Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Wednesday, July 6, 2022:
Texans’ electricity bills are much higher this summer
Texans are seeing a surge in the cost of their home electricity bills this summer, reaching rates as much as 70% higher than this time last year. The surge comes at a time when Texans are already facing rising costs at the pump and in grocery stores due to inflation. Mitchell Ferman, who has been reporting on this for the Texas Tribune, joins us.
The military is offering to transfer troops affected by anti-LGBTQ laws, but the process isn’t easy
Pentagon leaders say they will allow military families to move to new bases if they’re stationed in states with laws hostile to LGBTQ people. But families who try to take advantage of the program may face barriers. Texas Public Radio’s Carson Frame reports for the American Homefront Project.
Houston junior wins Apple coding competition for new app
Houston high school student Jones Mays created an app that identifies invasive plants – and recently, his project won Apple’s worldwide coding competition for young people. Mays says his app, Ivy, honors his grandfather’s legacy as a gardener.
The cryptominers using natural gas flaring to power their operations
It’s not uncommon to see oil wells in West Texas “flaring” gas, or burning off the natural gas brought to the surface during the extraction process. Turns out Texas’ Brazos Valley could well become a hot spot for cryptominers interested in flaring gas to power their digital mining operations. Dan Swinhoe, who’s been covering the story for Datacenter Dynamics, shares more.
Have plans for a Texas bullet train gone off the tracks for good?
The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the company behind a proposed bullet train between Dallas and Houston could use eminent domain to obtain the land it needed for the rail line. The ruling late last month was a big win for Texas Central Railroad, although it’s not clear who’s left to celebrate it. Just two weeks before the ruling, the company’s CEO stepped down and its board of directors dissolved itself. So is the plan derailed? James Leggate, who’s been following this story for the Engineering News-Record, joins us today.
The movement to stop unpaid prison labor
Texas is one of seven southern states that does not pay people in prison for their work. A new report by the University of Chicago Law School’s Global Human Rights Clinic and the American Civil Liberties Union estimates about 800,000 people in prison perform labor, many under dangerous conditions. Michael Barajas, managing editor at digital news magazine Bolts, and David Johnson, an activist and formerly incarcerated worker, discuss the growing movement to stop forced labor in prison.
Fact-check: Is Abbott campaign right that Texas has 90% high school graduation rate?
Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election campaign says that Texas’ public high school graduation rate is at 90% overall. Is that a fact? Nusaiba Mizan with PolitiFact Texas, based at the Austin American-Statesman, has more.
All this, plus the Texas Newsroom’s state roundup and Wells Dunbar with the Talk of Texas.
