Category: San Antonio News

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday sent a letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services directing the agency to investigate gender-transitioning procedures performed on children as child abuse.

In the letter, Abbott cited Attorney General Ken Paxton’s formal attorney general opinion concluding that gender reassignment surgery constitutes child abuse under existing state law.

“As OAG Opinion No. KP-0401 makes clear, it is already against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen,” Abbott said in the letter to DFPS.

Abbott said all licensed professionals including doctors, nurses, teachers and even the general public could face criminal penalties for failing to report any such procedures.

Abbott Letter Transgender Youth by Julie Moreno on Scribd

Also on KSAT:

Targeting surgeries rarely used on kids, Gov. Greg Abbott asks state agency to determine if gender affirming care is child abuseAs Texas GOP leaders continue targeting transgender children, state’s protective services agency takes aim at surgeries rarely used on kidsWhat is gender-affirming medical care for transgender children? Here’s what you need to know.Gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender kids would be considered child abuse under Texas Senate bill

Many women haven’t returned to the workforce after the initial wave of the pandemic. Here are some best practices for employers looking to get them back.

Get more election news on KSAT’s Vote 2022 page.

Democratic district court judge candidate Lisa Uresti-Dasher outpaced opponent Nadine Nieto in both campaign contributions and spending, according to their latest filings with the Texas Ethics Commission.

The two attorneys are vying to win the March 1 Democratic primary for the 285th District Judge seat, in what has been the most contentious race for a judge position in Bexar County in recent memory.

For the campaign reporting period covering Jan. 21 through Feb. 19, Uresti-Dasher reported receiving $6,241 in political contributions. She made nearly $69,000 in political expenditures during the same period, Texas Ethics Commission records show.

Additionally, Uresti-Dasher loaned her campaign $3,000, records show.

For the same campaign reporting period covering Jan. 21 through Feb. 19, Nieto reported receiving $700 in political contributions. Nieto made more than $32,000 in political expenditures during the same period, records show.

Nieto in late January and then again in early February injected a total of $25,000 into her campaign in the form of two loans.

State records show Uresti-Dasher submitted a corrected contribution report earlier this year, for the reporting period covering Jan. 1 through Jan. 20.

Reached via email this week about the corrected report, Uresti-Dasher wrote, “As for the corrected report, I am not exactly sure what was corrected. I believe I saw some things appear in statements that I hadn’t seen the moment I submitted my report or I made a clerical report.”

The corrected report states that it included amounts from prior periods as well as some small amounts that hadn’t posted yet.

The campaign has been marked by bad blood between the two sides dating back to last year.

Nieto late last year filed a lawsuit claiming that Uresti-Dasher’s application for the judge position contained “several facial defects” that made the application invalid.

A two-day virtual hearing to determine Uresti-Dasher’s political fate revealed an ongoing dispute between the two campaigns.

The hearing focused on whether Uresti-Dasher had applied using her legal name and had provided inaccurate information about how long she has resided in Texas and Bexar County.

Uresti-Dasher is the daughter of Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector Albert Uresti and the niece of disgraced former Texas state senator Carlos Uresti, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for federal fraud and money laundering convictions.

At the conclusion of the hearing visiting Judge John Gabriel denied Nieto’s request for a temporary injunction, allowing Uresti-Dasher to remain on the primary ballot.

A Defenders investigation last month revealed that Nieto was accused of defaulting on more than $100,000 in student loans and interest.

Nieto was sued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2010 after they alleged she owed $101,580.20 in student loans and accrued interest. Nieto has also been the subject of multiple liens, tax lawsuits and court filings dating back to the late 1990s, the KSAT 12 Defenders found.

After the government was awarded a judgment for the full amount in early 2012, Nieto appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, records show.

Nieto said she agreed to drop the appeal later that year as part of a confidential settlement that required her to pay back around $78,000, about $30,000 less than what the amount she owed had ballooned to at that point.

Nieto said she made a lump sum payment of $10,000 and then payments of just over $328 a month for close to a decade.

She cleared the final approximately $6,000 owed in early September, but disputes that the payment was made because she had decided to run for judge of the 285th District Court.

