Free Republic

The University of Texas at Austin is laying off dozens of employees who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles in response to a state law that banned such programs, according to the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Employees who had previously worked in DEI roles received layoff notices Tuesday. That came months after the university had reassigned them from those positions to comply with the legislation, which went into effect Jan. 1. The school declined to provide a specific tally of the number of people affected, though the AAUP said 60 is a “conservative...

A video posted by reliable Fox News reporter Matt Finn shows illegal immigrants ravaging a mountain in Sunland Park, New Mexico, while Border Patrol agents apparently won’t defend it, calling the mountain the Cartel’s. Finn wrote in the video post, “Unbelievable. A Border Patrol agent in Sunland Park, NM just told us a mountain in the United States is ‘not ours’ anymore. ‘It’s theirs.’ Referring to Cartels. We literally spent five minutes on Mt. Cristo Rey and a group of illegals breezed by.” Mt. Cristo Rey is adorned by a 29-foot-tall statue of Jesus, which was erected in 1940 after...

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent...

A stay-at-home mother in Texas said she was shocked when she was informed that there was a warrant out for her arrest over an unreturned library book. Kaylee Morgan said it was an oversized book for home-schooling about Vincent Van Gogh that she borrowed in 2023. She got the bad news after trying to get her driver's license renewed and was rejected. "When I get there, they told me they can't renew it because I have a warrant out for my arrest," the mother of five children told KPRC-TV. "I am just shocked. I literally laughed out loud. I said...

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is warning Americans that another 9/11-like attack is a strong possibility as President Joe Biden’s open border continues to pose a security risk to the United States. He criticized the Biden Administration for refusing to take responsibility and stop terrorists from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, threatening American communities and their safety. Abbott said that the number of known illegal terrorist immigrants that have been apprehended is “extraordinary,” but stressed that an even bigger number of illegal aliens have successfully crossed the border without being caught. More from the Texas governor’sinterview with Fox News. The administration is...

Gov. Greg Abbott says he will sign Senate Bill 4, which would make it a state crime to cross the border between ports of entry, allow police to arrest people who do and require judges to order them to return to Mexico. Texas lawmakers last month approved Senate Bill 4, an immigration law that would allow Texas police to arrest people for illegally crossing the border from Mexico. SB 4, which Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will sign into law, has sparked intense debate, with opponents saying it will lead to racial profiling by police and supporters saying Texas...

The University of Texas at Austin has sent layoff notices to an estimated 60 staff members who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles, according to the Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors. The staffing cuts come as the university works to comply with the state’s anti-DEI law, or SB17, that bans public colleges and universities from maintaining DEI offices, holding mandatory DEI training, and having departments focused on “promoting differential treatment” based on race, sex or ethnicity. In a statement released Wednesday, the Texas NAACP and AAUP said impacted staff members were...

The first human case of avian influenza in Texas this week has prompted Congress to gather information about the risks to public health and agriculture. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a bipartisan briefing with congressional agriculture staff about the person infected after exposure to infected dairy cattle, according to a congressional aide. And members of Congress plan to schedule a meeting with the Agriculture Department, which announced last month that “there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health.” The human case of bird...

Imagine this: You head to Florida to look after a sick family member, only to come back and find squatters have broken into your house, sold all your belongings, and now, unbelievably, are legally considered “tenants.” So now you’re stuck shelling out for a lawyer to get them out. It sounds like a wild story, doesn’t it? But, shockingly, this is the reality for a woman from Texas who left her home to care for her sick mother. The New York Post: Squatters turned a Texas woman’s home into a “drug den” and sold her possessions at a yard sale...

The largest producer of fresh eggs in the U.S. said Tuesday it had temporarily halted production at a Texas plant after bird flu was found in chickens, and officials said the virus had also been detected at a poultry facility in Michigan. In Texas, Ridgeland, Mississippi-based Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. said in a statement that approximately 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets, about 3.6% of its total flock, were destroyed after the infection, avian influenza, was found at the facility in Parmer County, Texas. The plant is on the Texas-New Mexico border in the Texas Panhandle about 85 miles southwest...

