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HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports the state of California filed a lawsuit Monday against Houston-based oil giant ExxonMobil alleging the company engaged in a decades-long strategy to deceive consumers about the proliferation of plastic-based materials, according to a news release. California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Exxon of lying to consumers about the effectiveness of recycling plastics. Exxon, Bonta said, led consumers to believe recycling would stem the tide of plastics pollution while doing nothing to limit its production. Bonta said he is seeking to hold Exxon, which is California’s largest producer of polymer-based materials, financially accountable for the ongoing pollution crisis. “For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said in the release. “ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health.”

The company recently began touting a new disposal technique called advanced recycling, Banta said. Advanced recycling, a process which uses heat to break down plastic waste, is nowhere near as effective as Exxon claims, Banta said. Among other concerns, the process cannot handle large amounts of waste and would ultimately only offset plastic waste by 1% of the company’s current output, according to the release. A spokesperson for Exxon, however, said California’s recycling infrastructure was the problem, not advanced recycling. “For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others,” the spokesperson said. “The first step would be to acknowledge what their counterparts across the U.S. know: advanced recycling works. To date, we’ve processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials, keeping it out of landfills.”

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that CenterPoint Energy plans to overhaul its power grid infrastructure ahead of the 2025 hurricane season, the Houston-area electric utility announced Monday, as it remains under scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators for its lackluster response to July’s Hurricane Beryl. The company aims to add 25,000 poles made of fiberglass or other material that can withstand extreme winds to its system, in some cases replacing poles made of wood, before June 1, 2025, according to Darin Carroll, who oversees its electric business. The utility also set a target of trimming or removing vegetation along 4,000 miles of power lines, Carroll said. CenterPoint has approximately 30,000 miles of aboveground distribution lines that directly deliver electricity to homes and businesses.

Carroll said CenterPoint had also committed to undergrounding more than 400 miles of power lines. About 46%, or 26,000 miles, of CenterPoint’s power lines are now underground. Asked if these improvements will be targeted for specific areas of Houston, Carroll said the company plans to conduct this work across the entirety of its customer base. “These storms are becoming more frequent, more powerful, and so we’ve got to change the way we play the game so that the grid can be ready to handle it,” Carroll said. Monday’s plan builds upon CenterPoint’s so-called Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative, a campaign the company launched after Beryl under pressure from Gov. Greg Abbott to be better prepared for the remainder of this year’s hurricane season. From July to August, CenterPoint installed more than 1,100 stronger poles, trimmed vegetation along 2,000 miles of power lines and launched a new outage tracker it promised would work during a major storm, unlike the tracker that was defunct during Beryl.

LUBBOCK — The Texas Tribune reports that federal lawmakers are sounding the alarm on the economic catastrophe that could happen if a new farm bill isn’t passed by the end of this year, now that the 2018 version has officially expired.

Since it was introduced by the House Committee on Agriculture in May, there has been no progress on passing the wide-ranging, multi-year law. It has not been discussed on the House floor or in the Senate. In a letter to House Republican leadership, signed by 140 members of Congress, lawmakers said if they wait until the next year to enact an effective farm bill, the impacts will be felt nationwide.

“The negative impacts of failing to act will not just stop at the farm gate,” the letter warns, “but will Main Street businesses, rural communities, and the national economy.”

The Farm, Food, and National Security Act, also known as the farm bill, is considered a “must-pass” package of federal legislation that is typically reauthorized every five years. The last farm bill was passed in 2018 and was supposed to be renewed in 2023, until lawmakers extended the deadline to today — Sept. 30.

In the letter, the lawmakers say inflation and low market prices have squeezed farmers and ranchers. The money producers are making from their crops is not enough to cover the costs of growing it for the entire country. The result is an estimated $34 billion loss in crop cash receipts, which is expected to cause the sharpest two-year decline in net cash income in U.S. history.

U.S. Reps. Jodey Arrington, Ronny Jackson and Dan Crenshaw — all Republicans — are among the Texas lawmakers who signed the letter.

U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat who represents parts of North Texas, did not sign the letter. In a statement to the Tribune, Crockett said Democrats are aware the bill is vital. However, she stressed the need for open negotiations to get the bill passed.

