Special Session

Is this the end of efforts to keep Fairfield Lake State Park public?

For the first time in modern memory, the Texas House is set to take up a school voucher-like plan.

How do you put a price tag on a state park? We’ll hear more about the challenges facing Texas Parks and Wildlife as it tries to reclaim parkland purchased by developers.

In a dramatic U-turn this week, China’s president appears to be trying to warm up to the U.S. Some clues as to why might be found in a new report from the Dallas Federal Reserve.

Also: What some forecasters are calling a “super El Niño” is coming soon to Texas.

Emmitt Smith’s latest move is fighting opioid overdoses

Texas governor Greg Abbott’s prediction a school voucher bill would pass now looks unlikely as the latest special session winds down.

Legendary running back and three-time Super Bowl champ Emmitt Smith teams up with NARCAN to reduce opioid deaths.

How Texans cross into neighboring New Mexico for abortions. We’ll have a special report.

A Texas town’s long-lost photos go on display. What residents hope to learn about their past.

And how a notorious monster has helped generations of parents get children to behave – especially at bedtime. Kristin Cabrera explains the Cucuy.

Legislature takes up ban on vaccine mandates at private businesses

Years after peak COVID, Texas lawmakers are taking steps to ban vaccine mandates by private businesses.

Amid a nursing shortage in Texas and beyond, the journey of a new nurse trying to make a difference.

An award-winning novel set near the border takes the western genre to a whole new place. We’ll talk with ‘Valley of Shadows’ author Rudy Ruiz.

Also: As a new NBA season approaches, there are big expectations building for the San Antonio Spurs’ 19-year old Victor Wembanyama.

Dallas pastor stuck in Israel shares what he’s seen amid renewed conflict with Hamas

A third special session of the Texas Legislature gets underway and it’s not just education that’s on the agenda. Although the governor’s push for a so-called education savings accounts is getting the lion’s share of attention as the session starts, border security is rising fast as a top issue. Julián Aguilar of the Texas Newsroom joins us with more.

As Texas lawmakers offer support for Israel, some Texans are feeling the effects of war firsthand. We’ll talk with the head of a Dallas interfaith group caught in Israel at the outbreak of fighting, now trying to get himself and his colleagues back home safely.

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.

KUT Morning Newscast for October 6, 2023

Central Texas top stories for October 6, 2023. ACL road closures. Austin offers neighborhood guides in Spanish. Special session for school vouchers. Red River Rivalry resumes this weekend.

KUT Afternoon Newscast for October 5, 2023

Central Texas top stories for October 5, 2023. Today’s rain the most in Austin since mid-May. Georgetown offering rebates for xeriscaping. Gov Abbott announces agenda for special session. Flo being removed from Barton Springs Pool. Ballot prop would let Texas childcare centers save on property taxes. Special events mean busy month at Austin airport. CapMetro offers additional service on ACL weekend.

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.

KUT Afternoon Newscast for October 2, 2023

Central Texas top stories for October 2, 2023. Rain, cooler-than-normal weather expected later this week. Century-old diseased tree at Barton Springs Pool to be removed this week. Special session focused on “education” expected this month. Austin looking to close gaps in Shoal Creek Trail. Gas prices getting lower. Texas faces OU this weekend in Dallas.

Is Paycheck Protection Program fraud partly behind the home price spike?

A planned buoy barrier along the Rio Grande designed to prevent migrant crossings faces legal obstacles of its own.

What’s known and what isn’t about the man who had been reported missing in the Houston area for eight years – who had only really been missing for about a day.

Could pandemic-era abuses be partly to blame for rising home prices?

And, how to lose friends and alienate the Legislature: Austin journalist Christopher Hooks on Gov. Greg Abbott’s legislative strategy and why he’s had so much trouble passing some key items on his agenda despite Republican majorities.

How the Legislature’s property tax cut proposals differ

A regular session and now two specials – what will it take to get lawmakers to agree on a property tax cut plan? A closer look at why the two approaches are at the center of a political battle.

Sentencing begins in a federal courtroom this week for the gunman who killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019.

How some Houstonians without adequate air conditioning are trying to beat the heat as the thermometer rises.

Plus, what science is revealing about a common bird of prey and frequent defender of many a Texas garden.

As one special session ends, the next one begins

Has the Texas border become like the Iowa State Fair, a mandatory stop for Republican presidential candidates?

