Health

U.S. Supreme Court Hears Challenge on Texas Abortion Ban

U.S. Supreme Court Hears Challenge on Texas Abortion Ban

Openings and Closings: Common Bond Brasserie Downtown, Original ChopShop Uptown

Openings and Closings: Common Bond Brasserie Downtown, Original ChopShop Uptown

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COVID Metrics Improve Across Texas As U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Pass Grim Milestone

By Schaefer Edwards
Oct 5, 2021

The United States finally hit the tragic milestone of over 700,000 COVID-19 fatalities over the weekend, solidifying the coronavirus pandemic as the most deadly pandemic in the history of our country. But thankfully, key COVID-19 metrics across the country, Texas and in the greater Houston area continue to trend downward...
Pro-Choice Groups Beg U.S. Supreme Court To Hurry Up And Rule On Texas Abortion Ban

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 24, 2021

Sick of being forced by Texas’ controversial “heartbeat bill” to tell Texans seeking abortions they’ll have to venture hundreds of miles out of state to have their pregnancies terminated, Texas abortion providers and pro-choice groups filed an emergency request Friday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass the normal appeals...
Texas COVID Deaths Surge While Hospitalizations Fall As Delta Wave Continues

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 24, 2021

As public health experts predicted all along, the quick rise in Texas COVID-19 cases from the summer’s Delta surge has finally been followed by a dramatic uptick in deaths from the virus. While there are now thousands fewer Texas hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients than there were a few...
Lawsuits Follow After Texas Doctor Breaks Abortion Law, Just Not From Who You'd Expect

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 22, 2021

In the days since San Antonio Dr. Alan Braid’s announcement in the Washington Post that he’d performed an illegal abortion flouting Texas’ controversial “heartbeat bill,” the first two lawsuits filed against him came from pro-choice advocates hoping to block the law, not anti-abortion activists. Meanwhile, Texas’ most ardent abortion foes...
Trial Shows Pfizer Vaccine Safe For Kids As FDA Panel Breaks With Biden On Booster Plan

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 20, 2021

Millions of parents with young kids breathed a collective sigh of relief across the United States Monday morning, as Pfizer announced its trial of its two-dose COVID-19 vaccine found the shots were safe and effective for children ages five to 11. While full authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine in kids five...
Over 14,000 Harris County Residents Are Overdue For Second Vaccine Dose

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 17, 2021

More than 14,000 people in Harris County are overdue for getting their crucial second COVID-19 vaccine shot, despite public health officials’ attempts to persuade folks who’ve received their first shot of a two-dose coronavirus vaccine how important shot number two is in granting maximum coronavirus protection. Those under-vaccinated residents coupled...
DOJ Asks Judge To Block Texas' Abortion Law, While Women Seeking Abortions Are Driven Out of State

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 15, 2021

One sexual assault victim had to travel to Oklahoma to get the abortion now forbidden to her by the new draconian Texas abortion law that went into effect September 1. “I provided an abortion to [a] woman from Texas who had been raped and could not get an abortion in...
(Some) Fear and (a Little) Loathing at the Texans Game

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.
Sep 13, 2021

I was wide awake at 4 in the morning on game day, a full hour before my alarm was set to buzz me into motion toward NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans. Over the past few seasons, many questions have circled the local NFL team. But, lying in bed...
Openings and Closings: Daily Gather This Fall, Turkey Leg Hut UH

By Lorretta Ruggiero
Sep 10, 2021

Daily Gather, 800 Sorella Court, is shooting to open this fall at CityCentre. The upscale casual restaurant has some culinary notables bringing it to fruition. Owner and CEO Aaron Lyons, who has opened six Dish Society locations in the Houston area since 2014, has been eyeing the space at CityCentre...
Turner Orders Mandatory COVID Tests For Unvaccinated City Employees

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 8, 2021

Amid anecdotal reports that only 50 percent or fewer of Houston Police Department and Houston Fire Department employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s communications director told the Houston Press last week that Turner was still considering issuing a vaccine mandate for city employees. But during Wednesday’s...
Are Mask Rules Why HISD Has Tallied Fewer COVID Cases Than Way Smaller FBISD?

