Tag Archives: Texas

U.S. appeals court allows abortion curbs in Texas during coronavirus outbreak

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Texas can enforce limits on the ability of women to obtain abortions as part of the state’s policy requiring postponement of non-urgent medical procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a 2-1 vote threw out a federal judge’s order issued last week that had blocked the state’s action. The appeals court had earlier temporarily put the district judge’s ruling on hold.

The appeals court action allows state officials to continue to enforce the restrictions that were part of an emergency order issued by the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott. The state says abortion providers are covered under a provision requiring postponement of non-urgent medical procedures as healthcare providers focus on battling COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

Abortion providers that challenge the state’s order could now turn to the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority.

“This is not the last word. We will take every legal action necessary to fight this abuse of emergency powers,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group representing clinics in the case.

Texas and other states that previously pursued abortion restrictions have sought to crack down on their availability during the pandemic, prompting a series of court battles. On Monday, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block a similar district court ruling that prevented the state of Ohio from banning abortion procedures.

Writing for the majority, Judge Kyle Duncan faulted Austin-based District Court Judge Lee Yeakel on several counts, saying he had “usurped the state’s authority to craft emergency health measures.”

Duncan, who was appointed to the bench by Republican President Donald Trump, concluded that the state must prevail “given the extraordinary nature of these errors, the escalating spread of COVID-19 and the state’s critical interest in protecting the public health.”

Yeakel had ruled that Paxton’s action “prevents Texas women from exercising what the Supreme Court has declared is their fundamental constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is viable.”

Abortion providers including Whole Woman’s Health and Planned Parenthood sued to block the Texas policy after clinics said they were forced to cancel hundreds of appointments for abortions across the state. They note that abortions are time-sensitive, with Texas banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization.

The restrictions violate the right to abortion under the U.S. Constitution as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the abortion providers argued.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley. Additional reporting by Nate Raymond.; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Berkrot)

Americans divided as states postpone abortions over coronavirus

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The U.S. states of Texas and Ohio have ordered abortions be postponed as non-essential procedures to free up resources to fight coronavirus, a move critics said on Tuesday was political.

Officials in the two states, which already have severe restrictions on abortions, said postponing elective procedures would allow beds and staff to be focused on coronavirus cases.

Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the nation’s coronavirus task force, asked the nation’s hospitals last week to cease elective surgeries to free up capacity and staff, amid dire shortages of masks and gloves.

Texas officials said the measure would apply to abortions that were not necessary to save the mother’s life or health.

“No one is exempt from the governor’s executive order on medically unnecessary surgeries and procedures, including abortion providers,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement.

Ohio’s Attorney General told facilities to stop performing abortions that require personal protective equipment, such as gowns and masks, according to documents obtained by local media.

The United States has reported some 50,000 coronavirus cases, including almost 600 deaths, leading officials to order nearly a third of the population to stay home.

Abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in American society, with the Supreme Court due to rule in June on a major case which challenges a Louisiana law that could make it harder for women to obtain the procedure.

The anti-abortion group Americans United for Life (AUL) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in emailed comments on Tuesday that Ohio and Texas were “doing the right thing”.

“The sheer selfishness on display by abortionists refusing to close shop even for a brief time to funnel every possible resource to the brave medical providers … is simply unconscionable,” said AUL’s head Catherine Glenn Foster.

Several professional obstetric and gynecological groups have said delays to abortions could be risky.

“It’s essential that people seeking abortion can make time-sensitive decisions about their care and have access to providers without politicised interference,” said Heather Shumaker of the National Women’s Law Center, a rights group.

Abortions in the United States are usually performed in outpatient settings or at home using drugs to end pregnancies, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Democratic bid to save Obamacare

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a politically explosive case on whether Obamacare is lawful, taking up a bid by 20 Democratic-led states to save the landmark healthcare law.

The impetus for the Supreme Court case was a 2018 ruling by a federal judge in Texas that Obamacare as currently structured in light of a key Republican-backed change made by Congress violates the U.S. Constitution and is invalid in its entirety. The ruling came in a legal challenge to the law by Texas and 17 other conservative states backed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. reports 15th coronavirus case; White House bashes China’s response

(Reuters) – U.S. health officials reported a 15th confirmed case of coronavirus in the United States on Thursday as the White House criticized China’s lack of transparency and response to the outbreak.

