Ric Galvan, the youngest member of the San Antonio City Council representing District 6, is currently 25 years old. The unabashed progressive from the city's West Side has become a dependable ally for Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones as he questions the benefits of Project Marvel and prevent cuts to social services in a tightening city budget.

Texas is now making it easier for parents to exempt their children from school vaccination requirements. This comes just after the state saw the worst measles outbreak in a generation that took the lives of two children. Meanwhile Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is limiting eligibility for the covid vaccine—just as the virus is spreading once again.

It was a time when Americans were afraid to speak out. A swirling political and cultural hysteria was part of life. Anyone who questioned American policy was targeted and ruined. Books were taken from libraries. School teachers were being scrutinized. It was the Red Scare. In post-World War II America being called a communist was a serious charge. America was willing to abandon freedoms because of alleged conspiracies. Clay Risen joins us to discuss his new book "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America."

In Houston, from 1970 to 1973, Dean Arnold Corll raped, tortured and murdered a minimum of twenty-eight teenage boys. He was known as the Candy Man. The full story has never been told until now. Investigative reporter Lise Olsen has uncovered new information about the killer and his victims. Her new book is The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys.

We think of the surrender of Robert E. Lee as the end of the Civil War, but the end really wasn’t clear at the time. The Galveston News reported Lee’s surrender as a positive development for the Confederacy and encouraged Texans to fight on. How did Lincoln’s peace take hold? How did a divided nation come together? Michael Vorenberg’s new book is Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War.

The Amazon rainforest is known as the “lungs of planet Earth,” but what happens when deforestation in Brazil continues? One journalist tried to alert the world to this coming crisis. Dom Phillips was writing the book “How to Save The Amazon” when he was murdered. His colleagues refused to let Phillips' work die—and they completed his book.

After President Trump ordered Texas to immediately redistrict its congressional map to deliver five additional Republican congressional seats, California Democrats responded with their own redistricting scheme. How does gerrymandering work? Why is this allowed? What does this mean for a viable democracy?

Electricity costs have risen 5.5% in the past year, nearly double the national inflation rate. And they are projected to continue to climb. According to a new study, one driver of higher power bills is how the public is subsidizing the energy bills of some of the largest Tech companies in the world. Meanwhile cheap renewable energy (like solar and wind) is being outlawed by the Trump administration.

The race is on to get humans to Mars. But what will they find? Not little green men, despite that’s what many believed about the red planet. In the early 1900s it was thought that Mars was inhabited and was home to a utopian society in the grip of a planet-wide drought. How did Mars mania grip the nation, influence pop culture and give us cause to stare into the night sky and wonder?

Last summer, 273 people were killed, and 596 were seriously injured in DUI-alcohol related crashes in Texas. And there were 327 DUI-alcohol related traffic crashes over Labor Day weekend in Texas in 2024, causing 10 deaths and 36 serious injuries. Texas law enforcement agencies this week are launching “Drive Sober, No Regrets,” a campaign to keep drivers from getting behind the wheel while under the influence of alcohol.