Alabama healthcare providers are bracing for a post-holiday surge in coronavirus cases. Infections were already rising before Thanksgiving gatherings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says symptoms of the coronavirus can appear anywhere from two to fourteen days after exposure. Healthcare providers voiced their concerns on APR over how family Thanksgiving gatherings could turn into COVID super spreader events. APR listeners heard suggestions including having one person in the kitchen serving dinner to limit possible exposure to the virus. Former state health official Dr.

Mild statewide with highs in the low to mid-seventies. Maybe some rain for Selma, Mobile, and the Eastern Shore. Around thirty percent. Lows tonight in the low forties along the Tennessee Valley. Low sixties along the Gulf coast.

Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban will likely miss this Saturday’s Iron Bowl game against Auburn after testing positive for COVID-19. The University announced the coach’s coronavirus test results today. The CDC recommends that COVID patients isolate for up to 14 days. The annual Iron Bowl game is Saturday. Saban had what turned out to be false positive back in mid-October. Team physician Dr. Jimmy Robinson says the coach’s latest situation appears to be different since he’s showing mild symptoms.

This weekend the Iron Bowl comes to Tuscaloosa. The top ranked Alabama Crimson Tide is hosting their cross-state rival Auburn Tigers on Saturday. The 22nd-ranked Tigers come into the game at five and two after defeating Tennessee last weekend. Alabama is coming off a lop-sided victory over the Kentucky Wildcats. Alabama head coach Nick Saban says this is an important game and his players will need to be ready.

It looks like concern over COVID-19 is impacting holiday travel. The forecast from Triple-A says the number of Americans driving over Thanksgiving will drop by ten percent compared to last year. Healthcare providers also continue warning those who hit the road for the holiday to exercise caution. Dr. Thomas Weide practices at University Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. He says wearing a mask, social distancing, and eating outdoors are good ways to avoid giving the coronavirus to your family.

News outlets are quoting an Associated Press investigation that may point to fake answers on U.S. Census forms in Alabama. The AP obtained text messages from U.S. Census Bureau supervisor in Alabama telling workers how to falsify answers from households answer the once-in-a-decade head count. The text messages are from last month. They reportedly stem from the Bureau’s effort to finish the census count households where it couldn’t be established who lived there after two visits.

A new proposed bridge across Mobile Bay may get a second look from local and state planning officials. The plan was declared dead over a year ago due to tolls needed to pay for the project. A proposal to charge up to $6 to cross Mobile Bay on I-10 killed the plan late last year. Now, officials are discussing the proposal again, but some say local residents will have to have an alternative way to cross the bay without a toll.

Jack Burrell is the chairman of the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO.

The once longest-serving member of the Alabama House of Representatives has died at the age of 81. 

Former Alabama state Rep. Alvin Holmes was one of the first African Americans elected to the state legislature after the civil rights era and helped to remove Jim Crow laws from the state Constitution. He also got the Confederate flag removed from the state capitol.

Holmes served in the legislature from 1974 through 2018. 

The acceleration of coronavirus cases is causing an existential crisis for America’s retailers and spooking their customers just as the critically important holiday shopping season nears. It’s also raising the risk that the economy could slide into a “double-dip” recession this winter as states and cities re-impose restrictions on businesses and consumers stay at home to avoid contracting the disease.