Efforts to Keep Jones In U.S. Senate Sets New Records
Despite record Democratic turnout, U.S. Sen. Doug Jones lost his bid for re-election but he now holds a new record. According to AP News, Jones topped former President Barack Obama’s 2008 numbers for the most votes for a Democratic candidate in Alabama. Among the more than 900,000 voters are Black women credited with helping Jones first win the Senate seat in 2017. Now, Black women voters are gearing up for the future.
JoAnne Bland was a participant in Selma’s Bloody Sunday in 1965, when hundreds of peaceful civil rights marchers faced attacks from state troopers. Bland, 67, leads educational tours through her company, Journeys For the Soul. She shares her recollection of Bloody Sunday and Selma’s role in attaining voting rights for Black people.
Bland has always been front and center engaging voters in her community. She said she’s disappointed in the outcome of the U.S. Senate race between Doug Jones and Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville. She said Black women showed up on Election Day but it just wasn’t enough.
“What is the surprise is that we can’t get our men to be equally supportive,” she said. “That’s not saying a lot of Black men don’t vote, but not enough.”
Alabama’s Secretary of State John Merrill said voters cast a record of almost 2.3 million ballots, or nearly 62 percent of the state’s registered voters.Stephanie Strong is the leader of Faith in Action Alabama. Strong pushed a statewide voter engagement campaign created to expand Alabama’s electorate. She said the campaign reached more than 20,000 Alabama votes.
Strong said the onus to vote Jones back into office wasn’t solely on Black women. She said it needed to come from the moral consciousness of the state.
“Alabama made a decision to choose whiteness over dignity. Alabama made a choice to choose whiteness over character,” she said. “And it just seemed to me that there was a value dissonance in terms of the voters and the platforms that the candidates ran on.”
Strong said Election Day was just the beginning for her organization. She said their voter engagement campaign built a voting bloc that will help create a powerful presence in the state legislature.
Ivermectin is making a post-pandemic comeback, among cancer patients
The anti-parasitic drug became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now being embraced as an alternative treatment for cancer. It is as politically polarizing as ever.
Iran war widens, threatening to engulf Lebanon
The war over Iran engulfed more of the Middle East and beyond on Monday as Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah responded to the killing of Iran's spiritual leader with its first attack on Israel in more than a year.
Peer pressure can make this clownfish change its stripes
Tomato clownfish, in response to an unpredictable world, appear capable of adjusting when they lose their stripes based on cues from other fish and their habitat, a new study in PLOS Biology finds.
Hezbollah strikes Israel as American and Israeli planes pound Iran
Iran and Iranian-backed militias fired missiles at Israel and Arab states, apparently hitting the U.S. Embassy compound in Kuwait, while Israel and the United States pounded targets in Iran on Monday.
Lesley Manville says her stage and screen careers ‘feed each other’
The decorated British actress discusses her new film Midwinter Break, her role in Oedipus on Broadway and how she balances stage and screen.
Congress gears up for vote on Trump’s war powers in Iran — after the battle began
Democrats and a few Republicans are calling for curbing Trump's unilateral use of military power in Iran, despite previous such efforts failing to advance.
