00:00 /01:08 Dave FehlingA street in Houston’s Manchester neighborhood.During last month’s floods, the Manchester neighborhood in east Houston got about an inch of rain in only 15 minutes, leaving homes flooded and vehicles damaged. But Metro CEO Tom Lambert says many residents had transportation challenges even before then. “Some of the folks told us that people were having to walk over a mile to get to transit,” Lambert says. “That’s what the neighborhood told us. It’s a service that they really relied on for people to get to jobs, to education, to school.”To help with those issues, Metro is launching the new Manchester/Lawndale route. It’s expected to go into service by July 1 and it will will operate as a six-month pilot program. Lambert says much of the design for the route came from the neighbors themselves. “One of the challenges along the Manchester route was that there were five different railroad tracks you had to cross,” Lambert explains. “And they recognized having to cross the railroad tracks really does not provide quality service. They came up with a route that bypasses those railroad tracks.” So what happens when the pilot program ends? Metro Chairman Carrin Patman says they’re committed to providing service for the neighborhood, either through this route or something new. “If this particular route is not the best then we’ll look at that,” Patman says. “But in terms of it being a pilot program, the goal is to get folks transit. And we will get them transit, whether it’s by this particular route in the pilot program, or whether we decide to tweak it based on the pilot program.” Patman says she also wants to take a look at other areas of Houston to see where service may be lacking in Metro’s newly-redesigned bus network. Share X To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: Listen read more
To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: X Listen Share 00:00 /04:00 Valerie LawhornStock photo of a teacher writing on the classroom chalkboard. Photo credit: Free ImagesWhen school starts in August, most teachers and kids will fall back in the familiar routine of lesson plans, homework and tests.But one district in Greater Houston could throw out the rule book, reinventing how it does school.The Spring Branch Independent School District has become an official “district of innovation.”Last year, the Texas Legislature created the designation, which allows school districts to skip many state rules for public education.“What if we could think differently about educational opportunities for our children? What might those be?” Superintendent Scott Muri asked at a community meeting in Spring Branch earlier this year.Inside the cafeteria at Spring Woods High, dozens of parents, teachers and community members had their own ideas, like Olivia Koepke, then in fifth grade.“I like where it’s more hands and when the teacher is, like, more speaking to us, ” she said. “Their ideas and personal thoughts.”Her mom, Georgia Koepke chimed in.“I would like more openness, more consideration for beyond 8-3 or whatever,” said Koepke, who’s also a teacher in the district.Spring Branch ISD is going to take this brainstorming and experiment in the classroom.It’s one of 12 Texas school districts that have voted to become a district of innovation. Others include El Paso, San Antonio and Dripping Springs near Austin.Laura IsenseeSpring Branch ISD Superintendent Scott Muri spoke at a community meeting about becoming a “district of innovation.”It means they can opt out of rules like the school start date, which is currently mandated by the state, teacher contracts, teacher certifications and class size, according to DeEtta Culbertson with the Texas Education Agency.But they can’t throw out all the rules.“They still have to follow curriculum. They still have to follow testing. They still have to follow accountability. They still have to follow all applicable federal laws,” Culbertson said.They also have to teach the required subjects like English and math.Think of it like a basketball game. The whole objective is to still throw the ball in the hoop and score points. But maybe players can double dribble or bend other rules.So, the point of school remains the same. But how districts go about it can totally change.Other states like Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee have similar experiments to give traditional public schools more flexibility.“In a nutshell, it allows a school district in the state of Texas to gain a little bit of local control, to really look through the laws that the state of Texas that govern education and to think differently about some of those laws,” Muri said.He said that Spring Branch ISD could waive one law that deals with time: how much time kids have to spend in school in Texas.“Today our kids have to sit in a seat for 180 days in order to learn content and we realized that concept was created about 150 years,” he said. “We’ve advanced a little bit in that length of time but our traditional calendar has not yet advanced.”Muri explained that the time could be shortened for students who learn faster and it could be stretched out for students who struggle.He and the board have pledged that if Spring Branch does opt out of any specific law, they will take an extra step beyond the law’s requirements and require a super majority vote. Currently, the district is focusing on raising awareness about potential changes and gathering more community feedback.But some educators worry that this kind of innovation will open a Pandora’s box.“We just don’t think it’s appropriate to just completely throw out an entire body almost of law in one fell swoop,” said Jennifer Canaday with the Association of Texas Professional Educators.Canaday said that the original laws – like class size and teacher training – were put in place for good reason.She believes this lets districts act like charter schools, which receive tax dollars but have more flexibility on state’s rules.“When the public school district adopts that same model and becomes more of an alternative type of school, then you have a problem,” she said. “Because if parents don’t like it, if parents aren’t happy with some of those laws that the district has exempted itself from, there’s really nowhere else for them to go.” read more
