Tommy Tuberville, in Washington this week as he campaigns for Alabama’s U.S. Senate election, ignored the city’s orders for people visiting from states with COVID-19 outbreaks to quarantine, The Washington Post reported. Read more.
WBHM — For teachers and students preparing to enter the classroom next month, masks will now be required for anyone in second grade and above. Governor Kay Ivey issued the new mandate Wednesday as an amendment to the statewide mask ordinance and Safer at Home order. The orders, originally set to expire Friday, have been extended through Aug. 31. Read more.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute will receive $250,000 in emergency funding from the city of Birmingham to continue operating for the next four months. But councilors warned that BCRI needs to find more sources of money, particularly since the city has lost significant revenue during the pandemic. Read more.
The Birmingham City Council may soon start making new appointments to city boards and agencies before incumbents’ terms are up, thanks to a newfound power several councilors appear eager to use. The council previously had waited until after board members’ terms had expired to appoint their successor. In fact, several councilors, including Council President William Parker and District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt, appeared to believe that was the law, only discovering that it wasn’t when Parker attempted to delay two mayoral appointments to the Birmingham Airport Authority. Read more.
Voterama in Congress KEY VOTES AHEAD: The House will take up fiscal 2021 spending bills in the week of July 27, while the Senate will vote on judicial nominations. Both chambers are expected to start work on a coronavirus-relief package. WASHINGTON — Alabama’s representatives in the U.S. House split along party lines on a vote last week to remove from the Capitol building a bust of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the Dred Scott vs. Sandford ruling in 1857 that Blacks could not be citizens of the United States or sue in federal courts. Under the bill, the Taney bust on the Senate side of the Capitol would be replaced with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice. The House on July 22 voted 305 for and 113 against to pass HR 7573 and send it to the Senate. Read more.
UPDATED — Responding to the coronavirus, the Alabama Department of Corrections suspended its work release program in mid-March, and figures for May show how that decision has led to a drastic drop in inmate earnings, the amount of restitution that work release inmates pay to their victims, and the amount of inmate earnings that goes to corrections itself. Payments to victims were cut by almost $100,000 in May, which includes some time before the program was suspended, compared to February. Money to corrections was cut more than $700,000, and $534,000 less was deposited to inmates’ accounts. Read more.
In a report released Thursday, U.S. justice officials said men confined to Alabama’s prisons are subject to excessive force at the hands of correctional officers. They said the issue is pervasive and systemic and likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In the 30-page document, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the three U.S. Attorney’s Offices for Alabama said prison staff regularly use batons, chemical spray and physical attacks to improperly and unjustly punish inmates. They said the excessive force can result in serious injury or death, citing two men who died in 2019 at the hands of correctional officers. Autopsies found both men were beaten so badly, they were left with intracranial bleeding and multiple head and body fractures. Read more.
Before Tuesday’s Jefferson County Commission committee meeting, Joe Knight asked fellow commissioner Steve Ammons how he felt. When Ammons, who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said he felt fine, Knight quipped, “You don’t look very good.” Today, as Ammons again watched the commission meeting in Bessemer online from home, Knight appealed to everyone to wear a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. Read more.
A plan to build a FedEx Ground distribution facility on Lakeshore Parkway was unveiled at the Jefferson County Commission committee meeting Tuesday. The plan, previously known as Project Fish, is for an approximately 290,000-square-foot distribution facility that will be constructed on a 46.01-acre site off Lakeshore Parkway. Bradley attorney Trey Hill said that about 70% of the site is in the corporate limits of the city of Birmingham and 30% in the city of Bessemer. Read more.
Despite delays in the city’s overall operating budget, the Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to fund the Birmingham-Jefferson Country Transit Authority through the end of 2020. The city will pay the BJCTA $5 million dollars, divided into two quarterly installments of $2.5 million, “to make sure there’s no disruption in service at all” as the city enters for its months-long budget negotiations, Mayor Randall Woodfin said. Councilor Steven Hoyt protested, saying the move was tantamount to cutting BJCTA funding in half, even as other councilors said the allocation was for only part of the year, and the BJCTA also would be included in the final budget when it is passed. Read more.
