This is TPR's roundup of the latest headlines and news developments. It provides a succinct and clear summary of the stories TPR is following.
Today's weather: Today's high will be 70 and the low will be 53.
Howard Peak, former San Antonio mayor, dies at 75
He died on Saturday at a local care facility. He had been receiving care for dementia.
Peak was the architect of the city's Greenway Trail.
He was an urban planner who served on the city council and then as mayor from 1997 to 2001. He later served as chairman of the Brooks Development Authority and was a member of the Alamo Plaza Advisory Committee.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
In a statement posted on X, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said that "Howard Peak was a visionary mayor, a steward of our city, whose kindness and gentle style belied an intense focus that leaves a permanent legacy in San Antonio. He understood our community in ways that escape lesser politicians, helping to usher in a modern sensibility while holding fast to the kind of neighbor-centered spirit that makes San Antonio unique among major cities. I was privileged to call him a friend, an advisor, and someone whose mission continues to influence our work. Rest in peace, Mayor Peak."
State committee won't investigate pregnancy related deaths from 2022, 2023
Texas has one of the worst rates of women dying as a result of a pregnancy in the nation. In 2013, the legislature created the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Committee to find ways to make childbirth safer but the problem persists.
Representative Donna Howard, a Democrat, said the committee should not be ignoring the years 2022 and 2023 in its work.
Howard says if the lack of resources is the problem, then the investments in those resources should be made.
2022 and 2023 are the first two years after Texas’s near-total abortion ban took effect, and this move would leave any potential deaths related to abortion bans during those years uninvestigated.
Public Health
Texas Matters: How the abortion ban hurts women's health
David Martin Davies
Texas women are paying the price for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. More stories are coming to light of Texas women dying from treatable crisis pregnancies. Meanwhile the state’s Maternal Mortality task force announced it’s going to ignore maternal deaths for 2022 and 2023. And how OB-GYNs are fleeing the state due to fear of the state’s anti-abortion law.
Judge recuses herself from death row case
The trial judge in Robert Roberson's death row case has recused herself. Senior state District Judge Deborah Oakes Evans signed the recusal filing last week.
Roberson's attorney told The Texas Tribune that no reason has been given.
Roberson was convicted in 2003 of murdering his 2-year-old daughter, but new evidence shows she likely died of pneumonia.
State lawmakers subpoenaed Roberson in an effort that temporarily saved him from execution. A new execution date has not yet been set.
Court rules government can't cut border razor wire
The federal government can no longer cut through razor wire that Texas installed near Eagle Pass to deter illegal immigration.
That's according to a ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. On Wednesday, it reversed a lower court ruling and granted Texas a preliminary injunction against the federal government.
The Biden administration argued that immigration enforcement is its responsibility and has filed a number of other lawsuits over Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star program.
Abbott wrote on social media following the ruling that Texas will add more razor wire to the 29 miles it installed around Eagle Pass. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Bexar County Jail judged to be below standard
The Bexar County Jail has been found to be out of compliance with minimum standards. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards issued two citations in November.
The first related to an inmate who died after being held in a temporary holding area for more than 48 hours. The second citation involved an inmate who did not receive prescribed medication and later died.
The commission called for jail administrators to submit a plan within 30 days for distributing medication to inmates and for how inmates are processed.
In a recent statement, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said the jail has submitted that plan with assistance from University Health.
Horse carriage community considers future after potential shutdown
The San Antonio City Council will soon vote on a timeline to phase out the city’s historic horse-drawn carriage industry, handing a victory for animal rights advocates.
The council could vote to give operators up to five years to wind down their businesses. But some of them say that may not be enough time, especially if they have debts. An industry shutdown could leave them bankrupt.
Joshua Reyna is one of 81 permitted horse-carriage operators. He said he'll move to New Braunfels. Haley Harlan, 64, will move back to Boston.
Other operators are willing to compromise — they won't bring any more horses onto downtown streets, the existing ones will live out their lives, and the industry will fade away.
But many on the council are resolved to close the industry in five years or less. Their version of compromise is how much assistance they provide to then-former operators to build new careers — enrollment in the Ready to Work program, for example.
Government/Politics
Horse carriage owners and workers consider what's next if council shuts down the industry
Josh Peck
The San Antonio City Council will vote on a timeline to phase out the horse-drawn carriage industry next month — the only question is how long they'll give them.
