Glenn Stephens

Doug Jones Says Trump’s ‘Racist Language’ Divides the Nation

President Donald Trump used “racist language” that is further dividing Americans when he suggested four women in Congress could leave the country if they don’t like it, U.S. Sen. Doug Jones said Thursday.  “To use racist language, and it was that -- I’m not calling the president a racist, but he used racist language to do this -- this is the same kind of dog whistle politics that we have seen before,” Jones said during a conference phone call with reporters. “But folks, we have to resist the pull of the forces that are trying to divide us,” Jones said. “We need to come together as one America and work together to live up to the lofty ideals our country was founded on. Attacking the patriotism of other Americans using hateful rhetoric and dog whistle messages doesn’t get us any closer to achieving those unifying principles.” Read more.

by Michelle Love

Energy Storage Research Center Opens in Birmingham

Energy officials from around the country gathered Tuesday on the campus of Southern Research (SR), a Birmingham nonprofit specializing in science and technology, to celebrate the opening of the state’s first Energy Storage Research Center. In his opening remarks, Corey Tyree, SR’s senior director of energy and environment, told the crowd of company executives, engineers and scientists that the center represents a new era. “For 100 years in the electricity industry, the model was basically ‘make, move, sell electricity,’” Tyree said. “With the advent of energy storage, you can ‘make, move, hold, then sell electricity.’ Seems like not a big deal. It’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal.” Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM 90.3

Avondale Elementary Climate Frustrates Parents and Teachers

The Birmingham Board of Education has some hiring to do, particularly at one elementary school. Thirty percent of the educators at Avondale Elementary from last year will not be returning. Teachers and parents say the environment at the school was chaotic last year, and they worry about safety and communication. It’s also leading some parents to consider other education options for their children. Morgan Richardson was president of the Avondale PTA, but this year, she says her children will attend private school. She says she is an advocate for public education, but she has concerns about Avondale. Read more.

by Sherrel Stewart, WBHM 90.3

DC BLOX Sponsors a $10,000 Computer Lab at Memorial Park Rec Center in Titusville Community

When Sheila Tyson asked DC BLOX CEO Jeff Uphues what his company could do for the Titusville Neighborhood it was joining, he offered a fun day in the neighboring park. Tyson, the Jefferson County commissioner in whose district the company sits, had other ideas. “We want you to invest in our children’s education,” she said. As DC BLOX held the grand opening of its data center on Thursday, Uphues talked about a $10,000 investment in a computer lab just across Sixth Street at Memorial Park Recreation Center. He said the lab is set for use by the entire community. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Jeffco District Attorney’s Office Looking to Speed Up Work on Untested Sexual Assault Kits

The Jefferson County district attorney’s office is looking to ramp up its efforts to deal with the county’s massive backlog of untested sexual assault kits. A pending expansion to a 2016 federal grant would allow the office to increase the rate at which old kits are tested — and would allow for the appointment of a new prosecutor who would focus on those backlogged cases. The office originally received a federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant in 2016. An inventory that was finished in September 2017 found that 3,876 sexual assault kits — which law enforcement use to collect DNA evidence after a sexual assault — had not been submitted for testing. Since then, 275 kits have been sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for testing, at a rate of 25 per month. But a new expansion to the county’s grant would allow the county to double that rate, sending 50 kits per month to the state lab for testing. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Jefferson County Commission Approves Funding for New Bus Routes

Lashunda Scales said she finally got what she wanted today when the Jefferson County Commission agreed to supply additional funding for new bus routes without trimming support of those routes in fiscal 2020. The commission today added $9,207 to the previously approved $100,000 to expand bus service into Fairfield, Brighton, Lipscomb, Adamsville and Forestdale for three months, through September. Commissioners had talked earlier about cutting transit funding for those areas in half during the next fiscal year. But they opted today to delay action on funding in the new year. Commissioner Jimmie Stephens said he believes the $109,207 the commission has approved will fund the new routes into the coming calendar year, perhaps through February. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Investigative Reporting Must Overcome Obstacles From Without and Within

This week’s child sex trafficking charges against wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein are a testament to the impact of investigative reporting, in this case by determined journalists from The Miami Herald, who dug through documents, tracked down victims and told a story not only of horrendous crimes but also of enablers and leniency from the court system. It wasn’t easy. Investigative journalism never is. And alarmingly, it’s getting harder to do. Uncovering malfeasance is becoming more difficult for multiple reasons. Start with rising government restrictions on access to information (laws and court rulings), non-compliance with open-records statutes, and threats of costly lawsuits by news subjects. Further, the boffo investigations by major national outlets are not being replicated to the same extent at the local and regional levels. The well-documented shrinkage of newsrooms across the U.S. has taken a big bite out of community watchdog journalism, reflected not only in fewer staff to do the job but also in newsroom priorities. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

FBI Records Could Have Solved A Civil Rights Cold Case. Now It’s Too Late

The murder of the Rev. James Reeb was unsolved for more than 50 years. Then last month, using the FBI’s case file, NPR identified a man who had participated in the attack on Reeb but was never arrested or charged. William Portwood died less than two weeks after reporters Andrew Beck Grace and Chip Brantley confirmed his involvement. At 87, Portwood was the last living person who could have been held to account for Reeb’s murder. Now, Alabama officials who might have pursued prosecution tell NPR that if the FBI had shared its case file with them, they would have investigated Reeb’s murder years earlier. It’s impossible to say whether state and local officials would have been able to close the case. The Boston minister was killed during the 1965 voting rights campaign in Selma, Ala., and three men were tried for and acquitted of the crime. And the FBI has failed to solve Reeb’s murder twice: once in 1965, and a second time in 2008, when it reopened the case as part of its Cold Case Initiative. Read more.

by CAT SCHUKNECHT, NPR

Neighborhoods Want Trust Fund Set Up From Proposed ABC Coke’s Benzene Pollution Case

The North Birmingham community made clear this week that it wants money from an ABC Coke pollution penalty to be used to create a trust fund to benefit residents in the surrounding area.   The Jefferson County Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would each get half of the proposed $775,000 fine, or $387,500 each, for the agreement that the Drummond Company facility mismanaged the carcinogenic chemical benzene in its byproduct recovery facilities. State Rep. Mary Moore, other community members and the clean-air nonprofit group Gasp said during a news conference Monday that the health board should set up a trust fund for its share of the settlement, with community membership included on an oversight board. Read more.

by Hank Black

Jeffco Commissioner Says Cities Must Contribute to Have Transit Service

Commissioner Joe Knight put cities who are getting bus service courtesy of Jefferson County on notice today that they eventually will need to contribute if they are to have transit service. Commissioners heard a proposed resolution to increase the requested $100,000 for new or increased services to some areas to $109,207. Knight said somebody’s going to be short next year and expect the county to ante up again. “We’re going to be the bad guys,” he said during today’s committee meeting. “That County Commission cut your bus service off. That’s what’s going to happen if we don’t get those cities engaged and take care of their citizens.” Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.