After a whirlwind week of campaign announcements, endorsements and articles by national media, voters in Congressional District 18 could be forgiven for thinking Election Day is right around the corner.
In fact, the candidates vying for attention and support still do not know when Election Day will be, though it likely will not be until near the end of the year.
“There isn’t even an election called yet, and (Christian) Menefee has come out with full-blown endorsements and money commitments to set himself up as the frontrunner,” University of Houston political analyst Nancy Sims said last week.
Menefee – the 36-year-old, twice-elected Harris County Attorney – filed as a candidate for the seat the evening of March 15, just hours after the funeral for Congressman and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner concluded. That decision also triggered a clause in the Texas Constitution forcing his resignation as county attorney.
By the following Monday morning, a New York Times article about his candidacy appeared online and a list of endorsements by well-known local and state Democrats followed soon after. A Houston politico had declared Menefee the “frontrunner” for the race by midday, even though only one other person had made their candidacy known for what is expected to be a crowded ballot.
“I had to move quickly,” Menefee said of the days following Turner’s death on March 5. “I definitely took some time to process and grieve. Sylvester, Congressman Turner, Mayor Turner, was a friend and mentor.”
Menefee was the fastest, but he was quickly joined by Isaiah Martin on Monday. The 26-year-old Democrat ran briefly for the seat in the 2024 cycle, but he dropped out ahead of the Dec. 2023 filing deadline. That short-lived campaign left him with $174,000 in cash on hand for a second bid for the seat.
“We are the cash-on-hand leaders in this race, and we wanted to get out of the gate really quickly to build on that,” Martin said.
Fifth Ward community advocate James Joseph filed for the seat soon after, and former At-Large City Council Member Amanda Edwards announced her candidacy with a press conference Wednesday morning.
“I had to start shifting gears fairly quickly, but the good thing is, I wasn’t starting from scratch in terms of my knowledge of the district and my relationships in the district,” Edwards said. “It was just a matter of getting things together with enough time to launch an effective launch. We had to move pretty swiftly, and for me, it was unexpected.”
Four others – Democrat Kivan Polmis, Republican Cyrus Sanja, Independent Derrell Sherrod Turner and Independent Khristopher Beal – also have filed to run. They are unlikely to be the last to join the race.
At-Large City Council Member Letitia Plummer and state Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, have released statements saying they are strongly considering whether to join the race.
[…]
At the moment, however, the actual date for the special election to complete Turner’s term remains unknown. The Texas Constitution gives Gov. Greg Abbott the authority to set the election at his discretion. The only restriction is that the special election must be held on a uniform election date at least 36 days after Abbott’s call.
Abbott must call for the election by March 31 for it to be held on the next uniform election date on May 4. The only other uniform election date this year is November 4, and a runoff election will be required the following month if no candidate achieves 50 percent of the vote on Election Day.
Abbott is unlikely to be in a hurry to hold an election in the heavily Democratic district, Sims said. The vacancy grows the narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, giving Congressional Republicans slightly more wiggle room as they work to pass priorities of President Donald Trump, Sims said.
The ongoing session of the Texas Legislature does not end until June 2, and Abbott likewise may hold off to keep any state representatives or senators considering a bid for the seat from being disadvantaged by the work in Austin, Sims added.
“I don’t expect the governor to call for the special election for another month or two,” Sims said.
Despite the uncertainty around Election Day, Sims said the speed of campaign announcements is good political strategy. It gives the candidates more time to raise money, secure endorsements and fend off other would-be challengers.
That speed, however, is frustrating for those waiting to know the details of the election before announcing their own campaigns.
Plummer is subject to the same “resign to run” rule that forced Menefee to give up his seat. While she would like to run, Plummer said she does not want to abandon her position on City Council until she has a clear picture of the state of the race and implored voters to wait to make up their minds about candidates.
Plummer also expressed frustration with Menefee’s campaign and the host of Democratic endorsements he quickly pulled together, a list that includes Precinct 1 County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Lee Carter.
“What’s happened … could not have been done in one day,” Plummer said. “That’s all planning. That takes two months to put together, to roll out with this much. That wasn’t planned in one day. That was planned way beforehand, which to me asks the question, did we know something was wrong with Turner? Was he already deemed as the next person to take that seat? And is it really fair for a person to get the nod without asking the community?”
Menefee rejected Plummer’s implication, but acknowledged the political need for a swift launch had made for an awkward start to the campaign for all of the candidates.
“The suggestion that this came before the passing of Sylvester Turner is untrue, it’s unfortunate and I think we should be better than that in our politics,” Menefee said.
See here for the previous update. This is a reminder that filing paperwork with the FEC is not the same as filing to run once the election has been called. We’ll see what the field looks like when that happens. I think I had an earlier “last date for Abbott to call this so it can be had in May” in mind than March 31, but that works for me. I’m glad this article noted that CM Letitia Plummer (and any other Houston City Council member) would have to resign to run as well. I was pretty sure that was the case but hadn’t gone looking for the exact wording of the relevant laws.
As it happens, March 31 is also the fundraising deadline for Q1, so even though I wasn’t planning to take a look at Congressional campaign finance reports in April, I will be doing so for the special election hopefuls. That will only tell us so much – people will have had maybe two weeks tops to raise money – but it will tell us something. By then we’ll also know if we’re in a sprint or a slog.
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Texas A&M University System from enforcing a ban on drag shows being held at its special event venues.
This means Draggieland will go on as planned on Thursday at the flagship university’s Rudder Theatre in College Station.
Draggieland is an annual pageant where contestants wear clothing or makeup that often, but does not always, run counter to their expected gender identity. The contestants dance and answer questions afterward about what drag and LGBTQ culture means to them. It has repeatedly sold out the 750-seat venue since it started in 2020.
In her ruling, Judge Lee H. Rosenthal said the student group that organizes Draggieland, the Queer Empowerment Council, was likely to succeed in showing the ban violates the First Amendment.
“Anyone who finds the performance or performers offensive has a simple remedy: don’t go,” Rosenthal wrote.
The students said while their fight isn’t over, they were overjoyed by the decision and vowed to share that joy by putting on the best show possible Thursday.
A&M regents passed a resolution last month banning drag performances across all 11 campuses, complying in advance with Donald Trump’s fever dreams. There had been a bill to ban some drag shows that passed in the 2023 Legislature, but it was ruled unconstitutional by a different federal district court judge; it’s now in the unholy hands of the Fifth Circuit. Also in 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled a student drag show, making similar arguments about inappropriate content or whatever. That has survived judicial scrutiny so far because that show admitted children, while Draggieland is advertised as for adults only. I personally don’t think that should matter – if a teenager wants to attend and it’s OK with their parents, I don’t see the problem – but that’s where we are now. Oh, and that ban implemented by UT regents, I hope it meets a similar fate in court soon, once there’s a plaintiff with a live complaint.
Texas A&M is the defendant here, and I suppose they could file an emergency appeal to block the Thursday show, but my guess is they won’t. They may yet appeal this ruling so future shows can be banned or at least more tightly regulated, but that’s a problem for another day. For now, go enjoy the show if you’re there to see it. The Chron, The Barbed Wire, and the Texas Signal have more.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke are coming to Fort Bend County for a Congressional town hall event Thursday.
The town hall will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Rosenberg but a location in the city has not yet been named. Powered by People, a grassroots organization founded by O’Rourke in 2019, is the host. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
“This is your chance to ask questions, get real answers and be part of the conversation that shapes our future. The location will be announced the day before,” according to a listing for the event posted to the Powered by People website.
I don’t know if this is going to be one of those “empty chair” town halls that have been all the rage, but go ahead and register so you can find out. If it’s in CD22, an empty chair is both better and smarter than the incumbent Congressman.
As county leaders and officials with Bob McNair’s nascent football team were closing in on a deal for a new football stadium in the early 2000s, the Texans landed a late concession that would prove to be a financial triumph for years to come.
The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, a joint city-county venture responsible for financing all of Houston’s major sports stadiums, would take out bonds to build the new football facility for the Texans and Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo. It would pay off the debt over several decades, mostly with money from increased taxes on rental cars and hotel rooms. The tenants would each pay $1.5 million a year in rent that would go toward the bonds as well, and contribute some money from the events they hosted, including taxes on parking and tickets.
But there was a late snag in the negotiations: Financial analysts approving the framework wanted the tenants to guarantee more money. To address that snag, the Texans agreed to pay a higher rent, upping their annual payment from $1.5 million to $4 million over the course of the 30-year contract.
In exchange, the team would get a major tax break. Instead of paying taxes on parking and ticket sales, it would receive rebates from the sports authority – and the rebates would not be capped. They were in addition to a rebate on local sales taxes for all NFL-related transactions.
These concessions have proved costly for local officials – and a boon to the Texans. From 2002 through 2023, the rebates have totaled roughly $58.9 million in today’s dollars, adjusting for inflation. The sales tax rebates have added another $58.5 million to the team’s coffers, helping to wipe out – nearly entirely – the rent the team agreed to pay over two decades ago.
As the Texans consider whether to push for public money to build a new football stadium, a Houston Chronicle analysis shows the team’s current lease agreement with the county has dramatically benefited the team and its billionaire owners, saving them over $100 million when compared to their Houston professional sports peers, the Astros and the Rockets.
[…]
The result for the Texans is one of the best rent structures – if not the best – in the NFL. Geoffrey Propheter, a professor of public finance at the University of Colorado Denver who studies stadium financing, said the only NFL teams who pay less either own their stadiums or have to cover maintenance costs. The Texans’ average rent payment is what you would expect from about two McDonald’s locations in Houston, he said.
“Being the landlord of a McDonald’s would be a wiser investment than being the landlord for the Texans under the current lease terms,” said Propheter.
Yeah. And as the story notes, the Texans have not had to pay much in maintenance costs for NRG. They want a new stadium, they can pay for it.
Sebastien Long’s Lodgeur Inc. leases dozens of Houston apartments on a short-term basis, serving business travelers, recovering cancer patients, professional baseball players and people going through divorces or remodeling a permanent home after a storm. They’re not spring breakers or human traffickers, Long says.
His business could be crushed if the Houston City Council passes an ordinance that he maintains is basically useless aside from imposing excessive $275-per-unit annual registration fees, detrimental to someone who deals with multifamily homes.
“We’re looking to continue to grow, but this ordinance could slow us down,” he said. “Uncertainty is a killer.”
As it turns out, residents who have dealt with raucous party houses taking over their single-family neighborhoods also think the ordinance is useless. They say it doesn’t have enough teeth to weed out the bad apples — offsite operators who don’t care about illegal activity or code violations in residential areas.
The Houston City Council is set to vote on the ordinance on Wednesday, March 26. If it passes, some short-term rental operators say they’re contemplating forming an alliance and suing the city.
That’s exactly what Houston officials don’t want. Advocates on both sides of the issue speculate that the reason the ordinance is so watered-down and spent months under review by the city’s legal department is that the municipality wants to protect itself from litigation.
[…]
Under the latest version of the proposed ordinance, crafted by the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department and reviewed by the city’s legal department, short-term rental owners or operators would have to register and pay an annual fee of up to $275 per unit. They have to notify the city of all platforms on which the unit is listed and can’t operate in an area if it violates that neighborhood’s deed restrictions. A 24-hour emergency contact must be provided. Registration can be revoked if two or more regulations are violated resulting in convictions within a year.
A requirement for $1 million of liability insurance was removed in the latest draft.
Jason Ginsburg, a real estate attorney who formed Houstonians Against Airbnb to pre-empt a property owner from operating short-term rentals in his neighborhood, said the ordinance represents “a bare minimum of effort by the city.
“This draft falls short of even moderate protections for neighbors,” he said. “Even if you can get a nuisance STR’s certificate revoked, which would be difficult enough under the draft, there is no penalty for multiple revocations. In other words, even if the STR is ticketed, prosecuted, and convicted for two noise violations in 12 months, the only consequence would be the loss of registration for a year. Basically, the STR owner would have to rent the property long-term for just one year, then could go back to business as usual.”
The ordinance bans owners and operators — but not occupants — from promoting events, Ginsburg pointed out, and there’s no consequence for exceeding maximum occupancy. The maximum penalty for violating general requirements, such as not listing an emergency contact, is a $500 fine.
“Most owners or operators will just risk the fines if there’s no threat to the underlying business,” Ginsburg said.
Long also took issue with the ordinance, noting that it targets property owners, not operators who handle day-to-day management.
“This is misaligned with reality,” he said. “Owners of large apartments typically contract operators to run STRs.”
The short-term rental business provides temporary housing for numerous reasons, Long explained. It’s imperative that hosts know their clients, require identification from each guest and install noise-monitoring devices.
“Our guests are quiet, and we actually have the data to prove it,” he said.
Further, Houston’s proposed ordinance holds property owners liable for guests’ actions, even if unauthorized visitors commit a crime.
“This discourages operators from reporting illegal activity, fearing they’ll lose their permit,” Long said.
Long suggests a “trusted operator system” granting immediate, temporary approval for pre-vetted operators who already pay hotel occupancy taxes. He said he also thinks the ordinance should require basic safety measures such as the empowerment of Houston police to remove problem guests and the implementation of human trafficking prevention measures, as set forth in the city’s hotel ordinance.
As for this proposed ordinance, I basically agree with the quoted critics, that the main focus should be on rooting out the relatively small number of bad actors. The ordinance author, CM Julian Ramirez, says that a ban on STRs isn’t legal – I for one would argue it’s also not desirable – but I can’t quite tell what the goal of this ordinance actually is. I’m not sure we have a good model from other Texas cities to follow. I expect someone will tag this, the question to me is whether there will be further amendments proposed. We’ll see next week.
By 2028, El Pasoans will begin receiving water from a $295 million advanced water purification plant that will convert treated wastewater into drinking water, the first facility of its kind in the nation, El Paso Water officials said.
