Austin, TX
War & Treaty Call Out Cotton Plant Found in Festival Dressing Room: 'It Just Shouldn't Happen'
The War & Treaty have spent the last year gracing award show stages, garnering Grammy nominations, and even earning their first-ever platinum single. But for artists of color in the country and Americana space, success and acclaim doesn’t mean escaping the litany of microaggressions and racist assumptions built into these spaces of the music industry.
Last weekend, before performing at the Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds Festival in Austin, the husband-and-wife duo encountered a startling sight in their dressing room: a cotton plant. The plant was simple green room decoration, but in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the duo discussed the ways in which the plant represented a larger issue of predominantly white spaces in the industry failing to make artists of color feel welcome or safe.
“We went back and forth, wondering if we should speak out on this incident,” the band said on Instagram, after the story’s publication. “Ultimately, we knew this issue was bigger than just us.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, festival organizers apologized for what they called “an honest mistake.”
“We are disheartened that the artists were ever uncomfortable at last weekend’s event,” the statement reads. “There was no purposeful harm intended, and we sincerely apologize. Their concern was met with immediate action, including a heartfelt in-person apology, removal of the decor and a personal conversation with the artists by event organizers.”
In the interview with THR, Michael and Tanya Trotter detailed the cycle of emotions they were forced to feel after encountering the cotton plant.
“Anger is what I felt,” said Michael, a veteran. “Disrespect is what I felt. Sadness is what I felt. Sadness not just because of what that plant represents to people that look like me but sadness for myself because I am a son of this country.”
For Tanya, the daughter of a sharecropper, the thoughtless room decoration served as a harmful reminder of her family’s past. “ It’s not my position to educate anybody on what cotton is and what it represents in this country,” she said. “It just shouldn’t happen.”
Left unsaid is that of the ten artists playing the main stage over the two-day music festival, the War & Treaty were the only non-white artists amidst a lineup of white acts performing blues, soul, and rap. A representative for the Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds Festival did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
The decision to speak out weighed on the group, now signed to a major label, that has developed a reputation (once they’ve tried to shed) of being feel-good cultural bridgebuilders ever since their 2018 debut Healing Tide. “We’re not the kumbaya cats that people may want to paint on us,” Michael Trotter told Rolling Stone in 2020. “We intentionally wanted to focus on healing with Healing Tide, but we might’ve given off the wrong impression in saying that we are the healers…We are the most hopeful cats.”
More recently, the band released its latest single, “Called You By Your Name,” a bluesy rave they performed last month at CMA Fest.
AUSTIN, Texas – State and federal agriculture officials said highly pathogenic avian flu has been found in a herd of dairy cows in Texas.
What we know:
Officials said the H5N1 virus was confirmed with laboratory tests in late May after cows at an unspecified farm became sick and milk production dropped. The dairy has since been quarantined and an investigation is underway.
This is the first case of avian flu in a Texas dairy herd this year, officials said.
What they’re saying:
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is confident that pasteurization is effective at inactivating H5N1, and that the commercial, pasteurized milk supply is safe,” officials at the Texas Animal Health Commission said in a statement.
A dairy cow is seen at a farm on June 1, 2026. (Tim Evans/Bloomberg / Getty Images)
Dig deeper:
H5N1 has a high rate of severe disease and death in animals that become infected.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the risk to the general public from avian flu is low. Some sporadic human infections have been reported around the world since 1997. There have been no known cases of person-to-person spreading of avian flu.
The Source: Information in this story came from the Texas Animal Health Commission, the USDA, the FDA and the CDC.
AUSTIN, Texas — Self-driving cars have become a common sight on Austin streets, but a new Texas law is adding tougher requirements for the companies behind the wheelless vehicles.
Senate Bill 2807 imposes stricter rules on autonomous vehicle companies operating in the state, including state authorization, emergency response plans for law enforcement, and a public portal where residents can verify operators and file safety complaints.
The changes come as Austin continues to track incidents involving autonomous vehicles. The city’s autonomous vehicle dashboard shows 75 incidents in 2026, including a collision, eight near misses, and seven incidents of ignoring police direction.
Attorney Drew Gibbs, a partner at Slingshot Law, said one crash involved a Waymo vehicle.
“There was a T-bone collision. A pretty serious T-bone collision where a Waymo just crashed into the side of my client’s vehicle,” Gibbs said.
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One of the incidents of ignoring police direction happened during the mass shooting on West Sixth Street back in March, when three people died, and 15 others were injured.
Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock said autonomous vehicles can struggle in unusual situations.
“It didn’t impede on anything in the moment, but it’s not necessarily uncommon where these vehicles don’t quite know how to deal with these one-off scenarios,” Bullock said.
The new law requires autonomous vehicle companies to be authorized by the state, to provide an emergency response plan for law enforcement, and to participate in a public-facing portal that allows the public to verify operators and submit safety complaints.
Kara Kockelman, a professor of transportation and engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, welcomed the added oversight.
“I’m glad that the state is taking this a bit more seriously now,” she said. “It’s important not to just let others slip in without kind of meeting those basic minimums.”
Bullock said the emergency planning requirement may not make a major difference in fast-moving situations. Asked how impactful it is to have a fully laid out emergency response plan, Bullock said, “These plans are great, but it takes time to work through all of those versus the immediacy of having someone behind the wheel.”
The four autonomous vehicle companies operating in Austin — Waymo, Zoox, AV-Ride, and Tesla — are all state-authorized.
The Texas DMV said an autonomous vehicle company can lose its authorization to operate in Texas if the agency deems the vehicles are operating in a way that endangers public safety.
Waymo was contacted for comment, but had not responded.
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said Tuesday she will leave the post next month.
What we know:
In a statement, Nelson said her resignation will be effective July 17 but did not provide a reason for the departure.
“It has been an honor to serve the people of Texas in this role,” Nelson said. “My time as Secretary came at an important moment for Texas, and I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish as an agency in under four years.”
Nelson has served in the role since 2023.
Among other things, the Secretary of State oversees elections and business filings in the state and serves as the chief diplomat of Texas.
View of Texas State Senator Jane Nelson, during the 80th Texas Legislature, on the floor of the Senate at the Texas State Capitol, Austin, Texas, January 22, 2007. (John Anderson/The Austin Chronicle / Getty Images)
What they’re saying:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott described Nelson as extraordinary.
“I am deeply grateful for her long and loyal service and outstanding leadership. She has represented our state with grace and honor across the globe, and Texas is better because of it,” Abbott said. “Cecilia and I wish her all the best in the next chapter of her distinguished career.”
Dig deeper:
According to the Secretary of State’s office, Nelson has presided over seven statewide elections during her tenure with a cumulative 27 million ballots cast and broke a record with more than 3 million active business filers.
Nelson also served three decades in the Texas Senate, where she remains the longest-serving Republican in state history.
The Source: Information in this story came from the Texas Secretary of State’s office.
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