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- BG Reads 12.5.2023
BG Reads 12.5.2023
🗞️ BG Reads | News - December 5, 2023
December 5, 2023
In today's BG Reads:
âś… Charges dismissed against APD officers who used beanbag rounds in 2020 protests
âś… HOME initiative changes offered by Mayor Kirk Watson and City Manager Garza
✅ Silicon Valley’s AI boom collides with a skeptical Sacramento
More stories below. Read on!
[2024 Austin City Council Race Watch]
Next fall will see elections for the following Council positions, District 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and Mayor. Candidates can’t file for a place on the ballot until July 22, 2024.
Declared candidates so far are:
District 2
District 6
Krista Laine
District 7 (Open seat)
District 10 (Open seat)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Travis County dismisses charges against APD officers who used beanbag rounds in 2020 protests (KUT)
The Travis County district attorney has dropped assault charges against 17 Austin police officers who used so-called "less lethal" beanbag rounds over a weekend of racial justice protests in 2020.
District Attorney José Garza pursued charges against 21 officers after several Austinites were seriously injured during protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the fatal shooting of Mike Ramos by Austin police officer Christopher Taylor. Garza's office will still pursue criminal charges against four officers, it said in a joint statement with Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. Garza, Watson and interim APD Chief Robin Henderson said they are asking the Department of Justice to review APD's use of force during the protests.
Garza's office couldn't yet confirm which of the four officers are still facing charges, but the district attorney said he would work with city officials and Henderson going forward.
“We expect the Department of Justice will take our request seriously, and we look forward to working with Mayor Watson, Interim APD Chief Robin Henderson, and City Council to ensure full cooperation with the DOJ investigation," Garza said. "We will also continue to hold law enforcement who break the law accountable."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin, Travis County leaders seek federal investigation of APD response to 2020 protest (Community Impact)
Travis County District Attorney José Garza, Mayor Kirk Watson and interim Austin City Manager Jesús Garza on Dec. 4 asked the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to conduct a formal investigation of "policies, practices and procedures" related to APD use of force during the 2020 protests. In a statement, Watson likened the process to a "performance review."
"The parties seek DOJ review to help provide transparent closure for the community, to ensure that justice is done, and that any response to similar protests in the future will not result in unnecessary or unlawful use of force," the trio wrote in their request.City and county officials asked for a "pattern or practice investigation," a type of federal review used to determine whether local governments or law enforcement officers are depriving residents of their constitutional rights. Pattern or practice investigations into the cities and police departments of Trenton, New Jersey, and Lexington, Mississippi, were launched this fall… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin city manager’s office proposes alternatives for HOME initiative, memo says (KXAN)
Austin’s attempt to allow for more housing options is already getting some new recommendations, which includes proposed changes to the land development code to include incentives for increasing living spaces, according to a City of Austin memo.
The Austin City Manager’s office released the memo on recommended tweaks ahead of this week’s Austin City Council meeting... (LINK TO FULL STORY)
LINKS:
[TEXAS NEWS]
“Someone tell me what to do” (Texas Tribune)
Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, that day in May 2022. They, too, waited. They waited for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do. They waited for the right keys and specialized equipment to open doors. They waited out of fear that the lack of ballistic shields and flash-bangs would leave them vulnerable against the power of an AR-15-style rifle. Most astonishingly, they waited for the children’s cries to confirm that people were still alive inside the classrooms.
The accounts of law enforcement’s actions during one of the worst school shootings in history are among a trove of recorded investigative interviews and body camera footage obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and FRONTLINE. Together, the hundreds of hours of audio and video offer a startling finding: The children in Uvalde were prepared, dutifully following what they had learned during active shooter drills, even as their friends and teachers were bleeding to death. Many of the officers, who had trained at least once during their careers for such a situation, were not… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Judge considers holding state in contempt a third time over foster care conditions (Texas Tribune)
Removed from her home at age 11, Juarez — who is now 4-foot-8 and barely over 100 pounds at 18 — said she was frequently beat up and threatened by other kids, and once had an iPod taken away by facility workers after she showed them that an adult male staffer was sending her sexually suggestive text messages.
Juarez testified through tears before U.S. District Judge Janis Jack on Monday how she could never found allies in Texas foster care, a system that was there to protect her.
“They would tell us when we [cry or] misbehave that we were there because our family didn't want us, or that it was because we were bad kids and nobody wants bad kids,” Juarez told Jack.
Jack is being asked to decide whether the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which manages the foster care system, should be held in contempt of court orders for the third time since a 2011 lawsuit was filed about foster care conditions… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US/WORLD NEWS]
Silicon Valley’s AI boom collides with a skeptical Sacramento (Politico)
Silicon Valley’s freewheeling artificial intelligence industry is about to face its first major policy roadblocks — not in Washington, but in its own backyard.
Efforts to control the fast-spreading technology — where machines are taught to think and act like humans — will dominate Sacramento next year as California lawmakers prepare at least a dozen bills aimed at curbing what are widely seen as AI’s biggest threats to society. The legislative push, first reported by POLITICO, will target the technology’s potential to eliminate vast numbers of jobs, intrude on workers’ privacy, sow election misinformation, imperil public safety and make decisions based on biased algorithms.
The upcoming clash will cast California in a familiar role as a de facto U.S. regulator in the absence of federal action, as has happened with data privacy, online safety standards for children and vehicle-emission requirements — and a force multiplier for the European Union’s more stringent approach.
It will set lawmakers eager to avoid letting another transformative technology spiral out of control — and powerful labor unions intent on protecting jobs — against the deep-pocketed tech industry. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, an innovation evangelist who wants to impose safeguards while maintaining California’s economic edge, will undoubtedly shape negotiations behind the scenes… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Supreme Court hears a case that experts say could wreak havoc on the tax code (NPR)
The Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in an obscure tax case with potentially trillions of dollars in tax consequences for the federal budget. It is a case that has tax law specialists both gobsmacked and alarmed.
The words of Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution do not roll off the tongue. Enacted in 1913, it says: "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
In reality, the amendment was passed to reverse a Supreme Court decision that basically had made it impossible to have a federal income tax… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Europe’s world-leading artificial intelligence rules are facing a do-or-die moment (Associated Press)
Hailed as a world first, European Union artificial intelligence rules are facing a make-or-break moment as negotiators try to hammer out the final details this week — talks complicated by the sudden rise of generative AI that produces human-like work.
First suggested in 2019, the EU’s AI Act was expected to be the world’s first comprehensive AI regulations, further cementing the 27-nation bloc’s position as a global trendsetter when it comes to reining in the tech industry.
But the process has been bogged down by a last-minute battle over how to govern systems that underpin general purpose AI services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot. Big tech companies are lobbying against what they see as overregulation that stifles innovation, while European lawmakers want added safeguards for the cutting-edge AI systems those companies are developing… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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