News from The Texas Tribune

The former child care investigations director said there are agency-wide communication issues that led to a breakdown in relaying key information, but two of his staff members are the ones who suffered the consequences.

UTRGV’s decision to offer free tuition to more students comes after more students’ families lost jobs during the pandemic.

In a tweet, Patrick said he supported Abbott calling lawmakers back to Austin to increase the penalty for illegal voting and approve a “forensic audit bill.”

In their latest push to lift state-level voting restrictions, Senate Democrats failed to secure the 60 votes required to break a filibuster on the Freedom to Vote Act.

What Congress’ voting bills would mean for Texas voting and redistricting

For 19 months, business owners along the Texas-Mexico border have seen a drastic drop in customers because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. With land borders scheduled to reopen Nov. 8, they are banking on a return to pre-pandemic sales.

With partisan fervor, Republicans drew new maps for Congress and the Legislature that dilute the power of voters of color. Now the lawsuits begin, as groups that feel marginalized battle for representation in the halls of power.

Providers want the Supreme Court to take the case before an appeals court hears it. The high court gave defendants, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, until Thursday to respond to the providers’ request.

Lawmakers approved new political maps and decided how to spend COVID-19 relief money. But they didn’t pass bills about vaccine mandates or the criminal penalty for illegal voting.

Two proposed amendments — one regarding religious services and another related to nursing home visitors — stem from restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Early voting begins Oct. 18.

Republican lawmakers have faced pressure to provide some form of property tax relief this year. Critics of a new proposal say it’s politically timed.

The halt comes after Gov. Greg Abbott expanded his ban on COVID-19 vaccine mandates — which previously applied to cities, counties and school districts — to private employers.

Huffines has been the most vocal fellow Republican taking on Abbott, pressuring him over his COVID-19 response, the border and other hot-button issues.

The borders were closed to nonessential travel in March 2020, which hurt businesses in Texas border cities that rely on Mexican shoppers.

Members considered more than 50 amendments to the proposed map during debate that began Tuesday and ended early Wednesday. Some of the biggest changes focused on Dallas and Harris counties.

The department says it’s looking into whether the Texas Juvenile Justice Department provides “reasonable protection from physical and sexual abuse by staff and other residents, excessive use of chemical restraints and excessive use of isolation.”

Democratic state senators want the webpage reinstated. The resources were removed after Don Huffines, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, criticized their inclusion on a state website.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines say they will continue requiring employee vaccinations despite Abbott's new order, which has left federal government contractors, nursing homes and other companies caught between conflicting rules from the Biden administration and the state.

Abbott also called on the Legislature to pass a law expanding the ban on vaccine mandates.

Republicans are pushing to flip the San Antonio-based seat.

West, the former chair of the state Republican party, tweeted that his oxygen levels are low and he will likely be hospitalized, but says his condition is "not serious."

Because of the way the law is written, it appears that clinics and doctors who performed abortions outlawed by the statute even while the block was in effect would now be vulnerable to lawsuits.

Since 2008, the number of Texas students learning English as a second language who take longer than five years to become proficient is growing.

A House committee approved the bill despite emotional testimony from parents of transgender Texas children. This is the fourth legislative session this year in which lawmakers targeted LGBTQ kids.

The ruling late Wednesday from a U.S. District Judge doesn’t protect providers who perform abortions while the Texas law makes its way through the courts.

After high-profile clashes with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a fellow Republican, Seliger suspects members of his own party are trying to oust him.

It wasn't immediately clear how the order may affect access to abortions in the state. The law is constructed in a way that people who violate it could be liable to litigation if enforcement is reinstated.

Months after Austin voters reinstated the city’s public camping ban, authorities are clearing many of the largest encampments. Their former residents are going “anywhere it’s safe and out of sight, out of mind,” one man said.

The bills reflect GOP efforts to further tighten voting laws, and pressure from former President Donald Trump on Texas Republicans to help advance his baseless election fraud claims. They are not expected to go far in the House.

The Texas Department of Public Safety and U.S. Border Patrol insist the 11 men, arrested under Gov. Greg Abbott's border initiative, weren't set up for trespassing charges. But a county attorney decided the case was too muddled to prosecute.

The new proposal, like its predecessor, would amend the health and safety code to make the unlawful restraint of a dog a criminal offense — and more clearly outline proper treatment.

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, “trigger laws” across 12 states — including Texas — that ban all abortions will go into effect within months.

Despite the objections of U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, a Senate committee voted out a redrawn congressional map Monday without addressing the overlap in their Houston districts. The map heads next to the full Senate for a vote.

About 40% of Texas nursing home workers are unvaccinated and could face dismissal or quit their jobs under a federal vaccination requirement for the industry.

Plaintiffs say the governor’s order denies children with disabilities, who are at a high risk of illness and death from the coronavirus, access to public education.

Two months into this school year, districts have reported 172,275 cases in students. But state data on school cases is incomplete and likely an undercount.

The political battle in one Texas county where Trump got 81% of the vote offers a rare view into the virulent distrust and unyielding pressure facing elections administrators.

Since Sept. 9, 30,000 Haitians have arrived in Del Rio — migrants said they chose the small border city because they heard it was safer than other routes — and at one point as many as 15,000 were forced to camp beneath the international bridge when their numbers overwhelmed immigration officials.

The Texas Legislature is in the midst of its third special session, which is dedicated to redrawing political maps based on the latest census data that showed people of color fueled 95% of Texas’ population growth over the past decade.

The U.S. sued Texas after the Biden administration vowed to oppose Texas' new near-total abortion ban. The lawsuit joins several legal challenges already in progress.

There has been no evidence of widespread election fraud in Texas, where Trump defeated President Joe Biden by 6 percentage points. After the November election, a secretary of state official said Texas’ election was “smooth and secure."

Adam Foltz, now on the Texas payroll, played a key role in Wisconsin's redistricting last decade. A federal court threw out some of the maps and called the effort Foltz was involved in "an all but shameful attempt to hide the redistricting process from public scrutiny."

Dowd said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has focused on “culture war” issues to divide and hurt Texans.

The state and its political subdivisions could get up to $1.5 billion from the settlement. But some local governments are considering pursuing their own lawsuits against drug makers and distributors.

The men were arrested by state troopers and held for weeks without facing formal charges, a violation of state law. It’s the latest misfire in Abbott’s hastily assembled effort to involve Texas in patrolling the border.

With the Legislature’s third special session underway, parents are enduring another round of visits and demonstrations as legislators again debate a top Republican legislative priority: restricting transgender youth from playing on sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity.

The proposed congressional map also increases the number of districts where Trump had a majority of voters over Biden in 2020 and protects Republican incumbents who might have been vulnerable by packing their districts with more Trump voters.

Defense attorneys have started asking courts to set migrants free because local justice systems, overwhelmed by arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott's border security push, are routinely violating state law and constitutional due process rights.

Officials in some counties targeted by audits accuse Republican Texas leaders of pandering to conspiracy theorists and undermining faith in elections. They also say the secretary of state’s office hasn’t provided details on what the audits entail.

The new law narrows the window in which physicians are allowed to give abortion-inducing medication to patients from 10 weeks to seven weeks after conception, bucking FDA guidelines.