This Quality Counts 2019 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

Maori Davenport, who drew national attention over an eligibility dispute during her senior year of high school, is transferring to Georgia after playing sparingly in her lone season at Rutgers. Lady Bulldogs coach Joni Taylor announced Davenport's decision Wednesday. The 6-foot-4 center from Troy, Alabama will have to sit out a season under NCAA transfer rules before she is eligible to join Georgia in 2021-22.

The appeals court put the brakes on a predominantly white community's racially tinged efforts to secede from a larger school system.

Alabama is ranked 13th in the nation as having the greatest solar potential, yet only 0.26% of its energy comes from solar, leaving the state far behind others when it comes to total installed solar capacity. According to an annual report produced by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Alabama ranked 29th in the United States for solar production in 2018. Solar in the Southeast, a blog dedicated to highlighting the ever-growing southeastern solar market, reported Alabama as ranking dead last in the seven-state southeastern region. By failing to adopt more solar, and other clean energy technologies, Alabama is missing out on lower energy prices, increased jobs in the solar economy, cleaner air and water, and a more resilient power infrastructure that protects our communities.

Today, Alabama Municipal Electric Authority (AMEA) and Lightsource BP announced the development of a 100-MW (AC) solar energy project in Montgomery County, Alabama. Lightsource BP will finance, develop, build, own, and operate the solar facility and will deliver energy to AMEA under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA). The project, situated 15 miles from AMEA’s headquarters in Montgomery, will supply clean energy to AMEA’s 11 Member utilities located across the state and will generate enough electricity to power more than 20,000 homes.

Around 28,000 names were submitted to NASA’s “Name the Rover” essay contest for K-12 students

Timothy Smith, a resident of Cullman, Ala., pleaded guilty today in federal court in Birmingham to one count of tax evasion, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced.

The Department has entered into a consent decree with the city of Marion, Ala., that, if approved by the U.S. District Court in Mobile, Ala., will resolve the Department’s lawsuit filed against Marion on behalf of Cynthia Y. Davis, a member of the state’s Army National Guard.

Sims Lawson Jr., a resident of Killen, Ala., pleaded guilty yesterday to filing false tax returns for years 2002 through 2004. Lawson appeared before Judge R. David Proctor in Birmingham, Ala., and admitted that he failed to pay federal income taxes of $369,038 and state income taxes of $50,938.

The Department filed a lawsuit against the owner and employees of Rolling Oaks Apartments, a 72-unit complex in Clanton, Ala., for violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating on the basis of race or color in the rental of apartments. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, alleges that the employees, Kenneth R. Scott and Frankie L. Roberson, told white testers that a selling point of Rolling Oaks Apartments was the lack of African American tenants and that they had adopted rental policies intended to discourage African American rental applicants.

The Department’s Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today jointly announced an agreement with the owners and managers of Pina’s Mobile Home Park in Daphne, Ala., to settle allegations of discrimination against families with children. Under the consent decree, approved today in federal court in Mobile, Ala., the defendants must pay up to $104,130 to victims of discrimination and an additional $30,000 to the government as a civil penalty.

The Bank will invest more than $600,000, open a new branch in an African-American neighborhood in west central Alabama and take other steps as part of a settlement.

Timothy Smith, a resident of Cullman, Ala., was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for tax evasion.

Sims Lawson Jr., a resident of Killen, Ala., was sentenced to 70 months in prison by Judge R. David Proctor.

A Mobile, Ala., grand jury has indicted a waste disposal company, its president and top manager for offenses involving the illegal disposal of waste into the sewage treatment systems of Mobile and of neighboring municipalities.

Under the settlement, which must still be approved by the court, 11 defendants will pay all costs related to making the complexes for which they were responsible accessible to persons with disabilities.

The Department announced the settlement of an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) discrimination lawsuit against Wales West LLC, owner and operator of Wales West RV Resort and Train and Garden Lovers Family Park in Silverhill, Ala.

