Texas

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27796205

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27797091

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/38394903

South Texas county leaders will lose some authority over SpaceX launches under new bill.

The lawmakers behind the bill promised there would not be an increase in the number of days the beach is closed.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20224513

Operation Lone Star has turbocharged DPS’ surveillance capabilities. Lawmakers say they want to prevent Texas from becoming a police state but have filed only modest legislation to regulate use of AI.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27506751

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/25255100

I haven't kept up much with this since moving, but I first read about Synagro and their biosolid fertilizer when it started causing problems in Johnson County, Texas.

Long story short,

This company has been selling a biosolid fertilizer that people have been using in their fields, which has led to incredibly high levels of PFAS contamination in nearby ponds and animals. A couple in Grandview lost a good portion of their cattle mysteriously at the same time.

This actually led to an investigation in Johnson County, but since counties can't regulate PFAS levels and the state (at the time, I'm not sure about now) hasn't regulated it either, there wasn't much that could be done.

Following the county’s investigation, Woolley led the charge to pass a local resolution urging farmers to stop using biosolids on their land.

The resolution called for Fort Worth to stop sending its biosolids to fertilizer companies until the TCEQ tests them for the presence of PFAS and asked the EPA to set limits on PFAS in biosolids. The resolution also called on state lawmakers to regulate the application of biosolids-based fertilizer on farmland or give power to counties to do so.

“That’s the hard part,” Woolley said. “We don’t have authority to ban biosolids.”

The city of Fort Worth has now contracted their contract with Synagro "over contract requirements".

Johnson County, Texas declared a state of disaster in February of this year.

• Investigation reveals "stunningly" high toxin levels near Grandview , Cleburne Times Review Feb 19, 2024

• Texas farmers say sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land and killed their livestock Cleburne Times Review Dec 5, 2024

• Suits filed against biosolids companies , Cleburne Times Review Dec 12, 2024

• Fort Worth sewage sludge fertilizer leads Johnson County to declare ‘state of disaster’ KERA News, Feb 18, 2025

• Fort Worth ends 10-year contract with fertilizer company accused of water, land contamination KERA News March 26, 2025>

• Johnson County declares disaster over land contamination, asks Gov. Abbott to seek federal aid CBS News Feb 12, 2025

*The Cleburne Times Review has a very stingy article limit. I apologize.

"Republicans hold a tiny majority in the House, creating an incentive for Abbott to hold off on calling an election for Turner’s seat, which would likely be filled by a Democrat."

"Three weeks after U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner’s death and just over a month before the state’s next uniform election, Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet called a special election to fill the seat representing parts of Houston, a Democratic stronghold, in Congress.

Turner, who previously served in the Texas House for nearly three decades before becoming mayor of Houston, died March 5, two months into his first term representing Texas’ 18th Congressional District. His funeral was held in Houston on March 15.

Turner was elected to Congress last year after his predecessor and political ally, former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, died in office after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Abbott has the sole authority to call a special election to fill Turner's seat for the rest of the two-year term. State law does not specify a deadline for the governor to order a special election. If called, the election must happen within two months of the announcement.

But the Republican governor has little incentive to send another Democrat to Congress."

Only a temporary block at this point, but I love the advice here by the judge:

"Anyone who finds the performance or performers offensive has a simple remedy: don't go."

For as free as conservative Texas politicians claim their constituents are, they sure can’t mind their own business.

A new bill introduced by Angela Paxton, wife of Texas AG Ken Paxton, would impose privacy-invading age verification requirements on online sex toy retailers.

The government spent years probing allegations that a Dallas HOA created rules to kick poor Black people out and that Texas discriminated against minority residents in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, only to suddenly reverse course under Trump.

Texas’s heavily Democratic 18th Congressional District has an empty seat. State law gives Greg Abbott the power to delay the election to fill it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27025014

A midwife in Texas could face up to 20 years in prison for providing reproductive health care in the state, which has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans. The arrest of Maria Margarita Rojas marks the first criminal case against an alleged abortion provider in Texas since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 — and a major escalation in the far right’s war against bodily autonomy.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday that Rojas, 48, had been arrested on charges of providing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without a license. One of her employees, Jose Ley, was also arrested for providing an abortion and practicing without a license. Providing an abortion in Texas is punishable by up to life in prison and up to $100,000 in civil fines.

