1. Progress on New NAFTA.

• Congressional Democrats appear to be moving from “no way” to “maybe” on President Donald Trump’s rewrite of a trade pact with Canada and Mexico.
• House Democrats have met four times with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, most recently on Friday, and both sides say they are making progress toward a deal that would clear the way for Congress to approve Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
• Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who heads a House subcommittee on trade, declared a couple of months ago that there was “no way” Democrats and the administration could bridge their differences. Lately, he’s reconsidered. “In the course of the last two months, we have seen significant progress,” Blumenauer said.
• Supporters of USMCA are pushing for a deal before the 2020 election campaign heats up, which could make it harder for Democrats and Republicans to compromise.
• A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said there was growing optimism within the administration about USMCA’s prospects amid signs that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was willing to work toward a compromise.
• “The smart money in Washington is that USMCA will pass this fall following a bargain,” said Daniel Ujczo, a lawyer with Dickinson Wright in Columbus, Ohio, who specializes in North American trade. “However, it is just as likely that we will be in a ‘bump and blame’ scenario where the president can blame Speaker Pelosi and Speaker Pelosi can blame the president.”
• Full story HERE.

 

 

2. ADEM head defends agency, rips media.

 

• The head of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management is defending himself and his agency from recent media criticism over contamination incidents.
• “Normally I don’t respond to items about me appearing in the media because media has no accountability, does not offer a comparable forum for responding, and rarely sets the record straight,” Lance LeFleur wrote in a five-page letter that was sent to his commission and Gov. Kay Ivey.
• LeFleur iss reacting in particular to pieces by two columnists at al.com and defending ADEM’s responses to incidents around the state, including 3M’s release of chemicals into the Tennessee River in Decatur.
• “The EPA is the agency responsible for the reporting, record-keeping, testing and restrictions of potentially hazardous chemical substances under the Toxic Substances Control Act,” he wrote. “(The EPA) does not delegate its TSC authority to any state nor is TSCA information shared with the states.”
• In an interview Monday, LeFleur told Alabama Daily News that some of the very news media complaining about a lack of transparency from ADEM received the information for their reporting from the agency’s website.
• About 3M, LeFleur reiterated to ADN that the EPA hasn’t determined if the chemicals released are toxic. He also said the ADEM has “absolutely” done its job.
• “(But) ‘plane lands safely after uneventful trip’ doesn’t make a headline,” LeFleur said.
• We’re not quoting all of it, but his five page letter is really quite something.
• ADN’s Mary Sell has the full story with a link to the letter HERE.

 

 

3. There she is…

 

• Ms. Ann Trucks is this year’s Ms. Alabama Nursing Home. She was crowned by Miss Alabama 2019, Tiara Pennignton, who also co-hosted the pageant at the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover on Monday.
• Trucks won out of a group of ten finalists that were evaluated on their outlook on life, personality, poise and involvement in their individual nursing homes.
• Trucks is a resident of Woodland Village Rehab & Healthcare Center in Cullman. She is 76 years old and serves as a resident activity volunteer, which involves setting up activities and assisting other residents in participating.
• “It’s important to let people know that nursing homes are a second home,” Trucks said after being crowned. “If you go into it smiling, you’re going to get so much out of it. I am so thankful God placed me where he did.”
• She was married for 56 years and has three children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
• As part of her duties as Ms. Alabama Nursing Home, Trucks will travel to various nursing homes and community events to share her experiences.
• Trucks now will serve as a spokesperson for nursing home residents and the Alabama Nursing Home Association.
• Read more from Caroline Beck and watch footage from the event HERE.

 

4. Matthew Stokes: Talking honestly about race.

• Matthew Stokes is back this week and he’s talking about the subject de jour in America: race.
• For those of us addicted to Twitter, it’s hard to escape the constant shouts about racism from here or there, and we have a president that stokes those fires almost daily.
• Stokes argues that, however tough the issue might be to talk about, it doesn’t have to be that decisive if we practice basic human decency.
• Here’s an excerpt:

• Read the full column HERE.

 

5. AP News Briefs.

• An Alabama university is demolishing a classroom building that was severely damaged by a tornado last year.
• Jacksonville State University held a ceremony Monday to mark the beginning of the end of Merrill Hall. The business school building was damaged so badly in the 2018 twister it couldn’t be repaired.
• Demolition is supposed to take about three months. The university plans to replace the nearly 50-year-old building with a new business building that should be complete in 2021.
• An EF-3 tornado ripped through the northeast Alabama campus on March 19, 2018. About two-thirds of the university’s buildings were damaged.
• Classes from Merrill Hall were moved into a vacant elementary school that was no longer being used.

• The U.S. Coast Guard says it has found four people who were stranded when their boat’s battery died off the coast of Alabama.
• An agency statement says the four left Orange Beach on Sunday morning to go fishing, but no one had heard from them hours later. It says they were reported missing that night and authorities found the boaters the next day.
• A Coast Guard crew from Mobile found the vessel, and the Coast Guard towed the boat and its uninjured passengers to shore.
• The Coast Guard identified the rescued boaters as Hunter Mccutcheon, Butch Mccutcheon, Cary Miller and Brent Baker. No other information about the four was immediately released.

• An Alabama county is shutting down its work-release programs for prisoners because of money problems.
• The Daily Mountain Eagle of Jasper reports that a local community corrections board voted last week to end the program in Walker County.
• Work release allows inmates to live in a corrections facility while working in jobs outside of prison to make money. Prisoners help fund the center with their earnings.
• But District Judge Greg Williams says the system wasn’t working in Walker County since fewer than 10 people were in the program. He says it didn’t make sense to keep the center open since the court system was using it less often.
• Williams says the county will continue other community corrections programs.

• Authorities have arrested a man on charges of murder and boating under the influence following a Fourth of July boating collision on an Alabama lake that killed two people.
• Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Marine Patrol troopers on Monday announced the arrest of 41-year-old Damien Bruno of Clanton.
• Authorities said two boats collided after dark on that holiday at Lake Jordan, a reservoir north of Montgomery. Killed in the crash were 26-year-old Devin Clay Jackson and 17-year-old Travis Lee House.
• Authorities say Bruno is being charged with two counts of murder, one count of assault in the first degree, one count of assault in the second degree and boating under the influence of alcohol.
• It was unclear if Bruno has an attorney who could comment for him.

• Alabama has filed a federal court claim to ownership of the wreckage of the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the U.S., a move the archaeologist who helped find the ship says will bolster protection of the site.
• The so-called admiralty claim presented by Alabama in federal court asks a judge to declare the state the true owner of the Clotilda, which was discovered earlier this year in state waters. The claim, which was filed Friday, also seeks to ensure that the Alabama Historical Commission has the exclusive right to the site.
• The historical commission said in a statement that the action is an attempt to prevent salvagers from disturbing the ship or taking artifacts from it.
• that the state is taking appropriate action and called the court step “another tool in the historic preservation toolbox.”
• “This wreck is nationally important, for the events that took place on it and for its association with the very long and terrible trade in human lives,” James Delgado, a maritime archaeologist who helped lead the team that found and verified the wreck as that of the Clotilda, said Monday.
• Full story HERE.

 

 

 

Headlines.

 

 

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