WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. companies would no longer be able to bar employees from taking jobs with competitors under a rule approved by a federal agency Tuesday, though the rule is sure to be challenged in court.
The Federal Trade Commission voted Tuesday 3-2 to ban measures known as noncompete agreements, which bar workers from jumping to or starting competing companies for a prescribed period of time. According to the FTC, 30 million people — roughly one in five workers — are now subject to such restrictions.
The Biden administration has taken aim at noncompete measures, which are commonly associated with high-level executives at technology and financial companies but in recent years have also ensnared lower-paid workers, such as security guards and sandwich-shop employees. A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that more than one in 10 workers who earn $20 or less an hour are covered by noncompete agreements.
When it proposed the ban in January 2023, FTC officials asserted that noncompete agreements harm workers by reducing their ability to switch jobs for higher pay, a step that often provides most workers with their biggest pay increases. By reducing overall churn in the job market, the agency argued, the measures also disadvantage workers who aren’t covered by them because fewer jobs become available as fewer people leave their positions. They can also hurt the economy overall by limiting the ability of other businesses to hire needed employees, the FTC said.
The rule, which doesn’t apply to workers at non-profits, is to take effect in four months unless it is blocked by legal challenges.
“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas and rob the American economy of dynamism,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said. “We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces.”
Some doctors, she added, have been prevented from practicing medicine after leaving practices.
Business groups have criticized the measure as casting too wide a net by blocking nearly all noncompetes. They argue that highly paid executives are often able to win greater pay in return for accepting a noncompete.
“It’ll represent a sea change,” said Amanda Sonneborn, a partner at King & Spalding in Chicago who represents employers that use noncompetes. “They don’t want somebody to go to a competitor and take their customer list or take their information about their business strategy to that competitor.”
But Alexander Hertzel-Fernandez, a professor at Columbia University who is a former Biden administration Labor Department official, argued that lower-income workers don’t have the ability to negotiate over such provisions.
“When they get their job offer,” he said, “it’s really a take-it-or-leave-it-as-a-whole,” he said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday that it will file a lawsuit to block the rule. It accused the FTC of overstepping its authority.
“Noncompete agreements are either upheld or dismissed under well-established state laws governing their use,” said Suzanne Clark, the chamber’s CEO. “Yet today, three unelected commissioners have unilaterally decided they have the authority to declare what’s a legitimate business decision and what’s not by moving to ban noncompete agreements in all sectors of the economy.”
Two Republican appointees to the FTC, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, voted against the proposal. They asserted that the agency was exceeding its authority by approving such a sweeping rule.
Noncompete agreements are banned in three states, including California, and some opponents of noncompetes argue that California’s ban has been a key contributor to that state’s innovative tech economy.
John Lettieri, CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, a tech-backed think tank, argues that the ability of early innovators to leave one company and start a competitor was key to the development of the semiconductor industry.
“The birth of so many important foundational companies could not have happened, at least not in the same way or on the same timeline and definitely not in the same place, had it not been for the ability of entrepreneurs to spin out, start their own companies, or go to a better company,” Lettieri said.
The White House has been stepping up its efforts to protect workers as the presidential campaign heats up. On Tuesday, the Labor Department issued a rule that would guarantee overtime pay for more lower-paid workers. The rule would increase the required minimum salary level to exempt an employee from overtime pay, from about $35,600 currently to nearly $43,900 effective July 1 and $58,700 by Jan. 1, 2025.
Companies will be required to pay overtime for workers below those thresholds who work more than 40 hours a week.
“This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time,” said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will consider Wednesday when doctors can provide abortions during medical emergencies in states with bans enacted after the high court’s sweeping decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The case comes from Idaho, which is one of 14 states that now ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy with limited exceptions. It marks the first time the Supreme Court has considered a state ban since Roe was reversed.
The Biden administration argues that even in states where abortion is banned, federal health care law says hospitals must be allowed to terminate pregnancies in rare emergencies where a patient’s life or health is at serious risk.
Idaho contends its ban has exceptions for life-saving abortions but allowing it in more medical emergencies would turn hospitals into “abortion enclaves.” The state argues the administration is misusing a health care law that is meant to ensure patients aren’t turned away based on their ability to pay.
The Supreme Court has allowed the Idaho law to go into effect, even during emergencies, as the case played out.
Doctors have said Idaho’s abortion ban has already affected emergency care. More women whose conditions are typically treated with abortions must now be flown out of state for care, since doctors must wait until they are close to death to provide abortions within the bounds of state law.
Meanwhile, complaints of pregnant women being turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to federal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Anti-abortion groups blame doctors for mishandling maternal emergency cases. Idaho argues the Biden administration overstates health care woes to undermine state abortion laws.
The justices also heard another abortion case this term seeking to restrict access to abortion medication. It remains pending, though the justices overall seemed skeptical of the push.
The Justice Department originally brought the case against Idaho, arguing the state’s abortion law conflicts with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, known as EMTALA. It requires hospitals that accept Medicare to provide emergency care to any patient regardless of their ability to pay. Nearly all hospitals accept Medicare.
A federal judge initially sided with the administration and ruled that abortions were legal in medical emergencies. After the state appealed, the Supreme Court allowed the law to go fully into effect in January.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June.
HOUSTON (AP) — A deputy who was a 20-year-veteran of a Houston-area sheriff’s office died Tuesday after being hit by a truck while trying to help a driver following a minor crash, according to officials.
John Coddou had pulled over to help following the crash at 9:30 a.m. northwest of Houston, said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
A white Chevy truck that was traveling on the roadway swerved to avoid Coddou’s vehicle and veered onto the median, where Coddou was helping with the minor crash.
Coddou tried to avoid the truck but he was hit, Gonzalez.
He was flown by helicopter to a Houston hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Gonzalez said.
“Our hearts are broken, our spirits are crushed,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a sad day in Harris County as we mourn the loss of one of our deputies that died in the line of duty.”
The driver of the truck remained at the scene and was cooperating with investigators, Gonzalez said.
Caddou, 50, was an Army veteran and had been assigned to the violent crimes unit of the sheriff’s office. He was married.
Gonzalez said that Caddou could have decided not to stop and drive past the crash scene.
“But that wasn’t who John was. By all accounts, he was a public servant through and through,” Gonzalez said.
EL PASO (AP) — A Texas grand jury indicted more than 140 migrants on misdemeanor rioting charges Tuesday over an alleged mass attempt to breach the U.S.-Mexico border, a day after a judge threw out the cases.
No injuries were reported during the alleged breach on April 12 in El Paso, which authorities say began when someone in the group cut through a razor wire barrier. Mass arrests also followed a separate episode in the Texas border city in March.
On Monday, a county judge had thrown out the charges against those who were arrested this month, ruling there was insufficient probable cause. A public defender representing the migrants had argued there was not enough evidence and accused authorities of trying to make headlines.
“The citizens of El Paso, through the grand jury, essentially overruled the judge’s ruling and found probable cause to believe that the riots did occur,” El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks told reporters Tuesday.
Kelli Childress-Diaz, the El Paso Public Defender who is representing the 141 defendants, said she wasn’t surprised.
