Following a mass shooting in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, that killed two people and injured 12 others, Gov. Kay Ivey has announced that the state will increase its role in public safety efforts in the city.

Today, Virginia State Police will launch a 24-hour highway safety initiative, “Operation Drive Safe 460." The effort targets Route 460 in Bedford, Botetourt, Roanoke and Montgomery counties.

Virginia Tech’s weekly football press conference had a noticeably different tone this week following the firing of head coach Brent Pry on Sunday. Instead of focusing on the upcoming Wofford game, the discussion centered on how the team is coping with recent disruptions and preparing to move forward.

At least six historically Black colleges and universities received threats or “potential” threats Thursday, prompting lockdowns and class cancellations.

A Virginia Tech linebacker was arrested on a DWI charge on August 23, according to Montgomery/Christiansburg General District Court records.

A Bedford County judge has sentenced Trenton Frye to life in prison for the 2022 murder of 28-year-old Katlyn Lyon Montgomery.

The nation is marking the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Some local lawmakers are working to fundamentally change elections in Virginia. Here's how.

A new expansion to the Mountain Valley Pipeline could bring a compressor station to the border of Montgomery and Roanoke counties and increase the pipeline’s capacity by 25%.

Alabama has scheduled a September execution with nitrogen gas for a man convicted of killing a gas station attendant during a 1997 robbery.

Alabama legislators unanimously passed a bill on Tuesday that would expedite access to Medicaid for pregnant women.

Today marks the first day of the trial for Trenton Frye, who is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 28-year-old Katlyn Montgomery.

It has been 60 years since the historic voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.

Essays and early short stories by “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee will be published this fall.

The Montgomery Museum of Art & History is hosting 2 exhibits in March: Portraits of the Blues and Shining a Light on Christiansburg Institute.

Fans are remembering R&B singer Angie Stone after her death at 63 in a weekend crash on a highway in Alabama while returning from a performance.

Virginia Tech Football has hired Philip Montgomery as its new offensive coordinator. Announced on Monday, this decision brings a seasoned coach with a rich history of success in collegiate football to the Hokies’ staff.

Attorneys for an Alabama inmate facing execution by nitrogen gas are asking a federal judge to block the upcoming execution.

The Boston Bruins have fired coach Jim Montgomery after losing 12 of their first 20 games.

A federal appeals court says it will let the nation's third execution with nitrogen gas go forward this week.

A person familiar with the decisions tells The Associated Press.

A federal judge is halting an Alabama program that made thousands of legal voters inactive ahead of the November elections.

A small museum in Nashville is returning 255 pre-Columbian artifacts to Mexico.

The Equal Justice Initiative nonprofit invoked the Juneteenth holiday as it dedicated a monument that honors the people who endured and survived slavery.

An Associated Press analysis of licensing data from 44 states, data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs and the American Community Survey shows residents of neighborhoods that are majority Black and Latino have fewer pharmacies per capita than people who live in mostly white neighborhoods.

A New Hampshire man convicted of killing his 5-year-old daughter and moving her corpse around for months before disposing of it has been sentenced to a minimum of 56 years in prison on murder and other changes.

A church in Rural Retreat just received national recognition for their work to help families through a program called CarePortal.

How to watch the 2024 U.S. Canoe Slalom Olympic Team Trials take place this weekend in Montgomery, Alabama.

Left-hander Jordan Montgomery and the Arizona Diamondbacks have finalized their $25 million, one-year deal.

The history of slavery in America is the focus of a new sculpture park in Montgomery, Alabama.

At least one fertility clinic in Alabama has resumed in vitro fertilization treatments.

A large Alabama hospital has paused in vitro fertilization treatments as health care providers weigh the impact of a state court ruling that frozen embryos are the legal equivalent of children.

A jury has begun deliberations in the case of a New Hampshire man charged with second-degree murder in the death of his 5-year-old daughter.

A New Hampshire man accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter told a judge that his attorneys plan to acknowledge his guilt on two lesser charges — falsifying physical evidence and abusing a corpse.

Here’s a look at events happening in Central and Southwest Virginia where you can reflect on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The bus Rosa Parks made history on is at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn Michigan

David Montgomery's go-ahead 1-yard touchdown run with 29 seconds left against his former team lifted the Detroit Lions to a 31-26 comeback victory over Justin Fields and the Chicago Bears.

With in-person early voting and absentee ballots, over 9,000 votes have already been cast the day before election day.

From 80s to snow flurries in a matter of days. Welcome to Virginia weather!

Jordan Montgomery scattered six hits over seven innings, helping the Texas Rangers beat the sloppy Tampa Bay Rays 4-0 in their AL Wild Card Series opener.

