Excerpt from Fox 17:

A young boy with autism spent more than 700 hours to build the world’s largest Titanic replica out of LEGOs.

Brynjar Karl Bigisson, now 15, of Reykjavik, Iceland, built the massive project when he was 10. It took 11 months to complete.

The ship, built from 56,000 LEGO blocks, made its American debut on Monday and will be anchored at Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge.

“The world calls him LEGO BOY and that’s just fine with Brynjar Karl Birgisson, after all he had spent a good part of his young life surrounded by thousands of LEGO bricks – the building blocks of his monumental tribute to the 2,208 men, women and children who sailed on Titanic,” attraction owner Mary Kellogg-Joslyn said.

Excerpt from a news release:

Alabama’s high-quality, voluntary First Class Pre-K program was today named the highest quality state-funded pre-kindergarten program in America. This is the 12th year in a row the state’s voluntary pre-kindergarten program for four-year-olds has received this distinction.

The title was bestowed upon Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program by the National Institute for Early Education Research in its 2017 State of Preschool Yearbook. The State of Preschool Yearbook is an annual report measuring the quality of state-funded early childhood education programs across the country. In this year’s report, NIEER’s 15th edition, Alabama was one of only three states, along with Michigan and Rhode Island, to meet or exceed all ten of the benchmarks NIEER measures to determine program quality.

In its report, NIEER also featured Alabama as one of six states to watch. NIEER profiled the state’s sustained commitment and incremental approach to giving more families an opportunity to voluntarily enroll their four-year-olds without lowering the pre-k program’s quality standards.

Advocates from the Alabama School Readiness Alliance welcomed today’s announcement.

“NIEER’s endorsement of the state’s voluntary First Class Pre-K program is another sign that the investments state leaders have made in early childhood education will have a strong return,” said Allison Muhlendorf, the executive director of the Alabama School Readiness Alliance. “However, being number one in the nation for quality should be only half of the state’s goal. State leaders should also strive to also be number one in access for four-year-olds.”

Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program is managed by the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education.

Excerpt from AL.com:

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s absence from the Republican debate stage ahead of the June 5 primaries is occurring the same time national polls suggest a widening enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The Alabama GOP governor hopefuls, individually, are pointing to their own candidacies to suggest that the disenchantment, reflected in poll after poll, isn’t trickling into their race.

But Ivey’s lack of interest in attending the debates isn’t helping to drum up Republican enthusiasm, according to the political pundits. The governor will, once again, be a debate no-show during the 7 p.m. Reckon by AL.com GOP gubernatorial debate tonight at the Lyric Fine Arts Theatre in Birmingham.

In fact, most of political observers believe the governor’s race, overall, is lacking in much intrigue just months after the international spotlight shined on Alabama during the special U.S. Senate race which saw Democrat Doug Jones defeat Republican Roy Moore.