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TexasTexas Democrats return to state capitol, ending 38-day effort to block voting billState Republicans have scheduled a voting bill hearing for Saturday as the house was able to restore the quorum Maanvi Singh and agencies@ More
BooksTed Cruz’s campaign may have spent $150,000 on copies of his bookFollowing One Vote Away’s publication, the Republican senator’s campaign spent large sums of money at US chain Books-A-Million Alison FloodWed 18 Aug 2021 10.17 EDTLast modified on Wed 18 Aug 2021 10.25 EDTTed Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported.Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History in September. A financial disclosure he filed on Monday, reported on by Forbes, shows he received almost $320,000 as an advance in 2020 from the book’s publisher Regnery Publishing.Ted Cruz threatens to burn John Boehner’s book over criticismsRead more“With a simple majority on the Supreme Court, the left will have the power to curtail or even abolish the freedoms that have made our country a beacon to the world. We are one vote away from losing the Republic that the Founders handed down to us. Our most precious constitutional rights hang by a thread,” says Regnery of the title. “In One Vote Away, you will discover how often the high court decisions that affect your life have been decided by just one vote.”The end-of-year report from Cruz’s committee, filed with the Federal Election Commission, reveals that two weeks after One Vote Away was published, his campaign spent $40,000 at Books-A-Million. Shortly afterwards, it spent a further $1,500, and in December, another $111,900. All of the purchases are described by the campaign as “books”, and Forbes speculated that they may have been used to boost his book sales, quoting Brett Kappel, a lawyer specialising in campaign finance, who said that “the FEC has issued a long series of advisory opinions allowing members to use campaign funds to buy copies of their own books at a discount from the publisher, provided that the royalties they would normally receive on those sales are given to charity”.Forbes previously reported what three other US senators had made from book deals in 2020: Elizabeth Warren earned $278,000, Tom Cotton $202,000, and Tammy Duckworth $382,000. All three used campaign funds to buy books, but Forbes said that their purchases were all under $20,000.A spokesperson for Cruz’s campaign told the magazine that the senator “has not received one cent of royalties in connection with any One Vote Away book sales”, but declined to reveal which books the campaign had spent more than $150,000 on.When Donald Trump Jr published Triggered in 2019, it made the New York Times bestseller list, but the newspaper’s charts included a dagger beside the book to indicate that “some retailers report receiving bulk orders”. The Republican National Committee denied making bulk orders at the time, and Trump Jr was angered by the suggestion that his sales had been artificially boosted, retweeting Republican strategist Andrew Surabian’s claim that “Don did multiple book signings where he sold 1,000+ books apiece. BookScan data will show he sold more books than the #2 and #3 books combined. Media/Dems want to pretend otherwise, but he was #1 on merit.”TopicsBooksUS politicsTed CruzTexasPublishingnewsReuse this content More
The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, after weeks spent banning local mask requirements and meeting maskless crowds. The Republican is fully vaccinated against the virus and is not experiencing symptoms, his office said.
Texas has once again emerged as a hotspot for coronavirus, with only 314 available intensive care unit beds statewide. Paediatric ICUs are running out of space while children head back to class.