Share PhotoAlto/Michele Constantini/Getty Images/PhotoAltoDoctors and hospitals are increasingly asking patients to pay up front for deductibles, which can cost thousands.Tai Boxley needs a hysterectomy. The 34-year-old single mother has uterine prolapse, a condition that occurs when the muscles and ligaments supporting the uterus weaken, causing severe pain, bleeding and urine leakage.Boxley and her 13-year-old son have health insurance through her job as an administrative assistant in Tulsa, Okla. But the plan has a deductible of $5,000 apiece, and Boxley’s doctor said he won’t do the surgery until she prepays her share of the cost.His office estimates that will be as much as $2,500. Boxley is worried that the hospital may demand its cut as well before the surgery can be performed.“I’m so angry,” Boxley said. “If I need medical care, I should be able to get it without having to afford it up front.”At many doctors offices and hospitals, a routine part of doing business these days is estimating patients’ out-of-pocket payments and trying to collect the money up front. Eyeing retailers’ practice of keeping credit card information on file, “there’s certainly been a movement by health care providers to store some of this information and be able to access it with patients’ permission,” said Mark Rukavina, a principal at Community Health Advisors in Chestnut Hill, Mass., who works with hospitals on addressing financial barriers to care.But there’s a big difference between handing over a credit card to cover a $20 copayment and suddenly being confronted with a $2,000 charge to cover a deductible, an amount that might take months to pay off or exceed a patient’s credit limit.Doctors may refuse to provide needed care before the payment is made, even as patients’ health hangs in the balance.The strategy leaves patients financially vulnerable, too. Once a charge is on a patient’s credit card, they may have trouble contesting a medical bill. Likewise, a service placed on a credit card represents a consumer’s commitment that the charge was justified, so nonpayment is more likely to harm a credit score.Approximately three-quarters of health care and hospital systems ask for payment at the time services are provided, a practice known as “point-of-service collections,” estimated Richard Gundling, a senior vice president at the Healthcare Financial Management Association, an industry group. He couldn’t say how many were doing so for higher priced services or for patients with high-deductible plans, situations that would likely result in out-of-pocket outlays of hundreds or thousands of dollars.“For providers, there’s more risk with these higher deductibles, because the chance of being able to collect it later diminishes,” Gundling said.But the practice leaves many patients resentful.After arriving by ambulance at the emergency department, Susan Bradshaw lay on a gurney in her hospital gown with a surgical bonnet on her head, waiting to be wheeled into surgery to remove her appendix at a hospital near her home in Maitland, Fla. A woman in street clothes approached her. Identifying herself as the surgeon’s office manager, she demanded that Bradshaw make her $1,400 insurance payment before the surgery could proceed.“I said, ‘You have got to be kidding. I don’t even have a comb,’ ” Bradshaw, a 68-year-old exhibit designer, told the woman on that night eight years ago. “I don’t have a credit card on me.”The woman crossed her arms and Bradshaw remembers her saying, “You have to figure it out.”As providers aim to maximize their collections, many contract with companies that help doctors and hospitals secure payments up front, often providing scripts that prompt staff to talk with patients about their payment obligations and discuss payment scenarios as well as software that can estimate what a patient will owe.But as hospitals and doctors push for point-of-service payments to reduce bad debt from patients with increasingly high deductibles, the risk is that patients will delay care and end up in the emergency room, Rukavina said. “Patients are essentially paying for their procedures up front,” he said. “It may not be a significant amount compared to their salary, but they don’t necessarily have it available at the time of service.”The higher their deductible, the less likely patients are to pay what they owe, according to an analysis of 400,000 claims by the Advisory Board, a health care research and consulting firm. While more than two-thirds of patients with a deductible of less than $1,000 were likely to pay at least some portion of what they owe, just 36 percent of those with deductibles of more than $5,000 did so, the analysis found.Fifty-one percent of workers with insurance through their employer had a deductible of at least $1,000 for single coverage this year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of employer health insurance. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)Boxley pays $110 a month for her family plan. She could not afford the premiums on plans with lower deductibles that her employer offered. She plans to talk with the doctor and hospital about setting up a payment plan so she can get the surgery in January.“I’ll make payments,” Boxley said, although she acknowledged what she could pay monthly would be small. If that doesn’t pan out, she figures she’ll have to use student loan money she got for graduate school to cover what she owes.Still, experts say that trying to pin patients down for payment in more acute settings, such as the emergency department, may cross a line.Under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a patient who has a health emergency has to be stabilized and treated before any hospital personnel can discuss payment with them. If it’s not an emergency, however, those discussions can occur before treatment, said Dr. Vidor Friedman, an emergency physician who is the secretary-treasurer of American College of Emergency Physicians’ board of directors.Bradshaw finally got her appendix removed by calling a friend, who read his MasterCard number over the phone. The surgery was uneventful and Bradshaw was home within 24 hours.“It’s a very murky, unclear situation,” Friedman said of Bradshaw’s experience, noting that a case might be made that her condition wasn’t life threatening. “At the very least it’s poor form, and goes against the intent if not the actual wording of” federal law.Michelle Andrews is on Twitter:@mandrews110.Copyright 2016 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit Kaiser Health News. read more
