Texas Standard

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 […]

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? […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

As a deadline approaches for bills to be filed in the Texas Legislature, proposals on guns and secession are making headlines. There is rare bipartisan support building around a proposal that proponents say would boost the effectiveness of background checks for buying a firearm, a move prompted by the school shooting in Uvalde. When it […]

This week at the Texas Legislature: Laws aimed at making it easier to have a baby in Texas. Under the big dome in Austin, a hearing on a proposal to ban Chinese non-citizens from buying land in Texas. The state Republican Party censures one of its own, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, after a vote supporting […]