Free Republic

Two of the dozens of Texas Democratic state legislators that fled to Washington, DC last month are currently on vacation in Portugal, the Texas Tribune reported. Reps. Julie Johnson and Jessica Gonzáles and their wives planned the trip a year and half in advance and had non-refundable tickets, according to Texas Monthly reporter Jonathan Tilove.... ...The news of the legislators' absence broke as more than 100 state legislators from around the country fly in for a "week of action" to promote the "For the People" Act, a sweeping voting rights bill that is currently stalled in the Senate....

Health officials in seven Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma — on Friday urged vaccinated people wear masks again indoors to prevent the spread of the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus. The officials said in a joint statement that while fully vaccinated people are well protected from developing serious illness from all coronavirus variants, asking everyone to wear masks indoors can help protect unvaccinated people. A universal rule makes it easier to verify that unvaccinated people are masking up, the officials said.