No matter how hard we try, we real­ly can’t avoid one another. We live in a world where what takes place some­where else on the globe has a very good chance of affecting us, along with many others. The pandemic, of course, is a useful – if sobering – ex­ample. A virus...

The latest report on child maltreatment fatali­ties and near fatalities, compiled by the Texas Depart­ment of Family and Protective Services, indicates 251 children in Texas died in fiscal year 2020 due to abuse and neglect. That figure includes 28 children who died...

  A Texas Senate commit­tee on Friday passed an elections bill that would tighten the state’s voting rules by limiting extended early voting hours, requiring proof of disability to qualify for mail-in voting and prohibiting drive-th­ru voting. Senate Bill 7,...

The COVID-19 pan­demic has produced too many tragedies to tally, but here is one that does not get talked about enough: It has worsened conditions that leave children and youth especially vulnerable to com­mercial sexual exploitation, a human trafficking crime. Human...

Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas leaders are rolling up their sleeves to get the COVID-19 vaccine and to encourage the public to follow suit. “I will never ask any Texan to do something that I’m not willing to do myself,” Abbott said before getting vaccinated at a...

Texas has the second-highest population of veterans in the country––nearly 1.5 million––and many of these veterans are poor or homeless. While groups around the state are tirelessly working on veterans’ behalf, there is always more to be done to ensure their civil...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is battling back against seven top aides who accuse him of bribery and abuse of office. The aides delivered the accu­sations in a letter to the agency’s human resources director. The Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV obtained and...

In a year of fighting a global pandemic, historic protests for racial equality, and the rapidly approaching presidential election, America needs journalists to bring them critical reporting. The events of this year have led to significant increases in traffic to news...

Students across Texas returned to campuses last week as schools and universities scrambled to put into place new lesson plans that best accommodate a pandemic. For many school districts, this meant greatly expanding the technological resources of their students to...

A Texan’s speeding ticket put her in the legal history books last week. To combat the backlog in criminal cases created by the pandemic, a Travis County justice of the peace conducted the nation’s first virtual criminal trial. The case was livestreamed on YouTube, and...