The ruling late Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman doesn’t protect providers who perform abortions while the Texas law makes its way through the courts.
Karen Brooks Harper
Karen Brooks Harper reported on the state budget and health and human services from 2020 to 2024. An alumna of the Missouri School of Journalism, 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.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Texas nursing homes turn to state for help with staffing woes as vaccine mandate looms
About 40% of Texas nursing home workers are unvaccinated and could face dismissal or quit their jobs under a federal vaccination requirement for the industry.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
The delta variant is wreaking havoc on most of Texas — but not El Paso. Here’s why.
High vaccination rates, geography and a sense of community in the wake of 2019’s Walmart shootings help keep El Paso’s delta numbers low, experts and locals say.
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Coronavirus in Texas
“Do I or don’t I?” Some Texas hospitals grapple with new mandatory vaccine rule
Stuck between Biden’s and Abbott’s competing vaccine rules for employees, public hospitals consider their next move even as most private systems already require vaccination for employees.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Texas level off just below the pandemic’s winter peak
The numbers have stayed within a few hundred of a grim milestone as the state battles the pandemic’s latest surge.
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Coronavirus in Texas
Verbal and physical attacks on health workers surge as emotions boil during latest COVID-19 wave
Stressed health workers are now confronting volatile visitors and patients. “The verbal abuse, the name-calling, racial slurs … we’ve had broken bones, broken noses,” said one hospital official in Dallas.
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Coronavirus in Texas
Texas’ biggest county saw a sixfold jump in vaccine rates after offering $100 for first doses
Other city and county governments in Texas are offering incentives to unvaccinated people to get a shot. Statewide, vaccination rates have increased modestly.
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Coronavirus in Texas
Desperate Texas doctors turn to antibody treatments to slow down surging COVID-19 hospitalizations
The infusions are more available and accessible to Texans than ever before, and new criteria for who can receive antibody treatment have led more doctors to prescribe it.
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Health care
Federal judge rules for Texas, temporarily restores federal health care funding extension
The agreement was set to expire next year after federal health officials rescinded the Trump administration’s 10-year extension to the 1115 waiver agreement.
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Coronavirus in Texas
Texas hospitals hit by staffing crisis as burnout depletes workforce and COVID-19 surges
The lack of available nurses has driven up salaries and created a heated, competitive job market as thousands of positions remain open throughout Texas.
