Road to the 90th
17
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Latest Texas News
Agencies
Attorney General Paxton Secures $45M Settlement With Gilead Over Texas Medicaid Claims
Agencies
RRC Commissioner Christian Backs Energy Secretary’s Call for Responsible Data Center Growth
Agencies
Comptroller Huffines Launches Texas FIRST Strike Team to Target Fraud and Government Corruption
Agencies
TPWD Celebrates Opening of Dan A. Hughes Unit at Devils River State Natural Area
Agencies
Governor Abbott Announces $8M in Rural Texas Strong Grants for 28 Rural Healthcare Providers
Agencies
Attorney General Paxton Secures Lululemon Agreement on Chemical Safety Standards in Activewear
Agencies
TCEQ Approves $2.17M in Penalties Against 93 Regulated Entities
Opinion
OPINION: Central Texas Is Building a Critical Piece of America’s AI Future
Oct 22, 2026
OPINION: Why America First Matters For Texas Oct 20, 2026
OPINION: COLA Helps, But Older Americans Need More Than an Adjustment Oct 19, 2026
OPINION: Texas Gave Consumers the Right to Repair. Now Finish the Job. Sep 28, 2026
OPINION: Meeting With Small-Business Owners Signals Strong Start to Comptroller Huffines’ Taxpayer First Project Sep 24, 2026
Education
New TEA Rule Cuts School Deadline to Report Suspected Child Abuse to 24 Hours
Texas school districts and charter schools will have 24 hours, not 48, to report suspected abuse or neglect of a student starting Oct. 25, under a rule the Texas Education Agency adopted and filed with the Secretary of State on Oct. 5.
Profiles of Texans
Dr. Joshua Rhodes Ran the Numbers on Texas’s 400-Gigawatt Forecast
Oct 22, 2026
Rep. Carl Tepper Wants DA Accountability — and a Remedy That Fits the Problem Oct 8, 2026
The Yellow Pages: How a Computer Scientist Became Texas’ Voice for Children’s Mental Health Oct 2, 2026
“Quit Picking on Us”: Texas Hospitals Prepare to Defend Their Share of the Bill Oct 1, 2026
The Punch Card: How a Janitor’s Job Built America’s First Tiny Home Village Sep 28, 2026
The Prescription She Never Filled: Rep. Katrina Pierson’s Bid to Depoliticize Women’s Health Sep 24, 2026
Featured Stories
Agencies
Nearly a Third of Medicaid-Approved In-Home Nursing Hours for Texas Children Went Unstaffed
Agencies
The Panel That Drafts Texas Home Contracts Leans Toward Dropping Notice by Mail
New World Screwworm
USDA Confirms First U.S. Screwworm Case in Wildlife, an Elk Harvested on a Pecos County Game Ranch
Agencies
Texas Throws Out a Concrete Plant Permit After the Company Stopped Showing Up
Water
Edwards Aquifer Authority Steps Back to Stage 2, Easing Pumping Cuts to 30 Percent While San Antonio Stays in Stage 3 Watering Rules
Agencies
Texas Veterinary Complaints Nearly Doubled, and Staff Closed 68 Without a Board Vote
Latest Policy Clips
Why is Texas spending $35 million a year, and why is it getting worse?
How do single moms manage the rising costs of health care?
Why would one hospital system write off $1 billion?
Texas Talks Podcasts
All Episodes →
Unionist Texans Join a Rio Grande Campaign
The First Texas Cavalry, USA, sailed from New Orleans for South Texas to disrupt commerce moving between Confederate Texas and Mexico.
