1. Heat wave continues.

• The heat wave that has been roasting much of the U.S. in recent days is just getting warmed up, with temperatures expected to soar to dangerous levels through the weekend.
• More than 100 local heat records are expected to fall Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. Most won’t be record-daily highs but record-high nighttime lows, and that lack of cooling can be dangerous, meteorologists say.
• It’s pretty normal for us here in Alabama, but other places to the north and west of us will be dealing with extremely rare conditions. That means it could be deadly, especially in bigger cities.
• The heat index is expected to hit 110 degrees in Washington D.C. today.
• Read more HERE.

 

2. Kids get rabies shots after bat scare.

• A bat infestation at a Union Springs day care last month resulted in 47 children receiving treatment for possible rabies exposure.
•  The bats, including two dead ones in living areas of the child care center, were reported to Alabama Department of Public Health in June.
• “We would normally test any dead bats to determine if rabies is present, but these bats had already been discarded by the facility staff before we were notified,” Alabama Public Health Officer Scott Harris told Alabama Daily News. He praised the department and other agencies’ response to the situation. It was reported to ADPH by the Alabama Department of Human Resources.
• The vaccinations cost the department $170,000.
• The daycare was temporarily closed, but has re-opened.
• Full bat story from ADN’s Mary Sell HERE.

 

3. Barr, Ross held in contempt of Congress.

• The Democratic-controlled House voted Wednesday to hold two top Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas related to a decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
• The House voted, 230-198, to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt. The vote, a political blow to the Trump administration, is largely symbolic because the Justice Department is unlikely to prosecute the two men.
• The action marks an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration.
• The White House called the vote “ridiculous” and “yet another lawless attempt to harass the president and his administration.”
• “Holding any secretary in criminal contempt of Congress is a serious and sober matter — one that I have done everything in my power to avoid,” said Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
• Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, who led his own contempt charges against Obama administration officials, albeit after longer periods, said the contempt of Congress isn’t what it used to be.
• “Nobody cares what Congress does. What we saw yesterday — they can’t even enforce their own House rules against their own members. So, there used to be a stigma attached to being held in contempt of Congress. There ain’t no more,” Gowdy said. “So, I would tell Bill Barr, ‘Your reputation as an incredible lawyer is intact. Don’t give it another thought.'”
• Read and watch more HERE.

 

4. Skip Tucker: Newspapers running out of time.

 

• Skip Tucker has heard predictions of doom and gloom for the newspaper business for decades.
• Talk of how internet news will put traditional papers out of business is nothing new, but lately he feels a sense of urgency about it.
• The big boys like the New York Times and Washington Post are doing really well, and so are many hometown weeklies and bi-weeklies. It’s the middle tier that seems to be getting squeezed the most.
• It’s partly why Alabama Daily News has sought to partner with the state’s newspapers and help bridge the content gap.
• Here’s an except:

• Damn right.
• Read Skip’s full column HERE.

 

5. AP News Briefs.

 

• With tweets and a vote, President Donald Trump and House Democrats established the sharp and emotionally raw contours of the 2020 election campaigns.
• In the process, they have created a fraught political frame: “racists” vs. “socialists.”
• Trump’s aggressive condemnation of women of color in Congress has allowed House Democrats to mend, for now, their own political divisions as they put the president on record with a resolution condemning his words as racist.
• But by pushing the House majority into the arms of the squad of liberal freshman women, Trump also adds to his narrative that Democrats have a “socialist” agenda, a story line he started to bring into focus during his State of the Union address.
• Read more from Lisa Mascaro HERE.

• Alabama indicated in a court filing that it might agree to keep prosecution efforts from the state’s new abortion ban on hold until 2020 to allow time for a lawsuit over its constitutionality to play out in court.
• The law set to take effect in November would make performing an abortion a felony in most cases. Abortion providers have filed a lawsuit arguing the ban is unconstitutional.
• Attorneys for the state and abortion providers this week submitted a joint status report to a judge indicating the two sides would agree to delay the law if it’s not possible to resolve the case before November. The court filing said they would agree to a temporary restraining order until May 24, 2020 — a year from when the lawsuit was filed — to allow time to resolve the lawsuit.
• “Attorney General (Steve) Marshall agrees that, as suggested above, a temporary injunction would be appropriate to preserve the status quo,” the court filing stated.
• Read the full story from Kim Chandler HERE.

• Authorities say an Alabama police officer has been shot multiple times by a suspected armed robber who was then killed in a shootout in downtown Birmingham.
• Birmingham Police Chief Patrick D. Smith tells news outlets officers were responding to a reported robbery at a convenience store Wednesday night when they spotted the male suspect leaving the scene.
• Smith says the officers attempted to stop the man, who pulled out a gun and repeatedly shot Officer Cullen Stafford. AL.com reports Stafford was rushed to a hospital by fellow officers. Other officers responding to Stafford’s call for help were met with gunfire upon arrival.
• Smith says the man fired a handgun from several locations that stretched across at least five city blocks, ending with a final shootout in which the man was killed.
• Stafford was hospitalized and was out of surgery by 10 p.m., just two hours before his 36th birthday. Sgt. Johnny Williams says the surgery went well and Stafford is expected to undergo additional surgeries as he recovers. The police chief says a second officer was injured in a fall, but he was in good condition as of Wednesday night. Several officers kept vigil at the hospital.
• Gov. Kay Ivey said the shooting was a reminder of the sacrifice by law enforcement officers.
• Officials didn’t immediately release the name of the slain man, whose body remained at the scene late Wednesday.
• AL.com reports Stafford and another officer were seriously injured in June 2017 when fleeing homicide suspects crashed into their patrol cruiser.

• An Alabama judge has resigned amid judicial ethics charges that accuse him of having an affair with an attorney who was handling cases in his court.
• WDHN-TV reports that Coffee County District Judge Chris Kaminski says he is quitting because it isn’t “financially feasible” to fight charges filed with the Alabama Court of the Judiciary on Tuesday.
• A complaint accuses Kaminski of beginning an affair with an unnamed female attorney while he was still married in 2017. The judge later got a divorce.
• The charges say Kaminski improperly presided in cases involving the lawyer. It also says he obtained courthouse surveillance video that she posted on social media in an attempt to disprove rumors of their relationship.
• The charges say Kaminski denied having an affair, but that evidence shows otherwise.

 

Headlines.

 

 

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