“I imagine they had that already prepared before the hearing even started yesterday,” she said.
The arrests have drawn more attention to Texas’ expanding operations along the border, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has rolled out a series of aggressive measures in the name of curbing illegal crossings. Following the arrests in March, Abbott responded by saying he sent 700 additional National Guard members to El Paso.
Hicks, whom Abbott appointed to the job in 2022, said that although it is not common for a grand jury to indict misdemeanor cases, he felt it was “fair” to pose the cases before them. In all, Hicks estimated they had arrested over 350 people on rioting charges since March.
If convicted, those charged could each face up to 180 days in county jail and a fine of up to $2,000. Those in jail still face federal charges, and Hicks said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could still pick them up from jail to process them on an illegal entry offense.
“It turns my stomach that these people are nothing more than than, you know, political coins in a bet that some of our government officials have hedged,” Childress-Diaz told The Associated Press.
HOUSTON (AP) — A legal battle over a lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons is bringing together advocates on the issue and one current inmate who says his health is being endangered by the state’s hot prisons. That inmate is the former mortician whose murder case inspired the movie “Bernie.” Advocates for Texas prisoners asked Monday to join a federal lawsuit filed last year by Bernie Tiede (TEE’-duh). He’s alleging his life is in danger from being housed in a stifling prison cell without air conditioning. The advocacy groups want to expand the lawsuit on behalf of all Texas prisoners. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice declined to comment.
AUSTIN (AP) — A second person has died after a Texas semitrailer driver this month plowed a stolen 18-wheeler into a public safety office where his commercial license renewal had been rejected, authorities said Monday.
More than a dozen people were inside the building on April 12 when authorities say Clenard Parker, 42, intentionally rammed the truck into the Texas Department of Public Safety office in Brenham, a rural town outside Houston. One 78-year-old man died later the day after being taken to a hospital.
Cheryl Turner, 63, of Brenham was identified by state authorities as the second person to have died as a result of the crash.
Parker remained jailed in Washington County on charges that included murder, four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unauthorized use of a vehicle. Jail records do not list an attorney for Parker and the district clerk’s office said Monday it had no lawyer on file.
Authorities say Parker led law enforcement on a short chase before ramming the stolen semitrailer into the same public safety office where he had been told a day earlier that he was not eligible to renew his commercial driver’s license.
SMITH COUNTY — Early Voting began Monday, April 22, and runs through Tuesday, April 30, for the Joint City Election. The Cities of Tyler, Arp and Lindale have races in the election. There are four early voting locations in Smith County, including:
Arp City Hall, 109 W. Longview St. in Arp
Heritage Building, 1900 Bellwood Road in Tyler
The Hub, 304 E. Ferguson St., in Tyler
Lindale Kinzie Community Center, 912 Mt. Sylvan St. in Lindale.
Early voting polling places are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, April 22-26, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, April 29-30.
There will be six polling sites open on Election Day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 4.
The Smith County Elections Office has launched an interactive map to help voters find what precincts are included in the cities holding an election. Click here for more information.
TYLER — On Monday, April 22, Tyler Water Utilities (TWU) identified a significant break in a water main located at 2025 SSW Loop 323. This break has resulted in the depletion of water tanks on the west side of town, causing water shortages or low water pressure in many households and businesses. TWU crews are working on the repairs, water valves have been identified and shut off, and the leak has been contained.
TWU is working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to determine the extent of the issue. The City will continue to update residents as they learn more.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has approved $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies in a rare weekend session as Democrats and Republicans banded together after months of hard-right resistance over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion.
With an overwhelming vote Saturday, the $61 billion in aid for Ukraine passed in a matter of minutes, a strong showing as American lawmakers race to deliver a fresh round of U.S. support to the war-torn ally. Many Democrats cheered on the House floor and waved blue-and-yellow flags of Ukraine.
Aid to Israel and the other allies also won approval by healthy margins, as did a measure to clamp down on the popular platform TikTok, with unique coalitions forming to push the separate bills forward. The whole package will go to the Senate, which could pass it as soon as Tuesday. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.
“We did our work here, and I think history will judge it well,” said a weary Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who risked his own job to marshal the package to passage.
Biden spoke separately with Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to thank them for “putting our national security first” by advancing the legislation, the White House said.
“I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs,” the president said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said he was “grateful” to both parties in the House and “personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
“Thank you, America!” he said.
The scene in Congress was a striking display of action after months of dysfunction and stalemate fueled by Republicans, who hold the majority but are deeply split over foreign aid, particularly for Ukraine. Johnson relied on Democrats to ensure the military and humanitarian funding — the first major package for Ukraine since December 2022 — won approval.
The morning opened with a somber and serious debate and an unusual sense of purpose as Republican and Democratic leaders united to urge quick approval, saying that would ensure the United States supported its allies and remained a leader on the world stage. The House’s visitor galleries were crowded with onlookers.
“The eyes of the world are upon us, and history will judge what we do here and now,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
Passage through the House cleared away the biggest hurdle to Biden’s funding request, first made in October as Ukraine’s military supplies began to run low.
The GOP-controlled House struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance for Ukraine be tied to policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico border, only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines.
Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.
“Sometimes when you are living history, as we are today, you don’t understand the significance of the actions of the votes that we make on this House floor, of the effect that it will have down the road,” said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This is a historic moment.”
Opponents, particularly the hard-right Republicans from Johnson’s majority, argued that the U.S. should focus on the home front, addressing domestic border security and the nation’s rising debt load, and they warned against spending more money, which largely flows to American defense manufacturers, to produce weaponry used overseas.
Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America’s commitment to its allies.
At stake has been one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson’s plan, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote.
“We have a responsibility, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans to defend democracy wherever it is at risk,” Jeffries said during the debate.
While aid for Ukraine failed to win a majority of Republicans, several dozen progressive Democrats voted against the bill aiding Israel as they demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians. A group of roughly 20 hard-right Republicans voted against every portion of the aid package, including for allies like Israel and Taiwan that have traditionally enjoyed support from the GOP.
Some Republicans also angrily objected to their counterparts waving Ukrainian flags during the vote. Rep. Kat Cammack, a Florida Republican, said on X she was “infuriated” by the display and was working on legislation to prohibit the flags of foreign nations on the House floor.
At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics.
Ukraine’s defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a majority of Republicans opposed further aid. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., offered an amendment to zero out the money, but it was rejected.
The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills did not include border security measures.
Johnson’s hold on the speaker’s gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Greene, supported a “motion to vacate” that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. Egged on by far-right personalities, she is also being joined by a growing number of lawmakers including Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside.
The package included several Republican priorities that Democrats endorsed, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States.
Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the tide of the war as Russia pummels Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced the Senate would begin procedural votes on the package Tuesday, saying, “Our allies across the world have been waiting for this moment.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, as he prepared to overcome objections from his right flank next week, said, “The task before us is urgent. It is once again the Senate’s turn to make history.”
GLADEWATER — The City of Gladewater has announced that there will be a water outage near Hendricks Street and Walnut Street this Wednesday. According to our news partner KETK, city contractors have planned these outages so that they can tie in waterlines in the area that have been replaced. The city added that any additional updates would be shared to their social media and their Genasys alert system.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Saturday that would ban TikTok in the United States if the popular social media platform’s China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year, but don’t expect the app to go away anytime soon.
