Texas
Medical negligence caused death of former Texas U.S. Rep. attorney says
DALLAS (AP) — The family of former U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said Thursday that the trailblazing Texas congresswoman, who died over the weekend at age 89, passed away after getting an infection and accused a Dallas rehabilitation facility of neglect.
Johnson, who was the first registered nurse elected to Congress, died on Dec. 31 at her Dallas home. Les Weisbrod, her family’s attorney and Johnson’s longtime friend, said at a news conference that her death was caused by an infection in her spine that developed after she was left in her own feces at Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation following back surgery.
Weisbrod said he has given notice to Baylor Scott & White Health System and Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation that the family intends to file a lawsuit for medical negligence over her death.
In a statement Thursday, Baylor Scott & White Health called Johnson “an inspiration to all,” and said they are committed to working with her family and attorney.
Weisbrod said it’s a case that Johnson herself had asked him to pursue weeks ago after she began suffering from complications from the infection.
“I thought it was going to be a case for the pain that she went through and the additional procedures she went through and the medical bills and that she was going to recover,” he said. “And so it’s very distressing for me that she succumbed to this.”
On Sept. 21, her son found her lying in her own feces and urine at the rehabilitation facility, according to a news release from Weisbrod’s office. Kirk Johnson said at the news conference Thursday that he had gone to the facility after his mother called to tell him she was getting no response from the call button. He said he arrived about 10 minutes later.
“Deplorable,” he said. “She was being unattended to. She was screaming out in pain and for help.”
The news release said that when Kirk Johnson couldn’t find any nurses on the floor, he went to the administration office and the CEO accompanied him to his mother’s room. When they arrived, staff members were cleaning up the feces.
The news release said that Eddie Bernice Johnson’s orthopedic surgeon noted in his record that Johnson had some complications after the operation after being found in bed sitting in her own feces and three days later she began having “copious purulent drainage from the low lumbar incision.”
The surgeon performed a surgical repair on the infected wound, and she was moved to a skilled nursing facility on Oct. 18 and went home on hospice care mid-December, the news release said.
The news release said that laboratory wound culture reports showed organisms directly related to feces.
Johnson served in the House for three decades, leaving office last January after repeatedly delaying her retirement. Johnson, who was the first Black chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas’ Veterans Affairs hospital, became the first Black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and she also led the Congressional Black Caucus.
New York
NYC sues charter bus companies for transporting migrants from Tex.
New York (AP) — New York City is suing more than a dozen charter bus companies for $700 million, accusing them of illegally transporting tens of thousands of migrants from the southern border to the city under the direction of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
The lawsuit accuses 17 bus companies of participating in a “bad faith” relocation plan that violates state restrictions on abandoning “needy persons” in New York. It seeks financial damages to cover the cost of caring for an estimated 33,000 migrants that have arrived in the city on charter buses since the spring of 2022.
Filed in state court Thursday, the lawsuit marked the latest effort by a Democratic mayor to turn back busloads of asylum seekers sent by the Republican governor of Texas. The state has sent more than 95,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities, including New York, Chicago and Denver, in protest of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, Abbott said last month.
Amid an increase in bus drop-offs, both New York City and Chicago announced new restrictions in recent weeks mandating the charter companies to provide advanced notice of their arrivals. Within days, many of the buses began leaving migrants in suburbs surrounding each city without prior notice, drawing anger from local officials.
On Thursday, New York City Eric Adams, a Democrat, said the city would no longer “bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone,” adding the lawsuit should “serve as a warning to all those who break the law in this way.”
Some of the bus companies appeared caught off guard by the suit. “We don’t make policies,” said David Jones, an employee at Buckeye Coach LLC, one of the charter companies named in the lawsuit. “We are just a transportation company.”
Representatives for the other charter companies — most of which are based in Texas — either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to inquiries.
The recent focus on the private charter companies, the Adams administration said, was driven in part by legal protections afforded to the state of Texas under a doctrine known as sovereign immunity.
The lawsuit rests on a provision of state law that bars knowingly transferring “a needy person from out of state into this state for the purpose of making him a public charge.”
