BG Reads | News You Need to Know (August 20, 2021)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin City Limits to require proof of vaccination or negative test at 2021 fest (Rolling Stone)
Austin City Limits is the latest music fest to require that festival-goers show proof of vaccination or a negative test in order to attend.
Organizers announced Thursday that anyone attending the fest must have “a printed copy of a negative Covid-19 test result” obtained within 72 hours of the festival, scheduled for the weekends of October 1st and 8th in the Texas capital.
“Patrons who are fully vaccinated may show proof of full Covid-19 vaccination instead of proof of negative test,” organizers said, adding, “Please note that vaccination is not required to attend ACL Festival.”
Austin City Limits’ announcement comes after Texas Governor Greg Abbott — currently in isolation after testing positive for coronavirus — issued an executive order barring mask and vaccine mandates in the state, with the governor also threatening the liquor license of any establishment or concert venue that institutes mandates. However, many establishments, businesses, and school districts have defied the governor’s executive order, especially in light of the state’s dire ICU situation.
ACL organizers said of a mask mandate, “Information related to masks will be released closer to the festival dates.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Hundreds of faculty ask UT to require vaccines, masks on campus as COVID-19 resurges (Austin American-Statesman)
Hundreds of faculty members at the University of Texas are asking campus officials to defy the governor and immediately mandate masks and COVID-19 vaccines for students, staff and faculty.
An estimated 50,000 UT students will be attending classes starting next week, with the majority of classes scheduled to be held in person. UT isrequiring students to get tested for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their arrival in Austin or the first day of classes if they are already in Austin. The university also will encourage — but not require — masks and vaccinations.
As of Wednesday morning, about 730 people, including professors, a few administrators and about 130 graduate students, had signed a petition asking UT for vaccination and mask requirements. According to the petition, "UT faces a major public health crisis this fall."
"Despite strong agreement among scientists that vaccines are safe and effective and that wearing masks can significantly slow transmission rates, including among the vaccinated, the University of Texas System has yet to introduce vaccine and mask mandates," the petition states. "As concerned UT faculty members, we view this stance as unscientific and dangerous."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
More than 250 companies circling Austin area (Austin Business Journal)
The rush of businesses moving to Central Texas is not slowing down. In fact, it seems to be accelerating.
More than 250 companies are considering putting down roots in the greater Austin area, according to data compiled Aug. 8 by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and its economic development initiative, Opportunity Austin. Among the prospects are dozens of potential headquarters relocations.
The corporate interest is at a level never seen before by Gary Farmer, chairman of Opportunity Austin. It underscores how the Texas capital, already one of the most resilient economies during the pandemic, is poised to keep booming.
And that's just a glimpse of the wider economic development picture. That figure doesn't include the companies that are already in the area that may choose to expand, and it doesn't include the companies that have already announced an investment in Austin so far this year.
As of July, more than 16,500 jobs had been announced from roughly 60 companies moving to the region and nearly 70 expansions of companies already in the Austin area, according to a tally by Opportunity Austin, which facilitates economic development across the five-county metro. That scope of job creation represents roughly 75% of the record 22,114 jobs pledged by companies in 2020. And there are likely even more expansion and relocations flying under the radar that chamber officials and the media don't know about.
One of the main drivers of corporate interest in Central Texas is its rising population, which means more talent that companies can recruit, said Charisse Bodisch, senior vice president of economic development for the Austin Chamber. And in turn, one of the reasons Austin has been the fastest-growing major U.S. metro in the country for the past decade is because of its employment opportunities, as well as relatively lower costs of living compared to places such as Silicon Valley. Many companies leave California for Texas because of the latter's lack of an income tax and generally business-friendly environment.
"Central Texas is fortunate that we're a venue where companies can achieve their hopes, dreams and aspirations. And because of that, we do have intense interest from really a variety of different sectors," said Farmer, who is also president of Heritage Title Company of Austin. "That diversity really puts us in a position where we have a more sustainable, or more predictable, economy."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
After a nearly six-week exodus over GOP voting bill, enough Democrats return to Texas House to resume work (Texas Tribune)
For the first time in nearly six weeks, state officials said there were enough lawmakers present in the Texas House on Thursday for the chamber to conduct business — opening the door for the passage of the GOP priority elections bill that Democrats have been attempting to kill for the past several weeks by staying far away from the Capitol.
