The bill was amended to make the benefits retroactive, supporting the family of a soldier whose name is on the legislation.
April 2023
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas House votes to permanently stay on daylight saving time. But Congress won’t allow it — yet.
The chamber voted 138-5 on Wednesday to approve a bill that seeks to end the practice of changing clocks twice a year. But that doesn’t mean the measure has an easy path to reality.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Lawmakers’ attempts to tighten drug laws could saddle crime labs with an unsustainable workload
Texas lawmakers want tougher criminal penalties for possession of delta-8 and fentanyl. But that would mean much more work for the crime labs handling most of the drug testing for the state’s 254 counties.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texan leading TikTok ban in Congress urges state lawmakers to rein in their own social media legislation
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul has warned members of the Texas Legislature to keep their China-countering legislation focused on espionage and not to target Chinese immigrants.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Two GOP Texas House members call for Rep. Bryan Slaton to resign
Reps. Briscoe Cain and Steve Toth, who are usually ideologically aligned with Slaton, said the lawmaker needed to step down.
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Environment
Environmental groups sue EPA over water pollution standards
A coalition of environmental groups claims the EPA has failed for decades to update limits on the discharge of some dangerous chemicals into waterways. Most of the worst polluters are in Texas.
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Texas Legislature 2023
How Republicans’ threats to tenure and diversity might undercut their own efforts to advance Texas’ universities
Texas lawmakers are poised to create a new multibillion-dollar endowment to boost emerging research universities in national rankings. But faculty members say banning diversity offices and tenure would stymie those efforts.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas House budgets $545 million for prison air conditioning. The Senate hasn’t offered anything.
Sweltering heat has killed inmates, driven away prison workers and cost taxpayers millions in lawsuits. The House budget would provide air conditioning for 46 prisons, but it’s unclear if the Senate will sign on.
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Environment
A rare Texas wildflower gets protection under the Endangered Species Act
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the bracted twistflower, native to the Edwards Plateau, a threatened species, a month after putting another Texas plant on the endangered list.
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Criminal Justice
Texas House passes bill decriminalizing fentanyl test strips
The bill would take fentanyl test strips off the state’s “drug paraphernalia” list, meaning it would no longer be a crime to carry them.