Christian Rodney Ice, of Mobile, Ala., pleaded guilty today in federal court in Mobile to one count of violating the Church Arson Act by placing threatening graffitti and neo-Nazi markings on a synagogue in Mobile.

The Department has entered into a consent decree with Troy University of Montgomery, Ala., to resolve the department’s complaint alleging violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.

The focus of the workshop will be consolidation and contracting practices of the poultry sector.

– The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced the schedule and panelists for the second joint public workshop on competition and regulatory issues in agriculture, which will be held on May 21, 2010, in Normal, Ala., at the Ernest L. Knight Reception Center at Alabama A & M University.

"The discussion we’ve gathered to begin reflects an historic collaboration between the Departments of Justice and Agriculture and leaders from across our nation’s agriculture industry," said Attorney General Holder.

A federal grand jury in Mobile, Ala., has returned a three-count indictment charging Thomas Hayward Lewis, 24, of Mobile, with violating and conspiring to violate the civil rights of congregants of the Congregation Tree of Life Messianic Synagogue in Mobile, as well as possession of an unregistered firearm.

The Justice Department announced today that it will monitor the primary runoff elections on July 13, 2010, in Barbour, Lee and Russell Counties, Ala., to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Ala., granted judgment in favor of the United States yesterday in a lawsuit brought to enforce the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act against the Alabama Department of Mental Health.

The United States has asked a federal court to permanently bar a Birmingham, Ala., man from preparing federal tax returns for customers, the Justice Department announced today. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, alleges that Douglas E. Dent fabricates large tax withholdings that result in large bogus refund claims on customers’ tax returns.

The Justice Department today settled a lawsuit against the city of Satsuma, Ala., and the city’s Board of Adjustment, alleging housing discrimination against individuals with disabilities.

Eleven individuals, including four current Alabama state legislators, three lobbyists, two business owners and one of their employees, and an employee of the Alabama legislature have been charged for their roles in a conspiracy to offer to and to bribe legislators for their votes and influence on proposed legislation.

"This morning, federal agents began arresting 11 individuals on charges that they conspired over an approximately 19-month period to corrupt the legislative process in Alabama," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

Sharon D. Thurman, who owned and operated “Sharon’s Tax Services,” was charged with 14 counts of making false claims for tax refunds, two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of theft of government money.

The United States has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Aurelia Sanderson Johnson of Montgomery, Ala., from preparing tax returns for others.

Jeffery Leon Ceaser, a resident of Montgomery, Ala., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States and one count of identity theft.

Five people were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama on a variety of charges stemming from an identity theft and tax fraud conspiracy.

A former Alabama state lobbyist pleaded guilty today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Wallace Capel Jr. to his role in conspiring to bribe legislators in exchange for their favorable votes on pro-gambling legislation.

Betty Washington, a resident of Montgomery County, Ala., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States.

A judge sentenced Thomas Hayward Lewis to 12 months and one day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for violating the civil rights of congregants of the Congregation Tree of Life Messianic Synagogue, as well as possession of an unregistered firearm.

The Justice Department today announced a settlement of its lawsuit alleging that Chandi Biswas, Kenneth R. Scott and Frankie L. Roberson violated the Fair Housing Act by making discriminatory statements against African-American renters at Rolling Oaks Apartments in Clanton, Ala.

Jeffery Leon Ceaser, a resident of Montgomery County, Ala., was sentenced today to 36 months in prison.

Leroy Howard, a resident of Montgomery pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States.

Ora Mae Adamson, a resident of Montgomery County, Ala., was sentenced to 46 months in prison.

John Jackson, the former mayor of White Hall, Ala., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Walker in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Ala., to one count of filing a false tax return.

Eric Bernard Caldwell was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama on charges of conspiracy and theft of government funds.

A superseding indictment was unsealed against Patricia Ervin and Monty Ervin of Dothan, Ala., charging them with three counts of tax evasion and one count of conspiring to defraud the United States.