The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 24, 2026

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Black Democrats Express Doubts About Talarico, U.S. Senate Primary at Houston Town HallPaxton Blasts Talarico for 2020 Donation to Austin Justice Coalition at Fort Worth Campaign StopHere's a Look at the Top Lines from Texas' July Campaign Finance ReportsTexas Congressman Introduces Bill to Restrict Flock Cameras, Other Surveillance TechnologiesMidland ISD Sues Texas Education Agency Over 'Robin Hood' Recapture SystemU.S. Reaches 41 New World Screwworm Cases as Sterile Fly Production Continues RolloutDead Lavaca County Justice of the Peace Was Given $200,000 Bond for Compelling Prostitution Before Suicide'Not Adversaries': City Officials Defend New Housing Regulations in Texas House Committee HearingGranbury Residents Take Action Against Seven City Officials Over Data Center ConcernsNew Study Indicates Austin's 2026 Homicide Rate Over 70 Percent Higher Than 2019Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to check out our articles at https://thetexan.news/ and leave us a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

The majority about Matt Damon, and he's always trying to come home. You know, like he played, whether it's the Martian, is it interstellar? Interstellar, yeah. All these movies that he's like desperately trying to get home. And everyone's like, help get Matt Damon home. So this is no, this is like the ultimate getting back home film. Well, please just make sure not to spoil a 3,000 year old story for me because, you know, I can't, I can't deal with that if I know going into it, what's going to happen.

Well, howdy folks. Welcome back to another episode of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. I'm your host, senior editor Rob Lauchess, and joining me today are reporters Mary Elise O'Bar, Mary Lisa O'Barr, Meredith Dyer, Polly Hanson, and Isaiah Mitchell. Meredith, how many days is it until Election Day? Thank you so much for asking. No, I got a couple emails today that were reminding me it's 103 days until the election. So a little random of a number, but they wanted to make sure that we knew was like a candidate and like a group that was reminding everyone. So this will be my first like big November election because I started last year and there wasn't a lot going on in November and I was part time. So I'm excited and prepping myself for that. But you guys have some of you have covered a little bit more.

Well, I just wanted to say, I remember when you were telling us this right before this podcast, You said it was 103. I thought you were just going to end it there and say like outside, it's 103. Yeah. Because it is in Austin, I think, or it was yesterday. Way too hot. Yeah, I'm not a fan right now. But it's a good excuse to go get ice cream and snow cones and all that good stuff.

So I always need a amount. Not that I need an excuse for that. I can do that in the wintertime too. But it's good to have more of an excuse. So are you looking forward to your first full election with, The Texan, Meredith? I am. Obviously, the primaries was a little teaser of that where and then the runoffs and stuff where we're kind of up all up at night and following things. So I feel like I've gotten to ease myself into it.

I think if I started on a big November election, I'd probably be a little bit overwhelmed. So thankfully, you guys have been great and helping me kind of adjust all of that. But yeah, I'm excited. And it's going to be, it's going to be a good one. So as anybody have any like memorable election night, November, like, follow? following stuff. Well, I got to join, I got to tag along with Brad when at Senator Ted Cruz's watch party when he was running against Colin Allred. And that was a pretty cool experience to, I'd never been to an election watch party. So it was just fun to kind of sit in and see the dynamic

of like, you know, the team running around and everything. They're speaking happening on the stage. The press is just losing their mind in this little box, trying to keep up with everything. We've got like, all of us had like 50 tabs open trying to keep track of the votes as they came in. But that was pretty cool. And then it's obviously a good experience just to be there whenever a candidate wins and then to see immediately after like the reaction and then the celebration is pretty festive. You always have a bunch of tabs open, Holly. I'm sure election night is like crazy. It's ridiculous.

I mean, sometimes I will finish an article and realize I have at least 50 tabs open. It's nuts. But election night, yes, definitely multiple tabs. And you're trying to look at big counties like Harris County because, you know, they carry so much of the state. And then at the same time, looking at the Secretary of State's office and then Harris County is usually a little slower just because they have so many voters and so much to process there. So, yeah, many tabs open. I have to admit, my son walked in one time and he was like, mom, you have got. close some of those tabs.

