
The Texas Observer Lives!
After a terrifying near-death experience, we live to muckrake another day.
Since 1954
After a terrifying near-death experience, we live to muckrake another day.
Texas allows nursing homes to voluntarily accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals and other nursing homes. But there are no additional safeguards for the people sent there, and some of the facilities have a history of breaking rules.
At the behest of the industry, legislators have chipped away at the environmental permitting process in Texas, stacking the deck against concerned people protesting industrial projects.
The infections are the latest in the surge of coronavirus cases at Texas meatpacking plants and in the Panhandle.
More than 100 Texas counties—many with limited medical resources—will be able to reopen businesses to 50 percent capacity on Friday.
Tyson employees interviewed by the Observer say that as the coronavirus spread through the facility in April, the company failed to notify them of the danger in a timely manner so they could protect themselves.
The outbreaks, which are being investigated by the state health agency, represent the first reported cases of the virus inside Texas meatpacking plants, and are in rural areas where medical resources are already stretched thin.
Pesticide drift is exposing rural Texans to dangerous chemicals. But lawmakers are more concerned with how that is eating into Big Ag’s balance sheet.
Mindy Brashears’ confirmation comes at a time when Americans are scouring supermarket aisles for safe food to eat.
With no edict from Governor Abbott, rural school officials must weigh the health of their students against the health of their communities.