The latest U.S. case came from a patient who was among the Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China – the epicenter of the outbreak – and placed under federal quarantine at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said a statement.

It was the third evacuee and first at Lackland to test positive, the CDC said, while noting that there will likely be additional cases among people recently returned from China.

The U.S. government has flown about 800 people from Hubei province, many of them government employees and their families, placing them under 14-day quarantine at U.S. military bases.

“The individual is currently isolated and receiving medical care at a designated hospital nearby,” the CDC said, making Texas the seventh state to have a reported case.

The fast-spreading virus has killed 1,370 people and infected about 60,000, nearly all in China, constraining the world’s second largest economy and handing the ruling Communist Party one of its most difficult tests in years.

In central China’s Hubei province, officials said 242 people died on Wednesday, the biggest daily rise since the flu-like virus emerged in the provincial capital Wuhan in December. That followed a forecast earlier this week by China’s senior medical adviser that the epidemic may end there by April.

“We’re a little disappointed in the lack of transparency coming from the Chinese, these numbers are jumping around… there was some surprise,” top Trump administration economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters at the White House.

The sudden increase appeared to be largely due how Chinese officials had been confirming cases. Hubei previously only allowed infections to be confirmed by a specific test that was in short supply. It has now begun identifying cases using more common lung scans.

As a result, another 14,840 new cases were reported in the province on Thursday, up from 2,015 new cases nationwide a day earlier.

The Trump administration was also very disappointed that Beijing had not accepted a U.S. invitation to send a team of CDC experts to help China’s response to the outbreak, Kudlow said.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month praised efforts by his Chinese counterpart in fighting the virus, saying “President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation.”

Kudlow said overall U.S.-China relations were still good, and that the two countries remained engaged. At the presidential level, he added, relations “were doing fine.”

(Reporting by Manas Mishra, Daniel Trotta, Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bill Berkrot)

Accused El Paso mass shooter to face federal hate crime charges: source

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A Texas man accused of deliberately targeting Mexicans in a shooting spree that killed 22 people at an El Paso Walmart store last year will be charged later Thursday with hate crimes, a source with direct knowledge of the case said.

Patrick Crusius, 21, the suspected shooter, is already facing a capital murder trial and has pled not guilty.

The hate crime charges he will now face will be announced by investigators in Texas on Thursday evening, said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Crusius was indicted last year for the August shooting and has pled not guilty in his capital murder trial in a state court. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

He is accused of driving 11 hours to El Paso from his hometown of Allen, near Dallas, on Aug. 3 and firing at shoppers with an AK-47 rifle inside the Walmart store. He surrendered to officers who confronted him outside.

Crusius confessed while surrendering and told police he was targeting Mexicans, according to an El Paso police affidavit released days after the shooting. Most of those killed were Latinos.

A manifesto believed to have posted online by Crusius on 8chan, a message board often used by extremists, described called the Walmart attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Austin and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bernadette Baum)

Two deaths confirmed as machine shop blast rips Houston neighborhood

By Collin Eaton

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A massive explosion at a machine shop ripped through a Houston neighborhood early Friday morning, and police said at least two people were killed and several injured while homes were damaged by the explosion that sent out blast waves detected for miles.

“First and foremost, I want to say that we do have confirmed fatalities in this case, at least two confirmed fatalities,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a press briefing.

Acevedo said police and fire officials will conduct an arson investigation that could take several weeks, but stressed there is no current evidence of foul play. “Having said that, when you have this kind of a type of incident, part of our protocol is to always conduct a criminal investigation,” he added.

Aerial video showed the shredded and collapsed wreckage of the Watson Grinding and Manufacturing building smoldering but no longer flaming, along with widespread damage to area homes and businesses from the force of the blast.

The moment of the explosion, around 4:25 a.m. CST (1025 GMT), was captured on video by a home security camera and aired on KTRK. It showed a blinding flash in the distance followed by a fireball.

