Every two weeks, Melissa Moody draws a little more money from her personal savings and puts it into the day care she’s been operating in […]
Category: Featured Work
24 hours in a COVID-19 unit
6 a.m. Jake Perkins, 24, zips through downtown Birmingham on his bike, heading toward UAB Hospital. He’s a registered nurse, working in the medical intensive […]
How one Alabama woman bridges healthcare gaps in the Black Belt
Keshee Dozier-Smith hurried through the basement door of the aging Uniontown Municipal Building. She ignored the lectern at the front of the room where she […]
Expensive childcare keeps mothers out of higher-paying jobs
As soon as Antoinette Pruitt opened her acceptance letter from Samford University’s Cumberland Law School, she started planning her move to Birmingham. The 29-year-old Panama […]
Fired for having a baby? Alabama is OK with that
Haley Gentle paced the waiting room at the obstetrician’s office and reread the cryptic text message from her boss. Just three words: Will talk tomorrow. They […]
Authorities heard sexual misconduct claims against doctor for more than a decade
Brenda just wanted out of the exam room. Her physician, Dr. Michael Dick, had put his hands on her face, her shoulders, her thighs. He’d […]
Black, poor, and Southern: A deadly demographic for American pregnant women
Myra Powell gripped her phone, her obstetrician’s number half-dialed, as she watched the blood spread across her sundress. It was a blue-and-black striped dress, and […]
‘One of the worst abusers’: An Alabama case highlights the state’s physical child abuse problem
Serenity Renfroe, not quite 2, spilled her cereal. It scattered across the floor of the little house on Rail Splitter Road where Serenity lived with […]
Part four-wheeler park, part evangelical church
Thunder rumbled overhead, immediately drowned out by the growl of a four-wheeler crashing through the Alabama backwoods. Kent Hovind roared into view atop an ATV, taking […]
Sexual misconduct by doctors
Dr. Michael Roy Sharpe’s official record is clean. There’s just one page in his public file at the Alabama State Board of Medical Examiners, which notes that […]