DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Greg Abbott has cut required water breaks for Texas construction workers and labor advocates say it could kill them
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-18 | by ( Katie Hawkinson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Texas is currently first in the nation for heat-related workplace deaths, the Texas Tribune reports. Greg Abbott signed a bill Tuesday that eliminated ordinances across the state requiring water breaks for construction workers — all while a record-setting heatwave sweeps across the state. Meanwhile, Bishop James Dixon — President of the NAACP Houston — condemned the bill, according to local news outlet KHOU 11. Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions, told the Texas Tribune the bill may prove fatal for construction workers. Texas has the highest rate of heat-related workplace deaths, the Texas Tribune reports.

Persons: Greg Abbott, —, Bishop James Dixon —, NAACP Houston —, Ana Gonzalez, Gonzalez Organizations: Texas AFL, Texas Tribune, Service, Gov, Huffington, NAACP Houston, Washington Post, Teamsters, United Parcel Service, CNN Locations: Texas, Austin, Dallas

☆ Stifling heat wave to grip U.S. South over holiday weekend
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] People purchase ice during a heatwave with expected temperatures of 102 F (39 C) in Dallas, Texas, U.S. June 12, 2022. Some 35 million people in southern Texas, Louisiana and Florida were under excessive heat warnings, watches and advisories from Thursday through the three-day Juneteenth weekend, the National Weather Service said. The growing frequency and intensity of severe weather across the U.S. is symptomatic of human-driven climate change, climate scientists say. New Orleans residents woke up to a brutal 96-degree heat index, the weather service said in a tweet. Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Shelby Tauber, RyDavis, Brendan O'Brien, Jonathan Oatis Organizations: REUTERS, U.S, National Weather Service, Reliability, of Texas, Thomson Locations: Dallas , Texas, U.S, Texas, Florida, Texas , Louisiana, Austin, Louisiana, New Orleans, Miami, Chicago

☆ Pyrex kitchenware maker files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

June 12 (Reuters) - Instant Brands, the maker of Pyrex kitchenware, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, saying it had too much debt to withstand rising interest rates and tighter credit conditions. Instant Brands said it plans to keep operating while it restructures, and toward that end has lined up $132.5 million in financing. "Tightening of credit terms and higher interest rates impacted our liquidity levels and made our capital structure unsustainable," Chief Executive Ben Gadbois said in s statement. Instant Brands' portfolio also includes products such as Instant Pot pressure cookers and Corningware. The case is In re: Instant Brands Acquisition Holdings Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas, No.

Persons: Pyrex kitchenware, Ben Gadbois, Davis Polk, Jonathan Stempel, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Brands, Cornell Capital LLC, Instant Brands, Federal Trade Commission, Holdings Inc, Bankruptcy, Southern District of, bk, Thomson Locations: Texas, United States, Canada, Downers Grove , Illinois, USA, China, Southern District, Southern District of Texas, New York

☆ Elizabeth Holmes set to report to prison
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Elizabeth Holmes is set to report to prison on Tuesday, capping off a stunning downfall for the disgraced founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos. Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison last November, after she was convicted months earlier on multiple charges of defrauding investors while running the now-defunct startup. Holmes was once an icon in the tech world, serving as a posterchild for the limitless ambitions and potential of Silicon Valley. Holmes and Balwani were first indicted together nearly five years ago on the same 12 criminal charges. This month, Davila ordered Holmes and Balwani to pay restitution of roughly $452 million to victims of their crimes.

☆ What Elizabeth Holmes’ life in prison could look like
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Holmes reported to the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, on Tuesday to begin serving out her 11-year sentence after being convicted on multiple charges of defrauding investors while running the now-defunct startup Theranos. Located approximately 100 miles outside of Houston, where Holmes grew up before moving to California to attend Stanford, FPC Bryan is a minimum-security federal prison camp housing more than 600 women offenders. Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is escorted by prison officials into the the Federal Prison Camp on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, in Bryan, Texas. But according to Mark MacDougall, a longtime white-collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, the prison won’t be a walk in the park for Holmes. Housing at FPC Bryan typically consists of dormitory-style arrangements featuring a four-bunk cubicle and communal bath facilities, he said.

☆ Elon Musk Expects SpaceX to Spend Around $2 Billion on Starship Rocket This Year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Micah Maidenberg | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SpaceX’s Starship lifting off on its inaugural test mission earlier this month from its launchpad in southern Texas. Photo: patrick t. fallon/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesSpaceX anticipates spending about $2 billion on its Starship rocket program this year and might not need to raise additional outside funding as that work unfolds, according to founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk. Mr. Musk outlined SpaceX’s plans Saturday during an audio chat on Twitter about Starship, the powerful rocket the company launched for the first time earlier this month. The inaugural test mission ended after about four minutes when a flight-termination system on the vehicle destroyed it as the rocket began to tumble.

☆ After SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explosion—Debris, Data and Analysis
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Micah Maidenberg | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: @LabPadre via StoryfulSpaceX on Friday is taking stock after the company’s Starship rocket exploded a few minutes after lifting off the day before in southern Texas. So are several local officials, regulatory and environmental agencies. Regulators said they were analyzing what the launch meant for nearby natural areas and public safety. Environmental groups and some local residents have raised concerns about the impact of SpaceX’s activities on and around its base.

☆ Haitians in the U.S. feel pressure to sponsor friends, family back home
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Brian Ellsworth | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"Many people unfortunately are not in a position to sponsor family members or friends back home, but they are receiving calls nonstop." She said her clients have described being expected to sponsor entire extended families and in some cases face threats. "I would say it's also a program that will place undue stress on families and cause family divisions." "People will say 'I have more than one cousin I would like to sponsor, I'm only able to sponsor one of them,'" Jozef said. She is also opposed to the expulsions of Haitians and other migrants arriving at the southwest border, many who are seeking U.S. asylum.

