DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Five Former Officers Indicted on Federal Charges in Tyre Nichols Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Emily Cochrane | More About Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Five former Memphis police officers accused of brutally beating Tyre Nichols have been indicted on federal criminal charges in connection with Mr. Nichols’s death in January, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday. The four charges, handed up by a grand jury in the Federal District Court in Memphis, accuse each of the five men of various civil rights, conspiracy and obstruction offenses. The indictment says that the two offenses led to Mr. Nichols’s severe injuries and death. If convicted, the men could face up to life in prison on those two counts alone. The remaining two counts — both related to witness tampering and obstruction — are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Persons: Tyre Nichols, Nichols’s, Nichols Organizations: Memphis, Justice Department, Court Locations: Federal, Memphis

Dan Ellison started shrimping when he was 12, bringing a change of clothes on the boat so he could make it to school after early-morning outings. He would sketch shrimp boats in class, before quitting school in eighth grade to pursue his passion. “I couldn’t do what a doctor or lawyer does,” Mr. Ellison, 61, said. You’ve got to know so much to survive.”He joined his father shrimping and fishing in tiny Horseshoe Beach, Fla., a business that took a significant hit when the state banned net fishing in the 1990s. “It’s just a dying breed,” Mr. Ellison said of shrimpers in the Big Bend region, where the Florida peninsula meets the Panhandle.

Persons: Dan Ellison, shrimping, Mr, Ellison, You’ve, “ It’s, shrimpers, Hurricane Idalia Organizations: Hurricane Locations: Fla, Bend, Florida

☆ Tennessee G.O.P. Again Silences Democratic Lawmaker Justin Jones
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Emily Cochrane | More About Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Tennessee’s House Republicans on Monday again silenced Representative Justin Jones, a Black Democrat who was expelled earlier this year in a gun control protest, after he was deemed to have violated new stringent rules of decorum. Democrats left the House chamber in protest after Mr. Jones was barred from speaking on the floor for the remainder of the day, while chants of “fascists” and “racists” broke out in the gallery overhead. Republicans ordered state troopers to clear the galleries. The uproar came when Speaker Cameron Sexton and chamber leaders decided that Mr. Jones, for the second time in the day, had breached the rules of the House by speaking out of turn. This time, Mr. Jones had suggested, during a debate about increasing the number of police officers in schools, that the state’s resources should be focused instead on mental health professionals and teacher pay — comments Mr. Sexton said were off-topic.

Persons: Justin Jones, Jones, ”, Cameron Sexton, Sexton Organizations: Tennessee’s, Republicans, Monday, Black Democrat

☆ Biden Visits Hawaii Biden Heads to Maui to See Wildfire Devastation
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Peter Baker | Zolan Kanno-Youngs | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

Terri Thomas’s family has been waiting for days. “It’s tragic — this hopeless feeling,” said Ms. Thomas’s niece, Terra Thomas, who lives in North Carolina. Spotty-to-nonexistent phone reception, especially in the immediate aftermath, made it hard for survivors to contact loved ones. Chief John Pelletier of the Maui Police Department urged people searching for loved ones to take a DNA test that could help identify their remains. Once the couple was able to inform loved ones they were safe, the social media attention proved helpful.

Persons: Terri Thomas’s, Thomas, Thomas’s, “, ”, Terra Thomas, Jill Tokuda, “ It’s, Noelle Manriquez, John Pelletier of, Pelletier, ” Terra Thomas, Terri Thomas, Harry, Toni Troupe, Toni, Max Whittaker, ” Emily Cochrane Organizations: Democrat, Maui Police Department, ”, The New York Times, huskies, Credit, Facebook Locations: Lahaina, Hawaii, North Carolina, Maui, Congress, West Maui, State, Napili, Honokowai, Ohio, Midwest, Bali

☆ Grieving Governor’s Moderate Gun Proposal Is Spurned by G.O.P. Allies
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Emily Cochrane | More About Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bill Lee of Tennessee began a push in April to address public safety, his family was grieving the loss of two close friends, both educators killed in a mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school. His call for millions of dollars to harden school security was embraced by Republicans in the legislature, who flanked him during a formal announcement. But days later, when Mr. Lee, a Republican, decided to go further and ask for an order of protection law that could temporarily restrict an individual’s access to firearms, he stood alone for the announcement. The legislature would wrap up its work by the end of the month without taking a vote to pass it. Now, Mr. Lee has summoned lawmakers back to Nashville on Monday for a special session on public safety that could include consideration of a limited version of the law.

