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Things to know about Alabama's new U.S. senator, Doug Jones

Related Topics: Ku Klux Klan

Birmingham, Ala. • Doug Jones, a Democrat who once prosecuted two Ku Klux Klansmen in a deadly church bombing and has now broken the Republican lock grip on Alabama, is the state's new U.S. senator.

Jones, 63, grew up in the working-class city of Fairfield, just west of Birmingham, an area where steel mills once belched smoke that left a rust-colored haze hanging over the metro area. His father was a steelworker and so was one of his grandfathers; the other worked in a coal mine. Jones spent time working in a mill when not in school.