To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: 00:00 /01:00 Flickr/Kumar AppaiahThe Texas House is gearing up for a final debate on its version of the state budget. Members have attached some 400 amendments to the budget bill. Among them are controversial measures Speaker Joe Straus would prefer to keep off the floor.The amendments include one by Spring Republican Valoree Swanson similar to the Senate’s Texas Privacy Act, also known as the bathroom bill. Several others would force the House to take a position on school choice.“The budget is an ideal vehicle for these types of amendments,” says Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “One, because unlike a lot of other legislation, the budget actually has to pass. The second is, the budget encompasses a whole host of activities, and thereby it’s a little more difficult to rule that something isn’t germane if you attach it on funding for a specific task.”Difficult, but not impossible. The speaker has considerable leeway in deciding what’s germane and what isn’t under parliamentary rules. And the sheer number of riders may make the task simpler. “The more amendments that there are, the easier it is to sideline amendments that you don’t like,” Jones says.The budget is scheduled to go to the House floor on Thursday. X Share Listen read more
Share To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: 00:00 /01:02 X Listen Travis BubenikEnergy Secretary Rick Perry speaks to reporters at a VA hospital in Houston, TX.Reactions are coming in to the possibility of Texas Senator John Cornyn leading the FBI. The senior Texas Republican is being considered to replace former director James Comey, who was fired by President Trump last week. Cornyn is said to be among about a dozen people in the running to replace Comey.Echoing other Democrats, Houston Congressman Al Green says he doesn’t want to see any new FBI Director picked unless there is a special counsel appointed to lead the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. But, Green says if a new director is appointed, it shouldn’t be any sitting U.S. senator.“I think it will bring politics into it,” he says. “I think we should leave the politics out of it.”Green wants anyone appointed to head the FBI to have “complete and total approval” of the Senate.Republican Energy Secretary and former Texas Governor Rick Perry weighed in at a Veteran Affairs Department event in Houston. He praised Cornyn’s track record.“He is an incredibly capable, steady, brilliant jurist,” Secretary Perry said, adding that Cornyn being tapped would be a double-edged sword.“I hate to lose a senior United States senator, but what would be Texas’ loss would be America’s gain.” President Trump says the search for a new FBI Director is “moving rapidly.” read more
Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesGeorge Springer’s double and later his two-run homer helped the Houston Astros to build up an early lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series.The Houston Astros‘ victorious World Series run has not only given an emotional boost to a city still recovering from Hurricane Harvey. It has provided an economic lift as well.And for one Houston family, the journey to a championship provided them with a way to financially help their grandparents rebuild after the devastating storm.Brianne Bueno’s family had bought two tickets for Game 3 of the World Series in Houston but didn’t use them to watch their beloved Astros. Instead, the family raffled them off last week on Facebook and raised about $10,000 — money that will be used to help repair the Houston-area home of Bueno’s grandparents.“During Game 6, I got a text from one of the ladies who purchased a ticket. She put, ‘Glad it went well with the raffle. Was bummed to not win the tickets but really hope you guys were able to help out your folks,’” Bueno said. “This is like … a whole week since the raffle and people are still showing their support for us, which is pretty amazing.”Local businesses saw increased sales, with people spending more money at restaurants, bars and hotels.“It’s obvious more people were out on the streets, and more people were out spending money that they wouldn’t have spent otherwise,” said Patrick Jankowski, regional economist for the Greater Houston Partnership. “It’s like a shot in the arm for the city.”He said Houston’s economy had been rebounding after bottoming out in August 2016 due to falling oil prices — and then Harvey hit.That recovery will likely be delayed about three months because of the hurricane.Bueno said after Harvey’s torrential rainfall in late August flooded her grandparents’ home about 44 miles (70 kilometers) south of Houston in the city of Angleton, her father bought the World Series tickets with the purpose of raffling them off to raise money. Her grandparents, both 70 years old, lost most of their possessions and now live in the grandfather’s small law office.Bueno said when her father “saw that the tickets for Game 3 were on sale, there was no hesitation for him to buy those and use them for a better purpose rather than fulfilling a desire he had to go to the World Series himself.”She promoted the $20-a-ticket raffle on social media as well as in her classes at the University of Houston. One of her professors bought five tickets.Bueno had hoped to raise maybe $5,000 but was surprised so many people found out about the raffle and wanted to buy a ticket. “I didn’t expect this reaction honestly,” she said.The tickets were given away on Oct. 26.With the raffle being a success, having the Astros win the World Series “was definitely the icing on the cake,” Bueno said.Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Harvey highlighted the “can-do spirit” of the city’s residents.“It almost seems as though the greater the challenge, Houstonians see the greater the opportunity,” Turner said at a news conference Thursday. “So we meet challenges and then we turn around and take advantage of the opportunity.”Marcus Davis, owner of The Breakfast Klub, said the popular restaurant’s sales slowed down because of Harvey. But business picked up a lot when the Astros started their playoff run. The Breakfast Klub even hosted Dodgers fans who traveled to Texas from Los Angeles.“It’s not that our spirits are dampened. We just wanted to communicate to the world how strong Houston is and the Astros winning was just symbolism for us,” Davis said. “It verified and validated that yes we are strong. We’ve gone from underwater to the mountain top.”___Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at www.twitter.com/juanlozano70 Share read more
