October 26, 2015

Tower’s souvenirs miss SA’s founding date by 63 years

While San Antonio’s Tricentennial Commission gathered at the Institute of Texan Cultures on Friday to hire a local firm for branding and marketing the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018, the nearby Tower of the Americas’ gift shop was already selling souvenir T-shirts and coffee mugs noting the year the city was established.

With a giant typo.

The tower’s souvenirs promoting San Antonio as the Alamo City and River City are decorated with a yellow rose and “Est 1781” in large type. What a difference a couple of transposed numbers make.

If you got your anniversary information from the front of T-shirts or coffee mugs, you might wonder why San Antonio was planning a big bash for its 237th birthday in 2018. It’s not, of course. The souvenir items should have said that the city was established in 1718, a year that has made numerous local news stories as Mayor Ivy Taylor established a big local commission and advisory board this summer to decide how the milestone will be celebrated.

Marketing for what is expected to be a yearlong calendar of events with the tricentennial brand is so important that the City Council approved $200,000 last week for fiscal year 2016 for marketing and branding, and the selection of a firm for that job was one of a few items of business on the tricentennial commission’s Friday agenda. About half of the commission’s hourlong meeting was in executive session, where the commission discussed a recommendation that KGB Texas get the initial $200,000 marketing and branding contract. Five other firms made proposals for the work. Other business included appointing and swearing in its executive director, secretary and treasurer, adding to the president and vice president appointed in August.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Tower-s-souvenirs-miss-SA-s-founding-date-by-6589983.php

October 26, 2015

Applebee's to compensate autistic employee not paid for a year

He's worked for a popular restaurant chain for about a year, but never received a paycheck.

But that will soon change for a man in Rhode Island.

Caleb Dyl, 21, was a prep-cook for Middletown, Rhode Island's Applebees, starting in August 2014, WPRI reported.

Dyl is autistic and was placed in the job by the private social service agency Resources for Human Development.

Read more: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/applebees-compensate-autistic-employee-not-paid-ye/nn87t/

October 25, 2015

Follow-up: Emails-Prosecutors Got Texas Mutual "Great Publicity"

Travis County prosecutors say the money they get each year from a large insurance company to prosecute workers’ compensation fraud helps both consumers and businesses by holding down premiums and maintaining a stable market for employers.

But behind the scenes, top officials in the district attorney’s office are highlighting other benefits: They say they’re generating a lot of money and good PR for Texas Mutual Insurance Company.

Emails obtained by The Texas Tribune and the Austin American-Statesman show officials from the DA’s office have even used those claims to ask Texas Mutual for more money to prosecute the company’s fraud cases.

Texas Mutual, the largest provider of workers’ compensation insurance in Texas, has authorized payments of some $4.7 million to the Travis County district attorney’s office since 2000 to prosecute fraud cases for the company. The agreement has come under scrutiny at the Travis County courthouse and the state Capitol following a joint Tribune/Statesman investigation last month that raised questions about the deal. Critics say the public-private partnership constitutes a basic conflict of interest, and officials have since temporarily suspended the agreement.

Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/25/emails-prosecutors-got-texas-mutual-great-publicit/

Earlier threads:
Justice for hire? Giant insurer pays government lawyers to pursue fraud charges September 9, 2015
Follow-up: Officials Want Review of Privately Funded Prosecutions September 14, 2015
Follow-up: Travis County Can't Stop Privately Funded Prosecutions September 23, 2015
Follow-up: Travis County Prosecutor-For-Hire Deal with Texas Mutual Ins. Co. Postponed September 30, 2015
Travis County DA sues Texas to fight controversial Texas Mutual Ins. Co. contract’s release October 13, 2015

October 25, 2015

Waco prosecutors withheld public information on May shootout at Twin Peaks

The Texas attorney general’s office says Waco prosecutors violated open records laws when they did not turn over text messages related to a fatal May shootout that left 9 people dead, according to reports from KXAS-TV (NBC5).

The May 17 incident at Twin Peaks put more than 170 bikers in jail.

A local sheriff’s deputy asked for the release of text message records associated with the case after several of the attorneys for the arrested bikers complained that prosecutors had offered to lower their clients’ bonds if their clients waived their right to sue, NBC 5 reported.

In a letter sent earlier this month, the attorney general’s office instructed McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna to rectify the situation after prosecutors failed to release the records, NBC 5 reported.

Read more: http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/10/reports-waco-prosecutors-withheld-public-information-on-may-shootout.html/

October 25, 2015

Tea-party zealots fast crippling US business efforts abroad

With all the suffocating legislation handed down to American businesses in recent years, why would our congressional leaders shut down legislation that promotes healthy job creation and costs taxpayers nothing?

Congress is playing with fire when it attacks the export economy by shutting down the federal Export-Import Bank. The bank has been a vital cog in our export system, providing loans and insurance to help American companies sell their products overseas. Despite its importance to the economy — the bank supported nearly $30 billion in exports last year — it remains under assault from tea-party leaders like Texas’s Jeb Hensarling and Ted Cruz, who think government has no role to play in helping American businesses succeed.

Yet they ignore the lesson of the last recession. The damage from shutting down the bank this summer isn’t limited to exports. Like the fallout from the housing bubble and Wall Street crisis, it is spreading like wildfire across our nation.