The concept of treating sewage water to drinkable standards and returning it back into a city’s drinking water system is far from new. But El Paso will be the first city with a large-scale treatment plant that treats wastewater to drinkable standards and then deposits the water directly back into the city’s drinking water system.
El Paso Water’s new facility, called the Pure Water Center, will sit next to the utility’s R.R. Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Lower Valley, just south of the Ysleta-Zaragoza International Bridge. The plant will produce up to 10 million gallons of drinking water per day when it’s up-and-running. That’s enough to meet about 9% of the city’s demand for water on an average day.
“This is the ultimate level of water recycling,” said Gilbert Trejo, El Paso Water’s vice president of engineering, operations and technical services. “What’s the most efficient and cost-effective way to produce a drought-proof, drought-resilient water source? It’s this project.”
[…]
Many cities for decades have utilized plants that treat wastewater into drinking water, then release the water back into the environment – such as a riverbed or reservoir – and re-capture the water months or years later and place it back into the drinking water system.
“The modern practice of water recycling really got going in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s,” said David Sedlak, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
He pointed to a water recycling plant in Orange County, California, that produces 70 million gallons of drinking water daily from wastewater, and has been recycling wastewater since the 1970s. Another treatment plant in Northern Virginia began utilizing potable water reuse technologies in the late 1970s to provide drinking water to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., amid population growth.
And since 1985, the Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant in northeastern El Paso County has converted millions gallons of sewage every day into potable water that’s used for industry and irrigation, but also to be pumped back into the underground Hueco Bolson aquifer that’s a key source of drinking water for El Paso.
“El Paso Water customers have known and have been supporting water recycling projects since the 1960s, when the first drop of reclaimed water reached Ascarate Golf Course. And then Fred Hervey Water Reclamation facility in 1985,” Trejo said.
The difference between El Paso Water’s new Pure Water Center – called a direct potable reuse facility – and similar indirect potable reuse water treatment plants like the Hervey facility is that this new plant in El Paso removes the “environmental buffer.” That means the treated wastewater goes directly into the city’s drinking water system instead of out into the environment first.
Sedlak said the environmental buffer has been a kind of psychological barrier that’s made indirect potable reuse acceptable to water consumers in the U.S. for years. Still, water pumped directly back into the drinking water system may be cleaner than water released into nature and later recollected, he said.
“Culturally, people feel very comfortable with the idea of putting the water in the environment and retaking it,” Sedlak said.
“Until people started thinking about, ‘Gee, you know, sometimes when we put the water out in the environment, it gets dirtier,’” he said. “You put it out in a river or lake or reservoir, and that lake or reservoir has got agricultural drainage water coming in, or it’s got housing or it’s got industry upstream, and suddenly the water gets dirtier.”
Customers often prefer the taste of recycled water because it’s more purified and has less salt than most other water sources, especially in cities in the southwestern U.S., Sedlak said.
We face a lot of challenges for water in this state, between population growth, climate change, increased demand from data centers and (ugh) cryptominers, old infrastructure, and just the fact that a significant part of the state is in a very dry climate. Solutions include conservation, fixingleaks, desalinization, and more. I hadn’t thought about the “psychological barrier” of putting treated wastewater back into the environment rather than just use it for drinking straightaway, but I suppose this is a sign that we need to get over ourselves and do whatever works. We’re going to need a lot more of this.
“But as delegates gathered for the opening of the 69th Commission on the Status of Women this week, they faced one major obstacle: an American administration that is dead set against a gathering like this and instead sees fighting gender equality as a top priority.”
“You don’t get paid as one of the girls on The Bachelor.”
“Trump Vowed To End Surprise Medical Bills. The Office Working on That Just Got Slashed.”
“NASA, Yale, and Stanford Scientists Consider ‘Scientific Exile,’ French University Says”.
“Yet when it comes to protecting the economy and our people from clear and present dangers like disease (the work of agencies such as NIH, CDC, FDA, USDA, USAID), environmental degradation (e.g. EPA, Dept. of Interior), and severe weather (e.g. NOAA/NWS), the new administration is throwing caution to the wind and allowed the DOGE wrecking ball to swing wildly and indiscriminately.”
“Here’s a look at three [alternatives to Instagram]. Some are stand-alone apps, while others are built on existing, often decentralized platforms. While none has the critical mass that makes Instagram a powerhouse — yet — they’re also a lot less annoying.”
“Nobody that I’ve talked to understood the devastation that having this administration in office would do to our lives.”
“What’s alarming here to me as a leader in the farm community and civil rights work is that it’s the farmer that is the first getting affected, and it was the farmer that delivered for this president. They were all in for Trump, and they are the first in line to be affected.”
“He saw her as a funny, caring, hard-working woman who came legally, not one of the “illegals” who the president he supported promised to deport.”
RIP, Lenny Schultz, comedian and actor who kept his day job as a high school gym teacher for the first decade of his standup career.
“The Trump Department of Justice asserted in court Tuesday that, under their theories, the President’s removal power is so all-encompassing that he could fire all female agency heads, as well as those over 40 years old. The startling admission came in response to a federal judge’s hypothetical. ”
“I have a confession. Despite tracking antiabortion fake clinics and their seedy dealings for more than four years now, I sometimes get tricked by one. They’re just that devious and deceptive that even I can get duped. With that unfortunate fact in mind, this post aims to provide a check list of what to look for if you’re just not sure that center near you actually provides or refers for abortion.”
“The Military Ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”
“Pirate’s Booty founder stages Long Island mutiny, declares he’s mayor and tries to fire village staff”. It’s bad enough we have DOGE, now we have DOGE cosplay.
“This is not what I saw for my career or for my evening, but Paul Weiss’ decision to cave to the Trump administration on DEI, representation, and staffing has forced my hand. We do not have time. It is either now or never, and if it’s never, I will not continue to work here.”
RIP, George Bell, former Virginia law officer, actor, and Harlem Globetrotter who at seven foot eight was America’s tallest man.
RIP, Wings Hauser, actor best known for the movies Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling and Vice Squad, father of actor Cole Hauser.
RIP, Kenneth Sims, College Football Hall of Fame defensive lineman for the Longhorns, also played eight seasons in the NFL.
A federal judge in San Antonio has ruled that the state of Texas’ ID requirements for mail ballot applications are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez on Thursday found that the provisions in the state’s 2021 voter security law SB1 discriminate against voters with disabilities.
Mail-in voters are principally people over the age of 65 and people with disabilities. Since the law was enacted, many voters reported having their ballots rejected because they didn’t provide an ID number, or the number they provided did not match the one the state had on file.
“The problem with that is that many Texans have more than one department of public safety ID number,” said Victor Genecin, an attorney with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. “So the first hurdle for a voter who’s applying for an absentee ballot is they may not know which number is in the election system. And even if they do know which number is in the election system and they put it in correctly, the election system may not have the number right.”
Genecin cited testimony at trial, where the Texas Secretary of State conceded that more than 650,000 registration records in their system were incorrect.
He added that expert testimony at the trial estimated that more than 2 million people were unable to vote due to the ID restrictions.
The ruling ordered the Texas secretary of state to remove the requirements from mail-in ballot applications. However, the ruling came just weeks before Texas’ municipal elections, so they will remain in effect through May 3.
Judge Rodriguez also struck down provisions of SB1 that require those who assist voters to swear an oath under penalty of perjury.
“Normally when somebody says to you, ‘would you help me?’ you either step up to help them or you don’t. But you don’t say, you know, ‘what’s wrong with you? Why do you need help?’ You just help,” Genecin said. “And so the idea that that people who are disabled must explain why they’re unable to vote without assistance is offensive in itself.”
Genecin added that part of the oath is that the assister must swear to be understanding that if the voter turns out not to be eligible for assistance, then the vote could be invalidated.
“So it puts the assister in the position of having to evaluate whether the voter is eligible for assistance, and the word ‘eligible’ is not defined anywhere in the statute,’ he said.
This lawsuit was filed in September 2021, and recently its provisions on vote harvesting and certain bans on assisting voters were struck down as unconstitutional. The state has appealed those rulings and will surely appeal this one, where they get to be coddled by the Fifth Circuit. You do what you can and you hope for the best. A copy of the ruling is embedded in the story.
Lawmakers want to turn the tide on the growing number of unprepared and uncertified teachers by restricting who can lead Texas classrooms. But school leaders worry those limits will leave them with fewer options to refill their teacher ranks.
Tucked inside the Texas House’s $7.6 billion school finance package is a provision that would ban uncertified teachers from instructing core classes in public schools. House Bill 2 gives districts until fall 2026 to certify their K-5 math and reading teachers and until fall 2027 to certify teachers in other academic classes.
Texas would help uncertified teachers pay for the cost of getting credentialed. Under HB 2, those who participate in an in-school training and mentoring program would receive a one-time $10,000 payment and those who go through a traditional university or alternative certification program would get $3,000. Special education and emergent bilingual teachers would get their certification fees waived. Educator training experts say it could be the biggest financial investment Texas made in teacher preparation.
District leaders, once reluctant to hire uncertified teachers, now rely on them often to respond to the state’s growing teacher shortage. And while they agree with the spirit of the legislation, some worry the bill would ask too much too soon of districts and doesn’t offer a meaningful solution to replace uncertified teachers who leave the profession.
“What’s going to happen when we’re no longer able to hire uncertified teachers? Class sizes have to go up, programs have to disappear…. We won’t have a choice,” said David Vroonland, the former superintendent of the Mesquite school district near Dallas and the Frenship school district near Lubbock. “There will be negative consequences if we don’t put in place serious recruitment efforts.”
The story goes into the reasons for the shortage of certified teachers: Teacher pay in Texas is below the national average, teachers complain of high workloads (the Lege does like imposing mandates), small rural districts have trouble attracting new teachers while fast-growing suburban districts can’t hire them fast enough. The pool of certified teachers is small, and the problem was greatly exacerbated by COVID, when teachers left the profession in droves. Uncertified teachers, who are in theory supposed to get certified with resources from the state and their district, became the de facto solution after their hiring was enabled by the 2015 “district of innovation” law. But now, ten years after that law was passed, the Lege wants to tighten it up.
And I get it, that was supposed to be a means of giving districts some flexibility, not a permanent workaround to a labor shortage. Plenty of research shows that students perform better overall with certified teachers. But in typical legislative fashion, the bill being put forward doesn’t really solve the problem and will likely cause even more disruption in the short term. It’s a long story and I’d have had to excerpt a ton of it to get all of that across, so go read the rest. And follow the action, because this is going to be a fight and the final form of HB2 is likely to change quite a bit between now and when it passes.
Immersive art experiences transform how audiences interact with creativity, and legal experts on Monday discussed how copyright law is protecting these dynamic works of art.
At a South by Southwest session, two legal experts explored the complexities of copyright in immersive, interactive art installations worldwide.
The immersive art industry, which includes Meow Wolf, teamLab, Van Gogh and Monet immersive art shows, is expected to generate $144 billion in revenue in 2025 and grow to $412.7 billion by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence, a market research firm. It reports that the major market players are teamLab, Meow Wolf, Secret Cinema and Culturespaces
“Copyright does not require a work to be static or frozen to be fixed,” said Ben Allison, managing partner of Bardacke Allison Miller in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
He mentioned a 2023 case, Tangle Inc. v. Aritzia Inc., in which the court recently held that copyright protection extends to kinetic objects that can be manipulated. The case involved Tangle, a toy maker, that created a sculpture that can be twisted into various shapes, suing Aritzia, a store that used sculptures similar to the toy in its displays.
“Ballet is copyrightable, symphonies are copyrightable,” Allison said. “The fact that that environment is shape-shifting and movable with the wisdom of the user does not erase the fact that it is fixed in this tangible … medium of expression.”
Breanna Contreras, vice president of Legal for Meow Wolf Inc. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said interactive and changeable works can receive copyright protection despite their dynamic nature. She cited the court in the teamLab vs. Museum of Dream Space case, which determined that immersive art installations with interactive elements are entitled to copyright protection based on the fixed elements and creative choices, even if the user experience varies.
In that case, Contreras said teamLab, a Japanese company, prevailed in enforcing its copyright against Museum of Dream Space because of the creative and original nature of its digital artwork pieces and the evidence that the museum copied them.
Contreras also discussed the Berne Convention, an international agreement that standardizes basic copyright protections across member countries. It stipulates that content creators don’t need to register their work in every country to receive protection. Instead, under the Berne Convention, copyright should be automatically recognized internationally.
Meow Wolf imagines and creates new immersive worlds. Contreras said Meow Wolf has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in London against Wake the Tiger, a London-based immersive artwork creator. Meow Wolf, which has five locations in the U.S., claims Wake the Tiger stole its artwork. In a BBC story, Wake the Tiger has denied the claims.
Contreras said more copyright lawsuits involving immersive environments will hit the courts in the coming years.
The panelists explained that work created entirely by AI is not eligible for copyright protection and only human authorship qualifies.
“An inanimate object or an animal is incapable of creating a copyright,” Contreras said.
So, Contreras said, artists and creators using AI platforms need to be transparent about their use of AI when registering for a copyright. Failing to disclose AI involvement could invalidate a registration, she said.
Couple of things here. If you blinked at the claim that the “immersive art industry” is “expected to generate $144 billion in revenue in 2025 and grow to $412.7 billion by 2030”, you’re not alone. Turns out, that Mordor study is about the Immersive Entertainment industry, which according to them includes VR and AR gaming, among other things. That makes a lot more sense to me. All due respect to immersive art, but that’s a lotta money.
On that front, I will note that Meow Wolf exists in Houston and is on our short list of places to visit soon. I’ve actually gotten a bunch of press releases from them about various openings and exhibits but haven’t had the chance to try them out yet. My wife and I did visit ARTECHOUSE, which is in the Heights near MKT. It was cool, we enjoyed it, we’ll visit again when there’s a new exhibit. Houston now has a few of these immersive art places, all pretty recent additions to the scene. CityCast Houston reviewed four of them, including Meow Wolf and ARTECHOUSE, if this intrigues you.
