Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

Comptroller Hegar to be next A&M Chancellor

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Glenn Hegar

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar will be the next chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, overseeing 11 universities that educate more than 157,000 students and eight state agencies, including the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

The Board of Regents selected Hegar on Friday to succeed Chancellor John Sharp, who has held the job since 2011 and is slated to retire in June. The vote was unanimous.

Hegar is inheriting the system’s reins at an inflection point as Republican leaders scrutinize what they see as progressive policies and curriculum in higher education. He’ll have to contend with continued accusations that public universities are violating the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion policies, and navigate intensifying threats to academic freedom.

“The board is confident that Glenn Hegar is ready to usher in the next era of excellence at The Texas A&M University System,” Bill Mahomes, chair of the board of regents, wrote in a statement after the vote. “Hegar grasps the unique breadth and depth of the System’s impact on every corner of Texas through its eight state agencies and 11 universities. We, as members of the Board of Regents, are eager to see what he will accomplish.”

In a statement of his own, Hegar thanked the regents for their confidence.

“Texas A&M will remain focused on our core values, increasing and improving student experiences, and expanding economic opportunities and services across our system and our state,” he said,.”Gig ’em!”

The board’s selection of Hegar as sole finalist triggers a 21-day mandatory waiting period before a final appointment can be made.

Hegar has been more or less competent as Comptroller, which is about the nicest thing I can say about any current statewide official. His main task at the new gig will be trying to keep it from getting completely hamstrung by anti-DEI insanity. Good luck with that.

Among other things, this means that there will be the need for a new Comptroller. Greg Abbott will get to pick someone, who will then be up for election next year. The wannabes are already liming up.

Texas Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick and former GOP state Sen. Don Huffines announced Friday they are running for comptroller, minutes after the office’s current occupant, Glenn Hegar, was named chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.

Hegar’s impending departure from the comptroller’s seat creates a rare opening for one of Texas’ coveted statewide offices, most of which have remained occupied for the last decade.

[…]

Huffines, a businessman and GOP donor who challenged Abbott unsuccessfully in the 2022 gubernatorial primary, pledged to spend at least $10 million on his comptroller bid. If elected, he said, “I will DOGE Texas by exposing waste, fraud, and abuse in government to increase efficiency and put every penny we save into property tax relief.”

Craddick, a Republican, has served on the oil-and-gas-regulating Texas Railroad Commission since 2012. She easily cruised to reelection last year, winning another six-year term through the end of 2030. She will not have to give up her seat on the commission to run for comptroller.

Craddick, an attorney from Midland, is the daughter of Rep. Tom Craddick, a former House speaker.

“Serving for more than a decade as Railroad Commissioner has uniquely prepared me to help Texas build upon its momentum as the economic engine of the United States,” Christi Craddick said in a statement. She added that during her time on the commission, “we have managed our work with efficiency, transparency, and common sense, reflecting the bedrock principles the Texas economy has been built upon.”

Craddick would be terrible, but she can probably add and subtract, so there’s likely a limit to how terrible she’d be. Huffines would be a Hegseth/RFK/Gabbard-level disaster, with the risk of creating a sinkhole that might take most of the Capitol area with it. Given that he actually ran against Abbott in the 2022 primary, you’d think he’d be aware that he’s not going to be on any short lists. But if he had that level of self-awareness, he wouldn’t be Don Huffines. The Chron has more.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Christi Craddick, Comptroller, Don Huffines, Election 2022, Election 2026, Glenn Hegar, Greg Abbott, John Sharp, Texas, Texas A&M | Comments Off

City to implement hiring freeze

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this.

Mayor John Whitmire

Houston Mayor John Whitmire is planning to implement a hiring freeze in the coming days that will impact all city departments except fire and police, a city spokesperson confirmed.

While an exact timeline has not been decided on, an official announcement from the mayor’s office is expected within a week, the spokesperson said. The mayor’s office said in a statement the freeze is an opportunity to cut expenses and find opportunities to make the city more efficient.

“The mayor believes a hiring freeze is an opportunity to cut expenses, ensuring that our personnel needs are reassessed to benefit the organization and taxpayers,” the statement read. “Houston has many great, hardworking employees, but the efficiency study indicated that there are too many for an organization the size of the city.”

See here for more on that efficiency study. On to the three things:

1. Honestly, I’m surprised there wasn’t already a hiring freeze in place.

2. That’s because as far as cutting costs go, personnel expenditures are by far the biggest part of the city’s operational budget. The way you cut costs is by cutting staff. There’s nothing magical about it.

3. See, for example, the 2010-2011 budget cycle, in which the city was faced with a significant deficit due to the 2008-09 economic downturn. With basically no other options, the city responded by laying off several hundred employees and leaving many then-vacant positions unfilled. We have some options to raise revenue now – we had a perfectly good option to raise the tax rate last year to cover storm damage expenses but didn’t use it – but the Mayor has been insistent on doing all this efficiency stuff first. I’m skeptical of how much it will actually save, but if there’s an underlying political strategy of playing all that out before (reluctantly) turning to the revenue-raising items, I get where that’s coming from. My point is, to whatever extent we’re committed to “efficiency” and cutting costs, all roads lead to reductions in staff. That’s always how this goes.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged Annise Parker, budget, deficit, Houston, Houston City Council, John Whitmire, property taxes, revenue cap | 1 Comment

Shrinking Sugar Land

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

For years, Sugar Land has been a model for how a healthy suburb can develop alongside a booming metropolis in modern America. Situated just 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston, Sugar Land has grown from a small town of a few thousand to a mid-sized city of more than 100,000 people in a matter of decades.

Sugar Land’s growth has continued virtually unabated — until recently.

Since 2019, the city’s population has dropped by nearly 10,000 residents, a loss of more than 8% of its population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And Sugar Land is not alone.

Several of Houston’s largest suburbs, including Pasadena, Pearland and Missouri City, have lost residents since 2019, all while the greater Houston area has exploded around them. Just like in Houston itself, the populations of some of the area’s biggest suburbs have stagnated in recent years as available land dries up, home prices skyrocket and the population ages.

In Sugar Land, city officials are well aware of the demographic shifts and taking steps to address them. The results could indicate whether the biggest cities in the Houston area continue growing through the middle of the 21st century, or whether other suburbs will become the region’s new boomtowns.

“It’s the life cycle of a city, and that’s just where we’re at,” said Devon Rodriguez, the director of redevelopment for Sugar Land.

“How you grow a rapidly growing new city is different than when you’ve hit that peak of your growth, in terms of land acreage, and you just have to do things differently and think about things differently. And so that’s exactly what we’re trying to do,” Rodriguez said.

[…]

Part of suburbia’s appeal to young families is that it historically offers people larger homes for less money, in relative proximity to a large urban center.

For many aspiring homeowners, however, those opportunities may be diminishing as home values rise at increasingly higher rates. Median home values for houses with a mortgage in Houston’s largest incorporated suburbs rose by an average of about 47% between 2010 and 2019. In the four years afterwards, those values jumped again by an additional 45%.

At more than $450,000, Sugar Land’s median home value in 2023 was nearly $100,000 more than any other of the Houston area’s largest incorporated cities.

“When we were developing the last 30 years, we were that place for young families where you could get an entry-level home on an entry-level salary, and that’s just not the case here anymore,” said Ruth Lohmer, the assistant director of redevelopment for Sugar Land.

Unlike burgeoning suburbs with plentiful available land, Sugar Land has developed all but 4% of the property within its city limits. It cannot address the affordability crisis by simply increasing its housing supply — at least not within the bounds of current zoning laws.

A Texas Tribune analysis found that a majority of Texas cities — with the notable exception of Houston — impose strict zoning laws that severely limit where multi-family housing can be built, exacerbating the housing shortage and driving up prices.

Sugar Land, like most Texas cities, makes multi-family zoning available in a fraction of its territory, according to research from the Zoning Atlas. Just 1% of the city’s zoned acreage is permitted for multi-family housing, compared to 69% which is set aside for single-family homes.

With the majority of Sugar Land already built out, city officials are taking what opportunities they can to amend zoning restrictions where possible, near areas that the city has identified as “regional and neighborhood activity centers.” The city also offers rebates to homeowners who make home improvements through its “Great Homes” program, which has doled out nearly $4 million over 250 projects in an effort to keep existing housing stock competitive.

Always love a story that includes the z-word. Houston has its own housing availability and affordability issues despite the lack of zoning, but the issue in Sugar Land is pretty clear. They’re doing something about it, though it’s not clear to me how much effect that will have. There are other factors in play, including the greater availability of affordable space in unincorporated and farther-out areas. I’m sure Sugar Land can recover, but it may just be that given the type of home that is dominant there, there’s a limit to how much population can physically fit inside its borders.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged demography, density, Houston, Sugar Land, Texas, urbanism, zoning | 1 Comment

Measles case count tops 200

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

And still going strong.

The measles outbreak in West Texas has soared to 198 cases, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported Friday. In New Mexico, 30 cases have been reported in Lea County, which borders Gaines County, of as Friday.

Twenty-three people — mostly unvaccinated children — have been hospitalized in West Texas.

A 6-year-old in Texas died last week, and on Wednesday, Lea County health officials reported a suspected measles death in an adult.

The reported number of cases is likely a large undercount because many people aren’t getting tested, said Katherine Wells, director of public health at the health department in Lubbock, Texas.

Even as hospitals in the area offer free testing and vaccination, the growing outbreak shows the challenge health workers face in stopping the spread of one of the most contagious viruses known to humans.

A health food store in Seminole has become a gathering place for families with visibly sick children seeking medical advice. They’re often given cod liver oil, a supplement rich in vitamin A that’s been touted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

While studies have shown that people with a vitamin A deficiency have worse outcomes from measles and its complications, “vitamin A in and of itself does not treat measles,” said Dr. Alexandra Yonts, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

In the U.S., “most of us get enough vitamin A,” Yonts said. “Therefore taking any additional vitamin A will unlikely give you any benefits against complications of measles.”

“It absolutely cannot prevent you from getting measles,” she added.

The majority of the measles cases are centered in Gaines County, where Seminole is, but some have popped up in neighboring counties including Lubbock and Terry counties, the Texas Health Department said.

Yeah, vitamin A. You can see the dollar signs light up in every grifty supplement seller’s eyes on the planet. Like, eat some carrots or spinach or something if you’re worried about vitamin A. Here’s what you need to know about Vitamin A and measles.

“Mentions of cod liver oil and vitamins [are] just distracting people away from what the single message should be, which is to increase the vaccination rate,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

While vitamin A can play a role in preventing severe disease, discussion of vitamins “doesn’t replace the fact that measles is a preventable disease. And really, the way to deal with a measles outbreak is to vaccinate people against measles,” says Dr. Adam Ratner, a member of the infectious disease committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

[…]

When it comes to vitamin A, studies conducted decades ago in low- and middle-income countries found that the vitamin can reduce the risk of severe disease and death in children who are malnourished and have vitamin deficiencies, says Adalja.

There’s also evidence that, even in the absence of a preexisting deficiency, measles seems to deplete the body’s stores of vitamin A. Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend giving two doses of vitamin A to children who have the disease, especially if they are so sick they are hospitalized.

But Ratner stresses that vitamin A does not prevent measles.

A false idea circulating online is that giving children high doses over long periods of time can prevent measles, says Ratner. He says that’s not only wrong but can be quite dangerous.

“Vitamin A can accumulate in the body,” he says. “It can be toxic to the liver. It can have effects that you don’t want for your child,” like liver damage, fatigue, hair loss and headaches. Ratner works as a pediatric infectious disease specialist in New York City. He says that similar misinformation about vitamin A made the rounds during the city’s measles outbreak in 2019.

I wonder sometimes how long it will take us to generally unlearn all of the bullshit and misinformation that various malevolent actors have been force-feeding us. I doubt I’ll live long enough to see it happen.

With regard to that second reported death:

A possible second measles death has been recorded in the U.S. this year after a New Mexico resident tested positive for the virus following their death.

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) said on Thursday the individual was unvaccinated and that the official cause of death is still under investigation.

The first measles death this year was reported in an unvaccinated school-aged child linked to an outbreak in western Texas.

[…]

Health officials suspect there may be a connection between the Texas and New Mexico cases, but a link has not yet been confirmed.

That was a story from Thursday, before the Friday data came out. It may end up the case that this person died of something else, but regardless they had measles at the time of their death.

It’s a wild time to be a doctor in that part of the world.

Dr. Leila Myrick had only read about measles in medical school before a girl with the telltale rash turned up in her West Texas emergency room in late January.

The child, who had no immunity to the highly contagious disease but had an underlying respiratory condition, would become one of the first known cases in Gaines County, the epicenter of the nation’s largest outbreak, in six years. Nearly 160 known people have been infected since, including 22 people who have been hospitalized. And last week, a school-aged child with no underlying conditions died, marking the first measles death in a decade. The outbreak spread across rural counties and is now suspected to have caused an outbreak nearby in New Mexico.

Myrick, a 38-year-old family medicine and obstetrics physician in the tiny town of Seminole, looked back to medical texts to learn more about the disease, once thought to be nearing eradication in the U.S. Now, she’s treated nearly a dozen cases and counting. In just over a month’s time, the rural doctor has become one of the nation’s only doctors with firsthand experience of how infectious, and serious, measles is. And she is an unwitting expert in a disease she never thought she’d treat.

“Now we’re literally seeing when you don’t vaccinate, this is what happens,” Myrick said.

[…]

A fever, cough or a rash can be a variety of different issues. But doctors can’t afford to miss a measles diagnosis, said Dr. James Cutrell, an associate professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas.

Given how contagious measles is, he said, the importance of identifying it early in order to isolate the patient, test them and confirm if it’s measles is crucial to stopping the spread. Another concern is that symptoms develop typically a week or two after exposure. People can spread measles even when they’re not showing symptoms.

Myrick saw this firsthand. In late January, the infected girl arrived in the emergency room with an underlying respiratory condition that put her at increased risk from the potentially deadly virus. After an emergency physician diagnosed her with measles, Myrick went to her medical texts to look up the disease to treat the girl.

She recalled the blotchy, red spots covering the girl’s body from head to toe. The child was placed in isolation, with hospital staff in full gowns and masks. Through the course of the child’s stay, her rash changed to smaller red dots. Myrick thought she would be the only case.

“We took every precaution we could to try to contain it and keep it isolated to just that one patient,” she said. “And it didn’t work. It didn’t work at all.”

At first, the outbreak centered in the region’s Mennonite community, which had been under-vaccinated with entire families infected. Myrick and staff have now seen cases among Latino infants too young to be vaccinated but facing serious illness. Pregnant women, who are at particular risk of miscarriage or premature birth from infection, are also at risk.

She expects more cases in the community. Many families call describing measles symptoms, but they won’t get tested, and they won’t get treatment unless infections worsen.

She has managed to convince some people to get vaxxed. Others are doing the same.

Last Saturday, Zach Holbrooks walked into a mobile measles screening and vaccine clinic he had helped set up.

As the executive director of the South Plains Public Health District, which includes Gaines County, he dropped by to check on how many shots the crew had given out so far that day.

“Has it been busy today?” Holbrooks asked the two staffers in what’s normally a livestock show barn on the outskirts of downtown Seminole. “Not so far. We’ve only given one,” they replied.

Holbrooks works and lives in this town, the county seat, which in the last few weeks became the epicenter of the largest measles outbreak in three decades.

[…]

Holbrooks has been busy since the outbreak started in late January. He’s been setting up mobile testing and vaccination sites; he said this remote part of West Texas has a large immigrant population, many whose immunization records are unknown, so he’s been circulating flyers with measles information in different languages.

“We have a mix of people out here, a large German speaking population, Spanish speaking population,” which he said makes getting residents the right information about disease control even more complicated.

Authorities still don’t know how the measles got to Seminole, but John Belcher, the town’s former mayor, said he understands why it’s spreading beyond the city limits.

Folks who live out here basically have to drive everywhere, he said. They hop in the car or truck and drive miles to get groceries, go to doctor’s appointments, attend church and to get to work.

