This week on Texas Matters: Early voting kicks off on Monday across the state. What to look out for and whom to call if your voting rights are violated.And since the fall of Roe, how has Texas restricted access to birth control?

Roberson is scheduled to be put to death on October 17th in what would be the nation’s first execution based on so-called “shaken baby syndrome” which is debunked junk science. We have the latest developments.

Robert Roberson is due to be executed on October 17. The East Texas man was convicted of the shaken baby syndrome death of this two-year old daughter, Nikki. But shaken baby syndrome is now considered to be junk science, and evidence shows that Nikki died from a chronic illness. I spoke with Roberson on Texas death row to hear his story.

This week on Texas Matters. Governor Abbott has a plan to eliminate your property taxes. That could sound great but what would that look like? The state would have to take a chainsaw to schools and services. And the sales tax would hit 22%, by far the highest in the nation. Low income citizens would pay more, but it would be a boon— for big corporations.

Today on Texas Matters—The intersection of the Texas abortion ban and immigration enforcement means women in the border zone have no options. Also, the latest data on Texas maternal mortality shows a worsening crisis. And is Attorney General Ken Paxton using his office to try to suppress the vote to keep Texas from flipping blue?

Texas Senate holds a hearing to draft new anti-squatter laws. The harmful effects of LED lights for some people and the music boxes of Villa Finale.

Are Texans living in a state of voter suppression? We look at a pattern of legal action by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that seek to limit voting. And we see why Texas is one of the toughest states to vote in.

TPR reporters David Martin Davies and Kayla Padilla spent the year following the passages that many Texans take to obtain an abortion. They documented what happens when they evade the Texas abortion ban.

The Texas identity is powerful, popular and built on the stories of the Lone Star State. The stories are about small towns and quirky characters who overcome adversity. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Joe Holley has spent a career collecting and writing about the stories of Texas. His latest book is Native Texans Stories from Deep in the Heart.

Today on Texas Matters. How Texas public school curriculum could be teaching Christianity. In Texas It will be harder to vote in this presidential election than it was four years ago. And how Arkansans are fighting to put abortion on their ballot.

How secret is the ballot in Texas? A voter fraud conspiracy advocate says she's cracked the code of the Texas secret ballot. And as the school year starts, will an uncertified teacher be assigned to your child's classroom? A new study shows it could mean a four-month loss of academic progress.

After 13 years of fighting a lawsuit over Texas’ troubled foster care system, state lawyers are trying to remove the judge from overseeing the case.And do you remember when a little girl fell down a Midland well in 1987? There’s much more to the story.

This week on on Texas Matters. Should Texas block foreign hostile nations from buying farm land and doing business in the state. And the legacy of science of San Antonio adventurer Tom Slick.

At the 2024 Republican National Convention Texans, including Governor Greg Abbott, took to the stage to spin a fact-free story about the state of the Texas-Mexico border and illegal immigration that excited the crowd but paints a grim picture if Trump is elected president again.

Hurricane Beryl slammed into Texas and delivered a punch to Houston and its energy provider. Millions of people were left in the dark and without air-conditioning as temperatures climbed over 100 degrees. The disaster recovery has many wondering why Governor Greg Abbott left the state and why FEMA assistance wasn’t requested earlier. It’s the Beryl blame game.

Today on Texas Matters: The extra warm waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf are serving up an assembly line of hurricanes. We'll examine how this is all tied to climate change. Also, a divorce case out of Denton has revived the contentious debate over whether frozen embryos are people. And if necessity is the mother of invention, then they are getting extra inventive with Texas rural health.

In 1973, Willie Nelson held his first 4th of July picnic. There were some problems. The locals said it was "moral pollution" and Nelson was fined $1,000 for violating the Texas Mass Gatherings Act. But that didn’t stop Willie from doing it again and again. Dave Dalton Thomas is the picnic historian and has written a book about this Texas tradition.

Today on Texas Matters: The illusion of exceptions in the Texas Abortion law. Can the Texas Medical Board clear up the confusion? South Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar says he’s being targeted with his indictments. And a Central American teen tells the story of his journey coming to the U.S.

A discussion about Juneteenth and Texas with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed

How "2000 Mules" is a fake documentary about voter fraud. But will Texas GOP leaders admit that? Juneteenth Rodeo, why 1970s photos of Black Rodeos were ignored for so long. And SA Mayor Maury Maverick on 1939 radio.

Can Texas lawmakers rein in sales of THC hemp products like Delta-8 and 9? The products are largely unregulated and widely sold, even to children. And in the time of growing drought, Mexico’s water debt is becoming a bigger issue along the border.

A century ago, a one-man wrecking crew on the Texas-Mexico border who inspired hate, violence, corruption and mass murder. The story of William Hanson—a chaos agent in South Texas.

