Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Thursday, May 27, 2021.
No More Unemployment Benefits, Reactions
Starting next month, many unemployed Texans will no longer get extra financial assistance during the pandemic. That’s after Gov. Greg Abbott announced he’s stopping a COVID-19 program that gave additional federal relief to people who have lost their jobs. Abbott says he’s ending the aid so people will return to work, but as Houston Public Media’s Jen Rice reports, some Houstonians say it’s not that simple
Border Patrol Staged Exercises in El Paso
In 2018, there was an Election Day Border Patrol training exercise that was scheduled to take place next to a Hispanic neighborhood. But then it was cancelled. El Paso Matters CEO Bob Moore dug deeper into why. It took him two years and a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to report how the Border Patrol was setting up an event that had nothing to do with training.
Climate Change And Safety Net Health Clinics
Hurricane season begins next week. In Houston, we’ve seen plenty of the impacts these storms can have on health care systems: Closed health centers, busy emergency rooms, a bottleneck of supplies. As the effects of climate change become more severe, a group of researchers are looking at how clinics can best prepare for disasters like these. Houston Public Media’s Sara Willa Ernst says they’ve looked to Houston for answers.
Most of the tech products we buy – phones, computers, televisions – are built in other countries. Even if a device, like the iPhone, is designed in the U.S. by an American company, the finished product usually rolls off an assembly line in China, Vietnam or elsewhere in Asia. But a recent survey by PC Magazine found that many companies are building tech products in the U.S. – some of them in Texas. Our tech expert Omar Gallaga has a breakdown.
Memorial Day is coming up. It honors military men and women who died while serving their country. Not all of them died in combat. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez from the Voces Oral History Project has this story from a young airman who died in England 70 years ago.
Symbols of a life on the border are all over John Miranda’s new gallery show in Dallas: desert animals and plants, river water and tumbleweeds. KERA’s Miguel Perez says the Fort Worth artist draws from the Chicano art styles he admired as a child.
Some three months ago, the U.S. landed the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. The rover’s name is not coincidental – the story of reaching the red planet is one of perseverance – as is the story of the many Latinos and Latinas who worked on that mission. Reynaldo Leaños Jr. is with Latino USA. The long-running public radio program recently spoke to some of the Latinx engineers who participated in the Perseverance project. We’ll hear from Leaños today.
There’s nowhere else in the world akin to the Big Bend region and its one-of-a-kind geological features. It’s also ripe for energy extraction, with big opportunities for wind and solar, oil and gas. That’s why in 2019, regional landowners, academics and energy executives got together, seeking a way to preserve the region’s unique resources in the face of new development. They called the effort “Respect Big Bend.” Earlier this week, the group released its first report of its findings. Billy Tarrant with the Borderlands Research Institute at Sul Ross State University, joins us with the latest today.
All this and Texas News Roundup, plus Social Media Editor Wells Dunbar with the talk of Texas.