“I’d say within 200 miles, maybe even farther, if there’s a metal building out there, it came from products manufactured in Gaines County,” Belcher said. “And the building was probably put together by companies from Gaines County.”

[…]

The state’s health officials have said there’s plenty of vaccine for everyone who needs it, and Holbrooks said he doesn’t think it’s a lack of access to the vaccine that’s spreading measles out here.

At last count, 214 people in Gaines County have been vaccinated for measles since the outbreak. Holbrooks believes that number is not higher because some people fear debunked ideas about its safety.

“I just think there’s some vaccine hesitancy, even more so since COVID,” Holbrooks said.

Yeah, can’t imagine why. But for those of us who haven’t been infected by anti-vaxx stupidity and are worried about our own state of immunity, there’s a simple answer.

Houston Methodist patients have been asking Dr. Josh Septimus and his colleagues the same question, several times a day.

How do you know whether you got the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine as a child?

Unfortunately, if you don’t know the answer, it can be tricky to find out, said Septimus, lead primary care doctor at Houston Methodist. Pediatricians keep records of the vaccines they give to children, but they typically save them for only a few years after a patient becomes an adult. Texas is among the states that maintain immunization records, but it doesn’t include records for anyone vaccinated in another state.

So as the state’s largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years continues to grow, Septimus and other doctors are offering simple advice to anyone who is unsure: Just get another shot.

“The records are extraordinarily difficult to come by,” Septimus said. “With all the effort that it would take to find that information, if you’re not sure, it’s easier to just get the vaccine.”

For most people, there’s no harm in getting the MMR vaccine if they can’t remember getting one as a child, or if they’re concerned enough to feel like they need a booster, Septimus said. There are some exceptions, such as people who are pregnant or immunocompromised.

Get the shot, if you have any doubt. Call your doctor or find a public health drive. Don’t become a statistic. The Observer has more.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Centers for Disease Control, cod liver oil, coronavirus, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, Houston, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, Mexico, New Mexico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Vitamin A, Yoakum County | 2 Comments

Rep. Turner’s funeral schedule

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s what we know.

Rep. Sylvester Turner

Funeral services for U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor who died early Wednesday morning, will be held in Houston next week in Acres Homes, the community he called home and always treasured.

Turner will lie in state at the Houston City Hall rotunda for city residents to come pay their respects on Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The former mayor will then head to Austin, where he will lie in state at the Capitol.

His funeral will be held at his church, the Church Without Walls at 5725 Queenston Blvd. in Acres Homes, on Saturday, March 15.

Turner’s team has not yet provided times for the Austin visitation or his funeral.

I had lunch with a couple of friends yesterday and we talked about Rep. Turner and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and how weird and empty it feels not having them around. They had joy in their service, they were strongly connected to their home neighborhoods, they knew everybody, and they showed up to everything. They got stuff done and they made a difference for people. We shall miss them.

The first half of Friday’s CityCast Houston episode was a reminiscence on Rep. Turner – it’s about 12 minutes total once you get past the opening ads. Worth a listen if you want to remember his legacy.

UPDATE: I have been informed that the Queenston address for the Church Without Walls is in Brookhollow, not Acres Homes.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged CD18, Congress, Houston, Mayor, obituaries, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner, Texas | 1 Comment

Waymo robotaxis are now officially available in Austin

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

If that’s the sort of thing you’re into.

Uber will shift into a new gear in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday when its ride-hailing service will begin dispatching self-driving cars to pick up passengers.

The autonomous option is being provided through a partnership that brings together Uber and robotaxi pioneer Waymo, which already sells self-driving vehicle rides through its own app in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Waymo is now trying to expand into more cities by teaming up with Uber — an alliance that was announced last September.

The partnership begins in Austin and will, later this year, expand to offer robotaxi rides in Atlanta.

Waymo’s robotaxis will be hitting the streets of Austin ahead of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s goal of launching a fleet of electric self-driving cars later this year.

Uber’s network of human-driven cars will continue to give rides in Austin, too, but tapping into Waymo’s robotaxis will give it another selling point that could be popular among passengers eager to try out a cutting-edge technology.

[…]

Uber’s longtime rival, Lyft, is also planning to add robotaxis to its network in Atlanta later this year as part of a partnership with May Mobility and hopes to begin deploying self-driving cars in Dallas as next year. Uber also has joined forces with Avride to begin dispatching robotaxis in Dallas next year.

Although there is no way passengers can guarantee that a ride ordered through Uber’s app in Austin will be provided by one of Waymo’s robotaxis, they can increase their chances of getting a self-driven car by going into their settings and turning on the autonomous vehicle preference.

When it sends a Waymo car to pick up a passenger, Uber’s app will send a notification that the ride will be provided by a self-driving car while also offering the option to switch to a human-controlled vehicle instead.

See here and here for some background. One thing to keep in mind is that this service, for now at least, is only available in a small subset of Austin.

With this launch, Waymo vehicles utilized with Uber will be able to travel across 37 square miles in Austin, including the Hyde Park, downtown and Montopolis neighborhoods. As more people adopt the service, Macdonald said Uber will expand on the number of vehicles as well as the geographic coverage zone, eventually building up to hundreds of vehicles servicing both Austin and Atlanta.

After too much futzing around in Google maps, I decided that 37 square miles is roughly the upper left portion of the inner Loop bounded by 610 to the north and west, and US 59 from its two points of intersection on the North Loop and West Loop. Which is to say, a fair amount of turf but still a pretty small fraction of the city of Houston, let alone the greater Houston area. I’m sure the actual 37 square miles in question covers one of the busier parts of Austin. I’m just saying it’s limited.

I’m sure Uber and Waymo are aware of that as well, and they’ll measure very carefully how much demand they get versus how much they expected. I’ll be very interested to see what that looks like as well. Among other things, that will inform next year’s rollouts in Dallas. When will we get that here in Houston? No clue at this time – too bad for us that Cruise crapped out, it seems. No huge loss as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not their target demographic. If that’s you, I suggest you let them know of your interest. Otherwise, they’ll get here when they get here. Just don’t use the Bad Guy’s service, OK? The Statesman, CNBC, and Axios have more.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Alphabet, Atlanta, Austin, Avride, California, Dallas, driverless cars, Google, Lyft, May Mobility, Moove, Phoenix, San Francisco, taxis, Tesla, Texas, Waymo | Comments Off

Considering the CD18 special election question

Posted on March 7, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Press dives right in.

Rep. Sylvester Turner

Shortly after the news broke Wednesday morning of former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s death, speculation began about a special election for his U.S. Congressional seat — a post he’d held for just two months.

Political experts say an election is likely to happen in May and could represent a generational change.

“We’re going to see a group of younger people running and more than likely one of them is going to win,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor.

[…]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will call a special election to fill Turner’s congressional seat but the law doesn’t specify a deadline. Once he does call an election, it has to be held within about two months of the announcement, Rottinghaus said. The seat will remain vacant until the special election is held.

“The law also suggests that it should line up with the next uniform election, so that probably puts it in May,” he said. “This is a seat that has been contested very recently so there are several people who are primed and are likely thinking about running again. I suspect that’ll heat up after the funeral.”

Funeral arrangements had not been announced at press time.

Turner defeated Republican Lana Centonze with 69 percent of the vote in November. Rottinghaus said Gov. Abbott, a Republican, could “play a game” with the timing of the election but he doesn’t think it’s likely.

“I don’t think the governor would do that,” he said. “He’s generally been pretty consistent about calling these elections in a pretty straightforward way. I don’t think there’s going to be any shenanigans. The other thing is this is a very Democratic district. There’s a very low likelihood this would be an opportunity for Republicans to pick up the seat even with unusual voting circumstances.”

When Lee announced that she was running for mayor of Houston, several people announced their candidacies for her congressional seat.

“They ultimately got out of the race once she got back in,” Rottinghaus said, explaining that Lee was defeated in a mayoral runoff by John Whitmire in 2023 and returned to Congress before her death. “There are candidates who have toyed with the idea of running for the seat and have even gone so far as to formally announce and raise money for it. There is a cadre of people in that position.”

Former Houston City Councilwoman and Senate hopeful Amanda Edwards and City Controller Chris Hollins may be among those possible candidates, Rottinghaus said.

I discussed the timing question yesterday, so let’s leave it at that and hope that May is indeed when the special election occurs. Since it came up in the comments on that post, let me emphasize that this will be an open field special election. The CD18 Democratic precinct chairs will have no role other than endorsing their preferred candidates as they see fit. Our role last year was to replace the already-nominated-in-the-primary Rep. Jackson Lee following her death. There’s no nominee to replace, we’re in a completely different part of the calendar, it’s a straight up special election.

There had been only two announced candidacies for CD18 at the time that Rep. Jackson Lee got back in following her runoff loss in the 2023 Mayoral race, Amanda Edwards and Isaiah Martin, with the former staying in and the latter dropping out. There may have been others who ruminated on it, but none who went as far as filing. There were lots of people who considered running in the precinct chair election, with a smaller number actually doing so. I would not be surprised to see some State Reps have a go at this, as it’s a free shot for them, but City of Houston elected officials would likely trigger the resign-to-run requirement, so I’ll be more surprised to see any of them on the ballot. For all of the obvious reasons, no one has put their name out there just yet.

I’m not going to speculate ahead of candidate announcements, which will begin soon enough assuming that Greg Abbott does his part. I fully anticipate doing interviews for the special election – Lord knows, there are some questions I’d like to hear answers to. As far as the shenanigans that Prof. Rottinghaus mentions, it’s not about when this race might be more amenable for a Republican candidate – there’s no chance of that – it’s about keeping the Dems a member short while the Republicans in Congress work to pass the monstrous tax cuts plus Medicaid cuts plan. We’ll know soon enough if Abbott is playing around or not.

Posted in Election 2025 | Tagged Amanda Edwards, CD18, Chris Hollins, Congress, Election 2024, Election 2025, Greg Abbott, Isaiah Martin, Sheila Jackson Lee, special election, Sylvester Turner, Texas | 1 Comment

So how are all those schools doing now?

Posted on March 7, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I would like some answers, please.

Overall, there have been 177 principal changes since the takeover began in June 2023. In most cases, the principal separated from the district voluntarily. Following that were transfers, to 27 other principal positions and 36 non-principal positions. In 22 cases, principals were promoted.

[…]

Houston ISD officials said they prioritized principal development, training and support as part of the goal to provide an excellent education for all students.

“Principal transitions can occur for many reasons, sometimes personal, sometimes the result of a promotion, and sometimes a leader might be a strong educator, but is just not a fit for the needs of a specific school community at this moment,” the district said. “In all cases, we try to balance the value of leadership stability with the urgency of improving student outcomes so that all of Houston’s kids have a chance to succeed.”

The district commented that this year’s turnover is 3% and noted a 2023 report from The RAND Corporation indicating that 23% of principals retired or resigned in high-poverty school districts in 2021-22, three-quarters of which were rural districts. The report, examining the pandemic’s effect on turnover, uses survey data from district leaders estimating principal turnover rates pre-pandemic, 2020-21 and 2021-22.

[…]

Principal turnover can create instability, said Penn State University professor Edward Fuller. Teachers are more likely to leave if a new principal does not align with their vision of schooling, and that principal may bring in new rules and a new culture.

“In general, we don’t want principal turnover,” he said. “However, if a principal is really ineffective, then better to get them out of the school and create a little instability. Because if you leave them there, they’re just going to cause more damage over time. So it’s a tricky, tricky call from whoever’s making the decision on whether to keep a principal or move them.”

For a few HISD communities, the principal changes felt abrupt and it was not clear why the change occurred. The principal change at East End’s Lantrip Elementary School sparked protest by the campus and public comment to the Board of Managers.

[…]

Principal turnover is common to school reform efforts, University of Delaware education policy professor Gary Henry said. One of the challenges to turnaround is that it alienates people who have been in the district for a while and have defined how they do their jobs and what is successful. While the level of June departures in HISD was “incredible,” they were not a complete surprise to him.

Bringing in new principals for reform is a good thing with incentives and support, Henry said. But the key is collaboration among educators, including principals, so there’s a positive effect on school climate and professional development. In that scenario the principal and teachers are in the classroom learning together about their approaches to the science of reading and curriculum, he said.

“If managed well, the turnover can be a very good thing. But in part, it depends on the quality of the replacements that are available,” he said. “So when you hire a new principal, if you hire someone who’s less skilled, less well-trained on the approaches for the instruction model that’s going to be used — then it can go the other way.”

Lots of things get better results if they’re managed well. This story is about the number of principals who for one reason or another left their positions at HISD after the takeover. There was a huge wave of them last year, including a lot during the year, and this year there have been far fewer. What I would like to know – and I would hope that HISD would like to know – is how have these schools done since those changes. Specifically, I’d like to know that data for two subgroups: Schools where the principal was fired or otherwise removed by Mike Miles, and schools where the principal was replaced mid-year. I’m sure some will show an improvement, so I’d also like this compared to national data to get some idea of what we might have expected and what we actually got. It would also be good to track this for more than one year, to see if any initial changes reverse themselves, and to see how the performance compares to a multi-year period pre-Miles.

I don’t think any of this is too much to ask for. There’s a perfectly decent chance that the data will be favorable to HISD, but whether it is or it isn’t the TEA should want to know it as well, as they do other takeovers. We as the stakeholders of HISD deserve nothing less.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, HISD, Houston, Mike Miles, schools, Texas Education Agency | Comments Off

The wooly mouse

Posted on March 7, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Intermediate steps.

A Texas company working to bring back the woolly mammoth has made an adorable breakthrough: the woolly mouse.

Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences announced Tuesday that it has engineered mice with mammoth-like traits for living in cold climates. These mice, named Chip and Dale, have wavy, golden coats and could be plumper than the typical mouse.

“The Colossal Woolly Mouse marks a watershed moment in our de-extinction mission,” Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal Biosciences, said in a news release. “We’ve proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create. This success brings us a step closer to our goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth.”

The company is working to resurrect core genes that made the woolly mammoth unique. It’d also like to make them resilient to disease and adaptable to today’s climate.

The woolly mouse wasn’t ever a species. But creating it shows it’s possible to analyze dozens of ancient woolly, Columbian and steppe mammoth genomes and then create observable traits in modern animals, according to the company’s news release.

Scientists at Colossal Biosciences compared the mammoth genomes to those of Asian and African elephants. They found mammoth genes that differed from Asian elephant genes (woolly mammoths and Asian elephants share 99.6 percent of their DNA) and could impact hair and other cold-adaptation traits.

So they modified seven genes in mice, and the resulting animals showed the predicted traits – woolly hair texture, wavy coats, golden hair color and curled whiskers. The scientists are still evaluating the results from altering genes associated with lipid metabolism and fatty acid absorption, but early indications show weight gain.

See here for the most recent Colossal Biosciences update. For no particular reason, I’m going to observe that I recently read Douglas Preston’s latest thriller, called Extinction, set at an ultra-high end Colorado resort that features various de-extincted mammals, including mammoths. Things go sideways, as they tend to do in thrillers, but this one made me more uncomfortable than usual, for reasons that will become apparent as you read. There’s a definite homage to Jurassic Park in there, except that as both the book and real life make clear, this science is basically on the verge of happening, right now. Anyway, if you’d like a night of no sleep as you race to finish reading, you might like Extinction. And you will definitely think about Colossal Biosciences as you read it. Speaking of, their statement is here, and TechCrunch has more.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged Ben Lamm, Beth Shapiro, Colossal Biosciences, DNA, dodos, elephants, extinction, mammoths, Mauritius, pink pigeon, Texas, tigers, wooly mouse | 1 Comment

Texas blog roundup for the week of March 3

Posted on March 7, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is a fan of Congressional town halls as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff looked at January campaign finance reports for Houston-are state legislators.

SocraticGadfly went one better than Court of Criminal Appeals presiding judge David Schenck on real judicial election reform in Texas .

=============================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Greg Tepper worries that the school voucher proposal could really harm Texas high school football.

Olivia Julianna believes in vaccines.

Margarita Velez calls for defending the Constitution by standing up to Trump.

