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TexasTowelie's JournalDallas mayor tests positive for COVID-19, has mild symptoms
DALLAS -- Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson disclosed Tuesday that he tested positive for COVID-19 and was experiencing mild symptoms after being fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
In a statement, Johnson said he was tested for the coronavirus after he began feeling ill late Monday and canceled his Tuesday schedule.
He said his wife, Nikki, who also is fully vaccinated, tested negative for the coronavirus.
Johnson said he had canceled his engagements for the rest of the week. He also said he had notified his recent contacts and the school attended by his sons, who are not yet eligible for vaccination.
Read more: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2021/oct/26/dallas-mayor-tests-positive-for-covid-19-has-mild/
Meatpacker Tyson: Mandate led 96% of workers to get vaccine
OMAHA, Neb. -- Meatpacking giant Tyson Foods says more than 96% of its workers have been vaccinated ahead of the company's Nov. 1 deadline for them to do so.
The company based in Springdale, Arkansas, said the number of its 120,000 workers who have been vaccinated has nearly doubled since it announced its mandate on Aug. 3. At that point, only 50% of Tyson workers had been vaccinated.
"This is an incredible result -- not only for our company, but for your families and our communities across the country, " Tyson President and CEO Donnie King said in a note to employees Tuesday.
Tyson, which has long been dealing with worker shortages, said employees who don't get vaccinated before the company's deadline will be fired, but that the former employees will be welcomed back if they do get vaccinated later.
Read more: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2021/oct/26/meatpacker-tyson-mandate-led-96-of-workers-to-get/
Arkansas sues medical supplier for failed supplies delivery
LITTLE ROCK -- The state of Arkansas filed a consumer protection lawsuit Wednesday against a Virginia-based medical supplier for nearly $11 million for failing to deliver supplies during the coronavirus pandemic, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said.
Rutledge said Wednesday that Med-Care Healthlink LLC of Suffolk and its representatives failed to deliver gowns, ventilators and face shields ordered in March and April 2020 to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
"This had been a company the state had worked with previously, and so therefore there was no reason to believe at that point that we would have something this significant occur," Rutledge said.
A phone call to the company rang unanswered.
Deputy Attorney General Shannon Halijan said state officials were told at various times the supplies were bought by another entity, held in China or were in other states.
Read more: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2021/oct/28/arkansas-sues-medical-supplier-for-failed/
Time for a monument to labor activist Emma Tenayuca? A St. Mary's University grad student thinks so.
For San Antonio graduate student Gwyn Hartung, a single plaque in a park downtown dedicated to San Antonio-born labor activist Emma Tenayuca just isn’t cutting it.
She’s launched a petition to change that.
Hartung, 23, is a student at St. Mary’s University pursuing her master’s in public history. As part of her graduate studies capstone project — a project students must complete to graduate that usually encompasses real-life uses of their academic studies — Hartung first launched a petition to change the name of Beauregard Street in King William to Emma Tenayuca Street.
After learning more about the street’s namesake and getting pushback from the neighborhood association, she’s updated her petition and widened her efforts to bring greater recognition to the woman who led the San Antonio pecan shellers strike in 1938, when she was just 21 years old.
Hartung told the San Antonio Report she originally set out to get the name of Beauregard Street changed because she and one of her professors believed that the street, located in the King William district, was named for Pierre Gustave Toutant “P.G.T.” Beauregard, the Confederate general who helped launch the American Civil War by leading the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.
Read more: https://sanantonioreport.org/monument-emma-tenayuca-san-antonio/
Rare butterfly makes appearance at National Butterfly Center (with photo)
MISSION, TEXAS -- A rare butterfly was recently spotted at the National Butterfly Center in Mission.
A neotropical Emerald Aguna was observed and photographed by Luciano Guerra, the education and outreach coordinator for the center. According to a news release, this is the third time the butterfly has been spotted at the center and only the fourth time in the Rio Grande Valley.
“Even more remarkable is the fact that Luciano has found this butterfly (presumably two different individuals) TWICE this month!” the release read. “His experience proves our motto, ‘You never know what you‘ll see at the NBC,’ true again.”
According to the release, nearly half of the 700 different species of North American butterflies can be found in the Valley.
The Emerald Aguna is typically found from Venezuela to Mexico. It was first spotted in the Valley in 2004, then again in 2015.
Read more: https://myrgv.com/featured/2021/10/27/rare-butterfly-makes-appearance-at-national-butterfly-center/
Stacey Abrams group donates $1.34M to wipe out medical debts
ATLANTA (AP) — The political organization led by prominent Democrat Stacey Abrams is branching out into paying off medical debts.
