Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023:
Texas schools sue over changes to state A-F campus grading system
A Travis County judge is considering whether to temporarily block the Texas Education Agency from rolling out changes to how it evaluates schools. Nearly 100 public school districts are part of a lawsuit challenging updates to the A-F accountability system.
KUT education reporter Becky Fogel attended the court hearing this week and joins the Standard with an update.
Whitmire, Jackson Lee lead Houston mayoral race
With early voting less than two weeks away, the race for a new mayor of Houston is intensifying. State Sen. John Whitmire and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee continue to lead a crowded field, according to a new poll from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.
The Hobby School’s Reneé Cross joins the Standard with more.
Find things that go bump in the night at Austin’s Museum of the Weird
Austin’s Museum of the Weird is home to all manner of arcane beasts (or at least depictions of them): jackalopes, fiji mermaids, and even a life-size yeti.
As part of our October series tracking Texas cryptids, we’ll go inside the museum and meet its proprietors.
Filtering out social media disinformation on the Israel/Hamas war
When news broke over the weekend of the surprise Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s military actions in Gaza, social media feeds quickly filled with accounts of the battle.
Many of those videos were fake: images from video games or past fighting, made to look accurate. And the fakes have proliferated on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Tech expert Omar Gallaga has been looking into the ways X and rival platform Threads deal with disinfo. He joins the Standard with more.
Can Texas expect power outages this winter?
Concern over the state’s power grid has been with many Texans all summer long. But fall will quickly turn to winter, and a new report looks into the likelihood of outages in the coming months.
Doug Lewin, author of the Texas Energy and Power newsletter, joins the Standard with a look ahead.
New book celebrates a century of Texas state parks
This year, the Texas State Parks system is celebrating its centennial anniversary, and there’s a new book to mark the occasion.
“Texas State Parks: The First 100 Years” tells the story of how the state’s parks began. The book is part of this year’s Texas Book Festival lineup, and it’s written by longtime Texas conservationist George Bristol. He joins the Standard today.
Is there enough water to share between Texas and Chihuahua?
The summer drought’s been bad in Texas, but Mexican states south of us are also feeling the squeeze when it comes to water.
In Chihuahua, the situation is complicated by a 1944 treaty that requires Mexico to share a predetermined amount of water with the U.S. every five years. With that deadline approaching, Mexico is behind on its water transfers to the U.S. – but local officials and farmers in Chihuahua are worried there isn’t enough to go around.
Martha Pskowski reported on this issue for Inside Climate News and The El Paso Times. She joins the Standard with more.
All this, plus the Texas Newsroom’s state roundup and Wells Dunbar with the Talk of Texas.