The suit cites a report finding that for the trips, the charter bus companies receive roughly $1,650 per person — far higher than the cost of a standard one-way bus ticket — as a testament to the companies’ “bad faith” involvement in the scheme.
In a statement, Gov. Abbott said the suit was a clear violation of the commerce clause, which guarantees the constitutional right to travel.
“Every migrant bused or flown to New York City did so voluntarily, after having been authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States,” Abbott said. “As such, they have constitutional authority to travel across the country that Mayor Adams is interfering with.”
Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, described the legal action as a distraction from the larger issues facing New York, arguing Mayor Adams should be focused on helping migrants get on their feet.
“This lawsuit is one more way for the mayor to scapegoat someone else for his lack of management of the situation,” Awawdeh said. “He needs to stop taking pages out of Governor Abbott’s playbook and step up and lead the city of New York.”
Oregon
A judge in refuses to dismiss a 2015 climate lawsuit filed by youth
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A judge in Oregon has rejected a U.S. Department of Justice request to dismiss a 2015 lawsuit brought by young people that alleges the federal government knew the dangers posed by carbon pollution but that it has continued through policies and subsidies to support the fossil fuel industry.
U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken said the parties “do not disagree that the climate crisis threatens our ability to survive on planet Earth. This catastrophe is the great emergency of our time and compels urgent action.”
“While facts remain to be proved, lawsuits like this highlight young people’s despair with the drawn-out pace of the unhurried, inchmeal, bureaucratic response to our most dire emergency,” she wrote in her decision late last week.
In a statement, Julia Olson, an attorney with the group Our Children’s Trust representing the plaintiffs, said she expects a trial in the case later this year.
In a similar lawsuit in Montana, a judge last year ruled the Montana Environmental Policy Act violates the plaintiffs’ state constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. The 1971 law requires state agencies to consider the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects and take public input before issuing permits. The state’s attorney general has appealed that decision.
The plaintiffs in the Oregon case argued the government has violated young people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
New York
SpaceX accused of unlawfully firing employees who were critical of Elon Musk
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. labor agency has accused SpaceX of unlawfully firing employees who penned an open letter critical of CEO Elon Musk and creating an impression that worker activities were under surveillance by the rocket ship company.
A Los Angeles-based regional director for the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday filed a complaint that consolidates eight unfair labor practice charges against SpaceX. The cases stem from the company’s alleged actions following the circulation of the employees’ letter back in June 2022.
The letter, among other workplace concerns, called on executives to condemn Musk’s public behavior on X — the platform then-known as Twitter — and hold everyone accountable for unacceptable conduct. Musk’s actions included making light of sexual harassment allegations against him, which the billionaire denied.
“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the open letter said at the time. The letter also referred to Musk’s actions as a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment.”
A total of nine employees were soon terminated for their involvement in the letter, according to a November 2022 filing made on behalf of one of the employees to the NLRB, although only eight are included in Wednesday’s complaint.
In addition to the firings, the complaint accuses SpaceX of interrogating other workers about the letter, announcing that employees were terminated for their participation in the letter and “inviting employees to quit if they disagreed with the behavior of Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk.”
The complaint also alleges that some were shown screen shots of communications between employees about the letter, which “created an impression among (SpaceX’s) employees that their protected concerted activities were under surveillance.”
Reacting to the board’s complaint, SpaceX sued the NLRB Thursday in federal court. The lawsuit says the NLRB is “unconstitutionally structured” and its action against the company “unlawful.”
Addressing the board’s complaint in its lawsuit, SpaceX lawyers say the employees’ letter caused “significant distraction to SpaceX employees across the country.” It said the employees involved in the letter were fired for violating a number of company policies.
Space X did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment Thursday.
The Hawthorne, California, company has until mid-January to respond to the complaint, according to Wednesday’s filing. The complaint marks the NLRB’s first step towards litigating these allegations and seeking a settlement. If a settlement isn’t reached, a hearing is scheduled to begin on March 5 in Los Angeles.
