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Texas Pregnancy Deaths Up 56% Since Abortion Ban

October 7, 2024 Catherine Haberl, Liberation News. , , , , ,
Two years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and three years since the implementation of Texas’s SB 8 “bounty” bill in 2021, the facts on the ground are showing exactly what activists expected: a massive increase in deaths of both mothers and infants. The Gender Equity Policy Institute reports a 56% increase in pregnancy-related deaths (defined as the loss of life due to complications related to pregnancy or aggravated by pregnancy-related conditions) in Texas between 2019 and 2022, while the national statistic increased by 11% during the same timeframe. This represents a significant spike in the already troubling trend of rising pregnancy-related mortality in the state.

Nearly 50,000 US Dockworkers Strike And Flex Collective Power

October 2, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , , , ,
At midnight on October 1, nearly 50,000 dockworkers across the US’s East Coast walked off the job, shutting down ports across the coastline across cities including Boston, New York, Miami, and Houston. This is the International Longshoremen’s Association’s (ILA) first strike since 1977. ILA dockworkers are a lynchpin of the US economy. Ports affected by the strike include the Port of New York and New Jersey, the nation’s third largest port in terms of the volume of cargo. “When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port will lockdown,” said ILA President Harold Daggett. “Everything in the United States comes on a ship.”

Deaths, Asthma, Climate Pollution Linked To Citi’s Funding Of Gas

September 18, 2024 Emily Pomilio, Fossil Free Citi. , , , , , ,
The lives and health of families in Texas and Louisiana are being directly impacted by Citi’s funding of nearby liquified methane gas projects (LNG), a new report released today shows. Over $36 million in health costs, two deaths, and more than 1,600 incidences of asthma symptoms per year in the region are linked to the $1.6 billion the bank has pumped into four LNG facilities in the Gulf South. The bank’s financed emissions related to these facilities is equivalent to over 6 coal plants or 6 million gasoline cars annually. The report, Citi: Funding Fossil-Fueled Environmental Racism in the Gulf South, quantifies the projected health impacts the facilities’ permitted air pollution could have on the region and highlights three communities in the area that are fighting back against fossil fuel development.

Dallas Black Dancers Fight For Their Union

September 16, 2024 Rosemary Curts, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Leave it to performing arts unions to make a picket line that grabs attention. The rally outside Dallas Black Dance Theatre included a drummer, line dancing, and spontaneous performances from the unionized dancers. The August 17 picket drew 200 people supporting the entire 10-member primary dance company, who were fired less than three months after they voted to unionize under the American Guild of Musical Artists. Hours before the dancers’ termination, DBDT called auditions for August 17 for scab dancers. Immediately, AGMA issued a “do not work” order for the auditions, something that is reserved for the most egregious cases.

Victory For Immigrant Rights Organization In Houston

August 28, 2024 Gloria Rubac, Workers' World. , , ,
Activists with a longtime immigrant rights organization in Houston celebrated a victory on Aug. 23 after a judge dismissed a lawsuit that tried to revoke the group’s nonprofit status and shut it down. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha (Immigrant Families and Students in struggle, FIEL) in July asking Harris County Civil Court Judge Ravi K. Sandill to shut down the organization. The lawsuit charged FIEL with violating federal rules governing nonprofits’ political involvement, because FIEL criticized former President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, as well as a new immigration law passed by the Texas legislature.

International Campaign Targets Tanker Supplying Israel With Texas Oil

August 6, 2024 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
An oil tanker scheduled to carry 300,000 barrels of military-grade jet fuel to Israel has been prevented from docking in Spain and Gibraltar following pressure from activists. The oil is expected to be used in Israeli Air Force’s F16 and F35 jets as part of the country’s genocidal assault on Gaza. The Overseas Santorini was supposed to dock in Gibraltar on July 30, but it did not stop and is currently traveling northeast in the Mediterranean. It’s unclear if the failure to dock was connected to the protests. Gibraltar confirmed that the vessel requested to stop and an official told the Gibraltar Chronicle that no services were supplied to the tanker.

DC Circuit Rules Against FERC Approval Of LNG And Pipeline Projects

August 6, 2024 Lindsay Stafford Mader, Sierra Club. , , , , ,
On Tuesday, Aug. 6, the D.C. Circuit Court issued a decision that effectively cancels the previous approval of three harmful methane gas projects in South Texas by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), marking the first time a court has vacated FERC approval of an LNG terminal. In 2023, FERC reapproved Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, and the Rio Bravo pipeline, despite widespread concerns for the harm the projects would cause to the surrounding communities and the climate. The Sierra Club, the City of Port Isabel, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and Vecinos para el Bienestar de la Comunidad Costera sued FERC for failing to adequately consider the environmental justice impacts and greenhouse gas emissions of the three projects, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Natural Gas Act.

