Texas
Uvalde school shooting: What we know one year later
Abbott and other Texas Republicans have mostly ignored calls for increased gun restrictions since the Uvalde shooting, instead focusing on mental health funding and school safety.
In late June, Abbott and state leaders announced they would dedicate $100 million in state funds to boost school safety and mental health services through August 2023. Most of the funds went toward bullet-resistant shields for school police officers and for school districts to buy silent panic alert technology to alert police of an intruder.
Cornyn negotiated a federal bill signed into law last June with modest gun control measures that addressed a “boyfriend loophole,” which previously exempted some dating partners from a federal ban on firearm purchases for those convicted of domestic violence. The bill also included incentives for states to impose “red flag laws,” which allow for the temporary confiscation of guns from people found by a judge to be dangerous. Texas has not moved to impose such a law.
Texas lawmakers also appear unlikely to raise the minimum age to buy semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 from 18 to 21 after a bill to do so missed key legislative deadlines. But gun safety advocates say they still see incremental progress through two gun-related bills passed by both chambers of the Legislature.
Senate Bill 728 requires courts to report involuntary mental health hospitalizations of juveniles 16 and older for inclusion in the federal background check system to purchase firearms. The bill, sent to the governor’s desk, addresses a loophole exposed by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica following the shooting in Uvalde.
House Bill 2454 would restrict a person from buying a gun for another person not allowed to have one. It has passed both chambers, but the House must accept or negotiate amendments made to the bill by the Senate before the legislative session ends May 29.
Lawmakers have also advanced legislation to fund campus security upgrades, add requirements such as silent panic buttons in classrooms and create a new safety and security department within the Texas Education Agency. The department would have the authority to compel school districts to establish active-shooter protocols — something about half of the state’s school districts failed to have, according to an audit in 2020.
Texas lawmakers have also proposed more funding for school mental health services as part of school safety legislation. However, school officials worry that money will instead be used up by school security upgrades and want a dedicated funding stream for mental health assistance. Lawmakers would have to act quickly to do so before the legislative session ends, though Abbott has warned of a special session if certain Republican priorities aren’t passed.
Abbott also appointed a chief of school safety and security, a new position he created in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, and ordered “random intruder audits” of schools to begin last fall to detect weak points in campus safety. The inspections were to be carried out by the Texas School Safety Center, a research center at Texas State University long tasked with collecting and distributing school safety information.
Texas
Texas Music Museum seeks city assistance in finding new home – Austin Monitor
The city may soon explore assistance for the nonprofit Texas Music Museum in East Austin, including finding a new location for the facility that is in danger of losing its East 11th Street home.
On Monday, the Music Commission heard a presentation from Clay Shorkey, president and caretaker of the museum’s thousands of artifacts and displays reflecting more than 100 years of the history of musicians throughout Texas. Shorkey, a retired University of Texas professor of social work who said he pays for the museum’s rent with his Social Security benefits, runs the facility with a handful of volunteers and said it is in desperate need of a larger, climate-controlled space that can better attract visitors.
“I don’t think this gonna happen tomorrow getting a world-class home, but we certainly need a much bigger space,” he said, noting the existing facility has 3,000 square feet of display area and roughly 1,000 square feet of storage space. “We have enough to have a wonderful big museum … and we have the files and the photos and the artifacts and such. We want you to try to help us make Austin a real music capital with a kind of world-class, much better facility than we currently have.”
Commissioners expressed support for finding ways for the city to assist the Texas Music Museum in the short term and long term, with funding from the Creative Space Assistance Program as an option to cover rent or basic improvements to the current space. The museum is also a recipient of funding from Cultural Arts contracts that it uses in part to fund live music performances at its events.
Looking longer term, Commissioner Anne-Charlotte Patterson offered the idea of using some of the space in the rebuilt Austin Convention Center to house the museum, with others suggesting other city real estate holdings as a temporary location until the convention center reopens in 2030.
The group ultimately decided to delay action on the item until its June meeting so a subset of commissioners could work with Shorkey and the rest of the Texas Music Museum board to determine the exact space and budgetary needs, to give City Council a specific request that would be less likely to get lost in other priorities and initiatives.
“I honestly kind of want to take a step back and recommend that we move the discussion of possible action so that no one yells at us from the city,” Commissioner Scott Strickland said, noting the Austin Economic Development Corporation is one of many city entities that could assist with the museum’s needs. “It happens time and time again where we recommend something and it’s a great recommendation and we spend months talking about it … but it just goes into a box of really good ideas, and then no one picks it up.”
While some commissioners suggested the use of creative space bond money to help the museum, Economic Development Department staff noted that the AEDC has already identified the 14 priority projects to possibly use that money for.
In 2017, there was substantial movement at the state level to create a state music museum in the Capitol complex development just north of the state Capitol. The Texas Music Museum was among the dozens of groups from around the state that participated in that effort, which appeared to have full legislative support and funding but was undone over the objections of a handful of other music museums across the state that said a state music facility would reduce their appeal and business interests to tourists.
Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.
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Posted In: Austin, District 1
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Texas
Texas weather: Tips to prep for severe storms
Severe Thunderstorm Watch
from THU 5:46 PM CDT until FRI 12:00 AM CDT, Travis County, Williamson County, Lee County, Bastrop County, Caldwell County, Hays County, Blanco County, Gillespie County, Burnet County, Llano County, Bastrop County, Blanco County, Burnet County, Caldwell County, Gillespie County, Hays County, Lee County, Llano County, Travis County, Williamson County
Texas
Why are skies hazy across Texas? See your city’s AQI this weekend
Humidity and wildfires in Mexico are bringing hazy skies across the state of Texas.
2024 wildfire season forecast
Bad air quality and low visibility could once again be a concern as wildfires ramp up in the United States and Canada.
Texas skies are hazy this week thanks to the tedious combination of humidity and smoke drifting from various fires.
Hazy conditions and poor air quality will remain steady through the weekend, according to data from AirNow.gov, the nation’s official website for air quality monitoring.
Here’s what we know.
Where is smoke coming from in Texas?
This week, active wildfires have been reported in California, New Orleans, Mexico, and Central America. Strong winds are carrying remnants of smoke to various parts of Texas, including Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Waco.
According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, residual smoke from seasonal burnings and industrial activities is the primary contributing factor to the haze in Texas.
“Elsewhere, light to moderate winds combined with very high relative humidity east of the dryline has kept elevated fine particulate matter concentrations widespread and are expected to be sustained,” according to the daily statement on the TCEQ website Wednesday.
Air Quality Index: Map of current conditions across Texas
Much of the eastern portion of the state will experience moderate to unhealthy air quality conditions through Saturday as a cold front continues to bring residual smoke and high relative humidity. According to AirNow, these are the forecasted AQIs through Saturday.
- Amarillo: Good through the weekend
- Austin: Unhealthy for sensitive groups, moderate beginning Friday
- Corpus: Unhealthy for all, moderate beginning Friday
- Dallas-Fort Worth: Moderate through the weekend
- El Paso: Moderate through the weekend
- Houston: Unhealthy for sensitive groups, moderate on Saturday
- Lubbock: Good through the weekend
- Midland-Odessa: Good through the weekend
- San Antonio: Moderate
- Waco: Unsafe for sensitive groups, moderate and good on Friday and Saturday
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