New GOP-led voting restrictions move forward in Texas
CBSN
Texas Republicans advanced a slate of proposed new voting restrictions Thursday that would reduce options to cast ballots, limit polling hours and hand more power to partisan poll watchers.
All those efforts are rolled into a single bill that cleared the GOP-controlled state Senate — a key marker in a campaign by Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, to impose new restrictive measures over elections in America's biggest red state. A first vote on the Senate bill was slowed by hours of questioning by Democrats that spilled overnight into early Thursday morning. The measure eventually passed 18-13 in a vote along party lines.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.