A vast majority of Texans who have died of covid-19 since the beginning of the year were unvaccinated, according to a grim new Texas health department report released Monday.

The report from the Texas Department of State Health Services examined data from Jan. 15 to Oct. 1 and found that unvaccinated people were much more likely to get infected and die of the coronavirus than those who got their shots.

Of the nearly 29,000 covid-linked fatalities in Texas during that period, more than 85 percent were unvaccinated individuals. Nearly 7 percent of the deaths were among partially vaccinated people, while nearly 8 percent were fully vaccinated.

The figures highlight just how much more at risk the unvaccinated population has been this year: In all age groups, the state’s unvaccinated were 40 times more likely to die than fully vaccinated people. The study also found that the unvaccinated in all age groups were 45 times more likely to have a coronavirus infection than fully vaccinated people. It also looked closely at data from September and underlined the impact of the highly contagious delta variant, which fueled a surge in Texas, as it did in much of the country.....

Recent findings from the CDC similarly highlighted risks for the unvaccinated. A CDC study published in September found that people who were not fully vaccinated in the spring and summer were more than 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die of covid-19 than people who were fully vaccinated.

Opening a second front in widening legal wars over redistricting, a coalition of mostly Hispanic, Democratic members of the Texas House filed suit in state court Wednesday challenging the constitutionality of the new political map for the state House.

Multiple lawsuits challenging new political districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature will play out in federal court, but the Mexican American Legislative Caucus filed the state case citing language in the Texas Constitution requiring legislators drawing the Texas House’s 150 districts to keep intact counties with sufficient population to make up one House district.

MALC’s challenge centers on the reconfiguration of Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley, which breaks the county line twice to create three districts — only one wholly contained within the county. The state’s “county line rule,” MALC argues, would require two districts be drawn within Cameron, with the remaining population connected to a single neighboring district, as was the case under the map the state used for the last decade.

Texas redistricting fights have typically played out in federal courts, which decade after decade have found that lawmakers, often intentionally, flouted federal protections for voters of color, and two federal lawsuits had already been filed against the new maps. The caucus simultaneously filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday, alleging the state’s new maps were drawn with discriminatory intent and violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Filed in Austin, MALC framed the suit as an effort to “redress once again Texas’s sordid pattern of racial discrimination.”

In the first two years of Trump's presidency, when his party controlled the House and Senate — by larger margins than Democrats enjoy now — the GOP focused its energies on unnecessary tax breaks and a hapless health care crusade that ultimately failed. After the 2018 midterm election cycle, which left the House in Democratic hands, there were still hopes that an infrastructure deal was possible, and Democratic leaders were prepared to make it happen.

But as regular readers may recall, the then-president decided to attach some strings. In May 2019, however, according to Trump's own version of events, the Republican presented Democrats with an offer: The White House would work on infrastructure if Democrats agreed to stop investigating the then-president's many scandals. Democratic leaders, naturally, said that wasn't an option — they added, of course, that Congress can legislate and conduct oversight at the same time — at which point Trump abandoned the process.

Two years later, the Republican settled on a different kind of idea: If he couldn't have an infrastructure deal, then Biden shouldn't get one, either.

Indeed, Politico reported months ago that the former president was determined to "sabotage" the entire process: "Trump is trying to ensure that his successor, Joe Biden, suffers the indignity of the 'infrastructure week' jokes as well."

The Magnolia Independent School District has suspended enforcement of gender-specific provisions in its dress code policy for all students until further notice amid pending litigation that argues the rules discriminate against boys who have long hair.

On Thursday, District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal granted a preliminary injunction that expanded relief to all Magnolia ISD students, including six boys and one nonbinary student who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in a recent lawsuit against the Houston-area school district over its gender-based dress code policy. Rosenthal had granted a previous injunction that offered relief to only four of the seven plaintiffs.

The ACLU of Texas accused the district of violating students’ equal protection under the 14th Amendment as well as Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education settings.

Eighty-five percent of people in Singapore eligible for coronavirus vaccines are fully vaccinated, and 18 percent have received booster shots.

But the Singaporean government said Monday that it will no longer cover the medical costs of people “unvaccinated by choice,” who make up the bulk of remaining new covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in the city-state.

“Currently, unvaccinated persons make up a sizable majority of those who require intensive inpatient care, and disproportionately contribute to the strain on our health care resources,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement Monday.

“Covid-19 patients who are unvaccinated by choice may still tap on regular health care financing arrangements to pay for their bills where applicable,” the ministry added.