Latest Texas News
Under The Dome
House land-use committee to check on 2025 housing laws and study local fees, faster permits July 20
Data Centers
Meta Defends Corporate Resource Footprint in Formal Response to Texas House Water Probe
Agencies
Texas Upstream Oil and Gas Jobs Rise by 4,100 in May, Marking Third Straight Month of Gains
Agencies
Governor Abbott Announces $33.6M Semiconductor Grant to Expand Texas Instruments’ Richardson Fab
Agencies
TxDOT Awarded $24M Federal BUILD Grant to Rebuild I-20 Interchange in Midland County
Agencies
TxDOT Advances 14-Mile Grand Parkway Segment to Improve Mobility Around Houston
Agencies
TPWD Takes On State Coordinator Role for Texas Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network
Opinion
OPINION: Limiting AI Infrastructure Threatens Texans’ Access to World Class, No Cost Healthcare Advancements
Jul 8, 2026
OPINION: Texas Must Fight Big Pharma, Not Wage War on Pharmacies Jun 25, 2026
OPINION: Cities Should Treat Residents Like Grown-ups, Not Dependents Jun 1, 2026
OPINION: Texans Deserve Lower Drug Prices Without Losing Their Pharmacies May 21, 2026
OPINION: Local Governments Failing Victims of Sexual Assault: Law Enforcement Needs State Support May 11, 2026
Recycling
Oregon’s Producer-Funded Recycling Posts First-Year Numbers as Texas Still Leaves Container Value in the Landfill
Oregon has published the first hard results from its producer-funded recycling system, offering a working example of the kind of stable, self-financing collection infrastructure Texas could build.
Profiles of Texans
Mark Bell Says Texas Can Meet Surging Power Demand Without Passing the Bill to Consumers
Jul 10, 2026
Sen. Sarah Eckhardt Is Focused on Long-Term Solutions for Texas Infrastructure Jul 3, 2026
Katherine McLane on Building a Crisis Communications Firm from Public Service Jun 29, 2026
Reeve Bull on How Virginia Used AI to Help Save $1.4B for Residents and Businesses Jun 26, 2026
Dr. Lori Teller on Texas’ Fight with the Screwworm Jun 23, 2026
Dan Huberty Has Always Had a Plan Jun 17, 2026
Featured Stories
New World Screwworm
U.S. Screwworm Tally Reaches 35 as a Crockett County Goat Marks the Newest Confirmed Case
Education
Texas Awaits July 31 Science STAAR Scores as Math Lags and Reading Rebounds
New World Screwworm
Screwworm Count Climbs to 34 as First Cases Reach Brewster County in the Big Bend
Education
Texas Recapture Falls Below $2.3 Billion as HB 2’s Bigger Allotment Blunts ‘Robin Hood’
Health Care
Federal Rural Health Dollars Reach Their First Texas County as ‘Rural Texas Strong’ Awards Begin
New World Screwworm
U.S. Screwworm Tally Holds at 32 for a Full Week as USDA’s Sterile-Fly Network Scales Up
Latest Policy Clips
Has Texas "hit the limits" of being a low-regulation, low-tax state?
How Texas' SAM AI tool can help small businesses
What do New World screwworms actually do?
Texas Talks Podcasts
All Episodes →
One Shot on a Brownsville Street
On July 13, 1859, a rancher named Juan Cortina watched a Brownsville marshal pistol-whip a Mexican American man he knew. Cortina drew, fired, and rode off — and the border would not be quiet for years.
Read the Full Story →New World Screwworm
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U.S. Screwworm Tally Reaches 35 as a Crockett County Goat Marks the Newest Confirmed Case
The number of confirmed New World screwworm infestations in the United States has climbed to 35, with 34 in Texas and one in New Mexico, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's confirmed-detections dashboard. The most recent infestation was confirmed
Screwworm Count Climbs to 34 as First Cases Reach Brewster County in the Big Bend
The tally of New World screwworm cases has risen to 34 and pushed into the Big Bend area for the first time, ending a week-long plateau in the outbreak that has spread across West and South Texas since June. According
U.S. Screwworm Tally Holds at 32 for a Full Week as USDA’s Sterile-Fly Network Scales Up
The count of New World screwworm has held at 32 confirmed animal cases for a full week, the longest plateau since the pest crossed into Texas in early June. Federal and state agencies continue to press an eradication campaign built
Border Stays Shut to Livestock as Screwworm Closure Nears One-Year Mark
The U.S. southern border reaches one year closed to livestock trade this week, and with New World screwworm now established inside Texas, the calculus for reopening it has been turned on its head. On July 9, 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke
Texas Biomed Partners with British Biotech Firm as US Screwworm Tally Reaches 32
The Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio said it will open its high-containment laboratories to a British biotechnology company to develop new tools against the New World screwworm, a new front in the response as the U.S. case count
Data Centers
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Meta Defends Corporate Resource Footprint in Formal Response to Texas House Water Probe
Tech giant Meta Platforms, Inc. issued a comprehensive regulatory response to the Texas House Committee on Natural Resources, detailing its infrastructure cooling mechanisms and long-term water conservation targets amid heightening state scrutiny over industrial resource consumption. Signed by Vice President
Mark Bell Says Texas Can Meet Surging Power Demand Without Passing the Bill to Consumers
The numbers sound almost implausible: more than 400 gigawatts of prospective new electricity users are asking to connect to the Texas grid — roughly four times the state's all-time current demand — and the vast majority are data centers. Mark
Batch Zero Takes Effect July 11 as Abbott’s Data-Center Ratepayer Memo Comes Due
Texas' effort to control who pays for the power that data centers demand reaches two hard markers this month. ERCOT's Batch Zero interconnection framework takes effect July 11, and Governor Greg Abbott's order to shield ordinary customers from data-center infrastructure
Sen. Sarah Eckhardt Is Focused on Long-Term Solutions for Texas Infrastructure
Texas is learning to adjust quickly to rapid population growth and increasingly frequent extreme weather. With a legislature that meets in regular session only once every two years, that work now spills into special sessions and interim hearings on government
Vantage’s Stargate Campus in Shackelford County Nears Its First Power-On
One of the largest single data-center projects yet planned in Texas is approaching an operational milestone in a rural county west of Fort Worth. Vantage Data Centers' "Frontier" campus in Shackelford County, developed as part of the Stargate initiative led
Health Care
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Federal Rural Health Dollars Reach Their First Texas County as ‘Rural Texas Strong’ Awards Begin
The largest state share of a new federal rural-health fund has started reaching individual Texas counties, a step toward shoring up the hospitals and clinics whose closures drive up costs and shrink access across rural Texas. The Fisher County Hospital
Texas Marketplace Shoppers Brace for a Second Straight Double-Digit Premium Jump
Texans who buy their own health insurance are on track for a second consecutive year of steep premium increases, as insurers across the country file 2027 rates that would push the cost of Affordable Care Act coverage up by more
‘The best $2,000 my commissioners court has agreed to spend’: Texas jails carry the state’s mental health crisis, and sheriffs want out
A sheriff, a prosecutor, a defense lawyer and a probate judge sat at the same witness table Tuesday and told the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services the same thing: county jails have become the state's default mental hospital, and
Rural Texas Hospitals Move to End UnitedHealthcare Contracts Over Reimbursement Dispute
A network representing 45 rural and community hospitals across Texas is moving to terminate its contracts with UnitedHealthcare, a standoff that turns on the reimbursement rates rural facilities say are too low to keep their doors open. The dispute, still
Texas Insurers File 2027 ACA Rates as Higher Costs Continue For Consumers
Texas health insurers are filing their proposed 2027 marketplace rates this summer after enhanced federal premium subsidies that supported Affordable Care Act coverage for millions expired. The filings come as about four million Texans who buy their own insurance face
Education
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Texas Awaits July 31 Science STAAR Scores as Math Lags and Reading Rebounds
Texas families will get their next hard look at student achievement on July 31, when the Texas Education Agency releases spring 2026 STAAR science results for grades 5 and 8, the final piece of this year's testing data and the
Texas Recapture Falls Below $2.3 Billion as HB 2’s Bigger Allotment Blunts ‘Robin Hood’
The amount of local property-tax revenue Texas clawed back from property-wealthy school districts fell sharply in the 2025-26 school year, the first full accounting since lawmakers rewrote the school-finance formulas. According to the Texas School Coalition, 192 districts paid more
Governor Abbott Launches Teacher-Led Texas Classroom Commission to Shape Education Policy
Governor Greg Abbott announced the launch of the Texas Classroom Commission, a new teacher-driven advisory body designed to put public school educators at the center of shaping state education policy. Composed entirely of current and retired public school classroom teachers,
Fort Worth ISD Weighs Campus Closure and Deep Cuts as District Chases an Exit From State Takeover
Fort Worth ISD, the state's largest school district under a full Texas Education Agency takeover, is moving to close a campus and erase a tens-of-millions-dollar deficit as its appointed leadership tries to lift student outcomes fast enough to hand control
Texas Education Freedom Accounts Near 96,000 Students as a New Comptroller Takes the Helm
Texas' first-year education savings account program is on track to fund nearly 96,000 students for 2026-27, roughly 23,000 more than began drawing money on July 1. The Texas Comptroller has awarded funding to an additional bloc of families beyond the