Medical negligence caused death of former Texas U.S. Rep. attorney says
DALLAS (AP) — The family of former U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said Thursday that the trailblazing Texas congresswoman, who died over the weekend at age 89, passed away after getting an infection and accused a Dallas rehabilitation facility of neglect.
Johnson, who was the first registered nurse elected to Congress, died on Dec. 31 at her Dallas home. Les Weisbrod, her family’s attorney and Johnson’s longtime friend, said at a news conference that her death was caused by an infection in her spine that developed after she was left in her own feces at Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation following back surgery.
Weisbrod said he has given notice to Baylor Scott & White Health System and Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation that the family intends to file a lawsuit for medical negligence over her death.
In a statement Thursday, Baylor Scott & White Health called Johnson “an inspiration to all,” and said they are committed to working with her family and attorney.
Weisbrod said it’s a case that Johnson herself had asked him to pursue weeks ago after she began suffering from complications from the infection.
“I thought it was going to be a case for the pain that she went through and the additional procedures she went through and the medical bills and that she was going to recover,” he said. “And so it’s very distressing for me that she succumbed to this.”
On Sept. 21, her son found her lying in her own feces and urine at the rehabilitation facility, according to a news release from Weisbrod’s office. Kirk Johnson said at the news conference Thursday that he had gone to the facility after his mother called to tell him she was getting no response from the call button. He said he arrived about 10 minutes later.
“Deplorable,” he said. “She was being unattended to. She was screaming out in pain and for help.”
The news release said that when Kirk Johnson couldn’t find any nurses on the floor, he went to the administration office and the CEO accompanied him to his mother’s room. When they arrived, staff members were cleaning up the feces.
The news release said that Eddie Bernice Johnson’s orthopedic surgeon noted in his record that Johnson had some complications after the operation after being found in bed sitting in her own feces and three days later she began having “copious purulent drainage from the low lumbar incision.”
The surgeon performed a surgical repair on the infected wound, and she was moved to a skilled nursing facility on Oct. 18 and went home on hospice care mid-December, the news release said.
The news release said that laboratory wound culture reports showed organisms directly related to feces.
Johnson served in the House for three decades, leaving office last January after repeatedly delaying her retirement. Johnson, who was the first Black chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas’ Veterans Affairs hospital, became the first Black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and she also led the Congressional Black Caucus.
New York
NYC sues charter bus companies for transporting migrants from Tex.
New York (AP) — New York City is suing more than a dozen charter bus companies for $700 million, accusing them of illegally transporting tens of thousands of migrants from the southern border to the city under the direction of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
The lawsuit accuses 17 bus companies of participating in a “bad faith” relocation plan that violates state restrictions on abandoning “needy persons” in New York. It seeks financial damages to cover the cost of caring for an estimated 33,000 migrants that have arrived in the city on charter buses since the spring of 2022.
Filed in state court Thursday, the lawsuit marked the latest effort by a Democratic mayor to turn back busloads of asylum seekers sent by the Republican governor of Texas. The state has sent more than 95,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities, including New York, Chicago and Denver, in protest of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, Abbott said last month.
Amid an increase in bus drop-offs, both New York City and Chicago announced new restrictions in recent weeks mandating the charter companies to provide advanced notice of their arrivals. Within days, many of the buses began leaving migrants in suburbs surrounding each city without prior notice, drawing anger from local officials.
On Thursday, New York City Eric Adams, a Democrat, said the city would no longer “bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone,” adding the lawsuit should “serve as a warning to all those who break the law in this way.”
Some of the bus companies appeared caught off guard by the suit. “We don’t make policies,” said David Jones, an employee at Buckeye Coach LLC, one of the charter companies named in the lawsuit. “We are just a transportation company.”
Representatives for the other charter companies — most of which are based in Texas — either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to inquiries.
The recent focus on the private charter companies, the Adams administration said, was driven in part by legal protections afforded to the state of Texas under a doctrine known as sovereign immunity.
The lawsuit rests on a provision of state law that bars knowingly transferring “a needy person from out of state into this state for the purpose of making him a public charge.”
