Category Archives: Texas

New Texas law requires Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms

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Governor Greg Abott signs bill into law but challenge expected from critics who consider it unconstitutional

Texas will require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a new law that will make the state the nation’s largest to attempt to impose such a mandate.

The bill, which was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, is expected to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

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As Texas’s measles outbreak slows, officials warn of rise in other states

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Cases in New Mexico and Kansas give experts reason to be ‘concerned’ in second-worst US measles year since 2000

The measles outbreak in Texas is showing signs of slowing, though other states are seeing more cases and health officials are warning against complacency as the US continues to experience high rates of measles amid falling vaccination rates.

It has been a handful of days since anyone in Lubbock, Texas, has tested positive, and there are no known measles hospitalizations at the children’s hospital in the city, which has also cared for children from nearby Gaines county.

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As Texas’s measles outbreak slows, officials warn of rise in other states

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Cases in New Mexico and Kansas give experts reason to be ‘concerned’ in second-worst US measles year since 2000

The measles outbreak in Texas is showing signs of slowing, though other states are seeing more cases and health officials are warning against complacency as the US continues to experience high rates of measles amid falling vaccination rates.

It has been a handful of days since anyone in Lubbock, Texas, has tested positive, and there are no known measles hospitalizations at the children’s hospital in the city, which has also cared for children from nearby Gaines county.

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At least 28 people dead after storms and tornadoes strike three US states

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At least 19 deaths were in Kentucky, seven in Missouri and two in Virginia after storms spawned two dozen tornadoes

Storm systems sweeping across the midwest to the south left at least 28 dead in Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia.

Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, confirmed in a social media post that deaths in Kentucky had risen to 19 after the addition of a woman from Russell county. “Please join Britainy and me in praying for the families who are hurting right now,” the post read.

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Four people killed by St Louis storms as severe weather threatens millions in US

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Mayor confirms deaths after roofs torn off and trees downed, while multiple states brace for high winds and heat

At least four people died and others were hurt after severe storms including a possible tornado swept through St Louis on Friday, as tens of millions of Americans in multiple states braced for possible damage from expected high winds and severe weather this weekend.

St Louis mayor Cara Spencer confirmed the deaths after storms tore roofs off some buildings, ripped away brick facades and downed trees and power lines as residents were urged to take cover.

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Mexican woman charged in US with supplying arms to ‘terrorist’ drug cartel

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María Del Rosario Navarro, 39, accused of conspiring to provide material support to Jalisco New Generation cartel

A 39-year-old woman has become the first Mexican national to be indicted in the United States on charges of providing material support to a cartel designated as a foreign terrorist organization, according to the US Department of Justice.

María Del Rosario Navarro is accused of conspiring with others to provide grenades to the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), a powerful Mexican crime faction that the US in February designated as a terrorist organization alongside other criminal groups across Latin America.

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Google agrees to pay Texas $1.375bn over data-privacy claims

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State attorney general said company secretly tracked users’ movements, searches, voiceprints and facial geometry

Google has agreed to pay $1.375bn in a settlement in principle reached with the state of Texas over allegations the company violated users’ data privacy, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, said on Friday.

The agreement settles two lawsuits that covered three products for allegedly violating Texas consumer protection laws.

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Immigrants set for Libya deportation sat on tarmac for hours, attorney says

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Any Trump administration efforts to send non-Libyans to the north African country would violate a prior court order

Immigrants in Texas who were told they would be deported to Libya sat on a military airfield tarmac for hours on Wednesday, unsure of what would happen next, an attorney for one of the men has said.

The attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.

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Elon Musk’s company town: SpaceX employees vote to create ‘Starbase’

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Residents – most of them SpaceX workers – in remote Texas community approve plan to create new city

Voters in a small patch of south Texas voted on Saturday to give Elon Musk a town to call his own, officially creating a new city called Starbase in the area where Musk’s SpaceX holds rocket launches.

A couple of hundred residents of what was previously known as Boca Chica decided to make their unincorporated neighborhoods into a town that will grant them the authority to pass city ordinances.

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Texas governor signs largest US school voucher law in win for conservatives

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State becomes 16th to allow public funds to be used for private schools, which opponents say will benefit mostly wealthier children

The Texas governor Greg Abbott on Saturday signed a law making more than 5 million students eligible to use state funds for private schools, a watershed moment in the conservative campaign to remake public education in the US.

Texas is allocating $1bn for the first two years of the program to offer parents vouchers to pay for school. It is the 16th state to make all students eligible to receive public funds for private education.