The margin was razor thin on Thursday and it was unclear for hours before gaveling in whether Republicans had gotten enough members in the chamber to begin their work. Ultimately, 99 members voted that they were present with 49 stated absences. (The regular 100-member threshold for a quorum dropped to 99 on Thursday after San Antonio Democrat Leo Pacheco’s resignation went into effect.) The House then adjourned until 4 p.m. on Monday after referring a slew of bills to committee.
Even Republican State Rep. Steve Allison of San Antonio, who confirmed he was positive for COVID-19 a day earlier, showed up to the House to help swing the numbers — though he stayed isolated in a room on the side of the chamber… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
New TEA guidance to schools: Gov. Abbott’s mask mandate ban ‘not being enforced’ amid litigation (Dallas Morning News)
Mask provisions in an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott’s, which prohibits school districts from requiring face coverings, are not being enforced because of an ongoing legal battle, according to new public health guidance from the Texas Education Agency. A flurry of lawsuits and temporary restraining orders have sparked tremendous confusion over mask mandates as families send their kids back to campus for the new school year.
On Sunday night, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily halted a restraining order that allowed Dallas and Bexar counties to issue county-wide mask mandates that covered public school districts. But that same evening, a Travis County judge granted a new restraining order that temporarily blocks Abbott from prohibiting mask mandates in Texas public schools. Some Texas districts, including Richardson ISD, have used the Travis County restraining order as legal justification for issuing a mask mandate. Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have vowed to take any school district to court that violates the executive order. Paxton has published an ever-evolving list of school districts and local governments that have required masks. Disability Rights Texas filed the first federal lawsuit against Abbott’s ban this week, claiming that the governor’s order violates federal anti-discrimination law that prohibits the exclusion of students with disabilities from public education. “Further guidance will be made available after the court issues are resolved,” TEA’s guidance states… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How New Braunfels became one of the fastest growing cities in the country (New York Times)
In the not-too-distant past, motorists driving along a stretch of Interstate 35 just northeast of San Antonio were met with vast fields of wildflowers and grazing cows in grassy pastures. Today, the cattle are gone, replaced with clusters of sleek apartments, gated communities and big-box stores. And New Braunfels, the third-fastest-growing city in America, tucked in one of the fastest-growing regions, finds itself at a crossroads. “People have found New Braunfels — the word is out,” said the city’s mayor, Rusty Brockman. “And I think we are going to continue to deal with this growth for a long time.” A once quaint town known for its German roots and the Schlitterbahn water park, New Braunfels grew a whopping 56 percent over the last decade, adding about 32,500 residents. It was noted by U.S. Census officials last week as an example of a city that experienced significant growth in its perch just outside metropolitan hubs — New Braunfels is between San Antonio and Austin, which also grew at blistering paces over the past decade. There were two others in Texas, a fast-growing state: McKinney, outside of Dallas, and Conroe, which had been enveloped by the sprawling Houston metropolitan area. In many ways, the story of New Braunfels’s expansion is the story of a changing America.
As its population has boomed, with many new arrivals coming from big cities across Texas and states like California, Colorado and New York, the town also become more diverse. The Anglo population has dipped below 60 percent for the first time in recent decades, with Latinos accounting for about 35 percent of residents. The sheer growth shows no signs of abating. City officials have set aside at least $30 million for infrastructure initiatives, in addition to more than $600 million for water and wastewater projects undertaken by the local utility company. And more money will be needed in the near future, Mr. Brockman said. In a visible sign of the boom, permits to build new homes exceeded 1,400 last year, a record for the city, said Jeff Jewell, the city’s director of economic and community development. More than 10,000 single-family homes were added over the past 11 years and property values have also skyrocketed, with the median home value jumping 73 percent over the past decade, to $272,000 from $157,000. But there was a time when life was a lot quieter in New Braunfels. “I still remember when it was nothing but cows over there,” said Brittney Marbach, who at 25 no longer recognizes the town she grew up in.
