" Abbott order will require Texas public hospitals to collect patients’ immigration status " was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Sign up for The Brief , The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Gov.
Greg Abbott signed an executive order on Thursday that requires public hospitals in Texas to collect information on the immigration status of patients so that the hospitals can then track costs incurred for the care of undocumented migrants. Previous guidance for public hospitals did not include questions about immigration status. The executive order would mandate the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to collect this information so that the state of Texas could then bill the federal government.
“Due to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ open border policies, Texas has had to foot the bill for medical costs for individuals illegally in the state,” Governor Abbott said in a statement on Thursday. “Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants.” The order requires that public hospitals in Texas collect information regarding the costs of medical care provided to undocumented immigrants starting Nov 1, 2024.
Direct covered hospitals would have to report data to the state health commission quarterly, beginning in March 2025. “This would be a new requirement, and we are reviewing it as quickly as possible,” said Carrie Williams, spokesperson for the Texas Hospital Association. “Right now, hospitals don’t ask about patient immigration status as a condition of treatment.
Hospitals are required by law to provide life-saving treatment to anyone, regardless of ability to pay or status.” The association will be in a better position to answer additional questions once they've had more time to analyze the order, Williams said. Disclosure: Texas Hospital Association has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.
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Juan "Chi Chi" Rodriguez, who rose from poverty in Puerto Rico to golf's Hall of Fame, has died at age 88, the PGA Tour said Thursday. "A vibrant, colorful personality both on and off the golf course, he will be missed dearly by the PGA TOUR and those whose lives he touched in his mission to give back," said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. During his three decades as a professional Rodriquez had 37 victories -- including eight on the PGA Tour and 22 on the senior circuit.
Born into a poor Puerto Rican family, Rodriquez taught himself to play with rudimentary clubs carved from guava tree branches, striking crushed tin cans on baseball fields. His father worked as a sugar cane cutter, and at age seven, he joined him to work at the plantations as a water carrier. One day he wandered onto a golf course frequented by wealthy tourists and discovered caddies there earned more money.
He joined them and only left caddying at age 19 to join the US Army. He was always regarded an entertainer, celebrating birdies by waving his putter like a swashbuckling swordsman. Rodriquez played local Puerto Rican tournaments before joining the PGA Tour in 1960.
He won his first tour title in 1963, and his final PGA Tour Champions title was in 1993. The Great Barrier Reef recently experienced the highest ocean temperatures in at least four centuries and faces an "existential threat" due to repeated mass coral bleaching episodes, a study published Wednesday in Science found. The network of coral reefs off of Australia—the world's largest living structure—has faced five of the six hottest three-month periods of average surface temperature ever recorded just since 2016, each of which was accompanied by devastating coral bleaching .
Ocean temperatures around the reef reached a record-breaking extreme from January to March this year, with the three-month mean temperature 1.73°C higher than the pre-1900 average, according to the study, authored by researchers based in Australia. The study includes climate modeling that attributes the temperatures to fossil fuel-driven carbon emissions, and concludes that urgent climate action is needed.
"This attribution, together with the recent ocean temperature extremes, post-1900 warming trend, and observed mass coral bleaching, shows that the existential threat to the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem from anthropogenic climate change is now realized," the study says. "In the absence of rapid, coordinated, and ambitious global action to combat climate change, we will likely be witness to the demise of one of Earth's great natural wonders," the authors also wrote. The researchers estimated the surface temperatures for 1618-1899 by using a reconstruction method based on drilling into coral skeletons and analyzing the chemical makeup.
For the period from 1900 to 1995, they used both the reconstruction method and measurements by modern instruments, and for the last 30 years they used instrumental data. They found that temperatures were relatively stable until 1900 but have climbed steadily since, especially since 1960. The trend has culminated in a series of bleaching events, in which stressed corals expel the microscopic algae in their tissues and become transparent or white.