Deceleration notes how Elon Musk is boosting climate denialism globally.

The Eyewall worries that the Muskian rampage will halt or even undo progress on hurricane forecasting.

The Observer reports on local law enforcement agencies getting involved with ICE.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged blog roundup, TPA | Comments Off

RIP, Rep. Sylvester Turner

Posted on March 6, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This came as a total shock yesterday morning.

Rep. Sylvester Turner

U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, state legislator and institution in Houston Democratic politics, died early Wednesday morning. He was 70.

Turner’s death comes two months into his first term representing Texas’ 18th Congressional District, the seat long occupied by his political ally, former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who also died in office last year amid a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Turner said in 2022 that he had secretly been recovering from bone cancer. Last summer, as he was seeking the nomination for Jackson Lee’s seat, Turner said he was cancer-free.

Before joining Congress, Turner served as Houston mayor from 2016 to 2024. He served for nearly 27 years in the Texas House.

Gov. Greg Abbott can call a special election to fill Turner’s congressional seat for the rest of his term. State law does not specify a deadline to call a special election, but if it is calle.

Turner’s death comes at a critical time in Congress. House Republicans have few votes to spare as they look to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda, including extending his 2017 tax cuts. With Turner’s safely Democratic seat vacant, Republicans now control 218 seats to Democrats’ 214 — an extra vote of breathing room in the narrowly divided chamber.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Turner’s successor, confirmed the news at Wednesday’s Houston City Council meeting. Turner was working in Washington, D.C., and was taken to a hospital, where he died, Whitmire said.

“This comes as a shock to everyone,” Whitmire said. “I would ask Houstonians to come together, pray for his family, join us in celebrating this remarkable public servant. Celebrate his life, which we will be doing.”

Whitmire, who has recently clashed with Turner over several political and policy issues, said he and Turner were very close and had “been together in good times and bad times.” The two overlapped in the Texas Legislature — Whitmire in the Senate, Turner in the House — for Turner’s entire legislative career.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said House Democrats were “shocked and saddened” by Turner’s sudden death.

“Though he was newly elected to the Congress, Rep. Turner had a long and distinguished career in public service and spent decades fighting for the people of Houston,” Jeffries said in a statement. He noted that Turner was at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday evening for Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress, calling him a “fighter until the end.”

To highlight his opposition to proposed Medicaid cuts, Turner invited a constituent to the speech, Angela Hernandez, whose daughter has a rare genetic disorder. In a video posted to social media Tuesday evening alongside Hernandez, Turner finished by saying, “Don’t mess with Medicaid.” Jeffries invoked that as Turner’s “final message to his beloved constituents.”

I’m still stunned. With Rep. Jackson Lee, we knew this was coming. With Rep. Turner, we had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be around for the two or three terms he said he intended to serve after winning the precinct chair election last year. He was present, with an invited guest, for the macabre travesty that we once knew as a State of the Union address, last night. And then he was gone. I’m truly saddened by this loss. My deepest condolences to his family and many friends, some of whom are also friends of mine. I had a lot of respect for Rep. Turner, who was a formidable presence in the Legislature for many years before being elected Mayor. I thought he was a successful Mayor, who put all of that same energy he had in Austin to improve the city. He was cut from the same cloth as the late Rep. Jackson Lee, in that he was always there for people and never lost touch with where he came from. He worked hard, he did his best, he cared a great deal, and I’m having a hard time imagining the world without him right now. It’s a big loss.

As for what happens next, the various news stories about Rep. Turner’s death only agreed on one thing, that there will be a special election to succeed him. The Chron said that straight up, and that Greg Abbott calls the election. The Houston Landing said:

Gov. Greg Abbott can call a special election to fill the congressional seat for the remainder of the unexpired term, which runs through 2026. There is no deadline in state law for the election to be called, but it must be held on the first uniform election date 36 days after the special election is ordered.

Hold that thought, because I’m going to disagree with two things in that one paragraph. Note that the Trib story agreed about there being no specific deadline to call the election, but “the election is required to happen within two months of the announcement”, which is more than 36 days and also not correct. Finally, the Press also referenced the “no specific deadline” bit and suggested that Abbott may go full shenanigans, implying the possibility that the special election could be delayed until November. A later Chron story makes a similar point.

Let’s go to the law, shall we? Election Code Chapter 201, subchapter C:

Sec. 201.051. TIME FOR ORDERING ELECTION. (a) If a vacancy in office is to be filled by special election, the election shall be ordered as soon as practicable after the vacancy occurs, subject to Subsection (b).

(b) For a vacancy to be filled by a special election to be held on the date of the general election for state and county officers, the election shall be ordered not later than the 78th day before election day.

We can ignore Subsection (b) for now. Note the use of “shall” in the first item. It’s not that Abbott “can” call a special election, he must, by law. “As soon as practicable after the vacancy occurs” strongly suggests to me that he can’t just sit on his thumbs for a few months for the hell of it but needs to take action sooner rather than later. There is no specific deadline as noted by all, but a plain reading of the text is clear, he should get on with it.

Back to the law:

Sec. 201.052. DATE OF ELECTION. (a) Except as otherwise provided by this code, a special election to fill a vacancy shall be held on the first authorized uniform election date occurring on or after the 46th day after the date the election is ordered.

(b) If a law outside this code authorizes the holding of the election on a date earlier than the 46th day after the date of the order, the election shall be held on the first authorized uniform election date occurring on or after the earliest date that the election could be held under that law.

The next uniform election date is May 3. The one after that is the general November election. Forty-six days before May 3 is March 18, which is twelve days from today. That’s plenty of time for Abbott to call a special election for May 3, with a filing deadline that would be on March 20, or “5 p.m. of the 40th day before election day”, as specified in Sec. 201.054. If we somehow get to March 18 – or really, March 14 or so – without Abbott ordering the election, then we know the fix is in and the 18th will once again go unrepresented until November. Pitchforks and torches would not be out of order if that happens. The full Chron obituary is here, and Houston Public Media and the Houston Defender have more.

Posted in National news | Tagged CD18, Congress, Election 2024, Election 2025, Greg Abbott, John Whitmire, obituaries, Sheila Jackson Lee, special election, Sylvester Turner, Texas | 10 Comments

UST responds to re-accreditation concerns

Posted on March 6, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Noted for the record.

University of St. Thomas administrators announced that they are planning a faculty and staff town hall “to share important updates and discuss our plans” following widespread concerns about the Houston Catholic school’s re-accreditation.

Interim President Fr. Dempsey Rosales-Acosta addressed some of the issues in a Monday afternoon email, which was obtained by the Houston Chronicle. An article published Monday morning had reported on questions of financial stability, leadership turnover, faculty cuts, and the accreditation status of individual programs.

Rosales-Acosta said that “these external narratives … do not fully capture the work we do and the positive impact we strive to make every day.”

“Our focus remains on ensuring the highest standards of academic excellence for our students,” he wrote. “Our leadership team is prepared to advance in our work with faith and a renewed commitment to our University community that we serve in the name of the Lord.”

The university’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, is expected to visit St. Thomas this month to determine its accreditation renewal in December. All of its members go through the once-a-decade quality assurance review. Institutions must be accredited in order to distribute federal financial aid to their students.

St. Thomas is addressing specific concerns, Rosales-Acosta said. The music department and libraries are ensuring that students have access to necessary resources, he said. And the private Catholic university “was determined to be compliant” with the accreditor’s standards on financial resources, he added.

See here for the background. This doesn’t tell us much – it may be that it’s too soon for some things, and too sensitive for others – but it’s what we’ve got. We’ll know more after the accreditor visits and issues whatever statement in advance of its report it chooses to make. I wish all of the nervous students and faculty members all the best.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, Houston, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, Texas Education Agency, University of St Thomas | Comments Off

Uvalde legislator files bill to improve police response to the next Uvalde situations

Posted on March 6, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Rep. Don McLaughlin

State Rep. Don McLaughlin, who was mayor of Uvalde when a gunman tore through the town’s peace and killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school, has filed a bill aimed at addressing some of the failures that plagued the police response to that shooting.

House Bill 33, filed Monday by the freshman lawmaker, would mandate law enforcement agencies across the state to create crisis response policies, a provision that takes aim at the nearly 400 law enforcement officers who waited more than an hour before confronting the shooter who had barricaded himself in a classroom – a decision that went against nationwide active shooter protocols.

“What happened that day was a failure of duty, leadership, and preparedness,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Law enforcement hesitated, communication broke down, and innocent children and teachers were left defenseless. We must do what we can to ensure these mistakes are never repeated. The Uvalde Strong Act is about guaranteeing that when a crisis strikes, there is no confusion and no delay—only immediate, decisive action to save lives.”

The bill would require school districts and law enforcement to meet once a year to plan their response to an active shooter situation. It would also mandate annual multi-agency exercise drills on how to respond to an active shooter. Texas already requires individual officers to undergo training for active shooter incidents but it does not require annual exercise drills for law enforcement agencies. The bill would also provide grants for officers to train on how to respond to an active shooter incident.

McLaughlin’s bill also would require the Department of Public Safety to enter into mutual aid agreements with local law enforcement agencies that would dictate how the agencies would share resources during a critical incident and how to coordinate the response. McLaughlin blasted DPS in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting for not taking control of the shooting incident, in which federal, state and local police deferred to a local school police chief who was without a radio during the incident.

Police officers would be required to take courses on setting up an incident command center during a critical event under the bill.

After the shooting, state officials moved to address school shootings by setting aside funding to provide school police with bullet proof shields that would help protect them against shooters with high-powered assault rifles. Retired state Rep. Tracy King, a Democrat who represented Uvalde and who was succeeded by McLaughlin, also moved to change state law to bar people under 21 from purchasing, renting or leasing semi-automatic rifles like the one used in the shooting. The legislation came at the behest of some of the families of Uvalde victims but it failed to reach the House floor for debate after stiff opposition from gun rights advocates.

McLaughlin, a Republican who succeeded King, does not support raising the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles and his proposed legislation focuses on the police response to active shooters.

The bill would require police and emergency medical services providers who respond to an active shooter event to file a report detailing the event, how many staffers responded, how many deaths occurred and any problems encountered during the response, among other things. The preliminary report would be due no later than 60 days after an incident.

As mayor, McLaughlin was critical of the law enforcement response to the Uvalde shooting and what he saw as obfuscation by police and state officials. The requirement for a preliminary report is aimed at giving the public speedier insight into mass shooting events, something that frustrated officials in Uvalde as well as the families of victims.

As the story notes, this is considered a priority bill so it should have a good chance of at least passing the House; with the Senate, it’s all about the whims and ego of Dan Patrick and what hostages he decides to take when some pet bill of his hasn’t gotten through the lower chamber. I don’t have any particular issues with this bill. If you think the main problem with what happened that awful day in Uvalde was the chaotic and completely ineffectual response from law enforcement, then this bill should do a good job of addressing those issues. If you’re more like me and you think the main problem is that we have too damn many guns in the hands of too damn many people who have no business having guns, well, nothing will change. That’s usually how it goes.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Don McLaughlin, DPS, gun control, guns, police, Texas, The Lege, Tracy King, Uvalde | Comments Off

Here comes the CDC

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good to know we still have one of those.

A measles outbreak in Texas has grown to 159 cases, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is now on the ground in that state to respond. The agency posted on X that it’s partnering with the Texas Department of State Health Services.

“This partnership – known as an Epi-Aid – is a rapid response by CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) to tackle urgent public health issues like disease outbreaks. EIS officers provide local officials onsite support for 1-3 weeks, aiding in quick decision-making to control health threats. The local authority leads the investigation while collaborating with CDC experts,” the post said.

Previously, the CDC had provided lab support and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines to Texas to help the outbreak response.

In an update Tuesday, Texas reported 159 measles cases, including 22 people who are hospitalized. The majority of the cases are in Gaines County, which is home to a large unvaccinated Mennonite population.

See here for the previous update. I’m glad that the increases continue to be incremental, but there’s no sign of slowing down, so we’re still very much on the upswing. As welcome as this response is, given that the outbreak is now a month old, I think we can fairly quibble with the “rapid” designation. As long as what we’re getting is real experts who are allowed to do their thing, I’ll let that slide.

On the other hand, there’s the RFK Jr of it all.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hesitant response to the Texas measles outbreak — hinting that vaccination is important, but never fully embracing it — has left many experts wondering: Does the nation’s top health official support vaccines or not?

Kennedy, the Health and Human Services Secretary, wrote in an editorial published by Fox News on Sunday, that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine “is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease.”

Behind the scenes, however, Kennedy, a vocal, longtime vaccine skeptic, appears to be taking steps to minimizing the importance of vaccination. Under his leadership, two meetings to discuss next steps for vaccines were canceled. And he’s “collecting names of potential new members to put on a committee that recommends which vaccines Americans should get and when, according to people familiar with the matter,” The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

As of Tuesday, 159 measles cases had been confirmed in Texas. Most of the sick people, including a young child who died, hadn’t been vaccinated against the virus.

Kennedy acknowledged in the editorial that measles — one of the most contagious viruses in the world — is especially risky to unvaccinated people. He stopped short of urging the public to get the MMR vaccine.

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” Kennedy wrote.

Some pediatricians and public health experts have balked at the editorial, saying it was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to comfort his anti-vaccine supporters amid backlash after he appeared to downplay the outbreak during a Cabinet meeting at the White House last week.

“While he kind of gives some lip service to the vaccines,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, “the fact that he used phrases like ‘personal’ choice is a wink and a nod to the anti-vaccine movement. They know he’s their man.”

Dr. Molly O’Shea, a Michigan pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the fact that Kennedy didn’t fully back vaccines is “concerning.”

“He certainly did not disparage vaccination in the way he worded it, but he did not come out with a strong statement of support for vaccination,” O’Shea said. “Vaccination is by far the most effective strategy at reducing morbidity and mortality from measles. That was not his go-to message.”

It’s a stark contrast in messaging from the previous Trump administration.

In 2019, when two measles outbreaks in New York threatened to reverse the United States’ status of having eliminated measles, then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar didn’t mince words.

“Measles vaccines are among the most extensively studied medical products we have, their safety has been firmly established over many years,” Azar said in an April 2019 HHS statement.

He went on to say that “measles is not a harmless childhood illness, but a highly contagious, potentially life-threatening disease.”

At the time, Kennedy told members of the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit that he founded, that the MMR vaccine is worse “than the illness it’s pretending to prevent.” He didn’t provide scientific evidence to back up the statement, flummoxing vaccine experts.

Let’s never forget that RFK Jr has blood on his hands when it comes to the measles. It’s hard to imagine a worse person to be in a position of power for a time like this. And to be in a position of having to point out how much more competent the previous Trump administration was in handling a measles outbreak, I mean, just let that asteroid hit us already.

There’s another threat to look out for now:

There’s no antiviral or specific treatment used for measles in the U.S.

In the editorial and in an interview with Fox News Tuesday, Kennedy doubled down on a treatment often reserved for other countries: vitamin A.

“We’re delivering vitamin A,” Kennedy said in reference to how the federal government is helping in the outbreak. “Also cod liver oil, which has high, high concentrations of vitamin A,” he said.

It’s true that vitamin A is sometimes given to help treat measles in low-income countries where malnutrition is a factor, according to the World Health Organization. Most people in the U.S., however, have normal levels of the vitamin and don’t need any kind of vitamin A supplementation. Too much, experts say, is toxic.

Vitamin A is fat-soluble, meaning it accumulates in the body rather than exiting through urination. That is, the more vitamin A you take, the more it accumulates in organs like the liver.

“You can easily overdose on vitamin A,” Dr. Ronald Cook, chief health officer at both the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock and the city’s Health Authority, said in an interview Friday. “It’s not to be used over the counter for anybody who says, ‘my kid has the sniffles. Maybe it’s measles.’ Don’t do that.”

Anti-vaccine influencers and organizations have rallied around vitamin A as protection against and treatment for measles for years. During outbreaks, anti-vaccine groups have organized drives to fundraise and send vitamin A to affected communities.

Adalja of Johns Hopkins said Kennedy’s references to vitamin A only serve to discourage the MMR vaccine among his followers.