It’s a long, hot summer for Texas lawmakers as the governor calls another special session, focusing solely on property taxes.

Rethink35, the organization questioning another expansion of the interstate highway that cuts through Austin, has given up its legal battle – at least for now. Why other cities in Texas
are watching closely.

Also, how Muslims in Texas are celebrating a holiday often referred to as Big Eid.

Everything you always wanted to know about the Texas energy grid

Texas senators met yesterday to talk about two divisive issues: property taxes and the impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton. So where do things stand?

Can Texas’ power grid withstand the heat? We’ll get detailed on supply and demand.

A new book from journalist Dan Solomon, ‘The Fight for Midnight,’ reimagines Wendy Davis’ 2013 abortion filibuster as YA fiction.

And a new law protecting trap-neuter-release programs for cats will soon go into effect – but some say there’s a problem no one considered.

Uvalde mariachi team’s win was a bright spot in a year of darkness

Why couldn’t Republicans who control the Legislature see eye to eye?

There’s a cost to Texas taxpayers that comes with the Legislature going into overtime. Professor Mark Jones of Rice University helps us crunch the numbers.

The Texas Education Agency is expected to take over the Houston Independent School District on Thursday. We’ll take a look at what state-appointed managers face once they start getting settled in.

How did a fight over state incentives to attract business in Texas turn out – and did business boosters get what they wanted?

Plus, the young mariachi band that gave Uvalde something to cheer for.

What’s in store for lawmakers’ first special session?

The gavels have fallen on the 88th legislative session, yet lawmakers are still in action, as the governor called the first of what are expected to be multiple special sessions. We’ll look at the unfinished business on the agenda, and a special focus on where we stand with several bills related to public education.

The nonprofit organization Refugee Services of Texas – the largest resettlement agency in the state – is shutting down after four decades, citing mounting financial pressures.

Also, journalist Maria Hinojosa with more on a new special on Uvalde set to debut on PBS tonight.

Texas Standard: October 15, 2021

A likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as the 5th Circuit reaffirms a decision to let Texas’ near total abortion ban remain in effect. Other stories we are tracking: in the final days of a third special session, the Texas House green lights a bill that would force transgender Texas youth to play on public school sports teams that align with their sex assigned at birth. Also, why supply chains have become a big worry for everyday Texans. And a horror film with a message steeped in the Mexican American experience. We’ll meet the star who hails from the Rio Grande Valley. Plus the week in politics and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: October 14, 2021

It is a legislative season that at times has seemed like it might never end. Today Bob Garrett of the Dallas Morning News and Taylor Goldenstein of the Houston Chronicle get us up to speed on what the lege has left to finish, and what’s been done up to this point. Also the launch of a lawsuit over public beach closures near the SpaceX facility. And a military plane crash brings home the dangers of housing developments near bases, quite literally. Those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: September 20, 2021

A rough and tumble year in Texas politics is set to get even tougher as Texas lawmakers gather today to redraw the states political maps. As redistricting takes center stage again in Texas, a major change in how those maps will be redrawn has many worried communities of color and interest stand to lose their strength without federal oversight. We’ll hear more. Also why so many companies, eager to position their brands, are avoiding weighing in on Texas’ new abortion law. And a new documentary on a woman who changed the face of the Supreme Court, but is seldom thought of as a native Texan. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: September 8, 2021

The date’s been set: September 20th. And so has the agenda, if the Governor has his way. What’s in store for a third special session? We’ll have details. Also, new lawsuits take aim at Texas’ new election laws. And as the U.S. goes, so goes Mexico? Quite the contrary, as Mexico’s Supreme Court, in a dramatic step, decriminalizes abortion. A victory for an increasingly strong women’s rights movement there. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: August 17, 2021

Here we are once again: the Texas Supreme Court and the governor are telling us one thing in regards to masks, and schools are telling us another. Some school districts believe that even with the supreme court siding with the governor they can still ask children to mask up. We’ll tell you more. And we’ve had a few days to go through thousands of pages on a super comprehensive climate report. What are Texas experts saying about it? Also, a new book explores a new idea- that the Hill Country effectively acted as a borderland within a borderland during the civil war. And when should the constitution be amended? Did you know our own is the longest in the country? That and more today on the Texas Standard: