Texas

Jaeson Jones, a former DPS captain-turned-MAGA influencer, is helping lay the groundwork for mass deportations and conflict with Mexico.

State legislators subpoenaed Robert Roberson one day before the state was set to kill him—an act that delayed the execution. Lawmakers are fighting to let Roberson testify before the state House despite objections from the attorney general and governor.

Despite pleas from state lawmakers, Texas will execute Roberson on Oct. 17 unless Governor Greg Abbott grants a reprieve in his case.

Texas is set to execute Robert Roberson on Oct. 17 for allegedly shaking his baby to death. But numerous experts now agree the theory used to convict Roberson isn’t real—including the detective who helped arrest him.

The Texas Department of Public Safety plans to spend millions in taxpayer dollars on a controversial software, used first as part of Governor Abbott’s border crackdown, to “disrupt potential domestic terrorism.”

Multiple states have created a new crime called “abortion trafficking,” which makes it illegal for adults to transport minors to get abortions without parental consent. Others are trying to restrict abortion medications or out-of-state travel.

Two years after Elena’s death, I try to understand why I was given a child just to lose her. 

If I protect and guide someone else’s child in here, maybe someone will do mine out there.

I experienced my first childbirth while I was incarcerated in a county jail.

As advocates fight to provide relief to incarcerated people, officials are resisting many measures that could help prisoners combat the heat.

For the past seven summers, I have lived in solitary confinement without air conditioning. A trip to medical during a heat wave helped put the climate crisis into perspective.

Smart Communications, a for-profit Florida company that sells phone, videochat, and email-like services to prisons and jails, told at least one sheriff’s department that it can live “the resort life” on a trip to Florida.

New laws imposing criminal penalties for trans healthcare follow a long legislative history of explicitly targeting queer people in the United States.

Leaving prison often hinges on completing rehabilitative programming. The pandemic caused many of these required courses to be put on hold.

At the same time, state lawmakers are pushing to incarcerate more people pretrial.

Local activists have soured on incumbent Mayor Ron Nirenberg, and no other candidate offers a compelling alternative.

A little-known legal tool allows states to override progressive policies in cities.

The city will use $1 million in funds diverted from its police budget to expand substance use treatments and harm reduction services for low-income people in Austin and Travis County.

As Texas lifts its COVID-19 restrictions, the city’s jail remains overcrowded and its police and prosecutors continue to operate as normal.

The housing advocate’s run for city council could be a Texan litmus test for the broad appeal of policies popular with working class voters.

State officials funded by power companies have been warned, since at least 1989, that the power grid was at risk of failure in cold weather. They have consistently failed to act.

Now, advocacy groups are struggling to keep unhoused people safe.

The city will use funds diverted from its police budget to set up wraparound services for the people who will live at the hotel.

The City Council voted to buy one hotel and use funds diverted from its police budget to set up wraparound services for the homeless people who will live there.

The Travis County District Attorney’s office had joined the release request and, despite Jimenez being taken into custody by ICE, she is expected to be released today.

Dubious DNA evidence—and a potential coverup by the Travis County DA’s office—are at the heart of a judge’s recommendation that Areli Escobar gets a new trial.

Outside of the traditional foster care system exists a shadow system of potentially hundreds of thousands of children removed by CPS to their relatives or family friends—without a court case, monetary support, or due process.

Incumbents Jimmy Flannigan and Alison Alter have been targeted by conservative challengers because of the council’s votes to cut police funding and repeal a ban on public camping.

None of the Austin City Council members who voted to cut police funding lost their elections, but a police union vice president who fearmongered about the defund movement did.

Houston area voters re-elected Gonzalez after he supported bail reform, cleaned up the county jail, and provided aid to incarcerated people living with opioid use disorder.

Sanchez is running for one of the state House seats that Democrats are hoping to flip.

She is running for a historically Republican-controlled seat, and if she wins, it could help turn the state House blue.

If she’s successful in her bid to represent Texas’s 24th Congressional District, Valenzuela will flip the district to blue and become the first Black and Latinx member of Congress.

If Chambers can unseat the Republican incumbent in her district, she said she’ll prioritize expanding Medicaid, improving public education funding, and lowering property taxes.

‘Our Congress should be reflective of the people here, and it’s not,’ the Texas resident said.

Fort Bend Sheriff Troy Nehls wants voters to send him to Congress despite his department’s history of jail deaths and allegations of racial-profiling.

Efforts by elected leaders in several states are making it harder to get to the polls and fomenting misinformation about the election amid a pandemic.

Last week’s problems in New York were part of a widespread series of issues, both systemic and targeted, that are only now becoming fully apparent, activists say.

While a debate over defunding the police rages in Austin, a new lawsuit reminds its residents that assault cases in the city are routinely ignored.

In February 2019, police officers in Killeen shot James Scott Reed in his home. One officer entered a guilty plea to evidence tampering, but Reed’s family is still suing the city and several officers in federal court.