“When RFK Jr. is talking about vitamin A, people are going to say, oh, that’s his code word that we should be doing that, not the MMR vaccine,” Adalja said.

OK, so vitamin A and cod liver oil are the hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin of measles. Good to know. These were the first references I had seen for them, so I learned something new. And on the plus side, even RFK Jr’s tepid words in favor of vaccines have the hardcore anti-vaxxers super mad. So there’s that.

What we have not learned yet is the source of the outbreak.

Texas’ health commissioner told lawmakers Monday they are still trying to determine the origin of a South Plains-Panhandle measles outbreak more than a month after the first patients reported symptoms.

“I cannot link this particular outbreak,” Dr. Jennifer Shuford, who oversees the Texas Department of State Health Services, told the House Committee on Public Health. “We don’t know what the link is.”

During Monday’s hourlong discussion — the first time the Legislature has meaningfully addressed the outbreak in a hearing since the first case was reported in January — Shuford fielded questions about the state’s response, as well as those posed by Republican lawmakers about vaccine risks and whether the cause of the outbreak was due to illegal immigration.

While Gaines County is the center of this outbreak, infections have spread to eight other surrounding counties. Shuford told lawmakers Monday that the number of cases from the outbreak has increased to 158 and that four other measles cases — two in Harris County, one in Rockwall County and one in Travis County — have also been reported but linked to international travel and unrelated to the ongoing outbreak.

There were some deeply stupid things said by a couple of Republican legislators during that hearing, so I’m going to cut the excerpt there and move on. At least those outlier cases appear to be just that and not evidence of a more out of control spread. That’s something to hold onto.

And back to the Mennonites.

Measles had struck this West Texas town, sickening dozens of children, but at the Community Church of Seminole, more than 350 worshippers gathered for a Sunday service. Sitting elbow-to-elbow, they filled the pews, siblings in matching button-down shirts and dresses, little girls’ hair tied neatly into pink bows.

Fathers shushed babbling toddlers as their wives snuck out to change infants’ diapers.

A little girl in this mostly Mennonite congregation was among those who’d fallen ill with the highly contagious respiratory disease, senior pastor Dave Klassen said — but she’s doing fine, and she happily played through her quarantine. He heard that at least two Mennonite schools shut down for a bit to disinfect.

What he hasn’t heard: Any direct outreach from public health officials on what to do as the number of those sickened with measles has grown to 146 and a school-age child has died. And though Klassen is a trusted church and community leader, his congregants haven’t asked about whether they should vaccinate their kids – and he wouldn’t want to weigh in.

“With this measles situation, I can honestly just tell you we haven’t taken any steps as a church,” he said. “We did leave it up to the mothers.”

[…]

At hospitals in Lubbock, 80 miles to the north and on the front lines of the outbreak, babies with measles are struggling to breathe.

Dr. Summer Davies, a Texas Tech Physicians pediatrician, said she has treated about 10 of the outbreak’s patients, most very young or teens. She said children have had to be intubated, including one younger than 6 months old. Others come in with such high fevers or severe sore throats that they refuse to eat or drink to the point of dehydration.

“It’s hard as a pediatrician, knowing that we have a way to prevent this and prevent kids from suffering and even death,” she said. “But I do agree that the herd immunity that we have established in the past isn’t the same now. And I think kids are suffering because of that.”

[…]

Brownfield Mayor Eric Horton is pro-Trump, he said, but also pro-MMR vaccine.

His county was hard-hit by COVID-19, Horton said, with nearly 90 deaths. So when measles cases came to his town of 8,600, Horton feared for his community. He said the local hospital has been busy administering vaccines since the outbreak started.

“Out here on the south plains of Texas, we are conservative people, but we also are not anti-vaxxers,” he said.

Across the region, people echoed this sentiment about routine childhood vaccinations in interviews with the AP and The Texas Tribune. Often, though, they are less supportive of COVID-19 and flu shots.

“It’s frustrating that (Mennonites) don’t vaccinate, and they put other people’s families and children at exposure for it,” said Stephen Spruill, a 36-year-old trucker from Seminole.

But “this is America. People have the right to choose.”

And the rest of us have the right to judge them for it. Which I do. And while Greg Abbott continues to shilly-shally, Judge Hidalgo and Mayor Whitmire are showing leadership. Good on them.

Last word for now:

Mexico has issued a travel warning for Texas, warning citizens traveling here to take precautions against measles amid an outbreak that — as of Friday — has infected nearly 150 Texans and killed one.

The travel advisory, issued Wednesday by Mexico’s Ministry of Health, reports that the risk of contracting measles is moderate for citizens who travel to Texas. Travelers should ensure their vaccinations are up to date before heading to Texas, the advisory says.

The Ministry of Health also alerted Mexican citizens to measles cases reported in Alaska, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Rhode Island.

It’s safer in Houston than in some other parts of the state, that’s all I know.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Centers for Disease Control, cod liver oil, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, Greg Abbott, Houston, hydroxychloroquine, John Whitmire, Lina Hidalgo, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, Mexico, New Mexico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Vitamin A, Yoakum County | 1 Comment

The Texas abortion ban effect on Colorado

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is probably something I should have seen coming.

Texas’ abortion ban didn’t just affect Texans — it squeezed Coloradans’ access to care, delaying procedures and spiking second-trimester abortions, a new JAMA Network Open study suggests.

Why it matters: While much of the focus has been on Texans flooding Colorado clinics, these findings reveal broader ripples that impacted residents of a state where abortion remains legal.

The big picture: The study, led by Colorado State University researchers, underscores how interconnected our health care system is beyond state borders.

By the numbers: The percentage of abortions in Colorado provided to out-of-staters jumped from 13% in 2020 to 30% by 2023, the study found.

Amid the surge in demand, Colorado residents were 83% more likely to undergo second-trimester abortions after Texas’ ban took effect in September 2021.

Peak strain on Colorado’s health care system hit about six months after Texas’ ban kicked in.

What they’re saying: Colorado clinicians say the dramatic increase in patients from Texas created scheduling bottlenecks that delayed care for both out-of-state and local patients.

The initial spike has leveled off, but demand for out-of-state abortion care remains above pre-ban levels.

What they did: CSU researchers analyzed Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment monthly abortion data from January 2018 to June 2024, including information on residency and gestational age.

As noted, the effect seems to have leveled out, and the expanded use of telehealth and abortion pills – for as long as they’re available, anyway – should also ease the burden. I’d like to see a similar study done on New Mexico, I bet there would be the same kind of effect. This is why there will continue to be pressure from the forced birth fanatics to attack access to abortion that the red states can’t control. That kind of thing is truly scary, but there’s no stopping these people. Lone Star Live has more.

Posted in National news | Tagged abortion, Colorado, mifepristone, New Mexico, Texas | Comments Off

What’s going on at the University of St. Thomas?

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

A whole lot of drama, it appears.

The University of St. Thomas’ institutional accreditation is up for renewal as the school grapples with a s hakeup in its administrative ranks and six consecutive years of financial losses.

The evaluation is a test of academic quality and integrity, and a passing grade tells students and donors that colleges are well-resourced and uphold high standards of education. Recent events at the private Catholic university in Houston have proven that the status is not a given.

Among the issues:

In 2022, the university dropped its affiliation with the Texas Education Agency. Graduating students need state certification to teach in Texas public schools, and St. Thomas now works with an outside organization to supervise its student-teacher training so they can get jobs in Texas school districts after graduation.

Business faculty opted last year to delay their program’s accreditation with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an organization that signals credibility and prestige to international students and prospective employers. The university will not say whether it will pursue re-accreditation.

The number of tenure and tenure-track faculty has been nearly cut in half since the last accreditation, leaving fewer professors to teach courses students need for graduation.

Some students say the university publicly offers classes that it doesn’t regularly provide, forcing them to scramble to find relevant courses and credits they need for degrees, sometimes at an additional cost.

St. Thomas officials did not answer questions about each of the issues, but expressed confidence the university is “on track” for re-accreditation and said in a statement it “is dedicated to upholding the highest standards of academic excellence for our students.”

“Under our new leadership, we are ready to move forward with faith, transparency, and a renewed commitment to the community we serve,” they said.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges will conduct an on-site review this month to prepare for a December decision on re-accreditation, which it requires once a decade.

Even schools with poor initial showings can redeem themselves with follow-ups and improvement plans. But if St. Thomas fails at the end of the process, it loses its ability to distribute federal student aid. Without the crucial revenue stream, many colleges shut their doors, said Gerardo Blanco, an associate professor of higher education at Boston College.

“The key word here is ‘continuous improvement.’ It’s not ‘perfection,’” Blanco said. “All institutions will run into issues. The problem is when this becomes a pattern, particularly of something that goes unaddressed.”

There’s a lot more, so read the rest. Loss of accreditation would be a massive event, and seems unlikely despite the current turmoil and concern. But just being in that conversation is troubling. UST is a pretty affordable school and its student population has grown, which is a benefit for them. One hopes they can work this out. A dear friend of our family is graduating from UST this year, and I’d really prefer that her degree be as valuable tomorrow as it is today.

Lawsuit filed over still-blocked federal funds for refugee resettlement

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Let’s get a quick win on this, please.

Catholic Charities Fort Worth is accusing the federal government of unlawfully withholding more than $36 million in refugee resettlement funds, leading to staff layoffs and program cuts across Texas.

The charity, which oversees the Texas Office for Refugees, filed a lawsuit March 3 against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to unfreeze federal grant funding allocated to Catholic Charities Fort Worth’s refugee resettlement program.

Catholic Charities Fort Worth has acted as the replacement agency for the state’s Office of Refugee Resettlement since October 2021. Texas withdrew from the nation’s refugee resettlement program in 2016, effectively leaving nonprofits to administer federal refugee funds.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is one of many submitted by refugee resettlement agencies and religious groups over federal funding changes. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20 pausing the federal refugee program.

As part of the order, the White House sought to freeze all federal funding, including organizations that work with resettling refugees. A federal judge temporarily blocked the effort Jan. 25. The Trump administration rescinded the order Jan. 29 after outcry against the move that would have paused most federal grants and loans.

The lawsuit alleges that while “many entities have received their federal funding in the weeks since the attempted funding freeze,” Catholic Charities Fort Worth “has not been able to draw down any funds — and has not received any indication why its funds remain frozen.”

“These funds, mandated by law for organizations contracted by the federal government to care for these individuals and families, are crucial for providing essential services to those fleeing persecution in their home countries,” according to a joint statement from Catholic Charities CEO Michael Iglio and Jeff Demers, state refugee coordinator of the Texas Office for Refugees.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Catholic Charities Fort Worth officials say they have submitted 14 requests for funding since Jan. 29, totaling more than $36 million. The organization has not received “one dollar of those requests,” lawyers wrote.

“The consequences of this pause on federal funding have been devastating for (Catholic Charities Fort Worth) and the 100,000 individuals and families that it supports,” according to the March 3 filing.

Of the charity’s 29 partner agencies, 24 have had to lay off staff or furlough employees, leading to a 64% drop in staffing capacity in cities like Dallas and Houston. By the end of February 2025, nearly 750 partner agency staff had been laid off or furloughed as a result of the funding freeze, according to the lawsuit.

Over 10,000 individuals served by Catholic Charities Fort Worth agencies have been unable to receive cash assistance, “which has led to evictions from apartments, apartment occupancy dropping, and the potential that apartment complexes will not be able to operate and owners will have to sell and shut down operations,” according to the lawsuit.

See here for some background on the original funding freeze. We have seen in the context of the National Institutes of Health, getting the initial freeze unfrozen is no guarantee that funding will flow again, so that part of this isn’t surprising. That the continued freeze appears to be specific to one charitable organization is at least somewhat surprising, but given the recent harassment of Catholic Charities by the state, perhaps not so surprising. One doesn’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect a connection – these guys don’t do “subtle”. I wish CCFW all the best. The Chron, the Trib, and the Houston Landing have more.

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters | Tagged Catholic Charities, Donald Trump, lawsuit, National Institutes of Health, Office of Refugee Resettlement, refugees, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Texas, Texas Office for Refugees, US Department of Health and Human Services | 1 Comment

If you get the chance to attend a Congressional town hall, do so

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Look at all the fun you can have.

Rep. Keith Self

About two dozen demonstrators greeted 3rd District Congressman Keith Self at a town hall in the Collin College Conference Center in Wylie.

“Do your job!” chanted the crowd carrying signs including “Dump Musk,” Russia is Not Our Ally,” “Bullying Ukraine is UnAmerican,” “Congress Don’t Let Them Steal Your Job Too” and “Trump Wants Money & Power Not Peace.”

Jeremy Sutka, chair of the Collin County Democratic Party, said, “We have waited here for a peaceful protest and let him know that he represents us too.”

Self, R-Texas, began the Saturday, March 1, town hall by talking about the budget resolution that narrowly passed the U.S. House.

He was often interrupted by boos from an overflow audience of more than 300 people, many of whom gave thumbs-down signs as he mentioned cuts made by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Over the next hour, the congressman took 19 questions from a line of constituents that stretched along an entire wall of the conference center.

Many at the microphone began with statements of concern, prompting Self to ask, “is there a question?”

The questions included the future of Medicaid and Social Security, downsizing of USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Donald Trump’s fractious meeting the day before with President Volodymyr Zelensky and the president’s pardon of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

These have been happening around the country, including in places redder than Self’s CD03, which went 56% for Trump last year. Sure, some of the loudest ones are Democrats, but then the loudest miscreants at Democratic townhalls in 2009 and 2010 were Republicans, and look how that next election went. I’m just saying, if you see such an event scheduled in your district, especially if you unfortunately live in a red district, you know what to do.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged CD03, Congress, DOGE, Donald Trump, Election 2024, Elon Musk, Keith Self, Texas | 2 Comments

Remembering Audio Video Plus

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Ah, memories.

Until 2012, Houston was home to Audio Video Plus, the Library of Alexandria of VHS. The empty shell of the store is still there at 1225 Waugh in Montrose, mocking any Gen Xer who passes by and dreams of carefree days renting “Robocop 2” to watch through the scanlines of cathode ray televisions.

However, AVP isn’t gone in the way Fitzgerald’s and Astroworld are gone. It still exists as an archive of 60,000 VHS tapes and a lifetime of video store historical artifacts thanks to Tayvis Dunnahoe, 52, who keeps the library in storage in North Houston. Salvaging the heart of AVP has become his life’s work. Some of it is still for sale through his online store, Video Sanctum (videosanctum.com). The online retail space is his way of continuing to curate the collection and make sure that tapes end up in the hands of people who will cherish them.

“I was blown away the first time I was allowed back into the warehouse,” he said in a phone interview. “It really was like that final scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ almost archeological. There were stacks and stacks not only of tapes still wrapped in their original plastic, but heaps of promotional materials going back decades.”

AVP was unique for two reasons. One was the sheer breadth of the inventory. Owners Lou Berg and Susan Gee bought everything as soon as it came out. There was no attempt to cut stock to meet specific markets. When the store first opened in 1979, VHS was a small side hustle to their main business of selling audio-video equipment to people renting it for conferences. Berg and Gee made a point to stock every tape that studios sold to them directly, a rarity in the industry. Right up until the doors closed, if it was on VHS, AVP stocked it.

The second was the longevity. Dunnahoe describes AVP as the “alpha and omega.” Its success predated the video rental boom of the 1980s, and Dunnahoe believes it was the first video store in Houston. It continued well into the Netflix era, outlasting even Cactus Music’s impressive stint as a video retailer. The entire concept of what a video store could be was completely embodied in AVP.

[…]

When the blog Swamplot announced AVP’s closing, Dunnahoe was devastated. He slowly began buying as much of the inventory as he could. Gee would occasionally re-open for one-off sales events, but for the most part its impeccable library sat dark and unwatched as the world moved onto streaming. Dunnahoe kept in touch with Gee, and finally convinced her to let him buy and/or store the archive.

“It was just inventory at first, but it turned into collecting the deep, deep-rooted history of AVP and how it was connected to Houston’s history and the entire national video business,” said Dunnahoe. “It’s an important part of Houston’s history, especially in Montrose.”

