Residents who spoke at Monday’s meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court unanimously opposed the use of federal funding assistance under the American Rescue Plan Act, citing concerns it would be used to unduly enhance federal control over local affairs under the guise of helping locals deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most
BY KEVIN REYNOLDS at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 8, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Delta-8, the popular cannabis extract that was recently and suddenly outlawed in Texas, is temporarily legal again. State district court Judge Jan Soifer on Monday granted
BY KAREN BROOKS HARPER at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 8, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. New data from the Texas health department released Monday proves what health officials have been trying to tell vaccine-hesitant Texans for months: The COVID-19 vaccine dramatically
BY CASSANDRA POLLOCK at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 8, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday told state education officials to develop statewide standards preventing “pornography” and “other obscene content in Texas public schools,” citing two memoirs about
BY URIEL J. GARCÍA at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 8, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. EL PASO — After 19 months of closure, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday reopened its ports of entry to vaccinated travelers from Mexico,
BY ABBY LIVINGSTON at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 8, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s popularity among Texans has taken a precipitous slide in recent months, according to the latest Texas Tribune/University of Texas poll. The survey
BY JAMES BARRAGÁN at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 8, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Texas voters have a net disapproval for how state leaders have handled the reliability of the electricity grid, abortion and property taxes, according to a new University
BY KAILYN RHONE at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 6, 2021 Texas Republicans on Saturday claimed an early victory after a U.S. federal appeals court temporarily blocked the Biden administration from mandating that companies with more than 100 employees require workers to get coronavirus vaccines or submit to weekly testing. In a two-page order, the U.S. Court of
BY PATRICK SVITEK at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 6, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Sara Stapleton Barrera, who last year forced longtime state Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, into a primary runoff, has decided to run again now that the incumbent is
BY MATTHEW WATKINS AND MICHAEL REY DE LEON at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 5, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. In this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Patrick, Reese and Neelam about Tuesday’s special election results, poll numbers in the governor’s race and oral
BY MITCHELL FERMAN at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 5, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration on Friday over new federal COVID-19 vaccine rules announced the day before, which order big businesses to mandate
BY PATRICK SVITEK at The Texas Tribune, NOV. 5, 2021 Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Gov. Greg Abbott has a comfortable lead over potential Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, according to a new poll from the University of Texas at Austin and The