Read the Full Story →Interim Hearings
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Rep. Carl Tepper Wants DA Accountability — and a Remedy That Fits the Problem
The reason the Texas House didn't subpoena José Garza had nothing to do with reluctance. The Travis County district attorney had been invited to testify before the House Select Committee on Governmental Oversight, and he didn't come. Members discussed compelling
Comptroller’s Office Defends School Choice Safeguards as Senators Probe Pre-K Demand and Award Data
The Texas Comptroller’s Office told the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 7 that the state’s new school choice program runs on parent-approved payments and two layers of audit. Senators questioned who is applying and why. Travis Pillow, interim program director
Houston ISD’s Miles Calls Turnaround Texas’ Largest As Senator Presses on Lost Students
Houston Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles told the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 6 that his three years running the state's largest district amount to "certainly largest turnaround in the history of Texas." Sen. José Menendez, D-San Antonio, pressed
Doctors Say Insurers Block Menopause Care as Health Plans Point to Surge in Claims
Doctors told a House subcommittee Oct. 5 that insurer rules, thin physician training and Medicaid gaps keep Texas women from menopause care. The health plans' lobbyist said coverage is not the barrier, and pointed to a surge in claims. Chair
Four-Day School Weeks Cost Students Learning, Education Commissioner Tells Senate Panel
Texas students lose ground when their districts move to four-day school weeks, Education Commissioner Mike Morath told the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 6. By the end of the hearing's longest charge, the chair said she sees no benefit in
Grid & Power
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Dr. Joshua Rhodes Ran the Numbers on Texas’s 400-Gigawatt Forecast
Dr. Joshua Rhodes did the math so the rest of Texas wouldn't have to. The headline figure in Texas energy right now is the size of ERCOT's large-load queue — the electricity that data centers and other big industrial users
Texas PUC Approves a Data Center’s Hookup to a Pecos County Solar Farm Over the Utility’s Objection as Amazon’s Nuclear Deal Awaits a December Decision
The Public Utility Commission of Texas approved a plan to run a 180-megawatt data center directly off a Pecos County solar farm on Oct. 15, overruling the local wires utility, which had argued the grid study behind the deal was
Texas Data Centers Seeking 75 Megawatts or More Now Owe $100,000 Up Front and $50,000 a Megawatt in Security
Any company that wants to plug a data center or other very large power user into the Texas grid must now put down $100,000 for a study and post $50,000 for every megawatt it requests, under a Public Utility Commission
Texas PUC Won’t Make Data Centers Measure the Power and Water They Use
Texas will not require data centers to measure how much electricity and water they use inside their buildings. State utility regulators turned the idea down Oct. 1 — not on its merits, which they never reached, but because the proposal
Senators Press for Competitive Bidding and Cost Controls as Transmission Price Tags Climb
Senators spent more than six hours Sept. 30 asking who should control the cost of Texas' transmission buildout, with witnesses urging competitive bidding, a lower guaranteed return for utilities and relief for ratepayers before the 765-kV Permian Basin lines are
Education
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New TEA Rule Cuts School Deadline to Report Suspected Child Abuse to 24 Hours
Texas school districts and charter schools will have 24 hours, not 48, to report suspected abuse or neglect of a student starting Oct. 25, under a rule the Texas Education Agency adopted and filed with the Secretary of State on
Analysis: Texas Capped What Local Governments Can Take. On Nov. 3, Voters Decide What They’ll Give Up.
Early voting opened Monday on a question Texas has spent a decade engineering its way toward. The state's bond database says voters will decide $62.9 billion in local borrowing on Nov. 3. While that number is massive, the number smaller
Austin Mayor Says Burnet and Webb Parent Petitions Appear to Have Enough Signatures, but the District Will Not Verify Them Until After Oct. 30
Parents at two Austin middle schools appear to have gathered enough signatures to ask the state to close both campuses, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said Oct. 16. Austin ISD says it cannot confirm that until after Oct. 30, and it
Comptroller’s Office Defends School Choice Safeguards as Senators Probe Pre-K Demand and Award Data
The Texas Comptroller’s Office told the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 7 that the state’s new school choice program runs on parent-approved payments and two layers of audit. Senators questioned who is applying and why. Travis Pillow, interim program director
Houston ISD’s Miles Calls Turnaround Texas’ Largest As Senator Presses on Lost Students
Houston Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles told the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 6 that his three years running the state's largest district amount to "certainly largest turnaround in the history of Texas." Sen. José Menendez, D-San Antonio, pressed
