Defense attorneys for the Walmart mass shooter, who’s already sentenced to life in prison, are asking for the court to take the death penalty off the table or drop the charges altogether due to alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
As we move closer to Election Day, The Texas Newsroom is exploring the role of religion in politics.
And: The city of Palestine, once a booming railroad town, is in a legal battle with Union Pacific to enforce an 1872 contract that promised the railroad company would stay “forever.”
Palestine
What’s ahead for U.S. gymnastics at the Olympics
A faculty committee at UT Austin found that university leaders violated their own rules when calling police to respond to protests over the war in Gaza at the end of the spring semester. Audrey McGlinchy of KUT News shares the latest.
Five years after the mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, a new memorial is unveiled to honor the 23 people killed.
Serious questions have been raised over a private contractor providing healthcare services to prison inmates in many states, including Texas.
And: Texas was well-represented at the men and women’s gymnastics team and all-around events at the Paris Olympics. A look at what’s ahead for the athletes.
The growing union drive in tech
Extreme weather brings flooding and evacuations to an area near the Trinity River. We’ll find out how folks are coping with all that water.
Police remove protestors trying to set up camp on the UT Austin campus.
A new book takes a look at the Republic of Texas – an armed secession movement in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. It happened nearly 30 years ago. Could we see it again?
Also, as union membership grows across the Lone Star State, what does that mean for tech workers and why they face challenges unionizing?
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 cyberwar between the U.S. and its adversaries.
Historic Texas barbecue joints, fading into history? Texas Monthly’s Daniel Vaughn with details.
Plus the week in politics with the Texas Tribune and much more.
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 new report from state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon shows we’re looking at hotter temperatures, more extreme droughts and growing wildfire dangers.
And: A closer look at what comes next for TikTok after President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package that includes a measure to ban the app if China-based parent company ByteDance fails to divest from it within a year.
Lawmakers discuss school savings accounts
After unprecedented attacks over the weekend, Israel is at war with Hamas. Jeremi Suri of UT’s LBJ school with more on what to expect as fighting intensifies.
A big day at the state capitol as lawmakers are called back into session by the governor. On the table: school savings accounts, what critics call vouchers, that some fear will upend public school funding.
Texas mega ranches hitting the market at what appears to be a quickening pace.
Plus the would be restaurant rivals who formed what they call the Taco Mafia.
Why many Texas cotton farmers are planting less this year
After a disastrous season for cotton production, could Texas lose its crown as top producer? Three Texans on the front lines talk about why some fear 2023 could be a tipping point.
The head of the University of Texas System Board of Regents puts a pause on new diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
With student debt forgiveness plans on hold, what are the implications for those struggling most to get out from under it?
Also tech expert Omar Gallaga on the rising price of social media verification and whether it pays to buy into the changes.
Unpacking the Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown
Millions of dollars in tax incentives for renewable energy are now in limbo with a decision from the Texas Supreme Court. A flood of applications for millions of dollars in tax breaks overwhelmed the system before a New Years deadline. We look at what happens to all those unprocessed applications now that the state Supreme Court has said it won’t force the state to process them. Also how many voters in Harris country were prevented from casting a ballot due to problems at the polls? A new report that leaves many critical questions unanswered. And why warning signs were ignored before the chaos of Southwest Airline’s big holiday meltdown. Those stories and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: May 19, 2021
A new executive order from the governor on masks mandates, getting pushback from some local officials. Also, in some of Texas’ biggest cities, protests over continued violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Foreign policy specialist Jeremy Suri on what’s behind this latest round of deadly clashes, and efforts aimed at a cease fire. And righting a past wrong: Texas lawmakers push for two Texas tribes to offer gaming on their land denied by earlier legislation. Plus as U.S. and Chinese rovers leave their marks on mars, whose planet it it, anyway? Those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
Understanding Violence Today (Part 2)
How is violence perpetuated through economic sanctions, the media, and political decisions and what real peace might look like? Join KUT’s Rebecca McInroy along with writer and the Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Yousef Munayyer, and economist James K. Galbraith to talk about understanding violence today.
Understanding Violence Today (Part 1)
How is violence perpetuated through economic sanctions, the media, and political decisions and what real peace might look like? Join KUT’s Rebecca McInroy along with writer and the Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Yousef Munayyer, and economist James K. Galbraith to talk about understanding violence today.
Texas Standard: March 30, 2017
A whole new rodeo: Texas Ag commissioner Sid Miller strikes an economic agreement with a group of west bank settlements? We’ll explore. Also: a billionaire, a brash talker, and a would be president? Skip Hollandsworth of Texas Monthly on the prospects of a Cuban revolution. And how to pay for public schools: in a session dominated by what proponents call school choice, fresh fault lines emerge over the bottom line for eduction. Also, an invader arrives in Texas and experts say it’s killing our bats. Those stories and lots more today on the national news show of Texas, The Texas Standard:
Israel and Palestine
In the first half of this edition of In Perspective host Rebecca McInroy of KUT Radio talks with: Dr. Amelia Weinreb, lecturer at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas; Dr. Yoav Di-Capua, History Professor at UT and author of Arab Existentialism: A lost chapter in the intellectual history of decolonization; and Associate Professor in the Middle Eastern Studies Department UT and author of Place and Ideology In Contemporary Hebrew Literature, Dr. Karen Grumberg.
In the second half of the show McInroy turns to: Dr. Helga Tawil Souri, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University; Dr. Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History at Rice University and author of Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001; and Dr. Samer Ali, Professor in The Middle Eastern Studies Department at The University of Texas at Austin.