Tag Archives: Louisiana

Snow Day 2025

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

That sure was something. Houston woke up to a winter wonderland Tuesday as a fresh blanket of snow fell across the region. The winter storm that also brought sleet should taper off through Tuesday afternoon. How does this snow — … Continue reading →

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Where the Lege might go next on abortion

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

There’s always further to go. Last legislative session was the quietest in decades for abortion. After successfully banning nearly all abortions, Republicans were wary about continuing to push an issue that is widely unpopular with voters. This session, coming off … Continue reading →

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Bird flu update

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Just something to keep an eye on. Federal health officials say that not only has a Louisiana resident contracted the first severe case of bird flu in the U.S., but that the virus likely mutated in the patient. The findings raise concern regarding … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Bird flu update

The legislative attacks on mifepristone are coming

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Get ready. A Louisiana law that reclassified abortion-inducing drugs as controlled substances has made it more difficult for doctors to treat a wide range of gynecological conditions, doctors say. Now, a similar proposal has been filed in Texas. Texas Rep. … Continue reading →

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The legislative attacks on mifepristone are coming

ERCOT will connect to the US grid

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

How about that? The power grid better known as the Texas Interconnection, operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), is famous for being isolated from the other major U.S. grids. But that may soon finally change. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on ERCOT will connect to the US grid

Bringing back black bears

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Cool. It’s difficult to visualize these days, what with the light pollution, overdevelopment and sprawl that have come to define the greater Houston area, but the ground we now stand on was once the domain of 5’ 6” black bears. … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bringing back black bears

Abortion and IVF roundup

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Texas IVF patients are dealing with a lot of uncertainty right now. Heather Burzlaff has four embryos in a freezer in Dallas and she doesn’t know what to do with them. After seven years of medications, egg retrievals and waiting, … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Carbon capture project coming

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Cool. A carbon removal project south of Corpus Christi is one of two sites selected by the Department of Energy to receive up to $1.2 billion to support the development of direct air capture technology. The project, which is being … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Louisiana’s turn to (maybe) fix its racial gerrymander

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

They’re on the clock. The Supreme Court on Monday denied Louisiana’s attempt to block a lower court’s order that it redraw its congressional maps. That court found that the state had likely diluted the power of Black voters in violation … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Louisiana’s turn to (maybe) fix its racial gerrymander

Another look at Texas redistricting litigation after the Alabama SCOTUS ruling

Posted on June 24, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

An explainer from the Trib. The state faces an assortment of legal challenges to its congressional and statehouse maps, including allegations of intentional discrimination, vote dilution and racial gerrymandering. For example: In the Rio Grande Valley, the plaintiffs allege map-drawers … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Will the SCOTUS ruling on Alabama redistricting affect Texas?

Posted on June 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Let’s start here. In a surprise win for voting rights activists, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into the Civil Rights Act and may have paved the way to end Texas’s gerrymandered district. The case, Allen v. Milligan, came … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Will the SCOTUS ruling on Alabama redistricting affect Texas?

There’s nothing like ERIC

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Be careful what you seek to destroy, Republicans. With some Texas Republicans pushing the state to abandon one its best tools for preventing voter fraud — a coalition of states that share voting roll data to weed out duplicate and … Continue reading →

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on There’s nothing like ERIC

There’s a wave of hoax school shooting reports around the country

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Weird and scary. When Emmi Conley first heard in September about a rash of hoax calls reporting active shooters in schools, she dismissed it. Conley, an extremism researcher who studies groups and people behind public displays of violence, said she … Continue reading →

Posted in Crime and Punishment, National news, School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on There’s a wave of hoax school shooting reports around the country

Kemp’s ridley turtles making a comeback

Posted on August 25, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

We deserve a little good news. For the first time in 75 years, hatchlings of the world’s smallest sea turtle species have been discovered on the Chandeleur Islands, a chain of barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico off the … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Kemp’s ridley turtles making a comeback

More on the seafaring abortion clinic

Posted on July 30, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

There were a couple of stories on that proposed abortion clinic on a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, which will operate in federal waters and thus be outside state jurisdiction. The clinic is intended to serve women in the … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on More on the seafaring abortion clinic

Offshore wind farm proposed

Posted on July 25, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Let’s do it. The Gulf of Mexico’s first offshore wind farms will be developed off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, the Biden administration announced Wednesday, and together they’re projected to produce enough energy to power around 3 million homes. … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

UIL still nixes NIL

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Sorry, Texas high school athletes. You’re still not getting paid. Even if state lawmakers change legislation to allow high school athletes in Texas to profit off their name, image and likeness, the University Interscholastic League may not be ready to … Continue reading →

Posted in Other sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on UIL still nixes NIL

A seafaring abortion clinic?

