Presented by

The Business Council of Alabama

1. Could the state tax coronavirus relief funds? Yes, but lawmakers want to change that.

 

2. Powerful Southern leagues aim to forge on with fall football

• Folks in the South aren’t giving up on their beloved fall tradition of college football just yet.
• While other conferences have conceded the fall to COVID-19, the Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 are holding out hope they can play a shortened season with uncertain national championship prospects.
• From Oklahoma to Alabama to South Carolina, a number of states don’t have NFL teams and college football is king. Weddings and other events are planned around game days and states practically stand still for showdowns like Alabama-Auburn and Oklahoma-Texas.
• The Pac-12, Big Ten and some lower-profile leagues won’t play football this fall because of the pandemic. ACC teams? They are already practicing in preparation for a Sept. 12 start and the SEC and Big 12 are going ahead, too, with conference openers set for Sept. 26.
• Still, powerhouse Alabama and other SEC teams head into Monday’s practices knowing college football is still on for them, but not guaranteed.
• “That’s the only mood I feel like is going around is we don’t know if we’re playing and we really want to play,'” Alabama tailback Najee Harris said Friday. He then talked about his younger teammates.
• “We try to tell them don’t go to parties, but like it’s kind of hard to tell somebody not to go to a party in college,” he said. “We understand it, but we’re kind of just telling them, ‘If you do go to a party, like make sure you guys are overly safe.'”
• Yet, over the weekend, players in Tuscaloosa and Auburn tweeted their displeasure at the sight of students gathering en masse at downtown bars and parties without social distancing or wearing masks.
• Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne publicly scolded students after seeing a photo of many gathered outside Galletts bar on the strip in Tuscaloosa.
• “We’ve got to do better than this for each other and our campus community,” Byrne tweeted. “Please wear your masks!”
• Full story HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

A message from

The Business Council of Alabama

 

 

 

 

 

3. Pelosi calls House back to vote on Postal Service bill

 

 

4. After brief trade truce, US slaps levy on Canadian aluminum

• After more than two years of browbeating and trade sanctions on Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump strong-armed the United States’ neighbors into agreeing to supplant a 25-year-old North American trade agreement with one of his own.
• His pact, meant to update the old deal and encourage more manufacturing in the United States, was expected to restore clarity and predictability to the rules governing $1.4 trillion in annual in U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico.
• The tranquility didn’t last long.
• A little more than a month after Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement took effect July 1, the Trump administration is scheduled to re-impose a 10% import tax on Canadian aluminum last week, raising tensions between the two allies.
• Trump accuses Canada of flooding the U.S. market with its raw, unprocessed aluminum. The re-imposed tariffs will raise costs for automakers and other U.S. manufacturers that use imported aluminum in their products.
• In 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on aluminum imports — Canada’s included. He contended that imports threatened to put U.S. aluminum producers out of business, jeopardizing the U.S. military’s access to the metal in times of war.
• Trump last year agreed to lift the tariffs on Canada and Mexico to ease the way for the USMCA.
• But two U.S. aluminum producers — Century Aluminum and Magnitude 7 Metals — complained even before USMCA took effect that Canada was exploiting the lifting of the tariffs to flood the U.S. with aluminum. A new trade group that represents them — the American Primary Aluminum Association — says imports of raw aluminum from Canada surged 37% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same three-month period in 2019.
• Full story from Paul Wiseman HERE.

 

 

5. News Briefs

 

3 injured in weekend shooting at Alabama State

• MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Three people were injured in a shooting on the Alabama State University campus over the weekend, according to authorities.
• One of the victims was a student at the university in Montgomery, said Kelvin Kendrick, the school’s director of public safety.
• Kendrick said all of the injuries were minor and that the student was treated at a hospital and released.
• Montgomery police and Alabama State University police responded and placed the campus on lockdown.
• No arrests were reported. Kendrick said authorities were still investigating the shooting.
• The university did not provide the time or specific location of the shooting, news outlets reported.

Boys, ages 3 and 1, killed after getting locked in hot car

• MONTEVALLO, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say two young children died Saturday afternoon after they climbed into a vehicle outside their home and got locked inside for more than an hour.
• Shelby County Coroner Lina Evans told al.com that the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office is investigating, but it appears to be just a “tragic accident.”
• The parents told authorities the two boys – ages 3 and 1 – were thought to be playing in their rooms but had gone outside unnoticed apparently. The family frantically searched for them and eventually found them inside the vehicle. Both were unresponsive and rushed to Shelby Baptist Medical Center where they were later pronounced dead.
• Evans said the boys had gotten into the vehicle sometime after 1 p.m. and were discovered about 3:30 p.m.
• Temperatures on Saturday were in the 90s.
• Autopsies will be done in Montgomery on Monday to determine the exact cause of death.
• The boys’ names are not being released at this time.
• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, children dying from heatstroke in cars, either because they were left or became trapped, has increased in recent years.
• There were 52 hot car deaths in 2019, and a record 53 deaths in 2018, according to the organization.

Tuscaloosa names street after fallen police officer

• TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — A street in an Alabama city is being renamed for a hero.
• The Tuscaloosa City Council unanimously voted to rename a portion of 35th Street after fallen police officer Dornell Cousette. Cousette, an investigator with the city’s police department, was killed in the line of duty last September when he was shot while trying to serve a warrant. He was 40 years old.
• The Tuscaloosa Police Department made the announcement on their Facebook page, adding that once the department moves back into its headquarters, officers will use the road to get home after their shifts, news outlets reported.
• “Officer Cousette didn’t get to go home the night of Sept. 16, 2019, but I think he’d be happy knowing that he’s on our minds every day that we get to,” Chief Brent Blankley said in the statement. “It’s not something we take for granted.”
• All that’s left is the placing of street signs, which city officials said will happen after coordination with the Alabama Department of Transportation.
• The city council also approved a recommendation to rename Trevor S. Phillips Avenue to “Officer Trevor S. Phillips Avenue” to ensure that Phillips’ tenure as a police officer was not forgotten. The 42-year-old, 10-year veteran of the department was killed while escorting a funeral procession.
• Now, Investigator Dornell Cousette Street intersects with Officer Trevor S. Phillips Avenue.
• “This is a great way to honor two of our heroes,” Councilwoman Raevan Howard said.

19 years later, answers sought in killing of 11-year-old

• PRATTVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Nineteen years have passed and there is still no answer as to who killed 11-year-old Shannon Paulk.
• The 11-year-old disappeared on Aug. 16, 2001 after going outside to play in her neighborhood at the Candlestick Mobile Home Park in Prattville. Hunters found her body two months later in a hunting preserve in the northern part of the county. No one has ever been charged in her death
• “It’s the worst nightmare you could ever live,” the girl’s mother Marie Stroud told WSFA.
• A vigil is being held Sunday evening in Prattville on the nineteenth anniversary of her disappearance. Organizers hope an arrest can be made before the twentieth anniversary of her disappearance.
• “Maybe this will bring somebody out and tell us something,” said Paulk’s aunt, Tammy Evans. “C’mon, it’s been 19 years. Surely somebody knows something.”
• Prosecutors in 2017 empaneled a special grand jury to probe the disappearance. Prosecutors announced soon after that a widely distributed sketch of a possible suspect was no longer considered credible.
• Paulk would now be 30 if she had lived.
• Family members said the years without answers have added to their pain.
• “He may get away with it here on earth,” Stroud told the station.

 

 

 

 

 

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