Texas Standard

March 17, 2023

This West Texas town has been under a boil-water notice for nearly 5 years

State lawmakers heard hours of testimony on a bill that would restrict gender-affirming care for minors. Senate Bill 14 wouldn’t just end access to gender-affirming care for young Texans, it would also revoke the medical license of any doctor who provides it. How Texas’ first family of oil and gas both regulates and profits from […]

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March 16, 2023

How to testify at the Texas Legislature

After the Texas Education Agency’s announcement that it will take over the Houston Independent School district, we’re taking a look at what previous state takeovers could signal for this one. “Stand up and be heard” – that’s what we’re often told to do when the Legislature’s in session. But how does one do that, exactly? […]

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March 15, 2023

Breaking down the saga at the Dallas Zoo

School vouchers, now styled as school choice, are back before state lawmakers. They have been rejected in the past, but will this year be different? Senate Bill 8 would provide Texas parents with an education account, taxpayer money that could be used to send students to private school. And the bill has special features designed […]

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March 14, 2023

NASA’s new head scientist on the future of space exploration

Two lawsuits in Texas, one in Galveston and one in Amarillo, have potential impacts on a post-Roe v. Wade world. SMU legal scholar Seema Mohapatra on the implications for people seeking abortions in Texas and beyond. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn says he plans to block a Biden administration proposal that would allow thousands of migrants […]

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March 13, 2023

Documentary highlights competitive high school mariachi

There’s a push in the Texas Senate to raise the penalty for illegal voting despite a widely reported absence of evidence that it’s a major problem. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán of the Texas Newsroom shares his weekly lookahead at what’s happening at the Legislature. A bill filed last week would abolish the Texas Juvenile Justice Department and […]

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March 10, 2023

Ideas for combatting the trucking shortage

Five men are handed over in Mexico along with a letter purportedly from the Gulf Cartel apologizing for the “senseless crime” of violently kidnapping four Americans, leaving two of them and one Mexican dead. U.S. officials say the apology seems authentic, though perhaps not sincere. What’s being done to combat the nation’s shortage of truck […]

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March 9, 2023

Pumped: Food, fuel and the future of Texas – A Texas Standard special

We don’t think of gas stations much, yet they are fixtures across Texas, and tell us a lot about who we are and where we’re going. There are more than 11,000 of them scattered across the state – along major highways and tiny backroads alike, they fuel up long haul trucks, hungry commuters and sometimes […]

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March 8, 2023

This Texas folk trio was lost to time – and that’s mostly OK with them

In an apparent first since the Dobbs decision, five women have filed suit against the State of Texas challenging the state’s abortion ban. There’s frustration among immigration advocates amid reports that the Biden administration is considering reviving the practice of detaining migrant families who cross the border illegally, a policy initially shut down by the […]

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