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May 11, 2022

Texas Standard: May 11, 2022

By: David Brown

What happened to more than a billion dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds for Texas? Officials want to know whether the money was misspent. Were COVID-19 relief funds used to defray the costs of the governor’s border crackdown? That story plus, how nominally non-partisan school board elections in Texas became a magnet for big money donations, and what that could mean for what’s taught in public school classrooms. Also higher ed in Texas prisons: a new report outlines big gender disparities in opportunity. And the work of the code inspector, and why it often isn’t working to help many apartment renters. Plus a Politifact check on SB8 and much more today on the Texas Standard:


Episodes

April 29, 2024

Celebrating Willie Nelson’s birthday and his concert tradition

Some of Texas’ biggest counties say their lockups are getting more overcrowded and many sheriffs say the state is to blame.Destructive weather across the Midwest over much of the weekend turned to Texas late Sunday.A school district that’s increasingly been in the spotlight over culture war issues heads toward what could be a turning point […]

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April 26, 2024

What’s next for pro-Palestine campus protests in Texas?

An even larger antiwar protest at the University of Texas at Austin takes place Thursday, now the official response to protesters taking center stage. Is a major constitutional battle looming over UT’s response to Wednesday’s campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war?Why tiny rural Texas towns may be in the crosshairs for a new kind of […]

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April 25, 2024

What’s next after state troopers arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters at UT-Austin

After protests over the Israel-Hamas war at Columbia, NYU and elsewhere, students at the University of Texas follow suit and were met by police in riot gear who arrested dozens. UT history and politics professor Jeremi Suri talks about what happened on campus yesterday and the lessons from an earlier wave of student protests nationwide.A […]

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April 24, 2024

Xcel Energy target of multiple lawsuits after Smokehouse Creek Fire

A pilot program for guaranteed income in Harris County is put on hold by the Texas Supreme Court.Could residents of Corpus Christi become the first in the state to drink treated seawater from the tap? Some say a desalination plan’s needed to meet growing water demand, but many locals say the downsides are too serious […]

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April 23, 2024

Effort to preserve Indigenous cemetery in Presidio is finally complete

A court says the foster care system in Texas is failing many vulnerable children. Why that’s especially true for trans kids.A practically forgotten burial ground for Indigenous people in West Texas now has a proper memorial.How a shortage of shipyard workers is contributing to delays for the Navy.We’ll talk to author Jonny Garza Villa, whose […]

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April 22, 2024

The Future of Work in Texas – A Texas Standard special

Texas is changing, and so is the world. If we squint to try to look at the future job landscape, what do we see? There are more than 15 million working Texans right now, but while the state boasts steady growth and “record high levels” for jobs and the labor force, there are always unknowns […]

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April 19, 2024

What you need to know about upcoming spring elections

Get ready to cast your ballots. Local elections are scheduled in Texas for May 4, with early voting beginning on Monday. Katya Ehresman, voting rights coordinator at Common Cause Texas, gives us the lowdown.What a trial run of a four-day workweek in the UK tells us about how well such a shift might work.Don Louis, […]

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April 18, 2024

Texas Eclipse Festival attendees with disabilities describe treacherous conditions

Landowners in southeast Texas say they should be able to sue the state over their flooded property, and the U.S. Supreme Court agrees. People in Winnie, Texas, say their land only started to flood after the state rebuilt part of nearby Interstate 10. Now, they can seek compensation for the damages.Live music seems more expensive, […]

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