Weekend Digest – April 18, 2021

Good afternoon and happy Sunday!
Here’s your Daily News for April 18.

1. City leaders watch business license renewals for COVID-19 impact

• In a March presentation on how the city of Birmingham’s finances are faring one year into the pandemic, city finance director Lester Smith said business license filings were down about 500 in the first 2.5 months of the year compared to the same time last year.
• “My concern is that differentiation between those numbers may be lost businesses, but we don’t know that yet so we have to continue to monitor it,” Smith said late last month.
• Municipal business licenses are usually due early each year and have been an anticipated gauge of the true economic impact of COVID-19.
• “The overall concern is that in the municipalities that have seen a downturn in license renewals, is that you have lost some jobs and loss of business investment in your community,” Alabama League of Municipalities Executive Director Greg Cochran told Alabama Daily News. “Ensuring that businesses stayed healthy during the pandemic and stayed afloat financially was a difficult tight rope for a lot of them to maneuver down.”
• There’s no statewide collection of business license data. Alabama Daily News reached out to some of the state’s largest cities about their 2021 licenses compared to 2020 and 2019. Several reported at least a slight decline.
• Read more from Mary Sell HERE.

2. ‘Aniah’s Law’ denying bail in more cases heads to voters

• Alabama lawmakers have approved a proposal intended to give judges more discretion to deny bail to people accused of violent crimes that is named in honor of a college student killed in 2019.
• Legislators last week approved the proposed constitutional amendment rewriting a section of the Alabama Constitution to clarify a list of offenses where a judge can deny bail. The offenses include murder, kidnapping, rape, and first-degree robbery.
• Voters must approve the amendment before it can be added to the constitution.
• The proposal is called Aniah’s Law for 19-year-old Aniah Blanchard who was killed after being abducted from an Auburn gas station. The suspect in her killing was free on bond in an earlier kidnapping case, authorities said.
• “Too many of those who are accused of violent crimes are bonding out of jail and committing even more serious offenses, and it is time for law-abiding Alabamians to start fighting back,” Republican Rep. Chip Brown of Mobile, the sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.
• Read more HERE.

3. Treatment ban creates uncertainty for trans youth, families

• Before he began receiving hormone therapy eight months ago, Dylan Brandt felt insecure and out of place. Then the 15-year-old transgender boy started taking testosterone in August. His mood improved, and his mother said he became more outgoing.
• But in the coming months, Dylan and his family face a difficult choice. His home state, Arkansas, passed a law prohibiting gender confirming treatments for minors, the first state to do so.
• Unless opponents are successful in blocking it with a lawsuit, Arkansas’ ban will take effect late this summer. The measure prohibits doctors from providing gender confirming hormone therapy, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 or referring them to other doctors who provide that care.
• It’s already created confusion, sadness and pain for hundreds of transgender youth, as well as their families and health care providers. With other states considering similar bans, it’s a preview of the difficult choices that other families could face around the country.
• Similar legislation in Alabama has already passed the Senate.
• Read more HERE.

4. Fauci says he expects J&J vaccine to resume later this week

• The United States will likely move to resume Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine this coming week, possibly with restrictions or broader warnings after reports of some very rare blood clot cases, the government’s top infectious diseases expert said Sunday.
• Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a series of news show interviews, said he expects a decision when advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meet Friday to discuss the pause in J&J’s single-dose vaccine.
• “I would be very surprised if we don’t have a resumption in some form by Friday,” he said. “I don’t really anticipate that they’re going to want it stretch it out a bit longer.”
• Fauci, who is President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said he believed that federal regulators could bring the shots back with restrictions based on age or gender or with a blanket warning, so that it is administered in a way “a little bit different than we were before the pause.”
• Read more HERE.

5. GOP White House hopefuls move forward as Trump considers run

• Less than three months after former President Donald Trump left the White House, the race to succeed him atop the Republican Party is already beginning.
• Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has launched an aggressive schedule, visiting states that will play a pivotal role in the 2024 primaries, and he has signed a contract with Fox News Channel. 
• Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, has started a political advocacy group, finalized a book deal and later this month will give his first speech since leaving office in South Carolina.
• And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been courting donors, including in Trump’s backyard, with a prominent speaking slot before the former president at a GOP fundraising retreat dinner this month at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort where Trump now lives.
• Trump ended his presidency with such a firm grip on Republican voters that party leaders fretted he would freeze the field of potential 2024 candidates, delaying preparations as he teased another run. Instead, many Republicans with national ambitions are openly laying the groundwork for campaigns as Trump continues to mull his own plans.
• Read more HERE.

Headlines