BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 14, 2023)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin will pay $100,000 to keep The Salvation Army shelter open for another month (KUT)
The Salvation Army's downtown shelter will stay open — for now.
Weeks ago, the nonprofit quietly announced it would close the facility that's been a resource for decades March 15, giving dozens of residents little notice to relocate. The City of Austin announced Friday that it's going to pay up to $100,000 to keep it open another month, and that it's working with Salvation Army to find homes for approximately 50 residents.
In a statement, Mayor Kirk Watson said it's a temporary fix but thanked city staff for working to act quickly to keep the shelter open as residents resettle… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin City Council prioritizes electric vehicle charging (Austin Business Journal)
Austin is moving forward with an initiative to bring more electric vehicle charging stations to the city.
During a March 9 meeting, Austin City Council approved a resolution directing Interim City Manager Jesús Garza to increase the number of direct-current fast charging stations for EVs throughout the city.
Austin Energy’s current efforts to supply multifamily developments with charging stations are limited to what are known as "type 2" charging stations, a more time-consuming charging system.
The resolution calls for the distribution of direct-current charging stations throughout the city and the possibility of converting existing type 2 chargers to DC fast chargers.
Garza has been directed to present an equitable plan by Sept. 19 to the Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee.
The move coincides with the Austin Climate Equity Plan, which has set the goal of reaching net-zero community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and emphasizes cutting emissions by 2030… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Changes expected for city’s minority business hiring ordinances (Austin monitor)
Proposed changes to the city’s procedures for hiring minority- and women-owned businesses will likely come before City Council this spring or early summer, with consultants and a working group recommending 21 adjustments or substantial revisions to the hiring practices.
A memo published last week details the results of the two-year review of the city’s Minority-Owned and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE/WBE) Procurement Program Ordinance. Central to those findings were the results of a 2022 disparity study conducted by Colette Holt & Associates that found the city’s minority business hiring practices are mostly successful and well structured, with some adjustments suggested.
Among the recommended ordinance changes: decrease the number of ordinances from four to two; eliminate numerical goals cited in the ordinance to address confusion; certify firms in the local program using North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes; implement a more extensive and detailed industry code review process when it is time for a firm to seek recertification; and adopt the federal approach to revise the policy so that a firm remains certified until its eligibility is removed rather than having a firm’s certification “expire.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Capital Metro secures nearly $66M in federal funds to bolster electric bus service (Austin Business Journal)
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority is making progress on its planned Expo Center and Pleasant Valley rapid bus lines thanks to tens of millions of dollars in federal funding.
The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration announced March 11 that Capital Metro, the Austin area's public transit agency, will receive $65.6 million to support the expansion with funds made available through 2021's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The two lines are moving forward as part of the city's effort to connect residents to job centers and other opportunities, including service to downtown Austin, the Travis County Expo Center and the University of Texas at Austin — a small part of the city's larger plan to expand its public transit system, Project Connect.
"A fast-growing metro area like Austin needs fast, frequent public transportation," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated. "The Biden-Harris Administration is proud to help deliver the new Expo Center and Pleasant Valley bus rapid transit lines, which will give more Austin residents an affordable, sustainable, and convenient way to get to jobs, schools, and downtown destinations."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Former Texas basketball coach Chris Beard takes Ole Miss job (Austin american-statesman)
Two months after Texas fired Chris Beard for “unacceptable behavior” following his arrest on a family violence felony charge, the Longhorns' former men’s basketball coach has already found his next job.
Beard was hired as the University of Mississippi’s next head coach Monday morning, according to Ole Miss' social media accounts.
Beard reportedly met with Ole Miss athletic director Kevin Carter last week about the opening, ESPN reported. After Ole Miss did its "due diligence," Carter said, the university and Beard hammered out the details of his hire over the weekend.
"We are excited to welcome Coach Beard and his daughters, Avery, Ella and Margo, to the Ole Miss family," Carter said in a press release. "We thoroughly evaluated a number of outstanding candidates, and there is no doubt Coach Beard is one of the top coaches in the nation. After conducting due diligence and speaking to a number of individuals on and off the court, it was evident he is the right person to guide our team to greatness.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Dallas-Fort Worth surpasses Austin as Texas’ tightest major housing markeT (Dallas Morning News)
Dallas-Fort Worth is proving to be more resilient to the recent slowdown in homebuying than other parts of the state.
