As the cool breeze of autumn begins to sweep through the Lone Star State, there’s a particular charm that sets Texas apart during this time of year. Beyond the sprawling landscapes and bustling cities, Texas boasts a remarkable connection between fall festivities and...
Texans urged to roll up their sleeves
Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas leaders are rolling up their sleeves to get the COVID-19 vaccine and to encourage the public to follow suit. “I will never ask any Texan to do something that I’m not willing to do myself,” Abbott said before getting vaccinated at a...
State resumes requiring job searches to get benefits
Texans receiving unemployment benefits will need to show an active effort to find a job starting Nov. 1. The Texas Workforce Commission suspended the requirement in March as the pandemic started. More than 3.6 million have filed for unemployment relief since then,...
Accusations rock Attorney General’s office
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is battling back against seven top aides who accuse him of bribery and abuse of office. The aides delivered the accusations in a letter to the agency’s human resources director. The Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV obtained and...
Houston-Dallas bullet train company says it’s on fast track
Texas’ first- and third-largest cities could be in daily commuting distance from each other via the high-speed Texas Central Railroad. Proponents of the proposed bullet train hailed two historic milestones last week: The Federal Railroad Administration released its...
School year brings an Apple for students too
Students across Texas returned to campuses last week as schools and universities scrambled to put into place new lesson plans that best accommodate a pandemic. For many school districts, this meant greatly expanding the technological resources of their students to...
Texas tries nation’s first virtual criminal trial
A Texan’s speeding ticket put her in the legal history books last week. To combat the backlog in criminal cases created by the pandemic, a Travis County justice of the peace conducted the nation’s first virtual criminal trial. The case was livestreamed on YouTube, and...
This is a time of testing for all of us
A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran an article noting that with the U.S. preoccupied by the coronavirus pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and massive unemployment, “its competitors are moving to fill the vacuum, and quickly.” Russia, China, North Korea, Iran....
Emergency Service Districts are essential for Texans’ safety
Most people know that when there is a fire or medical emergency—or a global pandemic—first responders help keep us safe. What may be surprising for many Texans is that many of these first responders are there because of a local emergency services district, or ESD. As...