A shooting at a church in a suburb of one of Alabama's major cities left two person dead and two others wounded Thursday evening, police said, adding a suspect was taken into custody. The shooting occurred at Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, Police Capt. Shane Ware said at a briefing. He said officers rushed to the church after dispatchers received a call reporting an active shooter at 6:22 p.m. He said one person was dead and two others were wounded in the shooting and had been quickly hospitalized. A suspect is in custody, Ware said, but he declined to identify the person or the victims and describe how events unfolded. “We know of no additional threat to either the community of Vestavia Hills” or surrounding areas, Ware told reporters. The FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives and other local police and fire agencies sent officials to the scene. Investigators remained hours past nightfall, with yellow police tape cordoning off the church complex and emergency vehicles with flashing lights blocking the route to the church. The Rev. Kelley Hudlow, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Alabama, told broadcast outlet WBRC that the church and the community were stunned by the shooting. “It is shocking. Saint Stephen’s is a communty built on love and prayers and grace and they are going to come together," she said in a live interview with the station. “People of all faiths are coming together to pray to hope for healing." She added that the church was receiving supportive messages from people all over the United States and the world. "We need everybody out there. Pray, think, meditate and send love to this community because we are going to need all of it," she said. The church’s website had listed a “Boomers Potluck” for Thursday night. “There will be no program, simply eat and have time for fellowship,” the flyer read. News outlet al.com said the two wounded victims were being treated at UAB Hospital in Birmingham. READ: Thousands rally for gun reform after surge in mass shootings It was the latest in a string of deadly shootings that has rattled the nation. On Saturday thousands of people rallied in the U.S. and at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to renew a push for gun control measures after recent deadly mass shootings from Buffalo, New York, to Uvalde, Texas. Survivors of mass shootings and other incidents of gun violence also have lobbied legislators and testified on Capitol Hill earlier this month.