Texas governor Abbott, who fought mask mandates, tests positive for Covid More
TexasTexas governor Abbott, who fought mask mandates, tests positive for CovidGreg Abbott, who was vaccinated in December, is at least the 11th governor to contract the virus01:07Alexandra Villarreal in AustinTue 17 Aug 2021 18.51 EDTLast modified on Wed 18 Aug 2021 03.37 EDTTexas governor Greg Abbott tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, after weeks spent banning local mask requirements and meeting maskless crowds.Texas officials ask US government for mortuary trucks as Covid cases riseRead moreAbbott, a Republican, is fully vaccinated against the virus and is not experiencing symptoms, his office said in a statement. He is taking a monoclonal antibody treatment and isolating in the governor’s mansion.Spokesperson Mark Miner said: “Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently.”Texas has once again emerged as a hotspot for the coronavirus, with only 314 available intensive care unit beds statewide. Pediatric ICUs are running out of space while children head back to class.Abbott has restricted cities, counties, school districts and public health authorities from requiring masks or Covid-19 vaccines. And when officials in Texas’s major cities defied his order, the state supreme court barred their local mask mandates – at least temporarily.The governor has kept a busy social calendar ahead of next year’s primary election, when he faces Republican challengers even further to his right. He recently took heat for literally fiddling around, seemingly jamming at a political event as the public health crisis worsened.On Monday – less than 24 hours before testing positive for Covid-19 – he tweeted photos of himself waving to a room packed with seniors, almost no masks in sight.“Another standing room only event in Collin county tonight,” Abbott captioned the images. “Thank y’all for the enthusiastic reception.”Abbott posted another series of photos with Texas musician Jimmie Vaughan on Tuesday afternoon, shortly before his diagnosis was announced. “Everyone that the governor has been in close contact with today has been notified,” Miner said.The Texas Democratic party chair, Gilberto Hinojosa, said in a statement that he wished Abbott well and hoped for his speedy recovery.“Covid is not a partisan issue,” Hinojosa said. “This is a stark reminder that no one is immune to this surge, especially as the Delta variant continues to spread rapidly among our communities.”TopicsTexasUS politicsCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More
RepublicansRepublican leaders fiddle while Covid burns through their own supporters Governors of states such as Florida and Texas, where the Delta variant is surging, have made masks and vaccines a partisan issue, in a lethal mix of ignorance, irrationality and nihilismDavid Smith in Washington@ More
TexasTexas senate passes voting restrictions bill after 15-hour filibuster by Democrat Carol Alvarado wears running shoes during marathon speech Civil arrest warrants delivered to 50 absent Democrats A More
AustinAustin warns of ‘catastrophe’ as Texas again becomes epicenter of pandemicCity implores residents to stay home, mask up and get vaccinated as ICU capacity in hospitals dwindles to single digits Alexandra Villarreal in Austin, TexasMon 9 Aug 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 9 Aug 2021 02.01 EDTWith Covid-19 cases skyrocketing exponentially and intensive care unit capacity in hospitals dwindling to single digits, officials in the Austin area are warning of “catastrophe” as Texas again becomes an epicenter of the pandemic.Austin’s local governments issued an urgent message through their emergency notification system Saturday, imploring residents to stay home, mask up and get vaccinated.The entreaty comes mere days after Austin Public Health elevated its risk-based guidance to stage 5, the highest possible tier.“The situation is critical,” Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis county’s health authority, said in a statement. “Our hospitals are severely stressed and there is little we can do to alleviate their burden with the surging cases.”The Texas trauma service area that includes Austin only has six available ICU beds, 499 available hospital beds and 313 available ventilators – a stunning dearth of resources for a population nearly 2.4 million strong.In Austin’s metropolitan statistical area, 510 Covid patients are currently hospitalized, 184 are in the ICU, and 102 are on ventilators.About a third of recent hospitalizations have been among patients younger than 50, underscoring the Delta variant’s serious threat to younger Texans who have opted against vaccination.“Hospital bed availability and critical care is extremely limited in our hospital systems, not just for Covid-19 patients, but for anyone who may need treatment,” Walkes said. “The community has to come together again and stave off disaster.”As a whole, Texas currently ranks second behind Florida for the highest daily average Covid-19 cases, with infections up 134% over the last 14 days. And between early February and mid-July, roughly 99.5% of Texans who died from the virus were unvaccinated, the Texas Tribune reported.In Austin’s Travis county, almost 64% of kids and adults 12 and older are fully vaccinated, compared to about 53% statewide. But in some neighboring counties and suburbs, vaccination rates are even lower than the state average.Recently, San Antonio’s Bexar county had its daily average caseload jump by more than 300%, according to the New York Times. And infections are also surging in Houston’s Harris county, where only about 56% of those 12 and older are fully vaccinated and the 14-day average test positivity rate is a whopping 17.7%.Meanwhile, local officials who want to implement proven public health measures to mitigate the spread have been hamstrung by Texas governor Greg Abbott, who has implemented a sweeping order restricting vaccine and mask mandates.But some public servants, like Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, have simply defied Abbott’s order despite threats of retribution.“The governor is preventing the city from keeping kids and adults safe,” Austin city council member Alison Alter told the New York Times. “He’s going to have a lot of deaths on his hands here. This is a matter of life and death for our community.”TopicsAustinTexasCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
TexasTexas Democrats still absent as Republicans make third bid to pass vote lawsA month after fleeing the state to thwart passage of restrictive voting laws, Democrats again refused to appear at the state Capitol A More