Texas Senate holds a hearing to draft new anti-squatter laws. The harmful effects of LED lights for some people and the music boxes of Villa Finale.

He was a witness to the U.S.-Mexico War. Not the 1846-to-1848 invasion, but the 1914 U.S. invasion and occupation of Mexico. It was documented by an American postcard photographer. He left behind a compelling visual record of a U.S. atrocity. Susan Toomey Frost joins us to tell the story.

During the American Civil War there were Texans who faced persecution and violence for their beliefs, but their courage helped preserve the United States. These Texans defied the Confederacy and fought for the Union.

Today on Texas Matters, could the West Texas Chihuahuan desert be greened? One Texan is trying to restore his 320 acres of West Texas hard scrabble into a desert forest.

The Smokehouse Creek fire was the largest wildfire in Texas History burning over a million acres in the Panhandle. The fire has been out for over a month, but the disaster continues. We are going to get an update on the recovery and what needs to happen to prevent other massive wildfires.

In Loose of Earth, a story of a tight-knit evangelical family in West Texas, the oldest daughter tries to make sense of the contradictions of the world she is warned about and the world she has to occupy. When her father contracts cancer from "forever chemicals" her world come crashing down. The memoir is Loose of Earth, and we hear from the author Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn.

This week on Texas Matters.How HEB is too woke for the GOP. Electric vehicles need places to charge. And covering state news just got a big boost.

This week on Texas Matters: The forecast for the coming summer is record breaking heat. It could be a deadly weather disaster that will challenge emergency services and put Texans at risk. And why a Texas plastics company is failing to accurately monitor its toxic discharge into the Gulf.

Hillcrest in Corpus Christi is a historic African American neighborhood that has long faced environmental racism but is now confronting displacement from a massive desalination project. Environmentalists point out that the desal, hyper-salty brine discharge will be very harmful to the bay and shouldn’t be built.

The last time a total solar eclipse crossed Central Texas was in 1878 – the heyday of the Wild West. That eclipse was crucially important to America’s rise as a scientific power and saw many of the era’s great scientists (including Thomas Edison) trek out to unsettled lands to witness the event firsthand. On April 8, Texas gets another gander at a solar eclipse—but this time without the train robberies and frontier backdrop.

Today on Texas Matters: The largest wildfire in Texas history torches over a million acres. How you can help in the recovery. And how the electric co-op movement energized rural Texas.

Today on Texas Matters: Turmoil in the attorney general’s office is ripping apart the AG Medicaid Fraud Division.With Abortion on the ballot Annie’s List sees 2024 as a big year to elect progressive women. And money is running out for the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Many Texas families have been fighting for school funding equity for 50 years. But wide disparities in funding still exist. Texas Public Radio's education reporter, Camille Phillips, explains the problem and why it's been difficult to solve.

This week on Texas Matters: Covid cases are on the rise. How Texans can protect themselves with a vaccination.What does it mean that the Texas buoys are still in the Rio Grande? The Texas Tribune launches a pro-democracy reporting project. And there’s a million-dollar treasure hidden somewhere in Texas or New Mexico. Are you smart enough to find it?

Today on Texas Matters— Obamacare is seeing a surge in Texas and across the nation. Why is the Affordable Care Act succeeding despite claims from the right?And Mexican food is now American food. How tacos conquered the United States.

Today on Texas Matters—Politics takes center stage over the mass migration at the border. And how high school football helped Uvalde heal.

A documentary report on how people in Texas are forced to travel to other states for abortions and exploring the challenges, costs and repercusions of the journey.

This week on Texas Matters: A Texas county will hold its Republican primary election old school. The vote-counting will all be done by hand. Why are they doing this and what are the concerns? There are a lot of guns in Texas—but what does that mean for reducing life expectancy?And the story of a legendary Texas wrestling family comes to the big screen. But is it fact or fiction?

What’s in SB 4 and how does it fit into Governor Abbott’s plan to challenge the power of the federal government?

Today on Texas Matters—How suppressed are the voters of Texas? A new book breaks down which states make voting too hard.How are families impacted by the Uvalde massacre living with the grief and the aftermath?Some school districts have programs to teach kids how to protect themselves from abuse, but there is a problem.

Today on Texas Matters—Should we be worried about the grid? How a tough winter could mean blackouts again in Texas. Also, what the SB4 "Show me Your Papers Law" means for children of the undocumented in Texas. AND how a school board meeting in Texas exposes the greed behind the outrage over schoolbooks.

This week on Texas Matters: Why are horrible photos from Uvalde and other mass shootings being published? Despite what the Supreme Court ruled, homosexuality is still against the law in Texas. And how is the new Texas “show me your papers law” going to impact the state?

