Virginia Martin

Absentee Count Can Start Election Morning, Judge Allows Curbside Voting and Waives ID Requirements for Absentees

The governor and a federal court made changes Wednesday that could affect the election process on Nov. 3. The governor issued an order allowing election officials to begin counting absentee ballots at the same time the polls open, at 7 a.m. on election day. Secretary of State John Merrill welcomed the move to ease the counting of an unusually large number of absentee ballots. The state was not as welcoming of another development on the voting front. A federal court judge also Wednesday issued a ruling that lightens absentee voting requirements for older and infirm Alabamians and allows counties to offer curbside voting if they chose to do so. Attorney general Steve Marshall said he would appeal that ruling. Read more. It’s Oct. 1, Do You Know Where Your Absentee Ballot Is? You can see where your absentee ballot is in the process, as well as finding your polling place and registration status. For more absentee ballot information, read BirminghamWatch’s earlier story: Absentee Ballot Season Gets Underway

by Virginia Martin

The First Presidential Debate: What They’re Saying

Trump Plunges Debate Into Chaos as He Repeatedly Talks Over Biden (The Guardian) Fact-Checking the First 2020 Presidential Debate (New York Times) First Trump-Biden Debate Full of Fiery Exchanges, Insults as They Spar on SCOTUS, COVID and More (Fox News) Trump Incessantly Interrupts and Insults Biden as They Spar in Acrimonious First Debate (Washington Post) Trump Mayhem Takes Over First Debate (Politico) Biden, Trump Clash at Vicious, Ugly Debate (The Hill) Fact-Checking the First Presidential Debate (CNN) The Presidential Forecast (FiveThirtyEight)

by Virginia Martin

Birmingham Passes “Phantom” Budget, Unchanged From Woodfin’s Proposal

The discussion appeared to be over before Tuesday’s Birmingham City Council meeting had even begun. Council members had disinterestedly trickled out of the afternoon’s budget workshop until only a voting minority of the nine-member council remained: Councilors Valerie Abbott, Steven Hoyt, Clinton Woods and Crystal Smitherman. The remainder of the council, led by President William Parker, voted down Smitherman’s proposed amendments to the budget. They opted instead to approve it as proposed by Mayor Randall Woodfin, with Abbott joining them in that vote. The budget has been controversial since Woodfin announced it last month. With the city facing a $63 million shortfall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Woodfin made several significant cuts to its operating budget. He defended some of his cuts, such as those to the Birmingham school board and the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority, arguing that those organizations would make up the loss via other funding sources. Other departments, including the library and parks and recreation, were given budget cuts that led to hundreds of full- and part-time city employees being furloughed. Unchanged, Woodfin told residents, was his administration’s commitment to neighborhood revitalization, which had been one of the central promises of his campaign. His proposed budget continued to allocate $10 million for street paving, $1.5 million for dilapidated structure demolition and $1.25 million for weed abatement. His new Birmingham Promise Educational Initiative also continued to receive its $2 million. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Local Health Officials Worry CDC Has ‘Lost Its Soul’

As Dr. Mark Wilson prepared to release advice in July that middle schools and high schools in Birmingham should not open for in-person learning this fall, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its position and issued the opposite recommendation. Wilson, health officer for Jefferson County, stuck to his at-home schooling decision, but now without support from what had long been regarded as the nation’s most esteemed public health authority. Not only that, he said some of the vexed parents even cited the CDC in attacking his stand. It felt like the limb he was out on had been sawed off at the trunk. “That guidance gave me one of the worst weeks of my life,” Wilson recalled in an interview with Stateline. The agency’s revised advice came on the heels of President Donald Trump’s vigorous call for a full, face-to-face school reopening. But it conflicted with what Wilson and other public health officials knew were disturbing results from a credible South Korean study, which, contrary to popular belief, found that older children were a greater risk for transmitting the virus than younger children. That made reopening middle and high schools more problematic. Since the pandemic began, a string of messages from the Trump administration, many lacking scientific evidence, have confounded the work of state and local public health authorities who have the already challenging job of convincing people to abide by restrictions that many find not only onerous but also economically punishing. Read more.

by Christine Vestal and Michael Ollove, Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts

House OK’s Funding to Avoid Government Shutdown, Bill Goes to Senate

Voterama in Congress WASHINGTON — Most of Alabama’s House delegation voted in favor of a bill to fund the government on a stopgap basis for the first 10 weeks of fiscal 2021, which begins Oct. 1. The House approved the bill (HR 8337) in a 359-57 vote on Sept. 22, and it is expected to be taken up by the Senate this week. The continuing resolution became necessary because Congress did not pass regular appropriations bills for the new budget year. The measure will fund agencies at 2020 spending levels through Dec. 11. Read more.

by Voterama in Congress

COVID Case Count Tops 150,000

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Alabama eclipsed the 150,000 mark on Friday, and the number of deaths approached the 2,500 level, according to the state Department of Public Health. The agency added 798 confirmed cases and 1,654 probable cases to its dashboard Friday, pushing its totals to 134,231 confirmed cases and 16,427 probable cases. The total since the pandemic began in March is 150,658 overall. There were eight new deaths Friday, increasing deaths to 2,357 confirmed and 134 probable for a total of 2,491. Read more.

by BirminghamWatch

Alabama’s COVID-19 New Case Averages Mixed, Death Reports Turning Upward

After several weeks of Alabama COVID-19 numbers moving in a positive direction, the data is starting to level off or take a slight turn for the worse. In BirminghamWatch’s weekly analysis of data reported by the Alabama Department of Public Health, the 7-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases for the period ending Wednesday is 704.14 per day, down by two cases per day from a week ago. The longer-term 14-day average has risen to 705.14; that’s an increase of just more than the average 40 cases per day posted seven days ago. The percentage increase in the number of new positives rose by an average of 0.54% per day over the past seven days, with the average wavering little from that level for three straight weeks. Read more.

by Robert Carter

CDC Statements Stoke Confusion Over How the Coronavirus Spreads

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday released an updated statement on the spread of coronavirus in the air, then three days later removed that statement from its website, saying it had not been approved for posting. There are debates about why the statement was issued and revoked, but it’s clear that the stumble has added to the confusion among the public about how the virus spreads. Dr. Wesley Willeford, medical director for disease control at the Jefferson County Department of Health, said that does not change the precautions people should be taking. Wearing a mask whenever in public and keeping a social distance of at least six feet is still the best advice health officials can give people to avoid contracting the disease, he said. Read more.

by Michelle Love

Jones Says Supreme Court Nomination Is ‘a Political Power Play.’ Tuberville Says Go Ahead With Vote.

Debate over the future of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat is the latest political clash. The divide is reflected in Alabama too.

by Andrew Yeager, WBHM

Tyson Will Be Nominated to the UAB Healthcare Authority

A year after she was passed over for a slot on the board of the UAB Healthcare Authority, Commissioner Sheila Tyson has been put on the path to being the commission’s nominee to the board. It is, she said, about time. “They know that they should (have) appointed me from the very beginning,” Tyson said after today’s commission committee meeting. “I think that they were scared that I was going to shake the trees, what they call ‘shake the bush.’ That's what they were afraid of but I'm only one vote. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.