Anyway, this caught my eye, and if that prediction comes true I’m sure there will be some cases of interest for me to follow. I do enjoy a novel lawsuit.
With its measles outbreak spreading to two additional states, Texas is on track to becoming the cause of a national epidemic if it doesn’t start vaccinating more people, according to public health experts.
Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has made a resurgence in West Texas communities, jumping hundreds of miles to the northern border of the Panhandle and East Texas, and invading bordering states of New Mexico and Oklahoma.
Based on the rapid spread of cases statewide — more than 200 over 50 days — public health officials predict that it could take Texas a year to contain the spread. With cases continuously rising and the rest of the country’s unvaccinated population at the outbreak’s mercy, Texas must create stricter quarantine requirements, increase the vaccine rate, and improve contact tracing to address this measles epidemic before it becomes a nationwide problem, warn infectious disease experts and officials in other states.
“This demonstrates that this (vaccine exemption) policy puts the community, the county, and surrounding states at risk because of how contagious this disease is,” said Glenn Fennelly, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Texas Tech University. “We are running the risk of threatening global stability.”
[…]
“This is a very multi-jurisdictional outbreak with three states involved and about seven or eight different local health departments, in addition to some areas where the state serves as the local health department. There are a lot of moving parts,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health for the City of Lubbock, during a Tuesday meeting of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a national organization for large metropolitan health departments.
Most of Texas’ measles cases are in unvaccinated school-aged children and are concentrated in the Mennonite community in Gaines County, which traditionally has low vaccination rates.
Wells said efforts to increase the vaccination rates in Gaines County, which is about 70 miles from Lubbock, and the surrounding region have been slow as trust in the government has seemingly reached an all-time low.
“We are seeing, just like the rest of Americans, this community has seen a lot of stories about vaccines causing autism, and that is leading to a lot of this vaccine hesitancy, not religion,” she said.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to the politicization of vaccines and overall weariness to health mandates like quarantines and masks. Public health officials are now battling misinformation and public resistance to measles.
Wells said because the state can’t stop people from traveling, she fully expects this outbreak to last a year, and the surrounding states and the nation should prepare themselves for a potential spread.
“Measles is going to find those pockets of unvaccinated individuals, and with the number of cases and ability for people to travel, there is that risk of it entering other unvaccinated pockets anywhere in the United States right now,” Wells said.
[…]
New Mexico’s public health officials started spreading awareness of vaccinations immediately after they learned Texas had its first measles case and before New Mexico got its first case.
“We started setting up clinics and getting the ball rolling,” Jimmy Masters, the southeast region director for the New Mexico Department of Health, said. “Let’s see what we can do to get people in the doors and vaccinated beforehand.”
Nearly 9,000 New Mexicans have received measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine shots between Feb. 1 and March 10. During that same time period last year, officials vaccinated 5,342 people.
Texas has held multiple vaccination clinics in the outbreak area, but according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, only 350 doses have been administered.
New Mexico has also emphasized its Vaxview website that keeps track of residents’ immunizations, allowing concerned people to check within seconds if they need a shot. Texas has a vaccine tracking program known as ImmTrac2, but it’s an opt-in program that doesn’t have most adult records. If someone doesn’t opt in by age 26, their records will not be retained.
“We told people to contact us to ensure their vaccine status is up to date,” Masters said. “If they aren’t sure, just call the health office so we can find out for them. And if they don’t have their records updated for the vaccine, then we can ask them to come in and take advantage of the clinics or come in as walk-ins.”
Because of this, most of Lea County is considered immunized, Masters said, so public health officials in New Mexico don’t view the outbreak as rapidly evolving.
Back in Texas, the opposite is playing out. Advice from public health officials is seemingly ignored, and vaccine efforts are struggling.
Can’t imagine why. Kudos to New Mexico for its response to the outbreak. There’s a reason the numbers are climbing at a much faster rate in Texas than over there.
As far as vaccine messaging goes for Texas, I regret that I have to share this story with you. It’s one of the roughest things I’ve read in a long time.
The Texas parents of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from measles Feb. 26 told the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense this week that the experience did not convince them that vaccination against measles was necessary.
“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’ ” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.”
The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County, spoke on camera in both English and Low German to CHD Executive Director Polly Tommey and CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker.
“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.”
“We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the mother said in English, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination children typically receive before attending school. She said her stance on vaccination has not changed after her daughter’s death.
“The measles wasn’t that bad. They got over it pretty quickly,” the mother said of her other four surviving children who were treated with castor oil and inhaled steroids and recovered.
The couple told CHD that their daughter had measles for days when she became tired and the girl’s labored breathing prompted the couple to take her to Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock. There, the girl was intubated and died a few days later. The other children came down with measles after their sister died.
Mother Jones had this story earlier. Like many people, I’m a fan of crime fiction. I picked up an Agatha Christie novel in high school and have devoured murder mysteries and similar stories ever since. That includes a large number of stories with truly repugnant depictions of all kinds of violence. After Olivia was born, I found I just couldn’t handle stories that included violence committed against children. It was too much, and the escapist pleasure I had gotten wasn’t there. It was too close to home. I still feel that way, so maybe I’m just too sensitive for this discussion.
I am at an absolute loss to comprehend this reaction by those parents. I can’t quite bring myself to be mad at them, as they have suffered the worst loss imaginable, however bizarre I find their reaction to it. I am incandescent with rage at these fucking ghouls from that RFK villains’ lair who exploited them like this, plus the local anti-vaxx doctor playing some perverted Pied Piper role, Ben Edwards. I don’t recognize myself as being from the same species as them. I do not know what to say. NBC News has more, if you can stomach it.
The number of measles cases associated with an outbreak in western Texas has grown to 309, with 30 cases reported over the last three days, according to new data released Friday.
This means the total number of Texas cases linked to the outbreak in roughly two months has surpassed the number confirmed for the entirety of last year in the U.S., which saw 285 cases nationwide, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown. At least 40 people have been hospitalized so far, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
Just two cases have occurred in people fully vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases, at 130, followed by children ages 4 and under accounting for 102 cases.
[…]
The CDC has confirmed 378 measles cases this year in at least 17 states: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington. This is likely an undercount due to delays in states reporting cases to the federal health agency.
The Star-Telegram has a listing of the counties that reported cases, of which three are new – Garza, Hale, and Hockley. They also have a nice embedded map of the counties that have reported cases, which shows how close together they mostly are, and why Lamar County is such an outlier. The Chron confirmed that Oklahoma’s count is still at four – hoping for the best for y’all – and also had this forehead-smacking anecdote:
The New Mexico Department of Health reports 38 measles cases. The outbreak in this state remains confined to Lea and Eddy counties. Both share a border with Texas.
On Tuesday, the agency reported concern after a Texas traveler with an active measles infection visited Guadalupe and Valencia counties in the first part of the month, staying in a hotel, eating at a local restaurant and visiting a local Catholic church.
Jesus Christ. Stay the fuck at home when you’re sick, people! What are we doing here?
To bring it back to where we started, here’s another view of the trajectory of this outbreak.
As measles cases in West Texas are still on the rise two months after the outbreak began, local public health officials say they expect the virus to keep spreading for at least several more months and that the official case number is likely an undercount.
But there’s a silver lining, officials say: More people have received a measles, mumps and rubella vaccination this year in Texas and New Mexico, which also has an outbreak, compared to last year — even if it’s not as high as they would like. And pharmacies across the U.S., especially in Texas, are seeing more demand for MMR shots.
[…]
Texas’ outbreak, which has largely spread in undervaccinated Mennonite communities, could last a year based on studies of how measles previously spread in Amish communities in the U.S. Those studies showed outbreaks lasted six to seven months, said Katherine Wells, director of the public health department in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock’s hospitals have treated most of the outbreak’s patients and the public health department is closely assisting with the response.
“It being so rural, now multistate, it’s just going to take a lot more boots on the ground, a lot more work, to get things under control,” Wells said during a media briefing this week. “It’s not an isolated population.”
[…]
If the outbreak goes on until next January, it would end the United States’ status of having eliminated measles, which is defined as 12 months without local virus transmission, said Dr. William Moss, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center.
“We’re only three months in. I think if we had a strong response where the messaging was clear that measles vaccination is the way to stop this outbreak, I would be surprised if it went for 12 months or more,” said Moss, who has worked on measles for 25 years, mostly in Africa. “But we’re not seeing that type of response, at least from the federal government.”
[…]
Still, there are signs the outbreak has had an effect on vaccinations, especially locally.
Between Feb. 1 and March 18 last year, New Mexico Department of Health registered 6,500 measles vaccines. During that timeframe this year, more than 11,600 measles vaccines were administered in New Mexico — about half given to adults and half to children.
Southeast New Mexico, where the outbreak is located, represents a large portion of the count, with 2,369 doses administered.
In Texas, at least 173,000 measles doses were given from Jan. 1 to March 16, compared to at least 158,000 over the same timeframe last year, according to the state health department. That includes more than 340 doses in given by public health in the West Texas outbreak area as of March 11.
Texans must opt-in to the state’s immunization registry, so most people’s vaccinations are not captured in the Texas Department of State Health Services numbers, department spokeswoman Lara Anton said.
“We don’t know if more people are opting in or if this is a true reflection of an increase in vaccinations,” Anton wrote in an email. “It may be both.”
Pharmacy chains Walgreens and CVS told The Associated Press that they’re seeing higher demand for MMR vaccines across the U.S., especially in the outbreak areas.
A little bit of hope, I suppose. You do have to wonder where we’d be if we had a competent and non-evil Presidential administration, but that’s too deep a rabbit hole for me to climb into right now.
It’s Saturday, so let’s end with some music.
I am acquainted with Boiled In Lead thanks to my former roommate and bridge partner Stephen, who played the “From The Ladle To The Grave” CD on which this song appears many times during our time together. The refrain to this song has run through my head many times over the last few years. Thumbs up to that CD, by the way, if you liked what you just heard.
The Texas Senate on Wednesday passed a state ban on all forms of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, advancing a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to crack down on the state’s booming consumable hemp market six years after lawmakers inadvertently permitted its rise.
Senate Bill 3 — which Patrick called among his “top five” bills over his 17 years in the Legislature — would outlaw products with any amount of THC, ranging from gummies and beverages to vapes and flower buds, which are currently sold at more than 8,300 locations around the state. Current Texas law allows hemp-derived products that contain less than 0.3% of THC.
“Kids are getting poisoned today,” Patrick said in the Senate chamber as the vote neared.
He used similar language Wednesday morning. “This is a poison in our public, and we as a Legislature — our No. 1 responsibility is life and death issues,” Patrick said at a morning news conference, alongside members of law enforcement and advocates for families who saw loved ones develop behavioral health problems after consuming supposedly-legal THC products. “We’re going to ban your stores before we leave here, for good.”
The vote was 24 to 7.
“I believe this bill goes too far, in that it would put out of business the consumable hemp industry in Texas,” state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin said during debate of the bill, arguing that concerns related to sale of low-THC products should be addressed through stronger regulations.
The Texas House has yet to consider its hemp proposal, House Bill 28, which would impose stricter oversight and licensing requirements for the hemp industry rather than ban THC altogether. If the House passes its proposal, the two chambers would have to reconcile their differences before the legislation could become law.
State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, the lead author of SB 3, said that the Senate and the House were “philosophically aligned” and that there was time to work out any policy differences.
[…]
The hemp industry lobbied fiercely against a total prohibition on THC, urging lawmakers to instead impose “thoughtful regulations,” such as restricting THC sales to Texans 21 and older, requiring tamper-proof packaging and barring sales within a certain distance of schools.
Mark Bordas, executive director of the Texas Hemp Business Council, said that lawmakers were conflating consumable hemp, which, by legal definition, has a low concentration of THC, with higher potency marijuana.
Certain bad actors are “operating in the black market, in the shadows,” he said, arguing that the state needed greater oversight of the industry as a whole to block those manufacturers and retailers — rather than a total prohibition.
“We have a common enemy. We know who’s doing wrong,” Bordas said. “We’d both like to eliminate them, but the problem is, the lieutenant governor and Senator Perry are going to eliminate the entire business — including over 7,000 licensed dispensaries.”
The industry also highlighted roughly 50,000 jobs and billions in tax revenue that would be lost if lawmakers quashed the hemp market entirely. And critics argued that instead of addressing public health concerns, a ban would push consumers into an unregulated black market, easing access to more potent products.
“Bans don’t work,” Bordas said, a point that was echoed on the Senate floor by state Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio. “All it’s going to do is encourage the bad actors to fill the vacuum.”
Still, he said that the industry believed “cooler heads will prevail” in the House.
See here for the background. My rule of thumb is that anything that sends Dan Patrick into hysterics should be viewed with high levels of skepticism. My advice to Mark Bordas and the Texas Hemp Business Council is that Dan Patrick is not in any way your friend, and whether those “cooler heads” do prevail or not this session, he’ll never stop coming for you. Your best bet is to organize and rally people to vote against him. Cannabis polls well. What have you got to lose?
Before we go, I have to note this bit of unintentional comedy:
Dan Patrick visited an Austin CBD store to ask how many children buy products. He got carded.
The San Antonio Food Bank expects to lose $3 million due to federal funding cuts, leaving officials at the nonprofit saying they’re not sure how they’ll make up for that shortfall and that they are worried they won’t be able to meet local demand.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week ended two pandemic-era programs that provided more than $1 billion nationally for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farms, ranches and other producers.
Those cuts coupled with recent layoffs of federal workers by the Trump administration has San Antonio Food Bank president and CEO Eric Cooper bracing for an increase in demand and feeling “incredibly anxious.”
“This is where you feel the squeeze at both ends, that pressure of resources diminishing and also the demand increasing,” Cooper said. “That’s not where you want to be. It’s going to be a difficult year for us.”