Shelby Knowles for The Texas TribuneWilliam McRaven, chancellor of the University of Texas System, at the Intelligence Studies Project at The University of Texas at Austin on March 23, 2017.This summer, after a bruising state legislative session for the University of Texas System and amid a debate over staffing and expenses of UT System offices, two questions loomed over Chancellor Bill McRaven: Will he still be chancellor in 2018? Or will UT regents choose to let his contract expire at the turn of the year?The answer to both questions appears to be “yes.”McRaven is on pace to continue on as chancellor in the new year, but regents have no intention of renewing his annual contract, which promised $1.2 million in base pay. Instead, like most other UT System employees, including university presidents, he’ll work with no written employment contract.System leaders insist that people shouldn’t read too much into that decision; it’s not a sign that they plan to part ways with him any time soon. When he was hired three years ago, McRaven became the first UT System chancellor to have a contract. System spokeswoman Karen Adler said regents offered it “to secure his appointment following his retirement from the U.S. Navy.”“Since then, McRaven has not asked the Board of Regents to extend his contract, nor does he require a contract to remain chancellor,” Adler said in an e-mail. But that does go against the current trend in Texas higher education. The University of North Texas System signed its new chancellor Lesa Roe to a three-year contract in September. That same month, Texas A&M University System regents extended the contract of Chancellor John Sharp to 2023. Chancellor Renu Khator at the University of Houston System and Chancellor Robert Duncan at the Texas Tech University System are also currently under contract.Many high-ranking UT leaders frequently stress that McRaven is well liked and has a good relationship with the board — the common refrain is that McRaven, a retired Navy admiral famous for his role as the architect of the SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, is a “great leader.”But some of the pressure McRaven faced throughout the year remains. Some regents have been persistent in pushing for big changes in how the system is run, arguing that the UT System administration offices have grown too large and expensive. The question was how McRaven, who has called for the system to think big and be ambitious, would respond. In June, he was noncommittal. When asked whether he wanted to stay on as chancellor, he said “I want to see the direction that the board is going.” He struck a similar tone a couple of months later.This past year, he has scrapped plans for a system campus in Houston after pushback over the system’s $215 million purchase of land for the project. And regents approved a change in policy that sent a slightly larger share of the system’s revenue from a massive oil-funded endowment directly to UT-Austin, instead of allowing it to be spent at the system offices overseen by McRaven.Still, McRaven has won buy-in on some major projects. Last week, the board voted 4 to 3 to pursue a bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons. The bid alone is projected to cost $4.5 million.Top system officials have argued that running the lab would be a great opportunity for the system to serve the country and boost research expenditures at UT System schools. But UT-Austin leaders are opposed to the idea, and regents who voted against the bid said they worried that winning the project would bring the system unnecessary risk. Regent Janiece Longoria said before the vote last week that she believed the project was “outside our mission.”Also last week, the UT regents formed a task force to review more closely what the UT System offices’ mission should be. The task force will be chaired by Regent Kevin Eltife, a former state senator who has been one of the loudest voices questioning the growth of the system.A memo detailing the plans for the committee noted that the board had expressed concern over recent budget and staffing growth within system administration. That’s despite cutbacks McRaven has already made. By February 2018, system office staffing will be down to 699 — down 224 full-time positions from 2015.The system has also convened a task force to come up with plans for how to divest itself of its recently purchased Houston land. That group is expected to report back by July. In a joint message to system employees announcing the task forces, McRaven and Board of Regents Chairman Sara Martinez Tucker struck a united tone. They wrote that the work they were undertaking “may occur from time to time as part of the fiduciary and oversight role of the governing board.”“It is important that we continue the dynamic process of aligning and realigning the UT System Administration with institutional plans, while also determining what type of initiatives might lend themselves to by System-led, for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness,” Tucker and McRaven wrote.Disclosure: The University of Texas System, the University of North Texas, Texas A&M University System and the University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors is available here. Share read more
