The dispatching of troops to the sprawling private ranches, far from the border, raises questions about the use of National Guard troops, who have widely decried the mission as aimless, political and oversized, as the cost of the effort has already ballooned to $2 billion a year.
investigations
Posted in
Investigations
A Texas State bone marrow registry program became a national model. Now, its leader is under investigation for diverting money to support an affair.
The university has declined to say much about the questionable spending, documented in records provided to The Texas Tribune. The Texas State University System is investigating the matter.
Posted in
Operation Lone Star
Deplorable conditions, unclear mission: Texas National Guard troops call Abbott’s rushed border operation a disaster
The governor has sent waves of troops to the border as Guard officials scramble to execute a massive mobilization that would normally take months to plan. Some Guard members say the operation has set back their income, education and well-being.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
A Laredo plant that sterilizes medical equipment spews cancer-causing pollution on schoolchildren
Nobody told Yaneli Ortiz’s family that the factory they lived near emitted ethylene oxide. Not when the EPA found it causes cancer. Not when she was diagnosed with leukemia. And not when Texas moved to allow polluters to emit more of the chemical.
Posted in
The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
Generators can cause deadly carbon monoxide poisoning. But the industry resists rules to make them safer.
Portable generators are among the deadliest consumer products. Two decades after the government identified the danger, and as climate change leads to more power outages, people are left vulnerable by a system that lets the industry regulate itself.
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Operation Lone Star
Hundreds of migrants accused of trespassing languish in Texas prisons. A county judge’s new approach might prolong their detention.
Despite a surge of arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative, a Kinney County judge removed three judges who have been helping him hear the cases. The judges had been letting some of the migrants out after months in prison, and defense attorneys say the action is retaliatory.
Posted in
The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
Trump won Hood County in a landslide. His supporters still hounded the elections administrator until she resigned.
Michele Carew, an elections administrator with 14 years of experience, has resigned after a monthslong campaign by Trump loyalists to oust her. “I’m leaving on my own accord,” she said.
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Investigations
Texas has raised $54 million in private donations for its border wall plan. Almost all of it came from this one billionaire.
Timothy Mellon is the Wyoming-based grandson of banking tycoon Andrew Mellon. He is responsible for nearly 98% of the donations to Texas’ border wall fund.
Posted in
The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
“God’s will is being thwarted.” Even in solid Republican counties, hard-liners seek more partisan control of elections.
The political battle in one Texas county where Trump got 81% of the vote offers a rare view into the virulent distrust and unyielding pressure facing elections administrators.
Posted in
Redistricting Texas
Texas appears to be paying a secretive Republican political operative $120,000 annually to work behind the scenes on redistricting
Adam Foltz, now on the Texas payroll, played a key role in Wisconsin’s redistricting last decade. A federal court threw out some of the maps and called the effort Foltz was involved in “an all but shameful attempt to hide the redistricting process from public scrutiny.”