The Fair Fight Political Action Committee on Wednesday told The Associated Press it has donated $1.34 million from its political action committee to the nonprofit organization RIP Medical Debt to wipe out debt with a face value of $212 million that is owed by 108,000 people in Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Lauren Groh-Wargo CEO of allied group Fair Fight Action and senior adviser to the PAC said paying off medical debt is another facet of the group’s advocacy seeking expansion of Medicaid coverage in the 12 states that have refused to expand the health insurance to all poorer adults.
“What is so important about this is the tie between Medicaid expansion and just crushing medical debt,” Groh-Wargo said.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/health-alabama-georgia-philanthropy-stacey-abrams-3395744e46ed8da6eea80f4164284435
Paid family leave falls out of Biden's bill as tempers rise
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Democrats signaled a deal is within reach on President Joe Biden’s big domestic bill, but momentum fizzled and tempers flared as a paid family leave proposal fell out and a billionaires’ tax appeared scrapped, mostly to satisfy a pivotal member of the 50-50 Senate.
With his signature domestic initiative at stake, Biden will head to Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to urge Democratic lawmakers to bring talks on the social services and climate change bill “over the finish line” before he departs for global summits overseas.
Still in the mix: expanded health care programs, free pre-kindergarten and some $500 billion to tackle climate change remain in what’s now at least a $1.75 trillion package.
And Democrats are eyeing a new surcharge on the wealthy — 5% on incomes above $10 million and an additional 3% on those beyond $25 million — to help pay for it, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private talks.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-joe-biden-business-wv-state-wire-congress-60a1bc276d0ab8eb3e0347fc54ee8c2c
Follow-up: Former East Texas nurse sentenced to death for killing 4 patients at Tyler hospital
TYLER — Jurors on Wednesday gave the death penalty to a former East Texas nurse for killing four patients at a Tyler hospital.
The Smith County jury found William George Davis, 37, of Hallsville has a probability of being a danger to society and found there are not sufficient mitigating factors that would hinder him from receiving the death penalty.
After hearing input from the jury, 114th District Court Judge Austin Reeve Jackson issued the official sentencing. The jury deliberated for just less than two hours after hearing the last evidence from the defense and the closing arguments.
Davis was found guilty Oct. 19 of injecting air into patients’ arterial systems while he was a nurse at Christus Trinity Mother Frances Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital in Tyler, causing the deaths of patients John Lafferty, Ronald Clark, Christopher Greenaway and Joseph Kalina.
Read more: https://www.news-journal.com/news/public_safety/former-east-texas-nurse-sentenced-to-death-for-killing-4-patients-at-tyler-hospital/article_d93f53db-e0c5-5e07-aafd-30595ea7e019.html
(Longview News-Journal)
Earlier thread:
Tyler nurse convicted of killing four men with air injections
https://www.democraticunderground.com/107857301
Jewish communities in Austin and San Antonio targeted by neo-Nazi group
Police in Austin and San Antonio are investigating acts of antisemitism after members of a neo-Nazi group traveled through both cities in recent days.
The Anti-Defamation League describes the group as a “loose network of individuals connected by their virulent antisemitism. The group includes six primary organizers/public figures and thousands of online followers.”
Around 10 members came to Austin from Florida this past weekend, hanging an antisemitic banner on a MoPac overpass near the Shalom Austin Jewish Community Center on Saturday and then walking around the heavily trafficked 6th Street.
“They were all wearing t-shirts with big swastikas and hats with the same,” said Renee Lafair, regional director with ADL Austin.
Read more: https://www.kut.org/crime-justice/2021-10-26/jewish-communities-in-austin-and-san-antonio-targeted-by-neo-nazi-group
Texas Democratic lawmakers again urge Senate to act on federal voting legislation
After Senate Republicans blocked a federal voting bill last week, Texas Democratic lawmakers are now calling on the U.S. Senate to pass a different one that could come up for a vote as soon as this week.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would essentially restore the preclearance provision taken out of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013. It ensures states with a history of discrimination get federal approval for new election laws and redistricting maps.
State Rep. Nicole Collier, who chairs the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said that’s sorely needed in Texas, where Republican-drawn political maps for congressional, statehouse, and state Board of Education districts just got approved by Gov. Greg Abbott Monday.
She added that’s despite the 2020 census’ findings, showing 95% of voters of color drove the state’s population growth over the last decade.
“Now I’m no mathematician but a state that experiences 95% of its growth from Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian Americans, seems to me that they would see an increase in representation, but we didn’t see that. We saw a decrease,” said the Fort Worth Democrat during a news conference Tuesday. “In fact the Anglos, who had the slowest growth, had the highest number of seats added.”
Read more: https://www.kut.org/politics/2021-10-27/texas-democratic-lawmakers-again-urge-senate-to-act-on-federal-voting-legislation
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
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