I have been hearing about temperature issues in prisons in Texas since I was a child. I can't help but think this stems from a lot of Americans thinking of prisons as places to be punished, not rehabilitated. This quote makes me crazy:

Department officials acknowledge it is hot inside its prisons but deny that the conditions are unconstitutional. During testimony in the case last year, Department Executive Director Bryan Collier argued it would be financially and logistically impossible to immediately install A/C in every one of the state’s prisons and noted that he is working diligently to fix the problem within their fiscal constraints.

This has been an issue for a WHILE. Bryan Collier's statement makes it seem like this is something we just found out about that can't all be fixed at once.

I understand (some) people go to prison for awful things they've done, but they shouldn't have to deal with a Texas summer with no AC on top of that.

Emboldened by court rulings and election victories, the Christian right is outspoken as it pushes its moral views through the Texas Legislature.

Testifying this month against bills that would put more Christianity in Texas public schools, the Rev. Jody Harrison invoked the violent persecution of her Baptist forefathers by fellow Christians in colonial America.

Harrison hoped the history lesson would remind Texas senators of Baptists’ strong support for church-state separations, and that weakening those protections would hurt people of all faiths.

Instead, she was rebuked.

“The Baptist doctrine is Christ-centered,” Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, responded sharply. “Its purpose is not to go around trying to defend this or that. It is to be a disciple and a witness for Christ. That includes the Ten Commandments. That’s prayer in schools. It is not a fight for separation between church and state.”

Harrison was not allowed to reply, but in an interview said she was stunned that a lawmaker would question a core part of her faith. The exchange, she said, perfectly encapsulated why she has fought to preserve church-state separations — the same religious protections that Campbell said are a distraction from bills that might bring school kids to Christ.

“It was a wake up call,” she said. “I don’t think people — even many churches — realize that this is going on right now, and that is alarming.”

A hunter found a mammoth tusk sticking out of a creek bed on a ranch in the Big Bend region. There is an interview with Bryon Schroeder, director of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sol Ross (a Texas university), on the linked page, but I'll add a few quotes:

How could this be overlooked for so long? It must be just that remote.

I think it’s that remote and there’s not that many people out there. I think these hunters had a little serendipity involved. These guys were out, you know, the right place at the right time.

It could have also just been dislodged rather recently because, I mean, it was in the creek drainage. So it could have just been exposed that quickly.

And it was it was it known that prior to this discovery mammoths lived in this region or what?

Yeah, so Harvard, with Sul Ross, did a very early, very large study out here in the late 1920s, early ’30s. And they knew about a lot of mammoths, and we’ve been actually trying to find those mammoth localities. And we just haven’t had a ton of luck.

And so people knew about them, but nobody’s ever dated them. Nobody’s ever really found one and figured out, you know, which part of the Pleistocene we’re talking about. Because at some point, mammoths get over here before people do.

You know, are these too early? Are these the right age for being associated with humans? And we’ve just not done that work because we just haven’t been able to find those localities.

How rare is this discovery? I mean, when was the last time a discovery like this was made out in your neck of the woods?

Uh, I’m sure there’s probably some ranchers out here that probably know where a lot of mammoths are on their land.

They just haven’t rang you up yet.

Yeah, haven’t rang me up. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and I’ve seen one. I’ve seen this one. So they’re fairly rare.

Something a little more lighthearted that what usually gets posted around here, so I thought I'd share.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/39969354

The Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, or FURRIES, Act, filed by Austin-area Republican State Rep. Stan Gerdes, would "prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being."

The law would allow for exempt days, such as Halloween and other school dress-up days.

The law defines "non-human" behavior as "any type of behavior or accessory displayed by a student in a school district other than behaviors or accessories typically displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species," with provided examples being:

Using a litter box for the passing of stool, urine or other human byproducts

A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets

Using fur, other than naturally occurring human hair or a wig made to look like human hair

Artificial, animal-like ears

Other physiological features that have not historically been assigned to the human race through a means of natural biological development

Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech

Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26631455