Alabama
Alabama Senate committee advances prostate cancer screening legislation
A bill that would provide free prostate cancer screenings to at-risk individuals advanced through an Alabama Senate committee on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 19, sponsored by Senator Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, would require that insurance companies cover all costs of prostate cancer screenings for high-risk patients. The bill defines high-risk individuals as all men over 50, Black men and men under 40 who have a father, brother or son diagnosed with prostate cancer or a related cancer.
The bill represents a bipartisan push to reduce barriers to prostate cancer screening, with Representative Jeremy Gray, D-Opelika, carrying a House version of the legislation. Screenings covered by Livingston’s legislation include prostate-specific antigen blood tests and rectal examinations.
The 2025 version of Livingston’s legislation was passed by the Senate and approved by committees in both chambers during the 2025 legislative session.
SB19 was the sole bill on the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee’s agenda for its first hearing of the legislative session. The bill was advanced unanimously following a brief discussion from the committee.
“Mr. chairman, we certainly appreciate you calling this robust calendar today for this hearing,” Livingston said. “This is a prostate cancer bill that we handled last year that went downstairs to the House and got tied up at the end of the session.”
The bill clearing its committee prompted celebration from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, which has been a vocal supporter of Livingston and Gray’s legislation.
In a statement released following the vote, ACS CAN Alabama Government Relations Director Jane Adams expressed excitement that the bill will advance to the Senate floor, as well as her thanks to lawmakers who have supported the legislation.
“As we kick off the 2026 legislative session, we are excited to see lawmakers prioritize SB19, which will eliminate cost-sharing for lifesaving prostate cancer screenings for high-risk patients covered by state-regulated health insurance plans. If passed, this law would have a huge impact on prostate cancer early detection in Alabama,” Adams wrote.
“We know lawmakers have a lot of competing priorities in the legislative session, and we are grateful to them for seeing the benefit of increasing access to prostate cancer screenings for Alabamians,” she continued.
“Thank you to sponsors Sen. Steve Livingston and Rep. Jeremy Gray as well as House Speaker Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter and Sen. Garlan Gudger for their support in guiding this through the Senate and House,” Adams added.
In its 2025 breakdown of cancer statistics by state, ACS found that prostate cancer was the most common variety of cancer contracted in Alabama, and projected that 5,440 new patients would be diagnosed with the disease throughout the year.
The organization reported that prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths for men in the U.S., after lung cancer, and Black men and men with a family history of the disease carry a stronger risk of contraction.
However, bill sponsors and supporters such as ACS have highlighted that most men diagnosed with the disease survive with treatment, emphasizing the importance of early detection.
Alongside ACS CAN, Livingston and Gray’s legislation has been endorsed by prostate cancer screening and treatment nonprofit ZERO Prostate Cancer.
SB19 will now progress to a vote in the full Alabama Senate.
Welcome to BamaCentral’s “Just a Minute,” a video series featuring Alabama Crimson Tide on SI’s beat writers. Multiple times per week, the writers will group up or film solo to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.
Watch the above video as BamaCentral baseball beat reporter Theodore Fernandez reflects on the first two months of Alabama baseball’s season and explains why the team has left much to be desired despite success on the field.
At face value, this has been a successful campaign for Alabama baseball. Entering the final four weeks of the regular season, a Crimson Tide team that was projected to finish No. 13 in the SEC is 9-9 in conference play, and just one game out of fourth place. The first sweep of Auburn in more than a decade, the Frisco Classic title, and a road series win over Oklahoma are big-time results that speak to the potential Alabama clearly possesses.
But it continues to appear increasingly likely that this team may not realize that potential.
There are issues up and down the roster. The bulk of the attention has been on Justin Lebron’s struggles. His career-high in errors and underwhelming offensive numbers have led to his draft stock beginning to fall, and it led to him even being experimentally moved out of the two-hole for a game against Arkansas.
Players like Luke Vaughn and Jason Torres have struggled, and there is still a significant amount of regular roster experimentation occurring on a week-to-week basis. Will Plattner, Justin Osterhouse, Chase Kroberger, Andrew Purdy and Peyton Steele are all among the players who have started games over the past two weekends and still appear to have undefined roles.
