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HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man this week could become the first person executed in the U.S. from a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

Robert Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. His lawyers as well as a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others have argued his conviction was based on faulty scientific evidence and say new evidence has shown Curtis died from complications related to severe pneumonia.

But prosecutors maintain Roberson’s new evidence does not disprove their case that Curtis died from injuries inflicted by her father.

Roberson’s scheduled execution renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome. On one side of the debate are lawyers and some in the medical and scientific communities who argue the shaken baby diagnosis is flawed and has led to wrongful convictions. On the other side are prosecutors and medical societies from the U.S. and around the world who say the diagnosis is valid, has been scientifically proven and is the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years of age.

Here’s what to know about the highly scrutinized diagnosis ahead of Robertson’s scheduled execution:
What is shaken baby syndrome?

The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is injured through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor, usually by an adult caregiver, said Dr. Suzanne Haney, a child abuse pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The term was changed in 2009 to abusive head trauma, a more inclusive diagnosis, Haney said.

There are about 1,300 reported cases of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma in the U.S. each year, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
What is the debate over shaken baby syndrome?

Critics allege doctors have been focused on concluding child abuse due to shaken baby syndrome whenever a triad of symptoms — bleeding around the brain, brain swelling and bleeding in the eyes — was found. Critics say doctors have not considered that things like short falls with head impact and naturally occurring illnesses like pneumonia, could mimic an inflicted head injury.

“The shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma hypothesis that was used against Mr. Roberson is not science, plain and simple,” said Kate Judson, executive director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that seeks to improve the reliability of forensic science evidence.

While Haney declined to comment on Roberson’s case, she said there is no disagreement within a vast majority of the medical community about the validity and science behind the diagnosis.

Haney said doctors are not just focused on a triad of symptoms to determine child abuse, but instead look at all possible things, including any illnesses, that could have caused the injuries.

“I worry the pushback against abusive head trauma as a diagnosis is going to interfere with the prevention efforts that are out there and therefore allow more children to get harmed,” Haney said.
What are the concerns Roberson’s supporters are raising?

Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. She had fallen out of bed in their home in the East Texas city of Palestine after being seriously ill for a week.

New evidence gathered since his 2003 trial shows his daughter died from undiagnosed pneumonia that progressed to sepsis and was likely accelerated by medications that should not have been prescribed to her and made it harder for her to breathe, said Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.

The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, has said in court documents that after a 2022 hearing to consider the new evidence, a judge rejected the theories that pneumonia and other diseases caused Curtis’ death.
What have courts said about shaken baby syndrome?

In recent years, courts around the country have overturned convictions or dropped charges centered on shaken baby syndrome, including in California, Ohio, Massachusetts and Michigan.

In a ruling last week in a different shaken baby syndrome case out of Dallas County, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial after finding scientific advancements related to the diagnosis would now likely result in an acquittal in that case.

But the appeals court has repeatedly denied Roberson’s request to stay his execution, most recently on Friday.

In the U.S., at least eight individuals have been sentenced to death because of shaken baby syndrome, said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Two of these eight have been exonerated and Roberson is the only one to have received execution dates.

“According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least 30 people across the country have been exonerated based on this discredited scientific theory,” Maher said.

But Danielle Vazquez, executive director of the Utah-based National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, said a 2021 research article found that 97% of more than 1,400 convictions related to shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma from 2008 to 2018 were upheld and that such convictions were rarely overturned on the grounds of medical evidence.

“Take away all these different cases and … there are still brand-new parents that are extremely tired, can be extremely frustrated with a crying baby and might not act appropriately when caring for that child. And so that’s our big concern, that misconception that shaking a baby is OK,” Vazquez said.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that the faculty and staff of the Kinkaid School, one of Houston’s most expensive private schools, regularly rub shoulders with some of the city’s wealthiest people. And Kinkaid head of school Jonathan Eades may count as one himself. In 2022, according to the school’s most recent tax filings, he earned a compensation package worth just more than $1 million. Eades, formerly the head of St. Mary’s Hall in San Antonio, was hired by Kinkaid in 2020 after a nationwide search. Eades is likely the most highly compensated private school head in the Houston area. But his pay is not out of line with that of many peers, who often make many times more than principals, their public school counterparts. The average principal in Houston makes about $114,000, and the superintendent of the entire Houston public school district, Mike Miles, receives a salary of $380,000.

