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Texans Die from Heat Exhaustion After Governor Bans Water Breaks
House Bill 2127 preempts municipalities from enacting legislation in eight areas—with predictable results. As a part of a bill critics have dubbed the “Death Star” bill—an expansive law that preempts legislation in eight key areas of local government—the Legislature has overridden local ordinances that require giving workers water breaks. Otherwise known as House Bill 2127, it was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott on June 6.
Pipeline Operators Release or Flare Tons of Gas During June Heatwave
In one instance, the $17 billion company vented 238,000 pounds of gas when facilities in its pipeline network dialed back operations “to prevent them from shutting down due to high ambient temperature.” In another, it released 168,000 pounds “to prevent compressor units from overheating due to high ambient temperature.”
Texas Recruits High School Kids To Be Corrections Officers
Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”. Articles cannot be rewritten,...
Why Nurses Are Making Lone Star Labor History
One nurse thought she’d found her dream job. Now she’s part of the state’s largest private-sector nurses union, which struck this month to defend patient safety. Lindsay Spinney was born in the same hospital where she now works in the newborn intensive care unit. A 43-year-old registered nurse at Ascension Seton Medical Center—a 524-bed Catholic hospital in central Austin—Spinney has spent almost six years caring for babies born sick or premature, some so small their weight registers only in grams or ounces. It was her dream job.
June Heat Wave Sends Hundreds to Texas ERs
Emergency medical providers are responding to heat-related illnesses as extreme temperatures become more frequent and prolonged. On June 20, at least 350 people visited emergency departments across Texas because of heat illnesses, according to state health officials. That was the highest number of ER visits for heat-related illnesses on any single day in 2022 or 2023 so far. Not all hospitals and clinics are included in the state data, so the total is likely an undercount.
Texas Sets New Hate Crimes Record, DPS Data Show
Data from the Department of Public Safety shows that bias incidents against queer people occur at more than four times the rate of all hate crimes. Newly released data collected from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) show that hate crimes in Texas increased by 6.4 percent from 2021 to 2022, marking the sixth year in a row the state has seen an increase in hate crimes—and setting a new record. The data show that Texas reached a new peak of at least 549 documented hate crimes across the state, with over 56 percent of hate crimes in 2022 targeting LGTBQ+ and Black people.
Abbott Torpedoes Sickle-Cell Legislation on Juneteenth Weekend
Democratic State Representative Jarvis Johnson called the governor's veto "petty, bullshit politics." When André Harris Marcel arrived at the emergency room last July, he wasn’t sure if he would make it out alive. Marcel, a 34-year-old Houston resident who is pursuing a doctorate in social work at the University of Houston, lives with sickle cell disease and is a longtime advocate for sickle cell patients.
Dow’s Reservoir and the Realities of Flooding in Texas
The Texas coast regularly experiences major storms and flood events with devastating consequences to those of us who live and work in their paths. As each storm passed in recent decades—Allison, Rita, Ike, Harvey, and more—hard lessons were learned and improvements initiated. Future storms are inevitable. With appropriate planning, we can minimize future flooding impacts while still improving our overall economy and quality of life.
It’s Time to Defend the History of All Texans
The history of Texas, in the way it is taught, researched, and presented to the public, has reached a crisis point. Since 1897, the principal organization in the presentation, teaching, and researching of Texas history has been the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). For 126 years, the TSHA has welcomed academics, lay historians, and anyone else at its meetings. On May 1, 2023, the interim executive director of the TSHA, J.P. Bryan, a retired oil billionaire, filed suit against the organization’s board of directors to block the board from meeting, and also threatened to sue the current president of the TSHA, Nancy Baker Jones, for defamation. The allegations in the lawsuit are important to this story, but when Bryan and his compatriots reached out to reporters regarding the controversy, it became clear that they have a much broader agenda. In short, they framed their dispute over the composition of the TSHA board as an ideological conflict, painting academic historians as “leftists, Marxists,” and worse, and Bryan and his supporters as defenders of “true” Texas history.
Paxton’s Ninth Life: Will the Senate Save Texas’ Embattled AG?