The biggest question remains the bullpen, as it is nearly impossible to predict what it will provide on any given day. There was a two-weekend stretch where it gave up just five earned runs over 22.1 combined innings against Auburn and Oklahoma, willing Alabama to wins in games where the bats did not show up. Then there have been the lows: implosions against Arkansas and Texas that cast serious doubt on the unit’s ability to show up in big moments.
In all of those areas where the team has struggled, there is hope of a turnaround. There are the bullpen’s aforementioned elite stretches. There are the web-gem plays in short by Lebron, that will leave him with one of the most impressive defensive highlight reels of any player in the nation. There’s Torres responding to a 1-for-12 weekend against the Razorbacks with a two-hit game where he drove in one of Alabama’s two runs to avoid a sweep against Texas last Sunday.
In a sport defined by randomness, where the thinnest of margins can mean the difference between going home in a regional or making a run to Omaha, we simply have no way of knowing where Alabama will land.
Would we really expect it any other way?
That’s baseball.
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A “joyful” 10-year-old Alabama girl was found dead soon after being reported missing — with another juvenile charged with her murder.
Katheryn Bigbee, 10, was reported missing just before 11 p.m. Friday, when police were called to an undisclosed address in Calhoun County, AL.com reported.
“Officers responded immediately to the residence,” Piedmont Police Chief Nathan Johnson said in a statement. “They tragically discovered a deceased juvenile inside the home.”
It remains unclear where the house was, or whether it was the young girl’s family home — but another juvenile was soon taken into custody and hit with murder charges.
Their identity and connection to Bigbee have not been disclosed due to their age.
Bigbee’s cause of death also remains unclear, with police saying the investigation was still ongoing.
“Our family has been torn to pieces, and we have lost the most amazing, sweetest little girl,” relative Blake Trammel wrote on Facebook.
“She was a light in any room she walked into. I cannot express the pain, guilt, and emptiness that has come from all of this. We don’t have answers, only more questions,” he added.
The girl’s school also recalled her as a beloved member of its community.
“Our entire Piedmont Elementary School family is grieving as we remember a sweet little girl who brought smiles, kindness, and a bright light to our halls each day,” the school said in a statement.
“Katheryn had a joyful, spunky personality that made her truly special,” the school said. “She was an enthusiastic reader and will be remembered for the happiness she shared so freely.”
“She will always be a part of our school family, and her memory will live on in the hearts of her classmates, teachers, and all who knew and loved her.”
Alabama AHSAA softball key dates and top teams approaching the 2026 playoffs originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Alabama’s AHSAA softball playoffs are just around the corner with three of the state’s top teams ranked in the national Top 15.
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The No. 5 Orange Beach [AL] Makos, No. 10 Thompson [Alabaster, AL] Warriors, and No. 15 Wetumpka [AL] Indians are all ranked in the most recent edition of the MaxPreps Top 50 with the start of Alabama’s postseason less than two weeks away.
Orange Beach was previously ranked No. 1 before losing to the South Warren [Bowling Green, KY] Spartans last week. Both teams were undefeated going into the contest, and the Barbers Hill [Mt. Belvieu, TX] Eagles took the Makos’ place at the top of the rankings following the loss.
WATCH: ALABAMA AHSAA SOFTBALL ON THE NFHS NETWORK
Key dates for the Alabama AHSAA softball playoffs
|
DATE |
PLAYOFF DEADLINES |
|
5/1-5/26 |
Area Tournaments |
|
5/11-14/26 |
Regional Tournaments |
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5/18-22/26 |
State Tournaments |
National Top 50 contenders by classification
Alabama’s three nationally-ranked teams all compete in different classifications.
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Class 7A
The Thompson Warriors are 34-1-2, and they compete in the AHSAA’s top-level Class 7A ranks. The team’s only loss is to the No. 15 Wetumpka Indians in a 3-2 setback on April 3.
Class 6A
Wetumpka is 34-5, and as noted above, they are the only team to beat Thompson so far.
Class 4A
Orange Beach is the state’s top-ranked team despite competing at the AHSAA’s Class 4A level. Their loss to South Warren of Kentucky in a 6-1 setback on April 9 ended a 45-game win streak at the time. The Makos had only allowed 25 runs all season prior to the relative outburst by the Spartans.
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