Across the country, the median salary for a head of school in the 2023-24 school year was $300,000, and the median starting salary for teachers was $48,000, according to the National Association of Independent Schools. Those figures don’t include paid tuition for children of educators, which can be a significant component of compensation packages. The compensation reflects the scope of Eades’ role and the size of the institution, said Peggy England, director of strategic communication for Kinkaid. The school, in Piney Point, has about 1,500 students from pre-K to 12th grade, nearly 500 faculty and staff and about 7,500 living alumni, England said, many of whom live in the Houston area. “Just like with any industry, compensation is such an important factor in attracting and retaining qualified and seasoned executives who can lead an institution of this size,” England said. Being the head of a private school today means fundraising, philanthropy and alumni relations as well as the core work of leading a school: “That’s a big portfolio for an individual,” England said.

WASHINGTON – Politico reports that the top GOP super PAC charged with flipping the Senate has found that most of its candidates are trailing their Democratic opponents, according to an internal polling memo obtained by POLITICO. The new round of October polling from the Senate Leadership Fund shows all but one Republican candidate running behind Donald Trump in battleground states, a pattern that could sharply limit their ability to build a sizable majority unless they can force a change in the final weeks of the election. Republicans are still favored to take control of the chamber, and their data brought some hopeful news with tightening races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But other pickup opportunities, namely Maryland and Michigan, are moving in the wrong direction. And Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the two incumbents running in a state Trump won in 2020, looks surprisingly strong in Ohio.

The 2024 map is full of offensive targets for Republicans, including open seats in Michigan, Maryland and Arizona. They have a near-certain pickup in West Virginia and polling has consistently shown the GOP is ahead in Montana. But it’s unclear how many of the other seats Republicans are poised to flip. They’ve struggled from a serious fundraising gap at the candidate level. And Democrats have built large polling leads in some battlegrounds. And now two GOP-held states, Texas and Nebraska, may be emerging as late-breaking problem spots. The memo warns of two defensive problems: In Texas, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is only up 1 point in the latest poll, and Law describes Nebraska as “a serious trouble-spot” where they are polling to “assess whether intervention is necessary” to help GOP Sen. Deb Fischer. (The incumbent released a poll last week showing her up 6 points.) SLF or allied groups have been repeatedly polling across the top states, including twice in September alone in some of them, as they weigh financial investments in the final stretch. The nine-page memo, dated Oct. 8, noted that the group “will roll out further investments in these top-priority Senate races, based on our latest polling” by early next week.

SpaceX pulled off the boldest test flight yet of its enormous Starship rocket on Sunday, catching the returning booster back at the launch pad with mechanical arms.

A jubilant Elon Musk called it “science fiction without the fiction part.”

Towering almost 400 feet (121 meters), the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after liftoff or while ditching into the sea. The previous one in June had been the most successful until Sunday’s demo, completing its flight without exploding.

This time, Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and founder, upped the challenge for the rocket that he plans to use to send people back to the moon and on to Mars.

At the flight director’s command, the first-stage booster flew back to the launch pad where it had blasted off seven minutes earlier. The launch tower’s monstrous metal arms, dubbed chopsticks, caught the descending 232-foot (71-meter) stainless steel booster and gripped it tightly, dangling it well above the ground.

“The tower has caught the rocket!!” Musk announced via X. “Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today.”

Company employees screamed in joy, jumping and pumping their fists into the air. NASA joined in the celebration, with Administrator Bill Nelson sending congratulations.

Continued testing of Starship will prepare the nation for landing astronauts at the moon’s south pole, Nelson noted. NASA’s new Artemis program is the follow-up to Apollo, which put 12 men on the moon more than a half-century ago.

“Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books,” SpaceX engineering manager Kate Tice said from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

“Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic,” added company spokesman Dan Huot from near the launch and landing site. “I am shaking right now.”

It was up to the flight director to decide, in real time with a manual control, whether to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in good, stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the gulf like the previous ones. Everything was judged to be ready for the catch.

The retro-looking spacecraft launched by the booster continued around the world, soaring more than 130 miles (212 kilometers) high. An hour after liftoff, it made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean, adding to the day’s achievement. Cameras on a nearby buoy showed flames shooting up from the water as the spacecraft impacted precisely at the targeted spot and sank, as planned.

“What a day,” Huot said. “Let’s get ready for the next one.”

The June flight came up short at the end after pieces came off. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.

SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years, after delivering satellites and crews to orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating ocean platforms or on concrete slabs several miles from their launch pads — not on them.

Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone.

Musk said the captured Starship booster looked to be in good shape, with just a little warping of some of the outer engines from all the heat and aerodynamic forces. That can be fixed easily, he noted.

NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually Mars.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Universities across the country have transformed at the command of anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) legislation. At the University of Texas-Austin, the legislation led to resource cancellations, office closures, and staff firings — pushing some students to create alternatives to their school’s defunct diversity programs.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17 into law in 2023, barring public institutions of higher education from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, as well as programs, activities, and training conducted by those offices. The law also restricts training or hiring policies based on race, gender identity or sexual orientation.

