The Frequency

Phenix City Little League is headed to Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The 12U All-Stars shut out Tennessee 4-0 Tuesday night in Warner Robins, Georgia, to win the Southeast Regional championship, punching the program’s first ticket to the Little League World Series since 1999.

Twenty-seven years is a long wait. Phenix City Little League was reinstated as a program in 2023, and league president Michael Green has watched registration climb every year since. This year’s 12U team ran the state and regional brackets and closed it out with a shutout.

Back home, the celebration started before the team even left Georgia. Supporters packed watch parties at spots like Pour Decisions Sports Bar and Grill in Columbus, and league organizers are expecting the crowds to grow as the team heads north. The Little League World Series runs August 19 through August 30 in South Williamsport.

Alabama voters in four congressional districts went back to the polls Tuesday for a special primary the rest of the state sat out. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the lower-court order that had forced Alabama to use a court-drawn congressional map — the one that created a second majority-minority district — and cleared the state to revert to the map the Legislature passed in 2023. Because that ruling landed after the May 19 primary, Gov. Kay Ivey called special primaries in Districts 1, 2, 6 and 7 to pick nominees under the new lines. No runoffs were allowed; a plurality was enough to win.

Former U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl reclaimed the District 1 Republican nomination with roughly 75% of the vote and will face Democrat Clyde Jones Jr. in November. In District 2, state Rep. Rhett Marques — endorsed by President Trump — won the Republican nod and will challenge incumbent Rep. Shomari Figures in a race oddsmakers now favor Republicans to flip. Rep. Gary Palmer secured his seventh-term nomination in the strongly Republican District 6, and in District 7, Ammie Akin won the Republican nomination to face longtime incumbent Rep. Terri Sewell in a seat that remains strongly Democratic. Turnout across all four districts was 5.24%, continuing a slide from 23% in May’s primary and under 11% in June’s runoff.

Chambers County sits in Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District, which wasn’t part of Tuesday’s special primary — Rep. Mike Rogers’ seat wasn’t on the ballot either way. But the same map fight that reshaped four other districts is likely to resurface before the next round of redistricting, and Tuesday’s results are an early read on how Alabama’s political balance is settling under the lines the Legislature chose.

Alabama Democrats picked their next party chair the way they’ve picked every one before him: by holding up pieces of paper. Inside a Montgomery ballroom Saturday, more than 200 members of the State Democratic Executive Committee raised cards while other members walked the floor to count them. When it finished, Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton held 165 votes to incumbent Chair Randy Kelley’s 62 — 72.7%, a landslide by state party standards. Singleton nominated Caroline Self, an SDEC member from Florence, for the vice chair seat beside him; she won 139 votes (66.5%) over Tori Bailey.

Singleton has represented Greensboro in the Legislature since 2002 and led the Senate’s Democratic caucus since 2018 — a job he’s keeping alongside the new one. “I want you to know that I hear you, I see you,” he told the room before the vote, pledging listening tours across all 67 counties over his first 90 days in office, built around three stages: listen, build, mobilize.

One of those 200-plus votes belonged to Hazel Floyd, who holds the SDEC’s District 38 female seat — the same Hazel Floyd running for Alabama House District 38 after re-qualifying following a 67-point special election loss in February. District 38 spans both Chambers and Lee counties. Reached after the vote, Floyd told The Frequency she’d voted for both Singleton and Self. It’s one name against a count of more than 200. But it’s the same candidate who spent the spring proving she’d show up for a race almost no one gave her a chance in, showing up again Saturday for a vote inside her own party. The full profile is up now as a Frequency Wave, “Cutting the Static.”

The Auburn City Council gave final approval this month to $241.8 million in general obligation warrants for new school construction — funding a new Plains High School set to open in fall 2028, a new junior high school, athletic facilities, land and equipment. The bonds sold July 22 at a blended 4.52% interest rate, with roughly $214.6 million of the total going directly to construction.

Auburn High School opened in 2017 on a $72 million campus built for a smaller city. Auburn’s population has grown from about 64,000 residents that year to nearly 87,000 today, and the existing campus can’t absorb more growth. City officials are framing the borrowing as a budgeted expense that won’t require a tax increase, and roughly $2.4 million of the deal comes from refinancing older 2015-era bonds at better terms.

It’s a Lee County vote, not a Chambers County one — but the growth math behind it is the same pressure showing up on this side of the county line, too, as East Alabama’s population climbs and school capacity struggles to keep pace.

East Alabama Medical Center and Goodwill are teaming up for a hiring event Tuesday, August 18, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Opelika Chamber of Commerce. More than 300 positions are open across nursing, pharmacy, human resources, registration, dietary services, housekeeping, security and other support roles — entry-level through experienced.

EAMC employs roughly 4,100 people, making it the region’s second-largest employer behind Auburn University alone. Job seekers are asked to bring multiple copies of a resume and dress for on-site interviews; hiring representatives will be on hand to talk through openings and, in some cases, start the application process the same day.

EAMC’s own growth has tracked the region’s — the health system’s ICU and mental-health expansions have added dozens of beds since 2025 — and a 300-position hiring push is one measure of how fast that growth keeps requiring more people to staff it.