MRT: TX Reports Two Days of Record COVID-19 Hospitalizations; Floyd Funeral Held in Houston; UT to Require Masks in Buildings; GPB to Vote for Trump
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TOP NEWS
"Texas reports two consecutive days of record coronavirus hospitalizations weeks after reopening,"CNBC'sBerkeley Lovelace Jr. -- "Texas has reported two consecutive days of record-breaking Covid-19 hospitalizations as the state continues to open businesses and resume activities that were temporarily shuttered due to the coronavirus.
There are currently 2,056 patients sickened with Covid-19 in hospitals across the state as of early Tuesday afternoon, up from a record 1,935 patients Monday, according to updated data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Coronavirus hospitalizations, like new cases and deaths, are considered a key measure of the outbreak because it helps scientists gauge how severe it may be. Research shows that it can take anywhere from five to 12 days for people to show symptoms from the virus.
Texas was among the first states to relax its statewide stay-at-home order, allowing it to expire April 30 and some businesses to resume operations May 1. On June 3, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order to announce the third phase of the state’s plan to open additional businesses and activities." CNBC
"'He is going to change the world': Funeral held for Floyd,"AP'sJuan A. Lozano, Nomaan Merchant and Adam Geller -- "George Floyd was fondly remembered Tuesday as “Big Floyd” — a father and brother, athlete and neighborhood mentor, and now a catalyst for change — at a funeral for the black man whose death has sparked a global reckoning over police brutality and racial prejudice.
More than 500 mourners wearing masks against the coronavirus packed a Houston church a little more than two weeks after Floyd was pinned to the pavement by a white Minneapolis police officer who put a knee on his neck for what prosecutors said was 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
Cellphone video of the encounter, including Floyd’s pleas of “I can’t breathe,” ignited protests and scattered violence across the U.S. and around the world, turning the 46-year-old Floyd — a man who in life was little known beyond the public housing project where he was raised in Houston’s Third Ward — into a worldwide symbol of injustice.
“Third Ward, Cuney Homes, that’s where he was born at,” Floyd’s brother, Rodney, told mourners at the Fountain of Praise church. “But everybody is going to remember him around the world. He is going to change the world.”
The funeral capped six days of mourning for Floyd in three cities: Raeford, North Carolina, near where he was born; Houston, where he grew up; and Minneapolis, where he died. The memorials have drawn the families of other black victims whose names have become familiar in the debate over race and justice — among them, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin.
After the service, Floyd’s golden casket was taken by hearse to the cemetery in the Houston suburb of Pearland to be entombed next to his mother, for whom he cried out as he lay dying. A mile from the graveyard, the casket was transferred to a glass-sided carriage drawn by a pair of white horses. A brass band played as his casket was taken inside the mausoleum.
Hundreds of people, some chanting, “Say his name, George Floyd,” gathered along the procession route and outside the cemetery entrance in the mid-90s heat.
“I don’t want to see any black man, any man, but most definitely not a black man sitting on the ground in the hands of bad police,” said Marcus Brooks, 47, who set up a tent with other graduates of Jack Yates High School, Floyd’s alma mater.
In the past two weeks, amid the furor over Floyd’s death, sweeping and previously unthinkable things have taken place: Confederate statues have been toppled, and many cities are debating overhauling, dismantling or cutting funding for police departments. Authorities in some places have barred police from using chokeholds or are otherwise rethinking policies on the use of force." AP
"In George Floyd-inspired protests, Texas organizers find new allies in quest for police reforms,"The Texas Tribune's Alexa Ura and Stacy Fernandez -- "As the mourning of George Floyd’s death spilled over from the first weekend of protests and passed the seven-day mark, Durrel Douglas opted to stay off the streets.
The Houston organizer had been one of those holding the megaphone six years earlier when outrage over the police killing of another black man, Michael Brown, reached his city. This time, he turned his attention to researching what other cities have done to address racism in policing, looking for ways to leverage the energy of the protests into change for Houston.
“There are people who are part of this movement now who haven’t been to City Hall,” said Douglas, a co-founder of the Houston Justice Coalition. “They’re about to do just that because, finally, there’s something that has brought them to do that.”
Floyd’s death has emerged as a potentially pivotal moment in an enduring movement for racial justice that has been marked by a pattern of steady activism, punctuated by eruptions of protests when working within the system proved ineffectual." Texas Tribune
"University of Texas at Austin will require all students, faculty and staff to wear masks inside campus buildings,"The Houston Chronicle'sRaga Justin -- "The University of Texas at Austin will require all students, faculty and staff to wear face masks in campus buildings next fall to prevent the spread of COVID-19, interim president Jay Hartzell announced Monday.
UT-Austin appears to be the first university in the state to implement a mandatory face mask policy for the fall semester.
