Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Thursday, May 4, 2023:
Poll: Three-fourths of Texas voters support raising the gun purchase age to 21
Sizable majorities of Texas voters, including Republicans, support raising the minimum age to buy all guns from 18 to 21, according to new polling from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Research director Joshua Blank joins us with these findings and more poll results.
Texas lawmakers move to limit local government power
Republicans who control the Texas Legislature are moving a massive local preemption bill that potentially removes wide swaths of labor, environmental and business policy out of the control of locally elected leaders. As KERA’s Bret Jaspers reports, the state would rely on lawsuits from private entities to enforce it.
A new school to train mental health professionals might be coming to Houston
Staffing shortages have plagued the state psychiatric hospital system for years, but the COVID pandemic worsened them exponentially. That means fully funded psychiatric beds are sitting empty and there aren’t enough staff to care for people. Houston Public Media’s Sara Willa Ernst reports on one state hospital working to change that.
‘The Filipino Guey:’ What happens when cultures combine to make something delicious
Filipino and Mexican culture share many similarities: after all, both countries were colonized by Spain. One area of overlap is food. During this Asian American Pacific Islander Month, taco journalist Mando Rayo spoke with Filipino chefs for his Tacos of Texas podcast. Rayo joins us with more.
As users continue to flee Twitter, citing Elon Musk’s mercurial style, another contender to replace the social platform is having a moment. Bluesky Social, which has the backing of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has already attracted some powerhouse posters. Texas Standard producer/reporter Shelly Brisbin joins the show to discuss.
Texas author Dina Gachman on facing grief head-on
Within the space of just a few years, author Dina Gachman lost her mother to cancer and her sister to alcoholism. But she was determined not to lose the important lessons from dealing with those tragedies. Our Laura Rice talks with Gachman about her book “So Sorry For Your Loss: How I Learned to Live with Grief, and Other Grave Concerns.”
Has Texas cracked down on protest after 2020’s racial justice demonstrations?
In response to the murder of George Floyd and police brutality broadly, people across Texas headed out to protest. A few years after those demonstrations, there’s been a backlash, writes the Houston Chronicle’s Jeremy Wallace. He joins us today.
All this, plus the Texas Newsroom’s state roundup and Wells Dunbar with the Talk of Texas.
