‘It’s a Free for All’: Kratom Is Legal in Texas But Should it Be?

bySamuel Stark

Supporters tout kratom as a safer alternative to opiates such as heroin and fentanyl, but medical professionals in Texas describe it as being addictive and dangerous and call for it to be categorized as a scheduled substance.

Central Texas Christian School Enrollment Surges Amid Curriculum, COVID-19 Concerns

byGabriella Ybarra

Enrollment at conservative Christian schools in Central Texas is booming. School administrators attribute the increase to parental anxieties surrounding COVID-19 policies, discussion of systemic racism in the classroom and the inclusion of curriculum with sexual content.

Small Towns Around Austin Struggle with Big-City Housing Costs

byJill Ament

Driving into Taylor, the vibe is rural but not the usual trope of a dying, small town. The city has seen a gradual increase in its population in the past 10 years, and with that has come a renaissance of sorts. Now comes news that Taylor will soon be home to a $17 billion Samsung microchip making plant, which is also expected to bring a lot of newcomers. Residents of Taylor and other once-rural towns around Austin are already feeling the effects of the city’s growth. With skyrocketing of housing prices during the pandemic, smaller communities are grappling with big-city issues like affordability and gentrification. 

Delta-8 Merchants Find Themselves in the Weeds as Legal Debate Blazes in Texas

byLauren Girgis

Texas’ delta-8 industry is caught in the midst of a legal battle after the Department of State Health Services posted a notice stating the cannabinoid is illegal.

Insulin Price Caps in Texas Provide Relief While Raising Questions About Costs

byKatie Berger

Dawn White, a nurse from Lumberton, Texas, told lawmakers this past summer she paid $500 for a one-month supply of insulin to treat her son’s type 1 diabetes. That was with insurance. If she lacked insurance, the cost would have been more than $1,000. “Texans are dying because they cannot afford their insulin,” White said. […]

I-35 Expansion Plan Sparks Discussion Over Historical Barrier

byMinka Atkinson

Clearing neighborhoods and bulldozing businesses to expand an existing concrete barrier that has divided communities or digging deep into a reimagined urban core; these are the choices up for debate in the struggle to find a plan for modernizing I-35 through the center of Austin. Following a public comment period that ended Sept. 24, the […]

Texas Remains Reluctant to Legalize Recreational Marijuana Use

byTara Phipps

Texas has had a puzzling past with marijuana. While the state refuses to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana, it has made small strides in recent years to legalize CBD, hemp and medical marijuana. As the laws become more confusing, some cities — like Austin — have chosen to decriminalize misdemeanor amounts of marijuana.

Of the 50 bills pertaining to marijuana introduced during Texas’ 87th legislation — only HB 1535 made it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. This bill expands the number of people eligible for medical marijuana as well as the concentration amount they can have. Bills dealing with penalty reduction or recreational legalization died.

COVID-19 Infections in Pregnancy Rise as Vaccination Rate Stays Low

byLauren Girgis

Pregnant people are at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19. In recent months, health officials have been raising alarms that the group needs to urgently get vaccinated.

The highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in pregnant people in a single month of the pandemic was reported in August 2021, according to a Sept. 29 health alert from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates only about 31% of pregnant people are fully vaccinated. This number is even lower for Black pregnant people, at 15.6%.

Preservation without Reservations: Land Grabs of Past Rob True Native Texans of Indigenous History

byBrooke Nevins

Take a couple steps off nearly any highway spanning its 270 million acres, and you’re bound to be trespassing on someone else’s property. Over 95% of the state’s land is privately owned, resulting largely from the removal of Native peoples in the 19th century. Despite its huge size and a history of hundreds of Indigenous tribes inhabiting its present-day borders, Texas has only three federally-recognized reservations – those of the Alabama-Coushatta, the Kickapoo and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. Hundreds of non-federally recognized tribal communities exist here, left without allotted land to practice self-autonomy or the funding to preserve cultural traditions.

Foster Parents: Texas Child Welfare System Remains Broken

byCaitlin Davis

Kathleen Ender was just 21 when she began the process of becoming a foster parent after the idea of parenting foster children appeared in her dreams again and again. Enders, chief program officer at National Angels, well equipped emotionally and armed with experience, deeply believed in the beauty of being able to love a child […]

Houston Teachers Cope with COVID in the Classroom

byAngelo Gaunichaux

In late October, the Texas Education Agency reopened public schools to in-person learning despite the state experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases earlier that month. While deaths have been comparably mild for school-aged children and adolescents, the health and safety of those teaching them is much less certain.  “Every other day, we have a case […]

More Texans Finding Home in Orthodox Church 

byHarrison Young

One religious tradition is outpacing other denominations in growth in the Lone Star State. The Orthodox Church grew by 23,000, or 73%, in the last 10 years.

COVID-19 Hamstrings UT Men’s Basketball for a Year; Then Came Turnovers

byThomas Galindo

The University of Texas mens’ basketball program has had quite the year. Their 2019-2020 season was cut short by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. A year later, after battling through the pandemic, their 2020-2021 season was ended by something much more in their control: turnovers. In March 2020, going into the Big 12 Conference tournament, they […]

A year into COVID-19, UT’s non-white, low income students feel left behind

byAlyssa Weinstein and Alyssa Quiles

Yliana Roland, an 18-year-old student University of Texas at Austin student, was raised in Houston in a low-income community of color in which mental health was a taboo topic often swept under the rug. It wasn’t until she first arrived on campus during the pandemic this year that she was formally exposed to mental health […]

One Year Later, a Small Texas Town Reflects on the Pandemic

byBenton Graham

In the spring of 2020, Reporting Texas set out to cover the plight of small towns in a changing Texas by reporting on the town of Eden in Concho County. Then COVID-19 struck. We pivoted to looking at how Eden was dealing with the pandemic. Eight months later, we checked back in with residents.

Black Texans Reflect on Racial Justice after a Singularly Difficult Year

During February, March and April, Reporting Texas correspondents will share interviews with Black Texans from different parts of the state, different professions and different perspectives. Subjects will discuss the state of the fight for racial justice and how they think Texans can best move forward after a trying year. Check back for updates.

COVID’s Challenge for UT Students Cycling to Fight Cancer

bySarah Kate Scribner

Armed with bikes and with helmets in hand, a small troop of students from the University of Texas at Austin greet the morning sun ready to train for yet another arduous battle against cancer to be waged in a 4,000-mile campaign. It was 6:45 a.m. on a recent Saturday and the five UT students showed up in […]

Austin Educators look beyond Texas’ African American studies course

byJennifer Martinez

WATCH: UT students talk about African American History African American heritage runs deep in Texas. From the horror of slavery to the civil rights movement and beyond, Texas’ African American population has played a critical role in the state’s economic and cultural development. Yet Texas’ publication education system has downplayed African American history in its […]

Texas Schools Failing to Teach Sex Ed

byLindsey Logan

Texas students often arrive on college campuses ill equipped to navigate the sexual freedom that comes with their newfound independence. Critics place the blame on inconsistent, confusing and contradictory approaches to sex education in the state’s public schools. Karen Rayne, assistant professor of instruction at the University of Texas at Austin, said she believes because […]

28 Years After a Forgotten Mass Shooting in Texas, a Survivor Looks Back

byJack Keyes

Tommy Vaughn says he’s no hero, but his actions helped save lives.