“We need to negotiate a bipartisan bill,” Crockett said. “And leadership needs to put it on the (House) Floor so producers across the country can finally breathe a sigh of relief.”

In Texas, the bill supports more than 230,000 farms and ranches that can be found in nearly every corner of the state — from sprawling pastures in the northern Panhandle to loam-covered rice fields in East Texas. According to a 2024 Feeding the Economy report, an economic impact study organized by food and agriculture groups, the state’s food and agriculture sectors contribute about $860.8 billion in economic activity and employ more than 4.5 million people.

The bill also helps provide more than 3.4 million low-income Texas families receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to Every Texan, a nonprofit advocacy organization that analyzes public policy and its impact on Texas residents.

The farm bill sets policies for many agricultural programs, such as federal crop insurance and loans for farmers. It also has loosely related programs for rural development and nutrition, including the Emergency Food Assistance Program and SNAP. Food programs in the bill may account for nearly 80% of the farm bill spending — the bill itself is estimated to be worth at least $1.5 trillion.

The SNAP program, or food stamps, is a sore spot for certain Republican lawmakers. While the bill is historically a bipartisan effort, fights along party lines about funding the program has derailed progress. In the version advanced by the U.S. House agriculture committee, led by Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, SNAP would get about a $30 billion cut. That’s a nonstarter for many Democrats.

Laramie Adams, associate government affairs director for Texas Farm Bureau, said it’s a pressing matter. After Jan. 1, 2025, the law reverts to statutes approved in 1938 and 1949 that don’t expire and are temporarily suspended with the passing of each new farm bill. Adams thinks the reason for this is to keep the pressure on lawmakers to pass a new bill in a timely manner.

With no agreement in sight and the clock ticking, Adams said farm organizations are not entertaining another extension. Instead, there’s the push to pass it before the end of the year, as well as disaster economic assistance to get farmers and ranchers through 2025. This comes after a particularly rough year for agriculture in Texas, as wildfires, drought and flooding has squashed hopes for a fruitful year.

According to a letter signed from the American Farm Bureau, even if a new bill is enacted this year, the benefits will not be realized until 2026.

“We need our members of Congress and leadership in Congress to recognize there’s no room for delay anymore,” Adams said. “It’s time to actually work together to get something done.”

While the current law has technically expired, the programs under it are still covered through the end of the year. Kody Bessent, CEO for Plains Cotton Growers which represents cotton producers in the Texas South Plains, said this is why there’s a strong push to get a new bill passed this year.

An extension would keep old policies in place, Bessent said. Since the last bill passed, the economy has changed from the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and climate disasters, among other issues.

“Those programs are not sophisticated enough now to help producers,” Bessent said. “Based on where the cost of production and market prices are at today.”

For cotton growers, the cash crop in the South Plains is in better shape than it has been in recent drought-ridden years. Still, Bessent says production will be down because of two consecutive weeks of 100-degree days and little rainfall. Agricultural producers could have benefited from the passage of a farm bill in 2023 — its original deadline.

“That would have provided much needed cash flow assistance to producers,” Bessent said. “Especially right now, when we’re seeing systemic price declines and higher input costs.”

The first agricultural sector that would be affected if the proposed legislation doesn’t pass is the dairy industry. Dairy programs in the bill expire before commodity programs.

However, Darren Turley, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen, is trying to focus on what the dairy industry stands to gain if the current version is passed. This includes an increase to the Dairy Margin Coverage Program — essentially insurance for dairy producers.

“We do have some issues over the timeline,” Turley said. “It’s not as bad as other commodities.”

Adams with the Texas Farm Bureau said there are still concerns as agricultural producers are having difficulty getting financing from lenders and banks to start work in the new year, as the uncertainty with the bill affects that too. He’s hopeful lawmakers can pass a bill by the end of the year.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — From Maine to Texas, dockworkers at 36 ports across the eastern U.S. are now on strike for the first time in decades. And the work stoppage could snarl supply chains — leading to shortages and higher prices if it stretches on for more than a few weeks.

Workers began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation, even though some progress had been reported in latest contract talks. The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight.

The strike also comes just weeks before next month’s tight presidential election, and could become a factor if there are shortages impacting voters.