Elaine Thompson/APA damaged Amtrak train car is lowered from an overpass Tuesday at the scene of a train crash onto Interstate 5 a day earlier in DuPont, Wash. Federal investigators say they don’t yet know why the Amtrak train was traveling 50 mph over the speed limit when it derailed. The rail cars will be taken to a nearby military base for closer analysis.National Transportation Safety Board investigators are looking into whether the engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed south of Seattle Monday morning may have been distracted by a second Amtrak employee in the cab of the locomotive.Investigators also are trying to determine why no brakes were activated by the engineer. The emergency brake activated automatically only as part of the train began to go off the rails.Answering those questions may help investigators determine the most important question of all: Why the Amtrak train was speeding along at 80 mph where it derailed — a curve and overpass over Interstate 5 near DuPont, Wash., with a speed limit of just 30 mph.Three people were killed in the derailment, and dozens more were injured.Crews are removing the tangled mess of Amtrak cars, some of which were left dangling over I-5 from the overpass bridge. Cranes are lifting the rail cars onto flatbed trailers, which are then moving them to a secure location on a nearby military base, where National Transportation Safety Board investigators can inspect the rail cars more closely.Regardless of the final determination of the cause of the Cascades derailment, some critics say it could be another sign of what the NTSB has called a “lax safety culture” at Amtrak. Just last month, in announcing the probable cause of an Amtrak crash in 2016 that killed two track workers, NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt blasted the railroad, “Amtrak’s safety culture is failing, and is primed to fail again.”“Glass, people were all coming towards me, flying in the air”Scott Claggett had started Monday a little pumped up to try a new way of getting to a business meeting in Portland. Amtrak Cascades train number 501 was taking a new, faster, more direct route for the first time, and Claggett says he enjoyed moving from car to car on the fast-moving train before settling into a seat to get some work done.“Next thing I know it, the train is kind of leaning to the left,” Claggett says. “I felt like that wasn’t a good feeling, and the second that I discovered it wasn’t a good feeling is when my car completely twisted — and glass, people were all coming towards me, flying in the air.”Another passenger, Patricia Freeman, says she felt the train jolt, “and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s not good — there’s no turbulence on trains.’ ” Freeman says she tried to grab onto anything she could find, then felt a “horrible impact.”“I kinda got flung across the aisle and onto the floor,” she says. “I was just going back and forth across that train car like a pinball in a pinball machine.”Many questions for the train’s crewExperts say such descriptions are evidence of a train going off the rails at a high rate of speed.“Just the energy that’s involved causes significant damage and greater opportunity for injury,” says Bob Chipkevich, who was director of railroad investigations for the NTSB until he retired in 2010. He says the question for investigators now is why the train was going 50 mph over the speed limit when going into the curve before crossing over Interstate 5.“They’ll be questioning the train crew about their knowledge of the particular route, (about) their training and their qualifications,” Chipkevich says. “And they’ll also be looking at the information that was available to the crew (about the route) as they were traveling.”NTSB investigators say the engineer did appear to be familiar with the new route after several trial runs in recent weeks.“Under Amtrak policy, he couldn’t operate the train unless he was qualified and familiar with this territory,” says NTSB lead investigator Ted Turpin.Chipkevich says investigators also want to know exactly what the crew was doing when the train went off the rails.“In railroad accidents over the years, operator distraction or loss of situational awareness have been causes identified in train derailments,” he says.Deadly distractionsSituational awareness is a key term here. National Transportation Safety Board member Bella Dinh-Zarr says there was a second person in the cab of the locomotive with the train’s engineer.“The two people who were in the cab, as far as we know, are the engineer and a conductor who was familiarizing himself with the territory,” Dinh-Zarr said at a news briefing on the crash Tuesday evening.Dinh-Zarr says that may not be improper; it’s part of a conductors job to become familiar with a new route. But she says investigators are looking into whether the presence of the conductor may have distracted the engineer.“Distraction is one of our most-wanted list of priorities at the NTSB,” adding that looking into possible distractions, including an examination of the cell phones of all crew members, is standard protocol in NTSB investigations.The NTSB determined that in a May 2015 derailment in Philadelphia, an Amtrak engineer lost situational awareness “after his attention was diverted to an emergency involving another train.” The crash of train 188 killed eight people and hurt scores of others.One piece of evidence from Monday’s Washington state derailment that might be telling comes from the train’s event data recorder. “It looks like, in our preliminary analysis, that the emergency brake was automatically activated when the accident was occurring, rather than being initiated by the engineer,” Dinh Zarr says.Tracks’ automatic override was still being testedThere are also questions about whether a safety system called positive train control could have prevented this derailment.Positive train control will override the engineer and automatically slow down or stop a train if it’s going too fast, but Amtrak officials acknowledge that even though the technology was installed in the locomotive and along this portion of the route, it was still undergoing testing and wasn’t yet operational.“It’s yet another reminder that that technology will save lives, and it’s important for railroads to implement it as soon as possible,” says Sarah Feinberg, former administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration under President Obama. “This is something that we’ve been talking about for decades — and when I say we’ve been talking about it for decades, that is not an exaggeration. We started talking about positive train control in the 1960s.”In 2008, Congress required all U.S. railroads to install and implement positive train control by 2015, but then gave the railroads more time. Some are required to have it up and running by the end of next year, but most have until 2020.Amtrak now has positive train control activated on only about a quarter of its nationwide passenger rail system, mostly in the Northeast corridor. Safety experts say a handful of other fatal train wrecks in recent years possibly could have been prevented by the technology.Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Share read more