Is Texas an ultraviolent state? Why are certain types of violence more common in Texas than in other parts of the industrialized world?

This week on Texas Matters: Brent Brewer says he’s sorry for a murder he committed 33 years ago but says junk science is why he's on Texas Death Row.

For centuries, the shoreline between Galveston and Tallahassee was marked by the desperate deeds of men who fought for God, gold, and glory.The Gulf Coast has seen its share of seafaring warriors and miscreants.

Today on Texas Matters: In a major reversal – the border wall is back – now under President Biden. How Texas school children see the banning of books and how an album changed Texas music 50 years ago.

After the Uvalde school massacre, the slow walking of the firing of a Texas Ranger spotlights the lack of transparency about how the DPS failed. With rapid growth during a record drought, what can be done to keep the Texas Hill Country from running out of water? And book bans in Texas are getting worse.

Today on Texas Matters: Ken Paxton strikes back. After being acquitted from impeachment charges the Texas Attorney General is promising to crush his political enemies. Also, why are Venezuelans coming to the border en masse, and how is TPS going to help many of the Venezuelan asylum seekers?

Today on Texas Matters—The buoys are back – in fact they never left. What is happening with the legal battle over the border barrier? How to get paid for tweeting about Ken Paxton. It could be illegal.And Mark Gonzalez—the Corpus Christi progressive D.A. is now running for Senate.

This week on Texas Matters: a look at some of the new laws now in effect in Texas and some of the significant ones that didn’t. And gearing up for the Ken Paxton Senate impeachment trial. Will Texas voters watch and care?

Today on Texas Matters: Some scary hours with the Texas grid during the summer heat. What is happening? And Republican candidates for president say they’ll invade Mexico. Why that is a terrible idea?

It's estimated that half a million people live in colonias along the Texas-Mexico border. These communities lack basic needs for the residents, including running water, storm drainage and sewage. What are the challenges of living in a colonia? Who is responsible for improving the substandard conditions?

This week on Texas Matters: Mexico makes it clear they want the buoys out of the Rio Grande. The San Antonio Police Department's use of its mental health unit examined. And records show that the San Antonio Police Department failed in policing its problem cops.

This week on Texas Matters—a trip down the Rio Grande to see the buoy barrier and meet with the people it’s supposed to stop. How the Eagle Pass City Council pushed back on Operation Lone Star. And climate change is making water more precious, so will Texans be paying more at the tap.?

This week on Texas Matters - How Operation Lone Star is being felt in Eagle Pass. Abbott is building his own border wall. Texas is using spyware on the border—and maybe beyond.

Texas is gripped with extreme heat that’s putting lives at risk. Should President Biden step in to protect Texas outdoor workers? And the Texas GOP makes the voting system less secure and easier to cheat.

This week on Texas Matters, a school bus tour is highlighting the mass shootings of Texas; with climate change disasters now the norm, some Houston residents are transforming their homes into emergency hubs; and a state program to help people to pay traffic tickets is punishing the low income further into debt.

As border communities celebrate a victory against building a border wall, Abbott’s floating river barrier is about to be built. Solar power is saving the Texas grid during the record-breaking heat wave and Texas leaders aren’t happy about that. And how forensic hypnosis was finally banned from Texas Courtrooms.

Former San Antonio Rep Will Hurd is now running for president and taking aim at Donald Trump. We hear from Hurd. And Texas Monthly’s Forrest Wilder is trying to make sense of the mess that is the Texas public school funding system.

Governor Greg Abbott is fully behind a plan to completely eliminate property taxes in Texas. Property taxes fund public services like schools and hospitals. With no state income tax, Texas would have to rely on sales tax which would likely have to increase. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick is calling Abbott’s plan a fantasy.

How the Texas legislature dealt with voting rights (it's not all bad news), and a stripper takes on San Antonio's anti-nudity ordinance.

What’s the latest with Attorney General Ken Paxton, his alleged crimes and possible impeachment? What are the charges? What is the impeachment process? Who could be the next Texas Attorney General?

Roll Call's "Inside Elections" has changed the rating for Sen. Ted Cruz’s re-election bid from "Solid Republican" to "Battleground." Cruz is now seen as vulnerable, and Dallas Democratic Congressman Colin Allred is running to replace him. We hear from Allred about why he thinks Texas voters will pick him and send Cruz packing. Could the fate of Senate control ride on this election?Also, how Texas is getting ready for electric cars.

The Texas legislative session is getting closer to wrapping up. Is there any progress on gun safety, abortion exceptions and making the grid reliable? And the battleground over Texas History is now at Texas State Historical Association. Can the state turn away from the old Lone Star myths and towards the facts of the state’s founding?

He stood up to Gov. Greg Abbott and SB8 when he performed an illegal abortion, and he dared people to sue him — and they did. Dr. Alan Braid tells his story to TPR's David Martin Davies.

