Capitol

New music exhibit features iconic items owned by Willie Nelson, Taylor Swift and more

A new law making it a state crime for migrants to enter Texas without authorization faces a major test in a federal courtroom. We’ll hear the latest.

In Houston ISD, the biggest school district in the state, officials appointed by the state are getting pushback over plans to expand school reforms.

A Texas presidential museum turns a spotlight on Taylor Swift’s guitar, Willie Nelson’s boots and hundreds of other artifacts to help tell the story of American music.

Plus: The week in politics with The Texas Tribune.

The real history behind Goatman’s Bridge is scarier than any ghost story

After almost seven weeks, striking autoworkers reach deals with the Big 3 automakers. Why Texas played a critical role.

Scientists recently got to see a collision of two stars in space – and its aftermath.

The president has released an executive order on artificial intelligence. How far does it go, and will it go far enough?

The tale of Goatman’s Bridge has a history that haunts Texas to its core. The Standard’s Sean Saldana takes us to Denton for the story.

And: What would Texas cryptids look like in real life? We visited an elementary school art class to get some ideas.

How artificial ocean reefs can help fight climate change

A special session is at an impasse over one of the governor’s top agenda items: Gov. Greg Abbott says if the Texas Legislature doesn’t pass his proposal to use tax dollars to cover private school tuition, he’ll keep calling lawmakers back to the Capitol until they do.

Remembering Roky Erickson, a Texas pioneer in psychedelic music.

A marine science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is leading a project to build an artificial reef to capture carbon and reduce global warming.

Why seasonal pop-up stores like Spirit Halloween haunt efforts at smart urban planning.

And we’ll talk to Paul Bowman, an archaeologist by profession – and also a Bigfoot expert who’s tracked the elusive sasquatch all over East Texas and Oklahoma.

SpaceX satellite debris could fall from the sky and kill people, FAA report says

Where do we stand with education in the special legislative session? With Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas House at a deadlock over school vouchers.

The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that by 2035, one person could be injured or killed by falling SpaceX Starlink debris every two years.

As the World Series gets underway tonight in Arlington; North Texans share what their hometown Texas Rangers mean to them — and why they’ve never lost faith.

Also: the week in politics with the Texas Tribune.

A&M researchers are working to bring ocelots back

After a swift and historic vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, we’ll hear more about the role of the Texas delegation and what comes next on Capitol Hill.

Will climate change alter Texas’ coastal community landscape? It already appears to be doing just that, says Erin Douglas of the Texas Tribune.

Texan Simone Biles has pulled off a gymnastics move so remarkable that it now carries her name.

After overhunting and creeping development, the number of breeding ocelots in the wild has tumbled to under 100 – with very few in South Texas, where they used to be plentiful. Now, researchers are working on a plan to bring the cats back.

Plus, a conversation with James C. Watkins, the 3D state artist of the year.

Fall is finally here. What does that mean for Texas’ drought?

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has faced increasing pressure to resign since Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial – and a special session of the Legislature starts next week.

El Paso, a city with a reputation as welcoming to migrants, is now at a breaking point, according to its mayor. Angela Kocherga of KTEP El Paso has details.

About 24 million Texans are living through some level of drought right now, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. What’s on the horizon as fall weather moves in?

The former Texas Memorial Museum on UT Austin’s campus, shuttered in March due to COVID and cutbacks, returns in grand style with a new name and focus.

Texas voting restrictions challenged in court

The trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continues, but not for long. We’ll have details on the latest testimony from the Senate floor.

State senators could start deliberations in Paxton’s impeachment trial as soon as Thursday.

Texas voting laws go on trial in San Antonio. We’ll have details about a case challenging state bans on 24-hour polls and drive-thru voting.

All that, and how to keep your trees fungus-free, the best bean and cheese taco in Texas, and the latest headlines from across the state. It’s coming up today on the Texas Standard.

Historic heat makes Texas’ ailing water infrastructure even harder to fix

A plan for state officials to take over special education in the Austin Independent School District is being reconsidered. Becky Fogel of KUT in Austin shares more.

Record heat this summer statewide has led to widespread water leaks amid an already pressing need for repairs – but will a fund earmarked for fixes be enough?

With five deaths from fentanyl on average in Texas each day, a growing number of those deaths is among young people. The Dallas Morning news turns a monthlong spotlight on a growing crisis.

In attempts to ban library books, Texas leads the nation

Texas prisons are under a statewide lockdown as officials search for contraband to stem a rise in prison homicides.

More than 700 new state laws took effect in Texas on Sept. 1 out of the almost 3,000 that were filed – meaning the vast majority didn’t become law. Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies tells us more.

Texas had the most book challenges of any state last year, according to the American Library Association.

Outlaw country, born in the 1970s, has long been dominated by men. But female artists have been making noteworthy contributions, especially recently.

Plus the week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune.

Evidence suggests Texas Rangers may have created mass gravesite

Is a plan to advance credit for early parole to prisoners with good conduct records or educational advancements a good idea for Texas?

A deadly shooting in West Texas. The victims: migrants. The suspects: brothers in law enforcement. Seven months later, questions mounting about what’s happened to the investigation. Angela Kocherga of KTEP El Paso with more.

The FAA is grounding SpaceX in the aftermath of a historic and messy launch in South Texas.

Also the story behind a Texas furniture store owner, known as much for his TV commercials as for his big league sports wagers.

