Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023:
Injunction issued in abortion exemption case
Last week, a judge in Austin issued a temporary exemption to the state’s abortion ban. It would have allowed people with complicated pregnancies to obtain the procedure, and kept doctors free from prosecution if they determined the fetus would not survive after birth.
However, hours later, the Texas Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court, blocking the judge’s order from taking effect. Marin Wolf, who covers health care for the Dallas Morning News, shares more about the latest development.
An up-close look at Gov. Greg Abbott’s floating wall in the Rio Grande
A vigil in Eagle Pass on Monday night honored two men who drowned in the Rio Grande last week. Their bodies were found near the new buoy barrier that Gov. Greg Abbott had installed to try to prevent migrants from entering Texas.
The orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys are part of Operation Lone Star, the governor’s border security initiative. Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies got in a kayak to take a closer look at the barrier and the people it’s trying to keep out.
Harris County sued over jail conditions
A group of families and formerly incarcerated people are suing Harris County in federal court over conditions at the county jail. As Houston Public Media’s Lucio Vasquez reports, they say the county is failing to provide adequate medical care while perpetuating a culture of abuse and violence:
In colonias, businesses thrive within
Informal rural subdivisions along the border called colonias are some of the lowest-income neighborhoods in the nation. They often lack the basic services and businesses found in more populated or higher-income areas.
But some residents aren’t waiting for chain restaurants or auto-repair shops to arrive. Texas Public Radio’s Carolina Cuellar looked at how residents of one colonia are taking their needs into their own hands.
Researchers study Meta algorithm & users’ political opinions
Social media algorithms are often targeted as a key culprit of political polarization. Recently, a group of researchers studied how tweaking Meta’s algorithm would affect users’ opinion. Talia Stroud, a professor of communication and journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, tells the Texas Standard about their findings.
This entrepreneur learned the difference between Black and white in Nigeria
Jehiel Oliver, a tractor entrepreneur, discusses how an experience in Nigeria changed the way he thinks about race.
Heat and the next Great Migration
For more than a decade now, many of the fastest-growing cities in the country have been in Texas and other sunny states like Florida and Arizona. Heat, however, may reverse that trend.
Hamilton Nolan, author of the ‘How Things Work’ newsletter, discusses his story on how oppressive heat may spark new migration patterns in the U.S.
78 years after Joe Cooper survived a kamikaze attack, the Navy has identified his ship’s wreckage
The U.S. Navy has identified the wreckage of one of the largest American ships sunk in World War II. The discovery of the aircraft carrier – in a sea off the coast of the Philippines – has special resonance for a man who is likely the last living survivor of the attack. Jay Price reports for the American Homefront Project.
All this, plus the Texas Newsroom’s state roundup and Michael Marks with the Talk of Texas.
