Texas News

During the years after the Civil War, communities of African Americans worked together throughout southeastern Texas to form what historians call freedom colonies. Research underway at Texas A&M University in Bryan-College Station aims to identify and preserve these historic black settlements. As heard on Texas Public Radio Andrea Roberts teaches urban planning at Texas A&M University in College Station. She began the Texas Freedom Colonies Project during her doctoral studies at the University of Texas….

In a desolate stretch of desert outside Yuma, Ariz., there’s a spot where more than 350 migrants and children burrowed under the steel border fence a few weeks ago. “This only goes down just about probably another foot, this steel,” said Anthony Porvaznik, chief patrol agent for the Yuma sector of the Border Patrol. He says smugglers tried digging in more than a dozen different spots, looking for places where the ground was soft enough….

A bipartisan border security deal was approved Thursday evening by the U.S. House and Senate, but since funding for a border wall fell short of President Trump’s expectations, he declared a national emergency Friday to seek funds elsewhere. But the ongoing controversy over a physical barrier persists. Reporter Melissa del Bosque exposed an environmental threat in her Type Investigations article. Listen Listening… Melissa del Bosque, Pro Publica reporter and Lannan Fellow with Type Investigations. Credit…

Brock Long, who led the Federal Emergency Management Agency during 220 declared disasters since 2017, announced his resignation Wednesday. In a statement, Long, 43, said “While this has been the opportunity of the lifetime, it is time for me to go home to my family – my beautiful wife and two incredible boys. William “Brock” Long led FEMA since June 2017. A former state emergency management director in Alabama, Long was faced with immediate challenges…

Thousands of migrant children continue to arrive at the Southern border every month, without their parents, to ask for asylum. The government sends many of them to an emergency intake shelter in South Florida. That facility has come under intense scrutiny because it’s the only child shelter for immigrants that’s run by a for-profit corporation and the only one that isn’t overseen by state regulators. The Homestead “temporary influx facility” is the biggest and most…

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state. There’s increased risk for wildfires in the Texas Panhandle this week. Melanie Karns is Hazard Mitigation Coordinator for the Texas A&M Forest Service, and says the organization made the assessment based on a few factors, including weather patterns. “Looking at the weather for the next two days out or so, there’s critical and…

Idaho, Maine, Nebraska and Utah voters approved Medicaid expansion through ballot initiatives. Now Texas legislators have filed bills for a vote over whether the state should expand coverage for the joint federal-state health insurance program. — Olga Kauffman is tired of the politics surrounding Medicaid. Kauffman, a San Antonio resident who works as a health specialist with Urban Strategies, a group that builds public housing and provides services to residents, says she sees families struggle…