About $660 million of the $1 billion went to schools and childcare centers to buy food for meals through the Local Foods for Schools Program.
The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which helped fund food banks and other relief organizations to aid the food insecure, was also eliminated. The San Antonio Food Bank was in line to receive $3 million in funding from that program, Cooper said.
The $3 million is about 20% of the Food Bank’s annual food purchase budget of $14.5 million. The Food Bank’s total annual budget is $43 million.
Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, the state association of food banks, said funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program expires in May and that the third round of funding, which was eliminated, was expected to bring $34 million to Texas.
“We’re hopeful the decision to cut the funding didn’t have anything to do with concerns about the program itself,” Cole said. “This has been a program that’s always had really strong bipartisan support at the federal level, so we’re hopeful we can continue to work with the White House and (Agriculture) Secretary (Brooke) Rollins to continue, whether it’s through this program or some other program, to strengthen the connection between local agriculture and food security.”
Cooper also expressed optimism in Rollins. In addition to schools and food banks, more than 120 food producers statewide will be affected by the elimination of the programs, according to Cooper.
“She’s a Texan,” he said. “She understands agriculture. She knows rural communities need support and strengthening.”
Kevin Elstner and his wife Sadie, who own Elstner Meat Processing in Weimar, said the elimination of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program is a blow to their company because 70% of their annual income – “hundreds of thousands of dollars” – is generated by doing business with food banks, including San Antonio’s.
“It affects everybody, it’s a big trickle effect,” Kevin Elstner said. “We’ve got to cut down our staff and we have a lot of cattle we have on feed we’ve been holding for these different programs. It really affects us.”
Sadie Elstner described their food bank contracts as “basically the only income we could count on.” She said the company recently bought “a lot of expensive equipment” to fill its orders.
“We are really, really in a bind with that right now,” she said.
But Rollins and USDA officials signaled the two programs won’t be resurrected.
“The COVID era is over – USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement, per the Associated Press.
Just a reminder that Brooke Rollins has spent her career as a wingnut think tank apparatchik. “Real world experience” is not something she has. I understand needing to appeal to her, I’m just saying to guard your optimism. Also, San Antonio is really getting kicked around by Trump and Musk and DOGE. Not that anyone is doing well by them, but it really does suck for San Antonio.
Far as I can tell from Google, this Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program does not appear to have been a program that the Houston Food Bank depended on. But there are plenty of otherfoodbanksaround the country that are feeling the effects of this cut. And not just them – as noted, the food being purchased came from local farmers, so this is a blow to them and to Texas farmers.
Texas farmers are taking yet another hit from President Donald Trump’s administration during the early weeks of his second term in the White House.
Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has eliminated a pair of programs with about $2 billion that helped community food banks and schools buy fresh food from farms and ranches. In a Fox News interview, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins called the programs “nonessential” and “an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that was not necessary.”
However, the cut will have real impacts in Texas, according to reporter Tom Orsborn. The nonprofit San Antonio Food Bank stands to lose about $3 million just because of the cuts to one program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program.
Cuts to that program and the Local Food for Schools program, combined, will cost Texas about $200 million used to buy locally grown food, according to research from Reuters.
Texas Agriculture Commission Sid Miller, a Republican and big Trump advocate, is a big supporter of farm-to-school and farm-to-food-bank programs but said he understands why the Trump administration is re-evaluating the federal programs.
“I support a fair and consistent approach, which is precisely what the Trump Administration is implementing,” Miller said. “This is not a final decision—it’s a reassessment. There’s always room for refinement, and we may see a revised version of the policy down the road that is even better for agriculture producers.”
Sure, Sid. I’m sure the best and the brightest within the Trump administration are hard at work at coming up with a refined and revised version of this program as we speak. This is what you farmers voted for. Hope you’re happy.
The disaster declaration comes as fire crews on Thursday continued working to extinguish the Pauline Road fire, roughly 50 miles north of Houston. The fire was 20% contained as of 8:45 a.m., according to Texas A&M Forest Service officials.
“I have determined that extraordinary measures must be taken to alleviate the suffering of people and to protect or rehabilitate property both public and private,” the disaster declaration reads.
The notice is effective immediately through at least the next seven days.
Lone Star College campuses in Montgomery County are operating as normal, according to school officials.
The wildfire, which started Wednesday evening, prompted evacuations for residents living west of Cleveland near Grant Lake. Several shelters in the area were accepting those forced to evacuate, including animals and livestock.
Here’s a map of the Sam Houston National Forest, which shows the fire area in its southern region, between Conroe and Cleveland a bit north of State Highway 105. The Chron has a resource page here with more data. I could get to a spot on SH105 close to the fire in about an hour’s drive. I must say, it hadn’t really occurred to me that I’d be that proximate to a big fire.
The Pauline Road fire— which first ignited in the Sam Houston National Forest on the southwestern corner of San Jacinto County Wednesday afternoon— was 20 percent contained early Thursday. It wasn’t immediately clear how the fire ignited.
“We are expecting the humidity to drop, the wind to pick up and the temperature to rise a little bit, which is not helpful for fire fighting efforts,” said Jason Millsaps, executive director of Montgomery County’s emergency management department. “What we saw yesterday was a very fast moving head on this fire. That’s very possible again today.”
Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough said that overnight crews made efforts to protect structures and the areas within the path of the massive fire. No structures had received damage as of Thursday morning.
[…]
The cause of the fire was still under investigation. It wasn’t immediately clear if any controlled burns were conducted in the area at the time the fire started, said Matthew Ford, a public information officer with Texas A&M Forest Service.
“Right now we have multiple resources on scene with more throughout the day,” Ford said.
A later update says that there were two controlled burns within hours of the fire breaking out, so that may be the cause. This fire is not the biggest one currently active in the state, but the larger ones out there are almost completely contained. This one still has a ways to go.
Thursday morning, the National Weather Service has placed much of Southeast Texas under a red flag warning because of the increased risk of fast-spreading fires caused by low humidity, dry vegetation and especially breezy winds.
The red flag warning, which is in effect from 1 p.m. Thursday to 7 p.m., applies to Harris, Trinity, Madison, Walker, San Jacinto, Polk, Burleson, Brazos, Washington, Grimes, Montgomery, Liberty, Colorado, Austin, Waller, Houston, Chambers, Wharton, Fort Bend, Jackson, Matagorda, Brazoria and Galveston counties.
After the passage of the latest cold front, weather service forecasters on Thursday expect the region to face blustery north winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts as strong as 25 mph. The fierce winds, like blowing on kindling to start a small campfire, could hasten the growth of a wildfire or spread its flames and embers.
Meanwhile, the dry air and rain-starved vegetation provide ideal conditions for fires to rapidly develop in intensity and get out of control. Relative humidity levels will sink to as low as 18%, the weather service said. More of Southeast Texas is becoming “abnormally dry,” a precursor stage for drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor data.
The Eyewall discussed the dry and windy conditions much of the state faces now last week, with a warning about wildfire risk. Not much to do except pay attention, respond to alerts and updates as needed, and hope they contain this quickly. Stay safe out there.
UPDATE: As of 4:30 PM yesterday, the fire was almost 50% contained. So hopefully by the end of the day today it will be largely under control.
Waller County Judge Gary W. Chaney on Tuesday signed an order blocking Maria Margarita Rojas and her employees from providing any medical services, including abortion.
[…]
The clinics identified in the order are the Maternal and Child Healthcare and Research Center, Clinica Latinoamericana in Waller, Cypress and Spring, and Houston Birth House.
The stay will be in place until a hearing March 27 at which the judge will decide whether to grant a longer-lasting injunction.
See here and here for the background. All three of the defendants are also charged with practicing medicine without a license, which by itself would be sufficient to get a court order to close the clinics, at least pending a full hearing. There’s no news stories that I could see on this case, everything in Google News was at least two days old when I looked yesterday, so keep reading Jessica Valenti and stay skeptical at least until we hear from a defense attorney.
Well-known Houston lawyer and Harris County Department of Education Trustee Eric Dick faces a misdemeanor assault charge, adding to his legal and ethical troubles.
The Houston Police Department arrested Dick on March 7 for hitting a female family member with his hand, according to a criminal complaint. Publicly available court records do not provide details about evidence obtained by police, statements made by witnesses and any injuries sustained by the alleged victim.
[…]
The criminal case is the second filed against Dick in the past year. Prosecutors in Hawaii charged him in May 2024 with four misdemeanor counts of attempting to unlawfully practice the law. Dick has pleaded not guilty.
Hawaii News Now reported in October 2023 that Dick’s law firm sent flyers advertising his services to residents affected by the devastating Maui wildfires, a potential violation of strict Hawaii rules and laws related to lawyers who aren’t licensed in the state soliciting potential clients.
See here for the previous Eric Dick update. He was released on his own recognizance, and I’m going to assume that some kind of plea or diversion deal will eventually be worked out. I hope that the alleged victim is safe. Beyond that I will just say that Eric Dick is the main character in some cursed reality show that we are all forced to be informed about. I hate this timeline. The Chron has more.
In his congressional campaign’s first 24 hours, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee has raised contributions from more than 5,000 supporters and garnered endorsements from some of the state’s top Democratic leaders.
Menefee’s team announced Monday it had collected $100,000 from 2,000 donors in the six hours after unrolling his candidacy to represent Texas’ 18th congressional district. On Tuesday, the campaign announced it had raised more than $200,000 from more 5,000 donors. The average donation was around $40, his campaign said.
Also on Tuesday, his team unveiled endorsements from former U.S. Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred, Harris County Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Leslie Briones, and Houston Controller Chris Hollins, along with several Houston City Council members.
“The enthusiasm we’re seeing in the first few hours is a clear message that people want bold, progressive leadership in Washington,” Menefee said in a Monday statement. “This momentum sends a powerful signal that we’re ready to challenge the status quo and lead Texas’s 18th District into a new era of leadership that prioritizes the needs of working families.”
The agility of Menefee’s fundraising was described by University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus using one word: “Stunning.”
There’s a premium on raising money early, Rottinghaus added — it indicates not only power, but a sophisticated campaign operation.
“It demonstrates that he’s the one to set the tone,” Rottinghaus said.
See here for the background. I said when Menefee made his move that I had not expected him to join this race because it meant giving up a lot for an uncertain outcome. But having this kind of groundwork laid before getting in helps. It is impressive, and speaks to a high level of preparedness. No guarantees, of course, but one would surely feel more confident with this kind of start.
Another reason to go in with that level of preparation is the expectation of strong opposition. And here it is.
Amanda Edwards
Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards will run for the 18th Congressional District following the death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, Edwards announced Wednesday.
“My commitment to this community has never wavered, and I will continue to fight for the opportunities and resources our district needs,” Edwards said in a social media post. “We need the next generation of new leaders in Washington to combat Trump’s attacks on jobs, healthcare, and education.”
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Edwards focused on the importance of the community and said she would bring new ideas and a fresh approach to the “turmoil” in Washington. She said President Donald Trump’s reversals of executive orders has caused angst and concern in the district.
Republicans control all branches of the federal government, and Democrats have been listless since Trump’s victory in November. Since falling out of power, Democrats have not messaged to supporters how to donate or how to focus their attention, Edwards said.
“Right now we’re not hearing that strategic vision on the defensive side,” she continued. “I don’t believe that sitting aside at this time is the right answer.”
Edwards unsuccessfully ran for the seat twice last year. She faced off against U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the 2024 Democratic primary. Jackson Lee won the primary but died before the general election, opening the party’s nomination anew. Edwards came in second place in that race to Turner, the former mayor of Houston.
You know I’ve been an Edwards fan, and I expected her to enter the race. I like that all of the candidates so far have adopted a confrontational attitude towards Trump and his sycophants. Lord knows, we’re going to need all of that and more. Edwards has had a bit of hard luck in her quest for CD18 – she thought she was running for an open seat in 2024, and wound up not only running against Sheila Jackson Lee at the last minute but then facing off against Sylvester Turner in the precinct chair race. Now she gets to square off against Christian Menefee and his formidable opening bid. Whatever happens, you can’t say she had an easy path. We don’t know who else might join this as-yet-unscheduled race – the story notes that Rep. Jolanda Jones is thinking about it, and as I said before this is basically a free shot for legislators as they can keep their seats unless and until they win – but my guess is that the field is already pretty crowded. If there is a May election set, which would have to happen soon, we’ll get a definitive answer then. The Press, Campos, and the Chron have more.
Lawmakers want Texas to join a growing number of states in restricting public school students from using their cellphones during the school day, answering calls from educators who say the state needs to remove distractions from the classroom.
Under House Bill 1481, introduced by Rep. Caroline Fairly of Amarillo, K-12 public school students wouldn’t be allowed to use their cellphones during the regular school day. It comes as at least eight states have enacted similar bans in the past two years, including Democrat-led states like California and Republican-led states like Arkansas.
The bans come as parents have become more worried about the negative mental health impacts of cyberbullying and youths’ social media use.
The bill is co-sponsored by a majority of the Texas House, including both Democrats and Republicans. Fairly, a Republican and the only Gen Z member of the Texas Legislature, said she introduced the legislation because she was “born into these devices” and understands the distraction they can cause in the classroom.
“When you see what is being pushed on social media and the distraction it causes in the classroom, there is a need for our government to support our educators in this,” Fairly said in an interview with The Texas Tribune on Tuesday.
Fairly added she hopes the ban will help improve students’ mental health and academic outcomes.
A growing body of research in recent years has suggested that cellphone use in schools can cause students to have trouble engaging in the classroom and have shorter attention spans. Several Texas school districts already have cellphone bans in place. Rancier Middle School in Killeen ISD, about 75 miles north of Austin, is one school that did so recently.
[…]
Some who testified Tuesday said that barring students from using their phones during the entire school day was too restrictive. An earlier version of the bill, filed in December, banned cellphone use during “instructional time” rather than the “school day,” meaning it left the door open for students to use their devices when they were outside the classroom.
