Trump Administration

President Donald Trump has offered some encouraging words and advice for graduating students at The University of Alabama. But his speech Thursday night was interspersed with complaints about his critics, accusations that judges were “interfering” with his agenda and attacks on his predecessor, Joe Biden. Democrats held a counterprotest a mile away that featured former presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke and former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama.

The White House is opening a weeklong celebration of President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. Officials kicked off the promotional campaign Monday with a focus on his immigration crackdown. Trump is holding a rally in Michigan on Tuesday and delivering a commencement address at the University of Alabama on Thursday.

Several hundred people in Tuscaloosa joined in over a thousand anti-Donald Trump and Elon Musk protests held nationally over the weekend. Marchers in front of the Richard Shelby Federal Courthouse carried signs with slogans calling hands off social security, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and so on.

James H. Harvey III is 101 years old and one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. The Black U.S. Air Force pilots and crew based at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama fought in North Africa and Europe in World War II. One of their last accomplishments was winning the first U.S. Air Force Gunnery Meet in 1949, a forerunner of the U.S. Navy “Top Gun” school.

The Trump administration has published a list of more than 320 federal properties it identified to close or sell, including in Alabama. The designations are part of Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's unprecedented effort to slash the size of the federal workforce and shrink government spending.

A federal scholarship aimed at boosting students from underserved and rural areas attending historically Black colleges and universities has been put on hold, including in Alabama. The U.S. Department of Agriculture suspended the 1890 Scholars Program, which provided recipients with full tuition and fees for students studying agriculture, food or natural resource sciences at one of 19 universities.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has moved to dismiss six of its own cases on behalf of workers alleging gender identity discrimination, arguing that the cases now conflict with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order. This includes a case in Alabama.

An economics expert from Auburn University at Montgomery warns that Alabamians may soon face higher prices at the grocery store and gas pump. This comes as the White House moves to impose tariffs on U.S. imports from Canada, Mexico, China and, more recently, stricter tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr, one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, has died. He was 100. Stewart was one of the last surviving combat pilots of the famed 332nd Fighter Group who were the nation's first military pilots. Stewart earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for downing three German aircraft during a dogfight on April 1, 1945.

Alabama and a small but growing number of other GOP-led states are pushing to enact more laws this year to legally define the two sexes based on observations of genitals at birth. Many trans advocates say the bills feel like an attempt to erase trans existence or a attempt to capitalize on prejudice for political gain.