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Venezuelan detainees at Texas center spell out SOS with their bodies

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Men at Bluebonnet fear deportation to El Salvador under wartime law despite maintaining they do not have gang ties

Detainees at the Bluebonnet immigrant detention center in the small city of Anson, Texas, sent the outside world a message this week: SOS.

With a Reuters drone flying nearby, 31 men formed the letters in the dirt yard of the facility on Monday.

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Measles cases in Texas rise to 663 amid outbreaks in other US states

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Texas officials say 87 patients hospitalized as researchers say country at tipping point for return of endemic measles

Measles cases in Texas rose to 663 on Tuesday, according to the state’s health department, an increase of 17 cases since 25 April, as the US battles one of its worst outbreaks of the previously eradicated childhood disease.

Cases in Gaines county, the center of the outbreak, rose to 396, three more from its last update on Friday, the Texas department of state health services said.

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Trump is jailing immigrant families again. A mother, father and teen tell of ‘anguish on a daily basis’

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Family incarceration has been revived after Biden – and Jade, Jason and Gabriela are speaking out about their distressing treatment in Texas

When Jade and her family first arrived at the detention facility in Karnes county, Texas, she wasn’t really sure what to think.

“I guess I was confused and scared,” said the 13-year-old. Her parents were doing their best to reassure her that everything would be OK, but she knew they were in danger of being deported.

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What a boob: Texas school district bans Virginia state flag and seal over naked breast

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Students in Lamar can no longer learn about the state of Virginia on their online research database due to the ban

Virginia’s state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant, her drooping toga exposing her left breast, has been banned from younger students in a Texas school district.

The district, Lamar consolidated independent school district, near Houston, took action against the image late last year when it removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by third through fifth graders, typically encompassing ages eight to 11, sparking a row, Axios reported on Thursday.

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The great Mississippi tops list of most endangered rivers amid fears over Trump rollbacks

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Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new report

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal climate disaster agency – and the full-throttle deregulation of fossil fuels and water-guzzling datacentres – could prove catastrophic for America’s endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new report.

American Rivers’ annual most-endangered rivers list lays bare a myriad of human-made threats including floods, drought and other extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, as well as industrial pollution and poor river management – all of which Trump’s regulatory rollbacks will almost inevitably make worse.

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Six injured and 24 properties damaged in Texas house explosion, say officials

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Authorities investigate after residents as far as 28 miles away report hearing a boom as Austin house collapses

A house explosion in Austin, Texas, destroyed the residence and damaged 24 nearby properties, injuring six people – including two firefighters.

Around 11.25am CDT, residents across Austin reported hearing a boom and feeling an explosion in the area. “It rattled my windows and building,” one person posted on social media with an image of a plume of smoke rising into the air. Residents as far away as Georgetown – about 28 miles to the north – reported hearing the explosion.

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Mexico to send water to Texas farmers as US treaty threat grows

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Mexico’s failure to keep up 81-year-old water-sharing treaty has sparked a diplomatic spat with the US

Mexico will make an immediate water delivery to Texas farmers to help make up its shortfall under a treaty that has strained US relations and prompted tariff threats by Donald Trump, said Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Friday.

Mexico is looking for alternatives to comply with the 81-year-old water-sharing treaty with the US, Sheinbaum said in her regular news conference. A proposal had already been sent to US officials, she said.

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RFK Jr stayed silent on vaccine, says father of child who died from measles

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Pete Hildebrand says health secretary ‘never said anything’ about vaccine’s efficacy when he visited for funeral

A Texas man who buried his eight-year-old daughter on Sunday after the unvaccinated child died with measles says Robert F Kennedy Jr “never said anything” about the vaccine against the illness or its proven efficacy while visiting the girl’s family and community for her funeral.

“He did not say that the vaccine was effective,” Pete Hildebrand, the father of Daisy Hildebrand, said in reference to Kennedy during a brief interview on Monday. “I had supper with the guy … and he never said anything about that.”

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Days of severe storms leave 18 dead as rising rivers threaten US south and midwest

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Power and gas shut off in regions as flooding worsens, threatening waterlogged and badly damaged communities

After days of intense rain and wind killed at least 18 people in the US south and midwest, rivers rose and flooding worsened on Sunday in those regions, threatening waterlogged and badly damaged communities.

Utility companies scrambled to shut off power and gas from Texas to Ohio while cities closed roads and deployed sandbags to protect homes and businesses.

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Hooters restaurant chain files for bankruptcy protection

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Founded in 1983, the restaurant known for waitresses in skimpy outfits has run into financial difficulties lately

Hooters, the US-based restaurant chain known for chicken wings and skimpy waitstaff outfits, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

HOA Restaurant Group filed the motion for chapter 11 protection Monday in the north Texas bankruptcy court in Dallas.

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