The decision by House Republicans to include TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package, a priority for President Joe Biden with broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, fast-tracked the ban after an earlier version had stalled in the Senate. A standalone bill with a shorter, six-month selling deadline passed the House in March by an overwhelming bipartisan vote as both Democrats and Republicans voiced national security concerns about the app’s owner, the Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.
The modified measure, passed by a 360-58 vote, now goes to the Senate after negotiations that lengthened the timeline for the company to sell to nine months, with a possible additional three months if a sale is in progress.
Legal challenges could extend that timeline even further. The company has indicated that it would likely go to court to try and block the law if it passes, arguing it would deprive the app’s millions of users of their First Amendment rights.
TikTok has lobbied hard against the legislation, pushing the app’s 170 million U.S. users — many of whom are young — to call Congress and voice opposition. But the ferocity of the pushback angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where there is broad concern about Chinese threats to the U.S. and where few members use the platform themselves.
“We will not stop fighting and advocating for you,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video that was posted on the platform last month and directed toward the app’s users. “We will continue to do all we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform that we have built with you.”
The bill’s quick path through Congress is extraordinary because it targets one company and because Congress has taken a hands-off approach to tech regulation for decades. Lawmakers had failed to act despite efforts to protect children online, safeguard users’ privacy and make companies more liable for content posted on their platforms, among other measures. But the TikTok ban reflects widespread concerns from lawmakers about China.
Members of both parties, along with intelligence officials, have worried that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over American user data or direct the company to suppress or boost TikTok content favorable to its interests. TikTok has denied assertions that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government and has said it has not shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities.
The U.S. government has not publicly provided evidence that shows TikTok shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or tinkered with the company’s popular algorithm, which influences what Americans see.
The company has good reason to think a legal challenge could be successful, having seen some success in previous legal fights over its operations in the U.S.. In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that would ban TikTok use across the state after the company and five content creators who use the platform sued.
In 2020, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok after the company sued on the grounds that the order violated free speech and due process rights. His administration brokered a deal that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok. The sale never went through for a number of reasons; one was China, which imposed stricter export controls on its technology providers.
Dozens of states and the federal government have put in place TikTok bans on government devices. Texas’ ban was challenged last year by The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy was impeding academic freedom because it extended to public universities. In December, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state.
Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have backed the app. “Congress cannot take away the rights of over 170 million Americans who use TikTok to express themselves, engage in political advocacy, and access information from around the world,” said Jenna Leventoff, a lawyer for the group.
Since mid-March, TikTok has spent $5 million on TV ads opposing the legislation, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm. The ads have included a range of content creators, including a nun, extolling the positive impacts of the platform on their lives and arguing a ban would trample on the First Amendment. The company has also encouraged its users to contact Congress, and some lawmakers have received profanity-laced calls.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually,” said Alex Haurek, a spokesman for the company.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat, voted against the legislation. He said he thinks there could have been less restrictive ways to go after the company that wouldn’t result in a total ban or threaten free speech.
“I think it’s not going to be well received,” Khanna said. “It’s a sign of the Beltway being out of touch with where voters are.”
Nadya Okamoto, a content creator who has roughly 4 million followers on TikTok, said she has been having conversations with other creators who are experiencing “so much anger and anxiety” about the bill and how it’s going to impact their lives. The 26-year-old, whose company “August” sells menstrual products and is known for her advocacy around destigmatizing menstrual periods, makes most of her income from TikTok.
“This is going to have real repercussions,” she said.
DALLAS (AP) — The United Auto Workers’ overwhelming election victory at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee is giving the union hope that it can make broader inroads in the South, the least unionized part of the country.
The UAW won a stunning 73% of the vote at VW after losing elections in 2014 and 2019. It was the union’s first win in a Southern assembly plant owned by a foreign automaker.
Union President Shawn Fain said the pundits all told him that the UAW couldn’t win in the South.
“But you all said, ‘Watch this,’ ” he told a cheering group of VW organizers at a union hall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Friday night, when the UAW victory was clear. “You guys are leading the way. We’re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else.”
However, the UAW is likely to face a tougher test as it tries to represent workers at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A five-day election is scheduled to start May 13, where the union’s campaign has already become heated.
The UAW has accused the German carmaker of violating U.S. and German labor laws with aggressive anti-union tactics, which the company denies.
“They are going to have a much harder road in work sites where they are going to face aggressive management resistance and even community resistance than they faced in Chattanooga,” said Harry Katz, a labor-relations professor at Cornell University. “VW management did not aggressively seek to avoid unionization. Mercedes is going to be a good test. It’s the deeper South.”
Late last year, the UAW announced a drive to represent nearly 150,000 workers at non-union factories largely in the South. The union is targeting U.S. plants run by Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, along with factories operated by electric-vehicle makers Tesla, Rivian and Lucid.
Many of those companies raised pay after the UAW negotiated rich new contracts with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis after strikes at strategically chosen factories last year.
Brooke Benoit, a VW worker who had seen the union voted down in Chattanooga twice before, said workers took notice.
“I think what changed the most is everybody started seeing what we could get when the Big Three went on strike,” she said. “They said, ‘Wait, hold on. If they can get all this, we should too.’ We do the same job, just in a different location.”
The union’s last defeat at VW in Chattanooga came at a low-water mark — in the middle of a federal investigation into bribery and embezzlement under a previous president.
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies the UAW, said the union flipped the script by installing new leadership, touting the rich contracts it won last year from Detroit automakers after strikes at targeted factories, and exploiting a climate that is now more favorable to unions. He said the union was also adept at translating signed pro-union authorization cards into votes — partly by pushing for a quick election.
“Now the public and media eyes are going to be on Chattanooga and how quickly the UAW can translate this into a contract,” he said. If the union can’t quickly get a good contract, it risks losing some of the momentum it gained with Friday’s election win, he said.
Unions in other industries are already moving ahead with organizing campaigns in the South and trying to learn from the UAW’s playbook.
The Association of Flight Attendants, which has tried and failed to win over cabin crews at Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, hopes to collect enough signatures to force another election at Delta by year end. The union’s president, Sara Nelson, said she was not surprised at the UAW win after strikes that led to record contracts last year.
“I’ve been talking about this for a long time — that strikes and taking on the boss is going to spur organizing, and that’s exactly what we saw here,” Nelson said.
Nelson is trying to secure an industry-leading contract at United Airlines that she can use to court Delta crews. In the meantime, crews at startup Breeze Airways, many of whom live in the South, will vote next month whether to join her union.
The White House issued a statement from President Joe Biden congratulating the UAW. Biden — who joined a UAW picket line in Michigan during the union’s strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis plants last year — praised the success of unions representing autoworkers, Hollywood actors and writers, health care workers and others in gaining better contracts.
“Together, these union wins have helped raise wages and demonstrate once again that the middle-class built America and that unions are still building and expanding the middle class for all workers,” Biden said.
Biden criticized six Southern Republican governors, including Bill Lee of Tennessee, who told autoworkers this week that voting for union representation would jeopardize jobs.