In early picketing, workers outside the Port of Philadelphia walked in a circle and chanted “No work without a fair contract.” The union, which is striking for the first time since 1977, had message boards on the side of a truck reading: “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs.

Shipping companies made billions during the pandemic by charging high prices, he said. “Now we want them to pay back. They’re going to pay back,” Butler said.

He said the union will strike for as long as it needs to get a fair deal, and it has leverage over the companies.

“This is not something that you start and you stop,” he said. “We’re not weak,” he added, pointing to the union’s importance to the nation’s economy.

At Port Houston, at least 50 workers started picketing around midnight local time carrying signs saying “No Work Without a Fair Contract.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, said Monday evening that both sides had moved off of their previous wage offers. But no deal was reached.

The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with President Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises. ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.

Monday evening, the alliance said it had increased its offer to 50% raises over six years, and it pledged to keep limits on automation in place from the old contract. The alliance also said its offer tripled employer contributions to retirement plans and strengthened health care options.

The union wants a complete ban on automation. It wasn’t clear just how far apart both sides are.

In a statement early Tuesday, the union said it rejected the alliance’s latest proposal because it “fell far short of what ILA rank-and-file members are demanding in wages and protections against automation.” The two sides had not held formal negotiations since June.

Supply chain experts say consumers won’t see an immediate impact from the strike because most retailers stocked up on goods, moving ahead shipments of holiday gift items.

But if it goes more than a few weeks, a work stoppage could lead to higher prices and delays in goods reaching households and businesses.

If drawn out, the strike will force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys and artificial Christmas trees to cars, coffee and fruit.

The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

It also could snarl exports from East Coast ports and create traffic jams at ports on the West Coast, where workers are represented by a different union. Railroads say they can ramp up to carry more freight from the West Coast, but analysts say they can’t move enough to make up for the closed Eastern ports.

J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike that shuts down East and Gulf coast ports could cost the economy $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per day, with some of that recovered over time after normal operations resume.

Retailers, auto parts suppliers and produce importers had hoped for a settlement or that President Joe Biden would intervene and end the strike using the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows him to seek an 80-day cooling off period.

But during a Sunday exchange with reporters, Biden, who has worked to court union votes for Democrats, said “no” when asked if he planned to intervene in the potential work stoppage.

In an update Tuesday morning, the White House maintained that administration officials were working “around the clock” to help negotiations move forward — which included being in direct contact with both USMX and ILA. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also “closely monitoring” potential supply chain impacts, the White House added, enlisting a task force to meet daily and prepare for any disruptions.

AUSTIN (AP) – A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech.

The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services.

Paxton on Monday vowed to appeal the ruling.

“A ruling—weeks prior to an election— preventing my office from investigating potential election violations is deeply troubling and risks undermining public trust in our political process,” he said.

According to Republican lawmakers, the provision was put in place to prevent voter fraud and secure election integrity. However, in the ruling, the judge noted that there was widespread confusion about how to implement the canvassing restriction from local election administrators. This confusion also left voter outreach organizations uncertain about whether they could provide volunteers with food or bus fare because it could look like compensation.

Many organizations – including La Union del Pueblo Entero, LULAC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund – have filed lawsuits against many other provisions of the law, including voter assistance and mail-in ballot restrictions. The challenges to these provisions have not been ruled on yet. The original complaints were filed in August and September 2021.

Before the law, organizations like OCA-Greater Houston, an advocacy organization for people of Asian and Pacific Island descent, would host in-person election events and allow attendees to bring their mail-in ballots in order to receive help like language assistance.

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at MALDEF, wrote that “Today’s ruling means that voter outreach organizers and other advocates in Texas can speak to mail ballot voters about issues on the ballot and urge voters to support improvements to their communities.”

ACLU of Texas celebrated the ruling on X saying, “This is a win for voting rights in the state, and for the organizations that help keep elections accessible.”

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A convicted murderer who was run out of several Texas cities when he was released early from prison in 1993 pleaded guilty Monday to two new murder charges in a deal that allows him to serve life in prison and avoid the death penalty, over the objections of the victims’ family members.

Raul Meza Jr., 63, served about a decade in prison for killing an 8-year-old girl in 1982 before he was released under laws at the time that gave him credit for good behavior behind bars.