Persons: Bill Lee of, Lee Organizations: Gov, Nashville Christian, Republicans, Republican Locations: Bill Lee of Tennessee, Nashville

☆ The Loss of Space Command Headquarters Brings an Alabama City Down to Earth
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-05 | by ( Emily Cochrane | More About Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even as a child in the 1960s, Jan Davis felt a twinge of resentment about her hometown, Huntsville, Ala., being overlooked. Rocket tests rattled windows and doors across town, and everyone seemed to have a familial connection to the work of building the rockets that powered NASA’s mission to put a man on the moon. Still, it was mission control in Houston and Cape Canaveral in Florida that became worldwide symbols of the space race. It attracted legions of scientists, defense contractors and federal investment. And in the final days of the Trump administration, Huntsville was selected as the permanent home of the United States Space Command.

Persons: Jan Davis, Davis, Ms, —, Trump Organizations: NASA, United States Space Command Locations: Huntsville, Ala, Houston and Cape Canaveral, Florida

About the role familial connections played in the success of many alumni. About whether the practice of legacy admissions, which has long favored white families, should be eliminated just as a more diverse generation of graduates is getting ready to send its own children to college. About how to reconcile the belief that privileges for the privileged are wrong with the parental impulse to do whatever they can for their own children. A new analysis of data from elite colleges published last week underscored how legacy admissions have effectively served as affirmative action for the privileged. Children of alumni, who are more likely to come from rich families, were nearly four times as likely to be admitted as other applicants with the same test scores.

Persons: James, Chakraborty

☆ Alabama Lawmakers Decline to Create New Majority-Black Congressional District
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Emily Cochrane | More About Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Alabama Republicans pushed through a new congressional map on Friday that will test the bounds of a judicial mandate to create a second majority-Black district in the state or something “close to it,” incensing plaintiffs in the court case and Democrats who predicted the plan would never pass muster with a judicial panel charged with approving it. The map also dropped the percentage of Black voters in the existing majority-Black district to about 51 percent from about 55 percent. In Alabama, more than one in four residents are Black. Notably, the redrawing ensures that none of the state’s six white Republican incumbents would have to face one another in a primary to keep their seat. The proposal will have to be approved by a federal court, which will hold a hearing on it next month.

Persons: ” Organizations: Republicans, Alabama Legislature, Republican Locations: Black, Alabama

Under orders from the Supreme Court to produce a voting map that no longer illegally dilutes the power of Black voters in Alabama, the state’s lawmakers are now facing a high-stakes scramble to come up with an acceptable replacement by the end of this week. A little over a month after the court’s surprise ruling, the Alabama legislature will convene for a special five-day session on Monday, with the Republican supermajority having given little public indication of how it plans to fulfill a mandate to craft a second district that allows Black voters to elect a representative of their choice — one who could well be a Democrat. The effects of the revised map, which must be passed by Friday and approved by a federal court, could reverberate across the country, with other states in the South confronting similar voting rights challenges and Republicans looking to hold onto a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives next year. The session also comes at a pivotal moment in the debate over the constitutionality of factoring race into government decisions, as conservatives have increasingly chipped away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act and other longstanding judicial protections centered on equality and race.

Organizations: Democrat, U.S . House Locations: Alabama, U.S

☆ Transgender Care Ban Allowed to Take Effect in Tennessee, Appeals Panel Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-08 | by ( Emily Cochrane | More About Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A federal appeals panel on Saturday said a Tennessee law that would ban hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender youth could go into effect, marking the first time a federal court has allowed a law banning transition care to fully take hold in the United States. The ruling, issued by a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, comes less than two weeks after a district court judge temporarily blocked the ban on hormone therapy and puberty blockers. The judges, who will now consider a broader appeal on the temporary hold on the law, said a final decision would come before Sept. 30. The decision is a notable blow to transgender youth, their families and their allies, who have leaned on the nation’s judiciary as a last resort to block a series of sweeping laws that target transition care, legislation they say would be harmful to young people’s health. Until the ruling Saturday, judges had been compelled by the argument that the laws are discriminatory against transgender people and violated the Constitution, ruling to either temporarily or permanently block their enforcement.