David Montgomery rushed for 121 yards and three touchdowns, and the Detroit Lions asserted themselves as the team to beat in the NFC North, beating the Green Bay Packers 34-20.

For a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man.

Alabama has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let it keep Republican-drawn congressional lines in place as the state continues to fight a directive to create a second district where Black voters constitute a majority or close to it.

The Detroit Lions rallied for a 21-20 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs to ruin the Super Bowl champions' celebration on the NFL's opening night.

A sister’s choice to donate her brother’s body for research is helping doctors learn how to one day use pig organs to save human lives.

A panel of federal judges on Monday began a review Alabama’s redrawn congressional map which opponents argue blatantly defies the court’s mandate to create a second district where Black voters have an opportunity to influence the outcome of an election.

Bystanders who trained their smartphone cameras on an Alabama riverfront dock, as several white boaters pummeled a Black riverboat co-captain, couldn’t have known the footage would elicit a national conversation about racial solidarity.

An Alabama boat co-captain says he was hanging on “for dear life” when he was attacked by men on the capital city’s riverfront.

So this is what the riverfront in Montgomery, Alabama when there isn’t a massive fight going down!

Health care providers in Alabama have filed lawsuits against state Attorney General Steve Marshall over threats to prosecute people who help women arrange abortions outside the state.

Civil rights groups urged three federal judges to reject Alabama’s newly drawn congressional districts, saying state Republicans prioritized partisan concerns over compliance with a court order to draw lines that are fair to Black voters.

In the race for the newly-drawn Virginia Senate District 4 covering Roanoke City, Salem, and parts of Roanoke and Montgomery counties, three candidates on the Democratic ticket are vying for your vote: Trish White-Boyd, Luke Priddy and DeAnthony “D.A.” Pierce.

Alabama families could soon pay less at the grocery store after lawmakers gave final passage to a landmark bill to gradually remove half of the 4% state sales tax on food by September 2024.

The Black College World Series played this week in Alabama hopes to spur pro careers amid declining numbers of U.S.-born Black players in the major leagues.

Alabama has changed death penalty procedures to give the prison system longer to carry out executions — a move that comes after a string of troubled lethal injections in the state — and also eliminated an automatic review for trial errors.

The prize-winning documentary, “Descendant,” tells the story of the last known slave ship to America and the descendants of the 110 people aboard.

David Pastrnak had a goal and three assists to help the Boston Bruins beat the Washington Capitals 5-2 in each team's season opener.

Congressional districts that a federal court panel said were unconstitutional because they dilute representation for Black voters in Alabama are nevertheless being used for the November election after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them.

Police are trying to determine a motive in three seemingly random shootings along an interstate highway in Alabama and Georgia that left a motorist critically wounded.

The Boston Bruins have hired Jim Montgomery as their new coach.

Alabama’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate is going to a June runoff between Katie Britt and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks.

During a commemoration of the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Elliott Smith's great-aunt pushed him across the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge in a stroller.

911 service is not currently functional for AT&T customers.

A former Virginia delegate has been indicted on four counts of embezzlement by a Giles County grand jury.

A former Virginia delegate has been indicted on four counts of embezzlement by a Giles County grand jury.

Authorities searched the last known residence of Harmony Montgomery to investigate the disappearance of the New Hampshire girl.

Alabama's governor is honoring the state's first Black poet laureate, a creative writing teacher from Birmingham who delves into the pain and difficulty of being Black in America.

Officials have released the inmate who was central to a Supreme Court case that extended the possibility of freedom to hundreds of people sentenced to life without parole as juveniles.

In recent years, hundreds of people once destined to spend the rest of their lives in prison after being convicted of crimes as juveniles have gone free.

Del. Chris Hurst (D) and Jason Ballard (R) are vying for the Virginia House of Delegates District 12 seat.

The quest by a civil rights pioneer to have her arrest record wiped clean after nearly 70 years after she protested racial segregation has raised the possibility of similar bids to clear the names of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama.

An 82-year-old Black woman who became a civil rights pioneer when she was arrested for refusing to move to the back of an Alabama bus in 1955 wants to end the case once and for all.

The Equal Justice Initiative is opening an expanded museum in Alabama that focuses on the legacy of slavery in America.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for parts of Montgomery County and Craig County.

Health officials in Alabama say they are seeing a spike in cases among young adults and children as the highly contagious delta variant sweeps through unvaccinated populations.

Britney Spears’ father says in a Friday court filing that there are “no grounds whatsoever” for removing him from the conservatorship that controls her money and affairs.