Tricia Cave, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, told committee members that while her organization backed the original version of the bill, they do not support the new language banning cellphone use throughout the entirety of the school day. She said while she still supports the purpose of the bill, the new language is “overly prescriptive.”
Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, said during Tuesday’s hearing that she worried a cellphone ban was a step too far and would make it more difficult for students to contact law enforcement or their parents in situations where their safety was threatened. She referenced the mass shooting at Uvalde Elementary School in 2022, when students called law enforcement to alert them.
Some who testified Tuesday also said the bill would create an “unfunded mandate” by forcing school districts to comply with a new policy while not being provided the funds to do so. Mary Lowe, co-founder of the nonprofit Families Engaged for Effective Education, said that by adding a new requirement for school districts without new funding, HB 1481 would also take away some local control from these districts to determine their own cellphone policies.
Fairly said she is open to adding new funding to the bill.
I’m not opposed to this, which you can file under “easy for you to say” since my youngest is about to graduate and I won’t need to worry about it. I can believe that cellphones are a distraction, and as someone who grew up well before they existed, I know the kids can make it through the day without them. I also understand the security objection, and I support giving schools some flexibility and all of the funding they might need to make this happen. I wish there were more research to show what the best practices were, but there’s going to need to be some experimentation to figure out what those are, so we may as well try. If this passes, it would go into effect in the fall of 2025, so we’ll get some data right away. I trust there will be plenty of research done as we go.
The Houston Health Department has confirmed the city’s third measles case, months after identifying two cases in adults which marked the first measles cases since 2018.
The Houston Health Department Sunday reported an unvaccinated infant had been exposed to measles during international travel, a news release states. The infant was hospitalized and has since been discharged and was recovering at home, it said.
The first two Houston cases were from January. As hoped, there was no further spread. We can hope for more of the same this time. The Houston Landing has some more information about the affected family, who had been exposed to the measles while travelling internationally. Cases are up in many countries around the world in addition to the US.
On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak. Doctors didn’t realize until the young mother had been admitted and in labor that she was infected with the measles.
By that time, other new moms, newborns and their families at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock had unknowingly been exposed to the virus, considered one of the most contagious in the world.
Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections.
A 2021 study found that the therapy is highly effective in protecting exposed newborns from getting sick.
“These babies didn’t ask for this exposure,” said Chad Curry, training chief for the University Medical Center EMS. “But at the end of the day, this is the only way we can protect them.”
Neither Curry nor UMC representatives could give an exact number of exposed newborns.
It’s unclear when the woman tested positive for measles. Public health officials are casting a wide net in an effort to contact everyone who may have been exposed to this particular patient. Viral particles can live in the air or on surfaces for up to two hours.
We’ll just have to see what effect that has. All my sympathies to the public health officials in Lubbock now dealing with this.
Those stories were from before Tuesday, when we got the latest case numbers.
Texas Department of State Health Services reported Tuesday that the state has now seen 279 measles cases amid the outbreak, an increase of 20 since the agency’s last update on Friday. New Mexico health officials reported 38 cases as of Tuesday morning.
In Texas, 36 people have been hospitalized amid the outbreak, which is still centered in the South Plains region, according to DSHS data. One school-aged child has died, the first measles death in the United States since 2015. New Mexico has reported two hospitalizations and one death, an unvaccinated adult.
[…]
More than two-thirds of cases have been in Gaines County, a small county along the New Mexico border. But there have been some cases in the Panhandle and as far as Lamar County, located northeast of Dallas along the Oklahoma border.
Gaines County remains the epicenter of the outbreak and reported 17 new cases on Tuesday. The county has reported a total of 191 cases amid the outbreak, according to DSHS data.
Cochran, Lamar and Lubbock counties each reported one new case. Cochran County has now reported a total of seven cases amid the outbreak, while Lamar and Lubbock counties have each reported five.
No new infections which reported in the other seven counties that have seen cases amid the outbreak. Of those seven counties, Terry County has seen the most cases with 36.
Of the 279 cases, 88 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 120 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17.
Only two cases have been seen in people who received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine prior to an infection.
Per the DMN, Oklahoma is still reporting four cases, same as their initial report. This is a slightly smaller bump than we’ve been getting, but it’s just a half-week’s worth of data, and there’s no particular reason to think things are slowing down. If the next three or four reports show a tapering off, then we’ll have something.
Dr. Alex Cvijanovich has been a practicing pediatrician for more than 20 years. She says she’s still haunted by the memory of a teenage boy she treated at the start of her career in Utah.
The boy had contracted measles as a 7-month-old, when he was too young to be vaccinated. “He got the virus from a child in his neighborhood who was unvaccinated,” says Cvijanovich, who now practices in New Mexico.
It was a relatively mild case of measles, and the infant recovered. She says he grew up to be a healthy, bright kid — an honor student.
Then in middle school, he started to develop troubling symptoms. “He started getting lost between classes, lost like he couldn’t find what class to go to next,” Cvijanovich says.
Worried, the teen’s parents took him to a series of doctors to figure out what was wrong, until a pediatric neurologist finally suspected a condition called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE. It’s a degenerative neurological condition that typically develops seven to 10 years after a measles infection. It is almost always fatal. Cvijanovich was part of the hospital team that confirmed the diagnosis.
“The problem is that there is no treatment for it,” she says. “And he basically became more and more incapacitated over time.”
Some 18 months after his initial diagnosis, she says, the teenager died.
SSPE was once considered quite rare. But Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in New York City who wrote a history of measles, says data from outbreaks in the U.S. over the past several decades suggests that may not always be the case.
“It turns out that in some age groups, especially in kids under about age 2, it’s much more common than we thought,” Ratner says.
For example, a review of measles cases in California found that, between 1988 and 1991, SSPE cases occurred as frequently as 1 in every 1,367 cases in unvaccinated children under age 5. Another study that looked at U.S. outbreaks between 1989 and 1991 put the rate of SSPE at roughly 1 out of every 4,600 measles cases.
Vaccination prevents not just SSPE, but also other serious complications that measles can cause — including pneumonia and severe brain swelling.
Those are long odds, to be sure. But how much do you want to increase the risk of death to your child? And note that in this case, the victim was someone who had been too young to get vaccinated, who was infected by someone who was unvaccinated by choice. How would you like to feel responsible for that? ABC News has more.
In what appears to be the first arrests of healthcare providers for allegedly violating a post-Roe v. Wade state abortion ban, Maria Margarita Rojas, a midwife working in the region around Houston, and her employee, medical assistant Jose Manuel Cendan Ley, were taken into custody by Texas authorities on Monday.
Court records from Waller County, west of Houston, show that law enforcement initially accused Rojas with practicing medicine without a license, but on Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he was adding the illegal performance of an abortion to her indictment—a second-degree felony in Texas, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Ley is facing the same charges.
The New York Times reports that court documents allege that Rojas “attempted an abortion” on a woman on two occasions in March and was “known by law enforcement to have performed an abortion” on another patient this year. In his press release, Paxton claimed that Rojas ran a network of clinics in towns around Houston that “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals.” The website for the network, Clinicás Latinoamericanas, advertises urgent care services, treatment for chronic illness, and dietary counseling to a Spanish-language community. Paxton’s office said it had filed for a temporary restraining order to shut down the clinics.
On Tuesday, Paxton announced that a third person associated with the clinics, nurse practitioner Rubildo Labanino Matos, whose license is currently on probation, was arrested on March 8 and charged with conspiracy to practice medicine without a license.
[…]
The case against Rojas appears to represent the first time a healthcare provider has been arrested and jailed on charges of providing an illegal abortion. A website for a birthing center linked to Clinicás Latinoamericanas says Rojas was born in Peru, received her Texas midwife certification in 2018, and has attended “over 700 births in community-based and hospital settings.” The birthing centeropened the same year Rojas got her license. Its website describes the center as focusing “on providing comprehensive care to pregnant woman and their families…Women here are treated with love and respect, empowering them to fulfilling their desire for a natural childbirth.”
Rojas’ friend and fellow midwife, Holly Shearman, reacted to the charges with shock, the New York Times reported. “They’re saying that she did abortions or something?” Shearman told the Times. “She never ever talked about anything like that, and she’s very Catholic. I just don’t believe the charges.”
According to Bloomberg, Rojas’ bail has been set at $1.4 million, and Ley’s at $700,000.
See here for the background. Here’s more from Slate.
Paxton likely picked Rojas for a reason: not just to send the message that “every life is sacred,” as Paxton told the press, but also to signal that midwives who provide abortions are unsafe, unqualified, and dishonest. Paxton’s strategy fits into a pattern of pre-Roe prosecutions, all while concealing the ways in which the criminal law related to abortion has become far harsher than it was before 1973.
Few details about Rojas’ case are publicly available, but Paxton arrested her and a staff member, alleging that they worked in four clinics across Texas’ Waller County. According to Paxton, Rojas and her colleague provided illegal abortions and falsely held themselves out as licensed medical professionals. (Rojas herself has been a licensed midwife since 2018, but Paxton appears to allege that she identified as a physician.)
The fact that Rojas is not a physician is central to Paxton’s strategy: He claims that the prosecution will protect women from unlicensed and presumably unsafe providers. His office seems to be hearkening back to horror stories like that of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murder in 2013, and was accused of killing viable infants who were born alive, illegally dispensing opioids, and killing several patients. To date, Paxton hasn’t laid out evidence that Rojas harmed her patients beyond employing unlicensed staff.
The more we understand the history of criminal abortion laws, the less surprising Paxton’s move is. The physicians who crusaded in the 19th century to criminalize abortion throughout pregnancy claimed to protect unborn life, safeguard marriage, and ensure that white Protestant women, rather than Catholic immigrants, populated the nation. The laws these doctors championed sometimes seemed to authorize the punishment of women as well as doctors. But in and beyond the 19th century, prosecutors mostly charged providers, not patients, believing the testimony of the latter to be necessary to get enough evidence for a conviction.
And not all providers faced equal consequences. As historian Alicia Gutierrez-Romine has shown in her study of abortion in California, licensed physicians, who were more likely to be male and white, were less likely to face prosecution—or to face prison time if they were criminally charged. The same wasn’t true of midwives or physicians of color. Prioritizing the prosecution of a midwife like Rojas doesn’t seem like anything new.
The law in many states reinforced prosecutors’ tendency to single out some providers. State statutes included an exception for the life of the patient, which could apply either when patients intended to terminate a pregnancy or when someone required care after a miscarriage or stillbirth. Often, states exempted physicians from prosecution if they acted in good faith to protect the life or health of their patients. That wasn’t true for midwives like Rojas. Criminal laws, after all, had been designed by physicians and preserved their prerogatives. It was also easier to target midwives, who had less financial pull or political power. And in any case, prosecutors were more likely to act when a provider hurt women or seemed likely to. For decades, as historian Leslie Reagan has shown, prosecutors primarily went forward in abortion cases when a provider inadvertently killed a patient.
Paxton seems to be reading from a similar playbook, suggesting that his office is protecting women, and stressing that neither Rojas nor her employees were licensed physicians. Of course, as far as we know, he isn’t arguing that Rojas killed any patients, or endangered anyone, beyond allegedly holding herself or her employees out as possessing credentials they lacked.
If Paxton’s move in some way reflects past practice, Texas’ law and others like it are generally more punitive than what came before. Texas laws, for example, prescribe penalties far harsher than anything typical before 1973, including penalties of $100,000 per abortion and sentences up to life.
Besides, the deference to licensed physicians that defined the old regime is gone. Texas law requires doctors who intervene to protect a patient to show that their actions were objectively reasonable; good faith isn’t enough. That increases the risk for any provider addressing an emergency: The experts the state will tap to determine whether a procedure is reasonable could well come from organizations like the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which maintains that abortion is never medically necessary, and which has sent a member to the state’s Maternal Mortality Board.
There’s more from Daily Kos, the Texas Signal, the Houston Press, and Jessica Valenti. Again, we don’t know very much right now, and most of what we do know has come from either Paxton or the police, and neither should be taken as credible. At some point we will see the actual charges and we will hear from the defense attorneys, and then we can begin to draw some conclusions. Assume bad faith and bad motives by Paxton, and you won’t go wrong.
An anonymous one-sentence complaint submitted to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in January started the investigation into a Texas midwife and her assistant who this week became the first person charged with performing illegal abortions under the state’s ban on the procedure.
“Hello. I wanted to file a complaint of a clinic in Texas that is offering abortions,” the tipster wrote on Jan. 17. “I know 1 person that they charge 1,300 for the abortion and as of right now [redacted] is there to get an abortion as well.”
The tip gave the clinic’s address as a 40750 Bus US-290 in Waller, the location of the Clinica Waller LatinoAmerica, a business the Texas Attorney General’s Office said is owned by Maria Margarita Rojas.
[…]
On Monday, the AG’s office also asked for a restraining order against Rojas’ four clinics – located in Waller, Cypress, Spring and Hempstead. In a petition seeking the order, lawyers for the AG’s office said the clinics were illegal operations that placed “the lives of unborn children and their mothers at risk.”
The petition, however, provides little detail about how state authorities investigated Rojas. The only evidence the petition cites is the one-sentence email the health commission received on Jan 17, and a slightly longer follow-up email the agency received on Jan. 23.
In the second email, the tipster appears to name two patients whose names are redacted in court filings.
The tipster wrote that one person sought an abortion in September 2024, when she was 3 months pregnant. Another woman sought an abortion in January, when she was 8 weeks pregnant, the tipster wrote.
“I know that this been occurring for a long time about the facility and I know that in Texas abortions [should] not be performed,” the email read. “Both abortion were not for any medical complication they were both made for irresponsibility of not wanting to protect themselves using birth control.”
It’s unclear from the filing if state investigators identified the tipster, who consented for the tip to be sent to other agencies.
Not a whole lot to go on there, and I don’t want to speculate ahead of the evidence. As I said, we’ll know more soon enough. This story notes that as of time of reporting, no restraining order against Rojas’ clinics had been issued.
