Alabama top stories in brief

• After its approval by the Alabama Supreme Court, Gov. Kay Ivey has set the execution date for Jamie Ray Mills to occur between midnight on May 30 to 6 a.m. on May 31. Mills was convicted in 2007 of a double murder committed in 2004.

• Tuskegee University has secured 6.7 million in federal funding to launch a new flight school in the fall. According to a press release from the university, the program will start with around 25 students. 

• Public comment is currently open for amendments to the Alabama Public Library Service code changes, which would require all libraries to develop policies for the relocation of materials deemed inappropriate for youth and to require advance approval for any displays promoting books to youth. APLS told AL.com last week that they’ve received nearly 400 comments opposing the changes so far and less than 20 supporting it. 

• Birmingham Southern College announced last week that its board of trustees had made the decision to close the college at the end of May. The decision came after it was made clear that a bill in the Alabama Legislature to provide a loan for BSC to stay open lacked the support to be passed. Since the announcement, several institutions of higher education have announced support and, in some cases, expedited transfers for former BSC students. These include Auburn University, the University of Montevallo, Auburn University Montgomery and the University of Alabama. 

• Laura Clark, the attorney for the Autauga-Prattville Library Board of Trustees said last week that she would not apologize for the statements she made regarding the dismissal of the former library director, Andrew Foster. Foster’s attorney, Christopher Weller, had sent letters to Clark and the board the previous week calling for Foster to be reinstated and for them to withdraw statements made about Foster and issue an apology. The board fired Foster, “for revealing confidential information to the press and violation of criminal law.” According to Foster, the confidential information that the board referenced were emails between Foster and trustees requested by a journalist through an open records request. No criminal charges have been filed against Foster. Foster did record part of the board meeting during which he was terminated. Alabama is a one-party consent state, however, Clark has said that Foster recorded during an executive session, which is cited as an exception in the Open Meetings Act. The Autauga-Prattville library has been a focal point for a statewide debate on what type of reading materials should be in Alabama libraries. Both Read Freely Alabama and Clean Up Alabama were founded within Prattville and have argued their opposing library philosophies at Alabama Public Library Service Board meetings.  

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• This edition of The Breathing Room, Hannah Irvin explains why she dislikes the phrase, “you can do anything you set your mind to” and proposes an alternative.