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Karen Brooks Harper reports on health and human services. An alumna of the University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School, Karen arrived in Texas in 1995 to join the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, spent several years in Laredo and Mexico covering immigration and the drug war for Knight-Ridder newspapers, and has covered Texas politics for more than two decades for news organizations including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Morning News and Reuters.
State Rep. Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso, said a special legislative session already planned for later this year should also address gun violence. Full Story
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The possibility that the vaccine won’t work — or that, as some worry, it could even hurt them — is a devastating blow after a year of sacrifice, isolation and waiting for protection against the virus. Full Story
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Abbott's signature means that businesses that require so-called vaccine passports can't get state contracts and could lose state licenses or operating permits. Full Story
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Lawmakers didn’t succeed in curtailing the governor's power during a disaster, but they did pass bills that prohibit so-called vaccine passports and ban the mandatory closure of churches and gun stores. Full Story
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From El Paso to Brownsville, every county along the border is outpacing the state average for the percentage of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Full Story
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Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged “groups of Texans who wish to get vaccinated as a business, family unit, friend group, or more” to schedule an event. Full Story
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick named the bill one of his legislative priorities after Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, stopped playing the anthem before home games. Full Story
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In the days since the federal approval of the shot for their age group, about 6% of Texas children ages 12-15 have gotten a dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Full Story
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its decision to rescind the Trump administration's extension of the so-called 1115 waiver. Full Story
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Officials in Travis and Harris counties — both early adopters of pandemic restrictions — rolled some back Tuesday in an effort to allow vaccinated residents to return to pre-pandemic living. Full Story
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit, filed Friday, argues that the Trump-era extension of the federal 1115 Medicaid funding waiver was lawful and that overturning it was a political move. Full Story
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Mount Pleasant in northeast Texas lags behind the state in its vaccination rate, but the town is boosting its numbers by mobilizing churches, nonprofits and other trusted community leaders to help overcome residents’ fears and doubts. Full Story
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Nothing is truly dead until the session ends. But committee chairs in both chambers have blocked bills from getting hearings, and supporters have dim hopes that Republican leaders will revive it in time. Full Story
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The bill still needs final approval by the House — usually a formality after it's passed in the chamber's first vote — and then will head to the Senate. Full Story
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Locals are also brainstorming incentives, sending out emergency cellphone alerts, running clinics in workplace break rooms and hanging sign-up sheets in churches. Full Story
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California banned state-funded travel to Texas because of a 2017 religious-refusal law for adoptions in the state, which critics called discriminatory against LGBTQ families. Full Story
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The news comes a day after state health officials said that a Texas woman who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been hospitalized with blood clots and whose condition was being investigated by the CDC as potentially connected to the vaccine. No other details were released. Full Story
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The Texas Legislature has declined to pass any broad expansion of state and federal health care coverage for uninsured Texans since the Affordable Care Act of 2010 required states to expand Medicaid — a provision later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Full Story
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Expanding the Medicaid rolls to include more than a million Texans could get a floor vote during House budget hearings on Thursday. Full Story
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Nearly 9,000 Texas nursing home residents have died of COVID-19. This is what the last year of chaos and isolation was like for nursing homes residents and the employees who care for them. Full Story
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