A proposal to build a mixed-use tower in Montrose has hit a roadblock after the Houston Planning Commission rejected a variance request needed for the project, sending developers back to the drawing board amid neighborhood concerns.
The panel’s vote March 5 comes seven years after owners of Khun Kay Thai Café, at 1209 Montrose, pitched plans in 2018 to replace the restaurant with a high-rise, now dubbed the Icon M Tower.
City plans describe a 20-story tower, though the restaurant owners, who have a stake in the group developing the project, said it would have 18. The city documents show it would have 46 condominiums and a 3,200 square-foot ground-floor restaurant.
Developers sought approval to build the tower 16 feet closer to Montrose Boulevard. They argued the reduced setback was needed to build a more walkable development with an enclosed parking garage, instead of a surface parking.
Without the setback, the project’s architect told commissioners, there “was no way to do a vertical development on this property.”
But Planning and Development Department staff argued that the “proposed high rise is disproportionate to the size of the property and is inconsistent with surrounding development patterns.” They also argued that the developer didn’t prove that it would experience “financial hardship” if the request were denied.
In a video of the meeting reviewed by the Chronicle, some residents said they were worried about the effects of the project on traffic and pedestrian safety.
“When I have talked about it with my neighbors and described the plan for the site, the response has been incredulous. It’s just sort of obvious (that it’s an) inappropriately small lot for a 20-story tower,” said Sarah Frazier, president of the Hyde Park Civic Association. “We’re trading an inexpensive restaurant that’s currently there for an expensive restaurant with a bunch of luxury units and penthouses.”
Here’s a view of the block where this is. I don’t object to the idea of a highrise there – easy for me to say, I don’t live there, I know – but it sure does feel like that’s cramming a lot of building into a small space. By contrast, the infamous Ashby Highrise is sited on an entire block. I don’t know how that’s supposed to work on the Khun Kay space. Given the history of highrises in this city, it’ll be at least a few more years before we really have to contend with it. Good luck, y’all.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee announced on Monday his bid for the congressional seat left vacant by the death of Democratic U.S. Rep. and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.
“I’m running because working families need a fighter,” Menefee said in an interview. “The fight for the soul of this country is happening right now in D.C., as Trump and Elon Musk roll back programs, lay off federal workers and impact people right here on the ground.”
Menefee filed his intent to run as a Democrat for the seat representing the 18th Congressional District on Saturday evening, hours after a memorial service was held in West Houston for Turner.
Menefee was first elected to county office in Nov. 2020 at 32 years old, becoming the youngest person and first Black American elected to the position, according to his office’s website. He grew up in the Houston-based congressional district and is raising his children there.
“This is home for me,” he said.
As Harris County’s top civil lawyer, he frequently challenged the state’s top Republican leaders, including over voting rights and Republican attempts to exert greater state control over local Democratic governance.
Menefee has also fought legal battles over environmental issues and sought to address the disparate impacts of pollution on communities of color. He has been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s executive orders and signed an amicus brief in a federal lawsuit challenging Trump’s order to terminate birthright citizenship.
In the interview, Menefee said his experience as county attorney prepared him to take on the Trump administration and also work with Republicans when possible.
“There are going to be days where we must stand firm and fight back,” he said, including against efforts by the Trump administration to spend federal funding in a way not authorized by Congress, which holds the constitutional power of the purse. “But there’s also going to be days where it’s about collaboration … I know how to work with Republicans. I’ve done it for the four years that I’ve been in office.”
His priorities in Congress would include expanding health-care access, protecting clean air and water, increasing disaster recovery funding for the Gulf Coast district and improving affordability.
The prospect of the Trump administration ignoring court orders to pursue its agenda factored in to Menefee’s decision to jump in the race, he said. His job since the start of Trump’s second term “has been completely changed.”
“Every day, we are scrambling,” he said, trying to decipher the latest executive order or decision to cut certain programs.
“What I realized very quickly is the fight for our democratic institutions, the fight for ensuring that the branches of government work in the way that they’re supposed to, is happening right now in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “There was a lot of work that I could do as Harris County Attorney to try to blunt some of that, but it’s getting out of control, and it’s moving at a pace now to where we must do everything we can to ensure that Donald Trump is blocked in Washington, D.C.”
Elected officials who announce their candidacy in any special, general or primary election automatically resign their position if they have more than a year and 30 days left of their term, according to a provision of the Texas Constitution. But Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet declared a special election to fill Turner’s seat. Menefee was just reelected to a second four-year term in November.
Just to clarify, that Constitutional provision applies primarily to county officials. State legislators are not included in the list of affected positions. That would of course include Menefee, and the fact that he’d have to resign to run led me to believe he wouldn’t run, as that’s a lot to give up for an uncertain outcome. My interpretation of this reporting is that as there’s not yet actually an election, Menefee hasn’t done anything that would trigger the resign-to-run provision. At least, that was what I thought when I saw the original version of the story, in which Menefee had not yet commented. At this point, I’m not sure what the situation is. Obviously, we’ll know more soon enough. Because I have already been asked the question, if Menefee does resign, Commissioners Court will name a replacement, and there will be an election for the seat in 2026.
A few years ago, Isaiah Martin’s mentor, the late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, told him to start posting videos on social media. That would be the future of politics, she advised. At first he didn’t think it’d go anywhere. But he was consistent, and he shared daily, unapologetic takes, mainly explaining Democratic stances on political issues.
Soon, he was in the fray.
“I would go into what was called MAGA TikTok lives,” he told The Barbed Wire. “You would have right-wing Republican creators that oftentimes would have debates 8-1 stacked up against me.”
“And I would go and cook them all.”
In excerpts of some of those live debates on his page, Martin beats back at disinformation. He denounces claims, like that cutting the corporate tax rate isn’t a boon for billionaires (the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found research that President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut boosted executives’ earnings but not workers below the 90th percentile); that President Joe Biden was responsible for increasing the national debt (as ProPublica found, Trump heralded an explosive rise in debt in his first term); and that Biden tanked the economy (the opposite is true, as The Guardian reported.)
Martin’s aim, he said, isn’t so much about converting Trump supporters as answering “those questions that they might not have heard a Democrat answer before.”
[…]
In an exclusive interview with The Barbed Wire, Martin said he’s running for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, which covers much of the city of Houston and surrounding areas, and is where he grew up.
Texas’ 18th has had a tumultuous eight months.
Jackson Lee represented the district from 1995 until her death in July of pancreatic cancer. She was succeeded briefly by her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, who completed Jackson Lee’s final term in office, and then by Turner, who had previously served as mayor of Houston after decades in the Texas House of Representatives. Turner also died after being treated for bone cancer.
The successive losses mean the 18th District will have a fourth representative in less than a year, Martin or otherwise. Although Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to announce the date of a special election, speculation has already begun over who will carry on the legacy of the political heavy-weights who have long-served Houston’s residents.
It’s a tall order.
In 1972, in that same seat, the late Rep. Barbara Jordan became the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South. Anti-poverty activist Mickey Leland also held the position and was succeeded by his friend Craig Washington, until Washington was handily defeated in 1994 by Jackson Lee.
In 2023, Martin ran to take over Jackson Lee’s district seat as she vied to become mayor of Houston. After her loss to (former state senator and current mayor) John Whitmire, Jackson Lee decided to try again for another U.S. House term, and Martin dropped out to support her. Afterwards, he said, he didn’t sit idly.
“I went to New York to go and help Congressman Tom Sazi, who’s now elected to Congress. I traveled to places like Oregon to elect Janelle Bynum, traveled to places like Alabama to go and elect people like Shomari Figures, who is right now inside of the United States Congress,” he said. “I’ve been around the country. I’ve campaigned for Democrats up and down the ballot and for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
I assume “Tom Sazi” is a misspelling of Tom Suozzi, who initially won a special election in 2024 to replace George Santos before winning a full term in November. This story also mentioned Menefee’s filing but didn’t provide a link, so as I saw this story before the Trib story I was momentarily confused. Looking at the current list of Statements of Candidacy, in addition to Menefee’s name there’s James Joseph, who ran for Houston City Council At Large #3 in 2023 and finished seventh out of nine. Martin has taken the rhetorical step, but he hasn’t filed the paperwork yet. And I got a press release yesterday from Amanda Edwards promising a “big announcement” for Wednesday, and I think we can all guess what that is. And now that we are past Rep. Sylvester Turner’s funeral, I expect to see more names out there. The Chron, Campos, and Olivia Julianna have more.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee’s decision to announce his candidacy for the vacant Congressional District 18 seat automatically triggered his resignation, and local Republicans already are campaigning for the candidate he beat last November to take over his job.
The Texas Constitution contains a provision that prohibits certain local officials from running for an office other than the one they currently hold. That provision states that any declaration of candidacy “shall constitute an automatic resignation of the office.”
Menefee’s decision to file a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission Saturday night, just months into his second, four-year term, triggered that provision automatically.
It now falls to the Harris County Commissioners Court to appoint a new county attorney that will hold the office until an election can be held. All five members of the court declined to comment or did not respond to a request to comment on Monday.
The Constitution does not set a deadline for Commissioners Court to make such an appointment, but Harris County Republicans on Monday called for the court to select local attorney and former county civil court judge Jacqueline Lucci Smith, the GOP candidate who lost to Menefee by just 17,000 votes in November.
[…]
In the meantime, the office is not truly vacant. The Texas Constitution allows for the office’s occupant to “holdover” until a replacement is appointed, Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne said.
“Nothing changes as far as we’re concerned,” Fombonne said. “We’re going to keep doing the good work we’ve been doing for the last four years until someone tells us we can’t.”
In a statement Monday, Menefee also assured the public his office — which defends county officials against lawsuits and provides legal advice to the local government — would continue to operate without disruption.
“The county attorney’s office is filled with talented, selfless public servants,” Menefee wrote. “It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve alongside them. I have no doubt that the office will continue to provide the same level of service to the county and its residents moving forward.”
It seemed increasingly likely that Menefee would indeed have to resign; the only argument against was that the election hadn’t yet been set, which to say the least was flimsy. So here we are. I will say that I have a greater chance of being appointed to replace Menefee than Jacqueline Lucci Smith does, but you go on and dream big.
UPDATE: It’s mentioned in there somewhere, but Erica Lee Carter is Menefee’s campaign treasurer. She has officially endorsed his campaign.
A Houston-area midwife has been arrested on allegations she performed illegal abortions, the first criminal charges brought under the state’s near-total abortion ban, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday.
Maria Margarita Rojas, 48, was charged with the illegal performance of an abortion, as well as practicing medicine without a license, according to Paxton.
Rojas, who identified herself as “Dr. Maria,” operated a network of clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring. According to Paxton’s news release, the clinics “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals.”
Rojas also allegedly provided illegal abortion procedures at these clinics, a second-degree felony that comes with up to 20 years in prison.
Waller County District Attorney Sean Whittmore told The Texas Tribune that Paxton’s office brought the case to his attention. The Office of the Attorney General does not have independent prosecutorial authority in Texas, but Whittmore, a former assistant attorney general, said he has invited the state to handle the prosecution. Whittmore said more charges against Rojas are expected in the coming days, and the case will next go to a grand jury to consider indictment.
[…]
Calls to Rojas’ clinics were not immediately answered Monday. Holly Shearman, a midwife who runs Tomball Birth Center, where Rojas worked part-time providing prenatal care, said she was “shocked” by the news of her arrest. She described Rojas as a devout Catholic and skilled midwife whose clinics provided health care to a primarily Spanish-speaking, low-income community.
“I don’t believe it for one second,” she said about the allegations. “I’ve known her for eight years and I’ve never heard her talk about anything like that. I just can’t picture Maria being involved in something like this.”
We don’t know a whole lot right now – as of yesterday afternoon, both this story and the Chron story had a note at the end saying this was developing and would be updated. I’m with Holly Shearman but until we do know more that’s mostly a statement of faith. On that score, I also agree with what Jessica Valenti says.
You cannot trust any information coming from Paxton’s office or Texas law enforcement. Paxton and Texas Republicans will be working overtime to paint Rojas as a villain, regardless of the truth. They know that abortion bans are incredibly unpopular, as is arresting healthcare providers. They’re not just fighting a legal battle here, but a PR one.
Consider what happened when Paxton filed a civil suit against New York abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter: His office falsely claimed that the woman Carpenter sent abortion medication to suffered “serious complications” despite providing no evidence. There’s every reason to believe Paxton’s team will pull similar tactics here, coming out with all sorts of claims about this midwife and her practice.
So please pause before sharing information about this case. Right now, almost all available details are coming from Paxton or law enforcement, meaning early media coverage will overwhelmingly reflect the state’s framing. Be careful and deliberate about the sources you amplify.
And remember: The media gets abortion stories wrong all the time. When a Nebraska teenager was arrested for self-managing her abortion, national outlets falsely reported that she had sent a Facebook message about “how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body.” That quote wasn’t hers—it was something a police officer said—but the line got reprinted again and again in an attempt to make the young woman seem as callous as possible.
Something similar happened when Brittany Watts was arrested in Ohio for ‘abuse of a corpse’ after having a miscarriage. Local news stories framed her as indifferent to her pregnancy loss. Misogyny, racism, and classism all play a role in the way these cases are talked about and covered.
Paxton, a political operator who picks cases strategically, likely chose Rojas because he believes Americans won’t find her sympathetic—whether due to racism, classism, or the stories his office plans to spin. That’s what’s happening in Louisiana, where prosecutors have arrested a mother they say ‘coerced’ her teenager into having an abortion. (Tellingly, they didn’t charge with her ‘coercion,’ just abortion.)
In other words: Republicans are strategically targeting people they think the public won’t rally behind. Let’s make sure to prove them wrong.
Duly noted. Stay skeptical and wait to see what the charges actually allege and what the defense has to say.