Organizations: U.S ., Appeals, Sixth Circuit Locations: Tennessee, United States, Cincinnati

☆ An Early Heat Wave Upsets the Rhythm of Life in the South
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-01 | by ( Emily Cochrane | Bryan Tarnowski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The drum line stood beneath a canopy of trees and rattled through rolls of sextuplets, with reddened shoulders glistening. Temperatures here in Daphne, Ala., had climbed past 90 degrees, and the humidity made it feel at least 10 degrees hotter. Yet even as a record-breaking heat wave seared most of the American South this week, the members of the Southwind Drum and Bugle Corps chose to push on, not wanting to miss a moment of the intensive camp they had been waiting all year for. “The heat has gotten me once or twice this season,” said Gracie Binns, an 18-year-old member of the color guard. “It’s kind of worn me down already.” But, she added, “I like the challenge of it.”

Persons: ”, Gracie Binns, “ Organizations: Bugle Corps Locations: Daphne, Ala, American

☆ As the South Stews, Temperatures Are Set to Rise in the West, Too
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Emily Cochrane | Judson Jones | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When forecasters predicted that oppressive heat would settle over much of the South for days this month, one of the first thoughts for staff members at the Mobile Botanical Gardens was how to protect their most sensitive plants. But with the prolonged heat now stretching toward the weekend, their focus has shifted to the safety of the people drawn to the gardens, particularly tourists unfamiliar with the mental and physical toll of the steamy conditions. “This heat is a different animal,” said Robin Krchak, the gardens’ executive director, who now closes online ticket sales at noon to encourage visitors to come in the relative cool of the mornings. The few employees and volunteers who keep the gardens humming are arriving earlier or cutting their workloads short to avoid heatstroke and heat stress.

Persons: ”, Robin Krchak

☆ Judges Block Transgender Care Bans for Minors in Kentucky and Tennessee
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Anna Betts | Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Federal judges in two states intervened on Wednesday to temporarily block laws that would ban gender-transition care for minors, the latest instances where legislation targeting transgender people have been halted by the judiciary. The separate rulings in Kentucky and Tennessee came days before key provisions of the laws were set to go into effect, as a wave of legislation aimed at curbing L.G.B.T.Q. rights has cleared Republican-controlled legislatures across the country this year. Several of those laws either remain tangled in legal battles, or have been ruled unconstitutional by federal judges. Most of the bill took effect immediately when it became law this year, but some provisions were set to go into effect on Thursday.

Persons: David J, Hale Organizations: Republican, U.S, Western, of Locations: Kentucky, Tennessee, of Kentucky

☆ Supreme Court Steps Aside in Fight Over Louisiana’s Congressional Maps
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map to advance, raising the chances that the state will soon be required to create a second district that empowers Black voters to select a representative. In lifting a nearly yearlong hold on the case, the justices said that a federal appeals court in New Orleans should review the case before the 2024 congressional elections in the state. By preventing a challenge to the map from advancing while it considered a similar case in Alabama, the Supreme Court had effectively allowed a Republican-drawn map to go into effect in Louisiana during the 2022 election cycle. Though Louisiana’s population is about 30 percent Black, the six-district map enacted by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has only one district with a majority of Black voters. It is now increasingly expected that challenges in Louisiana and other Southern states will end with redrawn maps that all but guarantee an additional district determined by Black voters.

Organizations: Black, Republican Locations: New Orleans, Alabama, Louisiana

☆ This City Had Quietly Celebrated Pride Before. In 2023, That Was Not an Option.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-24 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

And God hates Pride.” “I’m Spencer Lyst. But in Franklin, Pride organizers had already promised the city that there would be no drag shows this year. C’mon, Franklin Pride!” “You know, sometimes it can be really difficult to find a community around here. So hopefully, those will be back in the future.” “I don’t really believe Pride is Pride without drag. But I don’t think there was anything bad to see.”