“I do know it has nothing to do with me running for office, if that’s the implication,” Nieto told the Defenders last month.

“It’s concerning. It’s concerning that Nadine Nieto would run for this position, despite her background and despite her habitual disregard for the law. It appears she’s unfit to be judge,” Uresti-Dasher said when asked about her opponent’s past financial issues.

The winner of the Democratic primary for 285th District Court will face Republican Mark Thompson in the November election.

In news that can definitely be categorized under the “mission accomplished” heading, The Alamo has been named one of the most beautiful landmarks in the country. A new study from travel site ParkSleepFly ranks The Alamo, San Antonio’s cherished historical site and the inspiration for the city’s nickname, No. 10 on its list of the Most Beautiful Landmarks in the U.S. In order to determine its landmark list, ParkSleepFly analyzed Tripadvisor reviews of famous landmarks,…

San Antonio restaurants are again faced with navigating Covid-era tax credits as they file for 2021.

San Antonio firefighters responded to a reported fire on the city’s West Side early Wednesday morning.

The fire was reported around 10 a.m. in the 100 block of Alta Sita, not far from South General McMullen Drive and Our Lady of the Lake University.

At this time, not much is known about the fire. It is unclear if anyone was hurt.

According to the San Antonio Fire Department website, as many as 13 units answered the call.

KSAT12 has a crew at the scene.

This is a developing story. Stay with KSAT12 both online and on-air for more information.

The median price of a home in the San Antonio area dipped ever so slightly from December to January. According to a new report from the San Antonio Board of Realtors, the region’s median home price stood at $304,700 in January. While that was up 18 percent from January 2021 (when the median home price stood at $257,500), it was down 2 percent from the previous month’s price of $311,000. “2022 is starting with a…

To mark the anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Alamo, a recreation of the arrival of the Mexican Army took place on Wednesday morning.

See La Gran Marcha Del Ejercito Mexicano in the video player above.

The annual event features dozens of historians marching through Alamo Plaza, recreating how the Mexican Army arrived on Feb. 23, 1836.

“While it would take many days for the full Mexican Army to arrive, February 23 is the day that the Alamo Defenders realized that they are outnumbered and ill-prepared,” a news release states.

The siege lasted through March 6, 1836.

In honor of the Battle of the Alamo, there will be several events taking place. To see a full list of events, click here.

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Former CPS Energy President & CEO Paula Gold-Williams received over $1 million in her final paycheck, financial records released by the utility to the KSAT 12 Defenders confirm.

Gold-Williams, who announced her resignation in October before formally departing from the utility earlier this year, received a total of $1,035,054.60, records show.

A majority of that money, more than $751,000, came in the form of a “restoration payment.” An attorney representing the utility described the payment late Tuesday as a distribution of benefits from a non-qualified retirement plan that is taxable when earned.

Gold-Williams also walked away with more than $272,000 in accrued vacation pay, with a vast majority of those funds coming from more than a thousand hours of vacation time she had accumulated over the past 18 years and did not use. Gold-Williams was also paid out for 125 hours of vacation time not used this year records show.

A CPS Energy spokeswoman previously said Gold-Williams was eligible for the same benefits as all utility retirees, including a pension and the option to participate in CPS Energy’s health plan as a retiree.

CPS Energy officials, however, declined to provide her pension amount, claiming that state law makes that information confidential.

Gold-Williams, who made a base salary of just under $486,000, struggled to lead the utility through flaws exposed by last February’s winter storm. She faced multiple internal complaints and the utility plummeted in public opinion polls.

Her departure was part of a mass exodus of staff from the utility’s senior leadership team, including its senior legal team and Chief Operating Officer Fred Bonewell, who resigned days after the Defenders exposed past ethics and spending complaints against him.

CPS Energy’s board of trustees late last year named Rudy Garza as interim president & CEO.

The board, to date, has not named a permanent replacement for Gold-Williams.

Read more:

Complaints against embattled Gold-Williams preceded senior legal team’s exodus from CPS EnergyCPS Energy executive’s comment about ‘Mexicans’ drew ethics complaint, records show

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, those who work in Boise’s real estate industry say the exodus from more expensive regions has created big demand for housing in the Idaho capital and surrounding suburbs.