Alabama Gulf Coast

Move over Flavortown! Birmingham native, author and chef Martie Duncan has made her mark on the Food Network, taking part as a contestant and judge on a variety of shows. She talks with Quick-Fire Quips host Baillee Majors about the TV channel and her books while dishing on the best way to make a summer-time tomato sandwich. Plus... a secret confession!

A Mobile teacher is the latest recipient of what some might call the “Oscars of Teaching.” Mary Travis, a fifth-grade math and science teacher at Gilliard Elementary School, is Alabama’s sole 2024-25 Milken Educator Award recipient.

Authorities are looking for the gunmen responsible for one death and the injuries of six juveniles injured during a shooting in coastal Alabama. Mobile police say the victims were attending a Friday bonfire with roughly 100 people when the shots were fired. The shooters reportedly drove away shooting guns from their vehicles.

A project aimed at helping restore passenger rail service to the Gulf Coast for the first time in nearly two decades is well underway. The start of the Gulf Coast Corridor Improvement project began on Oct. 22 in downtown Mobile with a groundbreaking ceremony.

Alabama broadcaster Mel Showers, who broke racial barriers in a Deep South newsroom and became a beloved and trusted newsman along the state’s Gulf Coast, has died. He was 78. WKRG-TV, the station where he worked for 50 years, announced his death over the weekend.

Members of the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department are participating in the Fill the Boot drive. Funds raised help support Muscular Dystrophy Associations efforts to fund groundbreaking research, accelerate treatments and cures, as well as funding support services.

Helene has made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida's northwestern coast as a Category 4 hurricane. Forecasters say the storm is threatening a “catastrophic” storm surge in northwestern parts of Florida as well as damaging winds, rains and flash floods. In Alabama, the impact of the storm is lessening across the state.

Mayor Sandy Stimpson and City Council Vice President Gina Gregory will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Lavretta Park at 9 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, to celebrate Mobile’s newest public pickleball courts. To showcase the newest courts, the city will also host a Pickleball Clinic at Lavretta Park on Saturday, Sept. 28.

A large part of Alabama continues to be at risk of flooding through Friday morning as Helene is predicted to intensify as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico. Football fans are also wondering about the weather conditions with the high-stakes game between Georgia and Alabama set for Saturday.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) is expanding wildlife conservation efforts by buying 79 acres of the Fort Morgan peninsula. ADCNR said the price of this underdeveloped beach front property was $16 million, purchased with funds from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, and the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act.