“I thought it was thunder,” said Bruce Meikle, 78, an owner of nearby manufacturer ChemSystems, who heard the explosion from his home about a mile (1.5 km) from the scene. He told Reuters the force of the blast bent back the metal loading doors at his business and caused minor damage inside, he said.

Paul Crea, 59, a chemist who works for Meikle, said the blast woke him 10 miles (16 km) away in Katy, a Houston suburb, and his dogs bellowed at the sound.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the blast was felt as far away as 14 miles (22 km), based on social media reports.

The explosion “knocked us all out of our bed, it was so strong,” Mark Brady told KPRC television. “It busted out every window in our house. It busted everybody’s garage door in around here. … It’s a war zone over here.”

Another neighbor identified only as Kim said her family was trapped in her home until rescued.

“The whole house is ruined,” Kim told KPRC, an NBC affiliate. “The whole ceiling crashed down on all of us. We were all trapped in there, and a nice family came and helped us out. It’s trashed. It’s just trashed. … Every house was devastated.”

The blast originated at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing, which provides coatings, machining and grinding about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of central Houston.

The company’s owner told ABC affiliate KTRK a propylene gas explosion sent two people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, reporter Marla Carter said on Twitter.

Propylene is a colorless, flammable, liquefied gas that has several industrial uses.

“This is still an active scene,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña posted on Twitter. “We will advise of the possible cause of the explosion as soon as we have concrete info.”

Houston, a major hub for the oil and gas industry, is the fourth largest city in the United States with a population of some 2.3 million.

(Reporting by Collin Eaton, Peter Szekely and Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Alex Richardson, Frances Kerry, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

Huge explosion rips through Houston neighborhood, causing several injuries

(Reuters) – A massive explosion at a manufacturing building ripped through a Houston neighborhood early Friday morning, injuring several people and damaging homes while sending out blast waves detected for miles around, officials and media said.

Smoke poured out from inside the structure in the predawn darkness about two hours after the blast as emergency vehicle lights flashed and first responders blocked access and checked for damage, aerial video from KTRK television showed.

No fatalities were reported, but one employee was unaccounted for, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The moment of the explosion, around 4:25 a.m. CST (1025 GMT), was captured on a home security camera, also aired on KTRK, that showed a blinding flash in the distance, followed by a fireball.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the blast was felt as far away as 14 miles (22 km), based on social media reports.

“(The explosion) knocked us all out of our bed, it was so strong,” Mark Brady told KPRC television. “It busted out every window in our house. It busted everybody’s garage door in around here. … It’s a war zone over here.”

Another neighbor identified only as Kim said her family was trapped in her home until rescued.

“The whole house is ruined,” Kim said. “The whole ceiling crashed down on all of us. We were all trapped in there, and a nice family came and helped us out. It’s trashed. It’s just trashed. … Every house was devastated.”

KTRK, the local ABC affiliate, said the blast appeared to have originated at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing, a machining and manufacturing company. The explosion took place on Gessner Road in northwestern Houston, city police wrote on Twitter.

“The owner of Watson Grinding tells us it was a propylene gas explosion, which sent two people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries,” KTRK reporter Marla Carter wrote on Twitter.

Propylene is a colorless, flammable, liquefied gas that has several industrial uses.

The debris field from the explosion spread about a half mile (1 km) wide, but there were no known toxic gases emitted from the blast, Police Chief Art Acevedo said.

The explosion damaged several homes in the area, the Houston Chronicle reported, showing pictures of homes with windows blown in and debris scattered.

At least two people had cuts on their faces after their windows were blown in, according to pictures published on the Chronicle website.

“This is still an active scene,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña posted on Twitter. “We will advise of the possible cause of the explosion as soon as we have concrete info.”

A hazardous materials team was responding to the area and at least one person was taken to the hospital, the Houston Fire Department wrote on Twitter.

Mike Iscovitz, a meteorologist with the local Fox News channel, said the huge blast had shown up on local weather radar and was felt more than 20 miles (32 km) away.

“Radar clearly shows this brief FLASH of reflectivity from NW Houston,” he tweeted.

Houston, a major hub for the oil and gas industry, is the fourth largest city in the United States with a population of some 2.3 million.