The suit cites a report finding that for the trips, the charter bus companies receive roughly $1,650 per person — far higher than the cost of a standard one-way bus ticket — as a testament to the companies’ “bad faith” involvement in the scheme.
In a statement, Gov. Abbott said the suit was a clear violation of the commerce clause, which guarantees the constitutional right to travel.
“Every migrant bused or flown to New York City did so voluntarily, after having been authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States,” Abbott said. “As such, they have constitutional authority to travel across the country that Mayor Adams is interfering with.”
Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, described the legal action as a distraction from the larger issues facing New York, arguing Mayor Adams should be focused on helping migrants get on their feet.
“This lawsuit is one more way for the mayor to scapegoat someone else for his lack of management of the situation,” Awawdeh said. “He needs to stop taking pages out of Governor Abbott’s playbook and step up and lead the city of New York.”
Oregon
A judge in refuses to dismiss a 2015 climate lawsuit filed by youth
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A judge in Oregon has rejected a U.S. Department of Justice request to dismiss a 2015 lawsuit brought by young people that alleges the federal government knew the dangers posed by carbon pollution but that it has continued through policies and subsidies to support the fossil fuel industry.
U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken said the parties “do not disagree that the climate crisis threatens our ability to survive on planet Earth. This catastrophe is the great emergency of our time and compels urgent action.”
“While facts remain to be proved, lawsuits like this highlight young people’s despair with the drawn-out pace of the unhurried, inchmeal, bureaucratic response to our most dire emergency,” she wrote in her decision late last week.
In a statement, Julia Olson, an attorney with the group Our Children’s Trust representing the plaintiffs, said she expects a trial in the case later this year.
In a similar lawsuit in Montana, a judge last year ruled the Montana Environmental Policy Act violates the plaintiffs’ state constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. The 1971 law requires state agencies to consider the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects and take public input before issuing permits. The state’s attorney general has appealed that decision.
The plaintiffs in the Oregon case argued the government has violated young people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
New York
SpaceX accused of unlawfully firing employees who were critical of Elon Musk
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. labor agency has accused SpaceX of unlawfully firing employees who penned an open letter critical of CEO Elon Musk and creating an impression that worker activities were under surveillance by the rocket ship company.
A Los Angeles-based regional director for the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday filed a complaint that consolidates eight unfair labor practice charges against SpaceX. The cases stem from the company’s alleged actions following the circulation of the employees’ letter back in June 2022.
The letter, among other workplace concerns, called on executives to condemn Musk’s public behavior on X — the platform then-known as Twitter — and hold everyone accountable for unacceptable conduct. Musk’s actions included making light of sexual harassment allegations against him, which the billionaire denied.
“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the open letter said at the time. The letter also referred to Musk’s actions as a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment.”
A total of nine employees were soon terminated for their involvement in the letter, according to a November 2022 filing made on behalf of one of the employees to the NLRB, although only eight are included in Wednesday’s complaint.
In addition to the firings, the complaint accuses SpaceX of interrogating other workers about the letter, announcing that employees were terminated for their participation in the letter and “inviting employees to quit if they disagreed with the behavior of Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk.”
The complaint also alleges that some were shown screen shots of communications between employees about the letter, which “created an impression among (SpaceX’s) employees that their protected concerted activities were under surveillance.”
Reacting to the board’s complaint, SpaceX sued the NLRB Thursday in federal court. The lawsuit says the NLRB is “unconstitutionally structured” and its action against the company “unlawful.”
Addressing the board’s complaint in its lawsuit, SpaceX lawyers say the employees’ letter caused “significant distraction to SpaceX employees across the country.” It said the employees involved in the letter were fired for violating a number of company policies.
Space X did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment Thursday.
The Hawthorne, California, company has until mid-January to respond to the complaint, according to Wednesday’s filing. The complaint marks the NLRB’s first step towards litigating these allegations and seeking a settlement. If a settlement isn’t reached, a hearing is scheduled to begin on March 5 in Los Angeles.