☆ American is cutting 3 more cities and leaving one without airline service entirely — see the full list of 19 cities it has dropped since the pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Taylor Rains | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

American Airlines is cutting 3 cities from its network, blaming the pilot shortage and "soft demand." One small airport — Del Rio, Texas — will lose airline service entirely after the carrier's exit. Del Rio, a tiny city in southern Texas with only about 35,000 people, is currently served by American from Dallas/Fort Worth. However, the airline's announced exit will leave Del Rio without any air service link to the rest of the country. Del Rio joins a growing list of 19 cities that American has dropped since the pandemic, the carrier confirmed to Insider.

Congressional Democrats are weighing a push for a fix to the decade-old program that protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants known as “Dreamers” in the lame-duck session. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., mentioned addressing DACA as a top priority in the lame-duck session during a Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday, a senior Democratic aide told NBC News. “We want to get DACA done,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. He expressed confidence that a group of Senate Democrats, including Durbin, are working to gain the Republican votes needed in the upper chamber. Democrats are projected to hold onto the majority in the Senate, but control of the House remains unknown.

☆ Microsoft, Apple, Meta, other big U.S. firms run ads urging Congress to protect 'Dreamers' as DACA fades
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julia-Ainsley-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Julia Ainsley | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

“Collectively, we represent the backbone of an American economy facing tremendous workforce challenges as a result of the pandemic. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that DACA was illegal but allowed more than 600,000 current DACA recipients to keep their status while a lower court reviewed a new DACA rule the Biden administration put forward. He is predicted to rule against the new DACA rule ultimately, because he found its previous iteration illegal. “Tragically, the 5th Circuit and courts have made it clear that not only did they rule the current DACA rule is illegal, but the new DACA rule will be illegal, too,” said Todd Schulte, the president and executive director of FWD.US, a group that has advocated for DACA to continue. “Now, no one trusts Democrats of the Biden administration to actually enforce the law and crack down on illegal immigration.

☆ Majority of Asian Americans in Texas want to vote but haven’t been reached out to
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Kimmy Yam | Kimmy Yam Is A Reporter For Nbc Asian America. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Sixty-four percent of the state’s Asian American and Pacific Islander electorate is “highly motivated” to vote in the midterm elections, the civil rights nonprofit group Asian Texans for Justice said in a new poll. … We need to be listened to.”Researchers surveyed 2,700 likely voters in Texas, including 660 Asian Americans, in July. The research also finds a large gender divide, with 49% of Asian American and Pacific Islander women identifying as Democrats, nearly twice the proportion of men. Asian American and Pacific Islander men are more likely to identify as Republicans, at 38%, or independents, at 35%. The report found that Asian American voters in Texas are more likely to be immigrants compared to all other races.

☆ The night the Lord of the Skies got away
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-22 | by ( Noah Hurowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +38 min

It was May 1985, and Ramirez had only been with the Border Patrol for two and a half years. But he also knew that at the end of that road, just before the international port of entry, was a Border Patrol station. The Lord of the SkiesWithin a decade of that traffic stop, Amado would be the most significant drug trafficker in Mexico. It's the border," Ford told me recently when I reached him by phone. Ford and Amado didn't make a deal that night, but Ford said they agreed to "something tentative."

☆ A leaked video exemplifies what Black migrants endure in US detention centers
▼ + stars: | 2022-03-26 | by ( John Washington | José Olivares | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +30 min

A leaked video obtained by Insider shows guards violently tackling a Black asylum seeker at a Louisiana detention center. Detainees and immigration lawyers say there is a disturbing and overlooked problem of anti-Black racism in immigration detention. In January, Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) called for a "holistic review of the disparate treatment of Black migrants." Across the state, eight new immigration detention centers have been opened in the past three years – all privately run. In just Texas and Louisiana, 11 separate facilities in recent years have shifted from prisons or jails to immigration detention centers.

Persons: Brandon, Sarah Loicano, Loicano, he'd, Anna Watts, They're, Allen Morris, Morris, he's, —, Cori Bush, Cory Booker, Romelia Solano, Solano, wasn't, It's, Eunice Cho, Cho, Sami Disu, Trump, Biden, Joe Biden, Shah, Black, I've, Jim Crow, Winn, Sarah Decker, Decker, they're, Ellis, Rebekah Wolf, Critics, Wolf, RAICES, isn't, That's, Acheleke, Fuanya, kneeled, fingerprinted, Sophia Diez, Zhang Organizations: FIFA, LaSalle Correctional Center, Salvadoran, Brandon, LaSalle Detention, LaSalle Corrections, . Immigration, Customs Enforcement, ICE, Department of Homeland Security, Office, Customs, Border Patrol, LaSalle, and Immigrant Center for Education, Legal Services, Human Rights Watch, Immigrants, American Friends Service Committee, Southern Poverty Law, Detention, Freedom, Mariposa, LaSalle Correctional, of Africana Studies, John Jay College of Criminal, Detention Watch Network, ACLU, New Orleans ICE Field Office, Winn Correctional Center, ICE Processing Center, RFK Human Rights, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, Winn, US Naval, American Immigration Council, —, American Bar Association, Haitian Locations: Louisiana, Cameroon, LaSalle, Africa, West Africa, Brownsville , Texas, Caribbean, Mexico, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Glades, Louisiana , Louisiana, Kentucky, Black, U.S, COVID, Allen Parish, Texas , Louisiana , Arizona, Georgia, New Orleans, Asia, Angel, US, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, New Mexico, Central America, South Asia, Eastern Europe, Central, South America, United States, American, Brandon

Search resuls for: "Southern Texas"

14 mentions found