TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalThe Rio Grande Valley's political landscape is changing amid midterm, governor elections
In national elections, the Rio Grande Valley has been solidly “blue” for many years, only recently becoming more “red” in the 2020 presidential election.
All four RGV counties — Cameron, Willacy, Hidalgo and Starr — shifted right during the presidential election, with then-President Donald Trump taking 47.1% of the vote in Starr County. In the 2016 presidential election, Trump secured only 19% of the vote there. The other three RGV counties shifted right by at least 10 percentage points in the 2020 presidential election compared to the 2016 election.
Though President Joe Biden ultimately secured the four RGV counties, he did so with much smaller margins compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election. Before the general election, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders won all four RGV counties during the 2020 Democratic primary, meaning there is, surely, a progressive presence in the RGV.
With the progressive support in mind, the Democratic Party’s hold on the area was, before this last election cycle, seen as a given. But the party is quickly learning that the Latino American population of the region is not a monolith, even as the group's population grows in the RGV and across the state.
Read more: https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2021-12-28/the-rio-grande-valleys-political-landscape-is-changing-amid-midterm-governor-elections
Chicago-based Hillrom faces antitrust lawsuit over hospital bed sales
A Chicago-based medical technology company recently purchased by health care giant Baxter is facing an antitrust lawsuit brought by a rival that alleges it has a “stranglehold” on the hospital bed market.
In the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Chicago, hospital bed-maker Linet alleges Hillrom, the main provider of hospital beds in the U.S., used “anti-competitive” practices to slow Linet’s growth in the U.S. market, including “coercing” hospital administrators into locking entire health systems into long-term agreements.
Hillrom, which the lawsuit calls a “serial abuser of antitrust laws,” makes up at least 70% of standard, intensive care and birthing beds installed in U.S. hospitals, according to the complaint.
“As COVID-19 cases and new variants continue to spread across the country, hospitals are overwhelmed and, in some areas, lack the beds necessary to treat critically ill patients, thereby creating an unprecedented spike in demand for the resources needed to save patients’ lives,” Linet Americas, a U.S.-based part of European company Linet Group, alleges in the lawsuit. “In the middle of this public health crisis stands Hillrom, the dominant supplier of hospital beds in the U.S.”
Read more: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-hospital-bed-antitrust-lawsuit-hillrom-linet-20211230-yxrcgy6birdrle3ogff7fchuju-story.html
CPS CEO 'very comfortable' with return to schools next week as COVID-19 spikes but says individual
CPS CEO ‘very comfortable’ with return to schools next week as COVID-19 spikes but says individual classrooms may shift to remote learning if cases climb higherChicago Public Schools is ready to welcome students back for in-person learning Monday amid a “major surge” in city COVID-19 cases, school and health officials said Thursday, as the Chicago Teachers Union called on the district to add more safety measures, including a requirement that staff members and students test negative for COVID-19 before the end of winter break.
“I feel very comfortable with us starting on the 3rd,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said at Thursday’s news conference.
“We are going to respond to the data. So as we see cases rising, as we see them in the schools, you will see more classrooms transition to remote (learning). That is actually a more conservative approach than almost any other large school district that I’ve seen in the country.”
Martinez said CPS expects “cases to be high” as students return from a two-week break with the city, state and country experiencing spikes. The district reported its highest daily new case total on Dec. 18, the first day of winter vacation, with 173 students and 121 adults testing positive, according to CPS data.
Read more: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-cps-covid-school-return-20211230-mfazo56v3nd3hf4stfu6mmaebq-story.html
UN food agency halts work in North Darfur, affects 2 million
CAIRO -- The World Food Program has suspended its operations across Sudan's province of North Darfur following recent attacks on its warehouses, a decision expected to affect about 2 million local people.
A statement released by the U.N. food agency Thursday said all three of its warehouses in the area were attacked and looted. More than 5,000 metric tons of food were apparently stolen, the group said.
Earlier in the week, the WFP said an unidentified armed group had attacked one of its warehouses in North Darfur's provincial capital of el-Fasher. In response, local authorities imposed a curfew across the province.
However, the attacks continued until early Thursday, said the statement. Hundreds of looters have also dismantled warehouse structures, WFP added.
Read more: https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20211231/news/312319966/
(Arlington Heights Daily Herald)
Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants
BERLIN -- Germany on Friday is shutting down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power.
The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002.
His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany's nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down.
The three reactors now being shuttered were first powered up in the mid-1980s. Together they provided electricity to millions of German households for almost four decades.
Read more: https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20211231/business/312319967/
(Arlington Heights Daily Herald)
NCAA Div. III Upset: Illinois Wesleyan knocks off No. 1 Yeshiva
NEW YORK CITY — The Illinois Wesleyan basketball team put up a big performance in the Big Apple on Thursday.
