Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tested positive for COVID-19 last week, his office announced Monday afternoon, days after he said Americans would gather for Christmas regardless of recommendations amid the ongoing pandemic. Patrick’s office said the lieutenant governor experienced mild symptoms and has subsequently tested negative for the virus and is completing his quarantine period. “His symptoms were mild and no one else in the household was infected. He continues working from home and will return to a public schedule by the end of the week,” said Allen Blakemore, Patrick’s campaign senior advisor, in a prepared statement. Patrick’s announcement of a positive test comes about 10 days after he was a guest on FOX News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight where the subject was the upcoming Christmas holiday and recommendations that unvaccinated people consider changes to their holiday plans, including avoiding indoor gatherings or wearing masks, amid the ongoing surge of new cases of the omicron COVID-19 variant. On the cable show, Patrick said told the host the left has no hope and that the Biden Administration was the “blue Grinch that wants to steal Christmas” from Christians. The lieutenant governor’s office did not say where or when Patrick is believed to have…

A Texas board that had unanimously supported a posthumous pardon for George Floyd over a 2004 drug arrest in Houston backpedaled in an announcement Thursday, saying “procedural errors” were found in their recommendation months after leaving the decision to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The unusual reversal was announced by Abbott’s office two days before Christmas, around the time he typically doles out his annual pardons. The withdrawn endorsement was met with outrage from a public defender who submitted the pardon application for Floyd, who spent much of his life in Houston before his death in 2020 under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. Allison Mathis, an attorney in Houston, accused the two-term governor of playing politics ahead of Texas’ March GOP primary elections as he faces challengers from the far right. Floyd’s name was withdrawn along with two dozen other clemency recommendations that had been submitted by the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles. In a letter dated Dec. 16 but not released publicly until now, the board told Abbott that it had identified “unexplained departures” from its process of issuing pardons and needed to reconsider more than a third of the 67 clemency recommendations it sent to Abbott…

One person was killed and at least 14 others were injured Sunday night in a drive-by shooting during a candlelight vigil near Houston, a sheriff said. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the shooting happened around 6:40 p.m. CT when about 50 people were gathered for a celebration of life near North Market Loop in Baytown, about 25 miles west of Houston. “Right as they were releasing the balloons up into the air was when the vehicle came,” he said. “Almost at that exact time is when they opened fire into a crowd.” Three of the wounded were in critical condition and taken to a hospital by helicopter, Gonzalez said. One of the injured was believed to be a young child, he said. Gonzalez said it was too early to know whether the shooting may be gang-related. “Those bullets don’t have eyes or anything, so it just puts everybody at risk,” Gonzalez said. One witness, Sidney Williams, told KTRK-TV that “people were screaming and running to their cars.”
This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Courtesy of Texas News – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth …