August 30, 2020

MTA Woes Won't Just Impact New York City

It's easy to dismiss the financail woes facing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as solely a New York City-based concern.

But cuts by the major transit provider won't just impact the five boroughs, but the surrounding region stretching into its Mid-Hudson service area.

Sen. David Carlucci in a statement on Friday urged the federal government to take action and provide aid to the MTA amid a proposal to eliminate West of Hudson service.

“The federal administration needs to fund the MTA now and stop pointing fingers," Carlucci said. "The proposal to eliminate West of Hudson service will devastate Rockland County’s economy and make our area a commuter desert. If the MTA removes service, I will introduce legislation to allow Rockland to leave the MTA agreement.”

Read more: https://nystateofpolitics.com/state-of-politics/new-york/ny-state-of-politics/2020/08/28/mta-woes-won-t-just-impact-new-york-city-

August 30, 2020

A Push to Allow States to Use the Defense Production Act

Since the height of the pandemic, Governor Cuomo has pleaded with the federal government to expand its use of the Defense Production Act.

The current version of the law allows the president to direct private companies to prioritize orders from the federal government. In other words, if PPE masks are needed, the DPA can order a company to stop making widgets, and instead make masks.

Ben Smilowitz, founder and executive director of Disaster Accountability Project began to think about whether states could re-interpret the DPA within their own borders.

"States are struggling to tread water on PPE supplies and costs,” according to Smilowitz. "Congress must immediately throw states a life raft by allowing them to increase in-state production and buy PPE on priority."

Read more: https://nystateofpolitics.com/state-of-politics/new-york/politics/2020/08/28/a-push-to-allow-states-to-use-the-defense-production-act

August 30, 2020

Cuts to state education aid upend hybrid learning plans at urban schools

ALBANY — State aid cuts are forcing Albany city schools to suspend all in-person learning for grades 7-12 in this fall, a plan that school officials say will result in layoffs at every level — teachers, administrators and support staff.

The school district is expecting a budget shortfall that could range from $18 million to $26 million for the coming academic year due to aid reductions related to the COVID-19 crisis.

The district had previously offered one-to-two days of in-person classes to middle and high school students per week. The hybrid learning model consisted of a teacher or supervising adult assisting the teens with their virtual school work.

Albany schools will move forward with its plan to provide virtual and in-person options for all students in K-6th grade, according to school officials.

Read more: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Albany-Superintendent-Kaweeda-Adams-cites-state-15522657.php
(Albany Times Union)

August 30, 2020

Waco tattoo parlor faces up to $14,000 in fines for premature reopening

The last thing Zac Colbert wanted to do was pick a fight with the city of Waco.

All he was trying to do was make an honest living, keep his business afloat and take care of his family, his employees and their families, he said.

Colbert and his wife, Chonna, own and operate Infamous Ink, 933 Lake Air Drive. Technically, the business is listed in his wife’s name, Colbert said. But when city of Waco code enforcement officials started issuing citations after the Colberts defied Gov. Greg Abbott’s pandemic closure orders, they issued citations carrying potential $1,000 a day fines to both him and his wife as co-owners.

Now, Colbert and his wife are looking at up to $14,000 in fines from the city after they opened the business for a week in May in violation of Abbott’s orders. Pretrial negotiations have cut the Colberts’ potential exposure to $12,404, but Colbert said he intends to take his case to trial and explain his plight and the reason for his actions to Waco jurors after he said his pleas to lawmakers and city leaders fell on deaf ears.

Read more: https://wacotrib.com/news/local/waco-tattoo-parlor-faces-up-to-14-000-in-fines-for-premature-reopening/article_6f755566-e7db-11ea-8bf1-af8a9a9cfdea.html
(Waco Tribune-Herald)

August 30, 2020

With Few Eviction Protections Remaining, Texas Could Face A Housing Crisis Of 'Epic Proportions'

When Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act at the end of March, part of the goal was to help keep people in their homes as the nation battled a pandemic by trying to get people to stay home. A number of housing experts say that legislation, bolstered by state and local government measures, helped drive down evictions throughout the spring and summer as the nation’s economy saw record job losses.

