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Downtown Houston on Sept. 16, 2019. Texas Attorney General sued Harris County in April to block its guaranteed income program, which would give participants about $500 a month for 18 months with no strings attached. Advocates say guaranteed income programs are an effective tool to fight poverty but critics argue they amount to government overreach.

To fight poverty, some Texas cities gave aid with no strings attached. Conservatives are pushing back.

Read full article: To fight poverty, some Texas cities gave aid with no strings attached. Conservatives are pushing back.
FILE - Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center nurse Maggie Bass, right, gives a COVID-19 vaccine to an unidentified person, Sept. 21, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. COVID-19 vaccines get updated each fall to match newer strains of the virus and government advisers on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, are urging that Americans' next shot target a strain called JN.1. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FDA advisers urge targeting JN.1 strain in recipe for fall's COVID vaccines

Read full article: FDA advisers urge targeting JN.1 strain in recipe for fall's COVID vaccines

VACCINE

Get more vaccine coverage in our special section.

FILE - A truck with a public awareness notice on the omicron coronavirus variant moves though a busy shopping street Friday, Jan. 28, 2022, in Tokyo. Scientists and health officials around the world are keeping their eyes on a descendant of the omicron variant that has been found in more than 50 countries, including the United States. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

EXPLAINER: What's known about 'stealth' version of omicron?

Read full article: EXPLAINER: What's known about 'stealth' version of omicron?

Scientists say the omicron descendant gaining ground in some parts of the world may be 1 1/2 times more contagious than the original omicron variant.

FILE - Pharmacist Kenni Clark injects Robert Champion, of Lawrence, Mass., with a booster dosage of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination clinic at City of Lawrence's "The Center," which serves seniors, families and the community, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2021, in Lawrence, Mass. The COVID-19 booster drive in the U.S. is losing steam, worrying health experts who have pleaded with Americans to get an extra shot to shore up their protection against the highly contagious omicron variant. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

COVID-19 vaccine booster drive is faltering in the US

Read full article: COVID-19 vaccine booster drive is faltering in the US

The COVID-19 booster drive in the U.S. is losing steam, worrying health experts who have pleaded with Americans to get an extra shot to shore up their protection against the highly contagious omicron variant.

FILE - Pharmacist Sima Manifar prepares a children's dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination clinic at City of Lawrence's "The Center," which serves seniors, families and the community, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2021, in Lawrence, Mass. Pfizer has begun a study comparing its original COVID-19 vaccine with doses specially tweaked to match the omicron variant. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced the study on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Pfizer begins testing omicron-matched COVID shots in adults

Read full article: Pfizer begins testing omicron-matched COVID shots in adults

Pfizer and BioNTech have begun studying a COVID-19 vaccine tweaked to match to the omicron variant in healthy adults.

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CORONAVIRUS DATA

FILE - In this March 3, 2020, file photo, Hawaii state Department of Health microbiologist Mark Nagata demonstrates the process for testing a sample for coronavirus at the department's laboratory in Pearl City, Hawaii. An Associated Press analysis shows that some of the least-populated states, such as Hawaii, with relatively few coronavirus cases received an out-sized proportion of the $150 billion in federal money that was designed to address virus-related expenses. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy, File)

CHARTS: What is the coronavirus positivity rate in Texas?

Read full article: CHARTS: What is the coronavirus positivity rate in Texas?

As coronavirus testing continues to increase in Texas, some have wondered how the number of tests being performed compares to the number of cases reported in the state.

SETRAC dashboard (KPRC)

This dashboard tracks the daily hospital capacity for general, ICU beds in the Houston area

Read full article: This dashboard tracks the daily hospital capacity for general, ICU beds in the Houston area

As Texas continues to reopen, many areas, including the greater Houston area, have seen a slow climb in the number of new coronavirus cases reported each day and coronavirus-related hospitalizations. Since Memorial Day, the state has also seen increases in the number of people testing positive for the virus.

MORE HEADLINES

FILE - McKenna Shuster works on a linocut art print which she does as a hobby in her home on the last night of a two-week self-isolation while recovering from symptoms of COVID-19 in Somerville, Mass., on March 26, 2020. On Friday, March 1, 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people who test positive for COVID-19 no longer need to stay in isolation for five days. The CDC changed its longstanding guidance, saying that people can return to work or regular activities if their symptoms are mild and improving and it's been a day since they've had a fever. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

COVID-19 milestone: How Houston’s response to the virus has changed in the last four years

Read full article: COVID-19 milestone: How Houston’s response to the virus has changed in the last four years
FILE - A Walgreens Pharmacy sign is seen, June 25, 2019, in Pittsburgh. Walgreens has been fined $275,000 by the state of Vermont as part of a settlement of complaints that some of national pharmacy chain's Vermont stores unexpectedly closed, had untenable working conditions for pharmacists, and made medication and vaccination errors during the coronavirus pandemic, the secretary of state announced Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