In an email to the UT community, Hartzell said students and faculty may remove their face coverings in a campus building if they are alone in a private office or in their residence hall room. Masks will be encouraged in outdoor areas of campus, and enforcement measures will be announced later.
The university is also planning to test asymptomatic individuals and routinely screen people for symptoms as they enter buildings on campus.
“This policy — which is currently in place for the summer — is consistent with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which makes clear that face coverings, in addition to social distancing measures, are among the most effective strategies in limiting the spread of COVID-19, particularly in high-density areas,” Hartzell said in the email.
Hartzell said employee furloughs have begun, but the university did not immediately provide details about how many people were affected.
Institutions are steeling themselves for major economic blows from the pandemic. UT-Austin had previously announced that furloughs and a hiring freeze were imminent, while layoffs are a likely possibility in the near future.
State leaders have also directed certain higher education institutions and agencies to reduce their budgets by 5%; Hartzell said these cuts will be released shortly.
UT-Austin is in the process of navigating strategies to mitigate COVID-19 spread for the fall semester. Last week, Hartzell announced that more than 2,000 classes will be online, while on-campus classes will run from August to Thanksgiving and then continue remotely in an effort to limit student travel.
Meanwhile, classrooms will be limited to 40 percent of their capacity, and classes will take place between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. to reduce the number of students on campus at any given time." Houston Chronicle
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Texas to require all police officers receive implicit bias training, in first George Floyd-inspired reform,"The Houston Chronicle's Taylor Goldenstein -- "In the first statewide policy change since George Floyd's death shook the nation, the Texas agency that regulates police has agreed to add implicit bias training to a course required for every officer, upon the request of Houston Democratic state Rep. Garnet Coleman.
The requirement was one that had been included in an early iteration, but not the final version, of the 2017 Sandra Bland Act, which requires all officers to take de-escalation training.
This time, Coleman went a different route and simply asked the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement if it would make the change administratively as opposed to waiting for new legislation. To his delight, the commission responded a day later that it would adopt the policy.
Coleman said he will work with the agency on crafting and finalizing curriculum, but the purpose will be to train officers about the possibility that they may be unconsciously carrying preconceived notions or prejudices that can affect their actions on the job.
“It does what the public is asking for,” Coleman said. “When a police officer doesn’t understand that they have this bias, the only way to change it is for them to recognize that they have a bias that may be a racial bias.
Houston Rep. Garnet Coleman said the following are policy suggestions for how to improve Texas’ criminal justice system, which he and others plan to propose in the 2021 Texas legislative session:
-New training for new and existing officers, such as tactical communication: the study of verbal communication meant to help an officer de-escalate situations even when under verbal assault
-Prohibit consent searches, or warantless searches conducted when a suspect agrees to them.
-Ban pretextual and investigatory stops, the kind used by the officer who pulled over Sandra Bland, in which an officer pulls someone over for a minor infraction in order to investigate other potential crimes.
-Increase the standard of evidence required to conduct a stop or search a motor vehicle.
-Strengthen racial profiling law and make it clear that data can be entered into court proceedings to show a pattern of profiling.
-Prohibit arrests for offenses only punishable by fines (also something that happened to Bland; previous legislation has failed to pass in the past two sessions).
-Standardize the procedure for a member of the public to make a complaint against an officer
“When people say, ‘How do you change how people think?’ This is how you change how people think.”" Houston Chronicle
"Texas ordered $1B in coronavirus supplies but canceled most deals over delays or faulty gear,"The Dallas Morning News' Allie Morris -- "In its mad dash to buy masks, gowns and other medical supplies to protect against the coronavirus, Texas is spending millions of dollars in no-bid deals and tapping vendors that have no history doing business with the state.
The results have been mixed, according to state payment records and court documents. A California-based fabric firm new to the medical supply business successfully delivered thousands of gowns on a plane chartered from China. But last month, the state rejected over 200,000 face masks from another vendor because they turned out to be faulty.
In one unusual arrangement, the state is relying on the Lower Colorado River Authority and the private Dell Foundation for creative financing for a large shipment of personal protective equipment from Asia.
As cases of coronavirus climbed, Texas, like many states, had to compete for scarce personal protective equipment in a turbulent market rife with soaring prices, hordes of vendors and tales of fraudsters across the country.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management says it has safeguards in place, such as paying vendors only after supplies arrive and are inspected for quality, a step government watchdogs endorse.
Since the pandemic began, the division has ordered over $1.1 billion worth of medical supplies, but has cancelled over half the deals because products never arrived or were defective, a spokesman said. The division has spent $200 million to date on personal protective equipment, which is being distributed statewide to health care workers and first responders.
“The primary goal has been to provide desperately needed PPE to health care workers and those who needed it to help stop the spread of COVID-19,” TDEM spokesman Seth Christensen said in a statement. “In order to meet the need and to continue preparation for responding to COVID-19 moving forward, diversifying vendors was and still is a necessity, as no one vendor has been able to meet our increased demand for product.”
