Page 8 - Schaefer Edwards News Today

Gov. Greg Abbott and his top health advisers swung by Houston on Tuesday to meet with Houston Methodist CEO and president Dr. Mark Boom to talk about the statewide COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and to praise Houston Methodist for being the top vaccinator in all of Texas. Abbott said that Harris County as a whole “has administered far more vaccines than any other county in Texas.” He cited Department of State Health Service statistics which show that as of Monday, 259,848 vaccine shots had been ...

The Texas Legislature officially kicked off its 87th session last week, an every-other-year tradition that sees lawmakers of all stripes gather in Austin to pass a two-year budget and a few laws that could, in theory, improve the quality of life for Texans of all stripes — if we’re lucky. This year, the still raging coronavirus pandemic has been the topic du jour in the Texas Capitol, as it’s been in every nook and cranny of the Lone Star State for these past ten interminable months. Sin...

The Houston Health Department’s mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Minute Maid Park on Saturday was a success in that more than 6,000 area residents got their first dose of the potentially life-saving medicine. But logistical hiccups and a lack of on-site vetting allowed some Houstonians to skip the line and receive a shot without an appointment, and many residents who went through the correct process to make an appointment were sent away without getting a needle in the arm. Houston Mayor Sy...

Editors note: Reminder that you are still required to make an appointment ahead of time for any of these vaccination events. Once the health department approves your request it will issue you a confirmation number that you should bring with you to your appointment time. Original story: If you’re one of the thousands of Houstonians lucky enough to have received a shot of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine from the Houston Health Department since it kicked-off public vaccinations to those who quali...

Fifth Ward Residents Oppose Houstons Interstate Expansion The downtown freeway expansion will displace thousands of housed and unhoused residents and hundreds of small businesses. January 13, 2021, 11am PST | Diana Ionescu | The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is planning an expansion of Interstate 45 in downtown Houston, causing concern among residents and people experiencing homelessness who live in the path of the proposed road expansion, writes Schaefer Edwards in the Houst...

Update 11:35 a.m. 1-15-21: The Houston Chronicle has confirmed that the HPD officer who took part in last week’s D.C. riot and resigned Thursday is Tam Pham, an 18-year department veteran who was assigned to Westside Patrol. While HPD will still not publicly confirm that Pham is the officer in question (citing its ongoing investigation), Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo retweeted a Chron.com article on Thursday night that quoted the Chronicle’s interview with Pham, in which the now-forme...

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt slapped down the latest delay tactic from the City of Houston’s legal team in a case trying to uncover hidden evidence from 2019’s fatal Harding Street raid. In his ruling on whether or not the case would be elevated to the federal level, Hoyt sided in favor of victim...

Photo by Doogie Roux Cruz claims that just because he helped lead the effort to stop Congress from certifying Bidens win doesn’t mean he’s responsible for Wednesday’s violence. Some of his already vocal critics disagree, and are calling on Cruz to resign and repent. At one event Thursday organized by the Houston Socialist Movement, the People’s New Black Panther Party and Houston United Front Against Fascism, demonstrators waved signs and hung posters in front of Cruz’s downtown offic...

Rice University did a good enough job this fall of keeping the coronavirus in check within its tree-lined campus that it was planning to raise the number of students allowed in any given in-person class for the upcoming spring semester. But in a message to the Rice community Friday morning, university president David Leebron announced that in-person classes won’t be getting bigger in January after all. In fact, there won’t be any in-person classes at all to start the semester thanks to the ...

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said that she expected that Harris and surrounding counties would likely have to start reimplementing occupancy restrictions for local businesses and halt non-essential elective surgical procedures, all thanks to Gov. Greg Abbott’s statewide order that tied reopenings to COVID-19 hospitalizations. “Unless things change in the next few hours, unless there’s a 180-degree shift, we do sadly expect to cross that thresho...