Dunnahoe is currently working on a documentary about AVP, though he stresses that the project is very much on the back burner and will not see the light of day soon. In the meantime, He carefully maintains the archive of VHS, photographs, and promotional material for posterity. Occasionally, he sells at special events, but the soul of AVP is mostly preserved through Video Sanctum’s eBay store and Instagram.

My buddy Matt and I lived a few blocks away from AVP for over three years. We rented many movies there – really, once you discovered AVP, you didn’t need Blockbuster anymore. It kind of amazes me that the building is still there, but it’s also nice that there’s still a visual reminder of it. If you want more than that, take a look at Video Sanctum and see if there’s some piece of swag you need. I’m just glad to know that AVP lives on in some form. If that documentary ever becomes real, I’ll definitely watch it.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston, TV and movies | Tagged Audio Video Plus, Houston, Montrose, movies, Video Sanctum | 2 Comments

January 2025 campaign finance reports – HISD and HCC

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

Harris County offices
City of Houston
Senate and Congress
State officeholders

Right now, as we await the DaSean Jones election do-over appeal and ponder the likelihood of not having another HISD bond referendum anytime soon, the only elections for most of Harris County in 2025 are the HISD and HCC trustee elections. There are other school board races of interest, in Spring Branch, Katy, Pasadena, and Cy-Fair at least, but the ones I’m watching now from a campaign finance perspective are the two that have Houston in their names. We’ll start with HISD, which will feature five seats up for election. Not everyone on the elected Board had an up to date finance report – for the ones who didn’t show a January report I’ve got the most recent one I could find.

Elizabeth Santos – Last report was a blank filed in July 2023. The January 2023 report shows $2,174 on hand.

Savant Moore

Dani Hernandez – Last report filed July 2024, no money raised or spent, $7,872 on hand.

Patricia Allen

Sue Deigaard

Kendall Baker – Last report filed July 2024, no money raised or spent, no cash on hand.

Bridget Wade

Placido Gomez

Myrna Guidry – Last report filed July 2024, no money raised or spent, no cash on hand.

These five had up to date finance reports:


Candidate     Raised       Spent       Loan     On Hand
=======================================================
Moore              0           0          0           0
Allen              0           0          0           0
Deigaard           0       1,778          0       4,644
Wade               0          70      4,000         100
Gomez              0         351          0      15,497

The candidates who are up for election this cycle are Santos, Deigaard, Baker, Wade, and Guidry. I only listed the candidates in the table who had a current report in the system. Not that anyone has been busy raising funds, since who even knows what the pitch would be. If we are going to get some form of power restored to the elected Board in the next year or so, I suppose it makes sense to start with the most recently elected members. I have no idea if that’s the actual plan or if there is a plan and not just something Mike Miles and/or Mike Morath pull from their nether regions the next time someone asks them about it.

I do know that I would like for someone other than Kendall Baker to be on the short list for “elected Board members who can actually vote on Board stuff”, so I hope someone good is planning to run against him. I don’t know but strongly suspect that Sue Deigaard will not run for another term. (I haven’t asked her about this, but I will at some point.) I can’t say I’m a big Bridget Wade fan, but I also can’t say that I’m aware of anything she’s said or done since getting elected that I find objectionable. It’s likely that I will first become aware of some potential candidates when the July finance reports are published.

Now for HCC, whose finance reports can be found here:

Monica Flores Richart – July 2024 – $2,608 on hand
Cynthis Lenton-Gary

Adriana Tamez – January 2023 – $10,980 on hand
Lalou Davies-Yemitan
Sean Cheben
Dave Wilson
Eva Loredo
Pretta VanDible Stallworth

Same deal as above, here are the candidates that had up to date reports in the system:


Candidate     Raised       Spent       Loan     On Hand
=======================================================
D-Yemitan        250         603      1,000       4,733
Cheben             0           0      1,849       2,142
Wilson             0           0          0           0
Lenton-Gary        0           0          0           0
Loredo             0         500      4,500       1,199
Stallworth     1,000           0          0

Flores Richart and Lenton-Gary are up for election this cycle. So is the District 2 trustee, which was vacant as of January as the previous officeholder was Charlene Ward Johnson, who is now the State Rep in HD139. As of January 31, the Board of Trustees page still had no one listed for that seat. They apparently filled it on January 29, and the new Board member is Renee Jefferson Patterson, whose bio says she is a “former candidate for Houston City Council”. I’m glad that was included, because until I read that it hadn’t clicked that she was the third place candidate in the highly contentious District B race from 2019, when she was known as Renee Jefferson Smith. You can follow that saga here if you’d like. I need to sit down for a minute, my head is still spinning.

Anyway. I learned of Jefferson Patterson’s appointment when I read this story about HCC settling a racial discrimination lawsuit from 2020. I don’t remember that suit at the time – to be fair, there was a lot going on then – but I’ll make it a topic for candidate interviews this fall.

As noted, I only listed the totals in the table for people who had current reports in the system. It’s hard to know if the missing reports are due to them not being filed or the system being buggy. I’m glad that HCC finally got around to putting their finance reports online, but their system for doing so could be a lot better. Nobody ever has much money for these races, but it’s still good to know who has what.

That’s it for the finance report rundown. I’ll skip the April Congressional reports but will be back in July with another look around. Let me know what you think.

Posted in Election 2025 | Tagged Adriana Tamez, Bridget Wade, campaign finance reports, Cynthia Bailey, Cynthia Gary, Dani Hernandez, Dave Wilson, District B, Election 2019, Election 2025, Elizabeth Santos, Eva Loredo, HCC, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Houston City Council, Kendall Baker, Lalou Davies-Yemitan, lawsuit, Monica Flores Richart, Myrna Guidry, Patricia Allen, Placido Gomez, Pretta Stallworth, Renee Jefferson Smith, Savant Moore, Sean Cheben, Sue Deigaard | 3 Comments

Jay-Z can sue Buzbee for defamation

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Okay.

A Los Angeles judge said Tuesday that Jay-Z’s defamation lawsuit against Houston attorney Tony Buzbee had enough merit to go to trial, Rolling Stone Magazine reports. However, the rapper’s separate extortion claim against Buzbee may not stand in trial.

Judge Mark H. Epstein said in his preliminary ruling this week the claims that Buzbee’s statements and interactions on social media outside the courtroom could be considered defamatory were enough to proceed to trial, according to Rolling Stone.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, filed a lawsuit anonymously against the Buzbee Law Firm in November 2024, accusing the attorney of threatening to publicize false allegations of sexual assault of a female minor. Carter pushed against the claims and said Buzbee was trying to extort him for money.

Buzbee amended the lawsuit, which was since withdrawn, naming Carter and Sean “Diddy” Combs as the perpetrators of an alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in 2000. The victim was referred to in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe.”

Epstein said Carter had a basis to sue Buzbee after the Houston attorney referred to his client as a “sexual assault survivor” in a social media post from last year, according to Rolling Stone. He reportedly also liked a post on X that speculated Carter was the alleged assaulter.

“This is the hardest question of the case, the ‘actual malice’ question. If you say, ‘I’m not going to name names until I’ve done real investigating,’ and then you name a name, isn’t the implication that you did conduct a real investigation? And if you didn’t, is it okay?” he said, according to reporting from the Rolling Stone.

However, Carter’s extortion claims, Epstein said, likely wouldn’t hold up in court since the two demand letters sent by Buzbee to Carter didn’t make a promise to refrain from going to authorities if Carter agreed to pay money. He said the context was written as a “settlement with a non-disclosure element.”

[…]

Carter had been vying to get the “Jane Doe” lawsuit thrown out after she admitted in an NBC News interview last December to making some mistakes when recounting the night Carter and Combs allegedly raped her. NBC News also noted in its article that the inconsistencies do not necessarily mean the allegations were false.

The New York rapper released the statement after calling the outcome of the thrown-out lawsuit a “victory.”

“The fictional tale they created is laughable, if not for the seriousness of the claims. I would not wish this experience on anyone,” Carter wrote in a statement posted on social media.

See here, here, here, and here for the background. All I know is that the lawsuits were flying back and forth between Buzbee and Jay-Z for a hot minute there, and now Buzbee has backed down and Jay-Z is pressing forward. This is another one of those times when I will want for there to be a well-researched podcast series after all is said and done so someone can explain to me just what the hell happened.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged California, Jay-Z, lawsuit, rape, Sean Combs, sexual harassment, Texas, Tony Buzbee | 1 Comment

Amtrak seeks additional partner for high speed rail line

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Amtrak is seeking an additional business partner as it moves ahead with a proposed high-speed rail route between Dallas and Houston.

The passenger railroad company — which took over as the project’s lead agency in 2023 and secured a $64 million federal grant — posted a request for qualifications for a company to work on the project. Fort Worth and Arlington would be linked to the high-speed rail project through a separate proposal.

Amtrak, which teamed with Texas Central Partners, the company that initiated the project, wants to bring in another partner to manage activities for future high-speed rail development.

The two-step process is commonly used for new, innovative projects, said Dan Lamers, senior program manager for metropolitan transportation planning with the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

“Public agencies typically do not have the internal expertise with these types of projects, particularly in the case of high-speed rail, where nothing like it exists in the U.S. today,” he said. “There are, however, companies that have worked on high-speed rail in other areas that can bring in specialized expertise resulting in a more streamlined project development process.”

The additional rail partner will have much to manage as legal issues, including eminent domain concerns, swirl around proposed rail projects.

[…]

On Feb. 26, Amtrak posted a request for qualifications, part of the procurement process to select a partner that could include prospective companies, joint ventures, contractors and subcontractors. Amtrak would then create a short list of prospective companies from which to choose.

The new partner, Amtrak’s post said, “will provide programmatic support for the development and execution of the Texas High Speed Rail Project.”

The chosen candidate will be responsible for facilitating Amtrak’s delivery of the project and would be a “fully integrated and accountable member” of the team by providing leadership and support to ensure the project is delivered in the “most innovative and cost-efficient manner.”

The filing also lists a broad range of duties for the project partner, including program management, design management, construction management and expertise, quality management, third party and stakeholder coordination, procurement, commercial strategy, field representation and monitoring services. However, the partner would not be responsible for the design or construction of the high-speed route.

The filing also said the high-speed rail partner should be willing to enter into an compensation structure that includes incentives and disincentives. Requests for qualification will be made through Amtrak’s Ariba on Demand website.

“Amtrak is working to confirm the viability of the concept of a dedicated high-speed rail route between Dallas and Houston,” a spokesperson said. “As part of these efforts, we are seeking to identify the interest of potential partners through responses to this request for qualifications process.”

See here and here for the most recent updates. I’ll be honest, I thought the Trump election would be bad news, if not an outright death knell, for Amtrak and Texas Central. It’s not like Trump cares about this, and there’s plenty of Republican opposition to it. Somehow it has escaped the notice of the DOGE degenerates and is moving forward, little by little. Maybe this will get built in my lifetime. Hope I didn’t just jinx it. Newsweek has more.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Amtrak, Andy Byford, Dallas, Donald Trump, Federal Railroad Administration, high speed rail, Houston, Texas, Texas Central High-Speed Railway, Texas High-Speed Rail Authority, Texas Rail Advocates, U.S. High Speed Rail Association, US Department of Transportation | Comments Off

Weekend link dump for March 2

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“Refusing vaccines is withdrawing from the community health bank without depositing anything back into it. A lot of people think that choosing not to vaccinate will only affect their own children, but this is not true.”

“Too many male contestants treat the experiment like a joke, and so it becomes one. I suggest the show take the joke one step further: Love Is Blind should make the men date AI women.”

“Hoopla, a service that provides public libraries around the country with ebooks, announced that it will do more to prevent the spread of low quality AI-generated books after a 404 Media investigation showed that they were common on its platform.”

“It turns out Bikini Bottom is in Frisco, Texas.”

“EPA chief Lee Zeldin has launched an attack on the agency’s $20 billion clean energy loan program.”

“The Trump administration has directed a federal agency to disconnect its electric vehicle charging stations, part of the president’s agenda to roll back progress on EVs and clean energy.”

RIP, Roberta Flack, Grammy-winning singer whose hits include “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song”.

“The OPM memo is just one of many Trump actions generating fear of a new “Lavender Scare”—a purge that could roll back decades of LGBTQ gains and send those who remain in the government back into the closet.”

“The point isn’t to clown on [Kevin] Hassett—the world is full of silly people—but rather to demonstrate how bankrupt the conservative intellectual world has become. Because no system based on any kind of merit would elevate a man like Hassett to the the heights he has reached.”

RIP, Lynne Marie Stewart, actor and comedienne known for It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

The fascinating history of low-flow toilets, which really do work well.

“A story with Bad Bosses in it has no room for other villains. By enthusiastically embracing the role of Bad Bosses, Musk and Vought ensure widespread and growing sympathy for the federal workers who have to put up with their foolishness and assholery.”

“Nearly 40% of the federal contracts that President Donald Trump’s administration claims to have canceled as part of its signature cost-cutting program aren’t expected to save the government any money, the administration’s own data shows.”

Run away! Run away!

“But now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and Donald Trump is back in the White House, many on the right feel they no longer need to hide the naked sexism fueling their movement or put up with the annoyance of women in even token leadership positions.”

RIP, Michelle Trachtenberg, actor best known for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, and Harriet the Spy.

Wishing Diana Taurasi a happy and healthy retirement after her legendary WNBA career.

RIP, Gene Hackman, iconic film actor and two-time Oscar winner who had so many good roles in The French Connection, Unforgiven, Hoosiers, The Conversation, Superman, and more. His wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were also found dead by local law enforcement. At the time that I write this, no foul play is suspected.

“Sabotaging the flu vaccine will kill people.”

“Let’s be clear, the Democrat demand is really simple. It’s that the President commits to following the law. That’s it. It’s not a big deal.”

Clowns. Who keep finding new ways to make us all less safe. Evil, incompetent clowns.

“In the end, the real Epstein scandal occurred long ago, when a wealthy financier preyed on women and girls, was given a 2008 sweetheart deal to avoid federal charges, and whose victims were never afforded the opportunity to face him in court. There is, of course, a chance that Bondi will succeed in shaking loose genuinely new documents. For now, though, the whole saga looks like little more than a distraction from the Trump administration’s ongoing dismantling of the federal government—and a bitter disappointment to the people who believed he’d keep at this one promise.”

“‘On Friday, Trump announced a posthumous pardon for Pete Rose, who died at age 83 in September after he was banned from by the league and the Baseball Hall of Fame after he was accused in 1989 of betting on the Cincinnati Reds during his time as a player and team manager.” His old man rant about how MLB and the Hall of Fame so badly mistreated Rose is possible the most on brand thing Trump has done this year.

“The only addition or rather central point here is that 18F was mostly made up of Silicon Valley types who had or could make much more money in the private sector and were into the idea of making great government portals for the American people. That sounds corny. But that’s the essence of it. The additional part is that this and USDS, which is also basically dead now, were in critical ways what many Americans think Musk either is or should be doing: bringing in top private sector people to staff responsive and flexible teams to make things that actually work. From that quote above it’s very clear they’re not just collateral damage of Musk’s wilding spree but a specific target of it.”

RIP, David Johansen, singer, songwriter, actor, frontman for the New York Dolls, probably best known as retro lounge singer Buster Poindexter.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | 2 Comments

We better not have a disaster this year

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We will not be able to recover from it as things stand right now.

Dawn Buckingham wants you to suffer

After a series of severe hurricanes hit the Texas Gulf Coast and other U.S. coastlines last summer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was nearing its limits. The agency was so strained, said Michael Coen, then its chief of staff, that it had to bring in officials from other federal agencies to help coordinate relief efforts in what would be the third costliest hurricane season on record.

Now, with the next hurricane season just three months away, FEMA and other federal agencies tasked with helping communities prepare and recover from natural disasters are among those being slashed by Texas billionaire Elon Musk at the direction of President Donald Trump.

