Just being faithful to the holiday:
"Fidelity move pays big dividend in Texas; Company brings jobs, becomes a civic force" November 01, 2011|By Todd Wallack, Globe Staff
WESTLAKE, Texas - A decade after locating a major regional facility here, Fidelity Investments has become the largest employer - and a major civic force - in this North Texas town. Fidelity gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity, and its more than 3,000 employees help fuel the region’s economy....
Westlake is one of several communities around the country where Fidelity has brought hundreds of jobs each in recent years. Other examples: Covington, Ky., Albuquerque, N.M., and the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
The expansion has come even as the company slashed employment by nearly half in its home state....
While out-of-state expansion and local cutbacks have provoked outrage from some Massachusetts politicians, Westlake businesses and government officials could not be happier. And it is not just because of the jobs.
Fidelity, for instance, has become one of the biggest supporters of the town’s only public school, a charter school called Westlake Academy. The company helps support the school’s operating expenses through its employee gift-matching program and pitched in $250,000 to help build an arts and sciences building....
But the firm has moved much of its operations to other states over the years to, it says, tap a broader pool of potential employees, meet demands from customers across multiple time zones, and reduce operating costs.
In most cases, the company has negotiated multimillion-dollar incentive packages with other states and cities to help reduce costs....
The company receives an additional agricultural tax break because longhorn cattle graze on land it has not developed.
As in Massachusetts, some in Texas questioned the tax breaks and whether the company has lived up to its commitments....
Andrew Wheat, the research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group in Austin, said, “Governments have no business subsidizing extremely profitable corporations.’’
That seems to be why they exist these days.
But town and business officials said Fidelity’s move to Westlake has been a boon to this community of 1,000 residents, who include Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton and media personality Glenn Beck.
For example, Fidelity employees visiting Westlake help pack the 294-room Marriott Solana hotel, which recently sold out for four straight weeks.
“They definitely create demand for the hotel,’’ said hotel general manager John Klukan, sitting in the hotel’s airy lounge. Business, he said, “would be a lot softer without them.’’
Fidelity is also one of the biggest customers of La Scala, an Italian restaurant and New York-style pizzeria. When ice coated the roads last winter, restaurant manager Gino Perolli said, Fidelity employees ordered 200 pizzas - so many that the pizzeria ran out of dough.
Ice coated roads in Texas in this era of global warming?
“We deliver there all the time,’’ Perolli said. “We delivered 40 pizzas to them just today for lunch. And this was a slow day.’’
Businesses in surrounding towns have benefited from Fidelity’s expansion, as well. In Grapevine, less than 10 miles from Westlake, Classic Chevrolet sells several vehicles a month to Fidelity workers, it said....
Westlake town leaders said they suspect tax breaks were just one of many reasons Fidelity moved to their town.
Others are the lack of a state income tax and mild winters....
Except when there is ice on the road (sigh).
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No need to light a fire:
"The devastating Texas wildfire season reached the one-year mark yesterday, and there appears to be no end in sight as officials brace for large blazes that could ignite anywhere across the drought-stricken state despite a recent lull in fire activity statewide....
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"Sorority alumnae alerted to rapes in Texas" October 26, 2011|Associated Press
DALLAS - A national black sorority is urging alumnae in the Dallas area to make changes, from putting away their key chains to refraining from wearing clothing linking them to the group after several rapes that appeared to target members.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. issued the warning this week after being notified by authorities of a series of four sexual assaults in communities north of Dallas. Law enforcement officials say the victims are all black women in their mid-50s to mid-60s and are associated with the same sorority alumnae group.
Law enforcement officials say that during the assaults in the victims’ homes, the suspect indicated he knew information about them....
In its statement, the sorority said members in the Dallas area should remove items identifying them as sorority alumnae from their cars, key chains, homes, and offices. They should also stop wearing any clothing or accessories that identify them as members, in addition to removing personal information from social media accounts.
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"Beating shown on YouTube investigated" November 03, 2011|Associated Press
ROCKPORT, Texas - Police launched an investigation yesterday into an online video post that claims to show a Texas family law judge profanely berating and repeatedly lashing his 16-year-old daughter with a belt.
The nearly 8-minute video, which has been viewed more than 600,000 times on YouTube since being uploaded last week, shows a man violently whipping a girl in the legs more than dozen times and growing increasingly irate, while she screams and refuses to turn over to be beaten.
“Lay down or I’ll spank you in your [expletive] face,’’ the man screams.
The person who uploaded the video on YouTube signs it as Hillary Adams, daughter of Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams and the target of the beating. The post said the video was filmed in 2004.
Rockport Police Chief Tim Jayroe said calls from people who saw the video prompted the investigation. Jayroe said he has not determined the identities of the people in the video or whether crimes were committed.
A secretary for Adams’ attorney, William Dudley, said Dudley was unavailable for comment.
Hillary Adams did not respond to messages from the Associated Press via e-mail and Twitter yesterday.
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"Judge’s job in peril over video of beating" November 04, 2011|By Christopher Sherman, Associated Press
McALLEN, Texas - As his adult daughter took to national television, a Texas judge now infamous for a beating he gave her as a teenager found his career looking less certain yesterday....
Hillary Adams, 23, said the support and encouragement she has received since posting the 2004 video online last week is tempered by the sadness that it is her father lashing her 17 times with a belt.
“I’m experiencing some regret because I just pulled the covers off my own father’s misbehavior, after so many people thought he was such a good person,’’ she said Wednesday.
Corpus Christi TV station KZTV talked to the judge Wednesday, and he confirmed it was him in the video. But he said it “looks worse than it is’’ and that he does not expect to be disciplined.
“In my mind, I haven’t done anything wrong other than discipline my child after she was caught stealing,’’ Adams said. “And I did lose my temper, but I’ve since apologized.’’
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"US prosecutors to investigate Texas beating" November 05, 2011|By Christopher Sherman, Associated Press
McALLEN, Texas - Federal prosecutors agreed yesterday to look into a video that shows a Texas judge lashing his teenage daughter with a belt, a police chief said a day after authorities said too much time had passed to consider state charges....
Hillary Adams, now 23, posted the eight-minute clip on YouTube last week. It shows her father viciously lashing her with a belt and trying to force her to bend over her bed to be beaten despite her pleas to stop. The clip had been watched more than 4 million times by yesterday....
William Adams issued a statement Thursday saying his daughter posted the clip to get back at him for telling her he would be reducing the amount of financial support he gives her and taking away her Mercedes. He told Corpus Christi television station KZTV this week that he already had apologized to his daughter, and that he was just disciplining his child for stealing.
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I'm sorry, readers; I fell asleep after the feast.
Who won the game?
