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Here’s your Daily News for Thursday, August 26.

1. Daily News poll: Brooks leads Senate race, but Britt has an opening

• The fourth and final installment of our recent polling with Cygnal is out!
• Today’s results are focused on the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, a race that is already heating up nine months out from election day.
• Mo Brooks, the six-term congressman from Huntsville, is the clear frontrunner, which probably won’t surprise anyone.
• What might surprise some is that Brooks’ lead is not insurmountable and that Katie Britt, the former BCA president and first time candidate, has a healthy start and an opening in the race.
• We also looked at voters’ favorability of former President Donald Trump and how much his endorsement of a candidate might influence their choice.
• Interesting data to say the least!
• Read it all HERE.

 

2. Commission on pandemic response narrows scope, lawmakers ask pointed questions

• The commission charged with analyzing Alabama’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic held its second meeting on Wednesday where they agreed upon streamlining their questions to state agencies.
• The commission was formed after a joint resolution passed the legislature earlier this year and has to submit a report of its findings and recommendations to the governor and Legislature by the first day of the 2022 regular legislative session, Jan. 11.
• Commission co-chair Rep. Paul Lee, R-Dothan, said he doesn’t want their analysis to go outside of the bounds of what the Legislature charged them to do.
• “I don’t think this committee, that we’re really prepared to get into a lot of the details here in the short time that we have,” Lee said during the meeting.
• But some members took the opportunity to pepper State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris with pointed questions.
• Sen. Tom Whatley, R-Auburn, is part of the 11-member commission and proposed a number of questions to ask the agencies.
• “They’re basically just questions that ask, when did you know COVID was a problem, who did you tell about it and how did you prepare for it,” Whatley told Alabama Daily News.
• Read more from Caroline Beck HERE.

 

 

3. Federal team to help with COVID-19 surge at Dothan hospital

• A federal team of health care workers is being sent to a southwest Alabama hospital seeing a surge in COVID-19 patients, the state health officer said Wednesday.
• State Health Officer Scott Harris said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is sending a task force team to Southeast Medical Center in Dothan. Sitting in the far southeast corner of the state, the hospital sees patients from Florida and Georgia. The hospital this month set a new pandemic high with 119 COVID-19 patients.
• Alabama is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases that medical officials say is being fueled by low vaccination rates and the highly contagious delta variant.
• Between July 19 and Aug. 25, Alabama went from having 500 COVID-19 patients in state hospitals to 2,845. By comparison, the state had 3,087 patients in the hospital at the January peak of the pandemic.
• Read more from Kim Chandler HERE.

 

4. US says 1,500 Americans may still await Kabul evacuation as threat grows

• The United States says as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan amid growing warnings Thursday of terrorist threats targeting the Kabul airport as President Joe Biden’s deadline for withdrawing troops fast approaches.
• Untold thousands of at-risk Afghans are struggling to get into the airport even as many thousands of other Afghans already had been flown to safety in nearly two weeks of round-the-clock flights.
• The airlift continued today despite warnings of vehicle-borne bomb threats near the airport. The White House said 13,400 people had been evacuated in the 24 hours that ended early Thursday morning Washington time. That included 5,100 people aboard U.S. military planes and 8,300 on coalition and partner aircraft. That was a substantial drop from the 19,000 airlifted by all means the day before.
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized at a State Department briefing on Wednesday that “ evacuating Americans is our top priority. ”
• He added: “We’re also committed to getting out as many Afghans at-risk as we can before the 31st,” when Biden plans to pull out the last of thousands of American troops.
• Read more HERE.

 

5. Supreme Court orders ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy reinstated

• The Supreme Court says the Biden administration likely violated federal law in trying to end a Trump-era program that forces people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.
• The high court on Tuesday refused to block a lower court ruling ordering the administration to reinstate the program informally known as Remain in Mexico.
• It’s not clear how many people will be affected and how quickly. Under the lower court ruling, the administration must make a “good faith effort” to restart the program.
• The court offered little explanation for its action, although it cited its opinion from last year rejecting the Trump administration’s effort to end another immigration program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. In that case, the court held that the decision to end DACA was “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of federal law.
• The administration has “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the court wrote Tuesday in an unsigned order.
• The three dissenting justices, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, did not write an opinion expressing their views of the case.
• Read more HERE.

 

 

Headlines

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – ADN poll: Brooks leads Senate race, but Britt has an opening

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Commission on pandemic response narrows scope; federal help sent to south Alabama hospitals

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Federal team to help with COVID-19 surge at Dothan hospital

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – US says up to 1,500 Americans await airlift as threats grow

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Supreme Court orders ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy reinstated

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Committee for recompiling state constitution holds public hearing, work to continue

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Afghan refugees not expected yet in Alabama, Gov. Ivey’s office says

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Leave situation could become ‘crisis’ for some state employees

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – House passes $3.5T Biden blueprint after deal with moderates

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Daily News poll: GOP voters support prison infrastructure, education reform; want State House access

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – ADN poll: Most Republicans trust vaccines, value health care

 

ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Daily News poll: Ivey remains popular, leads on early reelection ballot

 

AL.COM – Space for the dead: Temporary morgues sent to two south Alabama counties for COVID deaths

 

AL.COM – Columnist Kyle Whitmire: There is no plan — still

 

AL.COM – Jefferson County schools require masks after ‘jump’ in COVID cases

 

AL.COM – Alabama medical marijuana availability may take longer than expected

 