The No. 4-ranked Titans started fast and handled No. 1-ranked Yeshiva, 73-59.
IWU improved to 9-2. Yeshiva saw a 50-game winning streak halted while dropping to 14-1.
Titan senior Matt Leritz set a school record with 25 rebounds and scored 14 points.
Read more: https://pantagraph.com/sports/college/illinois-wesleyan/watch-now-illinois-wesleyan-knocks-off-no-1-yeshiva/article_a93244ee-6e0c-567f-b1d6-568cbd725907.html
(Bloomington Pantagraph)
AFSCME loses vax arbitration case
Building on efforts to protect state employees and people in the State’s care or custody from the threat of COVID-19, Governor JB Pritzker today announced that the Arbitrator in the State’s Vaccine Mandate Interest Arbitration determined that the State can and should require vaccinations for Illinois Department of Correction (IDOC) guards and Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ) staff
This decision will ensure employees in State Correctional Centers and Juvenile Justice facilities are protected with the COVID-19 vaccines. Employees subject to this decision will be required to get their first shot by January 31, 2022 unless they are approved for a religious or medical exemption.
“The recent surge of cases brought on by the Omicron variant has brought a serious threat to our state, and I’m glad that this ruling will protect nearly 10,000 state workers and all of the people at these facilities,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Protecting the health and safety of workers and residents across the state remains a top priority for my administration and I look forward to continued discussions with our labor partners as we move forward with the task of keeping our employees and residents of our congregate facilities safe.””
Vaccination is the key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. All Illinois residents over the age of 5 are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at no cost and proof of immigration status is not required to receive the vaccine.
Read more: https://capitolfax.com/2021/12/30/afscme-loses-vax-arbitration-case/
Federal court dismisses Illinois redistricting lawsuit
SPRINGFIELD — A three-judge panel has upheld the legislative redistricting plan approved by Springfield Democrats earlier this year, finding that the approved boundaries “neither violate the Voting Rights Act nor the Constitution.”
The ruling answers the claims made in three separate lawsuits, brought by Republican leaders in the General Assembly, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the East St. Louis branch of the NAACP, that the Democratic map diluted minority voters, thus depriving those groups of the voting power needed to elect candidates of their choosing.
However, the judges concluded that the plaintiffs failed to prove that race was a predominant factor in the drawing of the districts and, in any case, found that they should not present a barrier to the election of minority candidates.
“The record shows ample evidence of crossover voting to defeat any claim of racially polarized voting sufficient to deny Latino and Black voters of the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in the challenged districts,” the panel found.
Read more: https://thesouthern.com/news/state-and-regional/federal-court-dismisses-illinois-redistricting-lawsuit/article_b9d8dae5-8a9c-58a8-ba74-d3ff16a6afb5.html
(Carbondale Southern Illinoisan)
'Gov, this is petty': Chicago mayor's texts with Pritzker, state leaders show tension
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had a funny response when former Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown suggested Lightfoot run for governor someday.
“You must not like me if you want to send me to Springfield,” Lightfoot said in a text, obtained by the Tribune in response to a series of open records requests.
Lightfoot isn’t the first mayor of Chicago who isn’t a big fan of the state’s capital, but dealing with the Illinois legislature and governor is a key part of the job that has at times been a challenge for the mayor.
The Tribune obtained more than 2½ years of Lightfoot’s text messages with aldermen and other high-ranking political leaders through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests — which members of her staff failed to comply with until the state attorney general admonished them and the Tribune threatened a lawsuit.
Read more: https://thesouthern.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/gov-this-is-petty-chicago-mayors-texts-with-pritzker-state-leaders-show-tension/article_34e48eb1-c20a-5b3f-b249-8fe72e2246c6.html
(Carbondale Southern Illinoisan)
3 big natural gas plants would wipe out climate gains from recent shutdowns of coal-fired plants in
3 big natural gas plants would wipe out climate gains from recent shutdowns of coal-fired plants in IllinoisCHICAGO — Shunning climate-changing fossil fuels is turning out to be more difficult than promised in Illinois.
Two weeks after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law billed as the nation’s most aggressive mandate for clean energy, the Chicago Democrat’s administration tentatively approved a major new source of heat-trapping pollution.
A draft state permit for a new natural gas power plant, planned for a small town south of Springfield, would allow the proposed Lincoln Land Energy Center to emit more carbon dioxide than 800,000 automobiles every year.
Combined with CO2 emitted by two other gas plants approved during Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s single term in office, the downstate generator would wipe out climate benefits from closing four of the state’s coal-fired power plants last year.
Read more: https://thesouthern.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/3-big-natural-gas-plants-would-wipe-out-climate-gains-from-recent-shutdowns-of-coal/article_847457db-c8c0-5c43-8752-4528b19e0484.html
(Carbondale Southern Illinoisan)
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
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