The cost-cutting moves come as the U.S. is experiencing increasing numbers of large-scale natural disasters, driving fears that the federal disaster system that has helped rebuild the Gulf Coast time and again could be overwhelmed by a major hurricane.

“To diminish FEMA and these other agencies at a time they’re challenged by the increased frequency and severity of storms will leave this administration in jeopardy,” said Cohen, who left FEMA in January. “States are relying on these programs for guidance and approval. I don’t know how that money would get administered if you don’t have the staff.”

Texas has received $18.6 billion in FEMA funding since 2017, more than any other state except Florida. And it is one of the largest recipients of federal block grants that help fund rebuilding efforts after natural disasters, receiving more than $14.6 billion since 2001, according to the Bipartisan Policy Institute.

During his campaign run, Trump attacked FEMA repeatedly as a “disaster,” at one point falsely accusing the Biden administration of redirecting funding for disaster relief to helping migrants. He has said the agency might “go away,” floating the concept of shifting funding to states to manage hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes on their own.

Earlier this month the Trump administration fired more than 200 employees from FEMA, which employs close to 20,000 people. It also axed nearly all 86% of employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Community Planning and Development, which administers the billions of dollars in block grants for disaster relief.

And more cuts are likely coming, after a memo went out to agency heads this week ordering them to begin “large scale reductions in force.”

[…]

News of staff cuts at HUD, which is charged with overseeing the blocks grants, set off concern among local officials in and around Houston. That money is used to do everything from making water and sewage plants more resilient to flooding and high winds to rebuilding homes for those who are uninsured — an increasing problem in low-income neighborhoods as home insurance rates skyrocket.

Houston city officials, who are set to receive $314 million in grants for damage caused by Hurricane Beryl in July and the wind storm that rocked the city in May, are trying to figure out how the new administration’s cuts might alter their plans, said Mary Benton, a spokeswoman for the city.

“At this time it’s too early to determine the impact,” she said.

The Trump administration is also taking aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the hub of a federal storm network that provides crucial weather data and forecasts to local authorities during hurricane season. About 800 probationary employees, who are newer to the agency or have been recently promoted, were laid off on Thursday, with more firings possibly to come, according to CNN and other news outlets.

In Washington, the cuts have already set off a political fight on the future of the federal government in disaster relief.

As Musk seeks to decrease the size and increase the efficiency of federal agencies, Democrats are questioning how they will be able to get funds out quickly in the next natural disaster.

U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Houston said that, given the complexity of managing and overseeing grant funding for disasters, it was hard to imagine how funding for rebuilding from Hurricane Beryl would not be delayed by the staff cuts.

“The Trump administration policy to shoot first and ask questions later hasn’t worked well and it won’t work here,” she said.

So far, the cuts at FEMA and HUD have met little resistance from Republicans, even those in disaster-prone states like Texas.

Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who oversees the disbursement of disaster relief funding to communities across Texas, cheered the cost cutting, saying in a statement it was needed to “identify waste, fraud, and abuse, and to streamline federal regulations that have reached a breaking point where bureaucracy has far surpassed pragmatism, effectiveness and efficiency.”

Earlier this year, HUD filed a complaint against the land commission with the U.S. Department of Justice, claiming the agency under Buckingham’s predecessor, George P. Bush, discriminated against the city’s Black and Hispanic residents by creating an unfair competition for disaster relief funds after 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. Buckingham has since called on federal law enforcement officials to reject the claim.

Republicans don’t care about medical research and cancer treatments, so why should they care about this? Good luck hiring back these workers after the next flood or hurricane or snowpocalyse. It’s just a matter of time.

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged Dawn Buckingham, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, FEMA, Houston, Hurricane Beryl, hurricanes, Lizzie FLetcher, National Weather Service, NOAA, Texas | 6 Comments

It’s been a rough flu season

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Turning our attention to a different infectious disease.

The flu is inflicting more fever-coughing-aching misery across Houston and much of the U.S. than it has in years.

While most people will recover, thousands have already died during the 2024-2025 flu season, federal and state data released Friday show. In our corner of Texas, more than 900 people have died so far from pneumonia and influenza-related causes in the 16-county region that includes Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Chambers and Galveston counties.

A child in Harris County is among those deaths, county health officials told Houston Landing. The child, who is not being identified, also had other health complications at the time they died in January.

“We all know someone who’s had flu this season,” said Dr. Ericka Brown, local health authority with Harris County Public Health. “For most people, it will run its course. You’ll feel terrible for seven to 10 days, maybe 14 days.”

“Unfortunately, though, we can never tell those who it will affect more severely, and we are seeing increased hospitalizations,” Brown said.

The current flu season is also happening amid what experts consider the worrying spread of a type of H5N1 avian influenza virus to new species of animals and a small number of humans.

Although health authorities continue to say the risk from H5N1 to the general public remains low, the virus has shown greater ability to infect and sicken a wider range of mammals, including dairy cattle and cats. This is raising concerns that H5N1 could possibly become a pandemic virus for humans.

Nearly 70 human cases of H5N1 influenza have been reported across the U.S during the past year, with one of the first cases identified last year in Texas. On Friday, Wyoming health officials announced they had identified that state’s first human case of H5N1 influenza in an older woman who remains hospitalized.

There’s more, so read the rest. It’s not too late to get a flu shot if you want one – I get mine every year in September or October, but now is better than never. The flu vaccine has a lower rate of effectiveness than most other vaxes simply because there’s so many strains and the annual shot is a best guess at what will be most prevalent. It’s still going to improve your odds by quite a bit. Your Local Epidemiologist has more.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Centers for Disease Control, flu, Harris County, Houston, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, vaccinations | Comments Off

Evolv sued over false advertising claims for its AI-aided weapons detection system

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Mansfield ISD officials are standing by a new artificial intelligence-powered weapon’s detection system despite the technology’s maker facing a pending federal lawsuit for false advertising.

A lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission accuses Evolv of making false claims about the effectiveness of its AI system and its ability to detect weapons and ignore harmless personal items. Mansfield ISD has used Evolv’s system since the start of the 2024-25 school year.

The Evolv Express Weapons Detection System is a walk-through device that scans for illegal items such as guns, explosives and knives. Mansfield ISD requires all campus visitors to go through the systems, which are located at the main entrances.

The detectors are prone to flagging nonharmful items like binders, laptops, umbrellas and eyeglass cases, and students often must empty their bags for screening before entering school.

[…]

The FTC seeks to bar Evolv from making unsupported claims about its products’ ability to detect weapons using artificial intelligence. The settlement could also give certain school districts the option to cancel their contracts, which generally lock customers into multiyear deals.

Mansfield ISD is aware of the FTC lawsuit, which was filed in November 2024, Fortner said. However, administrators “are pleased with the product’s performance and plan to continue using it.”

“Evolv is just one part of our multifaceted safety and security plan in Mansfield ISD,” Fortner said. “Thus far, the Evolv technology has been effective in our environment for identifying weapons of concern.”

See here for the background. A copy of the lawsuit is embedded in the story. As noted before, as far as I know HISD has not kicked the tires on Evolv, though they are currently rolling out a different weapons detection system to their high schools. I’ll be interested to see how this goes, as the pressure being put on schools to beef up security will surely lead to more districts reaching for technologies like this to help them. I’m also curious to see if this lawsuit will even continue in the current environment – it’s my default assumption at this point that anything started under the Biden administration that’s not nailed to the floor will be thrown out by the Musk wrecking crew. But maybe this is far enough down on the list that they don’t get to it in time.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged artificial intelligence, Evolv, FTC, guns, HISD, lawsuit, Mansfield, Mansfield ISD, McKinney, McKinney ISD, schools, Texas | Comments Off

Time for a measles update

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

One forty-six. And counting.

The number of measles cases associated with an outbreak in western Texas has grown to 146, according to new data released Friday.

Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, with 79 unvaccinated and 62 of unknown status. At least 20 people have been hospitalized so far, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).

Just five cases have occurred in people vaccinated with one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases with 70, followed by 46 cases among children ages 4 and under.

So far just one death has been reported in an unvaccinated school-aged child, according to DSHS. It marks the first measles death in the U.S. in a decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gaines County is the epicenter of the outbreak, with 98 cases confirmed among residents, according to DSHS. State health data shows the number of vaccine exemptions in the county have grown dramatically.

Roughly 7.5% of kindergarteners in the county had parents or guardians who filed for an exemption for at least one vaccine in 2013. Ten years later, that number rose to more than 17.5% — one of the highest in all of Texas, according to state health data.

See here for the previous update, which was just two days ago and had 124 reported cases as of Tuesday. That’s 22 more cases from Tuesday to Friday, and as we know it’s an undercount. We just don’t know by how much yet. But because there are large populations of unvaccinated people, mostly children, there’s a lot of room for growth. In Texas and elsewhere.

You know who we haven’t heard anything from on this so far? Our elected state leaders. Don’t expect that to change.

But neither Gov. Greg Abbott nor lawmakers from the hardest hit areas have addressed the outbreak publicly in press conferences, social media posts or public calls for people to consider getting vaccinated. State and local authorities in West Texas have not yet enacted more significant measures that other places have adopted during outbreaks, like excluding unvaccinated students from school before they are exposed, or enforcing quarantine after exposure.

The response to Texas’ first major public health crisis since COVID is being shaped by the long-term consequences of the pandemic, experts say — stronger vaccine hesitancy, decreased trust in science and authorities, and an unwillingness from politicians to aggressively push public health measures like vaccination and quarantine.

“Everybody is so sensitive to the vaccine topic due to COVID,” said Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett. “We need to be very careful about how we address this topic … Our job is to provide the resources, not to tell people what they need to do.”

If there was ever an appetite for more aggressive government response to a disease outbreak, it’s long gone in Texas, said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth Houston.

“I think there’s less political will now” than before COVID, she said. “Texas is such an independent state. People don’t want to be told what to do, forgetting that what they do can affect others. And measles is an example of that.”

[…]

School districts in Texas are required to exclude unvaccinated students for at least 21 days after they are exposed to measles. Because measles is so contagious and can remain in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the area, large numbers of students could be excluded from school at once, Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson Lara Anton said.

But to proactively exclude unvaccinated students before they are known to be exposed requires the Texas health commissioner to declare a public health emergency, which can be activated when there is a health threat that potentially poses a risk of death or severe illness or harm to the public. Anton said there are no plans to declare an emergency at this time, noting that more than 90% of Texans are vaccinated for measles.

State and local authorities are also recommending that unvaccinated people who have been exposed to measles quarantine at home for 21 days. But that quarantine period is not enforced or tracked, Anton said.

In Ector County, where there have been two confirmed cases, Fawcett said he doesn’t anticipate state or local authorities pursuing widespread shutdowns like during COVID.

“We haven’t really been given guidance of what perhaps even we should do” in case of a county outbreak, he said. “My best guess is to provide resources and information. There’s not going to be a call to quarantine, or any of that, unless an outbreak happens at a particular educational facility.”

In a statement, Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, said Texas was prepared to “deploy all necessary resources to ensure the safety and health of Texans,” noting that DSHS was helping local authorities with epidemiology, immunization and specimen collection, and had activated the State Medical Operations Center to coordinate the response.

House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, said in a statement that he was closely monitoring the situation, and was praying for the family who tragically lost their child.

“At this time, there are no local unmet needs, but we are remaining vigilant and will respond as needed,” he said.

State Rep. Ken King and state Sen. Kevin Sparks, Republicans who represent Gaines County, did not respond to requests for comment about the measles outbreak. Neither they nor Abbott or Burrows have posted publicly about the outbreak.

I’ll give Judge Fawcett a bit of grace, since I’m sure he has people screaming in his face all day right about now. The DSHS spokesperson is just doing her job. All of the elected officials named in this excerpt are cowards, the whole lot of them.

Here’s an AP story on the Mennonite community at the heart of this outbreak.

The outbreak has particularly affected Gaines County and some adjacent areas.

While it’s not immediately clear which Mennonite community has been affected, the Gaines County area includes a community with a distinctive history.

Many other North American Amish and Mennonites trace their roots to immigration directly from Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, said Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

In contrast, the Seminole area includes a community of Old Colony Mennonites, which has a much more circuitous history of migration, Nolt said.

Old Colony Mennonites migrated first to the Russian Empire, then to Canada, then to Mexico, fleeing government pressures to assimilate, according to Nolt. As economic conditions deteriorated in Mexico, some moved to such areas as Gaines County and other communities in Texas and nearby states in the 1980s and 1990s. All along, they have preserved their Low German dialect and other cultural distinctions.

Gaines County is also home to one of the highest rates of school-aged children in Texas who have opted out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% skipping a required dose last school year.

“Historically and theologically, there has not been any religious teaching against immunization in Mennonite circles,” Nolt said via email. “There’s no religious prohibition, no body of religious writing on it at all. That said, more culturally conservative Mennonite (and Amish) groups have tended to be under-immunized or partially-immunized.”

Partly, he said, that’s because they don’t engage as regularly with health care systems as more assimilated groups do. Many traditional Anabaptist groups did accept vaccinations that were promoted in the mid-20th century, such as for tetanus and smallpox, but they have been more skeptical in recent years of newly introduced vaccines, Nolt said.

But Old Colony groups who arrived in the late 20th century also “missed the whole mid-century immunization push, as they weren’t in the U.S. at that time.”

The story notes that the Mennonites came to America after passing through multiple other countries because they had been oppressed for unlike other faiths. That right there is one of the founding stories of America. I’m very sorry this happened to them, and I hope everyone who is now sick or will become sick recovers fully. I also hope they take this opportunity to revisit their history with vaccinations. It’s the only way.

“Once you get this big an epidemic, and you get numbers up in hundreds or more, it’s almost inevitable you’ll see a childhood death, and maybe more,” said [Houston-based infectious disease researcher Dr. Peter] Hotez, the co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “…It’s really sad.”

[…]

The current outbreak is the state’s largest in 30 years and has already spread to neighboring New Mexico. Hotez and other experts don’t believe it will subside anytime soon, either, because measles is highly contagious. Up to nine in 10 people who are not vaccinated will become infected after being around measles, according to the CDC.

“I think these numbers will continue to accelerate for a while,” Hotez said. “So this is going to be a very large, very dangerous measles epidemic.”

[…]

How do you contain an outbreak once it’s begun?

The only efficient way is through a catch-up measles vaccination campaign. If your kids haven’t been vaccinated yet, now is the time to do it, and there’s two reasons. One, it will prevent you from getting infected. But even if you do get exposed to the virus, if you get vaccinated within 72 hours after exposure, it will either mitigate the symptoms or prevent you from getting the infection altogether.

The single most important thing you can do is a public relations campaign, set up as many vaccination clinics as possible, and really explain to parents the urgency of vaccinating. And also, for adults who have not gotten vaccinated.

I read somewhere this week (and then lost the link) that Lubbock had vaccinated over 100 people since the start of the outbreak. That’s good, but obviously there’s a long way to go. If you or someone you know hasn’t had their MMR shots, get them. If you only had one, get boosted. If you were born in the late 50s or early 60s, there’s a good chance the vaxx you got then was an older version that is no longer used because it was less effective. You know what to do. Reform Austin, the San Antonio Report, and Foolish Watcher – you get to scroll past some delightful reactions from true wingnuts who feel betrayed by some recent Trumpery – have more.

UPDATE: Oh, goodie.

As a measles outbreak thrusts Texas into the national spotlight, a San Antonio-area school has reported a case of another highly transmissible disease.

Charter school Legacy Traditional School-Cibolo on Friday confirmed to the Current that one of its first-grade students tested positive for rubella, sometimes referred to as “German measles” or “three-day measles.”

Despite the similar name and symptoms, which include a rash, rubella is different from measles, the highly contagious disease at the center of the Texas outbreak. State health officials have confirmed 146 measles cases as of Friday, and one child died earlier this week in a Lubbock hospital.

Sean Amir, the public relations manager at Vertex Education, Legacy Traditional School’s management company, told the Current that the charter school informed state and federal authorities about the rubella case and is now monitoring the situation.

“The school followed protocols to inform state health services and the Center for Disease Control[CDC], and they’ve been working closely with them to monitor and supply all protocols and safety procedures for students and staff on campus,” Amir added.