APLaw enforcement officers block off the entrance to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018 in Parkland, Fla. Nikolas Cruz was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder on Thursday, the day after opening fire with a semi-automatic weapon at the school. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)The sheriff’s deputy assigned to guard the Florida high school that was the scene of a mass shooting never entered the building to confront the suspect because he believed the gunfire was coming from outside, his attorney said Monday.Scot Peterson has been called a coward and worse for failing to stop the massacre that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The criticism intensified Monday as President Donald Trump blasted the deputy and other officers who failed to stop the gunman, saying they “weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners.”If he had been there, Trump said, he would have raced into the school during the attack even if he were unarmed.Peterson’s attorney issued his first public statement about the attack, saying it was “patently untrue” that the deputy failed to meet sheriff’s department standards or acted with cowardice at the scene of the Feb. 14 attack. He resigned after Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said he felt sick to his stomach over his deputy’s failure to intervene.“Let there be no mistake, Mr. Peterson wishes that he could have prevented the untimely passing of the 17 victims on that day, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims in their time of need,” attorney Joseph DiRuzzo said in the statement.The sheriff’s account of Peterson’s actions that day was a “gross oversimplification” of the events, the attorney said.Politicians and other officials have been withering in their criticism.Speaking to a group of governors at the White House, Trump said: “You don’t know until you’re tested, but I think I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon and I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too.”Peterson’s statement said he and a security specialist ran to the scene at first word of the shooting, a report that mistakenly said firecrackers were being set off near one building. He then heard gunshots “but believed that those gunshots were originating from outside of the buildings.”Following his training to seek cover and assess the situation in the event of outdoor gunfire, he “took up a tactical position” between two nearby buildings while alerting dispatch that he heard gunfire and initiating a “code red” lockdown of the campus, the statement said.“Radio transmissions indicated that there was a gunshot victim in the area of the football field,” adding to his belief that the shooting was outside.Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s office has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the police response, and the agency confirmed it would begin the probe immediately.On the steps of the state Capitol, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, now a Democratic candidate for governor, led a rally of more than 1,000 people, calling for a ban on assault rifles and criticizing the National Rifle Association for advocating to arm teachers.“We know that is dumb, dumb, dumb!” Levin said to cheers and applause despite the heavy rain.Bused in from around the state, protesters wore orange T-shirts saying #GunReformNow. One held a sign with an image from the movie “The Sixth Sense,” with the words “I SEE DEAD PEOPLE … THANKS TO THE GOP AND NRA.” Another said, “Hey Lawmakers! Take the Pledge. No NRA Money.”Elsewhere, a wounded student who has undergone three surgeries and still has bullet fragments in her body thanked the doctors and first responders for helping her make what she says will be a full recovery.Maddy Wilford, 17, said at a hospital news conference that it’s times “like these when I know that we need to stick together.”Rescuers thought Wilford was dead when they first found her inside the school. She was pale and unresponsive, bleeding heavily from bullet wounds to her chest, abdomen and arm. A fire-rescue lieutenant was under orders to take her to a hospital 30 miles away but made what doctors called a life-saving decision to bring her instead to a hospital less than 10 miles away that had practiced an active shooter drill months earlier.“She’s very lucky,” said Dr. Igor Nichiporenko, medical director of trauma services at Broward Health North.On Sunday, thousands of students, many with their parents, entered the campus for the first time since the shooting, gathering backpacks and other belongings they abandoned as they escaped. The three-story building in which Nikolas Cruz allegedly fired his AR-15 assault weapon before melting into the crowds of fleeing students is now cordoned off by a fence and covered with banners from other schools showing their solidarity. Share read more
Share Abby Livingston/The Texas TribuneU.S. Rep. Gene Green and state Sen. Sylvia Garcia pose for a photo in Humble as they knock on doors for her congressional campaign on Saturday, March 3, 2018.A wave of Texas women candidates won or made it to runoffs in more than 50 primary races statewide amid a surge of interest in running for office among women around the country.Texas women dominated in dozens of congressional, legislative and statewide primary races on Tuesday night in the wake of federal elected officials retiring, the #MeToo movement, mounting frustration over a lack of elected women and President Donald Trump’s win in 2016.While the majority of the women who succeeded in their primaries were Democrats, a number of Republican women also advanced. Among the results Tuesday: Democrat Jennie Lou Leeder won her 11th Congressional District primary outright with 82 percent of the vote; Republican Angela Paxton beat Phillip Huffines in Texas Senate District 8, which was the most expensive primary contest for a state office this year; and Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones was the top vote-getter in the 23rd Congressional District and will face Rick Treviño in a primary runoff to determine who will take on U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes.In addition, two Hispanic women Democrats — former El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar and state Sen. Sylvia Garcia — are poised to be the first two Texas freshmen women elected to a full term in Congress in 22 years.Margo McClinton Stoglin, Texas director for IGNITE, a group focused on getting more women to run for office, said more candidates are letting go of fears about fundraising and not winning their races. She pointed to how Lupe Valdez — now facing Andrew White in a runoff for the Democratic gubernatorial primary — ran for governor even though she could have stayed on as Dallas County sheriff. Stoglin said it’s that kind of “leap of faith” that’s emboldening more women.