Persons: Jesus Christ, —, it’s, ”, “, ” “ I’m Spencer Lyst, Spencer Lyst, I’m, ” “, we’ve, Franklin, “ I’ve Organizations: Franklin Pride Advisory Board, Pride, Franklin Pride Locations: Franklin, Tennessee, Tenn, C’mon

☆ Judge Strikes Down Arkansas Law Banning Gender Transition Care for Minors
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Rick Rojas | Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A federal judge in Arkansas on Tuesday struck down the state’s law forbidding medical treatments for children and teenagers seeking gender transitions, blocking what had been the first in a wave of such measures championed by conservative lawmakers across the country. The case had been closely watched as an important test of whether bans on transition care for minors, which have since been enacted by 19 other states, could withstand legal challenges being brought by activists and civil liberties groups. It is the first ruling to broadly block such a ban for an entire state, though judges have intervened to temporarily delay similar laws from going into effect. In his 80-page ruling, Judge James M. Moody Jr. of Federal District Court in Little Rock said the law both discriminated against transgender people and violated the constitutional rights of doctors. He also said that the state of Arkansas had failed to substantially prove a number of its claims, including that the care was experimental or carelessly prescribed to teenagers.

Persons: Judge James M, Moody Jr, “, ”, Moody, Barack Obama Organizations: Court Locations: Arkansas, Little Rock

☆ School Shooter’s Parents Will Hand Ownership of Writings to Victims
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The parents of the assailant who killed six people at a Nashville Christian school in March will transfer legal ownership of the writings their child left behind to the families of roughly 100 students, providing unexpected support to those families’ efforts to prevent the release of the documents. The surprise decision, outlined in a Tennessee courtroom on Thursday, could prove crucial in an increasingly fierce legal battle over whether the writings should be made public to shed light on the shooter’s motivations or kept private to shield the victims from further pain. The lawyer for the shooter’s parents, David Raybin, did not say in court how or why they had come to the decision. But speaking to reporters, he acknowledged that it strengthened the argument that the families should be allowed to participate in a lawsuit aimed at forcing the release of the writings as a matter of public record. The parents of students at the Covenant School, along with the school itself and the adjoining church, have said the writings should never be released, citing fears of inspiring another mass shooting and further traumatizing their children.

Persons: David Raybin Organizations: Nashville Christian, Covenant School Locations: Tennessee

Sixteen migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were abruptly flown on a private chartered jet to California and dropped off outside a Catholic church building in Sacramento on Friday, state officials said, prompting an investigation into whether they were transported from outside a Texas migrant center under false pretenses. While it remained unclear on Sunday who had approached the group of migrants outside El Paso and orchestrated their flight from New Mexico to California, the episode mirrored an aggressive tactic used by hard-line Republican governors to protest President Biden’s immigration policies by dispatching dozens of migrants to Democratic-led states and cities with little warning or explanation. Many of the migrants told a nonprofit organization they had no idea they were going to California. That was the same company used for transport in the fall when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida directed two planeloads of South American migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, a Democratic-leaning Massachusetts island.

Persons: Rob Bonta, Ron DeSantis Organizations: Democratic, Florida Division, Emergency Management, Vertol Systems Company Inc, Gov Locations: Venezuela, Colombia, California, Sacramento, Texas, El Paso, New Mexico, Florida, San Antonio, Massachusetts

☆ Judge Finds Tennessee Law Aimed at Restricting Drag Shows Unconstitutional
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-03 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A federal judge said late Friday that a law in Tennessee aimed at restricting drag shows was unconstitutional, saying it was overly broad and violated the First Amendment. The ruling is an initial victory for supporters of L.G.B.T.Q. Tennessee, which passed the law this year with the stated goal of protecting children, was among more than a dozen states that passed measures restricting L.G.B.T.Q. The attorney general of Tennessee, Jonathan Skrmetti, who said he expected to appeal the decision, maintained that the ruling did not affect the rest of the state. He added that the law’s language “is rooted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s long-established First Amendment precedent.”

Persons: Judge Thomas L, Parker, Jonathan Skrmetti, ”, Court’s Organizations: Federal, Court, Entertainment, U.S Locations: Tennessee, Shelby County, Memphis, U.S .