Sharon Block, a law professor at Harvard University who worked in the Biden Labor Department, said the governors’ warning rang hollow after nonunion Tesla revealed that it plans to lay off 10% of its workers after disappointing sales results. She said VW workers saw the governors’ open letter as “an empty threat and a cynical ploy,” and they ignored it.
“Workers for a long time have been told that you can’t organize in the South. And many workers, even not in the South, may work in industries where they’ve been told for a long time you can’t organize,” Block said. “What the UAW showed last night is that we need to go and rethink all those negative statements.”
DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.
The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.
Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.
“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”
Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”
They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”
Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.
“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.
The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.
This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.
“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”
Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.
“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.
He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.
“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.
Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.
“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.
WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.
Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.
The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.
“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care — this is inconceivable.”
It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.
Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law.
“No woman should be denied the care she needs,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. “All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.”
PREGNANCY CARE AFTER ROE
Pregnant patients have “become radioactive to emergency departments” in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor.
“They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone,” Rosenbaum said.
Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.
“The physician came to the triage desk and told the patient that we did not have obstetric services or capabilities,” hospital staff told federal investigators during interviews, according to documents. “The nursing staff informed the physician that we could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid. However, the physician adamantly recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital.”
Investigators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded Falls Community Hospital broke the law.
Reached by phone, an administrator at the hospital declined to comment on the incident.
The investigation was one of dozens the AP obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request filed in February 2023 that sought all pregnancy-related EMTALA complaints the previous year. One year after submitting the request, the federal government agreed to release only some complaints and investigative documents filed across just 19 states. The names of patients, doctors and medical staff were redacted from the documents.
Federal investigators looked into just over a dozen pregnancy-related complaints in those states during the months leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal ruling on abortion in 2022. But more than two dozen complaints about emergency pregnancy care were lodged in the months after the decision was unveiled. It is not known how many complaints were filed last year as the records request only asked for 2022 complaints and the information is not publicly available otherwise.
The documents did not detail what happened to the patient turned away from the Falls Community Hospital.
‘SHE IS BLEEDING A LOT’
Other pregnancies ended in catastrophe, the documents show.
At Sacred Heart Emergency Center in Houston, front desk staff refused to check in one woman after her husband asked for help delivering her baby that September. She miscarried in a restroom toilet in the emergency room lobby while her husband called 911 for help.
“She is bleeding a lot and had a miscarriage,” the husband told first responders in his call, which was transcribed from Spanish in federal documents. “I’m here at the hospital but they told us they can’t help us because we are not their client.”
Emergency crews, who arrived 20 minutes later and transferred the woman to a hospital, appeared confused over the staff’s refusal to help the woman, according to 911 call transcripts.
One first responder told federal investigators that when a Sacred Heart Emergency Center staffer was asked about the gestational age of the fetus, the staffer replied: “No, we can’t tell you, she is not our patient. That’s why you are here.”
A manager for Sacred Heart Emergency Center declined to comment. The facility is licensed in Texas as a freestanding emergency room, which means it is not physically connected to a hospital. State law requires those facilities to treat or stabilize patients, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services agency said in an email to AP.
Sacred Heart Emergency’s website says that it no longer accepts Medicare, a change that was made sometime after the woman miscarried, according to publicly available archives of the center’s website.
Meanwhile, the staff at Person Memorial Hospital in Roxboro, North Carolina, told a pregnant woman, who was complaining of stomach pain, that they would not be able to provide her with an ultrasound. The staff failed to tell her how risky it could be for her to depart without being stabilized, according to federal investigators. While en route to another hospital 45 minutes away, the woman gave birth in a car to a baby who did not survive.
Person Memorial Hospital self-reported the incident. A spokeswoman said the hospital continues to “provide ongoing education for our staff and providers to ensure compliance.”
In Melbourne, Florida, a security guard at Holmes Regional Medical Center refused to let a pregnant woman into the triage area because she had brought a child with her. When the patient came back the next day, medical staff were unable to locate a fetal heartbeat. The center declined to comment on the case.
WHAT’S THE PENALTY?
Emergency rooms are subject to hefty fines when they turn away patients, fail to stabilize them or transfer them to another hospital for treatment. Violations can also put hospitals’ Medicare funding at risk.
But it’s unclear what fines might be imposed on more than a dozen hospitals that the Biden administration says failed to properly treat pregnant patients in 2022.
It can take years for fines to be levied in these cases. The Health and Human Services agency, which enforces the law, declined to share if the hospitals have been referred to the agency’s Office of Inspector General for penalties.
For Huntsberger, the OB-GYN, EMTALA was one of the few ways she felt protected to treat pregnant patients in Idaho, despite the state’s abortion ban. She left Idaho last year to practice in Oregon because of the ban.
The threat of fines or loss of Medicare funding for violating EMTALA is a big deterrent that keeps hospitals from dumping patients, she said. Many couldn’t keep their doors open if they lost Medicare funding.
She has been waiting to see how HHS penalizes two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas that HHS announced last year it was investigating after a pregnant woman, who was in preterm labor at 17 weeks, was denied an abortion.
“A lot of these situations are not reported, but even the ones that are — like the cases out of the Midwest — they’re investigated but nothing really comes of it,” Huntsberger said. “People are just going to keep providing substandard care or not providing care. The only way that changes is things like this.”
TYLER — The City of Tyler, Tyler Area Business Education Council and Tyler ISD are partnering to put on the annual School is Cool event, benefitting school children, according to our news partner KETK. The event will take place on Aug. 1 from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Rose Garden Center and the W.T. Brookshire Conference Center at 2000 W. Front Street. The organization said that the first 2,000 school-aged children in line at the event will receive free backpacks with school supplies.
The release said that the Tyler Area Business Education Council is seeking donations and sponsorships from local businesses and organizations. The organization said that for every $50 donated, a backpack with school supplies will be purchased for a child in need. Read the rest of this entry »
New federal rule would bar ‘noncompete’ agreements for most employees
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
9:50 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. companies would no longer be able to bar employees from taking jobs with competitors under a rule approved by a federal agency Tuesday, though the rule is sure to be challenged in court.
The Federal Trade Commission voted Tuesday 3-2 to ban measures known as noncompete agreements, which bar workers from jumping to or starting competing companies for a prescribed period of time. According to the FTC, 30 million people — roughly one in five workers — are now subject to such restrictions.
The Biden administration has taken aim at noncompete measures, which are commonly associated with high-level executives at technology and financial companies but in recent years have also ensnared lower-paid workers, such as security guards and sandwich-shop employees. A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that more than one in 10 workers who earn $20 or less an hour are covered by noncompete agreements.
When it proposed the ban in January 2023, FTC officials asserted that noncompete agreements harm workers by reducing their ability to switch jobs for higher pay, a step that often provides most workers with their biggest pay increases. By reducing overall churn in the job market, the agency argued, the measures also disadvantage workers who aren’t covered by them because fewer jobs become available as fewer people leave their positions. They can also hurt the economy overall by limiting the ability of other businesses to hire needed employees, the FTC said.
The rule, which doesn’t apply to workers at non-profits, is to take effect in four months unless it is blocked by legal challenges.