UPDATE: A later version of the Chron story reports that a second person was also arrested and is “expected to face the same charges as Rojas”.
In a letter sent to city employees Thursday, [Mayor John] Whitmire wrote that the city will be offering a “one-time Voluntary Municipal Retirement Payout Option” to employees who are eligible for retirement. The plan will include financial support and access to healthcare benefits, Whitmire wrote.
The city has also implemented a hiring freeze to all departments except fire and police and some customer service-facing roles, and it’s actively working on consolidating its departments.
Whitmire’s letter comes on the heels of the administration presenting the results of a study completed by Houston-based accounting firm Ernst & Young. The study examined each city department with the goal of examining financial and organizational efficiency.
The study found extensive problems with the way the city chooses companies to provide city services, as well as questionable usage of city employee credit cards.
“Change is never easy, but we are not simply making changes for the sake of change,” Whitmire wrote. “Every decision we make is guided by a commitment to ensuring that Houston remains a leader in public service, economic opportunity, and quality of life.”
He continued: “As we enter this new phase, your role in this transformation is essential. Your ideas, your dedication, and your passion for service are what will drive us forward. Over the coming months, we will continue to communicate openly about our progress and provide opportunities for you to engage in shaping our future.”
Whitmire’s spokesperson Mary Benton said around 2,700 employees will be eligible to participate in the program, and that discussions between the city’s human resources department and eligible employees just began Friday morning.
See here for more on the efficiency report, and hiring freeze. I’m pretty sure the freeze and the voluntary severances are out of the Annise Parker 2010 playbook. That’s not intended as snark, just a recognition that there are only so many moves to be made in this situation, especially when raising revenue is difficult.
Now, Whitmire and his team, led by Chief of Staff Chris Newport and Deputy Chief of Staff Steven David, are trying to make Houston stand out among other blue cities to help its financial case as its deficit grows.
The key, they hope, lies with a new city-commissioned study by the Houston accounting firm Ernst & Young that analyzed the efficiency of every city department. The goal is to cut unnecessary costs and make every tax dollar count. City officials hope to show lawmakers that they’re doing their part to weed out waste.
David and Newport last Wednesday presented the study’s findings to the House’s “Delivery of Government Efficiency” committee in a pitch to receive financial help. The mayor’s office noted the city’s work on the study has been done preceded the committee, and started well before its creation.
Lawmakers praised the city’s efforts.
“Y’all are awesome … If I could clone you, I would,” said state Rep. Daniel Alders, a North Texas Republican, before asking the pair to come to Waco to show off the work.
It’s unclear whether the study’s tour across Austin during this legislative session will achieve Whitmire’s goal of getting a response to Houston’s cries for financial help.
Both Newport and David say they’re “cautiously optimistic,” and hope that even if it doesn’t reap rewards immediately, the seeds of trust might be planted to create the bouquet later.
“We’re being transparent about what our image looks like today and what we’re going to do about it, warts and all,” Newport said.
Whatever. The article notes up front that Whitmire’s Austin connections haven’t been all that useful so far, but maybe this will help. Doesn’t hurt to try, but as with the audits and efficiency studies themselves, it’s best to keep one’s expectations modest.
Finally, this was in my inbox last week:
Houston City Controller Chris Hollins today announced the release of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Audit Plan, a strategic initiative to enhance financial accountability, optimize city resources, and maximize taxpayer dollars. The plan prioritizes high-impact audits to identify cost savings, eliminate waste, and strengthen fiscal oversight and outcomes across city departments.
“As the City’s financial watchdog, my job is to ensure every dollar works for Houstonians,” said Controller Chris Hollins. “This audit plan is more than a fiscal checkup—it’s a roadmap to smarter spending, greater efficiency, and better city services. In a time of financial strain, we must proactively find solutions that set Houston on a path to long-term economic stability.”
The FY2025 Audit Plan focuses on:
Performance audits to assess efficiency and effectiveness in city operations;
Compliance audits to ensure financial policies and regulations are followed;
Contract audits to scrutinize vendor agreements and spending;
Forensic audits to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse; and
Cost recovery initiatives to reclaim potential revenue losses.
The plan also includes follow-up audits to track the implementation of past recommendations, reinforcing accountability and a cycle of continuous improvement in city operations.
“Long-term fiscal health requires more than short-term or temporary funding sources,” Hollins said. “Through transparent oversight and best practices, we can help to safeguard taxpayer dollars by eliminating waste and maximizing efficiency—improving financial outcomes today while also investing in Houston’s future.”
Under Hollins’s leadership, the City Controller’s Office expanded its audit scope to incorporate enhanced performance, contract, and forensic reviews to identify financial risks before they become costly issues.
To keep residents informed, the Controller’s Office will publish quarterly audit reports on its website, providing regular updates on findings, recommendations, and corrective actions.
“While the word ‘audit’ can sound intimidating, our approach has value beyond uncovering problems—it can help drive solutions and outcomes,” Hollins said. “Through transparent reporting and communication, we will provide City leaders with a pathway to operate with greater fiscal responsibility.”
The FY2025 Audit Plan, which includes the complete list of audits, is available online at Annual Audit Plan.
Audits everywhere. Some Controllers have been busier with that function than others. I’ll be very interested to see where Controller Hollins agrees with Mayor Whitmire and where he disagrees with him.
The General Services Administration, landlord for federal government, said Tuesday it planned to sell more than 440 buildings across the U.S., including three in Houston and 21 others in Texas.
The targeted buildings in Houston were the Mickey Leland Federal Building at 1919 Smith with its passport office; the Alliance Tower at 8701 S. Gessner, with State Department and IRS offices; and the Houston Custom House, which fills an entire downtown block at 701 San Jacinto and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Federally-owned assets in GSA’s portfolio that are not core to government operations primarily consist of office space,” the administration said in a statement posted to its website Tuesday. “GSA currently owns and maintains over 440 non-core assets comprising almost 80 million rentable square feet across the nation and representing over $8.3 billion in recapitalization needs. Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce. We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues. GSA’s decisive action to dispose of non-core assets leverages the private sector, drives improvements for our agency customers, and best serves local communities.
“GSA will consider non-core assets for divestment from government ownership in an orderly fashion to ensure taxpayers no longer pay for empty and underutilized federal office space, or the significant maintenance costs associated with long-term building ownership — potentially saving more than $430 million in annual operating costs,” it said.
The original list identified four buildings in Austin, three in Dallas, and others in Del Rio, El Paso, Farmers Branch, Fort Worth and border patrol sector headquarters in Marfa and McAllen.
This is in addition to a bunch of leased properties that have been targeted as well. There’s no strategy or method here, it’s just slashing and burning for its own sake. As a recent viral post pointed out, you could save yourself a ton of money by selling your cars, cancelling your homeowner’s insurance, and firing the kids’ babysitter/afterschool care, but it’s unlikely any of that will leave you in a better position afterward. Even if you buy into the idea that there’s a ton of “waste” that “needs” to be “cut”, the DOGEbags are going about it in the stupidest and most harmful way possible. This is what we’re up against. The Current has more.
Texas officials fear the state is gravely close to running out of water.
Towns and cities could be on a path toward a severe shortage of water by 2030, data compiled in the state’s 2022 water plan by the Texas Water Development Board indicates. This would happen if there is recurring, record-breaking drought conditions across the state, and if water entities and state leaders fail to put in place key strategies to secure water supplies.
At risk is the water Texans use every day for cooking, cleaning — and drinking.
State lawmakers are debating several solutions, including finding ways to bring new water supply to Texas, and dedicating more money to fix dilapidated infrastructure.
For most other Texans, however, the extent of their knowledge of where water comes from is the kitchen faucet and backyard hose. But behind every drop is a complicated system of sources, laws and management challenges.
So, where does Texas get its water? Who owns it? And why are we running out? Let’s break it down.
It’s a long story, it covers a lot of ground including a bunch of stuff I’ve blogged about here, so read the rest. There’s stuff that can be done, and I do expect the Lege to do some of it. But not all, because that never happens, and given the current federal hostility to renewable energy and the growing demand for power and water from data centers and artificial intelligence and cryptominers, we’re allowing a lot to happen to make things worse. There will still be things that can be done as that happens, but the choices get less appealing and the costs get higher as we go.
Texas has been in a drought as it often is, but in recent years it sure feels like we’ve been “in” drought more than out of it. Since the start of 2025, Texas has struggled mightily in the rainfall department. With the exception of the Piney Woods and parts of Southeast Texas near Houston, it has been a very, very dry start to the year.
Lubbock, Midland, and El Paso are all having top 15 driest starts to a year, with El Paso seeing less than a tenth of an inch of rainfall so far in 2025. Wichita Falls, Abilene, and San Angelo are all having very dry starts to a year, though not historically so. This has allowed for expansion of drought since the beginning of year, with the beginning stages of a rapid onset drought in the last 10 days or so.
The recent bump in windy, dry storms has helped accelerate this process. According to an early March forecast update from the National Interagency Fire Center, “Confidence is increasing in a high impact spring fire season across the southern Great Plains. The expected weather pattern and its impacts to the fire environment are of major concern, and at least weekly high-end wind events are plausible through March and April.”
So, possibly some immediate crises, and also fire risk. Happy springtime, y’all.
In early February, the Texas Farm Bureau defended President Donald Trump as he moved to enact tariffs on foreign goods coming into the United States, saying they trusted him to “protect the interests of farm and ranch families.”
But now, after more rounds of tariffs and counter tariffs by nations including China, Canada and the European Union have started to hit demand for U.S. agriculture goods overseas, Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening acknowledged his members are growing anxious.
“We understand that’s his negotiating tool, but at the same time tariffs can be hard on agriculture,” he said. “If you’re in a good spot you can withstand this, but you worry about the producer who has only been in this five or ten years and doesn’t have a lot of equity built up. Those are the operations that could be in trouble.”
Texas farmers, already struggling from drought and low commodity prices, are on the front line of a growing trade war between the United States and its longtime trading partners. And as a key Trump constituency, their discomfort is likely to be of particular concern to a White House that has already gone back and forth over enacting tariffs.
Cotton, a staple for farmers in West Texas, hit its lowest price in four years earlier this month after China announced a 15% retaliatory tariff on a number of U.S. agricultural goods. China, the largest buyer of grain sorghum in the world, has also virtually stopped buying the crop from Texas farms, Boening said.
And it’s looking increasingly likely that Mexico, a major buyer of U.S. rice, a big crop in East Texas, will be turning to farms in South America if Trump goes ahead on his threat to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada on April 2, S&P Global Intelligence, a research firm, reported earlier this month.
I have no interest in using my words here. They don’t deserve them. Here’s a video.
“It is difficult to find another person connected to DOGE who has stronger ties to Musk than Branden Spikes.”
“You cannot be unfair, but still kind. You cannot be oppressive, but still kind — or exploitative, but still kind, or predatory, but still kind, or exclusionary, but still kind. You cannot be anti-diversity, anti-equality, or anti-inclusiveness and in any way be anything anywhere close to kind.”
“More pointedly, what does the sale mean for Bond’s future? Amazon, of course, had purchased MGM, Bond’s longtime home, in 2022 for $8.5 billion, mostly to get its hands on 007 IP and build it into a Marvel-style universe filled with bingeable TV spinoffs. The only things stopping them were Broccoli and Wilson, who had very different ideas for their father’s legacy, as well as a decades-long deal with MGM guaranteeing them creative dominion over all things Bond. But now that they’re out of the picture, Amazon can do whatever it wants. A TV show about Moneypenny? Why not. A prequel about Blofeld’s teenage years? Sure. More 007 game shows? Please no. But anything is possible. Amazon is now free to milk the franchise dry.”
“These are a sample of the messages that targeted Elon Musk over the weekend, as thousands of protesters across the country flooded local Tesla dealerships to express their outrage over the tech CEO’s escalating war on the federal government.”
“This edition of The Entrenchment Agenda assesses the degree to which Trump has advanced his six most extreme anti-democratic measures in ways that, ultimately, aim to make it difficult for voters to dislodge authoritarians from office: (1) pardons to license lawbreaking, (2) investigations against critics and rivals, (3) regulatory retaliation, (4) federal law enforcement overreach, (5) domestic deployment of the military, and (6) the potential refusal of autocrats to leave office.”
RIP, Joe Gwathmey, founder of Texas Public Radio, which brought NPR to San Antonio.
RIP, Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying.
RIP, Oliver Miller, former NBA player who led the Arkansas Razorbacks to the Final Four in 1990.
“I appear to live rent-free in the minds of some of my Republican colleagues.”
RIP, John Feinstein, sportswriter and author whose books include A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled.
RIP, Kenneth Hall, Texas high school football legend and Hall of Famer known as “The Sugar Land Express”, who held the national high school rushing record for almost 60 years; it was broken in 2012 by Derrick Henry.
State agencies should not honor court orders to change the sex on someone’s driver’s license or birth certificate, according to an opinion filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Friday.
He also said state agencies should retroactively correct any changes they’ve made to driver’s licenses or birth certificates over the years based on these court orders.
As attorney general, Paxton does not have the authority to tell other state agencies what to do, but this opinion could be cited in future executive or legislative action.
For decades, state agencies have accepted certified court orders to amend a person’s sex on government issued documents. The Texas Department of State Health Services accepted court orders to change someone’s sex on their birth certificate, and the Texas Department of Public Safety allowed changes to driver’s licenses if someone presented an amended birth certificate or a court record.
That came to a halt in August for DPS, at least, and the agency asked Paxton’s office for an official opinion in September.
Ian Pittman, an attorney who represents transgender Texans, said Paxton’s recent finding was not a surprise.
“He purports to order things he has no authority to do,” Pittman said. “It’s red meat for the base, but it doesn’t legally change anything.”
But if history is any guide, Paxton’s latest maneuver could cascade into real changes. In 2022, Paxton issued a similar opinion, finding that providing a child with gender-affirming care could be considered child abuse under Texas law. Abbott, citing that opinion, issued an executive order, directing the state’s child welfare agencies to investigate parents of trans children.
The Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Abbott and Paxton had overstepped, but allowed the investigations to continue.
“It is well-settled that an Attorney General opinion interpreting the law cannot alter the preexisting legal obligations of state agencies or private citizens,” Justice Jimmy Blacklock, now the chief justice, wrote in the ruling.
Pittman said he and his clients are prepared for Abbott to issue an order requiring state agencies to comply with Paxton’s opinion, or for the Legislature to pass one of several bills filed this session that would further restrict trans people from changing their gender markers on government documents.
“What this shows us is what we already knew: If they have the ability, or think they do, they will try to do this,” he said. “But bureaucratic inertia may work in the favor of people this would affect.”
He said it wasn’t clear how easy it would be for DSHS or DPS to retroactively identify and change those records if they were ordered to do so, although he noted it might come up when people have to renew their driver’s licenses.
See here, here, and here for some background. I don’t know what happens from here, but there will be legal challenges and things will be messy and may well get worse. To say the least, it’s an extremely tough time to be a transgender person these days, and that’s even before taking into account some truly appalling bills that likely aren’t going anywhere but are scary and offensive just by their existence. Be kind to the trans, non-binary, genderqueer, intersex, and other people in your life who are under attack. We can’t be quiet in these dark times.
The City of Houston spent about $6.5 million as the January winter storm brought freezing temperatures and snow to the region.
Mayor John Whitmire’s chief of staff, Chris Newport, told the city’s resilience committee Thursday that the 10 warming centers at their peak were filled with about 1,300 people.
“We feel that the activations went well,” Newport said. “It certainly met a need. We’re confident that lives were saved because of the city activating these warming centers.”
By contrast, the city did not initially open centers during the shorter freeze in early January. The Office of Emergency Management pointed to city policy calling for centers to only open when temperatures drop to 24 degrees for at least two hours, but Whitmire said he “worked around” those rules to eventually open centers.
During the snowstorm, two people died from exposure to the elements — one man with dementia who wandered from home and a woman who was found in a parking lot.
Pointing to vulnerable populations, like homeless people, who refused shelter, Newport said the city’s biggest challenge was “breaking through … to convince them that you can trust the offer that we’re making.”
“That’s the biggest life-saving, life-and-death stakes type of situation that will be the biggest challenge that we have,” he said.
“We’ll deal with that population effectively in days to come by making sure that they’re safe, secure, and let people know you can’t sleep on the streets of Houston as current ordinance allows,” Whitmire said at the time.
The main point I want to make here is just that there are always unexpected expenses in the operation of any enterprise, from your household budget to a business to the government. Stuff happens, and you need to have the capacity to deal with it. In the category of weather and climate-related expenses, you can expect them to have an upward trend; hopefully, a gently sloping upward trend, but with the real danger of spikes at any time. Ideally, this is where the federal government, with its much greater capacity to fund emergency expenses, will step up and step in to keep local and state governments afloat. Unfortunately, that’s not such a good bet right now. I’ll just say again, we better hope for a quiet, uneventful hurricane season. The downside is looking mighty scary.
On Feb. 1, signs went up announcing the city’s plan to abandon Polk Street between St. Emanuel and Hamilton streets. The closure is part of Houston First Corporation’s $2 billion overhaul of the George R. Brown Convention Center, aimed at modernizing the area and preparing the city to host major events like the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Republican National Convention.
The change has left some East End residents, including Farrar, concerned about losing a key access point to downtown — and worried they won’t be part of the decision-making process. A group of East End residents has raised concerns that Houston First Corporation hasn’t been transparent about the closure, warning that the East End community will suffer if Polk Street is cut off.
“It’s whittling away, chopping off our access here in the East End. It’s not acceptable,” said Erickson. “We live, work and play here too.”
Erickson joined the advocacy group People for Polk to push for more community involvement in the decision-making process and to reduce the impact of the street closures. She emphasized that her group is not opposed to the convention center expansion.
“We just want there to be time for traffic studies, for alternate methods to allow us access in the meantime,” Erickson said. “If this is going to be a 15, 20 year project, we don’t want to wait that long to be connected.”
A spokesperson for Houston First Corporation said in an email to the Houston Chronicle that the expansion has always aimed to reconnect downtown with the East End through public spaces and improve access to the convention center from the east.
“However, we recognize that as impactful as that long-term plan is, shorter-term solutions are necessary to preserve access between Downtown and the East End,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson also noted that as part of the Interstate 45 expansion, TxDOT will permanently eliminate Polk Street between St. Emanuel and Hamilton streets. Houston First plans to extend that closure by two additional blocks, from Hamilton to Avenida De Las Americas.
See here for the background. I don’t know what a good answer is for the folks who are directly affected by this, though as noted the I-45 project would be causing these problems regardless of what’s happening with the GRB. There’s a public meeting tomorrow at 6:30, see the People for Polk site for the details, if you want to speak up or just hear more about it.
The measles outbreak that began in the South Plains region of Texas grew to 259 cases and spread to two more counties on Friday, health officials said.
The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services includes 36 new cases since the agency’s last update on Tuesday. Infections have mostly been seen in children who have not received the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella.
Thirty-four people have been hospitalized amid the outbreak and one school-aged child has died from measles, the DSHS said. One death has also been reported in New Mexico, which reported 35 measles cases as of Friday morning.
Two Texas counties reported their first cases amid the outbreak, bringing the total number of affected counties to 11. Cochran County, in northwest Texas, reported six cases on Friday. Lamar County, located northeast of Dallas along the border with Oklahoma, reported four cases.
[…]
Gaines County remains the epicenter of the outbreak, adding 18 new cases on Friday. The small county along the New Mexico border has now reported 174 cases in total, about two-thirds of all cases in the outbreak.
Nearby Terry County reported four new cases, bringing its total to 36.
Dallam, Dawson, Lubbock and Yoakum counties each reported one new case. Dallam County has now seen six cases, Dawson has seen 11, Lubbock has seen four and Yoakum has seen 11.
No new infections were reported in Martin County, which has seen three cases, or in Ector or Lynn counties, which have each seen two.
Of the 259 cases, 86 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 115 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17.
Only two cases have been seen in people that have received two or more doses of the MMR vaccine; the other 257 have been in people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
Prior DSHS updates said five cases had been in vaccinated individuals. The agency said in Friday’s update that it learned two cases were in individuals who got the MMR vaccine after they had been exposed to the virus.
The third case was a Lubbock County resident who was believed to have measles, but actually had a reaction to the vaccine, the DSHS said. That suspected case has been removed from the case count, the agency said.
The vaccine can cause side effects such as fever or a mild rash, but those reactions are typically mild and resolve in a few days, according to the CDC.
The Tuesday count was 223, so that’s 36 more in three days’ time. Up, up, and away. The fact that Lamar County now has four cases is scary, because it’s a long damn way away from the New Mexico border. Maybe they’ll turn out to be unrelated, but still. The potential for breakouts all over the state is sobering.
According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the two people developed measles symptoms after exposure to cases associated with the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks.
The people isolated immediately after they realized they had been exposed and stayed home throughout the period they were contagious, health officials said.
But we don’t need to reserve judgment about RFK Jr. He’s a dangerous idiot who will get people sick.
In an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves. And what we need to do is give them the best information and encourage them to vaccinate. The vaccine does stop the spread of the disease.”
But Kennedy also downplayed the safety of the vaccine and wrongly told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that measles outbreaks could be driven in part by people who have waning immunity from the vaccine.
“When you and I were kids, everybody got measles, and measles gave you … lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people, it wanes,” Kennedy told Hannity.
“Some years, we have hundreds of these outbreaks. … And, you know, part of that is that there are people who don’t vaccinate, but also the vaccine itself wanes. The vaccine wanes 4.5% per year,” he said.
But Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says that if that were the case, measles wouldn’t have been declared eliminated in the US in 2000.
There’s some dispute among experts about how much protection may wane, if at all. However, they all agree that in most cases, the vaccine confers lifelong immunity against the virus.
The current outbreak “is absolutely being driven and started by unvaccinated individuals,” said Dr. Michael Mina, chief scientific officer of the telehealth company eMed and an expert in the epidemiology, immunology and spread of infectious disease.
Even those who may have waning immunity will not transmit large amounts of virus, he said.
Levels of antibodies created by the vaccine might decrease over time, but with a virus like measles, its longer incubation period gives the body’s immune memory cells more time to help fight the infection. This enables long-lasting immunity from vaccination, Offit explained.
I mean, you can listen to the people who know what they’re talking about, or you can listen to the badly misinformed roid-riddled moron. You ought to be able to make that choice for yourself. In that spirit, here’s some of that best information for you:
Measles is unlike other childhood viruses that come and go. In severe cases it can cause pneumonia. About 1 in 1,000 patients develops encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, and there are 1 or 2 deaths per 1,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus can wipe out the immune system, a complication called “immune amnesia.”
When we get sick with viruses or bacteria, our immune systems have the ability to form memories that quickly allow them to recognize and respond to the pathogens if they’re encountered again.
Measles targets cells in the body, such as plasma cells and memory cells, that contain those immunologic memories, destroying some of them in the process.
“Nobody escapes this,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a vaccine expert and former professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has led some of the research in the field.
In a 2019 study, Mina and his team found that a measles infection can wreck anywhere from 11% to 73% of a person’s antibody stockpile, depending on how severe the infection. That means that if people had 100 antibodies to chickenpox before they had measles, they may be left with just 50 after measles infections, potentially making them more vulnerable to catching it and getting sicker.
Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunology at the Yale School of Medicine, said: “That’s why it’s called amnesia. We forget who the enemies are.”
While virtually everybody who gets infected with measles will have their immune systems weakened, some will be hit harder than others.
“There’s no world in which you get measles and it doesn’t destroy some [immunity],” he said. “The question is does it destroy enough to really make a clinical impact.”
The researchers found that after a measles infection, the immune system can be suppressed almost immediately and remain that way for two to three years.
“Immune amnesia really begins as soon as the virus replicates in those [memory] cells,” Mina said.
Get informed, get vaccinated if you haven’t been before, get boosted if you have any reason to believe you need it. Vitamin A and steroids and antibiotics won’t save you. But you can save yourself.
Texas has the seventh-highest property taxes in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation, an unwelcome distinction state officials have for years tried to shed as they have repeatedly promised to ease the burden on struggling homeowners like Rojo. Yet when those same Texans fall behind on these taxes, The Texas Tribune found that the state employs one of the most punitive fee structures in America, which allows private law firms hired to collect the debts to charge an additional 20% on top of existing base taxes, penalties and interest.
No other state outsources delinquent tax collection to the degree it happens in Texas, where thousands of entities collecting local school, county and municipal property taxes do so under a system the Legislature created in 1979.
The cottage industry that grew in response is unique to the state — and lucrative. Law firms collecting delinquent taxes in the 100 most populous Texas counties earned at least $184 million in revenue in 2023 — which amounts to billions of dollars over the course of the more than four decades Texas has allowed this practice.
The Tribune calculated the collection fees for a year by obtaining contracts and payment reports through hundreds of public records requests to county tax offices, appraisal districts, cities and school districts. That sum, which is an undercount because some of the smaller counties in that group did not provide their figures, is larger than the annual budget of Beaumont.
Almost all the fees went to just three Texas firms: at least $128 million to Linebarger Goggan Blair and Sampson, followed by at least $28 million to Perdue Brandon Fielder Collins and Mott and at least $18 million to McCreary Veselka Bragg and Allen.
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said the Tribune’s findings raise concerns about the financial burden placed on Texans, “many of whom are already struggling to pay their property taxes.” She said lawmakers should consider reforms, including lowering the fees law firms can charge.
“The fees imposed by third-party collection firms can compound the financial challenges faced by delinquent taxpayers,” Zaffirini, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an email. “This system should balance the need for efficient tax collection with fairness and compassion, ensuring that Texans are not penalized excessively for falling behind on their payments.”
The appetite for reform among Republicans, who control every lever of state government, is unclear. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows — three of the loudest advocates for property tax relief this legislative session — did not respond to interview requests.
A House committee chaired by Burrows in 2020 examined the state’s system of allowing outsourced delinquent tax collection and endorsed it as a success.
Outsourcing is near-universal among taxing entities. But in 2023, Harris County — the most populous in Texas — began transitioning to in-house delinquent collection. Its leaders made that decision after discovering that more than two-thirds of overdue homeowners lived in poorer, majority Black and Hispanic precincts.
Travis County has never outsourced, concluding that doing so would subject taxpayers to needless extra fees with no added benefit for the government.
“It behooves me to never lose sight of the fact that there are people who are living on the edge,” said Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Celia Israel, adding that her office maintains a collection rate near 100%.
[…]
Michael Berlanga, a Certified Public Accountant, real estate broker and property tax consultant in San Antonio, said the law firms overstate the complexity of delinquent tax collection. While the firms had a massive technological advantage 40 years ago, when few tax offices had computers, financial software and data storage are now cheap and widely available.
“Linebarger, over decades, has convinced the taxing authorities ‘we’re more efficient than y’all are,’” Berlanga said. “When’s the last time… the performance of Linebarger was audited against the supposition that ‘We would have collected that money anyway?’”
I’m glad Harris County has ditched Linebarger in favor of in-house collections. More often than not, the delinquent filers have run into some financial trouble, which the fees will just exacerbate without doing anything to benefit the county. This is a more humane approach, and the county can still file lawsuits as needed with the delinquents who don’t work with them. New Tax Assessor Annette Ramirez, who is featured later in this story, was the leading champion for this approach in last year’s primary, and she had the experience doing it that way because of her time with Aldine ISD. Go back and listen to my interview with her from the primary if you haven’t already to learn more. I wish more counties would go this way, and I wish the Lege would force a less punitive approach for these collections. I don’t see the latter happening anytime soon, but you can talk to your county’s Tax Assessor about the former.
