Arlington City Council reversed course Tuesday and denied a permit for three new gas wells near a daycare center, as neighbors and environmentalists argued that drilling would have dire consequences. The 5-4 vote to deny the permit comes less than two months after the city council gave initial approval to the project. It also comes just one week after the daycare center and Liveable Arlington sued the city, alleging that city leaders endangered children’s health and skirted the city’s own processes for approving gas wells. Wanda Vincent, founder of Mother’s Heart Learning Center, and Liveable Arlington, sought a restraining order against…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
Positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations among children under 5 years old have risen exponentially across North Texas in recent weeks, data shows. The omicron variant is affecting children under 5, including newborns, at higher rates than delta and other coronavirus variants did, said Dr. Carla García Carreño, chief of infectious disease at Children’s Medical Center Plano. García Carreño said there has been a tenfold increase in the number of minors infected by COVID-19 in the last several weeks, namely among children under age 5, who aren’t eligible for vaccines. “We have seen cases of newborns that come in with a fever who are…
Border agents rounded out 2021 with a surprising discovery during an inspection at the Progreso International Bridge last week. On Dec. 30, a woman was trying to get through customs when she was flagged for a secondary inspection. During the second search, agents found four undeclared spider monkeys hidden in a duffel bag, authorities said. The monkeys were found inside a duffel bag during a secondary search of an American woman’s car, officials said. “While conducting their inspections, our officers will often encounter a myriad of prohibited agriculture products,” Walter Weaver, port director at the Port of Progreso, said in…
One year ago, they massed outside the besieged U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. with thousands of other angry Donald Trump supporters. The roughly two dozen men and women from the Dallas-Fort Worth area believed, like everyone else, that the election had been stolen. Some lingered on the Capitol grounds and took selfies amidst the chaos; some breached the building — including the Senate Chamber — with the mob; and others beat police officers with their feet, fists and any objects they could find, according to prosecutors. On the anniversary of the historic Jan. 6 insurrection, most of the North…
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz predicted Republicans will impeach President Joe Biden as political payback if they win back the U.S. House this year in the midterm elections. “Yeah, I do think there’s a chance of that, whether it’s justified or not,” he said on the latest episode of his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” “Democrats weaponized impeachment,” he said, referring to House Democrats twice voting to impeach former President Donald Trump. “They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A former Harris County commissioner is taking his former colleagues to court over a newly drawn county voting map. Steve Radack told the commissioner’s court violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when they passed the map. Radack retired from the court a year ago. But he, again, engaged with the county as the plaintiff in a lawsuit that accuses the commission and Judge Lina Hidalgo of not following the law. The suit alleges the commission did not properly publicly post the meeting at which the Democratic majority voted to change the county’s precinct map based on…
WASHINGTON (KTRK) — Ed Gonzalez rang in 2022 still as the Harris County sheriff months after his nomination as President Biden’s ICE director. On Tuesday, with the sheriff’s nomination returned to the White House from the Senate, the Biden administration again submitted Gonzalez for consideration to lead the key immigration enforcement role within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Gonzalez was among dozens of Biden nominations spanning different role that were sent to the Senate, which took no action to confirm the sheriff. With no action, the divided Senate ended 2021 with the nomination expiring and being sent back to…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — As the omicron variant continues to spread, some people are waiting in long lines to get tested. In some cases, there are delays in getting the results. Curative, one of the companies operating several Houston testing sites, said the delay is because of the increase in demand for testing. Their average turnaround time in the Houston area is a little over two days right now, where typically the average is between one and two days. Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing companies in the country, said its average turnaround time is two to three days…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The 4-year-old girl who was shot in southwest Houston on New Year’s Day has been identified as the niece of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Family identified the child as Arianna Delane. Her father, Derrick Delane, said their apartment in the 3300 block of Yellowstone Blvd. was hit several times by gunfire just before 3 a.m. on January 1. The gunfire that entered the second story hit the child who was asleep in the front bedroom. “My daughter jumped up and said, ‘Daddy, I’ve been hit’ and I was…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It’s not your imagination, the weather has been crazy lately! The state climatologist said Texas just had the warmest December on record. “The warmest official December was back in 1933, and we were about five degrees warmer than that,” explained John Nielsen-Gammon, “and more than 10 degrees above the 20th century average for December.” In the Houston area, our average monthly temperature for December shattered records at 67.8 degrees. 2021 was a strange year for Texas weather. We all remember the freeze in February. “The cold was one of the coldest weeks on record, if not…
