Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:

Seven employees of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission have been fired under suspicion of breaching the data and stealing the service funds of thousands of low-income Texans who rely on their services: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/17/texas-hhsc-food-stamp-fraud-data-breach/

Amarillo anti-choice activist judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, his court cherry-picked by of officials from Idaho, Kansas and Missouri and in defiance of a recent SCOTUS ruling, has green-lighted those states efforts to scale back access to the abortion drug mifepristone: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-judge-allows-states-to-advance-efforts-to-restrict-access-to-mifepristone/

Christian Nationalist elements in Texas are smarting after an opening day loss in their effort to install Rep. David Cook as House Speaker: https://www.chron.com/culture/religion/article/christian-alt-right-politics-20036423.php

...The effort to Christianize government, should it succeed in Texas, is highly unlikely to stop at the Lone Star State's borders: https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/texas-speaker-vote-christian-nationalists-trump-rcna187869

...State Senator Phil King of northwest D/FW is once again pressing to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every Texas classroom: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/ten-commandments-texas-schools-20035683.php

...Meanwhile a SECOND North Texas pastor is accused of child sexual abuse, just this month: https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-01-15/another-north-texas-pastor-arrested-on-child-sexual-abuse-charge-court-records-show

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