‘Keep Public Housing Public’: Texas Dispute Reflects National Tensions

July 10, 2024 Jared Brey, Governing. , , , ,
Even with low-cost housing harder than ever to find in most American cities, the stock of public housing is shrinking. The number of families living in public housing shrank 6.5 percent during a recent five-year period, according to the Urban Institute — not a huge decline, but a decline nonetheless. Several federal initiatives to redevelop public-housing towers with lower-density, mixed-income projects have helped improve the image of public housing from its nadir in the mid-to-late 20th century. But they have also changed the mission of public housing authorities. Once focused solely on building and maintaining public units for poor people, housing authorities now engage in a wide variety of housing-related activities, sometimes partnering with private developers to build apartments for people who make barely less than the median income.

The Problem With Juneteenth

June 20, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The fact that members of the United States Senate voted unanimously to make Juneteenth a federal holiday proved that the commemoration is of no political value. Turning what was a peoples’ celebration into an occasion for opportunism and window dressing has actually damaged the cause of Black liberation and the understanding of history. On June 19, 1865 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas and issued General Order Three, a declaration that slavery had ended. The fact that this event occurred two months after the Civil War ended took on an understandably mythic quality, including a belief that the news had been deliberately kept from enslaved people, or that the person carrying the message had been killed.

Texas Needs Radical Solutions For Water Conservation

June 3, 2024 Martin Castro, Next City. , , , , ,
South Texas is facing a water crisis decades in the making. Much of the region’s growing population relies on the Rio Grande as its sole source of drinking water. Yet in recent years, as climate change has gripped Texas and caused hotter, drier summers, the river’s flow has diminished to a trickle in some areas. This year, months before summer has officially set in, major reservoirs on the Rio Grande are nearly empty after reaching historic lows last year. Falcon Reservoir is less than 15% full as of mid-April, and Amistad Reservoir hovers below one-third full. Last month, Hidalgo County issued a disaster declaration as a binational agreement with the Mexican government fails to deliver water from the Rio Grande, as it is obligated to do under the terms of a 1944 treaty. Farmers fear losing their crops.

Texas Has ‘The Most Aggressive’ Well-Plugging Program In The US

June 2, 2024 Elliot Woods, Scheer Post. , , , , ,
After a century and a half of oil and gas production in the United States, the nonprofit environmental watchdog Climate Tracker published a sobering report in 2020: Some 2.6 million unplugged onshore wells lay scattered across the country. Plugging all those derelict holes, from the rocky Appalachian hill country of western Pennsylvania to the dry plains of West Texas and the tundra of Alaska, and countless points between, might cost as much as $280 billion. And that figure from the report did not include undocumented wells — the ones that have vanished from the books, if they were ever recorded in the first place.

A Texas Company Is Providing The Jet Fuel For Israel’s Assault On Gaza

June 1, 2024 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. , , , , , , , ,
A new report calls on United States companies to stop supplying Israel’s military with jet fuel and recommends an embargo to achieve this goal. “Many credible sources have documented crimes under international law being committed by Israel in the context of its ongoing military campaign in Gaza,” reads a briefing from the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). “These include indiscriminate attacks leading to massive loss of civilian life and targeting of civilian infrastructure amongst other acts which constitute war crimes. Multiple sources, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and UN human rights experts have documented indiscriminate attacks by air which have resulted in catastrophic civilian casualties.

The Fight To Reclaim Texas’ Highways For People

May 16, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. , , , , ,
Freeways rip apart neighborhoods, displace primarily Black and Brown people and increase greenhouse gas emissions — so why do we keep building them? According to a new book from Austin-based journalist Megan Kimble, “​​City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways,” it doesn’t have to be this way. Right now, a new generation of freeway fighters is battling freeway expansion across the country. Kimble’s book profiles three campaigns in Texas to build places for people, not cars: Stop TxDOT I-45 in Houston, Rethink35 in Austin and the campaign to remove the I-345 highway in Dallas.

In Texas, SpaceX’s Rocket Facility Is Blocking Public Beach Access

May 11, 2024 Joseph Bullington, In These Times. , , ,
Boca Chica, Texas —  I’m loafing outside my tent, waiting for the coffee to boil, contemplating a morning swim. My pitbull, Shiner, is thrashing in the sand with a look of crazed joy twisting his face. Brown pelicans are cruising low over the roiling gray-green Gulf waters. That’s when a Cameron County sheriff’s deputy drives up and tells us to leave. Boca Chica Beach is now closed so Elon Musk’s company SpaceX can conduct rocket tests at its nearby launchpad, which towers over the dunes just north of our camp. Such beach closures have become frequent since SpaceX started building its Starbase facility about six years ago.

Texas State Troopers In Riot Gear Crack Down On University Students

April 25, 2024 Julia Conley, Common Dreams. , , , , ,
Civil rights advocates on Wednesday expressed alarm at a rapid escalation by Texas state troopers who descended on a student-led protest at University of Texas at Austin, which was organized in solidarity with Gaza and other U.S. college students taking part in a growing anti-war movement. UT students gathered on campus at midday and were promptly given two minutes to disperse by state troopers, who had already been called to the scene. The troopers were equipped with riot gear, with some carrying assault rifles and several stationed on horses.
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