“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas and rob the American economy of dynamism,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said. “We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces.”
Some doctors, she added, have been prevented from practicing medicine after leaving practices.
Business groups have criticized the measure as casting too wide a net by blocking nearly all noncompetes. They argue that highly paid executives are often able to win greater pay in return for accepting a noncompete.
“It’ll represent a sea change,” said Amanda Sonneborn, a partner at King & Spalding in Chicago who represents employers that use noncompetes. “They don’t want somebody to go to a competitor and take their customer list or take their information about their business strategy to that competitor.”
But Alexander Hertzel-Fernandez, a professor at Columbia University who is a former Biden administration Labor Department official, argued that lower-income workers don’t have the ability to negotiate over such provisions.
“When they get their job offer,” he said, “it’s really a take-it-or-leave-it-as-a-whole,” he said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday that it will file a lawsuit to block the rule. It accused the FTC of overstepping its authority.
“Noncompete agreements are either upheld or dismissed under well-established state laws governing their use,” said Suzanne Clark, the chamber’s CEO. “Yet today, three unelected commissioners have unilaterally decided they have the authority to declare what’s a legitimate business decision and what’s not by moving to ban noncompete agreements in all sectors of the economy.”
Two Republican appointees to the FTC, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, voted against the proposal. They asserted that the agency was exceeding its authority by approving such a sweeping rule.
Noncompete agreements are banned in three states, including California, and some opponents of noncompetes argue that California’s ban has been a key contributor to that state’s innovative tech economy.
John Lettieri, CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, a tech-backed think tank, argues that the ability of early innovators to leave one company and start a competitor was key to the development of the semiconductor industry.
“The birth of so many important foundational companies could not have happened, at least not in the same way or on the same timeline and definitely not in the same place, had it not been for the ability of entrepreneurs to spin out, start their own companies, or go to a better company,” Lettieri said.
The White House has been stepping up its efforts to protect workers as the presidential campaign heats up. On Tuesday, the Labor Department issued a rule that would guarantee overtime pay for more lower-paid workers. The rule would increase the required minimum salary level to exempt an employee from overtime pay, from about $35,600 currently to nearly $43,900 effective July 1 and $58,700 by Jan. 1, 2025.
Companies will be required to pay overtime for workers below those thresholds who work more than 40 hours a week.
“This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time,” said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.
Supreme Court to consider when doctors can provide emergency abortions in states with bans
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
9:50 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will consider Wednesday when doctors can provide abortions during medical emergencies in states with bans enacted after the high court’s sweeping decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The case comes from Idaho, which is one of 14 states that now ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy with limited exceptions. It marks the first time the Supreme Court has considered a state ban since Roe was reversed.
The Biden administration argues that even in states where abortion is banned, federal health care law says hospitals must be allowed to terminate pregnancies in rare emergencies where a patient’s life or health is at serious risk.
Idaho contends its ban has exceptions for life-saving abortions but allowing it in more medical emergencies would turn hospitals into “abortion enclaves.” The state argues the administration is misusing a health care law that is meant to ensure patients aren’t turned away based on their ability to pay.
The Supreme Court has allowed the Idaho law to go into effect, even during emergencies, as the case played out.
Doctors have said Idaho’s abortion ban has already affected emergency care. More women whose conditions are typically treated with abortions must now be flown out of state for care, since doctors must wait until they are close to death to provide abortions within the bounds of state law.
Meanwhile, complaints of pregnant women being turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to federal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Anti-abortion groups blame doctors for mishandling maternal emergency cases. Idaho argues the Biden administration overstates health care woes to undermine state abortion laws.
The justices also heard another abortion case this term seeking to restrict access to abortion medication. It remains pending, though the justices overall seemed skeptical of the push.
The Justice Department originally brought the case against Idaho, arguing the state’s abortion law conflicts with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, known as EMTALA. It requires hospitals that accept Medicare to provide emergency care to any patient regardless of their ability to pay. Nearly all hospitals accept Medicare.
A federal judge initially sided with the administration and ruled that abortions were legal in medical emergencies. After the state appealed, the Supreme Court allowed the law to go fully into effect in January.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June.
Deputy dies after being hit by truck while helping during accident
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
9:50 am
HOUSTON (AP) — A deputy who was a 20-year-veteran of a Houston-area sheriff’s office died Tuesday after being hit by a truck while trying to help a driver following a minor crash, according to officials.
John Coddou had pulled over to help following the crash at 9:30 a.m. northwest of Houston, said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
A white Chevy truck that was traveling on the roadway swerved to avoid Coddou’s vehicle and veered onto the median, where Coddou was helping with the minor crash.
Coddou tried to avoid the truck but he was hit, Gonzalez.
He was flown by helicopter to a Houston hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Gonzalez said.
“Our hearts are broken, our spirits are crushed,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a sad day in Harris County as we mourn the loss of one of our deputies that died in the line of duty.”
The driver of the truck remained at the scene and was cooperating with investigators, Gonzalez said.
Caddou, 50, was an Army veteran and had been assigned to the violent crimes unit of the sheriff’s office. He was married.
Gonzalez said that Caddou could have decided not to stop and drive past the crash scene.
“But that wasn’t who John was. By all accounts, he was a public servant through and through,” Gonzalez said.
Migrants indicted over alleged border breach
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
9:50 am
EL PASO (AP) — A Texas grand jury indicted more than 140 migrants on misdemeanor rioting charges Tuesday over an alleged mass attempt to breach the U.S.-Mexico border, a day after a judge threw out the cases.
No injuries were reported during the alleged breach on April 12 in El Paso, which authorities say began when someone in the group cut through a razor wire barrier. Mass arrests also followed a separate episode in the Texas border city in March.
On Monday, a county judge had thrown out the charges against those who were arrested this month, ruling there was insufficient probable cause. A public defender representing the migrants had argued there was not enough evidence and accused authorities of trying to make headlines.
“The citizens of El Paso, through the grand jury, essentially overruled the judge’s ruling and found probable cause to believe that the riots did occur,” El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks told reporters Tuesday.
Kelli Childress-Diaz, the El Paso Public Defender who is representing the 141 defendants, said she wasn’t surprised.
“I imagine they had that already prepared before the hearing even started yesterday,” she said.
The arrests have drawn more attention to Texas’ expanding operations along the border, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has rolled out a series of aggressive measures in the name of curbing illegal crossings. Following the arrests in March, Abbott responded by saying he sent 700 additional National Guard members to El Paso.
Hicks, whom Abbott appointed to the job in 2022, said that although it is not common for a grand jury to indict misdemeanor cases, he felt it was “fair” to pose the cases before them. In all, Hicks estimated they had arrested over 350 people on rioting charges since March.
If convicted, those charged could each face up to 180 days in county jail and a fine of up to $2,000. Those in jail still face federal charges, and Hicks said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could still pick them up from jail to process them on an illegal entry offense.
“It turns my stomach that these people are nothing more than than, you know, political coins in a bet that some of our government officials have hedged,” Childress-Diaz told The Associated Press.
