Mister president i yield the floor. E madam president my home state of texas is a great place to do business. We pay taxes, Government Spending and revelations and irrational minimum in order to give people and businesses the freedom to pursue their dreams and prosper. Texas is consistently ranked on the list of the best state for business , best state to start a business and the best state for female entrepreneurs. According to the Small Business administration there are more than 2. 6 million Small Businesses throughout the state accounting for 99. 8 percent of all texas businesses. Those businesses employ half of our state workforce and account or a massive portion of our texas economy. To say theres Small Businesses are aneconomic force in texas would only paint half the picture. The big cities and small towns like these businesses play a Critical Role in our communities. The locally owned restaurants and bars and businesses that are part of our regular routine from the dry cleaner
Us . Seeing none, closing. Clerk announcements. Item 2, the planning staff report in announcements. Ill mention that commissioner melgards last day was january 30th. Shes resigned her post as a Planning Commissioner. And board president norman yee has nominated a replacement. She went before rules on monday or tuesday and was forwarded unanimously to the full board for their consideration. Thats all i have. Anything . Okay, great. Clerk president s reports and announcements. None. Clerk item 4, consideration of adaption of draft minutes from january 15, 2020. President hyland back to the commission. Clerk on that motion to adopt minutes for january 15, 2020, commissioner black, commissioner foley. Commissioner johns, commissioner pearlman and commissioner so and commissioner mcspadden. That passes 70. And item 5, comments and questions. President hyland any comments, okay, none. Clerk commissioners, consideration of items proposed for continuous. You have one item number 6, 2019022536d
And tear gas the streets. Australia orders large scale from bushfires as the death toll mounts. Sophie lets check in on the open in sydney after the asx 200 best annualrop the performance since 2000. We see it open slightly to the downside as we wait for markets to come back online elsewhere in the region. We are getting some data from australia coming out this morning. Home prices notching up the biggest threemonth gain in a decade. We are not seeing much reaction in the aussie dollar, softening a touch after hitting a fresh high. New zealand equity markets remain closed and the kiwi dollar keeping fairly steady after topping 67 this week and japan also remaining offline thel january 6, again, currency cap a Fourth Annual gain. Paul thanks very much. President trump says he can assign the first phase of a trade deal with china on the 15th of this month ahead of a visit to beijing where talks will begin on the next part of the deal. Lets bring in our china correspondent now, selina wan
[inaudible conversations] welcome to the 24th annual texas book festival. I name is katie vine. We are here today to talk to amaryllis box author of the new book life undercover. Encourage everyone to pick up a copy of this. She is going to be signing copies. I will give a quick introduction and then i will ask a few questions in leave the last ten to 15 minutes for audience questions. Please silence your cell phones before we start. Even before she finished studying in oxford before september 11 before her writing mentor was captured in killed they have already invested in International Affairs having taken a great risk when she was just a year out of high school. She eventually got a masters in conflict. She developed an algorithm that could predict terrorist attacks based on 200 years of data. At age 21 she was recruited to the cia where she analyzed classified information. Soon afterwards she was selected for advanced operations and training in the middle east and asia. Its not a h
Cia. Wonderful book and i encourage everyone to pick one up after the panel. Shes going to be signing copies for people. Im going to give a quick introduction and then im going to ask a few questions and leave the last 10 or 15 minutes for audience questions. We have a microphone set up right here in the front and another one in the back. Please silence your cell phones before we start so we dont have any surprises. Even before shehe finished studying at oxford before 9 11, before her writing mentor was captured and killed amaryllis fox was invested in International Affairs having taken great risk, message out of burma when she was a year out of high school. She eventually got her masters in conflict and terrorism at georgetowns look toward service where she developed an algorithm that were terrorist attacks based on 200 years of data. Age 20 when she was recruited to the cia for seattle is classified for the federal government. She went through advanced operational working undercover