Some Texas Democrats dismayed their colleagues returned to make a quorum, but others hope their protest has drawn attention to voting rights
A last-ditch effort to stall Texas Republicans from passing sweeping voting legislation effectively ended on Thursday evening after enough Democrats returned to the state capitol in Austin to allow lawmakers to proceed on legislation.
Continue reading...Following One Vote Away’s publication, the Republican senator’s campaign spent large sums of money at US chain Books-A-Million
Ted Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported.
Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History in September. A financial disclosure he filed on Monday, reported on by Forbes, shows he received almost $320,000 as an advance in 2020 from the book’s publisher Regnery Publishing.
Continue reading...The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, after weeks spent banning local mask requirements and meeting maskless crowds. The Republican is fully vaccinated against the virus and is not experiencing symptoms, his office said.
Texas has once again emerged as a hotspot for coronavirus, with only 314 available intensive care unit beds statewide. Paediatric ICUs are running out of space while children head back to class.
Continue reading...Greg Abbott, who was vaccinated in December, is at least the 11th governor to contract the virus
Texas governor Greg Abbott tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, after weeks spent banning local mask requirements and meeting maskless crowds.
Related: Texas officials ask US government for mortuary trucks as Covid cases rise
Continue reading...Covid mentioned in 527 deaths last week compared to 404 the week before; Singapore experts say there may be hundreds of deaths each year from endemic Covid-19
The king of Malaysia has ruled out a new general election in the country, after the resignation of the government amid mounting anger over its handling of the pandemic, because of concerns over the spread of Covid.
Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s resignation yesterday after less than 18 months in office comes as Malaysia has one of the world’s highest infection and death rates per capita, with daily cases breaching 20,000 this month despite a seven-month state of emergency and a lockdown since June.
India has administered more than 8.8m doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the past 24 hours, government data showed, close to its all-time record and speeding up a campaign to inoculate all eligible adults by December.
India has undertaken one of the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drives and has so far administered 554m doses, giving at least one dose to about 46% of its estimated 944m adults. Only about 13% of the population have had the required two doses.
• State supreme court temporarily backs governor’s order
• Local hearings in Dallas and San Antonio aim to protect children
The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, will temporarily be allowed to enforce an order banning mask mandates, the state supreme court ruled on Sunday.
Related: Texas anti-vaxxers’ calls for personal freedom dismiss my nearly fatal bout with Covid
Continue reading...Since my hospitalization, and as Hidalgo county sees a surge in cases, protests against the vaccine are triggering
I was stunned by the comment as I walked into a recent press conference to warn our south Texas community that, after all we’ve been through for the past 18 months, we need to remain vigilant as new variants of Covid-19 are causing a surge in hospitalizations.
“You were pretty sick last year,” said a doctor at the press conference, a friend who had treated me when I was hospitalized for 10 days with Covid-19 last July. “I didn’t think you were going to make it. You almost died.”
Continue reading...Greg Abbott is turning to out-of-state medics to help – but has expressly prohibited Texans from requiring masks or vaccines
On Tuesday afternoon, a steady stream of customers flowed into Austin’s famed music store, Waterloo Records. Aisle after aisle, everyone wore masks. No mask, no vinyl.
Related: Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 40% of US Covid hospitalizations last week
Continue reading...Governors of states such as Florida and Texas, where the Delta variant is surging, have made masks and vaccines a partisan issue, in a lethal mix of ignorance, irrationality and nihilism
The crowd gathered under a tent at the water’s edge, their tables decorated with the Stars and Stripes and checked tablecloths. In their midst in Austin county, Texas, last Saturday was the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, laughing with delight and playing the fiddle.
With the coronavirus roaring through the state and hospitals near breaking point, comparisons with Nero fiddling while Rome burned were irresistible, although journalist Alisha Grauso pointed out on Twitter: “Nero actually enacted sweeping relief efforts to try to quell the fire and also offer his people aid in the aftermath, particularly the lower class, so Abbott is somehow worse than a Roman emperor known today as being a psychotic tyrant.”
Continue reading...A month after fleeing the state to thwart passage of restrictive voting laws, Democrats again refused to appear at the state Capitol
Texas Democrats have refused to return to the state Capitol as governor Greg Abbott began a third attempt at passing new election laws, prolonging a months-long standoff that ramped up in July when dozens of Democratic state lawmakers left the state and hunkered down in Washington, DC.