Synergy sought for next steps in downtown stadium project
Jeff Webster, the president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, hopes San Antonians will think "synergy" when they envision what the future of downtown could look like with two new sports entertainment districts for the Spurs and Missions Baseball.
The "Cambridge Dictionary" defines "synergy" as "the combined power of a group of things when they are working together that is greater than the total power achieved by each working separately." Webster said that has been opposite of what has been going on to help the city's center.
"We've had divergence," he said. "We've had the Missions down on the Far South and West Side. We had the Spurs on the East Side. We had UTSA out of the Far North Side. A&M now on the South Side with collegiate athletics."
He said UTSA's recent downtown expansion projects and these two sports developments could feed off each other to revitalize downtown. City and county elected leaders have maintained, so far, that average local property taxpayers will not foot the bill for either project.
Proposed stadiums provide a 'synergy' for downtown, says San Antonio Chamber of Commerce
Brian Kirkpatrick
The city, county, and developers have worked to ease the jitters of average, local property taxpayers that they will not have to foot the bill in a major way for either project.
Violence against educators has become more common
National surveys show most teachers now say they’ve experienced physical violence at work.
Susan Dvorak McMahon chairs the task force that conducted the surveys: “We see these rates of being pretty substantial before [the COVID-19 pandemic] — going down during COVID. A lot of schools went hybrid or online. And then popping back up and even higher after COVID.”
Nearly 60% of the teachers surveyed in 2022 said they’d experienced physical violence from students during the current school year.
Special education teachers in San Antonio's Northside ISD filed an internal complaint earlier this year saying they often get hurt at work.
Education
Northside special education teachers say they need more staff to keep them safe
Camille Phillips
A formal complaint obtained by Texas Public Radio alleges that special education teachers in San Antonio’s largest school district often get hurt at work. The teachers who filed the complaint say Northside ISD needs to hire more instructional assistants for self-contained classrooms
San Antonio marked World AIDS Day on Dec. 1
Several events were held throughout the Alamo City in remembrance of people who died from AIDS, starting on Sunday, Dec.1, which was World AIDS Day.
Quilts from the AIDS Memorial Quilt organization, were displayed to honor loved ones. But Sunday won't be the only day of events.
Jose Contreras, the HIV prevention director for the local organization BEAT AIDS, said a health fair on Tuesday will offer several preventative health resources to the community.
He explained that 20 vendors will provide resources, including Fiesta Youth, Thrive Youth Center, and Alamo Area Resource Center (AARC). The health fair will be at the Roosevelt Clubhouse from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Beat AIDS will offer additional events on Wednesday.
CTE disease grows quietly but has violent consequences
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a rare neurodegenerative disease that develops in people who have many years of hits to the head. Along with football players, it can also occur in rodeo riders, soldiers, or someone who has experienced years of intimate partner violence.
Dr. Jeremy Tanner, assistant professor of neurology at the Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases, said it’s not about how hard someone is hit, but how often and for how many years.
People with CTE can develop problems with cognition, including memory loss and challenges to executive function, which can include difficulties with planning, organization, engaging in activities, and processing information to make decisions. More troubling, Tanner added, is neurobehavioral dysregulation: “There can be difficulties with impulse control. Having a short fuse, irritability, anger, explosive outbursts.”
An upcoming study is a follow-up to the Diagnose CTE Research Project. It will have a research site in San Antonio and four other locations across the country.
Bioscience-Medicine
Bonnie Petrie
CTE can rob a person of their memories and ability to make decisions and plans. It can also cause a person to become a threat to themselves and, sometimes, others. But the disease, caused by repeated head trauma, can't be definitively diagnosed before death. A San Antonio researcher hopes to help change that.
FBI warns of holiday season scams
So far this year, the FBI is reporting a national loss of more than $700 million because of scams — that’s only taking into account those who’ve reached out to the FBI after getting scammed, which is likely an undercount.
Christina Garza with the FBI’s Houston Field Office said if the sale seems too good to be true — it probably is: "We know that a lot of people are going to be doing online shopping, especially on Cyber Monday, so we just want to make sure that they're very careful of where they're sending their money."
She recommended verifying special offers and routinely checking bank statements to avoid being taken advantage of.
Smart preparation can lead to a safer San Antonio holiday season
TPR Staff
Fire and police departments offer multiple ways residents can keep themselves, their families, their pets and their homes secure throughout the next several busy weeks.
Houston Public Media's Lucio Vasquez contributed to this report.
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