He was charged in 2023 with killing 65-year-old Gloria Lofton in 2019, and 80-year-old Jesse Fraga, his roommate, in 2023. Meza pleaded guilty to capital murder in Lofton’s death and to murder in Fraga’s death. Meza will not be eligible for parole.

“Our hearts continue to break for the Lofton and Fraga families. We hope this outcome continues to help them with their healing process,” Travis County District Attorney José Garza said in a statement. “As a result of this outcome, Mr. Meza will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole and will never threaten our community again.”

But the families of Meza’s victims wanted him to go to trial and for Garza to seek the death penalty.

“A lifetime in jail will not be equal to the pain,” the families have experienced, Loftin’s daughter, Sonia Houston, said in a statement she read in court. “By accepting this plea, we are giving Raul exactly what he wants.”

Meza was first convicted in the 1982 murder of 8-year-old Kendra Page, who authorities said had been strangled and sexually assaulted. He accepted a plea agreement in which he admitted to the murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but only served 11.

Meza’s early release from prison in 1993 caused an uproar throughout Texas, and he was met by protesters at nearly every turn. Picketers drove him out of six cities, sometimes with threats of violence.

“In my heart, I know that I will not willfully bring harm to anyone,” Meza said during an August 1993 news conference after he had been driven out of the communities.

Austin police said Meza called them in May 2023 and confessed to killing Fraga and implicated himself in the 2019 sexual assault and killing of Lofton.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man linked to five killings and convicted of fatally stabbing twin 16-year-old girls more than three decades ago is facing execution on Tuesday evening.

Garcia White was condemned for the December 1989 killings of Annette and Bernette Edwards. The bodies of the twin girls and their mother, Bonita Edwards, were found in their Houston apartment.

White, 61, a former college football player who later worked as a fry cook, was scheduled to receive a lethal injection Tuesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. White would be the sixth inmate put to death in the U.S. in the last 11 days.

Testimony showed White went to the girls’ Houston home to smoke crack with their mother, Bonita, who also was fatally stabbed. When the girls came out of their room to see what had happened, White attacked them. Evidence showed White broke down the locked door of the girls’ bedroom. He was later tied to the deaths of a grocery store owner and another woman.

“Garcia White committed five murders in three different transactions and two of his victims were teenage girls. This is the type of case that the death penalty was intended for,” said Josh Reiss, chief of the Post-Conviction Writs Division with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston.

White’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution after lower courts previously rejected his petitions for a stay. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Friday denied White’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty or to grant him a 30-day reprieve.

His lawyers argued that Texas’ top criminal appeals court has refused “to accept medical evidence and strong factual backing” showing White is intellectually disabled.

The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. But it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities. Justices have wrestled with how much discretion to allow.

White’s lawyers also accused the Texas appeals court of not allowing his defense team to present evidence that could spare him a death sentence, including DNA evidence that another man also was at the crime scene and scientific evidence that would show White was “likely suffering from a cocaine induced psychotic break during his actions.”

White’s lawyers also argued he is entitled to a new review of his death sentence, alleging the Texas appeals court has created a new scheme for sentencing in capital punishment cases after a recent Supreme Court ruling in another Texas death row case.

“Mr. White’s case illustrates everything wrong with the current death penalty in Texas -– he has evidence that he is intellectually disabled which the (Texas appeals court) refuses to permit him to develop. He has significant evidence that could result in a sentence other than death at punishment but cannot present it or develop it,” White’s attorneys said in their petition to the high court.

In a filing to the Supreme Court, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said White has not presented evidence to support his claim he is intellectually disabled. The filing also said White’s claims of evidence of another person at the crime scene and that cocaine use affected his actions have previously been rejected by the courts.

“White presents no reason to delay his execution date any longer. The Edwards family — and the victims of White’s other murders … deserve justice for his decades-old crimes,” the attorney general’s office said.

The deaths of the twin girls and their mother went unsolved for about six years until White confessed to the killings after he was arrested in connection with the July 1995 death of grocery store owner Hai Van Pham, who was fatally beaten during a robbery at his business. Police said White also confessed to fatally beating another woman, Greta Williams, in 1989.