How two Uvalde survivors are rebuilding their lives

Almost a year after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, two injured fourth graders are still trying to recover. Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times talks with us about his profile of two children injured in the shooting – and the months since.

Yesterday’s half-hour grounding of Southwest Airlines departures was blamed on technical issues. Why the FAA and other investigators want a closer look.

Why some lawmakers are pushing to keep Texas crypto miners from cashing in on a tool to help the power grid survive during times of peak demand.

TxDOT wants to bury a highway. The Dallas City Council wants to get rid of it.

Tenure is on the agenda in the Texas Senate this week, as lawmakers weigh a bill that would end the practice for the new faculty at public colleges and universities.

The Texas Department of Transportation wants to bury Interstate 345, a 1.4-mile stretch of highway that connects Dallas to its Deep Ellum neighborhood. But the Dallas City Council wants to get rid of it.

A Hill Country destination looks beyond tourism: The city of Kerrville gets busy on a plan to attract industry.

Pro sports teams shunned gambling on games, but now, Texas’ 11 top franchises are teaming up to legalize sports betting in the Lone Star State.

The Texas Standard’s favorite stories of the year

After a year covering miles and miles of Texas, what did our producers pick as standout stories? With a new year dawning, we asked our team of producers and reporters to hand pick some of the standout stories we’ve shared over the past 12 months. From amateur astronomers making celestial discoveries to a reconsideration of labor leader Cesar Chavez, and a mysterious tradition involving a certain Sam Houston. We offer a collection of unforgettable voices and tales from 2022 today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: January 26, 2021

In Texas’ most populous metro area, a rethink of how the COVID-19 vaccine is being distributed, we’ll have the latest. Plus, when the Texas capitol city cut the budget for its police department by almost a third last year, Texas’ governor warned there would be a price to pay. Now, with the Texas legislature in session, what the governor plans to do to keep other Texas cities from following Austin’s move. And the Biden administration’s plan to increase the minimum wage. Is now the right time and do the numbers add up? Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: January 11, 2021

From pandemic to political upheaval, a budget shortfall and beyond, what promises to be a Texas legislative session like few in recent memory. We’ll have more on tomorrow’s start of the Lone Star legislative session. Also, after the storming of the U.S. Capitol, the role of Texas’ junior senator under growing scrutiny amid calls for his resignation. And a new strain of the COVID virus found in Texas, what it means for doctors and for Texans at large. And did air pollution make Hurricane Harvey worse than it would have been otherwise? New findings from Texas based researchers. All of those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

The Lege Is Back

Texas lawmakers have reconvened at the State Capitol Building for the start of the 86th Legislative Session. That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.

Capital Bar Conversations

Work at the Texas State Capitol building can get contentious. Partisan disputes and back-hallway wheeling and dealing can leave one feeling a little exhausted at the end of the day — or whenever the lege wraps up. Sometimes what you need is a visit to the bar down the street.

What You Might Not Know About the Texas Constitution

If you want to hold public office in Texas, you have to believe in God. You cannot serve even as dog catcher – if it’s an elected office, you must believe in God.

Given the long history we have had of con artists, and scofflaws, carpetbaggers, and white-collar criminals holding public office around the state, this may seem hard to believe.

But it is right there in the Texas constitution. Plain as day.

Section 4 of the Texas Bill of Rights says that if you wish to hold elected office in Texas you must “acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”

There is no requirement respecting any specific religion. Nothing says a person has to be Baptist or Catholic or Mormon, but it is clear, “No atheists need apply.”

And this would presumably rule out agnostics, too, since they are eternal doubters and could not, with confidence, say that they believe in a Supreme Being. This is just one of the unusual dimensions of the Texas Constitution that few people know about.

Texas protects individual rights more than most states.

In Texas, credit card companies cannot garnish your wages to collect on a bad debt.

Texas is exceptionally protective of debtors in bankruptcy cases, too – especially if you actually own anything worth losing.

If your house is paid for – even if it’s worth $2 million – you get to keep it. If your house sits on 200 acres in the country, you get to keep that. If you have a big, bad, fully decked out pick-up, and it’s paid for, you get to keep it.

Finally, you get to keep two firearms. I don’t know why. I suppose to help you protect your property from pesky bill collectors.

Most Texans seem to believe that Texas has a constitutional right to secede from the U.S. when it feels like it.

It does not. This is a myth.

However, Texas does have the right to divide itself into two, three, four or five states. The only advantage would be to give us 10 senators instead of two.

I don’t know what advantage that would be, since eight more senators would be about as useful as a bucket of water to a drowning man.

But Texas would not be Texas if it were divided. Such plans have actually been discussed.

According to the Handbook of Texas, one plan wanted to divide the state along the Colorado River, with the new territory south and west to be called Lincoln and the part north and east to be called Texas.

Another plan proposed dividing us into three states. These would be called Jefferson, Texas, and Matagorda.

None of these plans ever made it out of committee. I suppose the legislators knew that had the good people of Texas gotten wind of it, they would have gotten a long Texas rope, and strung them up from a live oak.

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell Ice Cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

The Texas Legislature is Back in Session

Tuesday marked the beginning of the 84th Texas Legislature. Thousands of lawmakers returned to the State Capitol in Austin for the 140-day session.

Typewriter Rodeo’s Jodi Egerton wrote a special poem to welcome the legislators and a hopeful 2015.