The Export-Import Bank is not some rogue, wasteful agency. The opposite is true. Ex-Im has been one of the smallest federal agencies out there. It is a cautious lender with strict underwriting rules and a default rate far lower than that of private banks. The bank pays for its own operations out of interest and fees on its services. Most years it runs a surplus as one of the few federal agencies that makes money for the taxpayer. Over the past two decades the bank has generated $7 billion in revenue above and beyond its operating costs.

Read more: http://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/columns/guest_columns/cindy-lewis-guest-columnist-tea-party-zealots-fast-crippling-us/article_ffdc7d22-3143-53d3-9250-82061d0172e2.html

October 25, 2015

Max Aaron, Evgenia Medvedeva win at Skate America

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Max Aaron became the first U.S. winner at Skate America in six years Saturday night, and Russian world junior champion Evgenia Medvedeva took the women's title in her first Grand Prix Series event.

The 23-year-old Aaron landed two quad and six triple jumps and finished with 258.95 points. Japan's Shoma Uno was second at 257.43.

Performing his "Black Swan" program, Aaron moved from element to element without any problems until he hit a snag with the landing of his final jump, a double Axel.

"Basically I wanted to stay in my mindset the whole time, stay focused on every element and listen to the music," Aaron said. "That was my goal and what I came here to do. Obviously at the end I had a little slip up. I started to think about the overall picture and that was a mistake, but I'm glad I got that far. I want to improve the next time I compete and get better and better."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/russias-evgenia-medvedeva-wins-skate-america-234926778.html

October 25, 2015

Massive takedown of Aryan Brotherhood of Texas praised in Washington

Murders and mutilations, such as slicing the finger off a corpse as a souvenir or using a blow torch to burn a tattoo off a man's torso while he was still alive, were just some of the savagery uncovered during a yearslong probe of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

All told, 73 members and associates of the race-based gang were sent to federal prison in a case that began in Houston in 2009 and culminated this week with U.S. Attorney Gen. Loretta Lynch recognizing a team of prosecutors, agents, police and a Texas Ranger for their efforts.

"You are safeguarding our neighborhoods and defending our communities," Lynch said during a Washington ceremony in which she spoke of the Texas group and others getting awards from the Department of Justice.

"You are protecting the American people from crime, from violence and from threats to our national security," she continued. "And you are working, every day, to ensure that our children grow up in a nation that guarantees opportunity, dignity and justice for all."

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Massive-takedown-of-Aryan-Brotherhood-of-Texas-6588284.php

October 25, 2015

How Texas' workers' comp laws endanger many workers

So how much is a disabled arm worth? Depending on whether your company is in Texas’ workers' compensation system or has bailed out, the answer could be anywhere from $100,000-plus to zilch.

Workers, however, won’t discover this injustice until they’re in dire need of medical help. Joe Becker, an Abilene trucker who herniated several discs in his back in 2012, worked for a company that had opted out of the state-run system. His benefits ended after two years, much sooner than they would have had his employer remained in the state system. Left to fend for himself, he’s now on the edge of being homeless.

Becker is one of many paying a steep price because their employer jettisoned the state’s workers comp system, according to an extensive analysis by ProPublica and NPR. Their findings, published in The Dallas Morning News last week, should give pause to other states considering similar measures.

Until recently, Texas had been the only state that didn’t mandate that companies be in the workers compensation system. Now Oklahoma allows companies to opt out, and Tennessee and South Carolina are considering similar measures. Texas lawyer Bill Minick, who runs an injured-worker consultancy called PartnerSource, is leading a national effort, along with several major companies, to get opt-out laws passed in a dozen states within the next decade.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20151023-editorial-how-texas-workers-comp-laws-endanger-many-workers.ece

October 24, 2015

Jeb Bush, campaigning in Nevada, suggests Texas for potential nuclear dump

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush suggested the dry, open spaces of New Mexico or his native Texas as a possible location for a permanent national nuclear waste dump, reviving a controversy that has percolated for years in the Lone Star State.

"New Mexico, Texas, have communities. … There are regions there (that) would compete for it," he told a Public Television interviewer this week in Nevada, where the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain appears to be all but dead.

A Bush campaign aide said he is not endorsing any particular state or site, but rather a "consent-oriented" process for siting a permanent nuclear waste repository.

Bush, in an interview with veteran Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston, said he had "talked to people in Texas" and is confident that there are communities willing to develop the sort of long-term nuclear waste facility that has eluded the U.S. nuclear industry for decades.

Read more: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/us/article/Jeb-Bush-campaigning-in-Nevada-suggests-Texas-6585254.php

October 24, 2015

Louisiana high court rejects Jindal Common Core appeal

Gov. Bobby Jindal has run out of options to fight the Common Core education standards in Louisiana court. On Friday (Oct. 23), the Louisiana Supreme Court opted not to hear his appeal of a 2014 lawsuit.

The justices did not issue a written comment on their decision.

Jindal initially supported the mathematics and English standards but turned against them last year as he began to prepare his campaign for president. In June 2014, he issued executive orders that, among other things, suspended the contract for new, multi-state exams developed by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

In response, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, several Louisiana parents and the New Orleans charter group Choice Foundation sued Jindal and then–Administration Commissioner Kristy Nichols. They charged the governor overstepped the authority of the Legislature and state education board.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2015/10/bobby_jindal_common_core_lawsu.html#incart_2box_nola_river_orleans_news