Surveillance video captured the moment that a lawn worker used his string trimmer to knock an alleged thief from a getaway car after he and his accomplices tried to steal his lawn care equipment. The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office said in a post on Facebook that officers were called to the scene on Friday at Renmark Lane in Northwest Harris County. The lawn worker was at a job when he noticed men stealing equipment from his vehicle down the street, according to Harris County Constable Precinct 3 Captain Daniel Garza. “He observed a black Mercedes and a red...

Political turncoat and Hawaii native Tulsi Gabbard – now on Donald Trump's shortlist for his VP running mate – could be making the red state of Texas a permanent home, DailyMail.com can reveal. The former Congresswoman and one-time Democrat put down roots in the Lone Star State in mid March after she and husband Abraham Williams bought a rustic but charming single-story house in a suburb of Austin.

Some robbery suspects in northwest Harris County messed with the wrong guy who used his weed eater to fight back. Video shows the victim trimming a lawn on March 29, 2024, on Renmark Lane near Cypresswood Drive. According to Precinct 4, he spotted some men stealing equipment from his truck parked a few houses down. As the suspects drove past him, they tried to hit the victim with their car, Precinct 4 said. That's when he threw his weed whacker at their windshield.

A Texas appeals court upheld a lower court's injunction Friday blocking the state from investigating parents who provide their children with gender-transitioning treatment. The appeals court in Austin upheld a district court judge's injunction imposed in March 2022 after Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered the state Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate families whose children were receiving puberty blockers. "This is a much-needed victory for trans youth and those who love and support them," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc., his office announced Thursday, after “reocurring issues with certain airplane parts” given to the aircraft manufacturer.As well as demanding “documents relevant to manufacturing defects” in Spirit’s products, Paxton has also requested records related to the company’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) commitments, and whether those commitments are unlawful or are compromising the company’s manufacturing processes,” his office said in a statement.(SNIP) Paxton also asked for documents to show Spirit’s “employee demographics for race, national origin, sexual orientation, and age” before the company’s DEI policy...

A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned the illegal voting conviction of Crystal Mason, who was given a five-year prison sentence for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election while on supervised release for federal tax evasion. The decision by the Tarrant County-based Second Court of Appeals means she is formally acquitted of the felony voting charge. The court said in the decision that there was no evidence Mason knew she was ineligible to vote when she cast her ballot — which is a condition that must be met in order to convict her of illegal voting. Mason has...

Voters not thrilled with their options for president will be able to vote for anybody else. Literally. U.S. Army veteran and teacher formerly known as Dustin Ebey announced he had changed his name to “Literally Anybody Else” is now running for president. “For too long have Americans been a victim of its political parties putting party loyalty over governance. Together lets send the message to Washington and say, ‘You will represent the people or be replace,” his bio states. He is seeking to receive 13,000 signatures from Texas non-primary voters by May in order to make it onto the general...

Over the last few weeks, I’ve received messages from friends, many of whom were concerned about Senator Cruz and the 2024 election. Well, a new poll confirms that Mr. Cruz will win. This is from Marist: Cruz 51, Allred 45. By the way, the RCP average is Cruz +7.3, and no poll has shown Allred over 45.Honestly, this race reminds me a bit of the Abbott versus O’Rourke contest in 2022. What I mean is that O’Rourke spent most of the campaign under 45%. I don’t think that Cruz will win by 11 points like Abbott, but 7-8 is more...

Mayor John Whitmire proposing a 5% cut across the board, except for fire and police departments.. Tax hikes and increased fees for parking and city services are likely .. The Mayor of Houston says the city is 'broke' after overspending for decades. Experts say the problem has existed for years, but COVID handouts from the federal government helped mask them. ... A tax hike through a bond is expected in November. ... The city has been struggling to make firefighters whole, from meeting its contractual obligation to their pension, to paying backpay and wage hikes that have been promised years...

HOUSTON — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday agreed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution under a deal that ends criminal securities fraud charges that have shadowed the Republican since he took office nearly a decade ago. The announcement by special prosecutors in a Houston courtroom came less than three weeks before Paxton was set to stand trial on felony charges that carried a possible prison sentence if convicted. It was the closest Paxton - who was indicted in 2015 - has ever come to trial over accusations that he duped investors in a tech startup near Dallas. Under...