AL.COM – Mo Brooks: Terri Sewell’s John Lewis voting rights bill would turn elections into ‘North Korea’

 

AL.COM – Alabama doctor on COVID’s myths, deaths: ‘People who were going to die managed to end up dying’

 

AL.COM – Clay County sends 7th grade class home, citing staffing crisis

 

AL.COM – Columnist Cameron Smith: Trump rally boos from a base gone bonkers

 

Montgomery Advertiser – GAA proposals: Pilgrim’s defends plan, Etowah Community gives detail, questions leadership

 

Montgomery Advertiser – Tuscaloosa-raised Chuck Leavell says Rolling Stones bandmate Charlie Watts was ‘all class’

 

Montgomery Advertiser – Another federal medical team to deploy to ‘alarming’ COVID-19 hotspot in Dothan

 

Decatur Daily – Capital improvement plan rebuilding and revamping Limestone County schools

 

Decatur Daily – Afghan refugees not expected yet in Alabama, Gov. Ivey’s office says

 

Decatur Daily – Flood relief packages being sent from Decatur to Tennessee today

 

Times Daily – City will use Rebuild Alabama money to resurface Brown Street

 

Times Daily – Poll: Ivey remains popular among GOP voters

 

Times Daily – WWII veteran celebrates 101st birthday

 

Anniston Star – Oxford health care authority set as primary EMS provider

 

Anniston Star – McClellan to host mountain bike state championship

 

WBRC Fox 6 Birmingham – Birmingham firefighters battle apartment fire

 

WBRC Fox 6 Birmingham – Shelby County businesses feel pinch of pandemic, forced to close doors

 

WBRC Fox 6 Birmingham – Which Covid-19 test is the best? Experts weigh in

 

Tuscaloosa News – GAA proposals: Pilgrim’s defends plan, Etowah Community gives detail, questions leadership

 

Tuscaloosa News – Tuscaloosa-raised Chuck Leavell says Rolling Stones bandmate Charlie Watts was ‘all class’

 

Tuscaloosa News – Another federal medical team to deploy to ‘alarming’ COVID-19 hotspot in Dothan

 

YellowHammer News – Alabama Republicans claim Biden projecting weakness to Taliban, bowing to terrorist organization’s demands

 

YellowHammer News – U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl blasts ‘socialist’ multi-trillion-dollar budget plan — ‘Democrats’ efforts to bankrupt America’

 

YellowHammer News – Katie Britt: ‘We need a forensic audit’ of 2020 election

 

Gadsden Times – Inmate from Etowah County serving life sentence dies after contracting COVID-19

 

Gadsden Times – Tuscaloosa-raised Chuck Leavell says Rolling Stones bandmate Charlie Watts was ‘all class’

 

Gadsden Times – Another federal medical team to deploy to ‘alarming’ COVID-19 hotspot in Dothan

 

Dothan Eagle – The Latest: US, others issue security alert at Kabul airport

 

Dothan Eagle – Herschel Walker begins Georgia GOP Senate bid amid unknowns

 

Dothan Eagle – ‘Pain compliance’: Video shows trooper pummeling Black man

 

Opelika-Auburn News – Duterte confirms he’ll run for Philippines VP next year

 

Opelika-Auburn News – 51 evacuees from Afghanistan arrive in Uganda at US request

 

Opelika-Auburn News – The Latest: US, others issue security alert at Kabul airport

 

WSFA Montgomery – Great grandmother of 4-day-old baby stolen from Fairfield opens up about what happened

 

WSFA Montgomery – 2 companies provide lunch for Russell Medical Center employees

 

WSFA Montgomery – Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission faces timeline setbacks

 

WAFF Huntsville – More than a dozen inmates test positive for COVID-19 at Marshall County jail

 

WAFF Huntsville – Five Cullman County schools to go virtual due to COVID-19

 

WAFF Huntsville – Alabama Republican Party estimates 50,000 people attended the Save America Rally

 

WKRG Mobile – American embassy alert advises US citizens not to go to Kabul airport

 

WKRG Mobile – Over 235k defective hoverboards sold at Walmart, Amazon.com recalled for battery issues

 

WKRG Mobile – Florida woman survives COVID-19, discovers husband died at home

 

WTVY Dothan – Another federal team coming to help hard-hit Alabama hospitals

 

WTVY Dothan – White cross display honors homicide victims in the Wiregrass

 

WTVY Dothan – Dothan City, Houston County Schools to require masks beginning Friday

 

WASHINGTON POST – ‘Very high threat’ of terrorist attack at Kabul airport as U.S. allies start withdrawal

 

WASHINGTON POST – As Aug. 31 deadline looms, United States, European nations accelerate Afghanistan evacuation effort

 

WASHINGTON POST – When Myanmar’s military seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, millions across the country took to the streets in protest.

 

NEW YORK TIMES – Live Afghanistan Updates: Some Evacuations Halt After Alerts Over Kabul Airport

 

NEW YORK TIMES – 2 U.S. Representatives Try to Explain Unauthorized Visit to Kabul

 

NEW YORK TIMES – Covid Live Updates: Cases and Deaths in Florida Hit Record Highs

 

WALL STREET JOURNAL – ESPN Takes Rachel Nichols Off NBA Coverage, Cancels Her Show

 

WALL STREET JOURNAL – Biden Administration Likely to Approve Covid-19 Boosters at Six Months

 

WALL STREET JOURNAL – Adult Film Star Ron Jeremy Indicted on More Than 30 Counts of Sexual Assault

 

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