However, Texas Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesman Chris Van Deusen said the department isn’t aware of any rubella cases in the San Antonio area.

“No confirmed measles or rubella cases in Guadalupe or Bexar counties at this point,” Van Deusen emailed the Current at 11 a.m. Friday.

Although rubella is highly contagious, spreading primarily through respiratory droplets, it’s not as potentially dangerous as measles. Even so, the ailment can cause severe congenital disabilities such as deafness and miscarriage if contracted by pregnant women.

Yes, rubella is not the same as measles, but it’s still contagious and potentially very harmful. It’s the “R” in the MMR vaccine – mumps is the other “M” – so draw your own conclusions. I hope this young patient heals up fully and quickly.

UPDATE: Oh, boy.

The Houston Health Department on Friday was investigating two possible cases of measles, a development that comes as the massive Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is drawing thousands of visitors into the city for livestock exhibitions, concerts and other events.

“The Rodeo is aware of the measles outbreak in west Texas and is closely monitoring the situation with the Houston Health Department,” the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo said in an emailed statement Friday evening.

“For those that are unvaccinated or immunocompromised, measles, flu and even the common cold are illnesses that need to be considered,” the Rodeo organizers’ statement said. “Those that have health concerns may want to consider whether attending any large event is right for you. We look forward to a safe 2025 Rodeo.”

It’s unclear whether the two people in the city of Houston who are suspected of having measles – a highly contagious and dangerous disease – are children or adults, or if their illnesses are connected to the deadly outbreak in West Texas. A spokesman for the city’s health department would only confirm that two possible measles cases are under investigation and that no other information was being released at this time.

[…]

Meanwhile, other cases were being reported across Texas this week that appear to be unrelated to the West Texas outbreak.

On Friday health officials in Austin announced an infant had tested positive for measles, an exposure that occurred during a family vacation in another country. While the rest of the family was vaccinated, the baby wasn’t. Children typically aren’t vaccinated against measles until they are about a year old. The baby’s illness is the first measles case in Austin since 2019.

“As measles has arrived in our community, I’m calling on everyone to make sure they’re protected against this vaccine-preventable disease,” said Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County Health Authority.

On Wednesday, officials in Rockwall County announced that an adult resident of that area had been diagnosed with measles. That case also was not believed to be connected with the West Texas outbreak, county officials said.

In January, there were two additional measles cases in the city of Houston, also unrelated to the West Texas outbreak. Those two cases, which were linked to international travel, involved two adults who lived in the same household and were not vaccinated against measles.

That’s a lot of cases out there. Once again, we must hope that the Houston ones remain isolated. Did I mention that everyone who isn’t fully vaccinated really needs to do that?

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Catherine Troisi, Centers for Disease Control, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, Greg Abbott, Houston, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Ken King, Kevin Sparks, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, New Mexico, Peter Hotez, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, rubella, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Yoakum County | 1 Comment

Turning office space into coliving space

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Definitely worth considering.

Nationwide, commercial vacancies are becoming increasingly noteworthy as the gulf between residential rental rates and stagnant wages widens. Low-income earners, folks making between $20,000 and $30,000 annually (typically minimum wage employees, students and seniors living on Social Security), have been joining the ranks of the unhoused at an alarming rate due to the scarcity of affordable housing. Armchair economists and the like have been arguing for years that cities should repurpose these untapped resources into an opportunity to create dignified affordable housing that would keep those at risk off the streets and close to public transit options.

Pew Charitable Trust, along with international architectural firm Gensler, recently released their findings from a study on the subject — with Houston being one of two markets studied. The “Flexible Co-Living Housing Feasibility Study” found that converting Houston’s empty office buildings to communities of micro-apartments is, well, feasible!

“In the current climate of high construction costs, interest rates, building expenses, and rising rents, this project looks at the conventional office-to-residential conversion in a different way by leveraging the existing building infrastructure to reduce costs on a per unit basis,” Brooks Howell, principal architect at Gensler, tells CultureMap. “The result is a new housing typology, a co-living concept, that can provide affordable housing to the large and growing number of lower income single-person households in an urban context.”

HUD reported that in 2024 homelessness was at an all-time high of 770,000 persons, up a staggering 18 percent from the prior year. Houston is on the low end of the national average, with a reported 3,270 homeless persons (4/10,000 Houstonians). CoStar data shows that Houston’s central business district contains 88 office buildings of over 50,000 square feet, 19 of which show reported vacancy rates of over 30 percent. As of November 2024, the median rent in Houston for an apartment was $1,297. The proposed rental rate for a furnished micro-apartment in a converted office building in downtown Houston is $700 — all inclusive, with zero move-in costs, since the units are fully furnished.

“The U.S. has a housing shortage of 4-7 million homes, which has driven rents to an all-time high and made it hard to save to buy a home,” Alex Horowitz, a project director for Pew Charitable Trust and a co-author of the study, adds. “Houston has one of the highest office vacancy rates in the U.S., but office layouts often don’t work well for apartment conversions and carry high costs. This study finds that converting offices to dorm-style housing is cost-effective and can enable low rents — about $700 per month to live downtown. That could make a real difference for people struggling with high housing costs while revitalizing downtown.”

Co-living is hardly a new concept. “Single room occupancy” dwellings, or SROs, were extremely common up until about 1950. It’s worth noting that during the height of its popularity, homelessness was rare. The co-living model allows for a private furnished space, while bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry are shared facilities — much like a college dormitory. With 40 percent of renters being single occupants, this model promotes socialization and community, something that has been trending downward since the pandemic.

Wesley LaBlanc, principal analytics director for Gensler Chicago, adds that this elevated dorm situation is a “Jumping off point for a number of models,” noting that there are six variations from the one in the study. LeBlanc encourages people to “Think beyond the conventional. A whole world of housing solutions come out of this.”

The Pew/Gensler report proposes a prototypical building standard of 24 floors, 19 of which are residential, with 60 micro-apartments per floor, or 1,140 residential units per building. Each floor will offer six shared kitchen areas, five larger shared living spaces, two smaller shared living spaces tucked into interior hallways, two central shower areas with five private shower rooms each — 2 shower rooms will include toilets and sinks, plus two additional toilet rooms with four toilets and two sinks. The total comes to 10 showers, 12 toilets, and 14 sinks per floor. Two laundry rooms, each with three washers and dryers are also available per floor.

The high cost of converting office buildings into fully-plumbed, individual studio apartments can be cost prohibitive, leading a pragmatic Howell to ask: “What if we didn’t demo everything?” The utilization of existing centralized plumbing on each floor saves an average of 25-35 percent in construction costs that would arise from running new plumbing to each unit.

I’ve written about coliving before (without the hyphen, which made my initial search for that post more complicated than it needed to be). It’s a good idea, there’s already some development for it in Houston. This would be a good use of some surplus office space. The Lege is pushing office conversions as well, though that’s more about zoning and not as relevant here. Read the study and see what you think.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged apartments, coliving, construction, coronavirus, density, downtown, homelessness, Houston, The Lege, zoning | Comments Off

Beware the egg smugglers

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I admit, I giggled a little at this.

Image credit: RubberBall Productions via Getty Images

Since January, Texas area CBP officers have encountered more than 90 people attempting to import raw eggs from Mexico.

As egg prices in the U.S. are hitting record highs, the price of eggs in Mexico is well below half of U.S. prices.

One Instagram user in Mexico City posted a video showing off a dozen eggs costing 41 pesos which is about the equivalent of two U.S. dollars.

But U.S. officials are warning Americans not to scramble across the border looking for a sunny side up bargain.

Donald R. Kusser, director of field operations at CBP’s Laredo Field Office, took to social media with a public plea asking ports of entry crossers to lay off the eggs.

“Travelers are prohibited from bringing fresh eggs, raw chicken, or live birds into the United States from Mexico,” the video message said. “Failure to declare may lead to potential fines.”

Texas Area CBP agriculture specialists issued 16 civil penalties totaling almost $4,000 linked to the attempted smuggling of prohibited agriculture and food products, including raw eggs, according to a CBP news release.

The rate of attempts to illegally bring eggs across the border has escalated in the past year. Between October 2024 and February 2025, the number of eggs confiscated at U.S. ports of entry was 29% higher than it was in the period the year before.

There are legitimate reasons why eggs are prohibited items at the border, bird flu being a big one. But the thought of these hard-boiled CBP agents (sorry, not sorry) staging a photo op in front of several dozen confiscated eggs, as they would for a major drug bust, makes me crack a smile (no, seriously, I’m not going to apologize). Anyway, here’s a little tribute to a time when smuggling was more serious business.

Now back to our regular programming.

Posted in Food, glorious food | Tagged border, Customs and Border Patrol, eggs, flu, immigration, Mexico, smuggling, Texas, videos | 3 Comments

HISD’s looming school closures

Posted on February 28, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Boy is this going to be fun.

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles plans in the coming months to propose closing an undisclosed number of schools in the summer of 2026, as the district faces a tight budget and enrollment losses.

Budget plans published by the district Thursday detailed the timeline for considering closures, though they didn’t identify a number of campuses that will be targeted or the amount of money HISD’s state-appointed superintendent hopes to save. HISD won’t close any of its 270 schools ahead of the 2025-26 school year, the documents show.

HISD Communications Chief Alexandra Elizondo said she could not immediately comment on the plans, which were outlined in documents published ahead of the district’s first budget workshop.

“It will be discussed in the fall,” Elizondo said.

HISD’s state-appointed school board must approve any campus closures for the changes to take effect.

The plans come after HISD has lost over 30,000 students over the last five years, meaning “school closures must be considered,” district administrators wrote. HISD leaders are projecting another 8,000-student decline next school year, which would leave the district with about 170,000 students.

A combination of factors have triggered the enrollment losses, including thousands of students leaving for charter schools and declining birth rates. Frustration with Miles’ overhaul also has driven some families to leave HISD, though the number who have left for that reason remains unclear. Schools in Miles’ transformation model lost students at a faster pace than other campuses this year.

The enrollment losses have left HISD with dozens of schools operating at a below-average “building capacity,” which describes the number of children enrolled relative to the maximum number of students that the campus can hold.

In 2023-24, the most recent year with available district data, HISD had 36 schools operating below 50 percent capacity. Another 46 campuses were at 50 percent to 67 percent capacity.

Several large Texas school districts, including Aldine, Austin and San Antonio ISDs, have closed schools in the past few years due to enrollment losses that left many buildings partially empty.

The prospect of school closures has loomed over HISD for several years. Before Miles’ June 2023 appointment amid a state takeover of HISD, the district’s two previous superintendents — Grenita Lathan and Millard House — both said HISD needs to seriously consider closing schools.

We have discussed this before, and there’s no easy way to go about this. Closing a school has a real negative effect on a neighborhood. But it doesn’t make sense to have a bunch of underused buildings, and barring a massive turnaround in enrollment this is going to happen one way or another. There’s a part of me that’s happy that it will be Mike Miles and the appointed Board of Managers that will have to deal with all the turmoil this will stir up. He’s more than earned that.

The Chron gets into some of the budget details.

Due to enrollment decreases and the ongoing legislative session, the district wrote that the 25-26 draft budget “remains conservative, yet ambitious.” The district based the budget on expectations that the Legislature would provide funding for increased teacher salaries and increase the basic allotment by $220 per student during the current legislative session.

The district wrote that it is estimating to get $243.5 million in additional revenue, although the overall net increase would only be $75.5 million due, in part, to the loss of funding caused by declining enrollment. HISD projected that it would lose $67 million in the upcoming fiscal year due to the projected loss of approximately 8,000 students.

To increase revenue, HISD is estimating that it will receive $44 million as part of potential basic allotment increases, $32 million for teacher salary increases, $10 million for security grants and $30 million from other financing sources, according to the budget documents.

According to HISD, it plans to cut more than $208 million from the budget in the 2025-26 academic year, including $57 million in expenditures for recapture costs, $47.2 million due to declining enrollment, $30 million in cuts to department budgets and $16.7 million in one-time expenditures.

It also plans to add $71 million in additional expenditures, including $21.6 million more for teacher salaries, $10.4 million for incentives for teachers at New Education System schools, $8.9 million for debt payment, $5.5 million for Central Office employee salary increases and $5 million for pre-K expansion and support.

HISD wrote that it also plans to invest $100 million in the next two years into the “most urgent security and health projects,” including $40 million in the 2025-2026 school year for capital improvements in security and health, which is in addition the typical funds spent on maintenance and capital improvements.

“We … encourage the board to ensure that the public has timely, accessible information for meaningful feedback. Long-term financial planning should be a priority,” said Trista Bishop-Watt, with Houstonians for Great Public Schools. “Enrollment has been declining in the district for over a decade now, and that underscores the need for careful future planning.”

HISD also wrote that it plans to maintain 130 schools in the New Education System for the 2025-26 school year, unless a campus earns a F rating in the Texas Education Agency’s accountability ratings in June 2025. If so, the district would move up to five schools that earn F ratings to NES, according to the budget presentation.

Sure would be nice if the Lege upped the per-student allocation to catch up with inflation, but we know that’s not going to happen. The Board will approve whatever Miles puts forward, so don’t expect much to change from here unless the Lege does something unexpected. The Press has more.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, budget, Grenita Lathan, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Mike Miles, Millard House, New Education System, Savant Moore, schools, Sue Deigaard, Texas, Texas Education Agency, The Lege | 11 Comments

CenterPoint’s useless generators officially sent to San Antonio

Posted on February 28, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

They will not be useless there.

No longer seen at I-10 and Sawyer

Texas’ main grid operator on Tuesday approved a $54 million plan to replace two aging natural gas-powered plants near San Antonio with the massive mobile generators that CenterPoint Energy came under fire for not deploying in the wake of Hurricane Beryl in July.

Under the plan, 15 mobile generators currently leased by CenterPoint will be moved from Houston to San Antonio this summer. Customers across the state grid will pay the estimated $54 million cost to move, connect and operate the diesel-fueled generators.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas board unanimously approved the agreement on Tuesday after San Antonio’s municipal utility, CPS Energy, said in March that it planned to retire three of its gas-powered units at the Braunig Power Station this year. Each of those units is roughly 60 years old — decades older than gas-powered plants are typically built to last.

ERCOT said that the loss of those units, which sit near a problem area in the state’s transmission infrastructure, would increase the risks of power outages across the grid. Transmission capacity has not kept up with an increasing demand for power in North Texas, causing a bottleneck in the San Antonio area where the risk of overloaded lines and widespread outages increase when wind and solar power from South Texas come pouring in.

In December, ERCOT agreed to reimburse the utility $50 million to keep one of the three units, Braunig 3, running.

Tuesday’s decision allows the other two units, Braunig 1 and 2, to be retired this year. Their capacity will be replaced by CenterPoint’s large mobile generators, each of which provide around 30 megawatts of generation. (ERCOT estimates that one megawatt can power around 250 homes.)

“This is a solution to bridge that gap, to lower that chance of load shed,” or rolling outages, Bill Flores, chair of the ERCOT Board of Directors, said Tuesday. “Load shed has a severe cost. We’re trying to avoid that, but you have to spend money, essentially, for insurance to avoid that.”

CPS Energy, San Antonio’s utility, is working on expanding transmission infrastructure to address the bottleneck, but that project will take years to complete. State regulators and lawmakers are also focused on how to build out transmission to address increasing demand for power across the state.

See here for the background. I’m glad something productive will come out of this fiasco, for a relatively minimal cost. Just, maybe it should be CenterPoint who absorbs that cost. They can afford it. The Chron has more.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged blackouts, CenterPoint, CPS Energy, derecho, ERCOT, Houston, Hurricane Beryl, Public Utility Commission, San Antonio, Texas | 1 Comment

Dispatches from Dallas, February 28 edition

Posted on February 28, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: news from the Lege that will affect traffic and transit in north Texas; things the city is doing in Dallas; where is our Dallas Mayor?; more on DPD hiring; a second death at the Tarrant County Jail; a Muslim-centric neighborhood plan in the exurbs draws our governor’s ire; Fort Worth ISD news and opinions; a Fort Worth area civil rights hero has passed; Patriot Mobile does Black history; McSweeney’s mocks UNT Denton; and new baby (well, young) capybaras at the Dallas Zoo. And more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Hilary Hahn, a classical violinist whose work I have always enjoyed. I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing her in person, but I always have high hopes.

