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.
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 youth show up in “amazing” numbers as state tries to vaccinate 1.7 million children now eligible for COVID-19 shot
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.
Posted in
Health care
Texas sets public hearings as it tries to convince federal government to extend health funding for the uninsured
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.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
“If you are vaccinated, go for it”: Large counties roll back some pandemic-era limits as COVID-19 deaths drop statewide
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.
Posted in
Health care
New Texas lawsuit accuses Biden administration of threatening state’s health care funding to force Medicaid expansion
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.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
How a small Texas town doubled its COVID-19 vaccination rate in a month as the state’s rate declined
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.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2021
Medicaid expansion for uninsured Texans had bipartisan support, but lawmakers won’t pass it this session
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.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
With half of eligible Texans still unvaccinated and supply exceeding demand, Texas shifts COVID-19 vaccination strategies
Locals are also brainstorming incentives, sending out emergency cellphone alerts, running clinics in workplace break rooms and hanging sign-up sheets in churches.
Posted in
Politics
U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Ken Paxton’s challenge to California law banning state-funded travel to Texas
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.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Texas recommends resuming Johnson & Johnson vaccine shots after CDC, FDA give green light
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.