“A quorum is not present,” said Republican house speaker Dade Phelan on Saturday, who then adjourned the chamber until Monday.
Continue reading...Daily Covid-19 cases in the US moved above 100,000 a day for the first time since February, higher than the levels of last summer when vaccines were not available, and came as health officials sounded alarm over lagging rates of vaccination driving the surge of the infectious Delta variant.
The seven-day average of hospital admissions has also increased more than 40% from the week before, with health workers describing frustration and exhaustion as hospitals in Covid hotspots were again overwhelmed with patients, almost 20 months into the pandemic in the US.
Continue reading...It can’t claim to be native to Grand Prairie, Texas, but a 6ft west African banded cobra was believed on Friday still to be roaming through the city of almost 200,000 on the outskirts of Dallas after escaping from its owner’s house.
Related: No 10 refuses stay of execution for alpaca Geronimo who tested positive for bovine TB
Continue reading...Congress members Joyce Beatty and Hank Johnson were previously arrested for participating in separate demonstrations
Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democratic representative of Texas, was arrested in Washington DC on Thursday while protesting lawmakers’ delay in passing legislation to protect voting rights, becoming the third member of the Congressional Black Caucus to be arrested for civil disobedience in recent weeks.
Related: Voting curbs enacted in 18 US states this year despite none finding widespread fraud
Continue reading...Biden may be president but Republican-controlled states are busy introducing reams of legislation that is anything but progressive
In his inaugural address in January, Joe Biden promised to use his presidency to “restore the soul of America”. He would unite the nation, defuse “anger, resentment and hatred”, and lead Americans back to a world where they treated “each other with dignity and respect”.
Six months later, Biden is still preaching the unity gospel, and regularly assures his fellow Americans that “there’s not a single thing we aren’t able to do when we do it together”.
Continue reading...Lawmakers’ bid to bar Republicans from passing voting restrictions energizes activists
Happy Thursday,
I’m writing from Austin, where I arrived on Sunday night expecting to cover the high-stakes showdown over GOP-backed voting bills at the Texas capitol.
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Texas Democratic lawmakers have fled their state in a desperate attempt to stop the Republican-run legislature from passing laws they say will suppress the vote of people of color.
The extreme move – which saw dozens of Democrats leave via planes and head to Washington DC – is the latest and wildest escalation in a fight over voting rights in the state and in America more broadly.
Related: Why did Democratic lawmakers flee Texas over voter restrictions?
As fires propagate throughout the US west on the heels of record heatwaves, experts are warning that the region is caught in a vicious feedback cycle of extreme heat, drought and fire, all amplified by the climate crisis.
Firefighters are battling blazes from Arizona to Washington state that are burning with a worrying ferocity, while officials say California is already set to outpace last year’s record-breaking fire season.
Related: American west stuck in cycle of ‘heat, drought and fire’, experts warn
Continue reading...Texas Democrats fled the state as part of an all-out effort to block Republicans from passing new restrictions on voting in the state.
The move, first reported by NBC News, escalates one of the most high-stakes battles over efforts to make it harder to vote in America.
Continue reading...Texans from across the ideological spectrum flocked to testify in person at public hearings convened by governor Greg Abbott
Hailee Mouch woke up at 2am Saturday morning so she could drive to her state’s capital city of Austin and testify at two competing public hearings on Texas’s restrictive voting bills.
She knew she had to return to the Dallas area to be at work by 6am Sunday. But she was determined to stay as long as possible to tell state lawmakers how their proposals would hurt democracy in the small city where she goes to college.
Continue reading...Hervis Rogers became a national symbol of tenacity when he cast his ballot in last year’s presidential primaries
A Texas man who became a national hero after he waited seven hours in line to vote in last year’s presidential primary has been arrested and charged with voting illegally.
Continue reading...Health experts emphasize need for even those who have had disease to get inoculated
New cases of Covid-19 are declining across most of the US, even in some states with vaccine-hesitant populations.
But almost all states where cases are rising have lower-than-average vaccination rates and experts warned on Sunday that relief from the coronavirus pandemic could be fleeting in regions where few people get inoculated.
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