“Never before have we seen these types of numbers,” Stoglin said. “Sometimes people think history is what they read in books, but sometimes it’s happening right as we speak, and we can all contribute to that history.” The day after her primary win, Garcia said she feels like she’s “coming full circle.” She said the number of women running for office this year reminds her of the surge of women candidates in 1992 in the aftermath of the Anita Hill testimony during Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas. Garcia said that 26 years later, amid sexual harassment scandals and attacks on reproductive rights, women are fed up.“There’s always an issue that heightens the awareness and helps mobilize people,” Garcia said. “I think we’ll see more women elected this time, and when more women run, more women will win. And I think, obviously, with the numbers that are running that’s going to happen this year.”Clare Bresnahan English, executive director for She Should Run, a group encouraging more women to run for public office, said she’s anticipating the Texas primary results will have a ripple effect that will get more women to become candidates.“There’s a part of raising consciousness and getting more engaged in politics that is necessary for each of us to lend our voices,” Bresnahan English said. “A lot of women are realizing it can’t be about one woman’s race or one seat.” Currently, only three of the 38-member Texas congressional delegation are women. Meanwhile in the Texas Legislature, among the 181 seats that make up the House and Senate, just 37 women hold office, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.She also said while it’s exciting to see Texas women get big numbers of support, there’s still a need to get more Republican women to run for office. Cynthia Flores handily won the Republican primary race for Texas House District 52, with 60.8 percent of the vote against her two opponents. Flores, a social services worker, had the backing of both outgoing state Rep. Larry Gonzales, R-Round Rock and Gov. Greg Abbott. She said serving and living in the district for nearly 20 years plus the timing of Gonzales’ open seat inspired her to run. That and she believes she can be a good voice for constituents in the area.“I didn’t go into the race saying, ‘I’m female therefore I’m going to win,’” Flores said. “For me it was about a clean campaign, getting out there and aligning people with what I stood for. The fact that I’m female, that I’m Hispanic, that’s gravy on the top.” read more
Lukas Schulze/Getty ImagesTrains with scrap metal stay in front of the Huettenwerk Krupp Mannesmann GmbH steel mill in Duisburg, Germany. President Trump is expected to order tariffs on aluminum and steel imports as early as Thursday.President Trump is expected to sign a formal order imposing steep tariffs on imported steel and aluminum as early as Thursday. It’s the boldest move to date for the president who campaigned on a protectionist platform sharply at odds with Republicans’ free-trade orthodoxy.“We’re going to build our steel industry back, and we’re going to build our aluminum industry back,” Trump said when he first announced the proposed tariffs on March 1. He also said, “They’ve been horribly treated by other countries, and they have not been properly represented. More importantly, because of that, workers in our country have not been properly represented.”Trump’s plan calls for a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent levy on imported aluminum. Although the president prefers to apply the tariffs on imports from any country, some exceptions could be made.“There are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada, based on national security, and possibly for other countries as well,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday.Canada is the leading supplier of imported steel and aluminum to the U.S., accounting for 16 percent of imported steel and 41 percent of imported aluminum, as CNBC has reported.Domestic steelworkers applauded the president’s move.“Everybody’s just happy,” said Mark Goodfellow, head of the Steelworkers Local 420A in Massena, N.Y., where Alcoa employs about 500 people. “It feels like the American worker is getting a break and finally getting a shot to compete on a level playing field.”U.S. Steel announced plans to restart one of two idle blast furnaces in Granite City, Ill., and call back some 500 workers.Both the steel and aluminum industries have been under heavy pressure from imports. In recommending tariffs or quotas, the Commerce Department noted that employment in the domestic steel industry has shrunk by 35 percent in the last two decades, while the aluminum industry shed nearly 60 percent of its jobs between 2013 and 2016.“Those are bedrock, backbone industries of this country,” said White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. “And the president is going to defend them against what is basically a flood of imports that have pushed out American workers, aluminum smelters. And we can’t afford to lose them.”Authority for the tariffs comes from a seldom-used law from the 1960s that’s designed to protect domestic industries deemed vital to national defense.But Defense Secretary James Mattis questioned that premise, noting that military demand for steel and aluminum can be met with just 3 percent of domestic production. What’s more, unless the U.S. declares war on its neighbor to the north, metal supplies from Canada are not likely to be compromised.Experts say the real challenge for industry is China, which produces almost as much steel in a month as the U.S. does all year. But the U.S. has already imposed anti-dumping measures against Chinese producers, and relatively little Chinese metal flows directly into the U.S. market.