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

It could happen. A California doctor has a plan to launch a floating reproductive health clinic in the Gulf of Mexico, where care will be regulated by federal — not state — law. The plan — currently in the fundraising … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lawsuit filed over Texas trigger law implementation

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

One last fight before the curtain comes down. Texas abortion providers are making a last-ditch effort to temporarily resume procedures by challenging a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban that has not been enforced for nearly a half-century, but that some … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A roundup of border and lawsuit stories

Posted on April 30, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Too much news, not enough time… New federal lawsuit seeks to halt Texas’ border trespassing arrests, give more than $5 million to illegally detained migrants. In a new challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott’s controversial border security crackdown, a lawsuit filed … Continue reading →

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters, National news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Looks like Texas didn’t even have to sue to keep Title 42 from ending

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

A different Trump judge already put it in the bag for them. A federal judge in Louisiana plans to temporarily block the Biden administration from ending Title 42, a pandemic-era health order used by federal immigration officials to expel migrants, … Continue reading →

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Looks like Texas didn’t even have to sue to keep Title 42 from ending

And more people are travelling for abortions

Posted on March 10, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

The number of abortions performed in Texas has declined greatly since the passage of SB8. But the number of Texans seeking abortions has remained the same, which is what abortion advocates have always said would be the case. The number … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

For now, some Texas women can travel to other states for abortions

Posted on October 11, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

For now. The new Texas abortion ban has spurred a flood of women traveling sometimes hundreds of miles to access the procedure in neighboring states. The law, which prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and calls for lets private citizens … Continue reading →

Posted in National news | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Another catastrophe averted, for us

Posted on September 9, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Sooner or later our luck is going to run out. If Hurricane Ida had veered west and hit Galveston, its 15-foot storm surge could have devastated the city and plowed up the Houston Ship Channel, smashing into residential communities and … Continue reading →

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

It’s the quick intensification of the hurricanes for me

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

New things to keep you up at night. It’s a nightmare scenario that keeps forecasters up at night: A tropical cyclone strengthens quickly over a 24-hour period. It happened last year close to home with Hurricane Laura, which evolved from Category 1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

It’s not vaccinated people that are dying

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Numbers don’t lie. It’s the unvaccinated that die. Of the 8,787 people who have died in Texas due to COVID-19 since early February, at least 43 were fully vaccinated, the Texas Department of State Health Services said. That means 99.5% … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Where the outbreaks are the worst

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

We talk a lot about the vaccination rate in Texas, but that number by itself is misleading. Some parts of the state are very well vaccinated. Others, very much not so. That matters, because the Delta variant is just ripping … Continue reading →

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Paxton the puppet

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

This is just pathetic. The long-shot lawsuit from Texas, which sought to invalidate the results in four swing states, was not drafted by Republican attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, but by Donald Trump’s own lawyers, revealed a new report. … Continue reading →

Posted in Election 2020, Legal matters, The making of the President | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Here comes the casino push

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Expect this to get louder and louder, though whether it’s successful or not remains to be seen. When a big political player comes waltzing into Texas spending big money from out of state, it’s usually a good sign that he … Continue reading →

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Two more polls of Texas

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

Trump is up two in this one. Florida and Texas remain tight battlegrounds in the presidential election, according to CBS News Battleground Tracker polls released Sunday. The current margin in both states is 2 percentage points, with Democratic nominee Joe … Continue reading →

Posted in Election 2020, The making of the President | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Two more polls of Texas

The bullet we dodged

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

We can exhale now. Following days of warnings and calls to take Laura seriously, Houston and Harris County awoke to a typical late August day Thursday, virtually unscathed by the category 4 hurricane’s overnight landfall in western Louisiana. The city … Continue reading →

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The bullet we dodged

Hope now, support relief efforts next

Posted on August 27, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

This is so, so bad. And it’s terrifying to realize how much worse it could have been. With winds topping 150 mph, Hurricane Laura is approaching Category 5 status as it barrels toward the Texas-Louisiana border. As of 7 p.m., … Continue reading →

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Here comes Laura

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

Be prepared. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo urged residents to prepare for a hurricane as the track and intensity of Tropical Storm Laura remains uncertain. She said the greatest threat posed by Laura likely would be high winds and a … Continue reading →

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

SCOTUS declines to outlaw abortion for now

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

You may have heard about this from the other day. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law Monday that would have curtailed access to abortions in the state and that was nearly identical to a measure the court … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on SCOTUS declines to outlaw abortion for now