Now, with the bulk of those protections mostly expired or reduced, 1 in 10 Texans are vulnerable to eviction in the coming months.

“I think we don’t have any idea what’s going to happen,” said Stuart Campbell, a Fort Worth-based housing attorney with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. “And that’s scary.”

The eviction moratorium included in the CARES Act only applied a portion of the nation’s rental units – the ones where landlords had federally backed mortgages or participated in subsidized housing programs — but Campbell says that plus a federal boost to unemployment checks, stimulus money and other aid kept a lot of the most vulnerable people from being evicted when they fell behind on rent because they lost work or got sick.

Read more: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/with-few-eviction-protections-remaining-texas-could-face-a-housing-crisis-of-epic-proportions/

August 30, 2020

Cameron County reports 10 deaths related to virus

Cameron County reported 10 additional COVID-19 related deaths in addition to 106 new positive cases of the virus, county Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. announced in a news release Saturday.

From the cities of Brownsville, Harlingen, Port Isabel and San Benito, the 10 individuals were aged 49, 54, 63, 66, 67, 71, 75, 85, 86 and 87.

The new reported deaths raise the county’s death toll to 576.

With the 106 new cases, the total known cases in Cameron County is now 20,959.

Read more: https://www.themonitor.com/2020/08/29/cameron-county-reports-10-deaths-related-virus/
(McAllen Monitor)

The virus is still running rampant in the Rio Grande Valley.

August 30, 2020

The Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus Wants An Investigation Into Fort Hood

A dozen Texas Senate members are reupping their request for a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood military base after a soldier was found dead earlier this week, becoming at least the ninth person stationed at the Killeen post to have been found dead this year, according to officials and media reports.

The body of Sgt. Elder Fernandes was found Tuesday in Temple, about 30 miles from the base, roughly a week after he was reported missing. Temple law enforcement officials said foul play was not suspected.

In May, Fernandes reported he had been a victim of sexual assault. Army officials said Wednesday that an investigation determined the inquiry was unsubstantiated and that Fernandes was made aware of the results, according to The Washington Post. But an attorney for the Fernandes family said Thursday that Fernandes, who was transferred to a new unit after reporting his assault, was harassed and bullied over it before his death.

Earlier this summer, the remains of 20-year-old Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, who had reportedly told her family that she was harassed on base, were found in Bell County after the soldier had been missing since April. The circumstances surrounding Guillén's death sparked protests across major cities in Texas, with demonstrators calling on the military to reform its investigations into sexual assault allegations.

Read more: https://www.kut.org/post/texas-senate-hispanic-caucus-wants-investigation-fort-hood

August 29, 2020

The Wildest Insurance Fraud Scheme Texas Has Ever Seen

When federal agent Jim Reed drove in to a small airport in the East Texas city of Athens mid-morning on September 15, 2014, he was expecting to find a straightforward case of arson—an easy case for the new guy. He introduced himself to the Athens Jet Center’s co-owners, two brothers in their seventies named Wayne and Gaylon Addkison, who led Reed to a small jet, a 1971 Cessna 500 Citation I, that looked like it had been barbecued on a rotisserie. “It was burned in half,” Wayne Addkison recalled. “The nose tipped on the ground and the back half was on the ground too.”

For two weeks the Citation had just been sitting on the tarmac at Athens Municipal Airport, next to the Jet Center, they told Reed. But two days before Reed’s visit, they’d come into work after receiving a call: the plane was in flames. Reed, a fit 29-year-old who was as careful with his clean-cut brown hair and clean-shaven face as he was with his deposition-ready phrasing, was only six months into his job as an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Reed didn’t doubt that the fire was the result of arson: A mechanical failure on an inactive Citation was about as unlikely as a lightning strike. As one pilot would later say, “Planes don’t just catch fire in a hangar. They don’t spontaneously combust.” Driving out from Tyler, where he was based, Reed considered the typical arsonists who might be involved. Was this a teen vandal? A local troublemaker?