Impeached and in peril, the walls may finally be closing in on the allegedly criminal Texas attorney general. After weeks of speculation, Republican state Senator Angela Paxton announced Monday what many had come to suspect—that she would not recuse herself as a de facto juror in the impeachment trial of her husband Attorney General Ken Paxton. “As a member of the Senate, I hold these obligations sacred and I will carry out my duties, not because it is easy, but because the Constitution demands it and because my constituents deserve it,” Senator Paxton said.
Community-Based Climate Justice on the Gulf Coast
In 2014, Anthony Giancatarino visited Louisiana to attend a meeting about “energy democracy,” or the idea that people, rather than corporations, should have control over energy production where they live. The Philadelphia native had spent the past several years working on climate policy in Pennsylvania, and was interested in hearing about how Louisianians were approaching the same issues. As he listened to people at the meeting describe the challenges of advancing clean energy in their state, the similarities and connections between their respective regions began to dawn on him.
Poem: A Prayer to Georgia O’Keeffe
All of the Texas Observer’s articles are available for free syndication for news sources under the following conditions:. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative...
Life with Parole
Probation and parole systems remain understaffed and buggy in Texas. Torres is one of the 437,000 people on parole or probation in Texas, a number that accounts for more than half of all the people affected by the criminal justice system as a whole, according to a recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI). Almost twice as many people are under community supervision—an umbrella term that includes probation and parole—as are incarcerated in prisons or jails nationwide.
Deep in the Hearts of Children: 50 Years of Public Poetry
A version of this story ran in the May / June 2023 issue. In 1974, my fiction writing professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Robert Flynn, had casually mentioned a fledgling program being sponsored by the Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA). Called Artists in Education or Artists in the Schools, this program sent practicing artists in various disciplines into classrooms around the state (and many other states, such as New York, California, and Hawai’i) for short residencies, to encourage kids of all ages. I was about to graduate and had few plans for the future aside from paying back my college loan and writing.
Allen City Council Member Condemns Nazis, Also Compares Pride Flags With Fascist Flags
"I cannot say for certain he held Nazi views," Dave Shafer tweeted about the Allen gunman, who had swastika and SS tattoos. “Oh I definitely condemn the shooter, and any belief he had,” Shafer wrote in a post on Twitter. “However, based on his other supposed tattoos and information reported in the press, I cannot say for certain he held Nazi views.” He added that “I of course condemn any race-based ideology, including Nazism.”
Dow’s River
A version of this story ran in the May / June 2023 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”
Controversial Matagorda Bay Ship Channel Grows Closer to Reality
In a presentation Tuesday night in a hotel conference room here, officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers outlined a $2.8 million effort to test the bay floor at the site and order the removal of any contaminants identified so that the Matagorda Bay ship channel project can move forward. The project calls for dredging and expanding a 27-mile stretch of the canal to make way for larger tankers carrying oil from Texas for export.
Strangest State: There’s No Place Like … Texas
A version of this story ran in the May / June 2023 issue. The antics of Attorney General Ken “I’m still under indictment” Paxton could often earn a mention here doing his part to retain Texas’s tile as the “Strangest State.” But things got weirder than usual when Paxton asked lawmakers to fork over $3.3 million for a settlement with four ex-employees who are SUING him for firing them after they reported his illegal activities to the FBI. But legislators balked. Even weirder, the Texas Legislature wrote the law that makes the state liable for damages and granted officials like Paxton immunity from paying for their own misbehavior.
Over 20 Years, Texas Allowed 1 Billion Pounds Excess Emissions
In Texas, chemical plants began shutting down, hurriedly burning off unprocessed chemicals and releasing vast amounts of pollution in anticipation of the storm making landfall. On August 24, Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery released 36,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and other noxious pollutants. These so-called “excess emissions”—the term...
Unionized Texas Journalists Face Biggest Opponent Yet: Gannett
On Monday, Austin American-Statesman workers went on strike. “I think that today is just a warning shot,” said one. When you see journalists on picket lines, they’re typically snapping photos, scribbling in notepads, or pulling a protester or striking worker aside for an interview. But in Texas, increasingly, journalists have found themselves adopting a less familiar role: holding signs, leading chants, giving the interviews themselves—all in a bid to improve their own deteriorating work conditions and, thus, save local media institutions that form part of the bedrock of American democracy.
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