1. Shelby secures key port provision, funding

 

2. Birmingham Beltline work to continue

 

3. Agencies spar over parolee training program

• Those leading the state’s community colleges and the pardons and paroles bureau don’t seem to see eye to eye on the future of an inmate job training center. And the two recently met with the governor’s office to sort it all out.
• LifeTech, a job-training center for people recently paroled from state prisons, is in a “phase of uncertainty,” Alabama Community College System Chancellor Jimmy Baker said recently.
• Subscribers to Inside Alabama Politics first saw this story on Monday.
• At an ACCS board meeting last week, Baker said leadership at Pardons and Paroles is reconsidering its involvement with the facility.
• “Without any consultation on the part of Pardons and Parole, with either us or (the Alabama Department of Corrections) — I’m not even sure they consulted with the Governor’s Office — Pardons and Parole leadership made the decision that (operating LifeTech) was not something they were suppose to be doing,” Baker told the board.
• The ACCS oversees the educational aspect of the site and provides instructors.
• Pardons and Paroles spokesman Terry Abbott told ADN that when agency executive director Charlie Graddick, a former district judge and Alabama Attorney General, met with a group of stakeholders about LifeTech, he did express serious concern that Pardons and Paroles may not be authorized under state law to operate it.
• “We will continue to explore that issue and others as we all work together to determine the best way for the state to properly operate such a facility,” Abbott said.
• Read the full story from ADN’s Mary Sell and Caroline Beck HERE.

 

4. New trade deal passes House

• A new trade deal with Canada and Mexico is now all but sealed, after the U.S. House of Representatives gave passage to the plan Thursday.
• The renegotiated trade agreement replaces the 90s era NATFA that grew unpopular over the years. Trump made replacing NAFTA and other trade deals a centerpiece of his campaign for president in 2016.
• The vote was overwhelming and bipartisan, passing 385-41. Each member of Alabama’s congressional delegation voted in favor of the bill and many spoke effusively of its potential positive impact on Alabama’s economy.
• Of particular importance to Alabama are provisions that seek to improve production and trade rules for agriculture and new regulations that could benefit the automotive industry.
• Read more about the bill HERE.

 

 

5. Impeachment trial plans in disarray

• Congress has headed home for the holidays leaving plans and a possible timeline for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in disarray.
• Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Thursday that Senate Republicans must provide details on witnesses and testimony before she would send over the charges for Trump’s trial. No deal, replied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after meeting with his Senate Democratic counterpart.
• “We remain at an impasse,” he said.
• McConnell and the Democrats’ Senate leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, met for about 20 minutes in their first attempt to negotiate the contours of an agreement on running the rare Senate impeachment trial that was expected to start in January.
• McConnell favors a swift trial, without the new witnesses Democrats want, and he holds a clear tactical advantage if he can keep his 53-member Senate majority united. Schumer, who also met privately with Pelosi, has to bet that GOP senators won’t hold the line and Republicans will peel away as public pressure mounts for a fuller trial.
• Public opinion could also backfire on Democrats, with Pelosi and Co. getting blamed for dragging out the process for political purposes.
• The “X Factor” here is Trump himself. If he lets it all get to him and lashes out – like he did against Rep. Debbie Dingle and her late husband the night of impeachment – that could hurt his approval numbers and make negotiations more difficult for Republicans.
• Read more HERE.

 

AP News Briefs

Man pleads not guilty in shooting death of officer

• MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A 20-year-old man pleaded not guilty to charges including capital murder in the death of an Alabama police officer.
• Marco Perez entered the pleas Wednesday after being denied youthful offender status in the case, news outlets report. Perez was 19 years old when Mobile police Officer Sean Tuder was shot and killed outside a hotel in January.
• Authorities have said Perez shot the 30-year-old Tuder in the hotel’s parking lot with a gun stolen from an unlocked car. The state has argued Perez was previously granted youthful offender status for previous charges of burglary and breaking and entering into vehicles.
• Perez’s attorney, Dennis Knizley, said his client deserved youthful offender status because surveillance video showed him backing away from the officer and surrendering. He said Tuder was undercover at the time and didn’t reveal himself to be a police officer, leading his client to believe his life was in danger. There’s no body camera video of the shooting, according to WKRG-TV.
• Perez is scheduled to appear in court in January 2020. State prosecutors have filed court documents saying they intend to seek the death penalty in the case.