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 8, 2021

One, two, three, four — Those aren’t just the first four numbers Houston ISD’s youngest students are taught. Throw them all together in a row and you end up with 1,234, the total cumulative number of COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday afternoon among HISD students and staff members since the...
Opinion: The Taliban Didn’t Take Over Texas, Christians Did

By Jef Rouner
Sep 7, 2021

There are a ton of memes going around now that basically say, “no one could have prepared for how quickly the Taliban would retake Texas.” The implication is that the recent forced-birth law is similar to that of Islamic extremism in the Middle East following the end of the Afghanistan...
U.S. Supreme Court Refuses To Block Texas’ New Abortion Law From Being Enforced

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 2, 2021

Late Wednesday just before midnight, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief 5-4 decision rejecting an emergency request from abortion advocates for the court to block Texas’ newly enacted “heartbeat bill” abortion law. In one of the first major rulings on an abortion issue since liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg...
Election Bill Hits Abbott's Desk While Fights Over Other GOP Priorities Heat Up

By Schaefer Edwards
Sep 1, 2021

With less than a week left in the Texas Legislature’s second straight overtime round of lawmaking this summer, state Republicans have finally delivered Gov. Greg Abbott the “election integrity” bill he and the GOP base have been clamoring for, the one that will supposedly prevent Texas from falling victim to...
Hidalgo Extends Harris County $100 COVID Vaccine Gift Card Program Through September 14

By Schaefer Edwards
Aug 31, 2021

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced Tuesday afternoon that the $100 vaccine incentive program that has corresponded with a significant rise in COVID-19 vaccination rates has been extended through September 14. The program which rewards first dose COVID-19 vaccine recipients with a $100 gift card had been scheduled to expire...
Pro-Choice Groups File Last-Ditch Request Asking U.S. Supreme Court To Block TX Heartbeat Bill

By Schaefer Edwards
Aug 30, 2021

Texas pro-choice advocates hoped a legal challenge to Senate Bill 8 — the state’s new “heartbeat” abortion law that would effectively ban all abortions in the state after a fetal heartbeat is detected — could lead a federal district court to block the law from going into effect later this...
Opinion: Texas' Anti-Abortion Senate Bill 8 Should Scare Everyone

By Erika Forbes
Aug 30, 2021

American women have fought for agency over our own bodies well throughout history. For more than a few decades here in the state of Texas, that fight has not been easy. Restrictive moves by political leaders aside, just having a coherent and productive conversation on reproductive health and abortion has...
Vaccine Payments Are Spurring More Shots As Hospitals Feel Delta Pinch

By Schaefer Edwards
Aug 27, 2021

With the Delta variant still running rampant through Texas, the Houston area school year has already been marked by multiple temporary campus closures, and local hospitals are still buckling under the massive wave of COVID-19 patients (the overwhelming majority of whom are unvaccinated) in their emergency rooms, general beds and...
Houston ISD School Year Begins Amid Mask Mandate Battles And FDA Approval For Pfizer's Vaccine

By Schaefer Edwards
Aug 23, 2021

As Houston ISD’s 196,000-plus students headed back to their classrooms Monday with the start of the fall semester began, local parents crossed their fingers that the district can avoid widespread COVID-19 outbreaks like those that have befallen other school districts who started in-person classes earlier this month. HISD’s first day...
Rice Realizes Dozens of False Positive Tests Were Behind Shift To Online Classes

By Schaefer Edwards
Aug 23, 2021

After 81 members of the Rice University community tested positive for COVID-19 over the past week and a half — most of whom were fully vaccinated against the virus — and the school’s test positivity rate surged, Rice’s leadership acted swiftly. On Thursday, the school delayed this week’s start of...