Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Thursday, January 27, 2022.
Breyer’s retirement and who could replace him
Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the Supreme Court may not change its ideological balance. But the appointment of his replacement could mark a momentous shift nonetheless. Renee Knake Jefferson spoke with Texas Standard about Breyer’s possible replacements. She’s a Professor of Law and the Joanne and Larry Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics at the University of Houston, and co-author of the book “Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court”.
School districts across the state are continuing to feel the strain of teacher shortages. In fact, the Fort Worth Independent School District needs so many bilingual teachers that it just finished interviewing candidates from Mexico City. KERA’s Bill Zeeble has more.
Houston eviction court crowding
Houston has some of the highest eviction numbers in the nation. One result of that is crowded courtrooms where social distancing is impossible. As Houston Public Media’s Jen Rice reports, although the pandemic isn’t over, most of the state’s court safety regulations are on the way out.
If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve seen them – grids of colored squares, topped by a set of numbers. Those are your friends’ Wordle scores. Wordle is the latest viral phenomenon to take over the Internet, and if you’re not playing, you probably know someone who is. Our tech expert Omar Gallaga helps us understand the Wordle craze.
Coaxing more carbon emissions out of the atmosphere and into the soil would help slow down the rate at which our planet is warming. Now, some Texans with large amounts of land on their hands are getting paid to do just that. Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, associate professor and Extension Specialist in Agricultural Law with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension service, explains how carbon storage contracts work for farmers and ranchers.
Weather impacts on Texas agriculture
After experiencing the warmest December on record, Texas is still seeing unusual weather this winter, and an ongoing drought, leading some farmers to experiment on their fields and find a way around the conditions. Texas Tech Public Media’s Jayme Lozano reports.
An historic Austin music venue could be revitalized if a developer gets his way. But as Audrey McGlinchy of KUT Austin reports, some neighbors are not sold on the idea.
Vaccine inequity solutions
Earlier in the pandemic, as vaccines for COVID-19 started clearing trials and winning approvals, it quickly became apparent that wealthier countries would secure the majority of doses. Efforts aimed at global immunization were confounded by vaccine costs. But a new vaccine developed here in Texas may go a long way to address those issues of access, as it’s been approved for emergency use in India. For more we’re joined by one of the researchers who developed the vaccine, Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, professor at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.
All this and Texas News Roundup, plus Michael Marks with the talk of Texas.