Man pleads guilty in boat crash that killed 2 in Alabama

• WETUMPKA, Ala. (AP) — A man pleaded guilty to reckless murder on Thursday in a boat crash that killed two people on a central Alabama lake on July 4.
• The Montgomery Advertiser reported that Damion Bruno, 41, of Clanton, entered the plea in Elmore County, where he was charged in a crash that killed a man and a teenager on Lake Jordan on Independence Day.
• Court records show he was over the state’s legal limit for intoxication after the crash. The state recommended a prison term of 30 years on two counts of reckless murder, but no sentencing date was set.
• Bruno was driving a boat that collided with another boat that was carrying Devin Clay Jackson, 26, of Deatsville and Travis Lee House, 17, of Marbury, who died in the crash. Five other people were injured in the crash, which happened after a fireworks show.
• “It was a very crowded night on Lake Jordan, maybe the most crowded night of the year,” said Assistant District Attorney Mandy Johnson.
• Bruno, who has been in jail since shortly after the crash, did not comment when offered a chance by District Judge Glenn Goggans.
• The crash was among a dozen boating collisions that occurred over the Independence Day holiday that resulted in six deaths, Marine Police figures show.

US marshals arrest man wanted in Georgia slaying

• PHENIX CITY, Ala. (AP) — U.S. marshals have arrested an Alabama man accused of fatally shooting a woman after being robbed by her boyfriend at a Georgia gas station.
• News outlets report Tierre Tyrell Williams was arrested Wednesday night in Phenix City, Alabama, on charges including murder and aggravated assault.
• LaGrange, Georgia, police said Da’Jai Green, 22, and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Deangelo Finley, stopped at an area gas station on Sunday and got into an argument with Williams.
• “The two of them had some sort of a grudge over a sale and a belief that there had been some kind of scam involved, and they just happened to run into each other,” LaGrange police Chief Lou Dekmar said Thursday, according to the LaGrange Daily News.
• Finley then snatched Williams’ necklace, got into the car with Green and tried to flee, but Williams opened fire, fatally striking Green, according to police.
• Finley was later arrested and jailed on a robbery charge.
• Williams previously was sought by Columbus police on burglary charges. The department posted his mugshot on Facebook and identified him as a suspect in commercial burglaries in Columbus and Alabama, and Williams responded to the post with his phone number.
• He told authorities that he wasn’t avoiding them, they just hadn’t told him about the case. The department publicly disputed that in another post and challenged him to surrender. Authorities said that he never did surrender, despite promising to do so.
• A man claiming to be Williams told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer earlier on Wednesday that he planned to surrender to authorities in Columbus on Thursday.
• It’s unclear if Williams has a lawyer in either case.

Trust buys land to protect fish near north Alabama car plant

• HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A state trust is purchasing a nearly 500-acre tract in north Alabama for $10 million to protect the habitat of a tiny fish that had endangered work on a $1.6 billion car plant.
• The Forever Wild Land Trust bought land where the rare spring pygmy sunfish lives near the Mazda Toyota plant being built in Limestone County, news outlets reported.
• The fish is listed as a federally threatened species and is known to exist in only two locations in Alabama, including the Beaverdam Spring area near the factory.
• The Center for Biological Diversity and Tennessee Riverkeeper had threatened to sue to protect the sunfish and its habitat before reaching a deal to protect the fish a year ago. The land purchase was part of that agreement.
• The car factory is projected to begin production in 2021 with as many as 4,000 employees.

Photo of couple killed in tornado found day after storm

• ARDMORE, Ala. (AP) — A photo of a couple who died in a tornado in Alabama was found on a farm roughly 40 miles (64 kilometers) away.
• Kent and Sherry Dutton, of Ardmore, found the photo of Justin and Keisha Godsey on Tuesday morning, news outlets reported. The Godseys were pronounced dead after a tornado ripped through their Town Creek home Monday.
• The photo was found on farmland, the Duttons told news outlets. They said they’ve been in contact with members of the couple’s family to return the photo.
• The couple’s elementary-school-aged son was hospitalized after the tornado.
• Read/watch more from WAFF HERE.

After ‘flash drought,’ only sliver of Southeast too dry

• BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A drought that threatened crops and helped spark wildfires in the Southeast has receded across most of the region, according to a federal report released Thursday.
• A new assessment from the National Drought Mitigation Center showed only tiny portions of Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina were still too dry after weeks of regular rainfall.
• But conditions are worse in Georgia and Louisiana, where about 1.4 million people are still experiencing drought conditions, including part of the heavily populated greater Atlanta area. Northern Florida and southwestern Georgia also are in a moderate drought.
• Heavy rains predicted in the region for this weekend could break records and help further alleviate remaining drought conditions, forecasters said. Southern portions of Alabama and Georgia could receive as much as 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain by Christmas Eve, projections showed, and isolated areas could get even more.
• A fast-developing “flash drought” choked the region earlier this fall, drying out crops and creating conditions that caused wildfires. At one point, nearly 56 million people in 16 Southern states were living in drought conditions.
• Drought conditions are worse in southern Texas, the West and the Pacific Northwest.

 

 

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