Death toll in Texas winter storm increases to 210
DALLAS — Texas officials have attributed dozens more deaths to February’s winter storm, raising the state’s death toll to 210.
The Department of State Health Services added 59 storm-related fatalities to its totals Tuesday, in its first update of the data since late April. In Dallas County, the toll increased from 11 to 20, and in Tarrant County it rose from three to nine.
The toll from the winter storm — which knocked out power, water and heat to millions of Texans — is more than double the 103 deaths caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Thirty-eight of the reported storm deaths occurred in North Texas: 20 in Dallas County, nine in Tarrant County, two each in Collin and Ellis counties, and one each in Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman, Lamar and Parker counties.
About one-fifth of the state’s deaths — 43 — occurred in Harris County. Twenty-eight more were in Travis County.
The deaths occurred from Feb. 11 to March 5, and most of them were the result of hypothermia, according to State Health Services. Other causes included carbon-monoxide poisoning, exacerbation of chronic illness, falls, fire and traffic accidents.
Determining an exact number of deaths caused by the storm is a lengthy process, and in some cases it may remain impossible to know whether deaths were storm-related.
—The Dallas Morning News
Mother arrested in deaths of 2 daughters found in Florida canal
LAUDERHILL, Fla. — When police arrived at the sprawling working class neighborhood on a call about a child’s body floating in a canal last month, the usual signs of a tragic, accidental drowning just weren’t there.
Gone was a father — anyone standing over the little girl desperately trying to breath life into the 9-year-old’s body. Gone was mother racing along the canal’s edge screaming out for help. Rather, there was a haunting backside of a child near the canal’s edge, slowly being pulled by the current toward the deeper, 10-foot water.
For hours police tried to find someone who knew the girl. They looked for missing persons’ reports. They came back with nothing. So they called her Jane Doe.
When police pulled Jane Doe from the water and placed her on the grassy bank, they saw multiple scratches around the child’s mouth. And then across the canal in another Lauderhill neighborhood on that day in June, police saw a woman shrouded in a white blanket. She belted out Bible scriptures. One minute she was claiming to be the devil and the next to be God, neighbors told the Sun Sentinel.
It would take many hours before police learned the woman was the girl’s mother — and by then the body of the second child surfaced in the canal. It would take another 21 days before the girls’ mother was arrested
Tinessa Hogan was arrested at Florida Medical Center in Lauderdale Lakes on Tuesday evening after police served her with a warrant on two charges of premeditated murder in the deaths of her two children. Hogan had been under psychiatric care since being discovered near the canal covered by a white blanket on June 22.
Very little is known about Hogan and her two children, Destiny, 9 and Daysha, 7, said Lauderhill Lt. Michael Santiago.
—South Florida Sun Sentinel
Lawsuit says Georgia Medicaid should cover gender-affirming surgery
ATLANTA — Two Georgians have filed a lawsuit saying their constitutional rights were violated when the state Medicaid program declined to cover the gender-affirming surgeries they say they need to live a full life.
At issue is whether the reconstructive or plastic surgeries sought by Shon Thomas and Gwendolyn Cheney are a matter of medical necessity.
Georgia Medicaid guidelines "incorrectly characterizes their gender-confirming health care needs as 'cosmetic' and/or 'experimental or investigational,' when the medical community recognizes that they are effective treatments for gender dysphoria," attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union said in suit filed on behalf of the transgender women.
Gender dysphoria is when one's biological sex and gender identity do not align, leading to psychological distress, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Common transgender surgery options include facial reconstructive surgery to make features more masculine or feminine, or procedures on the chest or genitals, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The ACLU is arguing that, by not covering those procedures, Georgia's Medicaid program is violating the U.S. Constitution, the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid Act.
Around a dozen states explicitly ban coverage of gender-affirming care under Medicaid, a program that offers assistance to people who can't afford to pay for medical care. Georgia's ban is focused on gender-affirming surgeries. Hormone treatments and psychological services are covered, said ACLU staff attorney Taylor Brown, who is taking the lead in the case.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
George W. Bush criticizes Biden over Afghanistan pullout
Former President George W. Bush Wednesday trashed President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, saying it would likely lead to a takeover by the fundamentalist Taliban.
“I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad,” Bush said in a televised interview with German network Deutsche Welle.
Bush, who ordered the original U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, said he feared the pullout of U.S. troops would lead to a new reign of terror against women and girls.
“Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm,” Bush said. “They’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people, and it breaks my heart.”
Biden has ordered virtually all American troops to leave Afghanistan by the end of August, effectively ending the 20-year military intervention.
The president last week defended his decision as the lesser of two evils in a major speech, saying the U.S. achieved its primary goal of routing al-Qaida terrorists from the country.
Other ex-presidents sided with Biden.
Former President Barack Obama hailed Biden for making “the right decision.” Former President Donald Trump also heralded the pullout of U.S. forces as “a wonderful and positive thing to do” even though he criticized Biden for stalling the pullout.
—New York Daily News