“Even though China’s over-capacity is weighing down global prices, it’s not the direct cause of a loss of our aluminum and steel industries,” Navarro said. “The direct cause is simply the foreign steel that crosses our borders. And that is what we must stop.”Critics worry that tariffs will increase costs for businesses and consumers and could spark retaliation from America’s trading partners. Republican lawmakers have been urging the White House to adopt a more surgical approach, including carve-outs for U.S. allies such as Canada.“If these tariffs are implemented with a broad brush, it will have the potential to backfire, cost us jobs at home, force consumers to pay higher prices for goods, and ultimately hurt our economy,” warned Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.The tariffs have also caused friction within the administration. Trump’s top economic adviser and free-trade advocate Gary Cohn announced his resignation on Tuesday.“President Trump is a unique negotiator,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said this week, as Radio Iowa reported. “Sometimes he keeps people off balance, even his own staff.”Many farmers are heavily dependent on export markets and could be hard-hit by a trade war. Asked for his advice, Perdue chuckled softly and said, “Pray.”Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Share read more
Share Via The Texas Tribune Police tape in front of Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas on May 20, 2018.Trustees of Santa Fe Independent School District where 10 people were fatally shot in an attack blamed on a student have voted to install metal detectors at all four campuses.The board of the Santa Fe ISD on Monday approved recommendations from a security and safety committee to accept donated metal detectors.A 17-year-old male student remains in custody and charged with capital murder in the May 18 gunfire at Santa Fe High School. Eight students and two educators were killed. Thirteen others were hurt.Investigators say the suspect wore a trench coach — violating the school dress code. Trustees voted to keep the existing dress code but with stricter enforcement as classes begin Aug. 20.Trustees last week approved spending at least $1.5 million for upgraded campus security. read more
Harris County Public Health (HCPH) confirmed Thursday the first West Nile Virus (WNV) related death in the county in 2018.Dr. Umair Shah, HCPH’s executive director, explained that the West Nile season typically runs from June through October and, in the following audio file, talked about how the county protects its residents from the mosquito population. As of September 20, 303 mosquito samples have tested positive for the virus. The areas where those samples have been detected have been sprayed to reduce the risk of disease.Watch Dr. Mustapha Debboun, director of HCPH’s Mosquito and Vector Control Division, explain how his department is combating mosquitoes:Video Playerhttps://cdn.hpm.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/20174852/IMG_1139.mp400:0000:0000:36Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.Most people who are infected with the West Nile Virus will not develop any symptoms. Listen To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: 00:00 /00:38 Abner Fletcher/Houston Public MediaDr. Mustapha Debboun, director of HCPH’s Mosquito & Vector Control Division (left), and Dr. Umair Shah, HCPH’s executive director (right). X Share read more
Tuesday, June 25, 2019Top afternoon stories:J. Scott Applewhite/APU.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner John Sanders.Customs And Border Protection Acting Commissioner ResignsThe acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday he’s stepping down amid outrage over his agency’s treatment of detained migrant children. John Sanders said in a message to CBP employees that he would resign on July 5.CBP is the agency that apprehends and first detains migrant parents and children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Lawyers who visited CBP facilities last week described squalid conditions: inadequate food, lack of medical care, and children trying to care for toddlers.Six children have died since late last year after being detained by CBP.Sanders pushed Congress to pass $4.5 billion in humanitarian funding. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, Sanders talked about how the deaths “impacted him profoundly.”Harris County Animal Shelter.Dogs are housed at the Harris County Animal Shelter, which is currently severely overcrowded.Critical Situation At Harris County Animal ShelterThe Harris County Animal Shelter is currently housing more than double the animals it has capacity for and is asking for help from residents that could adopt or foster. Shelter officials are concerned about the possibility of having to euthanize a significant number of animals.As of Tuesday, the shelter was housing 510 animals, mostly dogs, while its maximum capacity is supposed to be 200, spokesperson Kerry McKeel told News 88.7. “We don’t have the ability to hold animals indefinitely and space is a concern,” said McKeel. “We are putting animals everywhere we can right now.”McKeel noted that “at the beginning of May, spring time, is when we really started to see an uptick in the number of animals coming in.” She said summer is traditionally the busiest intake season at the shelter.The shelter is asking residents to either adopt animals or temporarily take them in foster care.Courtesy of Domino’sDomino’s autonomous pizza delivery vehicle is made by robotics company Nuro.Houston’s Appeal For Driverless DeliveryLast week, Domino’s announced it will launch its first self-driving pizza delivery in Houston. And earlier this year, Kroger chose the Bayou City as one of its first places for driverless grocery delivery.So what is it about Houston that makes it an attractive city for companies to test out their autonomous vehicles?Chris Newport, senior manager with tech consulting firm Accenture in Houston, thinks there are a few reasons – economic, structural, environmental and cultural.“We have in Houston an electrical grid that’s been designed to meet a high demand for power and to do so in a resilient way,” he said. “And our transportation network has been largely designed for cars.”Other factors he mentioned are Houston’s strong population growth, climate, flat geography and tradition of welcoming innovative services. Share read more