The biggest and most unfortunate news in the Metroplex has already been covered by our host yesterday: there’s measles in the Metroplex. Rockwall, the county seat, is a second-ring suburb on the eastern side of Dallas out I-30 past Rowlett, which is a little closer to home than this eastern Dallas resident likes to contemplate. I’m waiting to hear back from my doctor about what steps I should take as an older woman with autoimmune issues who had the one-shot version of MMR as a child.

Meanwhile, our public health authorities are preparing for the spread of measles in north Texas. As mentioned in this article, the case in Rockwall County came from abroad and they don’t think the individual had a lot of contacts while contagious. The DMN is both using the news of the west Texas cases to encourage folks to get vaccinated and telling you whether you need the booster and the Star-Telegram is telling Fort Worth what they need to know, which is more factual and less editorial. Maybe that’s more convincing to their readership. Anyway, let’s all hope that many of the folks who are vaccine-hesitant for unscientific reasons get over it and get themselves and their kids vaccinated.

In other news:

Let’s start with the Lege: the DMN has a list of 19 bills filed about toll roads that could dramatically change toll road policy in Texas. This is a big deal for those of us here in the Metroplex where there are too damn many toll roads.
Dallas suburbs are going after Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) at the Lege, with bills filed in the House and Senate to reduce contributions. The D Magazine article linked in that short piece is pretty scary for DART; it looks like Plano and Irving are ready to talk about withdrawal elections next May. The article does not note Plano DART representative Paul Wageman’s conflict of interest; he’s an Uber lobbyist. (Yes, I’m going to talk about that every time.) Since they’re talking about replacing DART with an Uber-like service that’s a huge conflict. Meanwhile, DART is unsurprisingly worried. The loss of funds from a 25% reduction in contributions could reduce DART’s budget for capital projects by half.
Dallas is taking the next appeal to allow it to enforce its short-term rental ordinance. I continue to think the ordinance is a good idea and that it’s what a lot of folks in Dallas want and that we’ll never get it because unimpeded greed is more important in Texas case law than being a good member of your community. Also, screw blue cities as long as Republicans hold the power in Texas.
The DMN has an editorial about how nice it is that the City Council is going to adopt a formal performance review process for appointees like the City Manager. Also my tax dollars at work: Mayor Johnson failing to take a leadership role in this process and leaving the council session early with the matter still under discussion.
Speaking of Mayor Johnson not doing his job, the DMN would like to know where he is in the effort to save the downtown Neiman Marcus store. I haven’t been writing about this saga because there’s some new twist every day, but the gist is that the Saks folks are closing the storied downtown Neiman’s at the end of March for reasons. The closure is breaking the spirit of Dallas; its wealthy and influential boosters are trying to save the store, but every time they fix some problem, another magically appears. The DMN is complaining that Johnson can’t be bothered to do anything to save the downtown store. Johnson has to be doing something, but mayoring here in Dallas doesn’t seem to be it.
More news about the Dallas PD hiring situation and the money we have vs the legal requirements under Prop U: City Council has dropped their recruiting request back to 300 new hires, which is what DPD said they could handle without affecting current staffing and coverage. No word yet on who’s going to sue the city about that, but it’s coming. Meanwhile, KERA notes that the city is considering moving $7.7 million of COVID money to hire new officers. $5 million of that would come from the Office of Community Care, including from mental health services, family violence prevention and food insecurity aid.
I regret to report that we’ve got another death at the Tarrant County jail, the second for this year. As I said the last time I had to talk about the jail, check the differences between the DMN’s take and the Star-Telegram’s take.
Tarrant County Appraisal District are reconsidering some of their radical appraisal changes from last year including reappraising every two years and limiting the increase in value to five percent. School districts facing cuts from the appraisals are spearheading the drive to roll the changes back. You may remember there were also questions about the legality of the changes from the Lege; there’s also a bill to require annual appraisals in this session.
You may recall that we have Walmart delivery drones in the North Texas suburbs. North Richland Hills has just signed up for another three years of drone delivery.
Federal job cuts hit home: Dallas’ EPA headquarters has lost eight employees so far. Meanwhile, they’re proceeding with work on a South Dallas superfund site where leachable cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury have been found in soil in the area and cancer deaths are common.
Earlier this month the East Plano Islamic Center announced plans for a Muslim-centric neighborhood near Josephine, which is on the border between Collin County (north of Dallas) and Hunt County (to Collin County’s east). Unsurprisingly they’re getting a lot of pushback from the usual suspects, including Governor Abbott, who had time to post about it on Xitter but didn’t reply to a request for comment from the DMN.
More details about the suicide of eleven-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza in Gainsville, near the Oklahoma border, earlier this month: apparently she was being “touched inappropriately” but didn’t report it, and had reported the bullying of other students to school authorities, but not her own. Other students reported on the threats to her. Meanwhile over the weekend hundreds gathered to mourn her. According to the second story, Gainsville schools are rife with bullying.
Fort Worth is working through its options for school closings to deal with its demographic and budgetary problems. The Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Report cover recent community meetings where possible closures were discussed.
The Star-Telegram also has an editorial about how the new superintendent was selected: no shade to Karen Molinar, but they think the process was not transparent.
Ponder ISD, just west of Denton, is moving to a four-day school week in the 2025-2026 school year. They’ll be lengthening the school day to meet state requirements, and offering childcare for younger children on Fridays. KERA also has the story.
A Dallas biopharmaceutical firm is developing immunotherapy for multiple sclerosis patients based on research at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Undoubtedly this research was funded by federal grants.
Last week the Texas Observer found an ICE prosecutor here in Dallas with a racist Xitter account. The story has now gone national on CBS and Congressman Marc Veasey is calling for an investigation. The Texas Observer has more on Veasey and other congressional follow-up on their reporting.
In case you were wondering (I wasn’t), Mark Cuban is not running for president in 2028.
I don’t read Reason Magazine on the regular and haven’t read it much at all since the ancient warblogging days, but their article on the Sally Mann photo seizures from the Modern in Fort Worth is pretty good.
A small plane crash injured two in Azle, northwest of Fort Worth. The DMN and the Star-Telegram have the details.
The Star-Telegram has a fluff piece on their solution to egg prices driven up by bird flu: eggs from local farms. That’s great until the bird flu gets into those flocks.
A Dallas Bishop has been named to lead the Tyler Diocese after Pope Francis removed his controversial predecessor in 2023.
I’m sorry to report the passing of Judge Clifford Davis, who helped desegregate Fort Worth schools after Brown v Board of Education. His death has been marked not just by local outlets like the DMN, the Star-Telegram, and the Fort Worth Report, but also by Texas Monthly in a really nice story that doesn’t hide the ugliness of the history of desegregation in Texas. A remembrance by Tarrant County Commissioner Roderick Miles Jr. is also worth your while. What a remarkable man. Rest in power, Judge Davis.
And in case you want the other side’s story of Black history, Star-Telegram columnist Bradford William Davis went to a Patriot Mobile-sponsored discussion in Bedford titled “Factual American Black History”. The presenter was the (Black) father of one of the candidates for Dallas City Council’s open District 8 seat. Read it and weep.
McSweeney’s has roasted UNT Denton’s bad curriculum choices: Changes Our University Is Making to Pre-Comply With Possible Future Regulations. Click through their link to the The American Association of University Professors statement. And, from back in November, KERA on the story behind that story.
Dallas, like Houston, has a bad track record around saving its cultural treasures. Here’s Matt Zoller Seitz in D Magazine on the future of the Inwood Theatre or the likely lack thereof.
According to a study, DFW’s airport baggage claim is the most lawless in the US, aka you’re at the biggest risk of someone stealing your luggage. Unsurprisingly, DFW officials say it ain’t so. I travel carry-on only these days, so I can’t say.
And in the return of baby animal news, the Dallas Zoo has three new young capybaras. They come from the San Diego Zoo. Enjoy these photos and this short video on the zoo’s Instagram.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged Dallas, guest post, linkdump, Texas | Comments Off

First Texas measles death recorded

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Very sad.

A school-aged child has died in Lubbock from measles, the first death reported in an ongoing outbreak that has infected more than 120 people in West Texas since January, Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed on Wednesday.

According to state officials, the child, who was unvaccinated, was hospitalized in Lubbock last week. It is not clear whether the child lived in Lubbock or where the child was infected with the measles. The Associated Press first reported the death on Wednesday.

The last time a person died of measles in Texas was in 2018 when a 10-year-old living in North Texas died. That death was not connected with an outbreak and it was not known if the case was connected to international travel at the time.

[…]

The Lubbock Health Department has hosted vaccine clinics several times this week. It is open to people who have not received the two recommended doses of the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles. Katherine Wells, director for the city health department, said there is a potential for the virus to spread more as spring break approaches.

“The more cases we see, the more potential there is for spread,” Wells said. “People who are exposed and have been told they are exposed by public health need to stay home.”

Wells said if people get vaccinated this week, it would be fully effective in two weeks. During the vaccine clinics over the weekend, Wells said they gave between 100-150 additional measles-mumps-rubella-varicella, or MMRV vaccination, than they normally would.

About an hour south of Gaines County, Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett said he and his wife are concerned about measles because they have an 8-month-old son who is below the recommended age to receive the MMRV vaccination. Two cases of measles have been reported in Ector County, according to the state. One case was an infant under a year old who was hospitalized.

“It’s the young children I’m most concerned about,” Fawcett said. “I’m concerned about our daycares and our elementary schools.”

If Ector County identifies three measles cases from separate households, the state health department could allow the county to deliver vaccines to individuals younger than a year old.

Following the news that one Texan had died of measles, Fawcett urged his constituents to stay informed and not to panic.

“This is not code red, we don’t need people running out getting tested,” Fawcett said. “If people have concerns, call a doctor.”

And we could be seeing cases in other parts of the state if we’re unlucky. Too soon to say, and perhaps the timing will work out for us. Be that as it may, the infection count as of Tuesday was 124.

A measles outbreak in northwest Texas grew to 124 cases in nine counties on Tuesday, and health officials warned that residents in other parts of the state may have been exposed to the highly contagious respiratory illness.

The state’s largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years has already spread to neighboring New Mexico, which reported nine cases on Tuesday. The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services Texas now includes a handful of cases in the northernmost part of the Panhandle and potential exposures in San Antonio and San Marcos.

The outbreak is still concentrated in school-aged children, who account for 101 of the 124 cases. Only five of the cases are among individuals who have received the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella; the rest are among individuals who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.

[…]

Texas has not seen such a large measles outbreak since 1992, when the state reported 1,097 cases, a review of DSHS data shows. Houston also reported a pair of measles cases last month, but officials said they do not appear to be connected to the larger outbreak.

Gaines County, located in the South Plains region along the New Mexico border, remains the epicenter of the outbreak. The small county reported 80 cases on Tuesday, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all cases in the outbreak.

Nearby Terry County reported 21 cases, just one more than it reported Friday. Dawson County reported seven, also an increase of one since Friday.

Dallam County, the furthest northwest in the Panhandle, reported its first four cases on Tuesday. Martin County also reported its first three cases.

Yoakum County reported five cases, Ector County reported two, and Lubbock and Lynn counties each reported one.

Gaines County’s population is around 22K, so about 0.36% of the total. If 0.36% of Harris County were infected, we’d be talking over 17,000 people. Keep that in mind.

Also keep in mind, Kennedy vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases, despite promises not to change it during his confirmation hearings.

I’m filled with confidence. How about you? ABC News, the Press, the Houston Landing, Your Local Epidemiologist, and the Current have more.

UPDATE: Yikes.

The first case of measles has been reported in Rockwall County, county officials confirmed Wednesday.

The Rockwall County Commissioners Court said in a news release that the case was reported to them Tuesday by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The patient was not identified, but the release specified they are an adult and that all of their direct contacts have been notified for observation.

Officials said they do not believe the case is connected to the recent measles outbreak in West Texas, but added they are “closely monitoring the situation to swiftly identify and address any new cases.”

Rockwall County is east of Dallas, and many hundreds of miles from Gaines County. I suppose it’s a good thing if indeed this case is not related to the Gaines County cases, but on the other hand it may suggest that this outbreak is wider and deeper than we first thought. Here’s hoping this case is like the two in Houston and doesn’t grow beyond that.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Centers for Disease Control, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, New Mexico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Yoakum County | Comments Off

MetroNow

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Temu version of MetroNext.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority unveiled new details Monday on its MetroNow initiative, the seeming replacement for the voter-approved MetroNext plan.

MetroNow first was announced as part of budget discussions for fiscal 2025 when the agency announced it would be investing $33.6 million of its operating budget and $173.8 million of its capital budget toward initiatives that focus on the customer experience. At the same time, the agency announced cutbacks in plans associated with MetroNext.

Those initiatives now have coalesced into a broader plan with a stated focus on increasing ridership and improving the customer experience. At a launch event for Metro’s new direction on Monday, agency leaders discussed safety, cleanliness, reliability and accessibility.

“We are calling this set of initiatives MetroNow because before we develop anything else, we are going to take care of some crucial issues, fundamental issues now,” Metro board Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock said.

Those focuses square with what advocates say are fundamentals of an effective transit system, but the details will be key, one advocate said Monday.

“We want to make sure that all of those things are implemented in a way that truly prioritizes riders and uses Metro funds to serve their customers,” said Peter Eccles, director of policy and planning for transit advocacy group LINK Houston.

[…]

Brock announced a bevy of investments in partnership with other entities around the region, including $10 million to Mayor John Whitmire’s homeless initiative.

Other investments announced by Brock include $100 million in major thoroughfare improvements with Harris County Precinct 3, a $200 million traffic relief plan for the Inner Katy freeway in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation and the city of Houston, and $300 million on a Gulfton revitalization project in conjunction with the city and Harris County Precinct 4.

Both Inner Katy and Gulfton originally were slated for bus rapid transit lines as part of MetroNext, but changes will be coming. Gulfton still could include a BRT component, but the agency is relying heavily on community input via Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones’ office on what its involvement in a revitalization project would look like.

The same cannot be said for the Inner Katy project, which Brock said largely will be driven by TxDOT’s design of the managed lanes project. As part of Metro’s budget last fall, the Inner Katy project was referred to as a high occupancy vehicle, or HOV, project.

“We’re having to work around (TxDOT’s design), but we’re also desperately prioritizing direct access into downtown,” Brock said.

Despite the changes in terminology and planning, Eccles said he was encouraged that parts of the voter-approved MetroNext plan remain in the planning process for the transit agency.

MetroNext was a plan that previous agency leadership said would drastically change public transit in Houston, including the development of three BRT routes and multiple BOOST corridors. In 2019, voters approved $3.5 billion in bonds for the initiative, none of which have been sold.

After Whitmire took office and appointed Brock and other new board members, the transit agency shelved plans for the University BRT line and altered plans for the other two. Instead, the agency has focused largely on public safety and being more frugal with tax dollars.

“A lot of key components of MetroNext are still moving along,” he said, pointing at the development of BOOST routes – a program to improve sidewalks, bus shelters, and accessibility along certain high-ridership routes. “Some version of a project in Gulfton and Inner Katy were also key parts of MetroNext, and that seems to be moving forward.”

We’ll see about that, as there aren’t many details yet and I don’t have much faith in the current Metro leadership. I will never not be mad about the way they casually tossed aside the Universities Line. If we do get some form of the Inner Katy Line that will be better for me personally, but the system overall is still worse off for not doing the big project that’s 20 years overdue by now. It says a lot about the era we’re in now that “well, it’s not as bad as it could have been” is being seen as a win.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged BRT, buses, Election 2019, Elizabeth Brock, Gulfton, Houston, I-10, Inner Katy line, John Whitmire, Lesley Briones, light rail, LINK Houston, Metro, sidewalks, TxDOT, University line | 1 Comment

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