☆ Tennessee Law Sows Fear Among Drag Performers Ahead of Pride Month
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Renae Green-Bean had started taking precautions in public even before the Tennessee legislature approved a law in March limiting where “adult cabaret” can be performed. rights and worried that restaurant nights with her wife, children or grandchildren, or her preference for masculine attire and closely cropped hair, would invite harassment. It will not stop the shows that Ms. Green-Bean, 46, puts on at an adults-only club in Clarksville and other clubs near the Kentucky border. Still, she and other performers said, being seen in drag anywhere in public feels far riskier now. The law and others like it come as far-right activists have increasingly targeted drag shows across the country, with members of the Proud Boys and other protesters, sometimes heavily armed, appearing at the shows and at library story hours when drag performers read books to children.

☆ Autopsy Shows Tyre Nichols Died of Head Injuries From Police Beating
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Emily Cochrane | Jessica Jaglois | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An autopsy report released on Thursday confirmed that Tyre Nichols died as a result of blunt force injuries to his head after a group of Memphis police officers brutally kicked and bludgeoned him. Shelby County medical examiners formally declared his death on Jan. 10 a homicide, describing severe injuries to Mr. Nichols’s head and neck as well as bruises and cuts all over his body. The report also found that on the day of the beating, Jan. 7, Mr. Nichols had a blood alcohol concentration of .049 percent — well below the legal limit for driving in Tennessee — despite insinuations from the police that he had been pulled over for driving while intoxicated. The formal assessment of what killed Mr. Nichols, about four months after a routine traffic stop turned violent, comes as prosecutors are continuing to investigate the beating. The brutality of the attack captured on body camera and surveillance footage, fueled a national outcry and drew scathing criticism over how frequently law enforcement in Memphis used excessive force and intimidation tactics.

☆ Tennessee G.O.P. Cuts Session Short With No Action on Gun Control
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

NASHVILLE — Hundreds of students, parents and teachers marched to the Tennessee State Capitol, day after day, demanding a ban on assault weapons and action on gun control. Their calls were echoed by musicians like Amy Grant and Sheryl Crow, who trekked to the legislature to personally lobby lawmakers after a mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school. Several faith leaders joined the effort, writing to Republican leaders to urge them to support a proposal that would help temporarily restrict access to guns for people found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others. But on Friday, just under a month after the attack at the school, Republicans instead cut short the year’s legislative session and punted on any measure dealing explicitly with guns, capping a whirlwind three months of lawmaking that underscored the power of the far-right flank of the Republican Party in Tennessee and saw the brief expulsion of two Black Democratic lawmakers. “We’re not going anywhere,” she added.

☆ Judge Temporarily Blocks Tennessee Law That Restricts Drag Performances
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

NASHVILLE — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the implementation of a Tennessee law aimed at restricting public drag performances, hours before it was set to go into effect. A Memphis theater company that frequently stages drag performances, Friends of George’s, challenged the law this week, arguing that the ambiguity of the law violated the theater’s constitutional rights. Violators of the law would be charged with a misdemeanor, or a felony for continued offenses. The measure, passed by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed into law on March 1, was set to go into effect on Saturday. community, had raised concerns about the implications for drag performers and transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

☆ Live Vote Count: Tracking the House Rules Package Vote
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Allison Mccartney | Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Republicans are set to vote on the rules that govern how the House operates, just days after a marathon round of ballots to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker. The House is expected to vote soon on the rules package. A table that shows the current tally for the most recent vote on the House rules package. Next: House Rules Package Vote Tally Total Dem. Yes 0 0 0 Needed to pass No 0 0 0 Yes Needed to win No Note: Vote tally is unofficial.

Several Republicans have cast their votes for Representative Byron Donalds of Florida. The only way Mr. McCarthy could still win on this ballot is if several members decide not to vote or if he gains Democratic support. Mr. McCarthy could win the speakership with fewer than 218 votes by persuading lawmakers who do not want to support him to instead vote “present” or to not vote at all. During the second vote, those same 19 opposed him but rallied around Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus. How Every Representative Voted

Search resuls for: "Emily Cochrane"

25 mentions found