White would be the fifth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, and the 19th in the U.S.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks.

The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight, and even though progress was reported in talks on Monday, the workers went on strike. The strike affecting 36 ports is the first by the union since 1977.

Workers began picketing at the Port of Philadelphia shortly after midnight, walking in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port and chanting “No work without a fair contract.”

The union had message boards on the side of a truck reading: “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs.

Shipping companies made billions during the pandemic by charging high prices, he said. “Now we want them to pay back. They’re going to pay back,” Butler said.

He said the union will strike for as long as it needs to get a fair deal, and it has leverage over the companies.

“This is not something that you start and you stop,” he said. “We’re not weak,” he added, pointing to the union’s importance to the nation’s economy

At Port Houston, at least 50 workers started picketing around midnight local time carrying signs saying “No Work Without a Fair Contract.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, said Monday evening that both sides had moved off of their previous wage offers. But no deal was reached.

The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with President Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises. ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.

But Monday evening, the alliance said it had increased its offer to 50% raises over six years, and it pledged to keep limits on automation in place from the old contract. The union wants a complete ban on automation. It wasn’t clear just how far apart both sides are.

“We are hopeful that this could allow us to fully resume collective bargaining around the other outstanding issues in an effort to reach an agreement,” the alliance statement said.

In a statement early Tuesday, the union said it rejected the alliance’s latest proposal because it “fell far short of what ILA rank-and-file members are demanding in wages and protections against automation.” The two sides had not held formal negotiations since June.

“We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” Daggett said in the statement. “They must now meet our demands for this strike to end.”

The alliance said its offer tripled employer contributions to retirement plans and strengthened health care options.

Supply chain experts say consumers won’t see an immediate impact from the strike because most retailers stocked up on goods, moving ahead shipments of holiday gift items.

But if it goes more than a few weeks, a work stoppage would significantly snarl the nation’s supply chain, potentially leading to higher prices and delays in goods reaching households and businesses.

If drawn out, the strike will force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys or artificial Christmas trees to cars, coffee and fruit.

The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

It also could snarl exports from East Coast ports and create traffic jams at ports on the West Coast, where workers are represented by a different union. Railroads say they can ramp up to carry more freight from the West Coast, but analysts say they can’t move enough to make up for the closed Eastern ports.

“If the strikes go ahead, they will cause enormous delays across the supply chain, a ripple effect which will no doubt roll into 2025 and cause chaos across the industry,” noted Jay Dhokia, founder of supply chain management and logistics firm Pro3PL.

J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike that shuts down East and Gulf coast ports could cost the economy $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per day, with some of that recovered over time after normal operations resume.

The strike comes just weeks before the presidential election and could become a factor if there are shortages. Retailers, auto parts suppliers and produce importers had hoped for a settlement or that President Joe Biden would intervene and end the strike using the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows him to seek an 80-day cooling off period.

But during an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Biden, who has worked to court union votes for Democrats, said “no” when asked if he planned to intervene in the potential work stoppage.

A White House official said Monday that at Biden’s direction, the administration has been in regular communication with the ILA and the alliance to keep the negotiations moving forward. The president directed Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard to convene the alliance’s board members Monday afternoon and urge them to resolve the dispute fairly and quickly — in a way that accounts for the success of shipping companies in recent years and contributions of union workers.

HOUSTON – Texas Public Radio reports that Texas’ maternal mortality committee should be allowed to review abortion-related deaths and have more voices from impacted communities at the table, the group’s chair said at a Friday meeting. These comments represent the committee’s most forceful critique yet of the system by which the state reviews deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth. Dr. Carla Ortique, a Houston OB/GYN who chairs the committee, called for the reversal of recent legislative changes that redrew committee membership and began the process to remove Texas from the federal maternal mortality tracking system. She said the Legislature should consider lifting the redaction requirements that keep these deaths anonymous and allow the committee to review deaths related to abortion, which they learned in March had been excluded from their files for more than a decade.

