Sweet home, Alabama

[Rach3]

From AxiosAm today:


Alabama, which has one of the country's lowest COVID vaccination rates, recorded more deaths in 2020 than births — a first in state history.

Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris says it could happen again in 2021 — the state is literally shrinking, Alabama News Network reports.
The Yellowhammer State had 65,000 deaths last year, compared to 58,000 births — a gap of 7,000.

Harris said: "We’re going to have around six or seven thousand more people who died in our state this past year than any year we have ever had, going back to the year 1900. That’s how far I’ve asked our staff to go back." (AL.com)

Also from Axios :

Alabama lawmakers are working to strip racist language from the state constitution. Voters will get their say in '22 if the process keeps moving.

Efforts to rewrite the constitution have failed twice in the past 20 years. But "jolted partly by racial justice protests across the country," a committee of lawmakers and lay people began the redrafting process this month, The New York Times reports.

Nearly 70 years after the Supreme Court ruled out segregation in public schools, this language remains in Alabama's governing document, AP notes:"Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race."

Alabama's "Committee on the Recompilation of the Constitution" meets again Oct. 13.