Laws in effect

We mentioned yesterday that the ban on smokeable hemp was going into effect. That’s not the only legislative action to kick in as of July 1, reports AL.com’s Mike Cason.

Also going live was a bill that established paid parental leave for education and state employees of eight weeks for mothers and two weeks for fathers. That applies after a birth, stillbirth or miscarriage.

It also provides paid leave for parents adopting a child age 3 or younger.

Another bill that’s taken effect adds half a billion dollars to the amount the state can borrow for prison construction. Back in 2021 lawmakers approved $1.3 billion to build prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties. Since then, the price of the first prison (in Elmore County) has risen to more than a billion dollars.

And the overtime state-income-tax exemption has expired. That was a popular bipartisan measure at the time, but lawmakers let it expire because of the lack of revenue’s impact on the education budget. A bill to extend the exemption failed during this past legislative session.

Come Sept. 1, two other tax cuts will take effect: One that further lowers the state sales tax on food from 3% to 2% and another to exempt diapers, baby formula, feminine hygiene products and a few other items from the state sales tax, which is 4%.

Looming parole-board decision

State Attorney General Steve Marshall sounded his support for the former assistant AG who brought the state’s parole rate down into the single digits as parole-board chair, reports AL.com’s Ivana Hrynkiw.

Leigh Gwathney’s seat on the board has expired, but she’ll stay on until Gov. Kay Ivey appoints a replacement. Marshall hopes it’s a reappointment for Gwathney. The formal request he sent to Ivey was signed by 76 people in law enforcement, including sheriffs and district attorneys.

The AG also wrote about “unprecedented and unwarranted criticism by the liberal media.”

The parole rate fell from around 50% to as low as 8% under Gwalthney, with her vote a nearly automatic “no” when the three-person board decides whether to parole an eligible inmate.

Two former Alabama Supreme Court chief justices — Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Sue Bell Cobb — are among those who’ve expressed concern over the lack of paroles granted, with Moore calling the system broken.

That 8% rate was from 2023. The parole rate increased to 20% last year, with Gwathney still being a reliable “no” vote.

Catholic leadership

Pope Leo XIV has named a new archbishop for the Archdiocese of Mobile, reports AL.com’s Greg Garrison.

Bishop Mark S. Rivituso will take over for Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi, who aged out of the job.

Rivituso has been the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis since 2017.

A risky childbirth

A woman has reached a confidential settlement after she said she was left to give birth alone in the Etowah County Jail, reports AL.com’s Savannah Tryens-Fernandes.

The woman was arrested for using drugs while pregnant just two months into her pregnancy. Seven months later, her water broke.

Her lawyers said she wasn’t taken to the hospital and ended up giving birth in the shower and going through a placental abruption. The lawsuit claims that jail staff then looked at her and took pictures before calling for medical care.

The lawsuit was filed against Etowah County and officials at the Etowah County Jail, jail medical contractors Doctors’ Care Physicians and some of its employees, and CED Mental Health Services.

Settlements with the defendants were kept confidential.

One big, beautiful update

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed the budget reconciliation bill known as One Big Beautiful Bill, but it’ll still have to make a run through the House of Representatives today as lawmakers there mull the Senate’s changes.

We’ll have more on that in the days and weeks ahead as it becomes more clear how the final product might affect Alabama.

The bill makes permanent the 2017 tax cuts and adds some, such as eliminating taxes on tips.

Cuts and changes to the food-stamps and Medicare programs are frustrating Democrats and some Republicans. Advocacy groups such as Alabama Arise are warning of large numbers of people in Alabama losing access to those programs as well as how that will affect rural hospitals and grocery stores. Efforts were made in the bill to counter one of those that by putting more money into a rural hospital fund.

Another amendment scrapped a provision that would’ve stopped states from regulating artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, some traditional conservatives are crying foul over the bill’s effect on the high-flying federal budget deficit.

Sens. Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt of Alabama supported the bill.

By the Numbers

21,000

That’s how many words a day children 5 and under should hear in order to optimize development, some say. A literacy program in Birmingham is making that a goal.

More Alabama News

Born on This Date

In 1937, actress Polly Holliday, who was born in Jasper and grew up in the Sylacauga/Childersburg area.

In 1939, Temptations baritone Paul Williams of Birmingham.

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