The U.S. Treasury Department seized $1.9 million in unspent rent relief from five Texas counties and one city because local officials didn’t spend the money fast enough.
Economy
Get the latest on jobs, business, growth, and policy shaping the state’s economy with in-depth reporting from The Texas Tribune.
Analysis: Texas politicians await our instructions, but what do voters want?
If Texas politicians seem to be tinkering at the edges of major issues like the pandemic, electric blackouts and education, an election year is the best opportunity to set them straight.
2021 in photos: Texans navigated COVID-19, weathered power outages and witnessed an increase in border crossings
As 2021 comes to a close, here’s a look back at just some of our favorite images captured by Texas Tribune photographers all over the state — and across the nation — to tell the stories of Texans in a challenging year.
Analysis: The Texas storms — actual and political — of 2021
Here are a dozen of my columns from 2021: highlights on the winter storm, redistricting, the state’s finances and on issues that could figure into this next round of elections.
Holidays and at-home tests mean omicron’s spread will be harder to track in Texas
The Texas Department of State Health Services, which tracks the number of coronavirus vaccinations, cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the state, won’t be updating its daily dashboard Friday through Sunday both this week and next over the holidays.
Unhappy holidays: Texas endures another COVID Christmas
After nearly two years of navigating life during a pandemic, many Texans are now scrambling for COVID tests, delaying plans and worrying about relatives who have been exposed to the virus.
Home prices soared during the pandemic. Here’s what that looks like in one East Texas city.
Texas’ housing crunch has spread outside of the state’s major metropolitan areas and into more rural parts of Texas. Smaller cities and towns saw steep increases in home prices as COVID-19 spread.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he’ll take fight against federal vaccine mandate for large businesses to Supreme Court
Texas is among states that sued the Biden administration over its mandate. An appeals court ruled in the president’s favor Friday and reinstated the rule, set to take effect Jan. 4.
Analysis: From homegrown culture warriors to tomorrow’s Texas leaders
Republicans in Austin have been after local governments for years, pushing aside local laws and rules on a long list of issues where local and state powers overlap. Now they’re recruiting fellow Republicans for local offices, to try to change things at the ground level.
Analysis: Texas’ electric grid is half-ready for another winter freeze
Chances are, winter weather won’t be as bad as it was last February. Chances are, Texas won’t have the electric blackouts that caused so much misery then. And chances are, whatever happens will have some influence on the 2022 elections.


