7. Commercial spaceflight leads to hiring in Alabama

• If you’re a welder or machinist, Blue Origin is looking to hire 80 more people in these positions within the next two months. This is to further their effort to advance access to space.
• The company will be interviewing for these positions as soon as this Friday. Recently, there was an intense push to move forward with more commercial spaceflight, and Blue Origin is one of the companies working on this.

6. Press barred as Sheriff Blakely’s trial begins

• The trial on corruption charges against Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely has started, but Judge Pamela Baschab has barred any press or public from sitting in on the trial jury selection. This whole week is dedicated to jury selection.
• Alabama law has said that jury selection is supposed to be open to the public, but lawyer Dennis Bailey of the Alabama Press Association has said that a 1992 Supreme Court decision allows jury selection to be private “only for good cause shown.” The judge’s bailiff, Tony King, cited seating and security concerns as the reason for keeping the proceedings private.

5. Biden voices support for Cuban protesters

• President Joe Biden has finally made a statement of support for the protesters in Cuba who are advocating against the oppressive government. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has accused the United States of funding the protests.
• Biden said the nation supports “the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected.” He added that they are “bravely asserting fundamental and universal rights.”

4. New Johnson & Johnson side effect added

• As the Biden administration begins to support local vaccine mandates, there will now be a new warning that comes with the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine. As the Food and Drug Administration has announced, there a rare risk of Guillain-Barre, which is an autoimmune nerve disorder.
• There have been about 100 cases of the disorder reported among the 12.5 million people vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson, with one death. The FDA has been clear, though, that the data “is insufficient to establish a causal relationship.”

3. DNC and other Biden-aligned entities to work with cell carriers to “dispel misinformation”

• In an effort to reportedly battle “misinformation,” the Biden administration is about to roll out an aggressive campaign that will include a decision to “hit back harder” at critics and “scare tactics.” Social media users and “conservative news shows” will be targeted by the government and their political allies, according to a report at Politico.
• Most concerning is the premise that SMS messages to cell phone users could be read and then responded to by “Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee” by working with SMS carriers to fight information they disagree with that is sent over text messages, but the details of that operation are unclear.

2. Harris can’t have her own facts about voter ID

• Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has denied Vice President Kamala Harris’ narrative about requiring a photo ID for voting is not a way to oppress votes but “has served as a major deterrent of voter fraud.”
• Merrill directly addressed Harris in his statement, saying she “may be entitled to her own opinion but not her own facts. The voter ID laws put in place do not make it ‘almost impossible’ to vote, but instead ensure that every election is safe and secure.”

1. The narrative crafting continues on Critical Race Theory

• Now that Critical Race Theory is under fire in Alabama, some are doing their best to change the narrative on the situation. While it was previously said that Critical Race Theory wasn’t an issue in the state, it’s now being reported that it wasn’t an issue anyone was concerned about until officials started targeting the curriculum.
• State Superintendent Eric Mackey advised that before a school board meeting, he was being stopped by people asking about the curriculum and if it’s currently taught in schools. Mackey said that the subject “is a new topic to most people, and they don’t completely comprehend it.”