Yankees left-hander Jordan Montgomery has tested positive for COVID-19, joining fellow starter Gerrit Cole among New York players sidelined by the virus.

The organization that created the nation’s first memorial to lynching victims has announced a major expansion of a museum designed to trace the impact of slavery and racism through the centuries.

Derek Kitts and Tara Orlando are vying for the Democratic nomination in the Virginia House of Delegates District 7 race.

A new assessment of endangered historic places is highlighting spots in Alabama along the route of the Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965.

Early voting for the June primary started Friday in Virginia, but on Saturday the focus will be on the 7th district.

FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2017, file photo, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin speaks at a rally in Montgomery, Ala. Palin says she tested positive for COVID-19 and is urging people to take steps to guard against the coronavirus, including wearing masks in public. Sarah Palin says she tested positive for COVID-19 and is urging people to take steps to guard against the coronavirus, such as wearing masks in public. “And history will show we Masked Singer visitors were masked before being masked was cool,” she said in her statement, referring to the TV show on which she once appeared. It was not clear when Palin, 57, tested positive. She told the magazine that other members of her family tested positive as well.

The Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee marks the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday — the day on March 7, 1965, that civil rights marchers were brutally beaten by law enforcement officers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Vivian, and attorney Bruce Boynton were the late civil rights leaders honored on Sunday. Footage of the beatings helped galvanize support for passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Let the people vote.”Lowery, a charismatic and fiery preacher, is often considered the dean of the civil rights veterans and led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Organizers acknowledged the fallen civil rights leaders and planned to lay wreaths at the bridge in their honor.

AEP outages as of 5 p.m.Thousands are without power as Southwest and Central Virginia are experiencing wintry weather. Below are the worst outage areas among the 2,724 Appalachian Power customers in Virginia without power:County/City Customer Outages Pulaski County 1,347 Montgomery County 500 Wythe County 162 Roanoke County 148 Giles County 144 Pittsylvania County 94 Carroll County 28 Smyth County 20 Franklin County 41 Grayson County Fewer than 5Here’s a breakdown of the Dominion Energy customers in our region without power:Charlotte County: 44Halifax County: 169Alleghany County: 36Danville officials say that 1,200 customers on Memorial Drive, Lanier Avenue, Park Avenue, Bishop Road and across the river on Piedmont Drive are without power. Here’s a breakdown of the Mecklenburg Electric customers in our region without power:Halifax County: 608Pittsylvania County: 459Here’s a breakdown of the BARC Electric Cooperative customers in our region without power:AdHighland County: 109Here’s a breakdown of the Southside Electric Cooperative customers in our region without power:

We celebrate Martin Luther King Day around the activist’s January birthday, which is Jan. 15.

FILE - This undated file image provided by Attorneys for Lisa Montgomery shows Lisa Montgomery. Lisa Montgomery, 52, was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. “Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”It came after hours of legal wrangling before the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to move forward. The last woman executed by the federal government was Bonnie Brown Heady on Dec. 18, 1953, for the kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old boy in Missouri. The last woman executed by a state was Kelly Gissendaner, 47, on Sept. 30, 2015, in Georgia.

FILE - This undated file image provided by Attorneys for Lisa Montgomery shows Lisa Montgomery. Montgomery who In 2004, killed a pregnant woman, cut a baby from her womb and then passed off the newborn as her own is set to die for the crime. Like Stinnett, Montgomery also raised rat terriers. Needing a baby before a fast-approaching court date, Montgomery turned her focus on Stinnett, whom she had met at dog shows. Prosecutors argued that Stinnett regained consciousness and tried to defend herself as Montgomery used a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from her womb.

Roanoke, Va. – The " let them play” movement in Southwest Virginia reached Roanoke County on Tuesday. But Botetourt is back, and now Roanoke County joins them. Roanoke County voted 4 to 1 this afternoon to return to play, within the county only. Both coach and his team are equally excited about getting back on track to a competitive season. we like to compete,” Pope says.

FILE - This undated file image provided by Attorneys for Lisa Montgomery shows Lisa Montgomery. A federal appeals court has lifted a judges order that had blocked the execution date for Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row. The ruling was handed down Friday, Jan. 1, 2021, by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (Attorneys for Lisa Montgomery via AP)WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Moss concluded that the under his order the Bureau of Prisons could not even reschedule Montgomery’s execution until at least Jan. 1.

(AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after president-elect Joe Biden takes office. U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomerys execution date for Jan. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)WASHINGTON – A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Moss prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year and officials rescheduled her execution date for Jan. 12. Generally, under Justice Department guidelines, a death-row inmate must be notified at least 20 days before the execution.

(AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after president-elect Joe Biden takes office. U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomerys execution date for Jan. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)WASHINGTON – A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after president-elect Joe Biden takes office. Moss prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year and officials rescheduled her execution date for Jan. 12. Generally, under Justice Department guidelines, a death-row inmate must be notified at least 20 days before the execution.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – A record-setting Atlantic hurricane season that saw the highest number of named storms officially came to a close Monday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season set multiple records while producing a record 30 named storms. NOAA said an average season has 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three become major hurricanes. The prior record for named storms hitting Louisiana in a single hurricane season is 4 set in 2002,” Klotzbach said. NOAA said this was the fifth consecutive year with an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season, with 18 above-normal seasons out of the past 26.

WASHINGTON – A federal judge is temporarily blocking the federal government’s plan to execute the first female death row inmate in almost six decades after her attorneys contracted the coronavirus visiting her in prison. The order, handed down Thursday by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, prohibits the federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year. She was scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 8 at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery’s attorneys had sought to delay the execution in order to file a clemency petition on her behalf. Both Henry and Harwell have serious symptoms from the virus and are “functionally incapacitated” and thus unable to help file a clemency petition, Babcock said.

Jones ran an ad showing Tuberville using the phrase to respond to student hecklers after leaving a coaching job. Three years ago, Jones became the first Alabama Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in a quarter-century. Although he was denied a full term in the Senate, Jones said there was important work to continue. Tuberville’s victory party was held in a hotel ballroom not far from the Alabama Capitol. Jones’ party was at an outside space in Birmingham where most people wore masks.

WASHINGTON – A woman convicted of fatally strangling a pregnant woman, cutting her body open and kidnapping her baby is scheduled to be the first female inmate put to death by the U.S. government in more than six decades, the Justice Department said Friday. Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Dec. 8 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004. The resumption of federal executions started July 14, with the execution of former white supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee. Before the resumptions of executions this summer, federal authorities had executed just three prisoners in the previous 56 years.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, for years once of the state's most influential politicians, reported to jail Friday to begin a prison sentence for his 2016 ethics conviction. Hubbard reported to the Lee County Detention Center in Opelika, according to jail records, to begin his four-year sentence. The Auburn Republican was for years one of the state’s most powerful politicians until the ethics conviction in a corruption case ended his political career. He had been free on appeal since his 2016 conviction as he unsuccessfully fought to completely overturn his conviction. Hubbard, the architect of the GOP’s takeover of the Alabama Legislature in 2010, was a legislator from Auburn and former chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.

Kay Ivey announced the Alabama Department of Corrections would enter into negotiations with two development teams including Nashville, Tennessee-based private prison giant CoreCivic and Alabama Prison Transformation Partners, a group including state-based construction firm BLHarbert, on developing the three new prisons. She said the three mega prisons would collectively house a total of 10,000 male inmates more than 3,000 per prison. Considered one of the most violent and understaffed systems in the country, the Alabama prison system has faced a litany of federal criticism. A federal judge in 2017 ruled state mental health care in prisons is horrendously inadequate" and ordered improvements in staffing levels and care. Prison construction bills failed in the legislature among political infighting over which districts would lose existing prisons and which ones would get the new facilities and the jobs that come with them.

Multiple school systems in Alabama, Texas and Virginia have voted to change school names in recent months, but local resistance and state laws make that no simple task. The Montgomery County School Board voted in July to change the names of the three schools, but a 2017 state law protects Confederate monuments and other long-standing memorials and names. In Virginia, the removal of Confederate names began in the states northern region in 2018, when J.E.B. Washington-Lee High School in Arlington changed its name to Washington-Liberty at the start of the 2019-2020 academic year. In Hanover County, a conservative jurisdiction outside Richmond, the school board narrowly voted to change the name of Lee-Davis High.

Montgomery and Pulaski counties are closing their pools and canceling camps for the summer due to the coronavirus pandemic. Below is the full statement:"In response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak (and uncertainty regarding the short- and long-term reopening guidance established by the Commonwealth), Montgomery County Frog Pond and the Pulaski County Evelyn Alexander Water Park will not open for the 2020 summer season. In addition, the Montgomery County Frog Hoppers Summer Camp and the Pulaski County Randolph Park Summer Camp are cancelled for 2020."

ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. – UPDATE: The National Weather Service has expired the tornado warning early. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for parts of Roanoke and Montgomery counties. At 3:37 p.m., a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Huffman, or near Mountain Lake, moving southeast at 35 mph. Tornado Warning on April 8 Tornado warning issued parts of for parts Roanoke and Montgomery counties. At one point, the warning covered parts of Craig and Giles counties, but that has since been lifted in those areas.