“Each maternal death, each life that is lost, has value,” she said. “We can’t make comments about what caused an increase in maternal death in our state if we’re not really reviewing all of them.” These calls for reform come amid a recent report showing a significant spike in maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021, reversing several years of improvements. The data from this report documents the period before the state banned nearly all abortions, which is expected to increase maternal mortality. This month, ProPublica reported on two Georgia women who died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care because of the state’s abortion restrictions. Georgia’s maternal mortality committee deemed those deaths to be preventable, public records show. Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, a Dallas OB-GYN, abortion provider and chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health, told The Texas Tribune she is certain there are similar stories in Texas, a state three times as large as Georgia with even stricter abortion laws. “The framing around these being the first recorded deaths is deeply painful, because I know there are people that have died right here, but their stories are never going to be told in that way,” she said.

BOSTON (AP) — Texas-based Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre filed a lawsuit Monday against a U.S. Senate committee that pursued contempt charges against him for failing to appear before the panel despite being issued a subpoena.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, named nearly all members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the committee which has investigated Steward’s bankruptcy.

The lawsuit claims that the lawmakers are unlawfully violating de la Torre’s constitutional rights.

It alleges that the members of the committee, by trying to compel de la Torre to answer questions about Steward’s bankruptcy, are “collectively undertaking a concerted effort to punish Dr. de la Torre for invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to ‘be compelled . . . to be a witness against himself.’”

De la Torre is asking the court to declare that all actions related to enforcement of the subpoena are invalid and unconstitutional — including the vote of the committee on Sept. 19 approving the criminal contempt resolution and its decision to present the resolution to the full Senate for a vote.

The Senate approved the resolution last week.

“No one can be compelled to testify when they exercise this right under these circumstances. Nor does the Constitution permit Congress to punish and intimidate him, or any other American, for exercising these rights,” William “Bill” Burck, a lawyer for de la Torre, said in a written statement.

The lawsuit comes a day before de la Torre is set to step down as CEO of Steward.

De la Torre has overseen Steward’s network of some 30 hospitals around the country. The Texas-based company’s troubled recent history has drawn scrutiny from elected officials in New England, where some of its hospitals are located.

A spokesperson for de la Torre said Saturday that he “has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms” and “will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population.”

Sanders said earlier this month that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”

Steward has shut down pediatric wards in Massachusetts and Louisiana, closed neonatal units in Florida and Texas, and eliminated maternity services at a hospital in Florida.

Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts said that over the past decade, Steward, led by de la Torre, and its corporate enablers, “looted hospitals across the country for profit, and got rich through their greedy schemes.”

Alexander Merton, an attorney for de la Torre, has said the fault instead lies with “the systemic failures in Massachusetts’ health care system” and that the committee was trying to frame de la Torre as a criminal scapegoat. Merton has also said that de la Torre would agree to testify at a later date.

On Friday, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced her administration had formally seized a hospital through eminent domain to help keep it open and transition to a new owner. St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Boston was one of a group run by Steward. Operations will be transferred to Boston Medical Center.

Two other Steward-operated hospitals in Massachusetts were forced to close after qualified buyers could not be found during the bankruptcy process.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech.

The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services.

Paxton on Monday vowed to appeal the ruling.

“A ruling—weeks prior to an election— preventing my office from investigating potential election violations is deeply troubling and risks undermining public trust in our political process,” he said.

According to Republican lawmakers, the provision was put in place to prevent voter fraud and secure election integrity. However, in the ruling, the judge noted that there was widespread confusion about how to implement the canvassing restriction from local election administrators. This confusion also left voter outreach organizations uncertain about whether they could provide volunteers with food or bus fare because it could look like compensation.

Many organizations – including La Union del Pueblo Entero, LULAC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund – have filed lawsuits against many other provisions of the law, including voter assistance and mail-in ballot restrictions. The challenges to these provisions have not been ruled on yet. The original complaints were filed in August and September 2021.

Before the law, organizations like OCA-Greater Houston, an advocacy organization for people of Asian and Pacific Island descent, would host in-person election events and allow attendees to bring their mail-in ballots in order to receive help like language assistance.

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at MALDEF, wrote that “Today’s ruling means that voter outreach organizers and other advocates in Texas can speak to mail ballot voters about issues on the ballot and urge voters to support improvements to their communities.”

ACLU of Texas celebrated the ruling on X saying, “This is a win for voting rights in the state, and for the organizations that help keep elections accessible.”