“A lot has changed. We are losing our small-town vibe.” German settlers, captivated by the green spaces and the convergence of the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers, founded the town in 1845. Legend has it that the region reminded Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, the leader of the settlers, of his old home in Braunfels, Germany. And so he decided to buy a swath of land and name it New Braunfels, near where Native Americans thrived by the water’s edge. The town’s German roots are everywhere. The state’s oldest bakery, Naegelin’s Bakery, still thrives downtown — an area local residents call the Circle — with a steady stream of customers, many of them newcomers and tourists clamoring for the shop’s trademark pastry, the apple strudel… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
‘We don’t want the heat’: Texas venues face losing talent that wants vaccine proof, or breaking law (Dallas Morning News)
The roller-coaster ride isn’t over for the concert industry after a year and a half of jarring disruptions and tentative restarts. But there is one major point on which its players are beginning to agree: Fans should provide proof of vaccination against the coronavirus or show a recent negative test in order to get into shows, perhaps every show. Artists were the first to ask for such a policy. Dallas saw that last week, when Grammy-winner Jason Isbell said he’d be requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test for fans at all his concerts, prompting his Fort Worth show to move to Billy Bob’s, which agreed to enforce his policy. On Monday, Maroon 5 ticket holders faced similar protocols at Dos Equis Pavilion in Fair Park after the band said its concerts would have the rules, too. Now, the biggest push is coming from global entertainment companies, two of which, Live Nation and AEG Presents, say they plan to mandate vaccine proof or negative tests at most venues and festivals they control in the U.S. Together, the two dominate the industry.
“Vaccines are going to be your ticket back to shows,” said Michael Rapino, president and CEO of Live Nation, in a statement last week. “As of October 4th we will be following the model we developed for Lollapalooza” — the Chicago music festival — “and requiring this for artists, fans and employees at Live Nation venues and festivals everywhere possible in the U.S.” That’s all fine and good in many states. But in Texas, the growing consensus sets up a conflict, since Gov. Greg Abbott has prohibited groups including businesses from making customers prove they’re vaccinated. In June, he signed into law Senate Bill 968, banning so-called “vaccine passports.” Under it, state agencies that license certain businesses are tasked with ensuring they don’t require info about vaccination status from customers. The agencies can also make compliance a condition to operate. He later issued an executive order outlawing vaccine requirements by groups that receive public funds, or that expect to in the future through grants, contracts, loans or other disbursements.
Though it’s unclear if violators would risk losing those funds, they would have to pay a $1,000 fine. So, as the concert industry ramps up efforts to check vaccine cards at the door, how will the policy play in Texas and in Dallas, a major market? Rolling Stone reported that Live Nation’s guidelines will apply “where permitted by law.” The magazine also said Live Nation had “developed best practices for artists to request these policies at third party venues.” (Bands that have touring deals with the company often play many venues that it doesn’t control.) In North Texas, Live Nation fully owns and operates Dos Equis Pavilion, The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, the House of Blues and The HiFi — the new Design District venue backed by Mark Cuban that’s set to open later this month… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas Democrats are relying on politicians who lost in 2020 to carry them in 2022 (Texas Monthly)
Beto O’Rourke has an hour to kill, so he’s decided to go block-walking. He stops at the Waller County elections office, gets deputized as a volunteer voter registrar, and picks a neighborhood with short driveways. His goal is to find at least one voting-eligible adult in that hour to add to the rolls. If the house has a “no trespassing” or “beware of dog” sign, as is common in this part of Hempstead, an hour west of Houston, or if it’s boarded up and has an overgrown lawn, he skips it. O’Rourke, the 2018 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate and—for a brief time—presidential hopeful, isn’t running for anything. Not yet, anyway. But he drove into Hempstead on this June afternoon ahead of a town hall rally at Prairie View A&M University. In the evening, he’ll be talking about voting rights and Texas Senate Bill 7, legislation that would have implemented restrictions on voting. Democrats in the state House blocked the bill a few days earlier by walking out of the chamber on the last day of the regular legislative session, denying Republicans the quorum of one hundred members they needed to have present before they could vote on it. The Democrats will soon flee to Washington, D.C., to try to block a similar bill’s passage during a special legislative session called by Governor Greg Abbott.