While housing supply increased throughout Texas in 2022, Dallas-Fort Worth emerged with the tightest inventory of the state’s largest metro areas with 2.2 months of homes available at the end of the year, according to a new report from Texas Realtors.
A year before, the Austin market was the tightest in the state with just over half a month of supply, but D-FW was not far behind at 0.8 months. A balanced market between buyers and sellers would have about six months of supply available.
Statewide, housing inventory rose from 1.2 months at the end of 2021 to 2.7 months at the end of 2022.
With the shortage of homes to buy along with continued job growth bringing people to the region, home prices increased more in D-FW last year than in the other major Texas metros.
D-FW’s median price rose 15.6% to $400,000. Austin home prices grew the least by 11.2%, but the median price of a home in North Texas is still $102,000 less than in the Austin area… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Hundreds of frustrated Venezuelan migrants block bridge linking El Paso and Juárez (Texas tribune)
Frustrated by the failures of a U.S. government immigration app and a difficult existence on the streets of Juárez, hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants walked to the top of the Paso del Norte Bridge on Sunday to learn if a rumor about the border being temporarily opened was true.
Hundreds of migrants rushed through the toll booths on the Juárez side of the bridge and reached the top. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers implemented “port-hardening efforts,” including physical barriers at 1:30 p.m. to block migrants from entering the United States, spokesperson Roger Maier said.
The bridge, the northbound crossing linking the downtowns of El Paso and Juárez, began reopening at about 6 p.m. after migrants left. The protest also caused disruptions at the Stanton Street Bridge and the Bridge of the Americas, Maier said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Rise in infant deaths hits Black families hardest, study finds (Washington post)
A new federal study highlights a striking racial disparity in infant deaths: Black babies experienced the highest rate of sudden unexpected deaths in 2020, dying at almost three times the rate of White infants. The findings were part of research released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also found a 15 percent increase in sudden infant deaths among babies of all races from 2019 to 2020, making SIDS the third leading cause of infant death in the United States after congenital abnormalities and the complications of premature birth. “In minority communities, the rates are going in the wrong direction,” said Scott Krugman, vice chair of the department of pediatrics and an expert on SIDS at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. The study found that rising SIDS rates in 2020 was likely attributable to diagnostic shifting — or reclassifying the cause of death. The causes of the rise in sleep-related deaths of Black infants remain unclear but it coincided with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately affected the health and wealth of Black communities.
“Evidence does not support direct or indirect effects of the … pandemic on increased rates of sudden unexpected infant death, except for non-Hispanic Black infants,” said the study, to be published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics. The study’s authors, who call for further research into their findings, point out that the pandemic exacerbated overcrowded housing, food insecurity and other stressors, particularly among Black families — potentially leading to less safe sleeping practices, such as bed sharing. Before the pandemic, overall infant mortality — including diseases, accidents and injuries, and unexplained deaths — had been on a downward trend in the United States. Some of that drop can be attributed to the enormously successful campaign launched in the 1990s to encourage putting babies to sleep on their backs, as opposed to facedown when they may re-breathe the carbon dioxide they exhaled or suffocate in soft bedding. Tracking and understanding the causes of sudden and unexpected infant deaths on a national scale has been challenging in part because of different local practices of reporting and investigating the deaths. Data based on death certificates is notoriously inaccurate, and the pandemic introduced further complications, including shortening the time overburdened examiners could devote to investigating individual deaths… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Biden is selling U.S. nuclear submarines to Australia to counter ChinA (NPR)
President Biden met the leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom on Monday to map out some details of a new nuclear submarine pact: part of a defense partnership aimed at countering China's growing military power.
The partnership is known as AUKUS, an acronym representing the three nations involved in the deal, and the details were unveiled by Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
"As we stand at the inflection point in history where the hard work of enhancing deterrence and promoting stability is going to affect the prospects of peace for decades to come, the United States can ask for no better partners in the Indo-Pacific, where so much of our shared future will be written," Biden said standing between Albanese and Sunak outside at the Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego… (LINK TO FULL STORY)