Depending on where you are in Alabama, this morning’s low temperatures could’ve been the lowest you’ve seen in years — or even decades. Read the latest Alabama weather news here.

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Flood zone

You thought your last HVAC work was expensive.

A coil in a middle school’s rooftop AC unit broke Monday night, and officials say it could end up costing more than a million dollars, reports AL.com’s William Thornton.

Decatur Middle School students have temporarily switched to virtual classes as repairs are made to the pipe and damage caused when it flooded the school.

School chaplains?

A bill has been pre-filed for this year’s legislative session would allow Alabama public schools to bring aboard paid or volunteer chaplains, reports AL.com’s Mike Cason.

The bill is sponsored by State Rep. Mark Gidley, a Hokes Bluff Republican.

The bill would give local school boards the option to have a policy allowing chaplains in schools. Gidley said he believes the bill doesn’t violate the establishment cause because of precedents set by military and law-enforcement chaplains.

Oyster ups and downs

The Alabama oyster industry is not for folks who don’t deal well with adversity. It’s taken steps forward in recent years, returning from the brink when there was no harvest during the 2018-19 season. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a stumble or two.

AL.com’s Lawrence Specker reports that this year’s harvest ends at 2 p.m. Friday, and since October the haul is just under 32,000 sacks — well short of the 40,000-plus sacks the past two seasons.

A sack is around 80 or 85 pounds of oysters.

Marine Resources Division director Scott Bannon partly blames the slide on a little snail called an oyster drill, which shows up during times of high salinity in the bay. He can’t hold an oyster knife so he drills a hole in the shell and eats the oyster.

While the 32,000 bags are well below the past two seasons, it’s well above the 22,000 three years ago and 11,000 four years ago.

Biologists with Marine Resources aren’t extremely optimistic about short-term future harvests. While divers were finding a lot of sizeable oysters for next year, they said they weren’t seeing much in the way of spat, which take about two years to mature into grown oysters.

Quoting

“We will stay on this and hunt down these people like the thugs they are that indiscriminately shoot into vehicles and houses hitting the innocent.”

Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch, after a “rolling shootout” on I-165 resulted in the death of a 15-year-old girl and the wounding of a 9-year-old boy.

By the numbers

4,400

That’s how many tons of plastic the Aldi grocery chain claims it’ll take out of use by eliminating plastic shopping bags at its stores.

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