Category Archives: Texas

Texas minors need parental approval for federally funded birth control – court

Posted on by

Trump-appointed judge rules that children must have parental consent for contraception, in state where most abortion is banned

Texans under the age of 18 are now legally required to seek approval from their parent or guardian in order to obtain birth control from federally funded clinics, a federal judge in the state has ruled.

Title X, the federal grant program which was created in 1970 in order to provide family planning and preventive health services, was ruled a violation of state law and parental rights by federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in December 2022.

Continue reading...

Texans brace for freezing weather in hopes storm won’t be repeat of 2021

Posted on by

Experts say temperatures won’t get as cold as 2021 storm, with expected minimum around 10F

Nervous Texans are preparing for a freezing blast of Arctic air on Thursday but it is not predicted to be a repeat of the disastrous winter storm that struck the state in 2021, crippling large parts of the state’s power infrastructure and killing scores of people.

Residents have been warned to brace for extremely cold weather and to stock up on essentials like bottled water and non-perishable foods in case of power outages and food supply chain issues like those experienced during winter storm Uri in February 2021, when millions of Texans were left without power and 246 people died.

Continue reading...

Images of migrants on Texas streets in freezing temperatures spark concern

Posted on by

One video shows dozens of migrants wrapped in thin blankets as they slept on El Paso streets amid surge of arrivals in city

Images of migrants wrapped in blankets and sleeping on the streets of El Paso in freezing temperatures have raised welfare concerns as they circulated online this week amid a surge of people arriving in the west Texan city.

Over the last few days, thousands of migrants, including many hailing from Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, huddled along the waters of the Rio Grande, while others waded across the river from El Paso’s sister city on the Mexican side of the border, Ciudad Juarez, to cross into the US.

Continue reading...

‘Surreal spectacle’: US botched 35% of execution attempts this year

Posted on by

Annual review reveals that seven of the 20 execution attempts carried out this year were visibly problematic

As 2022 draws to a close, a new grim distinction can be attached to it: in America it was the year of the botched execution.

In its annual review of US capital punishment, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reveals the astonishing statistic that 35% of the 20 execution attempts carried out this year were visibly problematic.

Continue reading...

Texas attorney general sought data on gender changes to state IDs

Posted on by

Ken Paxton requested the public safety department for the numbers, but it was never given due to accuracy problems

The office of Republican Texas attorney general Ken Paxton this summer sought data on how many people had changed the gender information on their driver’s licenses, according to a newspaper report published on Wednesday that civil rights attorneys described as worrying.

The Washington Post reported that public records obtained by the newspaper do not indicate why Paxton’s office made the request to the Texas department of public safety (DPS). The head of the driver’s license division told colleagues in June to compile the “total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months”.

Continue reading...

US National Weather Services warns of ‘widespread’ winter storm hazards

Posted on by

More than 15 million people under winter advisory while several areas in midwest and Great Plains face intense snowstorms

More than 15 million people are under a winter advisory as of Tuesday, as several areas in the midwest and Great Plains face intense snowstorms, Axios reported.

Storm warnings are in effect across a dozen states, including parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota.

Continue reading...

Man charged with threatening doctor for providing care to trans patients

Posted on by

Matthew Jordan Lindner of Texas is alleged to have harassed and threatened to kill a doctor at Fenway Institute center in Boston

A Texas man has been charged with threatening a Boston doctor for providing medical care to transgender patients and gender-nonconforming children.

On Friday, the US attorney’s office in Massachusetts said Matthew Jordan Lindner, 38 and from Comfort, Texas, was arrested and charged with one count of transmitting interstate threats.

Continue reading...

Suspect arrested in killing of rapper Takeoff, say Houston police

Posted on by

Authorities announce that member of Migos, who was shot at a bowling alley last month, was ‘an innocent bystander’

A suspect has been arrested and charged with murder in the killing of Takeoff, the rapper and member of Migos, at a bowling alley in Houston last month.

Announcing the news on Friday, Houston police said Takeoff, who was 28 and whose birth name was Kirshnik Khari Ball, was “an innocent bystander”.

Continue reading...

One dead, dozens injured after tornadoes rip through Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma

Posted on by

‘Total destruction’ and dozens of people still unaccounted for in Texas town while Arkansas and Oklahoma also hit by tornadoes

At least two people have died and dozens more are injured after tornadoes ravaged parts of Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Several twisters caused property damage and physical injury across the various states on Friday. Tornado warnings had still been in effect as of late Friday in parts of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed reporting.

Continue reading...

Judge dismisses fraud case against Texas man who waited seven hours to vote

Posted on by

Hervis Rogers, who drew national praise, was arrested by state attorney general Ken Paxton for voting illegally while on parole

A Texas judge has dismissed voter fraud charges against Hervis Rogers, the Houston man who drew national attention – and praise – for waiting seven hours in line to vote in the March 2020 presidential primary.

Rogers, who is Black, became a symbol of tenacity when news of the circumstances surrounding his voting experience surfaced. He stuck around – despite working two jobs, including one beginning at 6am – and was among the last, potentially the last, Texas resident to vote, according to KERA news.

Continue reading...

