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Falling short on school security
On the eve of sending a sweeping school safety bill to Gov. Greg Abbott last year, lawmakers said they'd learned powerful lessons from the school shooting at Robb Elementary and were committed to ensuring it didn't happen again.
"It's time to act," said Rep. Ken King, a Panhandle Republican, from the House floor. "We need to prevent the next Uvalde."
The GOP-led Legislature rebuffed calls from victims' families for gun regulations and instead went with a plan to boost building security, mainly by requiring an armed officer at every public school in Texas.
Nine months after the law took effect, a Hearst Newspapers analysis found most schools haven't done it.
In an analysis of 100 randomly selected school districts around the state, Hearst found that at least half adopted an exception built into the law to avoid complying with the armed guard requirement.
Just a quarter had an armed security officer stationed at each campus, while another 22 did not respond and made no mention of the requirement in school board meetings in the last year.
District leaders who spoke to the newspaper said they struggled to pay for the added security or couldn't find people to take the jobs. Read more in Edward McKinley's latest here.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
Up: Abortion rights.
Mifepristone, a common abortion-inducing medication, will remain on the market without additional restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected an anti-abortion group's challenge to the drug's approval. The nine justices ruled to change nothing about the drug's legal status, a rebuke to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo.
Down: Joe Biden.
A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups sued the Biden administration on Wednesday over the president's directive that effectively halts asylum claims at the southern border, saying it differs little from a similar move by the Trump administration that was blocked by the courts. The lawsuit is the first test of the legality of Biden's sweeping crackdown on the border, which came after months of internal White House deliberations and is designed in part to deflect political attacks against the president on his handling of immigration.
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What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Jeremy Wallace
After Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to protect in vitro fertilization, the Senator from Houston blasted Democrats for stopping his own bill on the issue that would have threatened to withhold Medicaid funding for states where IVF is banned. Cruz called it a "cynical political decision" by Democrats to stop his bill that would have made sure IVF treatments are protected.
What else I'm reading
International TV host and musician Johnny Canales, a South Texas icon who used his popular show to launch stars like Selena, Ramon Ayala and others has died at age 77. The Robstown resident's show, El Show de Johnny Canales, ran for more than 40 years and he will always be known as Mr. "You got it, Take it Away!" More about his passing here from TMZ.
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