Man who inspired film ‘Bernie’ ask for air conditioning for inmates
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
4:37 am
HOUSTON (AP) — A legal battle over a lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons is bringing together advocates on the issue and one current inmate who says his health is being endangered by the state’s hot prisons. That inmate is the former mortician whose murder case inspired the movie “Bernie.” Advocates for Texas prisoners asked Monday to join a federal lawsuit filed last year by Bernie Tiede (TEE’-duh). He’s alleging his life is in danger from being housed in a stifling prison cell without air conditioning. The advocacy groups want to expand the lawsuit on behalf of all Texas prisoners. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice declined to comment.
2nd victim dies from injuries after man drove stolen semi into building
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
4:31 am
AUSTIN (AP) — A second person has died after a Texas semitrailer driver this month plowed a stolen 18-wheeler into a public safety office where his commercial license renewal had been rejected, authorities said Monday.
More than a dozen people were inside the building on April 12 when authorities say Clenard Parker, 42, intentionally rammed the truck into the Texas Department of Public Safety office in Brenham, a rural town outside Houston. One 78-year-old man died later the day after being taken to a hospital.
Cheryl Turner, 63, of Brenham was identified by state authorities as the second person to have died as a result of the crash.
Parker remained jailed in Washington County on charges that included murder, four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unauthorized use of a vehicle. Jail records do not list an attorney for Parker and the district clerk’s office said Monday it had no lawyer on file.
Authorities say Parker led law enforcement on a short chase before ramming the stolen semitrailer into the same public safety office where he had been told a day earlier that he was not eligible to renew his commercial driver’s license.
Early voting now through April 30 for municipal elections
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
9:50 am
SMITH COUNTY — Early Voting began Monday, April 22, and runs through Tuesday, April 30, for the Joint City Election. The Cities of Tyler, Arp and Lindale have races in the election. There are four early voting locations in Smith County, including:
Arp City Hall, 109 W. Longview St. in Arp
Heritage Building, 1900 Bellwood Road in Tyler
The Hub, 304 E. Ferguson St., in Tyler
Lindale Kinzie Community Center, 912 Mt. Sylvan St. in Lindale.
Early voting polling places are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, April 22-26, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, April 29-30.
There will be six polling sites open on Election Day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 4.
The Smith County Elections Office has launched an interactive map to help voters find what precincts are included in the cities holding an election. Click here for more information.
Major water main break in Tyler
Posted/updated on:
April 22, 2024 at
4:39 pm
TYLER — On Monday, April 22, Tyler Water Utilities (TWU) identified a significant break in a water main located at 2025 SSW Loop 323. This break has resulted in the depletion of water tanks on the west side of town, causing water shortages or low water pressure in many households and businesses. TWU crews are working on the repairs, water valves have been identified and shut off, and the leak has been contained.
TWU is working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to determine the extent of the issue. The City will continue to update residents as they learn more.
House passes billions in aid for Ukraine and Israel
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
4:27 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has approved $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies in a rare weekend session as Democrats and Republicans banded together after months of hard-right resistance over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion.
With an overwhelming vote Saturday, the $61 billion in aid for Ukraine passed in a matter of minutes, a strong showing as American lawmakers race to deliver a fresh round of U.S. support to the war-torn ally. Many Democrats cheered on the House floor and waved blue-and-yellow flags of Ukraine.
Aid to Israel and the other allies also won approval by healthy margins, as did a measure to clamp down on the popular platform TikTok, with unique coalitions forming to push the separate bills forward. The whole package will go to the Senate, which could pass it as soon as Tuesday. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.
“We did our work here, and I think history will judge it well,” said a weary Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who risked his own job to marshal the package to passage.
Biden spoke separately with Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to thank them for “putting our national security first” by advancing the legislation, the White House said.
“I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs,” the president said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said he was “grateful” to both parties in the House and “personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
“Thank you, America!” he said.
The scene in Congress was a striking display of action after months of dysfunction and stalemate fueled by Republicans, who hold the majority but are deeply split over foreign aid, particularly for Ukraine. Johnson relied on Democrats to ensure the military and humanitarian funding — the first major package for Ukraine since December 2022 — won approval.
The morning opened with a somber and serious debate and an unusual sense of purpose as Republican and Democratic leaders united to urge quick approval, saying that would ensure the United States supported its allies and remained a leader on the world stage. The House’s visitor galleries were crowded with onlookers.
“The eyes of the world are upon us, and history will judge what we do here and now,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
Passage through the House cleared away the biggest hurdle to Biden’s funding request, first made in October as Ukraine’s military supplies began to run low.
The GOP-controlled House struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance for Ukraine be tied to policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico border, only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines.
Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.
“Sometimes when you are living history, as we are today, you don’t understand the significance of the actions of the votes that we make on this House floor, of the effect that it will have down the road,” said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This is a historic moment.”
Opponents, particularly the hard-right Republicans from Johnson’s majority, argued that the U.S. should focus on the home front, addressing domestic border security and the nation’s rising debt load, and they warned against spending more money, which largely flows to American defense manufacturers, to produce weaponry used overseas.
Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America’s commitment to its allies.
At stake has been one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson’s plan, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote.
“We have a responsibility, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans to defend democracy wherever it is at risk,” Jeffries said during the debate.
While aid for Ukraine failed to win a majority of Republicans, several dozen progressive Democrats voted against the bill aiding Israel as they demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians. A group of roughly 20 hard-right Republicans voted against every portion of the aid package, including for allies like Israel and Taiwan that have traditionally enjoyed support from the GOP.
Some Republicans also angrily objected to their counterparts waving Ukrainian flags during the vote. Rep. Kat Cammack, a Florida Republican, said on X she was “infuriated” by the display and was working on legislation to prohibit the flags of foreign nations on the House floor.
At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics.
Ukraine’s defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a majority of Republicans opposed further aid. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., offered an amendment to zero out the money, but it was rejected.
The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills did not include border security measures.
Johnson’s hold on the speaker’s gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Greene, supported a “motion to vacate” that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. Egged on by far-right personalities, she is also being joined by a growing number of lawmakers including Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside.
The package included several Republican priorities that Democrats endorsed, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States.
Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the tide of the war as Russia pummels Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced the Senate would begin procedural votes on the package Tuesday, saying, “Our allies across the world have been waiting for this moment.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, as he prepared to overcome objections from his right flank next week, said, “The task before us is urgent. It is once again the Senate’s turn to make history.”
Gladewater announces planned water outage
Posted/updated on:
April 24, 2024 at
9:50 am
GLADEWATER — The City of Gladewater has announced that there will be a water outage near Hendricks Street and Walnut Street this Wednesday. According to our news partner KETK, city contractors have planned these outages so that they can tie in waterlines in the area that have been replaced. The city added that any additional updates would be shared to their social media and their Genasys alert system.
House votes for possible TikTok ban in the US
Posted/updated on:
April 23, 2024 at
4:14 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Saturday that would ban TikTok in the United States if the popular social media platform’s China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year, but don’t expect the app to go away anytime soon.
The decision by House Republicans to include TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package, a priority for President Joe Biden with broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, fast-tracked the ban after an earlier version had stalled in the Senate. A standalone bill with a shorter, six-month selling deadline passed the House in March by an overwhelming bipartisan vote as both Democrats and Republicans voiced national security concerns about the app’s owner, the Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.