Texas sues Google for allegedly using people’s faces and voices without consent

Posted on by

Google collected biometric data ‘from innumerable Texans’ and used faces and voices to serve commercial ends, complaint says

Texas is suing tech giant Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Thursday.

In its complaint, Texas says that companies operating in the state have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent.

Continue reading...

‘I was too close’: Texas woman gored by bison shares video to warn hikers

Posted on by

Video posted by Rebecca Clark shows her point of view as she tries to gingerly walk past bison during hike in Caprock Canyons park

A woman in Texas who recorded a cellphone video of herself surviving getting gored by a bison has admonished fellow hikers about the perils of too closely encountering such an immense animal.

Rebecca Clark was on a solo hike in Caprock Canyons park, home of Texas’s state bison herd, when she came across a group of the massive bovines grazing a few feet away from the trail.

Continue reading...

Fired Texas police officer charged over shooting of teen in fast-food parking lot

Posted on by

James Brennand, 25, charged with aggravated assault after shooting of Erik Cantu, 17, at McDonald’s in San Antonio

A now-former San Antonio police officer was charged on Tuesday with two counts of aggravated assault by a peace officer for shooting and gravely wounding a teen eating a hamburger in his car in a McDonald’s parking lot. The teen had begun driving away when the officer opened fire.

James Brennand, 25, was charged in the 2 October shooting of Erik Cantu, 17, according to a police statement. He turned himself in to police on Tuesday night and remained in custody, said the police chief, William McManus.

Continue reading...

El Paso struggles to house migrants after shelter closes as border crossings surge

Posted on by

City’s new facility has to find shelters for those without alternative after a 40-year beacon of refuge shuttered earlier this year

Chairs and tables lined El Paso’s new Migrant Welcome Center in west Texas, where families who have crossed the US-Mexico border without immigration papers were meeting with volunteers and city employees, or making phone calls to loved ones elsewhere in the United States.

Children amused themselves in a designated play area, while their parents worked out where the next steps of their journey would take them and how they would get there.

Continue reading...

Texas police fires officer who shot a teen sitting in his car in a fast food parking lot

Posted on by

James Brennand confronted the 17 year old who was in a car that had evaded him a day earlier and began shooting when the car drove off

A Texas police force has fired an officer who shot and wounded a teenager sitting in his car eating a hamburger.

The San Antonio police department fired James Brennand after he shot Erik Cantu, 17, on 2 October in a fast-food restaurant parking lot, the agency’s training commander, Alyssa Campos, said in a video statement released Wednesday.

Continue reading...

Texas Fort Hood to be renamed for US army’s first Latino four-star general

Posted on by

The facility, named for the late retired general Richard Cavazos, will become the first to honor a Latino service member

The US army’s first Latino four-star general is set to become the namesake of the country’s largest active-duty armored military base, replacing the Confederate leader after whom the facility was originally named.

In a recent memo to top military brass at the Pentagon, US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said officials had until 1 January 2024 to implement a recommendation to change the name of Texas’s Fort Hood to Fort Cavazos, honoring the late retired general Richard Cavazos.

Continue reading...

Ex-US army medic allegedly lured migrants on to flights to Martha’s Vineyard

Posted on by

Perla Huerta was reportedly sent to Texas from Florida to fill planes chartered by DeSantis, offering gift cards to asylum seekers

A former US army combat medic and counterintelligence agent allegedly solicited asylum seekers to join flights out of Texas to Martha’s Vineyard that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, chartered.

Perla Huerta was sent to Texas from Tampa to fill the planes at the center of the trips, which many have argued could amount to illegal human trafficking, a person briefed on an investigation into the case told the New York Times.

Continue reading...

Uvalde families stand with Beto O’Rourke amid Republican silence on gun reform

Posted on by

Families of those killed in May school shooting support Democrat in race against Texas governor Greg Abbott

A small photo of Jacklyn Casarez, one of the children killed during the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in May, graced the front of a greeting card held by Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who visited a Rio Grande Valley park Friday morning before the one and only staged debate with incumbent governor Greg Abbott.

“Maybe you don’t consider yourself a political person,” Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was also killed in the 24 May shooting at Robb elementary, said Friday during a pre-debate news conference.

Continue reading...

Texas attorney general ran from home to avoid abortion subpoena, files say

Posted on by

Republican Ken Paxton allegedly ran out of his house and jumped into truck driven by his wife to avoid person serving subpoena

The Texas attorney general Ken Paxton ran out of his house and jumped into a truck driven by his wife, a state senator, to avoid being served a subpoena to testify Tuesday in an abortion access case, according to court documents.

A process server wrote in an affidavit that he was attempting to deliver the federal court subpoena Monday at Paxton’s home and ultimately had to leave the document on the ground. He said the Republican avoided him for more than an hour from inside his house, then dashed toward the truck and the couple drove off.

Continue reading...

White House says Ted Cruz voted against highway project he touted as ‘victory’

Posted on by

Texas Republican hails ‘Ports to Plains’ highway he co-sponsored – but which was in spending bill he refused to back

The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz called a new highway project “a great bipartisan victory” that will bring “jobs to Texas and millions of dollars to the state”.

The White House responded: “Senator Cruz voted against this.”

Continue reading...