(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya and Peter Szekely; Writing by Frances Kerry and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Alex Richardson Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis)

These Houston residents dream of moving to where the air is clear

By Loren Elliott

HOUSTON (Reuters) – On the east side of Houston, the white plumes of the Texas oil and chemical refineries are a constant backdrop for residents of the Manchester neighborhood.

Late at night or early in the morning when plants burn off excess gases, the flames light up the whole sky in the neighborhood.

Some residents say the air has a chemical-based smell that they find hard to describe but disappears once they drive a few miles away from the homes that stretch along the Houston Ship Channel, a waterway connecting the plants to the ocean. They claim that the pollution is taking a toll on their health, although the scientific evidence does not prove that.

“I want to get out of here and go to the country and find some cleaner air,” said Eugene Barragan, a 56-year-old electrician who has lived most of his life by the refineries. “It would be better for me and the kids.”

Doctors have found four lumps in his lungs and now more growths, according to the chest X-rays and medical records he showed Reuters. The first ones were not cancerous. Barragan says he has not been able to afford imaging of the new growths. He hopes they are benign so he can watch his children grow up.

“When I work hard, I start coughing and coughing and can’t stop,” he said. “I know a lot of people who have problems like that.”

POLLUTION REDUCED

Lillian Riojas, Valero Energy Corp’s chief spokeswoman, said the company has worked to reduce pollution at its refinery since purchasing it in 1997.

In the 22 years since Valero took over the refinery, ambient benzene levels have dropped 63% to 0.34 parts per billion, according to data from 1997 to 2019 from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

“There’s a narrative that air quality is getting worse, but that’s not what the emission data is showing,” Riojas said.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which enforces federal and state environmental laws, gives Valero’s refinery the top compliance level possible, said Andrew Keese, a spokesman for the agency. The other nearby refineries and chemical plants earned a compliance rating of satisfactory.

Of the other plants bordering Manchester, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co has the second highest-rating for compliance with environmental regulations, Keese said.

Goodyear “implemented several changes that resulted in lower emissions from our facility,” said Connie Deibel, a company spokeswoman.

LyondellBasell Industries, TPC Group [TPCL.UL] and Flint Hills Resources, which operate facilities near Manchester, did not reply to requests for comment about pollution in the area.

NO MONEY TO MOVE

A 2007 study, the most recent available, of nearly 1,000 childhood cancer cases by the University of Texas found children living within 2 miles (3 km) of the Houston Ship Channel had a 56% higher risk of contracting acute lymphocytic leukemia than children living within 10 miles (16 km) of the Ship Channel. Researchers’ analysis suggests an association between childhood leukemia and air pollution. However the study, funded by Houston’s health department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, could not prove the pollutants caused the illnesses.

For years, Dennys Nieto wanted to leave the neighborhood but was only recently able to afford to move her and her family to a different part of Texas.

“I suffer from asthma and pain in my lungs. It feels like I’m being hit in the lungs,” Nieto said of her old neighborhood. “Headaches, inflammation and pain in my throat. And also I have erratic blood pressure and heartbeat.”

She checks her blood pressure and listens to her heart beat regularly.

“In the air I feel it’s this we’re all breathing. This is why I want to leave from here,” Nieto said of the Manchester area. “I want to go somewhere that is far from the refineries so that I can repair my life, repair my health and live better.”

 

(Reporting by Loren Elliott; additional reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Texas church shooter wore wig and fake beard, says security head who shot him

(Reuters) – A man wearing a wig and fake beard raised suspicion when he walked into a church service in Texas before opening fire with a shotgun and killing two people, a volunteer security guard who shot the assailant said on Monday.

The victims of Sunday’s shooting, identified as Anton Wallace, 64, of Fort Worth and Richard White, 67, of River Oaks, were also members of the civilian security force at West Freeway Church of Christ, the state’s attorney general said.

Jack Wilson, the head of the security detail, fired a single shot that took down the gunman, who has been identified by authorities as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, of River Oaks.

Wallace was serving communion at the church in the Fort Worth suburb of White Settlement and was approached twice by the suspect in the moments before the gunfire rang out.

