Current Events Experience 2.1

1) The perk that is "raising eyebrows" is that at ACL (Austin city limits) the people who are part of the "city's parks and recreation board" get to have two free VIP passes for one entire weekend of the music festival and also a free parking pass. The person to receive the perk was Tom Donovan, a 71 year old man who was a member of the Parks and Recreation Board. The Austin Parks Foundation defended providing it to him by saying the free tickets and parking passes are for "work purposes only" for everyone who is a member in the council. Board members Rick Cofer and council member Don Zimmerman were "foregoing" the perk because they "felt uncomfortable" taking the passes because "it doesn't seem necessary to receive two free three-day passes and a three-day parking pass for my role as a parks board member" Cofer also says "I don't think that my presence there is worth basically an $800 expense." Sabine Romero of the city's ethics and compliance division expressed to the council in an email that it's OK for the mayor and council members to accept the tickets. Council members Ann Kitchen accepted the passes and will be attending the upcoming show. Council member Ora Houston said that she gave the passes as a "thank you" to 311 operators who are filling in at her office while a staffer is on maternity leave. I don't think that giving the city's parks and recreation board free tickets is a bad thing, I just think that if one of the workers wants to not accept the tickets they shouldn't have to.

2) Oklahoma implemented a stay of all deaths because last week, two hours before an execution of Richard E. Glossip officials realized that the state supplier had sent the prison officials the wrong drug. Other states are dealing with similar issues like how in Tennessee if the lethal-injection drugs were unavailable prison officials would authorize the use of the electric chair. Also in Montana, on Tuesday, a judge blocked the state from carrying out executions, ruling that one of the two drugs it planned to use did not comply with the state law governing lethal injections. Midazolam is a short-acting sedative and is the heart of this story because midazolam, combined with a drug shortage caused by manufacturers' ceasing production or limiting how drugs could be used.

3) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel barred his ministers from visiting a contested Old City holy site. He also ordered police to stop members of parliament from going there because he also did not want them to go to the holy site. Mhuhanad Halabi was a law student at Al Quds University who was shot dead by Israeli security forces and he relates to this issue because he was apart of the defending of al-Aqsa and he got killed doing so.

4) Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for literature on October 8th. She is most famous for her deeply researched works about female Russian soldiers in World War 2 and the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It's "a rarity" that she won because her work is mainly nonfictional. Blended in her works are both literature and journalism. She looks to the future by not letting herself slide "but much work remains ahead of me, and many new turns. Now I cannot let myself slide." she says

5) The carrier decision Professor Emeritus Daniel S. Hamermesh has made is to retire from his job due to the "carry law" which he told to the Statesman reporter directly. Hamermesh's is a first for UT in the way of him being the first to actually leave because of this. Other factors that contributed to his decision are the number of students he has in each term (around 475) and he says with that many students he would not be able to tell is they have become "disgruntled" or have "mental health issues".