Eight children in a van from a youth home for abused or neglected children were killed in a fiery multi-vehicle crash on a wet interstate that also killed a man and his baby in another vehicle, the most devastating blow from a tropical depression that claimed 13 lives in Alabama as it caused flash floods and spurred tornadoes that destroyed dozens of homes. The crash happened Saturday about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south of Montgomery on Interstate 65 after vehicles likely hydroplaned on wet roads, said Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock. The van, containing children ages 4 to 17, belonged to the Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch, a youth home operated by the Alabama Sheriffs Association. Michael Smith, the youth ranches CEO, said the van was heading back to the ranch near Camp Hill, northeast of Montgomery, after a week at the beach in Gulf Shores. It caught fire after the wreck and Candice Gulley, the ranch director, was the van’s only survivor — pulled from the flames by a bystander. Gulley remained hospitalized Sunday in Montgomery in serious but stable condition. “She’s going to survive her physical injuries,” Smith said. Two of the dead in the van were Gulley’s children, ages 4 and 16. Four others were ranch residents and two were guests, Smith said. Read:Driver rams cyclists in Arizona race, critically injuring 6 “This is the worst tragedy I’ve been a part of in my life,” said Smith, who drove Sunday to the ranch to talk to the remaining residents, who had returned from Gulf Shores in a separate van and did not see the wreck. “Words cannot explain what I saw,” Smith said of the accident site, which he visited Saturday. “We love these girls like they’re our own children.” The crash also claimed the lives of two other people who were in a separate vehicle. Garlock identified them as 29-year-old Cody Fox and his 9-month-old daughter, Ariana, both of Marion County, Tennessee. “He was a great guy and we’re really gonna miss him,” said Aaron Sanders, who worked with Fox at the emergency management agency in Marion County. He said Fox also ran a hot tub business with his father and doted on his daughter. “He just loved her to death and that was his life.” Multiple people were also injured. The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that it was sending 10 investigators to the area Sunday to investigate the crash, photos of which showed at least four burned vehicles, including two large trucks. It said the inquiry would focus on vehicle technologies such as forward collision warning systems, fuel tank integrity and occupant survivability. Meanwhile, a 24-year-old man and a 3-year-old boy were also killed Saturday when a tree fell on their house just outside the Tuscaloosa city limits, said Capt. Jack Kennedy of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit. Makayla Ross, a 23-year-old Fort Payne woman, died Saturday after her car ran off the road into a swollen creek, DeKalb County Deputy Coroner Chris Thacker told WHNT-TV. The deaths occurred as drenching rains from Tropical Depression Claudette pelted northern Alabama and Georgia late Saturday. As much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain was reported earlier from Claudette along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Flash flood watches were posted Sunday for eastern Georgia, the southern two-thirds of South Carolina and the North Carolina coast. A tropical storm warning was in effect in North Carolina from the Little River Inlet to the town of Duck on the Outer Banks. A tropical storm watch was issued from South Santee River, South Carolina, to the Little River Inlet, forecasters said. WBRC-TV reported that search efforts were also under way for a man believed to have fallen into the water during flash flooding in Birmingham. Crews were using boats to search Pebble Creek. Garlock said the location of the multi-vehicle wreck is “notorious” for hydroplaning, as the northbound highway curves down a hill to a small creek. Traffic on that stretch of I-65 is usually filled with vacationers driving to and from Gulf of Mexico beaches on summer weekends. Read:Driver crashes into crowd at Pride parade in Florida; 1 dead “Butler County has had one of the most terrible traffic accidents,” county Sheriff Danny Bond wrote on Facebook. The Tallapoosa County school system said counselors would be available Sunday at the 225-student Reeltown High School, where some of the ranch residents were students. Smith said the ranch, which is Christian-based, would likely have a memorial service later, asking for prayers as he began to cry. A GoFundMe account was set up for Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch to help offset the costs of funeral expenses, medical costs for the injured and counseling for those impacted. Gulley had worked with children for years, beginning when she and her husband were house parents at the ranch for seven years. “During those years, there have been 74 girls that have come through our house and called us mom and dad,” she told the Opelika-Auburn News in August 2019. She said she then became a relief parent, working on fundraising and being involved in the community, before she became the ranch director. “My heart goes out to the loved ones of all who perished,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. Claudette was beginning to re-strengthen late Sunday, with the National Hurricane Center reporting top winds at 35 mph (55 kph) in a nighttime advisory. The depression was expected to return to tropical storm status Monday over eastern North Carolina before heading out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean. The center of Claudette’s disorganized circulation was located about 65 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Columbia, South Carolina. It was moving east-northeast at 20 mph (31 kph), the National Hurricane Center said. Aside from rainy weather, it seemed to be business as usual along North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Sunday. At Ace Hardware in Avon, shift manager David Swartwood said they were preparing for whatever might come, but the overall sense was that it wouldn’t be that bad in that area. He said winds from the south don’t usually cause huge flooding problems, so “we don’t really anticipate any bad scenarios.” “Everybody here has been through it many, many times, so we’re used to the drill,” he said. “We’ve been prepared.” Read:Fierce Capitol attacks on police in newly released videos For the hardware store, he said, that means having supplies like flashlights, batteries, tarps, generators, ropes and sandbags on hand. As of Sunday morning, there wasn’t a huge rush. At Stack ’em High in Kill Devil Hills, a restaurant that specializes in pancakes, co-owner Dawn Kiousis said Sunday morning restaurant service was busy. “We’re serving just like normal,” she said. “You keep your eye on the weather and you prepare as much stuff in advance as you can,” she said. “Just know she’s gonna win. Mother Nature is going to do what she’s going to do, so you just prepare.”

Liza Scott, 7, started a lemonade stand at her mom’s bakery last summer so she could buy some frills like toys and sequined high-heel shoes. The bouncy little girl is still in business months later, yet the money is going toward something entirely different: surgery on her brain.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey fractured her shoulder after being tripped by the state's "first dog," her office said Wednesday.

At least eight people were killed early Monday in an explosive fire that consumed dozens of vessels docked at a marina along the Tennessee River in northern Alabama.

The  U.S. Supreme Court decided a citizenship question won't be on this spring's census form, but that doesn't mean the fight over it has ended in courtrooms across the country.