How making illegal voting a felony is part of a Republican campaign to supress voting. And an update on the developments at the Texas legislature from Democrat State Senator Roland Gutierrez and how he is working on gun safety with the families of Uvalde who lost children in the school shooting. Also Gutierrez sizes up running for Senate against Republican Ted Cruz.

On Texas Matters: The assault continues on free and fair elections by the Texas legislature.Many citizen complaints to the Texas Commission on Evironmental Quality could be ignored in the future.And why Texas could be making big bucks in the new green economy but state leaders are holding it back.

Remembering what happened at Waco 30 years ago and how it leads to today’s right wing anti-government movement.

For 20 years a Texas business man has been wining and dining Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with secret super luxury vacations at the most exotic places on the planet. And how Republican backed bills in the state legislature could end free and fair elections in Texas.

This week on Texas Matters - How will the Texas Observer survive? What happened at the state's scrappy liberal magazine?And can public radio save local news?

As Trump prepares for possible indictment, how do Texans view the former President? And Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales is back from a delegation to Mexico.

Texas is preparing to leave ERIC – a system that protects the voter rolls from cross state double voters. Could a Texas town be the next East Palestine rail disaster? And flaws in the system that sends people to Texas death row.

Child brides forced to marry much older men. How it continues to happen in Texas and the effort to shut it down. Could this be the legislative session where marijuana is decriminalized? There’s reason for pro-pot hope. And how Governor Abbott and state leaders are big on big government when it comes to running Texas cities.

A bill to ban Chinese citizens and government from buying Texas land gains steam among Republicans.The Texas legislature tries to revive a controversial corporate tax cut that critics say is hazy at best.And a Republican bill would give massive breaks to large families, but only if the parents are straight property owners who’ve never been divorced.

Despite promises to make voting easy but "cheating hard," Texas remains one of the toughest states to vote in. If Texas lawmakers create a program that lets families use state funds to pay for private school, who would be the most likely to use it? And for years the National Guard patrolled the southwest border now the Pentagon is looking for an off-ramp.

This week on Texas Matters – Governor Greg Abbott delivers the state of the state address. He continues his attacks on the term “woke” and trumpets his support for school vouchers. We have reaction. Also new historic documents have been uncovered shedding light on the Slocum Massacre when an east Texas Black community was wiped out by a white mob.

Could this be the legislative session that passes school vouchers? And what does that mean for public education in Texas?

The United States government has hit the limit on borrowing more money. The U.S. Treasury is taking extreme steps to prevent a default while Republicans in Congress, led by Hill Country Representative Chip Roy, say they are ready to bring the nation to default unless cuts are made to Social Security and other spending.

The price of food is on the rise and the reason is climate change. A new report looks at how a warming planet is impacting how Texas is able to produce food. And a new study exposes how Texas based Exxon knew in the 1970's that their product would cause climate change and they covered it up.

President Biden announced the hardening of immigration restrictions Thursday, including the expansion of Title 42 programs to remove people quickly without letting them seek asylum. This is an attempt to address one of his administration’s most politically vulnerable issues as the Republican party takes over Congress and heads into campaigning for 2024.

The world changed when an 18-year old gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. School mass shootings are not new but Uvalde was different not only because of the ease of access to deadly weapons of war for the mentally unstable but also because of the multiple failures by the Texas DPS and other law enforcement to confront the gunman and save the students' lives.

He stood up to Gov. Greg Abbott and SB8 when he performed an illegal abortion, and he dared people to sue him — and they did. Dr. Alan Braid tells his story to TPR's David Martin Davies.

He was a courageous and at times controversial reporter who got up close and personal covering the Texas Ku Klux Klan, Branch Davidians, Biker Gangs and Mexico’s Zapatistas. Dick Reavis was a radical-turned-reporter who took the toughest assignments in Texas. What did he learn along the way?

We hear a migrant's story and learn about her journey from Haiti to the U.S. And trapped in Afghanistan—how Texans are trying to help allies escape the Taliban. Plus, Boerne's 'International Bridge.'

David Martin Davies discusses the Texas teacher shortage with TPR Education Reporter Camille Phillips.

David Martin Davies continues the story of East Texas voting rights advocate Frank J. Robinson who died in 1976 under mysterious circumstances.

David Martin Davies reports there are more election deniers on the ballot in Texas than any other state, and one group of Republicans is pushing back.When it comes to how hard it is to vote, Texas has gone from bad to worse.And will young people turn out to vote this election?

When East Texas voting rights advocate Frank J. Robinson died under mysterious circumstances in 1976, his death was first called a murder. However, then officials said it was a suicide. This is a true crime story that deals with voting rights, violent racism and jusitce.