Walgreens to pay $275,000 to settle allegations in Vermont about service during pandemic

Read full article: Walgreens to pay $275,000 to settle allegations in Vermont about service during pandemic
FILE - A flu vaccine is readied at the L.A. Care and Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plans' Community Resource Center in Lynwood, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. Health officials say flu and COVID-19 infections are expected to accelerate in the coming weeks, Friday, Dec. 22, 2023, fueled by holiday travel and gatherings, low vaccination rates, and a new COVID variant that seems to spread more easily. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

Flu and COVID infections are rising and could get worse over the holidays, CDC says

Read full article: Flu and COVID infections are rising and could get worse over the holidays, CDC says
Medical personnel ralled against Houston Methodist Hospital's COVID-19 vaccine mandate outside the Baytown facility on June 7, 2021. Several employees who chose not to inoculate themselves worked their last shift Monday and will face job termination, a policy criticized by the protesters as unfair and unauthorized.

Ban on COVID vaccine mandates by private businesses, including health care facilities, passes Texas Senate

Read full article: Ban on COVID vaccine mandates by private businesses, including health care facilities, passes Texas Senate
Bereaved families hold pictures of their loved ones as they stand outside the opening hearing of Module 2 of the UK Covid 19 Inquiry, in London, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. Bereaved families are coming together to protest the fact that in the module investigating core government decision making during the pandemic, only 1 bereaved family witness has been called to give evidence, out of the over 230,115 families bereaved by Covid 19. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Britain's COVID-19 response inquiry enters a second phase with political decisions in the spotlight

Read full article: Britain's COVID-19 response inquiry enters a second phase with political decisions in the spotlight
President Joe Biden arrives with Capt. Larry Taylor, an Army pilot from the Vietnam War who risked his life to rescue a reconnaissance team that was about to be overrun by the enemy, to award him the Medal of Honor during a ceremony Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

To mask or not to mask? Biden goes both ways after first lady tests positive for COVID-19

Read full article: To mask or not to mask? Biden goes both ways after first lady tests positive for COVID-19
FILE - A man walks through the snow covered Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Mount Lebanon, Pa., on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. U.S. deaths fell in 2022, as COVID-19 fatalities dropped by half from 2021 and the coronavirus dropped from being the nation's third leading cause of death to the fourth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the 2022 numbers on Thursday, May 4, 2023, cautioning that they are preliminary and may change a little after further analysis. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

COVID dropped to 4th leading cause of death in US last year

Read full article: COVID dropped to 4th leading cause of death in US last year
FILE - A passenger arrives from overseas at the arrivals hall of Haneda international airport in Tokyo, Nov. 8, 2021. Japan will lift its coronavirus border controls and no longer require entrants to show pre-departure negative tests and records of triple vaccinations beginning Saturday, April 28, 2023, as the countrys Golden Week holiday season begins and a large influx of foreign tourists are expected. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

Japan to lift COVID-19 border controls before holiday week

Read full article: Japan to lift COVID-19 border controls before holiday week
FILE - This undated photo made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a strain of Candida auris cultured in a petri dish at a CDC laboratory. In a CDC paper published by the Annals of Internal Medicine on Monday, March 20, 2023, U.S. cases of the dangerous fungus tripled over just three years, and more than half of states have now reported it. (Shawn Lockhart/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP, File)

Superbug fungus cases rose dramatically during pandemic

Read full article: Superbug fungus cases rose dramatically during pandemic
FILE - Raccoon dogs are seen at a cage in Tokyo's Ueno zoo Saturday, May 24, 2003. International scientists who examined previously unavailable genetic data from samples collected at a market close to where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected in China said they found suggestions the pandemic originated from animals, not a lab. Other experts have not yet verified their analysis, which also has not appeared so far in a peer-reviewed journal. (AP Photo/Chika Tsukumo, File)

New COVID origins data point to raccoon dogs in China market

Read full article: New COVID origins data point to raccoon dogs in China market
FILE - Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaks during a coronavirus media briefing in Downing Street in London, Thursday, May 27, 2021. Britains former health minister Hancock denied wrongdoing on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, after a newspaper published extracts of private messages he sent in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, Pool, File)

UK health chief's leaked messages revive raw pandemic debate

Read full article: UK health chief's leaked messages revive raw pandemic debate
FILE - Two nurses put a ventilator on a patient in a COVID-19 unit at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif. Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. California's COVID-19 emergency declaration ends on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. Gov. Gavin Newsom first issued the emergency declaration on March 4, 2020. The emergency ends just as California officially passed 100,000 COVID-related deaths during the pandemic. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Final state emergencies winding down 3 years into pandemic

Read full article: Final state emergencies winding down 3 years into pandemic
FILE - Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, in Washington. House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday, Feb. 13, 2023, into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony, including Fauci who until December served as Bidens chief medical adviser. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

GOP launches probe into COVID origins with letter to Fauci

Read full article: GOP launches probe into COVID origins with letter to Fauci
A worker guides a bin into position at a construction site, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in Miami. The Commerce Department issues its first of three estimates of how the U.S. economy performed in the fourth quarter of 2022. On Thursday, the Commerce Department issues its first of three estimates of how the U.S. economy performed in the fourth quarter of 2022.(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

EXPLAINER: How will we know if the U.S. is in recession?

