7. Jones wants marijuana off the controlled substance list

• While U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) was speaking with reporters, he was asked about marijuana, to which Jones said that marijuana being on the controlled substance list is a state issue, but he added “it is about time that we moved it off the controlled states list.”
• Jones also doesn’t think we should be “continuing to incarcerate people” for marijuana, but instead wants to focus on “higher-level drug trafficking and human trafficking.” Jones also made mention that he thinks “Veterans in particular” want more leniency on marijuana.

6. Over-the-counter vaping products aren’t the issue

• In response to injuries and deaths that appear to be related to black-market vape products, Walmart has announced that they will stop selling legal vape products.
• The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to try and figure out what is causing the lung issues. Signs point to black-market products, but the two entities have both encouraged people to stop vaping altogether.

5. Alabama has to pay their opponents’ legal bills, again

• After U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson decided against Alabama in a legal battle to ban a second-trimester abortion procedure, known as dilation and evacuation, he then ordered Alabama to pay $675,964 in legal fees for abortion clinics that fought Alabama’s attempted ban.
• The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and two abortion clinics in Alabama, but the procedure ban was deemed unconstitutional because it would make it nearly impossible to perform a safe abortion after 15 weeks.

4. Impeachment talks are back

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have changed her stance on impeaching President Donald Trump. On Sunday, she said that a “whole new stage of investigation” could be coming due to Trump’s phone call in July with Ukrainian officials.
• Pelosi has also deemed this time in the Trump administration as a “grave new chapter of lawlessness,” and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wasn’t shy to share how she felt impeachment is necessary, but on Twitter she said that “the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior – it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it.”

3. Alabama prison population is dropping

• The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a new study that shows Alabama’s prison population has dropped nearly 25% in the last several years, making Alabama have the eighth-highest reduction in the country.
• But with our prison population decreasing, our jailing rate is the 11th highest in the country, with 1,850 people per 100,000, which is about 90,000 people per year going to jail in Alabama.

2. Governor Kay Ivey’s procedure went well

• It was announced last week that Alabama Governor Kay Ivey had early-stage lung cancer and on Friday she underwent an initial outpatient procedure at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
• Ivey’s press secretary, Gina Maiola, said the procedure went “well and as planned,” and added, “She is back in Montgomery and looks forward to returning to her regular schedule next week.”

1. Trump, the Bidens and Ukraine

• After a weekend of speculation, President Donald Trump implied he wants some of the information about his phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy released. Trump was apparently pressuring officials in Kiev to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his possible dealings in Ukraine.
• Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko has said that Trump didn’t pressure them, but that there were conversations, which “touched on many questions, sometimes requiring serious answers.” A natural gas firm that Hunter Biden previously had ties to is being investigated for corruption, and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that while Joe Biden was vice president, he worked to keep Hunter’s company from investigation.