🍔Whataburger's B-day, CEO pay ranking + Forest Park mini-train

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🗞️NEWS OF THE DAY:

I hear the train a-comin’: We’re cueing up Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues. The Forest Park mini-train operator has a Sept. 1 deadline to reinstate service. The attraction has not been available since March 2022. The ride’s owner has spent more than $500,000 to update equipment for an expected relaunch this fall.

Elbit America (northwest Fort Worth) has an order for gunner hand stations for the Bradley IFVs through the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency. Production is to be conducted in Fort Worth with deliveries beginning in July 2024.

Fort Worth-based Kimbell Royalty Partners, LP, owner of about 16 million gross acres of oil and gas mineral and royalty interests in 28 states, has agreed to acquire mineral and royalty interests from a private seller for approximately $455 million. The Seller's acreage is located in the Delaware Basin (49%), Midland Basin (10%) and Mid-Continent (41%).

TechFW graduate VenoStent, Inc., a clinical-stage, therapeutic medical device company developing bioabsorbable wraps to improve outcomes for hemodialysis patients, has been granted Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) from the FDA for its U.S. clinical trial. An IDE allows for a device to be used to collect safety and effectiveness data. VenoStent also announced $16M in Series A funding.

The Tarrant County College board of trustees is scheduled to vote on these spending proposals at its Aug. 10 meeting.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit to block a Texas law that criminalizes some drag shows and other performances in front of children.

🏆APPOINTMENTS & PROMOTIONS:

• Governor Abbott has appointed retired BNSF Railway executive vice president Roger Nober to the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission. Fort Worth resident Nober is a principal at Salten Point Consulting.

• The Republican Party of Texas has selected Jen Hall as its Executive Director. She replaces John Beckmeyer, the new City Manager in Odessa. Hall was Tarrant County Chair from 2011-2016, served as the Deputy Organization Director from 2019-2021 and was the Organization Director from 2021 until this appointment.

• Governor Abbott has appointed Sharon Lemons of Saginaw, Christopher Carmona and John Trischitti, III to the Texas Diabetes Council for terms that expire February 1, 2029. Lemons is the lead dietitian of MHMR of Tarrant County and serves as the Texas House of Delegates Representative for the Behavioral Health Nutrition Council.

📰BELOW THE FOLD:

• New business applications soared to over 5M in 2022, a 42% increase from pre-pandemic levels.

• Americans are going abroad in droves — at the expense of domestic travel. The shift is driving up international airline and hotel rates. Airlines, theme parks and hotel chains that are primarily U.S. focused are being negatively impacted.

• What’s working for — and against — retailers heading into the holidays? This shopping season isn’t likely to be like last year, or the year before, or the year before that, experts say.

✂️SNIPPETS:

• Winners of the 2023 iPhone Photography Awards (see).

• New Jersey teens build an illegal rollercoaster in their backyard (watch).

• Ranking America's best hospitals by specialty (read).

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