Read full article: EXPLAINER: How will we know if the U.S. is in recession?
Texas National Guard and Texas DPS officers position themselves on the banks of the Rio Grande on Dec. 20, 2022, in El Paso. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled to keep in place Title 42, the pandemic-era health policy to quickly turn immigrants back at the U.S.-Mexico border, for now.

U.S. Supreme Court rules to keep Title 42, the pandemic-era policy to quickly turn away migrants, for now

Read full article: U.S. Supreme Court rules to keep Title 42, the pandemic-era policy to quickly turn away migrants, for now
FILE - A visitor sits on a bench to look artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's "In America: Remember," a temporary art installation made up of white flags to commemorate Americans who have died of COVID-19, on the National Mall in Washington on Oct. 2, 2021. The number of U.S. deaths has dropped in 2022 after soaring for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still is much higher than the levels before the coronavirus hit. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

US deaths fell this year, but not to pre-COVID levels

Read full article: US deaths fell this year, but not to pre-COVID levels
Demonstrators gathered outside the Harris County Courthouse in Houston on Aug. 21, 2020, to protest evictions. A new Texas Housers report found that differences in staffing, political support and community outreach impacted how effective cities and counties were in distributing federal funds to assist renters during the pandemic.

Why some Texas cities and counties had to return millions of dollars meant to help renters during the pandemic

Read full article: Why some Texas cities and counties had to return millions of dollars meant to help renters during the pandemic
Mark Hager, left, positions a camera with the help of Anthony Lucia, right, as captain Al Cottone watches the feed on a monitor from his boat, the Sabrina Maria, in Gloucester, Mass., May 11, 2022. Hager's Maine-based startup, New England Maritime Monitoring, is one of a bevy of companies seeking to help commercial vessels comply with new federal mandates aimed at protecting dwindling fish stocks. But taking the technology overseas, where the vast majority of seafood consumed in the U.S. is caught, is a steep challenge. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Could trawler cams help save world's dwindling fish stocks?

Read full article: Could trawler cams help save world's dwindling fish stocks?
The mother and father of a four-month-old baby that urgently needs a heart operation leave the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. The court on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, ruled against the family who had refused blood transfusions for their baby son unless the blood came from donors who hadn't been vaccinated against COVID-19. (Michael Craig/New Zealand Herald via AP)

New Zealand court rules against anti-vax parents of ill baby

Read full article: New Zealand court rules against anti-vax parents of ill baby
FILE - Brazilian Pele attends the 2018 soccer World Cup draw at the Kremlin in Moscow, Dec. 1, 2017. Brazilian soccer great Pel was hospitalized in Sao Paulo to regulate the medication in his fight against a colon tumor, his daughter said on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022. Kely Nascimento added that there was no emergency concerning her 82-year-old father's health. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Doctors say Pelé's health improving, remains in hospital

Read full article: Doctors say Pelé's health improving, remains in hospital
FILE - A sign at the federal courthouse in Tacoma, Wash., is shown on April 6, 2016, to inform visitors of the federal government's REAL ID Act, which requires state driver's licenses and ID cards to have security enhancements and be issued to people who can prove they are legally in the United States. The deadline for obtaining the Real ID needed to board a domestic flight has been pushed back again, with the Department of Homeland Security citing the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for the slower-than-expected rollout. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

COVID's lingering impact prompts Real ID deadline extension

Read full article: COVID's lingering impact prompts Real ID deadline extension
FILE - In this April 28, 2020, file photo Medical personnel attend a daily 7 p.m. applause in their honor outside NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. As more nurses leave their jobs in hospitals and health-care centers, foundations are pouring millions of dollars into efforts to ensure that more stay in the profession and get more out of the job than just the applause and pats on the back they got during the bleakest days of the pandemic. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Foundations, major donors tackle nation’s nursing shortage

Read full article: Foundations, major donors tackle nation’s nursing shortage
People watch a live broadcast of the memorial service for late former Chinese President Jiang Zemin where Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a speech on screen at the Wangfujing shopping street in Beijing, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. A formal memorial service was held Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People, the seat of the ceremonial legislature in the center of Beijing. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Late Chinese leader Jiang hailed in memorial service

Read full article: Late Chinese leader Jiang hailed in memorial service