Julie Oliver spent the weeks after the 2020 election in a funk. She was pleased that Joe Biden had won the presidency, but frustrated and disappointed with the results around Texas, including in her own race. The former health-care administrator had lost by fourteen points in her bid to represent a Central Texas district stretching from Austin to Fort Worth. That was closer than races in the district had been pre-Trump, but below the mark she set in 2018, when she lost by nine. “I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” she says. “‘I think maybe Texas is a lost cause.’”
One of her former campaign workers convinced Oliver that she might feel better if she got active, so they climbed into a car, along with Oliver’s 22-year-old daughter, and headed to Georgia to knock on doors for the two Senate runoff elections in January. Oliver says the experience was “cathartic” and reminded her that, while the virtual-style campaign she relied upon during the pandemic ended in disappointment, she was still excited about on-the-ground politics. By March, she joined the national voter registration organization Register2Vote, as its executive director. Mike Siegel, a labor lawyer who had lost U.S. House races in 2018 by four points and in 2020 by seven points in an adjacent district to Oliver’s, joined as political director. They run their organization out of a small office park in North Austin. Both have looked closely at where their campaigns went wrong. Siegel points to an obvious opportunity cost: the two candidates combined to raise $5 million in 2020, $3 million of which went toward TV advertising. “What legacy is there to that three million dollars on TV?” he asks. “It’s just down the drain.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tougher rules are coming for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (NPR)
For many people, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are part of an exciting and lucrative new financial frontier. But for the country's top market watchdog, Gary Gensler, they seem "like the Wild West" – and he's promising a crackdown.
The market for cryptocurrencies has ballooned. It is currently estimated to be worth about $2 trillion, thanks to the exploding popularity of Bitcoin and other virtual money like Dogecoin.
Amateur investors, particularly younger ones, have started buying and trading cryptocurrencies, attracted to the thrill of big returns. In the past year, the value of Bitcoin has risen 300%. And cryptocurrencies are increasingly also attractive to traditional investors.
But the cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile, and even as it becomes more mainstream, it continues to be popular among bad actors.
In recent months, hackers have demanded ransomware payments in Bitcoin, because it is easy to transfer and hard to trace. And there have been plenty of reports of thefts and heists at cryptocurrency exchanges in which cybercriminals have absconded with other people's virtual holdings.
In a recent speech, Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), denounced the lack of transparency and clear regulations, and promised the commission will take action to protect investors, which is a key part of the agency's mission… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
U.S. states rush to meet deadline to join $26 billion opioid settlement (Reuters)
U.S. states are racing to meet a deadline to commit to a $26 billion opioid settlement with three drug distributors and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), as some grapple with local resistance and concerns the amount isn't big enough to address the damage done by an epidemic of addiction.
Fourteen state attorneys general unveiled the proposed settlement with McKesson Corp (MCK.N), AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC.N), Cardinal Health Inc (CAH.N) and J&J on July 21, kicking off a months-long process for states, counties and cities to sign on.
By Saturday, states must decide whether to join settlements that call for the distributors to pay $21 billion and J&J to pay $5 billion, money meant to help fund treatment and other services. The epidemic of opioid abuse has resulted in nearly 500,000 overdose deaths since 1999, according to the U.S. government.
The settlement's complex formula envisions at least 44 states participating, but ultimately the companies decide whether a "critical mass" have joined and whether to finalize the deal… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Billions in US weaponry seized by Taliban (The Hill)
Billions of dollars of U.S. weapons are now in the hands of the Taliban following the quick collapse of Afghan security forces that were trained to use the military equipment.
Among the items seized by the Taliban are Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.
Photos have also circulated of Taliban fighters clutching U.S.-made M4 carbines and M16 rifles instead of their iconic AK-47s. And the militants have been spotted with U.S. humvees and mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles.
While it’s virtually impossible to operate advanced aircraft without training, seizing the hardware gives the militants a propaganda boost and underscores the amount of wasted funds on U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.
“When an armed group gets their hands on American-made weaponry, it's sort of a status symbol. It's a psychological win,” said Elias Yousif, deputy director of the Center for International Policy’s Security Assistance Monitor.
“Clearly, this is an indictment of the U.S. security cooperation enterprise broadly,” he added. “It really should raise a lot of concerns about what is the wider enterprise that is going on every single day, whether that's in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia.”
The United States spent an estimated $83 billion training and equipping Afghan security forces over the last two decades… (LINK TO FULL STORY)