Later, when he reviewed the airport’s surveillance footage, he could see a shadow of a man thrown from the plane in a ball of fire when it exploded. He checked the area burn centers, hospitals, and morgues. Nobody had turned up with burns. Whoever set fire to the plane had somehow walked away in one piece.

The Addkisons told Reed that a pilot had flown a small plane, a Beechcraft Bonanza, in and out two weeks earlier, on August 29—just landed and then quickly took off. That alone seemed strange, the brothers agreed: rare is the pilot who flies into a small airport just to admire the layout. A couple days after that, the Bonanza showed up in Athens again—and this time, one of the airfield’s early risers, a pilot named Carroll Dyson, spotted its thirtysomething, dark-haired pilot slinking around the not-yet-toasted Citation. Innocently, Dyson initiated some small talk, and the pilot told him the Bonanza’s alternator and battery were having issues. “The plane won’t start,” the pilot said. Insistent on helping, Dyson looked at the battery, and then the pilot hopped in and turned the key. The plane started right up. “Well, it’s runnin’ now,” Dyson said. The pilot thanked him and took off.

Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/it-was-never-enough/

August 29, 2020

Four San Antonio Hotels Will Lay Off a Total of at Least 500 Workers Amid COVID Downturn

Despite the recent influx of guests fleeing Hurricane Laura, San Antonio's hospitality industry is continuing its deep job cuts.

Luxury property JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa is laying off 462 workers, or half its staff, the Express-News reports, citing details from affected employees. Its downtown Marriott Rivercenter and Marriott Riverwalk properties are also trimming jobs, although it's unclear how many.

What's more, the Sheraton Gunter Hotel will lay off 38 employees, according to details it provided to the Texas Workforce Commission. Those cuts are expected to take place October 23, according to its filing.

The job losses are the result of the coronavirus pandemic all but wiping out the convention and leisure travel business. Wyndham Hotels recently warned the TWC of coming job cuts in San Antonio, and airport foodservice provider HMSHost is getting rid of more than 100 positions here.

Read more: https://www.sacurrent.com/Flavor/archives/2020/08/28/four-san-antonio-hotels-will-lay-off-a-total-of-at-least-500-workers-amid-covid-downturn

August 29, 2020

Ted Nugent Wants List of All U.S. Deaths From Past 5 Years to Show 'Chinese Communist Virus' Numbers

Ted Nugent Wants List of All U.S. Deaths From Past 5 Years to Show 'Chinese Communist Virus' Numbers Are Fake


Ted Nugent may believe in “Cat Scratch Fever,” but he does not believe in the coronavirus, which officials say has killed more than 171,000 Americans. In fact, he thinks it's all “bullshit.”

Nugent, 72, who says his Kill It & Grill It diet is the reason he can “outrun puppy dogs for a short distance,” recently appeared with his wife, Shemane, on a conservative podcast hosted by author David J. Harris Jr. to attempt to disprove “Chinese communist virus” statistics and to call B.S. on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Department of Agriculture. Oh, he also promoted his HuntTheVote.org rifle giveaway.

“They claim 160,000 people dead from the Chinese communist virus. Bullshit,” he said. “They claim millions and millions have been tested positive [for the virus]. Bullshit. They claim that the ICU units are overcrowded. Bullshit.”

The self-proclaimed “goofy guitar player” says he wants a list of all American deaths from January-July from the last five years to compare with those reported deaths this year. He believes the government is inflating numbers by including non-coronavirus deaths in the death count.

Read more: https://www.sacurrent.com/sa-sound/archives/2020/08/28/ted-nugent-wants-list-of-all-us-deaths-from-past-5-years-to-show-chinese-communist-virus-numbers-are-fake