January, according to a report. 

An owner of a local news outlet is accusing Fairview High School (FHS) principal Chris Gambrill of threatening to ban the organization from school athletic competitions and other public events after it refused to remove comments from one of its Facebook posts.

The Alabama legislative session is now over, and a bill to require state entities to put deadlines on public information request responses ran out of time. The Alabama Press Association (APA) isn’t happy about it.

The far-left activist organization, whose input is taken at face value by the FBI and many big tech companies, placed several parental rights groups on its 2022 “hate map,” along with the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads and neo-Nazis.

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) sat down with Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday and once again affirmed his support for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. 

Warrior Police Department chief Scott Praytor defended his department after a Birmingham-area television news station obtained a video from an anonymous viewer depicting two WPD officers tackling and punching a suspect repeatedly while on the ground.

State Rep. Scott Stadthagen (R-Hartselle) insisted upon the necessity of the recently-signed Property Protection Act (PPA), which prohibits certain foreign governments from purchasing land in Alabama after a Chinese jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. aircraft over the Taiwan Strait. 

The U.S. Census Bureau released demographic data last week highlighting the aging population across the country, which has contributed to a growing proportion of individuals who are potentially dependent on others for sustenance. 

U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) congratulated a federal judge on Twitter for temporarily blocking regulations imposed by the Biden administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on pistols with stabilizing braces. 

Vestavia-based Sojourn Counseling will be hosting its second annual Run, Ride and Rumble for PTSD Awareness on June 10 at Cahaba Brewing in Birmingham.

If Alabama lawmakers had passed HB177 this legislative session, the current members of the Birmingham Water Works Board could have been fired and replaced. The bill would’ve also altered the qualification and appointment structure of the board.

Last month, Birmingham-area urologist Brian Christine declared his candidacy in the special election for an open seat on the Jefferson County Commission. However, Christine has now resigned from the race and endorsed another Republican for the position.

The Alabama Center for Law and Liberty filed an amicus brief on Tuesday opposing a public school’s policy encouraging teachers to hide students’ usage of pronouns that don’t align with their biological sex from their parents. 

Troy University specified what its “Center for Civics Education and Leadership” is on Wednesday morning after lawmakers included a $1 million appropriation for the center their Education Trust Fund budget, which was approved by the Alabama Legislature last week.

Governor Kay Ivey corrected a tweet from ESPN on Tuesday falsely claiming the recently signed Alabama law prohibiting biological men from participating in female collegiate sports would prohibit women from competing on female sports teams.

A Lee County LGBTQ organization Pride on the Plains hosted a drag show for children on Tuesday night during a “family fun night” at the local Auburn coffee shop Coffee Mafia.

Late Friday night, the Alabama Legislature approved an $11.6 billion education budget which no longer includes an unexpected $1 million for Troy University’s Johnson Center for Political Economy but rather awards $1 million to a “Center for Civics Education and Leadership,” which potentially does not to exist.

Two campus newspapers in Alabama appear to no longer show ads from pro-abortion nonprofit Planned Parenthood, which was aggressively advertising abortion services to college students last week. 

Last year was Birmingham’s most violent year since the early 1990s, and several sources have ranked the city one of the most unsafe in the country. Meanwhile, Birmingham suburbs like Vestavia Hills and Mountian Brook had considerably low crime rates in 2022, and Vestavia even ranked among the safest places to live in the United States.

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) published an op-ed in The Washington Times on Thursday to defend his hold on military promotions in order to combat a U.S. Department of Defense policy that financially facilitates abortions.

Vanguard and BlackRock Inc., two large asset management companies committed to controversial so-called “sustainable” investing, happen to be the largest owners of Birmingham-based Regions Financial.

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to permanently classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs and therefore increase federal penalties for fentanyl dealers and users. 

The Alabama Senate passed a bill on Wednesday to replace or restore the Saturn 1B rocket at the Alabama Welcome Center on Interstate 65 after a previous bill also pertaining to the rocket failed to make it out of committee.