The modified measure, passed by a 360-58 vote, now goes to the Senate after negotiations that lengthened the timeline for the company to sell to nine months, with a possible additional three months if a sale is in progress.
Legal challenges could extend that timeline even further. The company has indicated that it would likely go to court to try and block the law if it passes, arguing it would deprive the app’s millions of users of their First Amendment rights.
TikTok has lobbied hard against the legislation, pushing the app’s 170 million U.S. users — many of whom are young — to call Congress and voice opposition. But the ferocity of the pushback angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where there is broad concern about Chinese threats to the U.S. and where few members use the platform themselves.
“We will not stop fighting and advocating for you,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video that was posted on the platform last month and directed toward the app’s users. “We will continue to do all we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform that we have built with you.”
The bill’s quick path through Congress is extraordinary because it targets one company and because Congress has taken a hands-off approach to tech regulation for decades. Lawmakers had failed to act despite efforts to protect children online, safeguard users’ privacy and make companies more liable for content posted on their platforms, among other measures. But the TikTok ban reflects widespread concerns from lawmakers about China.
Members of both parties, along with intelligence officials, have worried that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over American user data or direct the company to suppress or boost TikTok content favorable to its interests. TikTok has denied assertions that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government and has said it has not shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities.
The U.S. government has not publicly provided evidence that shows TikTok shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or tinkered with the company’s popular algorithm, which influences what Americans see.
The company has good reason to think a legal challenge could be successful, having seen some success in previous legal fights over its operations in the U.S.. In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that would ban TikTok use across the state after the company and five content creators who use the platform sued.
In 2020, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok after the company sued on the grounds that the order violated free speech and due process rights. His administration brokered a deal that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok. The sale never went through for a number of reasons; one was China, which imposed stricter export controls on its technology providers.
Dozens of states and the federal government have put in place TikTok bans on government devices. Texas’ ban was challenged last year by The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy was impeding academic freedom because it extended to public universities. In December, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state.
Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have backed the app. “Congress cannot take away the rights of over 170 million Americans who use TikTok to express themselves, engage in political advocacy, and access information from around the world,” said Jenna Leventoff, a lawyer for the group.
Since mid-March, TikTok has spent $5 million on TV ads opposing the legislation, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm. The ads have included a range of content creators, including a nun, extolling the positive impacts of the platform on their lives and arguing a ban would trample on the First Amendment. The company has also encouraged its users to contact Congress, and some lawmakers have received profanity-laced calls.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually,” said Alex Haurek, a spokesman for the company.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat, voted against the legislation. He said he thinks there could have been less restrictive ways to go after the company that wouldn’t result in a total ban or threaten free speech.
“I think it’s not going to be well received,” Khanna said. “It’s a sign of the Beltway being out of touch with where voters are.”
Nadya Okamoto, a content creator who has roughly 4 million followers on TikTok, said she has been having conversations with other creators who are experiencing “so much anger and anxiety” about the bill and how it’s going to impact their lives. The 26-year-old, whose company “August” sells menstrual products and is known for her advocacy around destigmatizing menstrual periods, makes most of her income from TikTok.
“This is going to have real repercussions,” she said.
Autoworkers union celebrates breakthrough win
Posted/updated on:
April 23, 2024 at
4:14 pm
DALLAS (AP) — The United Auto Workers’ overwhelming election victory at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee is giving the union hope that it can make broader inroads in the South, the least unionized part of the country.
The UAW won a stunning 73% of the vote at VW after losing elections in 2014 and 2019. It was the union’s first win in a Southern assembly plant owned by a foreign automaker.
Union President Shawn Fain said the pundits all told him that the UAW couldn’t win in the South.
“But you all said, ‘Watch this,’ ” he told a cheering group of VW organizers at a union hall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Friday night, when the UAW victory was clear. “You guys are leading the way. We’re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else.”
However, the UAW is likely to face a tougher test as it tries to represent workers at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A five-day election is scheduled to start May 13, where the union’s campaign has already become heated.
The UAW has accused the German carmaker of violating U.S. and German labor laws with aggressive anti-union tactics, which the company denies.
“They are going to have a much harder road in work sites where they are going to face aggressive management resistance and even community resistance than they faced in Chattanooga,” said Harry Katz, a labor-relations professor at Cornell University. “VW management did not aggressively seek to avoid unionization. Mercedes is going to be a good test. It’s the deeper South.”
Late last year, the UAW announced a drive to represent nearly 150,000 workers at non-union factories largely in the South. The union is targeting U.S. plants run by Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, along with factories operated by electric-vehicle makers Tesla, Rivian and Lucid.
Many of those companies raised pay after the UAW negotiated rich new contracts with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis after strikes at strategically chosen factories last year.
Brooke Benoit, a VW worker who had seen the union voted down in Chattanooga twice before, said workers took notice.
“I think what changed the most is everybody started seeing what we could get when the Big Three went on strike,” she said. “They said, ‘Wait, hold on. If they can get all this, we should too.’ We do the same job, just in a different location.”
The union’s last defeat at VW in Chattanooga came at a low-water mark — in the middle of a federal investigation into bribery and embezzlement under a previous president.
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies the UAW, said the union flipped the script by installing new leadership, touting the rich contracts it won last year from Detroit automakers after strikes at targeted factories, and exploiting a climate that is now more favorable to unions. He said the union was also adept at translating signed pro-union authorization cards into votes — partly by pushing for a quick election.
“Now the public and media eyes are going to be on Chattanooga and how quickly the UAW can translate this into a contract,” he said. If the union can’t quickly get a good contract, it risks losing some of the momentum it gained with Friday’s election win, he said.
Unions in other industries are already moving ahead with organizing campaigns in the South and trying to learn from the UAW’s playbook.
The Association of Flight Attendants, which has tried and failed to win over cabin crews at Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, hopes to collect enough signatures to force another election at Delta by year end. The union’s president, Sara Nelson, said she was not surprised at the UAW win after strikes that led to record contracts last year.
“I’ve been talking about this for a long time — that strikes and taking on the boss is going to spur organizing, and that’s exactly what we saw here,” Nelson said.
Nelson is trying to secure an industry-leading contract at United Airlines that she can use to court Delta crews. In the meantime, crews at startup Breeze Airways, many of whom live in the South, will vote next month whether to join her union.
The White House issued a statement from President Joe Biden congratulating the UAW. Biden — who joined a UAW picket line in Michigan during the union’s strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis plants last year — praised the success of unions representing autoworkers, Hollywood actors and writers, health care workers and others in gaining better contracts.
“Together, these union wins have helped raise wages and demonstrate once again that the middle-class built America and that unions are still building and expanding the middle class for all workers,” Biden said.
Biden criticized six Southern Republican governors, including Bill Lee of Tennessee, who told autoworkers this week that voting for union representation would jeopardize jobs.
Sharon Block, a law professor at Harvard University who worked in the Biden Labor Department, said the governors’ warning rang hollow after nonunion Tesla revealed that it plans to lay off 10% of its workers after disappointing sales results. She said VW workers saw the governors’ open letter as “an empty threat and a cynical ploy,” and they ignored it.