Health Care
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Nearly a Third of Medicaid-Approved In-Home Nursing Hours for Texas Children Went Unstaffed
Nearly a third of the in-home nursing hours that Texas Medicaid approved for medically fragile children were never delivered, state health officials told a public meeting in Austin on Oct. 15. The service is private duty nursing: continuous skilled nursing
Texas Veterinary Complaints Nearly Doubled, and Staff Closed 68 Without a Board Vote
Texans filed 1,662 complaints against veterinarians last year, nearly double the year before. On Oct. 20 the state board that decides them closed about 150 without any discipline, in block votes that named no case aloud, over the objections of
Comanche County Hospital Is Slated for $6.8M in Rural Grants, but No Contract Is Signed
Comanche County Medical Center is in line for $6.83 million in Rural Texas Strong grants across three separate awards, but none of the three has a signed contract, according to a state list updated Oct. 14. The Health and Human
The Board Writing Texas Rural Hospital Training Dissolves Next September, Done or Not
Texas owes the people who run its 156 rural hospitals a free management school, and the nine-member state committee writing the coursework has until Sept. 1, 2027 to deliver it — the day the law puts the committee out of
Texas Still Has Not Adopted the Rule Letting Its Sickest Children Skip the Nursing Home
The rule that would let the most medically fragile children in Texas get Medicaid nursing care at home — without first moving into a nursing facility, and without waiting their turn on a list — has now been through two
Water
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Edwards Aquifer Authority Steps Back to Stage 2, Easing Pumping Cuts to 30 Percent While San Antonio Stays in Stage 3 Watering Rules
Farms, factories and water utilities that pump from the Edwards Aquifer will now have their permitted withdrawals cut 30 percent instead of 35 percent, after the agency that regulates the aquifer moved the San Antonio Pool back to a less
Texas Will Cite Water Systems That Never Told Customers Their Line May Be Lead
Texas water utilities that never told their customers the pipe running into the house might be made of lead will start collecting violations by the end of October, the state’s environmental agency said Oct. 13 — and it does not
Texas Drought Eased Sharply in Early October, but Reservoirs Still Sit Below Last Year and the Worst-Off Lakes Have Not Recovered
Drought covers far less of Texas than it did a week earlier, but the water sitting in the state's reservoirs has still not caught up. The U.S. Drought Monitor's Oct. 8 map put 82% of the state in drought, down
Texas Will Let Sewage Plant Applicants Hire the Modelers Who Set Discharge Limits
Cities and developers seeking permission to pipe treated sewage into a Texas creek may now hire their own consultants to run the computer model that decides how clean that water has to be, under a change the state’s environmental agency
Corpus Christi’s Desalination Plant Wins Its Final State Permit, but Building It Is Still an Open Question
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved the final discharge permit for the Harbor Island desalination plant on Sept. 23, two days before a Corpus Christi lawmaker told a Texas Tribune Festival audience that seawater desalination is a key issue
Property Taxes
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Analysis: Texas Capped What Local Governments Can Take. On Nov. 3, Voters Decide What They’ll Give Up.
Early voting opened Monday on a question Texas has spent a decade engineering its way toward. The state's bond database says voters will decide $62.9 billion in local borrowing on Nov. 3. While that number is massive, the number smaller
Dallas County and Eight School Districts Ask Texas Voters to Approve Higher Tax Rates Nov. 3
Early voting begins Oct. 19 in Texas elections where Dallas County and at least eight school districts are asking voters to approve tax rates higher than state law lets them set on their own. If voters say no on Nov.
Amarillo, San Antonio and Fort Worth Raised Tax Rates This Month, but Homeowners’ Bills Will Not Move
Three of Texas' largest cities raised their property tax rates in the past two weeks, and the homeowners living in them will see different tax bill changes—$18 a year on a $200,000 home in Amarillo, $35 increase on the average
Amarillo Republished Its Required Tax Notice With a Figure More Than Twice as Large
Amarillo told its residents in August that the coming city budget would raise $1,596,402 more in property taxes than last year's, an increase of 1.94 percent. On Sept. 10 the city published the same legally required statement again, with a
A Texas House Panel Takes Up Local Debt Sept. 15, and One of the State’s Most Expensive Local Projects is not on the Agenda
The Texas House Committee on Ways and Means meets at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 to take testimony on how local governments spend and borrow, and on whether the Legislature should cap the growth of both. The charge that will occupy