In Alabama, Sen. Doug Jones kicks off 2020 reelection bid

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In Alabama, Sen. Doug Jones kicks off 2020 reelection bid

2019-09-09 08:32 Last Updated At：08:40

U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat who pulled off a stunning political upset in Alabama two years ago, launched his reelection bid Sunday, seeking to create another Deep South victory in a Republican-dominated state.

Before several hundred cheering supporters in Birmingham, Jones kicked off his 2020 campaign. Invoking the campaign theme of "One Alabama," Jones said he is a senator who represents all of Alabama and will fight for everyone in the state.

"The success of our state depends on engaging the power and the spirit and the intellect of our millions of citizens," Jones said. "No matter the zip code you live in, your race, your religion, your disability, your economic status — no matter who you love— we all want to succeed in a world where no one, no one is left behind," Jones said.

The Deep South Democrat defeated Republican Roy Moore in a 2017 special election to fill the Senate vacancy created when Jeff Sessions became President Donald Trump's first U.S. attorney general. Now considered the Senate's most endangered Democrat, Jones is seeking a full term in office in the usually reliably red state.

His 2017 victory was aided by scandal when Moore, already a divisive figure among state voters, was accused of sexual misconduct. Several women said Moore pursued romantic and sexual relationships with them when they were teens and he was a prosecutor in his 30s. One of the woman was as young as 14.

Moore vehemently denied the accusations and is now part of a crowded GOP field vying for a chance to challenge Jones in 2020.

David Hughes, a political scientist at Auburn University at Montgomery, said Jones will face an "extremely uphill battle."

Jones is running in a year when Trump, who is intensely popular in the state, will be on the ballot, driving GOP turnout, Hughes said. Hughes said Jones also could face a more mainstream Republican who doesn't have the negatives that Moore carried.

"There would have to be something calamitous to prevent Republicans from turning out," Hughes added.

With partisan control of the Senate on the line, Republicans have made defeating Jones a top priority in 2020.

The Alabama Republican Party has a countdown on its website ticking off the days until he is out of office. The National Republican Senatorial Committee drove a billboard carrying truck outside the Birmingham venue calling him "Anti-Trump Democrat Doug Jones" who "sides with socialists."

"For goodness sake, a socialist? Come on," Jones cracked to the crowd at his kickoff rally.

The son of a steel mill worker, Jones grew up in the working class city of Fairfield, just west of Birmingham. As U.S. attorney during then President Bill Clinton's administration he was best known for prosecuting the Klansmen who bombed a Birmingham church in 1963, killing four black girls.

Jones is positioning himself as a moderate— a gun owner who supports "narrowly tailored" universal background checks for gun purchases. He is urging the state to expand Medicaid in a state with high rates of infant and maternal mortality.

GOP opponents are expected to highlight Jones' support of abortion rights - in a state where voters put anti-abortion language in the state Constitution and lawmakers are attempting to ban abortion outright — and his opposition to some of Trump's judicial nominees.

Speaking to reporters, Jones acknowledged that he has a political "target on my back and on my chest."

And he retorted that no one gave ever "gave us a chance" of winning in 2017. He urged voters to "look at my record" and not just labels slung at him by opponents.

"There is no way ... if they look at my record they can say I'm a liberal, a real far conservative. I keep telling people. 'I'm just Doug. I do what I think is right for the state.'"

"If that's the best they've got," Jones said of labels like the truck outside. "Bring it on."

For Alabama Democrats and some moderates, Jones '2017 victory was water in the red state desert. Packing his campaign kickoff, many acknowledged the tough fight to come, but said they remain hopeful.

"We need him," said Sally Livingston, a 58-year-old educator in attendance.

Republicans disagree.

"Whether it was voting against Judge Kavanaugh, supporting on-demand abortions, or advocating for gun control, Doug is totally out of touch with Alabama," said U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, a congressman running for the Senate seat.

Venice tests a 5-euro entry fee for day-trippers as the Italian city grapples with overtourism

2024-04-26 00:14 Last Updated At：00:20

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launched a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro ($5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Visitors arriving at Venice's main train station were greeted with large signs listing the 29 dates through July of the plan's test phase that also designated separate entrances for tourists, and residents, students and workers.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism, insisting that only a resurgence in the population will restore balance to a city where narrow alleyways and water buses are often clogged with tourists.

Hundreds of Venetians protested against the program, marching festively though the city's main bus terminal behind banners reading “No to Tickets, Yes to Services and Housing.” Protesters scuffled briefly with police with riot gear who blocked them from entering the city, before changing course and entering over another bridge escorted by plainclothes police officers. The demonstration wrapped up peacefully in a piazza.

Tourists arriving at the main station encountered almost as many journalists as stewards on hand to politely guide anyone unaware of the new requirements through the process of downloading the QR code to pay the fee.

Arianna Cecilia, a tourist from Rome visiting Venice for the first time, said she thought it was “strange” to have to pay to enter a city in her native country, and be funneled through separate entrance ways for tourists. She and her boyfriend were staying in nearby Treviso, and so downloaded the QR code as required. But she was still caught off-guard while soaking in her first view ever of Venice's canals by the sight of the entrance signs and her boyfriend telling her to get out the ticket.

On the other side of the entrance ways, workers in yellow vests carried out random checks at the train station. Transgressors face fines of 50 to 300 euros ($53 to $320), but officials said “common sense” was being applied for the launch.

The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free and unchecked.

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of overtourism, and officials hope that the pilot project can help provide more exact figures to better manage the phenomenon.

The city can track the number of hotel visitors, which last year numbered 4.6 million and is down 16% from pre-pandemic highs. But the number of day visitors, which make up the majority of the crowds in Venice, could only be estimated until recently.

A Smart Control Room set up during the pandemic has been tracking arrivals from cellphone data, roughly confirming pre-pandemic estimates of 25 million to 30 million arrivals a year, said Michele Zuin, the city’s top economic official. That includes both day-trippers and overnight guests.

But Zuin said the data is incomplete.

“It’s clear we will get more reliable data from the contribution” being paid by day-trippers, he said.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. On peak days, local police set up one-way traffic for pedestrians to keep the crowds moving.

Residents opposing the day-tripper tax insist that the solution to Venice's woes are to boost the resident population and the services they need, limiting short-term rentals to make available more housing and attract families back from the mainland.

Last year, Venice passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park. You don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared the launch day, coinciding with an Italian holiday, a success, registering 15,700 paying visitors, 50% more than anticipated.

More than 97,000 others had downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. Hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, provided a QR code for visitors to attest to their stay, which includes a hotel tax — accounting for 40,000 of those.

Venturini, the tourist official, said that interest in Venice’s pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities, and municipalities abroad such as Barcelona, Spain, and Amsterdam.

But Marina Rodino, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, doesn't see the fee as the cure-all. Neighboring apartments in her residential building near the famed Rialto Bridge once inhabited by families are now short-term apartment rentals.

The corner butcher shop closed. Yet she noted that the new entrance fee requirement will still allow young people to flood the city in the evening for the traditional aperitivo, which can grow rowdy.

She was passing out mock European Union passports for “Venice, Open City,” underlining the irony of the new system, and challenging its legal standing with citations from the Italian Constitution guaranteeing its citizens the right to “move or reside freely in any part of the national territory."

“This is not a natural oasis. This is not a museum. It is not Pompeii. It is a city, where we need to fight so the houses are inhabited by families, and stores reopen. That is what would counter this wild tourism,’’ Rodino said.