“Workers for a long time have been told that you can’t organize in the South. And many workers, even not in the South, may work in industries where they’ve been told for a long time you can’t organize,” Block said. “What the UAW showed last night is that we need to go and rethink all those negative statements.”
Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise goes home
Posted/updated on:
April 20, 2024 at
5:52 pm
DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.
The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.
Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.
“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”
Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”
They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”
Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.
“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.
The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.
This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.
“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”
Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.
“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.
He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.
“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.
Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.
“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.
Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom
Posted/updated on:
April 20, 2024 at
5:47 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.
Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.
The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.
“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care — this is inconceivable.”
It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.
Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law.
“No woman should be denied the care she needs,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. “All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.”
PREGNANCY CARE AFTER ROE
Pregnant patients have “become radioactive to emergency departments” in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor.
“They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone,” Rosenbaum said.
Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.
“The physician came to the triage desk and told the patient that we did not have obstetric services or capabilities,” hospital staff told federal investigators during interviews, according to documents. “The nursing staff informed the physician that we could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid. However, the physician adamantly recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital.”
Investigators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded Falls Community Hospital broke the law.
Reached by phone, an administrator at the hospital declined to comment on the incident.
The investigation was one of dozens the AP obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request filed in February 2023 that sought all pregnancy-related EMTALA complaints the previous year. One year after submitting the request, the federal government agreed to release only some complaints and investigative documents filed across just 19 states. The names of patients, doctors and medical staff were redacted from the documents.
Federal investigators looked into just over a dozen pregnancy-related complaints in those states during the months leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal ruling on abortion in 2022. But more than two dozen complaints about emergency pregnancy care were lodged in the months after the decision was unveiled. It is not known how many complaints were filed last year as the records request only asked for 2022 complaints and the information is not publicly available otherwise.
The documents did not detail what happened to the patient turned away from the Falls Community Hospital.
‘SHE IS BLEEDING A LOT’
Other pregnancies ended in catastrophe, the documents show.
At Sacred Heart Emergency Center in Houston, front desk staff refused to check in one woman after her husband asked for help delivering her baby that September. She miscarried in a restroom toilet in the emergency room lobby while her husband called 911 for help.
“She is bleeding a lot and had a miscarriage,” the husband told first responders in his call, which was transcribed from Spanish in federal documents. “I’m here at the hospital but they told us they can’t help us because we are not their client.”
Emergency crews, who arrived 20 minutes later and transferred the woman to a hospital, appeared confused over the staff’s refusal to help the woman, according to 911 call transcripts.
One first responder told federal investigators that when a Sacred Heart Emergency Center staffer was asked about the gestational age of the fetus, the staffer replied: “No, we can’t tell you, she is not our patient. That’s why you are here.”
A manager for Sacred Heart Emergency Center declined to comment. The facility is licensed in Texas as a freestanding emergency room, which means it is not physically connected to a hospital. State law requires those facilities to treat or stabilize patients, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services agency said in an email to AP.
Sacred Heart Emergency’s website says that it no longer accepts Medicare, a change that was made sometime after the woman miscarried, according to publicly available archives of the center’s website.
Meanwhile, the staff at Person Memorial Hospital in Roxboro, North Carolina, told a pregnant woman, who was complaining of stomach pain, that they would not be able to provide her with an ultrasound. The staff failed to tell her how risky it could be for her to depart without being stabilized, according to federal investigators. While en route to another hospital 45 minutes away, the woman gave birth in a car to a baby who did not survive.
Person Memorial Hospital self-reported the incident. A spokeswoman said the hospital continues to “provide ongoing education for our staff and providers to ensure compliance.”
In Melbourne, Florida, a security guard at Holmes Regional Medical Center refused to let a pregnant woman into the triage area because she had brought a child with her. When the patient came back the next day, medical staff were unable to locate a fetal heartbeat. The center declined to comment on the case.
WHAT’S THE PENALTY?
Emergency rooms are subject to hefty fines when they turn away patients, fail to stabilize them or transfer them to another hospital for treatment. Violations can also put hospitals’ Medicare funding at risk.
But it’s unclear what fines might be imposed on more than a dozen hospitals that the Biden administration says failed to properly treat pregnant patients in 2022.
It can take years for fines to be levied in these cases. The Health and Human Services agency, which enforces the law, declined to share if the hospitals have been referred to the agency’s Office of Inspector General for penalties.
For Huntsberger, the OB-GYN, EMTALA was one of the few ways she felt protected to treat pregnant patients in Idaho, despite the state’s abortion ban. She left Idaho last year to practice in Oregon because of the ban.
The threat of fines or loss of Medicare funding for violating EMTALA is a big deterrent that keeps hospitals from dumping patients, she said. Many couldn’t keep their doors open if they lost Medicare funding.
She has been waiting to see how HHS penalizes two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas that HHS announced last year it was investigating after a pregnant woman, who was in preterm labor at 17 weeks, was denied an abortion.
“A lot of these situations are not reported, but even the ones that are — like the cases out of the Midwest — they’re investigated but nothing really comes of it,” Huntsberger said. “People are just going to keep providing substandard care or not providing care. The only way that changes is things like this.”
Children to receive free backpack with school supplies at Tyler event
Posted/updated on:
April 19, 2024 at
11:26 pm
TYLER — The City of Tyler, Tyler Area Business Education Council and Tyler ISD are partnering to put on the annual School is Cool event, benefitting school children, according to our news partner KETK. The event will take place on Aug. 1 from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Rose Garden Center and the W.T. Brookshire Conference Center at 2000 W. Front Street. The organization said that the first 2,000 school-aged children in line at the event will receive free backpacks with school supplies.
The release said that the Tyler Area Business Education Council is seeking donations and sponsorships from local businesses and organizations. The organization said that for every $50 donated, a backpack with school supplies will be purchased for a child in need. (more…)
SMITH COUNTY — Early Voting began Monday, April 22, and runs through Tuesday, April 30, for the Joint City Election. The Cities of Tyler, Arp and Lindale have races in the election. There are four early voting locations in Smith County, including:
TYLER — On Monday, April 22, Tyler Water Utilities (TWU) identified a significant break in a water main located at 2025 SSW Loop 323. This break has resulted in the depletion of water tanks on the west side of town, causing water shortages or low water pressure in many households and businesses. TWU crews are working on the repairs, water valves have been identified and shut off, and the leak has been contained.
GLADEWATER — The City of Gladewater has announced that there will be a water outage near Hendricks Street and Walnut Street this Wednesday. According to our news partner KETK, city contractors have planned these outages so that they can tie in waterlines in the area that have been replaced. The city added that any additional updates would be shared to their social media and their Genasys alert system.
TYLER — The City of Tyler, Tyler Area Business Education Council and Tyler ISD are partnering to put on the annual School is Cool event, benefitting school children, according to our news partner KETK. The event will take place on Aug. 1 from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Rose Garden Center and the W.T. Brookshire Conference Center at 2000 W. Front Street. The organization said that the first 2,000 school-aged children in line at the event will receive free backpacks with school supplies.
