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09/28/2023

Soldiers in Texas and other parts of the country are living in barracks rife with mold, bed bugs, gas leaks and even squatters, a new government report shows.

“We found that living conditions in some military barracks may pose potentially serious risks to the physical and mental health of service members, as well as their safety,” the U.S. General Accountability Office stated in its review.

The GAO surveyed 10 barracks across the country, including Joint Base San Antonio, and found instances of raw sewage in bathrooms, broken heating and cooling systems, and in one case methane gas leaking into rooms from aging pipes. Soldiers told auditors they felt unsafe and depressed in their surroundings.

“I often wake up at night sweating from the heat, itching from bed bugs and feeling like I’m suffocating,” one U.S. Marine told auditors.

Members, who were granted anonymity by the GAO, also reported malfunctioning door locks and fire alarms.

“The barracks feel like living in a rundown motel or in a prison,” one soldier said.

Federal auditors surveyed 10 barracks across the country, including Joint Base San...

07/10/2023

Gov. Greg Abbott put a barrier of buoys and netting into the Rio Grande on Monday to block migrants from crossing from Mexico into Texas despite legal challenges to the plan.

The move comes as attorneys for an Eagle Pass kayak outfitter seek an emergency meeting with a Travis County judge to impose an injunction against Abbott to stop deployment of the 1,000-foot barrier that human rights groups said could lead to more drownings.

Abbott has shrugged off the legal challenge filed over the weekend, saying he has every right to defend Texas and that he is ready to fight the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

“Texas has a constitutional right to secure our border,” he said.

Gov. Greg Abbott shrugs off legal challenge, saying he will fight case to Supreme Court,...

03/28/2023

Concerns about Texas high school football are threatening to upend Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for a school choice program that would allow parents to use tax dollars to send their kids to private schools.

With critics putting up billboards around the state warning that private school vouchers will “turn off your Friday night lights,” Abbott has been spending more time in the last two weeks trying to knock down concerns that student transfers to private schools will change the high school football landscape.

In speeches in Austin, Houston and football-mad Odessa this week, the governor addressed those claims, calling it an old argument that critics of charter schools used. But as charter schools grew in Texas, it didn’t hurt football at all, which Abbott points to as proof that adding private schools to choice options wouldn't hurt football either.

“Trust me, I keep up with high school football a lot,” Abbott told more than 400 people at Cypress Christian School in Houston on Tuesday as he bragged on his alma mater Duncanville High School's 6A Division 1 championship this year. “High school football has never been better.”

Prep football: Recently, Gov. Abbott has spent more time addressing skeptics who can...

03/20/2023

Decades after fumbling away what once looked like a dominating hold on the 1980s computer revolution, Texas has launched a comeback that threatens to loosen China’s economic grip on America and make the Lone Star State a true tech industry hub rivaling Silicon Valley.

Already some of the biggest computer microchip makers and designers like Intel, AMD and Samsung are expanding their footprints in the state, and now the federal government is considering making Texas a $2 billion national research hub for the industry, which has been firmly rooted in East Asia.

The prospect is so enticing that it has Longhorns working with Aggies, Democrats with Republicans and even Gov. Greg Abbott is ready to work with President Joe Biden’s administration.

Decades after fumbling away a dominating hold on the computer revolution, Texas has...

03/18/2023

As Republicans attack diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses, the state’s flagship universities are doing everything they can to assure future students and faculty that they are still committed to diversity while also placating GOP leaders.

Fewer than 10% of UT's faculty is Hispanic and fewer than 5% at A&M are. And both schools have been trying to improve those numbers so faculty and students look more like rest of Texas where more than 40 percent of the population is Hispanic.

Over the last two months, top Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have launched an all-out assault on the programs, known as DEI, at public colleges. While universities point to big diversity gains over the last five years, in part because of their DEI efforts, Abbott has called the practices potentially discriminatory, and some state legislators have vowed to cut college funding in retaliation.

More here on how UT and A&M say they are delicately navigating all of this.

As Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans go after DEI programs, the University of Texas and Texas A&M University try to fix persistent diversity issues

03/04/2023

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued no new hints about whether he will run for president during a speech in Houston on Friday night, but he left no doubt that he views the battle against liberal politics going well beyond his own state’s borders.

Evoking the battle of the Alamo when soldiers fought against a much bigger army, DeSantis sounded more like he was marshaling the more than 1,500 people at the George R. Brown Convention Center for a war. He said they aren’t surrounded by foreign soldiers but instead by “woke foot soldiers” who are trying to upend American values.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued no new hints about whether he will run for president...

03/02/2023

Fresh off the release of a new book and with improving polling numbers, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is heading to Houston on Friday as part of a tour of Texas that will only feed speculation that he’s angling for a White House bid in 2024.

DeSantis is the keynote speaker for the Harris County Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner fundraiser on Friday night at the George R. Brown Convention Center. It is the first of a two-day run through Texas that includes a stop in Dallas for another GOP fundraising dinner.

The visit to the two most populous counties in the biggest GOP primary state in the nation comes almost exactly a year out from the Texas Republican Primary on March 5, 2024. He’ll follow that up on Sunday with a trip to California where he will deliver a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley before attending a fundraising dinner with the Republican Party of Orange County.

“It sure looks like he’s running for president already, although he hasn’t officially announced,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.

Trip includes a stop in California as speculation grows that DeSantis will run against...

02/25/2023

Momentum is growing fast in the Texas Legislature to cut state sales taxes as part of a bigger tax relief package.

Just days after two key state senators filed legislation to cut the sales tax rate from 6.25 percent to 5.75 percent, Gov. Greg Abbott said in an exclusive interview with Hearst Newspapers that he’s open to the idea and planning to put out his own proposals on the topic soon.

“I’ve been working with my staff on some sales tax reduction ideas,” Abbott said. “We haven’t rolled them out yet, but it is a concept that I support.”

Local governments can push that rate to 8.25 as Harris and Bexar have. If this passes, those counties would see tax rates drop to 7.75 because of state cutting its share.

Just days after two key state senators filed legislation to cut the sales tax rate from...

02/05/2023

One of the most popular ideas among homeowners to cut their property taxes is also one of the least likely to become law in Texas.

With the Legislature sitting on a $33 billion budget surplus, Gov. Greg Abbott and other lawmakers have promised historic tax cuts.

But already, Republican leaders have joined tax relief advocates and real estate experts in ruling out legislation that would cap year-over-year increases in appraised home values.

Though some Texas counties saw single-family home values rise 20 percent or more on average in 2022 (in Harris County, it was 21 percent; in Bexar County it was a whopping 28 percent), the experts see appraisal caps as a stopgap that ultimately won't drive tax bills down.

Some Texas counties saw home values rise 20 percent or more on average in 2022, but the...

10/25/2022

Gov. Greg Abbott is opening the door a crack to expanded casino gambling in Texas if he wins re-election.

While far from an all-out promise to turn Texas into Las Vegas, the Republican is now saying that while he doesn’t want a proliferation of gambling in Texas, he’s willing to listen to the gaming industry's proposals.

“We don’t want slot machines at every corner store, we don’t want Texans to be losing money that they need for everyday expenses, and we don’t want any type of crime that could be associated with gaming,” said Renae Eze, Abbott’s press secretary. “But, if there is a way to create a very professional entertainment option for Texans, Gov. Abbott would take a look at it.”

Gov. Greg Abbott gives strongest indication yet that he's willing to talk about casino...

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