The state has paid 106 purchase orders for personal protective equipment, Christensen said. At least a dozen vendors the division used had no recent history doing business with the state, according to a review of payment records on the Texas Comptroller’s website.
They include medical equipment suppliers, but also a defense contractor and a California-based fabric sourcing company that turned to medical gowns when the pandemic began. The company, ICU Production, chartered a plane to fly “a few hundred thousand” gowns to Texas from factories in China, said CEO Joseph Cohen." Dallas Morning News
"Fort Worth board endorses statement that police practices ‘rooted in White supremacy’,"The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Emerson Clarridge -- "The Fort Worth public school board vowed in a resolution Tuesday that the district “has the power and the duty to be part of the solution to dismantle institutional racism.”
The resolution includes an assessment from the district’s racial equity committee that foundations of policing were infused with racism.
“We ... are horrified, outraged, and saddened by the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other Black citizens in our country in recent weeks, including Fort Worth’s own, Atatiana Jefferson,” the committee’s members wrote in part.
“While certain groups see law enforcement as members of society that pledge to protect and serve, communities of color have had numerous traumatic experiences that have been historically ignored. Police practices are deeply rooted in White supremacy stemming from night patrols, slave patrols, and the Texas Rangers. These traumatic experiences impact every area of our Black community, including the school systems.”
Fort Worth Independent School District Board President Jacinto Ramos Jr. suggested that the board would in the future consider the role of law enforcement officers in the district." Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Greg Abbott has condemned the death of George Floyd, but he’s been silent on Texas’ recent history of police killings," The Texas Tribune's Jolie McCullough -- "When George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott labeled the incident a “horrific act of police brutality” and has since repeatedly said that Texas can’t let such a tragedy happen.
“George Floyd has not died in vain,” Abbott said Monday at a public memorial for Floyd in Houston. “I am committed to working with the family of George Floyd to ensure we never have anything like this ever occur in the state of Texas.”
It already has. But the governor has been noticeably silent on Texas' own high-profile examples of police killings. An Abbott spokesperson did not respond to questions for this story Tuesday.
Last year, Texas police shot and killed 117 people, according to a report by the Texas attorney general’s office. A string of high-profile fatal police shootings and in-custody deaths of black Texans in recent years has sparked protests and widespread calls for police reform and racial justice." Texas Tribune
"2 North Texas counties to remove Confederate monuments," viaAP-- "Officials in two North Texas counties voted Tuesday to remove Confederate monuments from their courthouse grounds.
Commissioners of Tarrant and Denton counties voted Tuesday to remove the monuments.
The Tarrant County monument had been erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953. Commissioner Roy Brooks proposed its removal, saying he “would argue that it’s not a memorial at all, rather that it was erected in 1953 as a reminder to the black citizens of this county and of this state that the rules of Jim Crow were still in effect.”
Tarrant commissioners voted 4-0 with one abstention for the removal.
The Denton County monument was erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1918.
Commissioners of both counties said their actions were taken to promote racial harmony amid protests of the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer.
“There is an overwhelming sense that the deep consciousness of America has been touched by events in recent weeks,” Denton County Judge Andy Eads, leader of the commissioners court, said of protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
Both counties said their monuments would be placed in storage until alternate sites could be found." AP
2020
"At least one notable Bush — George P., the Texas land commissioner — will vote for Trump in November,"The Dallas Morning News' Tom Benning -- "At least one notable member of the Bush political family plans to vote for President Donald Trump in November, even amid a well-known fissure between two of the most high-profile brands in the Republican Party.
Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush — son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush — told The Dallas Morning News that he will cast a ballot for Trump, reaffirming the support he gave to the billionaire in the 2016 election.
“President Trump is the only thing standing between America and socialism,” the younger Bush said in response to an inquiry from The News, also confirming that he plans to formally endorse Trump.
Asked to rate Trump’s presidency to date, George P. Bush said, “It’s clear, Republican policies are working.”
“Even in a global pandemic where we have had to take unprecedented measures to protect public health, the economy is already returning,” said Bush, who is the only member of his family currently holding public office. “It’s clear, America and Texas will continue to be stronger than ever.”" Dallas Morning News
REMAINDERS
TEXAS TECH: "MSU coach, former Texas Tech title guard Noel Johnson dies"AP
'MACK ON POLITICS' PODCAST
LATEST "MACK ON POLITICS" PODCAST: The George Floyd killing and resulting protests are the subject of the 191st episode.
Our guest is social commentator and activist Toure, who hosts two podcasts, “The Toure Show” and “Democracyish”.
In this conversation we take stock of this national moment, examine real solutions to police brutality, consider whether police union contracts are part of the problem, and probe the concepts of systemic racism and white privilege. Finally, we discuss how the protests will end.
Available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and on the web at http://www.MackOnPoliticsPodcast.com.
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