Texas Politics

School leaders from Lockhart and Liberty Hill want the Texas Legislature to invest in public education, not create a program that uses tax dollars to pay for private schools.

A federal judge in Austin temporarily blocked a new state law restricting which books are available in school libraries. The state then appealed. But whether or not the law is upheld, efforts to censor what students can read have intensified in Texas.

Critics of the law, House Bill 900, have warned it is too broad and that it could ban literary classics as well as restrict students' access to books with LGBTQ+ characters.

Both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature have balked at the idea of using state funds to pay the settlement.

If the bill were to become law, it could affect not only schools but also programs, events and literature at any federally-funded institution. But its prospects are dim for now.

A decade after the Obama-era DACA program was created, its future remains uncertain. It affects more than 101,000 Texas residents temporarily protected from deportation

Laws banning abortion in many conservative U.S. states are expected to boost birth rates among adolescents, whose bodies often aren't built for safe childbirth, or for carrying a pregnancy to term.

The former El Paso congressman tells Texas Standard he wants to "get us past the very small, divisive politics of this moment and of the current governor."

The governor suggested more details would be released next week. The announcement Thursday of several initiatives is the latest in an ongoing conflict between Abbott, a Republican, and Democratic President Joe Biden's administration.

Bush made his challenge official Wednesday evening during an event at a downtown Austin bar. Former President Donald Trump said last week that he would issue an endorsement in the race "in the not-so-distant future."