News Minute: Here is the latest Alabama news from The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The board of the Alabama Public Historical Sites and Parks Improvement Corporation has authorized $1.2 million in bond money for a landmark voting rights center in the capitol city. A new facility at Alabama State University is to become home to the last stop on the route memorialized as the Voting Rights Trail.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama's chief justice expects to lay off 150 employees after the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1 unless the court system gets more money than the Legislature appropriated. Chief Justice Roy Moore says he's grateful for the money approved by lawmakers but he's $8.5 million short of what's needed to maintain current staff.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - State health officials say a mysterious respiratory illness has left five people hospitalized and two dead in southeast Alabama. Public Health spokeswoman Mary McIntyre says seven people have been admitted to hospitals with a fever, cough and shortness of breath and two have died.

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - Dozens of Indian guest workers are suing an Alabama-based marine and fabrication company, claiming it financially exploited them and forced them to live in squalid conditions when they were bourhg to work at Gulf Coast shipyards after Hurricane Katrina. A lawyer for Signal International says she hadn't seen the lawsuits and declined to comment on their allegations.

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