Oh, well. Your computer's going to crash at one point. What you got to do? No, it's true. Isaiah, since you have returned to us after a four-year stint in academia, do you have any big memories you remember from your time with the text from previously or anything you are specifically looking forward to this time around? Oh, man, I've got big memories.

And for election-related ones in particular, I remember this was a primary. election night, but I was at a campaign watch party at a bar in Austin that was two stories. And apparently, um, the person who owned the whole building, the whole operation also was the bartender for the first story. And she really didn't like Republicans. And it was a Republican watch party. And so she initially wanted to, um, deny this candidate having a watch party there. And, uh, but the guy who ran the top, said that he was okay or that, you know, he just wanted to make money,

he didn't care who was going to come in there. He told me all this, the night that I came in, and told me that he was quitting that night because he hated his boss, and he told me that he loved the media, and he just wanted to give me a free drink, and he handed me a lone star. And I thought, well, you know,

I'm not sure that I should be drinking on the job, but he was the friendliest bartender that I've ever had. And, yeah, it was, it was just kind of a he was he was feeling uninhibited so it's wild yeah quitting your job gives you wings in a way or you're just like it's not a lot of it would be funny if they did like a republican democrat first story second story i don't know where this bar is but that's gosh yeah and dangerous but like kind of interesting well yeah who gets the first floor who gets the second floor that would be kind of I don't feel like it'd be kind of tough because people on the first floor could hypothetically

trap people on the second floor from leaving right you just blocked off the stairs Or you have to do like a walk of shame down as you ask if you've lost. Yeah. Yeah. Get heckled or something else. Let's not mix alcohol in politics on election night. Oh, yeah. No, let's not mix alcohol in politics.

It's never been mixed before. So let's be out of that. Anyway. None of us would be at an airport bar writing an article ever. Remember, one on the land is worth free in the air. But Mary Elise, speaking of political. events. You were at an event for James Talleyco this weekend, state representative running to be Texas next U.S. Senator for the Democrats. But this is an event that made several headlines.

Tell us why. Yeah, this was a particularly interesting or lively event. This was hosted by State Representative James Tolariko's campaign for U.S. Senate. This was one of their stops. They've been doing town halls in a lot of different towns in recent weeks. And just after this one, they headed to Dallas, I believe, the next day they had a town hall. But this one was in Houston, like you said, on Sunday afternoon. And this one garnered a lot of attention in particular because it really highlighted this kind of this faction within the Democratic Party. As they're facing their, they have their U.S. Senate nominee, and he has a large amount of black voters, it appears, who are still feeling very hurt about the loss.

of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and are still working to accept the fact that he's their nominee and whether he has sufficiently earned their vote. And that was the focus here at this town hall. It wasn't necessarily advertised that this was going to be for specifically black voters, but, you know, a lot of them turned out to speak to Tala Rico and to show their concerns. Something that was kind of set the tone for the event were the speakers who came out before Tala RICO. So there were a handful of speakers who kind of set the stage before Tala Rica came up to discuss with the attendees there. This included we saw a Congressman Christian Meneffi, the state representative, Lauren Ashley Simmons. They both spoke as well as some other more local politicians.

And they all of them had this kind of consistent theme where they said, you know, we are disappointed that Congressman Crockett did not win. And some of them had varying statements along the degree of welcoming to Tala Rico. Some of them were a little bit, maybe a little bit more harsh towards him and some were more welcoming towards him. It kind of varied there. We say Representative Simmons said she started speaking about how she knows Tala Rico and that they, you know, they participated in the quorum break together, et cetera. She said, I'm not here to hide James from accountability. because the road to victory runs through Harris County. She said sometimes people are going to check you until your slip is showing.

And as a woman, you can appreciate that reference. But she said sometimes people are going to check you until your slip is showing. And so today we're going to make sure that James' slip is not showing. And she said, you know, I did vote for Crockett in the primary election, but she said this is something she reiterated that primary fights or family fights. She said, we licked our wounds on Tuesday, and then Wednesday we woke up ready for war. Also, Congressman Christian Menofy, at one point he was discussing, you know, he said, I would vote for an empty chair over Ken Paxton, he said, but in James Talarico, we don't have an

empty chair. So that kind of gives you an idea of, you know, the statements that were being put out as he's being welcome to this stage, and kind of the atmosphere that he was walking into. So he took questions for about 90 minutes from the different attendees that were there at this Houston town hall. And at one point, it got a bit tense. This was towards the end. when he was wrapping up to town hall. They were ending around, I think it was 430, which had been listed as the time for this event to wrap up on the website when you register.

