Paxton revives claim about Obama remarks
Ex-president never said 2014 immigration order wasn’t legal.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, pleased at the revocation of a federal effort to shield some older immigrants from deportatio n, says that then-President Barack Obama repeatedly acknowledged that his administration’s 2014 immigration order wasn’t legal.
In a recent press release, Paxton applauded the Homeland Security Department’s June 5 decision rescinding the Obama-era policy memo announcing the program toprotect parents of certain immigrants from deportation.
The Obama-era effort, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, never took effect after Texas and 25 other states persuaded a federal district judge to block implementation, a move
The next time you stand on the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge and watch the bats stream into the sky and fwip, fwip, fwip their way into the night, you just might see them in a different way.
A study by EcoHealth Alliance, reported by The Wall Street Journal, says that the next pandemic — think AIDS, or if Ebola went worldwide — is likely to come from bats.
No, don’t flee Austin just yet. It’s all hypothetical so far.
“Analyzing a database of wildlife species and viruses known to infect mammals and people,” the Journalsays, EcoHealth Alliance “calculated how many unknown viruses may be out there, who carries them and where they are likely to be.”
The study found that the average bat carries at least 17 viruses that could potentially threaten humans. That’s nearly twice as many as the next two threats: primates and rodents.
“There are literally thousands of potentially infectious viruses waiting to be discovered in bats,” Dr. Peter Daszak told the Journal.
Austinites who live alongside a colony of 1.5 million bats might not find that reassuring. But at least the researchers did also declare that the most likely location for the outbreak of a new disease is in the Amazon region. The U.S. is comfortably on the “lower threat” end of the scale.
Meanwhile, bats are facing their own pandemic. White-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats in North America in the last decade and this year was detected in Texas.