Here are things to know for Tuesday, Dec. 29:
1. House approves Trump’s $2K checks, sending to GOP-led Senate
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The House voted overwhelmingly Monday to increase COVID-19 relief checks to $2,000, meeting President Donald Trump’s demand for bigger payments and sending the bill to the GOP-controlled Senate, where the outcome is highly uncertain.
Democrats led passage, 275-134, their majority favoring additional assistance, but dozens of Republicans suddenly joined in approval. While Democrats favored bigger checks, Congress had settled on smaller $600 payments in a compromise over the big year-end relief bill Trump reluctantly signed into law. The president’s GOP allies opposed more spending and Trump’s push puts them in a difficult spot.
2. Bomber to neighbor: The world is ‘never going to forget me’
It seemed like a friendly chat between neighbors. Only after a bomb exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning could Rick Laude grasp the sinister meaning behind his neighbor’s smiling remark that the city and the rest of the world would never forget him.
Laude said he saw his 63-year-old neighbor Anthony Quinn Warner standing at his mailbox less than a week before Christmas and pulled over in his car to talk. After asking how Warner’s elderly mother was doing, Laude said he casually asked, “Is Santa going to bring you anything good for Christmas?”
Warner smiled and said, “Oh, yeah, Nashville and the world is never going to forget me,” Laude recalled
3. Texas hits new record high of COVID-19 hospitalizations
Texas hit a new record of COVID-19 hospitalizations Monday, smashing the previous high mark set in July, as the state continues to slowly give its first round of vaccines.
At least 11,351 people were hospitalized with the disease caused by the coronavirus — more than 450 patients beyond the previous one-day record of 10,893 of hospitalizations, set July 22 during a summer surge.
The current mark is an increase of nearly 2,500 more patients since the end of November.
4. Frontline city workers getting coronavirus vaccine as 6,000 doses arrive at Houston health, fire departments
Some of the first frontline workers for the city of Houston are getting their coronavirus vaccines Monday after 6,000 doses arrived at the Houston Health Department and the Houston Fire Department.
Dr. Stephen Williams, director of HHD, said the first shots will go to the 260 workers who qualify in Phase 1A. He said the Health Department is also preparing to administer the vaccine to 365 school nurses in both the Houston and Pearland school districts.
Houston fire Chief Sam Peña said paramedic crews will be the first people in his department to get the vaccine. Peña said more than 50% of firefighters said they are interested in receiving the vaccine. He said support staff will be part of the Phase 1B rollout.
5. Doctor unable to get coronavirus vaccine at his hospital turns to pharmacy for shot
A doctor who has been treating coronavirus patients said his hospital has not offered him the vaccine, so he decided to head to a pharmacy to get the shot.
Dr. Lance Blau has diabetes, and his wife, Emily, is 19-weeks pregnant. They said they wanted to get the COVID-19 vaccine as quickly as possible since they are both in the high risk categories.
Blau said that when his hospital hadn’t made the vaccine available to him after more than a week after doses arrived in Texas, his wife started searching for other providers.