The Associated Press

New Year’s Day in Alabama included a new law that restricts one use of marijuana while, at the same time, the state is preparing to license medical use of cannabis. HB 445 makes the sale or possession of consumable hemp products a class C felony, which is punishable by fines up to $15,000 and one to ten years in prison.

As residents across much of the country take down their holiday decorations, sobered by New Year's resolutions and a return to business as usual, in Mobile, Louisiana, and around the world, people are ramping up for the biggest celebration of the year. Throughout the state residents are preparing for Carnival season, a pre-Lenten and weeks-long bash that includes feasting on savory dishes, opulent balls and a stream of massive parades rolling through city streets.

Alabama rallied from a 17-point deficit once in the College Football Playoff against Oklahoma, but there would not be a repeat performance against No. 1 Indiana in a quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl. The Crimson Tide tried everything possible to stage a historic comeback on the site of so many memorable moments for the program.

An estimated half million Alabamians could see the cost of their healthcare jump by up to twenty five percent as soon as today. The Kaiser Family Foundation website says that’s how many Alabamians are covered by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and by how much the cost of that coverage may increase with the expiration of federal subsidies. That apparently doesn’t include the number of state residents who will lose their health insurance altogether.

A judge has ordered a new trial for an Alabama woman who was sentenced to 18 years in prison following a stillbirth that her attorneys argued was caused by an infection rather than drug use.

Sportswriters have no end of Rose Bowl story lines as the Crimson Tide prepares to face Indiana (for the first time ever—one more angle.) Observers didn’t know that when Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe was stopped on a fourth down in overtime by Michigan in 2023 that Nick Saban had coached his final game for Alabama.

New Year’s Eve is tomorrow night. The Alabama Triple-A is still expecting big crowds even though 2026 begins at midnight going into Thursday. The automobile service predicted that over one hundred and twenty two million people would hit the road between Christmas and New Year’s. Triple-A spokesman Clay Ingram says everyone should expect busy roads even though New Year’s Eve falls midweek.

Alabama is gearing up to play Indiana in the Rose Bowl this Thursday in the CFP quarterfinals. For fans of the Crimson Tide, the game represents one hundred years since Alabama beat the Washington Huskies in 1926, in the same venue, to win its first national championship. Sportswriters still debate some of the the subsequent titles.

Charity groups and municipal agencies in Jefferson County and Decatur are announcing that they will have warming stations open ahead of Monday night’s forecast with lows in the lower twenties along the Tennessee Valley. Below freezing overnight conditions are expected to continue until Thursday.

The shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Cook, the federal budget shutdown, and the selection of American Robert Prevost as Pope Leo the fourteenth back in May were among the Associated Press’ biggest stories of 2025, in Alabama and around the nation.