His office told ABC News in a recent statement that the legislation was intended to ensure people “advance based on talent and merit at public colleges and universities in Texas.”

Abbott’s office criticized universities for using DEI offices to “advance political agendas and exclude conservative viewpoints on college campuses. These efforts adversely affect our students, limit exposure to diverse thought, and destroy our education system,” read the statement from Abbott’s press secretary Andrew Mahaleris.

ABC News spoke to UT Austin students and a terminated faculty member about the compounding impact the loss of diversity programs has had on campus.

The long list of potential college life logistics – like how to pay for school, open an independent bank account or get a job – is even longer for undocumented students and those with temporary status.

These students are not eligible for federal student aid, federal work-study, are limited in their access to grants and scholarships and, in some cases, cannot accept paying jobs while in school.

With limited guidance and limited options, Arely, a student at UT Austin who asked to be referenced by only her first name out of privacy concerns, said her status created many unknowns and uncertainties for her future when applying to colleges. As a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, Arely told ABC News she worked hard to be at the top of her high school class so she could get into a good school.

DACA is a U.S. government policy that allows some undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States temporarily and work. Recipients must have entered the United States illegally before their 16th birthday and be younger than 31 years old on June 15, 2012, according to the U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services website.

“It was always kind of told to me, like, your education is going to be the only way you’re going to be able to kind of push forward and build something out for yourself – it’s through your education,” said Arely.

At UT Austin, students like Arely had a place to turn to for answers. Monarch, an on-campus student program for undocumented and temporary status students, hosted workshops on those logistical concerns, mental health resources at little to no cost, career fairs specifically geared toward undocumented students, panel discussions with undocumented grads, and a donor-based scholarship.

“Those are the things that I would help students navigate,” said Alicia Moreno, the former Monarch Student Program Coordinator. “Like working with campus partners to create resources and help students understand what their options were because many students that I heard – before they ran into Monarch – they believed their options were really slim.”

Monarch was a way for the university to ensure students could succeed despite the barriers they face due to their status, Moreno said.

“A lot of my college experience would have definitely been way more different had Monarch not been there,” said Arely. “I can’t imagine in what situation I would have been had I not had that support system.”

Arely, who worked at the center, said the Monarch team also would get requests from faculty and staff asking to hold trainings regarding the challenges undocumented students face.

“A lot of these students had gone their whole college career having access to these resources, and now they were suddenly taken away and ripped out of their hands,” said Arely. “Especially for, like, incoming freshmen who had maybe specifically applied to UT Austin because of this program, and now they’re going to get to the UT campus and they’re going to realize that program that was supposed to support them and acknowledge them is no longer there.”

Moreno was one of about 60 people whose positions were terminated following the closure of DEI offices and related initiatives, according to a joint letter from the Texas NAACP & Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors.

The university initially stated that some programs would be shifted to other divisions or renamed to complement ongoing operations. Monarch, according to students and former staff, was also initially not targeted by SB 17 since it does not specifically refer to any race or ethnicity.

However, university officials later stated that the law changed the scope of some programs, making them broader and creating overlap between existing programs.

“We know these programs and the dedicated staff who run them will continue to have positive impacts on our campus and community,” read the university’s letter referring to the programs that remained.

The terminations came shortly after state Sen. Brandon Creighton, who introduced the legislation, warned universities against simply renaming their DEI programs, threatening to freeze funding.

“I was getting ready to prepare for the next year. My office was just painted. I had just gotten that Exemplary Service Award, and then – boom! – we were all terminated,” Moreno said.

Students say they have been left to pick up the pieces without the dedicated resources to support them. Victoria Uriostegui-Garcia, a member of a student-run group called Rooted, said her organization has become a substitute for the services once provided by Monarch. It is one of several student-run organizations to take on the responsibilities of the now-shuttered offices.

“It falls on students again to provide their own resources, which is a very heavy burden,” said Uriostegui-Garcia. “We’re going to try our best.”
Students lead the charge

Among the centers and programs shut down by UT Austin were Multicultural Engagement Center, the Gender and Sexuality Center, and the Fearless Leadership Institute – a professional development program for African American & Hispanic women.

However, UT Austin is not the only school facing these restrictions. Schools across the state — and in some states across the country — have seen similar mass closures and firings following the implementation of anti-DEI legislation.