“When he sat back down the second time, shortly after that, he stood up, turned, and produced a shotgun,” Wilson told NBC News.

Wilson and White began “drawing our weapons. Richard did get his gun out of the holster. He was, I think, able to get a shot off, but it ended up going into the wall. The shooter had turned and shot him and then shot Tony and then started to turn to go toward the front of the auditorium,” Wilson told NBC.

“I fired one round. The subject went down.”

Kinnunen was not a regular at the church and raised suspicion when he walked in wearing the wig and fake beard that he kept adjusting, Wilson said.

The reason for Kinnunen’s actions are unclear. State Attorney General Ken Paxton told a news conference that the gunman may have been mentally ill.

TRUMP PRAISES ARMED ‘HEROES’

The attack and response by armed civilians were likely to further inflame a nationwide debate over gun violence ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign.

“Our prayers are with the families of the victims and the congregation of yesterday’s church attack,” President Donald Trump said on Twitter.

“It was over in 6 seconds thanks to the brave parishioners who acted to protect 242 fellow worshippers. Lives were saved by these heroes, and Texas laws allowing them to carry arms!,” Trump said.

Local TV station NBC DFW, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, said Kinnunen had a criminal record that included charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2009. A Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman declined to comment.

Texas allows concealed carry in places of worship under a law that took effect in September. It was passed following a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017 that killed 26 people.

Paxton encouraged other states to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons for defense in case of active shooters.

Wilson had previously trained other churchgoers to use firearms, and had his own shooting range, Paxton said.

But gun control advocates and some religious leaders have argued such laws have no place in houses of worship.

“Instead of looking for a success story in a tragedy, lawmakers should be talking about how they can prevent gun violence in the first place,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg and Gabriella Borter in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Culver City, California; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Cynthia Osterman)

Gunman in Texas church, victims identified as local men

(Reuters) – The gunman who opened fire in a Texas church on Sunday, killing two before being shot dead by parishioners, was identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, who lived in the nearby town of River Oaks, state officials said on Monday.

His two victims killed at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, were identified as Anton Wallace, 64, of Fort Worth and Richard White, 67, also of River Oaks, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

A live video caught the terrifying moment when the gunman stood next to the pews wearing a dark hood and started firing a long gun before members of the church’s volunteer security team shot him in the church located in a suburb northwest of Fort Worth.

“A man entered the church and sat with parishioners. During the service, the man removed a shotgun from his person and fired the weapon,” the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement.

“The gunman has been identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, from River Oaks,” the statement said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told reporters on Monday the shooter had been to the church several times in the past and may have been mentally ill, but authorities were still investigating a possible motive.

“They welcome people who are transient or homeless into their church. They welcomed this guy into their church,” Paxton said.

CRIMINAL RECORD

Local TV station NBC DFW, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, said Kinnunen had a criminal record that included charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2009. A Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman did not immediately confirm that.

The Fort Worth Fire Department said three people, including the suspected shooter, were transported from the scene in critical condition on Sunday. Two, including the suspect, died en route to the hospital, said Macara Trusty, a spokeswoman for local emergency services provider MedStar, said in a phone interview. The third died later, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Two more people sustained minor injuries as they ducked for cover inside the church, Trusty said.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick praised the church’s volunteer security guards for taking down the shooter.

“Because of the quick action of these two men, this evil event was over in six seconds,” he said in a statement issued on Sunday.

One of the two guards said in a Facebook post that he was acting against evil. “The events at West Freeway Church of Christ put me in a position that I would hope no one would have to be in, but evil exists and I had to take out an active shooter in church,” he said.

Patrick said a new state law allowing concealed carry in places of worship enabled the parishioners to stop the gunman. The law, which took effect in September, was passed in the wake of a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017 that left 26 dead.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton praised the law and encouraged other states to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons for defense in case of active shooters. Gun control advocates and some religious leaders have criticized such laws, arguing that weapons have no place in houses of worship.

“I do hope that through this tragedy, more churches will prepare the way this church did, not just in Texas but really across the nation,” Paxton said. “This is the model for the future.”

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; editing by Bill Tarrant and Dan Grebler)