1. Alabama sued in transgender case.

• U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson held a hearing Tuesday for a lawsuit filed by three transgender women seeking to change the gender on their state driver license.
• He questioned the state’s requirement for a transgender person to undergo full gender reassignment surgery before they can change the sex on their driver’s license, suggesting that a license that contradicts a person’s public appearance essentially marks them with a “scarlet letter T.”
• The ACLU says Alabama differs from most states and the federal government that allow people to change the gender identity on a government-issued ID without proof of surgery.
• While he did not rule in the case, Thompson noted the violence faced by transgender individuals after a state attorney contended the Alabama policy treats everyone the same. Thompson said a person would be publicly disclosed as transgender if they present a license that does not match their daily public appearance.
• “You might as well have a scarlet letter T,” Thompson said.
• Full story from Kim Chandler HERE.

 

2. 11 brothers from Alabama, 158 years of US military service.

• The sons of Ben and Hattie Davis give special meaning to the term ‘band of brothers.’
• Eleven in all, their combined 158 years of service to the U.S. military make them brothers in arms as well as brothers raised on a family farm in rural Alabama.
• Seven of the 11 gathered recently for a reunion thick with brotherly love and military pride. They laughed together, told stories from their days growing up and serving the country and reminisced about what it was like to be black in the U.S. military in the 20th century in America.
• But in the end, they talked less about racism than the lack of respect all veterans feel from their fellow Americans.
• “Being in the military, it was a fine thing,” said Lebronze Davis, who fought in the Vietnam War and has survived cancer and heart surgery. “We all think we’ve done an outstanding job.”
• In 2017, the Davis men were honored by the National Infantry Museum Foundation. The names of the 11 brothers and their uncle are engraved on four paving stones installed at the museum.
• Sixteen siblings — the 11 veterans, plus three sisters and two brothers who did not enter the military — grew up on a 60-acre (24-hectare) cotton farm in Wetumpka, Alabama, where their parents worked hard to put food on the table. Mom was the disciplinarian, dad had a softer approach.
• Read the full story from Adrian Sainz HERE.

 

3. Fed to cut interest rates.

• Thinking about buying that house or refinancing?
• The Federal Reserve is poised to cut its key interest rate Wednesday to counter what it sees as threats to the U.S. economy from uncertainties and a darkened global outlook.
• It will be the Fed’s first rate cut since December 2008 in the depths of the Great Recession.
• Most analysts expect the Fed to announce a quarter-point cut in its benchmark short-term rate. That rate, which affects many consumer and business loans, is now in a range of 2.25% to 2.5% after nine quarter-point rates increases from December 2015 to December 2018.
• Under Chairman Jerome Powell, the Fed has faced pressure to ease credit since it raised its key rate in December for the fourth time in 2018 and hinted that additional rate increases were likely this year .
• Stock prices sank afterward and ignited criticism, notably from President Donald Trump, that the Fed was tightening credit too much and threatening the economy.
• The Fed then made an abrupt policy shift at the start of the year, suggesting that it would remain “patient” about any changes in rates and implying that rate increases were off the table.
• On Tuesday, the president asserted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be 10,000 points higher and that the pace of economic growth would be twice what it is now if the Fed hadn’t raised rates last year.
• “I would like to see a large cut” in rates, Trump said Tuesday.
• Full Story HERE.

 

4. Dems mix it up in Detroit.

• Did you watch the Democratic debate? There’s another one tonight.
• If you didn’t, you missed a lot of talk about “Medicare for All” and how it would reshape health care.
• Here’s the lede: The signature domestic proposal by the leading liberal candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination came under withering attack from moderates in a debate that laid bare the struggle between a call for revolutionary policies and a desperate desire to defeat President Donald Trump.
• Standing side by side at center stage on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren slapped back against their more cautious rivals who ridiculed “Medicare for All” and warned that “wish-list economics” would jeopardize Democrats’ chances for taking the White House in 2020.
• “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” said Warren, a Massachusetts senator, decrying Democratic “spinelessness.”
• Sanders agreed: “I get a little bit tired of Democrats afraid of big ideas.”
• A full six months before the first votes are cast, the tug-of-war over the future of the party pits pragmatism against ideological purity as voters navigate a crowded Democratic field divided by age, race, sex and ideology. The fight with the political left was the dominant subplot on the first night of the second round of Democratic debates, which was notable as much for its tension as its substance.
• Twenty candidates are spread evenly over two nights of debates Tuesday and Wednesday. The second night features early front-runner Joe Biden, the former vice president, as well as Kamala Harris, a California senator.
• Read more and watch the highlights HERE.

 

5. AP News Briefs.

 

• A third person is charged in the death of a woman whose body was found at the bottom of a well in Alabama.
• News outlets report 27-year-old Devon Trent Hall is charged with murder and corpse abuse in the killing of 20-year-old Willie Watkins.
• Hall was being held on drug charges in Birmingham when authorities linked him to the slaying. Court records aren’t available to show whether he has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
• Court records indicate Watkins was killed in a dispute over a cellphone. Her remains were found Monday in Tuscaloosa County in a well, where they’d been covered with cement.
• Two more people are being held in the killing.

• A former foster parent in Alabama has pleaded guilty to child abuse, sexual abuse and torture.
• News outlets report that 50-year-old Daniel Spurgeon agreed Monday to a deal to serve 25 years in prison. His wife, Jenise Spurgeon, also faces numerous charges and is set for trial in October.
• Lauderdale County Chief Assistant District Attorney Angie Hamilton says Spurgeon cannot be paroled or receive time off for good behavior.
• The couple was arrested two years ago in Florida and charged with 700 counts of child abuse and other crimes against 11 children they adopted or fostered.
• Police in Florida began investigating the couple in 2016 after getting a call about two intoxicated teenagers. One of the girls told authorities there had been multiple incidents while they lived in Alabama in 2008.

• A public school system in Alabama has delayed classes a second time because of continuing problems from a computer malware attack.
• Houston County school officials say students now won’t return to class until Aug. 12. That’s 11 days behind the original schedule and a week later than the first delay.
• Education officials won’t say what type of attack hit the southeast Alabama school system. But phones and computers aren’t working properly.
• Officials also haven’t said whether payroll or student information was affected. But Ashford High School posts on its Facebook page that workers can’t view their pay information online so statements have to be printed.
• The school board says law enforcement is involved, and network engineers are trying to get equipment running again.

• Three people are dead and four are injured following a pair of collisions in southeastern Alabama.
• Pike County Sheriff Russell Thomas tells news outlets a log truck and two vehicles were involved in two crashes on a rural road on Monday night.
• Details aren’t clear, but news outlets report that two victims are from Pike County and one was from Crenshaw County.
• The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency is investigating.

 

 

Headlines.

 

 

 

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