At least nine states have implemented legislation restricting DEI in education: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, lowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Supporters of anti-DEI legislation, like Creighton, have applauded the changes made by SB 17. Creighton argued that it returned the university to “a merit-based operational framework, ensuring that every student, faculty, and staff member is afforded equal opportunities and not silenced by DEI-oriented policies,” he said in a March 2024 statement.

UT Austin states that it remains vigilant in ongoing efforts to ensure the university’s compliance with the state law, defining DEI offices as any office that implements programs or training with reference to race, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, “influences hiring or employment practices” with respect to those identities or promotes “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to individuals” on the basis of identity.

I recognize that strong feelings have surrounded SB 17 from the beginning and will shape many Longhorns’ perceptions of these measures,” said university president Jay Hartzell. “It is important that we respect the perspectives and experiences of our fellow Longhorns as the changes we are announcing today take effect. It is also important that this continues to be a welcoming, supportive community for all.”

UT Austin did not respond to ABC News’ requests for further comment.

Alex and Sophia, members of Texas Students for DEI who asked to be referenced by only their first names out of privacy concerns, say the services were targeted for specific groups who have historically faced discrimination or barriers to success, but were open to all students.

Alex noted, for example, that a closet of free clothes located in the gender center was open to all: “If it meant that you got kicked out of the home, or if it meant that you needed clothes for a job — hey, there’s clothes available, no questions asked.”

Alex and Sophia say many students they have spoken to did not know about SB 17 until it passed and they started seeing their centers close on campus.

Student organizations have stepped up to the plate, hoping to foster community in a time when resources backed by the university have shrunk. They say schools across the state have “over-complied” with the law — leading to a chilling effect of classroom curriculum and discussion concerning race, gender and sexual orientation.

“Even now, if you read some of the syllabi for some classes, they’ll have a disclaimer at the end saying no material in this class is pertaining to SB 17 or falls under the guidelines of SB 17,” said Sophia, despite the UT Austin website stating explicitly that academic instruction and research is not to be impacted by the law. “They’re expecting to be censored. They’re expecting the state to want to do things against them, and so they’re, they feel less comfortable talking about these topics openly, which ultimately affects our education.”

She continued, “We are a university, we’re a place of learning, and learning requires people to be open about information in a way that isn’t censored, and when a state tries to censor that, they ultimately harm themselves.”

With SB 17 passed, students are worried the state will continue to embrace other anti-DEI initiatives. They hope to safeguard from further efforts by educating the college community about what DEI is and what it means.

“It isn’t just one university. It’s all of us. And silence isn’t really the way out,” said Alex.

AUSTIN (AP) – A federal appeals court has ordered the removal of a federal judge and overturned her contempt finding and fine against the state of Texas in a lawsuit over the state’s struggling foster care system.

In a ruling released late Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Janis Jack’s contempt ruling and $100,000-per-day fine violates the court’s constitutional limits of power over individual states.

The appeals court also said that Jack had disrespected the state and its attorneys during the long-running case, noting that she at one point remarked, “I don’t know how the state sleeps at night with this. I really don’t.”

“The judge exhibits a sustained pattern, over the course of months and numerous hearings, of disrespect for the defendants and their counsel, but no such attitude toward the plaintiffs’ counsel,” the ruling stated.

The judge’s demeanor exhibits a “high degree of antagonism,” calling into doubt at least “the appearance of fairness” for the state, the ruling added.

An attorney for those who filed the lawsuit alleging that the state routinely fails to investigate complaints of abuse and neglect raised by children in its care said Saturday that the group will appeal the ruling.

“Frankly, this is a sad day for Texas children,” attorney Paul Yetter said in an email.

“For over a decade, Judge Jack pushed the state to fix its broken system,” Yetter said. “She deserves a medal for what she’s done.”

The case began in 2011 with a lawsuit over foster care conditions at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the child welfare arm of Texas Health and Human Services.

Since 2019, court-appointed monitors have released periodic reports on DFPS progress toward eliminating threats to the foster children’s safety.

A report earlier this year cited progress in staff training, but continued weaknesses in responding to investigations into abuse and neglect allegations, including those made by children.

In one case, plaintiffs say, a girl was left in the same, now-closed, residential facility for a year while 12 separate investigations piled up around allegations that she had been raped by a worker there.

Texas has about 9,000 children in permanent state custody for factors that include the loss of caregivers, abuse at home or health needs that parents alone can’t meet.

DALLAS – A Thursday drive-by shooting of a man who left the State Fair of Texas has left him injured. Dallas police said the victim and his friends got into a fight with another group of people. As they were leaving, a car drove by them, and someone in the car opened fire. One man suffered a gunshot wound to his ankle and was grazed in the head. The suspects fled the scene and remain at large. No description was released of the shooter or the car that was involved.