Welcome to Thursday's morning show podcast because you deserve a better morning.

I can't believe we made it, Carla Marie.

Show number five freaking hundred.

Yeah, 500.

I know we have listeners in every state.

Yes.

So 50 states, 500 episodes.

I don't know.

I kind of like that the matchy matchy over there.

No, that doesn't actually make sense because you're missing a zero. But I do know just a heads up that some podcast platforms will tell you this is episode 501 and you think that we're off. That's because we have a little pilot trailer up there that doesn't count as an episode. It was just saying, hey, this is what's going to be on this podcast. And without further ado, let's get into it.

The Core 4. The four headlines you need to know.

I want you to answer this one question. Why would a local election in Alabama matter to you?

And when I say it's a local election, I mean, only about 6 to 7,000 people total

voted in this election. But the reason the race is so important is because it might give

us a look at who is going to win the general election in November between Biden and Trump.

Let me explain. On Tuesday, voters in Alabama's 10th district had a special election to replace a state

representative who had to resign after pleading guilty to voter fraud.

The man who resigned was David Cole, a Republican.

And his political party is important here because Republicans have controlled that seat in

the state government for a very long time.

As a matter of fact,

the Republican Party in that part of Alabama is so strong that sometimes Democrats don't

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