ABH Nation 101119

Montgomery, Alabama’s first black mayor-elect wants his city seen as a part of the New South

The man who will be Montgomery, Alabama’s

first African-American mayor

wants his tenure to signal a new narrative for his 200-year-old city, he told CNN on Thursday.

“We want to be seen as a part of the New South,” Steven Reed told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” “We want to turn the page and change the narrative, and that’s what this election was about.”

Reed was born and raised in Montgomery and in 2012 became the first African-American elected as probate judge in Montgomery County. In Tuesday’s mayoral runoff, he defeated TV station owner David Woods, who is white.

Montgomery, where 60% of residents are black, has a complicated racial history. It is the birthplace of the civil rights movement but also was the first capital of the Confederacy. It later became the site of Rosa Park’s bus boycott and the destination of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery protest marches. The nation’s first memorial for more than 4,000 victims of lynchings opened last year there.

While the mayor-elect told CNN that it might have been a number of factors that delayed the state capital city’s election of a black mayor, it’s now time to move forward.

“We’ve been unified on the message of opportunity and creating an environment where people can live, learn and earn,” Reed said.

Vaping-related lung injuries now reported in all states but one

There are 1,299 lung injury cases associated with e-cigarette products in 49 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands as of Tuesday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alaska is the only state without a reported case.

That’s an increase from last week, when there were 1,080 cases of vaping-related lung injuries reported in 48 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Among 1,043 patients with data on sex and age, about 80% are under 35 years old, 15% are under 18 years old and 21% are 18 to 20 years old. The median age of patients is 24 years and they range in age from 13 to 75 years. About 70% of patients are male.

The CDC on Thursday also identified 26 vaping-related deaths in 21 states.

Individual states have reported a total of 27 deaths.

As the suspected El Paso gunman is set to appear in court, one survivor tries to healWhile the man accused of a killing spree at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, was expected to be arraigned Thursday, Sylvia Saucedo is still struggling to recover from the most terrifying 15 minutes of her life.

The 58-year-old El Paso resident used to consider herself an active, happy person. Now, she can’t go outside without friends. She just recently mustered the courage to go grocery shopping again. She hasn’t found the strength to go jogging or swimming.

Weeks after the August 3 massacre, she’s “trying to forget that evil,” but the mere sight of a young white man puts her on edge. She’s having trouble sleeping and eating, and she’s lost 10 pounds, she said. The therapist keeps telling her she’s letting the shooter control her life.

The hearing for the alleged gunman was slated for 2 p.m. and a status hearing is scheduled for November 7, according to court records.

Judge Angie Juarez Barill, who was originally assigned the case, has bowed out, saying she knew one victim’s family members and is running for chief justice of the state’s Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Patrick Crusius stands charged with capital murder in the massacre that killed 22 people and injured 26 more.

Capital murder is the most serious charge in Texas. Prosecutors can use it when a defendant is accused of killing multiple victims.

Another Democratic Rep. announces support for impeachment inquiry

Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, one of a small group of House Democrats who had not yet publicly stated their support for an impeachment inquiry, announced on Thursday that in light of recent actions by President Donald Trump and his administration she’s in favor of proceedings.

“Earlier this week, the President and his administration made it clear to New Mexicans that they are not committed to finding the truth,” the New Mexico Democrat wrote in an op-ed in the Las Cruces Sun-News announcing her support for an inquiry.

The congresswoman argues that the President and the administration “took unprecedented steps to prevent the facts from coming forward,” when “the White House and the State Department stopped a key witness from testifying before Congress and the White House issued a letter refusing to cooperate at all with the investigation.”

—From wire reports

Earlier this week, the State Department directed US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland not to testify before Congress. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff on Tuesday called the move “strong evidence of obstruction” of Democrats’ impeachment investigation, and House Democrats issued a subpoena in response.

Also on Tuesday, the White House sent a letter to congressional Democrats in which Trump’s lawyers said the President and his administration won’t cooperate in an ongoing impeachment inquiry, arguing that the proceedings amount to an illegitimate effort to overturn the 2016 election results.

In her op-ed, the congresswoman states, “Tuesday’s actions by the President and the administration left me with no other way to get the information the country deserves than to support an impeachment inquiry.”

The congresswoman adds, however, “To be very clear, I have not reached judgment on the President’s actions, nor on the appropriate response, but I need the facts to make these weighty decisions.”

The New Mexico Democrat is one of the House Democratic freshmen who flipped a congressional seat from red to blue in the 2018 midterm elections.

Her announcement comes as House Democrats pursue an impeachment inquiry into the President’s dealings with Ukraine after a whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump pressured Ukraine to solicit interference in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.

Trump and Republicans have called on the House to hold a formal vote to open the impeachment inquiry, a step that isn’t required by House rules and one House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far resisted doing, though she has not yet ruled it out.

After the release of the complaint and the transcript of a call Trump had with the Ukrainian president, a significant number of House Democrats in battleground and swing districts came out in support of an impeachment inquiry, an indication that the dynamic within the House Democratic caucus had shifted as support for the inquiry gained momentum. To date, at least 228 of the 235 members of the House Democratic Caucus have stated their support for the inquiry.

According to a CNN count, that means there are now only seven House Democrats who have not yet said they support an impeachment inquiry.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.