Without the helpful algae, which live inside them symbiotically, corals are at risk of disease and death. In interviews with journalists, the study authors spoke about the severity of the threat to the Great Barrier Reef and the urgent need for climate action. "The heat extremes are occurring too often for those corals to effectively adapt and evolve," Ben Henley, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Melbourne and lead author of the study, told The New York Times .
"If we don't divert from our current course, our generation will likely witness the demise of one of Earth's great natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef." Henley said he snorkeled with his father on the Great Barrier Reef as a child. "You can't even take in the diversity," he said.
"It's a kaleidoscope of color, it's absolutely spectacular." He said he worries that his own 2-year-old daughter may not be able to enjoy the same experience. "In her childhood years the reef is likely to see immense destruction," he said.
He called for strong global action so that his daughter and members of her generation could "marvel at the reef in their lifetimes." Helen McGregor, a scientist at the University of Wollongong and study co-author, told the BBC the new research "could send a huge signal to the world about how grave the problem is." "We know what we need to do," she added.
"We have international agreements in place [to limit global temperature rise]." Scientists not involved in the study agreed about the importance of the research, not just for the Great Barrier Reef but for coral reefs more generally. "It's a stunningly important summary of the history of the world's largest reef system," Stephen Palumbi, a marine biologist at Stanford University, told the Times .
"The paper lays out the danger that corals all around the world face from this heat." California pulled out all the stops Thursday to welcome the arrival of two new giant pandas from China , the first to be sent by Beijing to the United States in 21 years. The young bears were greeted by children in panda hats and dignitaries, as well as a show including traditional Chinese dances.
Yun Chuan and Xin Bao appeared, however, to be little moved by the performances and the symbolism of their arrival, at a time of gradually thawing US-China relations. After traveling nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) from the mountainous region of Sichuan, the two creatures are now the undisputed stars of the San Diego Zoo. "My children only wanted to see two things in America: orcas and pandas," Guillaume Courcoux, a Swiss tourist whose family was among the spectators Thursday, told AFP.
"They were very impressed." California Governor Gavin Newsom celebrated the "panda mania" and declared August 8 "Panda Day" in the state. "This is about something much deeper, much richer than just the two beautiful pandas we celebrate," the Democrat said.
"It's about celebrating our common humanity. It's about celebrating the things that bind us together." Until recently, the loan of the two pandas seemed an unlikely dream.
With fierce trade competition, and disagreements over Taiwan and human rights, tensions between China and the United States have been rising for several years -- to the point that Beijing's traditional "panda diplomacy" seemed to have frozen. In recent years, pandas at zoos in Washington DC, Atlanta and Memphis were all returned to Beijing, after loan agreements were not renewed. However, at a key summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, the latter announced that Beijing would continue the program in the United States.
China's loaning of pandas around the world is both a diplomatic symbol and a way to help the survival of a vulnerable species. In addition to San Diego, pandas are expected to return to zoos in Washington and San Francisco by 2025. - 'Our shared future' - China first offered its pandas to the United States in 1972 under US President Richard Nixon.
Since then, the country has used its loan of the black-and-white bears to send diplomatic messages. For instance, after President Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama in 2010, who is seen as a rebel by Beijing, China recalled two of its pandas. The San Diego Zoo has enjoyed a decades-long partnership with Chinese authorities, having received two pandas in 1996 that gave birth to six cubs in captivity.
All of the pandas were returned to China in 2019, in line with earlier agreements. The return of the pandas is not only a boon for the zoo, where their presence attracts thousands of visitors a year, but also supports the propagation of the species, which is notoriously difficult in the wild. Zoo officials described four-year-old Yun Chuan as a "mild-mannered, gentle and lovable" male, who was named after his grandmother, Bai Yun, one of the initial two pandas loaned to San Diego.
The other panda, three-year-old female Xin Bao, is a "gentle and witty introvert," zoo officials said. Her name means a "new treasure of prosperity and abundance." "We hope she will bring you good luck to California, to San Diego," China's ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said.
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