But one woman stood up and shouted, you stay here, you answer our questions, or you suffer the consequences. This was a clip that went pretty, I don't know about viral, but it gained a lot of attention online. It was circulated pretty widely. That statement from her was met with a lot of applause. He said, you know, I'm happy to engage.

I appreciate you being here. And she kind of interrupted and said, I did it for my people, not for you. So this was an intense moment, of course, between James Telerico and some black voters. And we also saw online some more kind of dust up happening was when his comments at this town hall about state representative, Jolanda Jones were highlighted online. So he was, someone asked him, you know, I've heard you haven't been responding to her calls. This is concerning to me as a black voter. I want you to be correspondence with her. And he essentially said, you know, we have talked before,

but also I'm just receiving quite a flood of calls these days. And she came out online and said that that statement was misleading. She said she's been trying to talk to him about the issues facing the black community and what it will take to earn our support. And as she said, but he's been unwilling to do that. So then she advertised an event in Houston's Third War that she'd be holding to kind of offer an opportunity for black voters to come discuss their concerns just about Democratic Party as a whole, but also Tala Rica as a candidate. And I did attend that. That was earlier this week. And honestly, most of the conversation revolved more so around black voters concerned that the Democrat Party has taken them for granted and that they feel like their vote hasn't necessarily been earned for different candidates. candidates, but it wasn't as much targeted at

Tala Rico. And Representative Jones did say that at the beginning she said, you know, we don't want to attack Tala Rika. It's not just time to jump on him. We want to more talk about our general concerns with the party. But of course, this is an interesting development for Tala Rican his campaign

because, of course, he would like to receive these votes and he's working to prove himself as the candidate for them, but he got a lot of push back, at least at the this town hall in particular. And so he's, you know, he's working to obtain these votes and to prove himself,

but also there's still kind of these sore feelings about Congresswoman Crockett losing. And it's worth noting that, you know, during this town hall, they were saying, you know, we needed to just lace up our boots the day after the primary. Same way that Republicans were saying, you know, after that, we just need to put it behind us. We need to unite. But like we were just talking about the election as much. not that far away. So we're getting close here. And it's not just the morning after the primary anymore. So we'll keep an eye on this and see how this develops with Tala Rica working to obtain

the black folk. But this, you know, see if you hold to more town halls, et cetera. But this particular town hall was very interesting to see and just kind of, I think, set a tone for how Tala Rica is going to have to be working for these black votes. Well, thank you very much for your coverage, Mary Elise, Isaiah. This reminds me of another story we published this week because, of course, there's still some tensions within the Democratic base over how their primary went. But I think that there is some other, you know, similar kind of tensions in the Republicans right now with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. You were at a campaign event for Paxton this past, this past week. And I believe that

That press conference also had a similar situation of a topic being raised that perhaps the candidate was not so keen on. Tell us what happened there. Yeah, so Ken Paxton had a campaign stop in Fort Worth. The Texas Sheriff's Association was having an event, I think, nearby, certainly in the area that lasted from the 18th through the 21st. And so Paxton appeared in, you know, a different venue flanked by a lot of sheriffs. Terran County Sheriff Bill Weyburn appeared there and said that the sheriffs, the other sheriffs there were appearing on their own behalf. But in support of Ken Paxton, he also got an introduction from Representative Loudorback, who was also a former sheriff or former law enforcement professional. And so we got a press conference where Paxton really leaned on law enforcement.

enforcement and law and order as a wedge issue between him and Tala Rico. And specifically, Paxton pointed to, at the height of what he called the anti-police movement in 2020, Tala Rico's political action committee donated $2,500 to the Austin Justice Coalition. And at the time, as Paxton put it, he said this is an organization that actively fought to defund the police department in Austin. So the Austin Justice Coalition is still active. their website doesn't include a section labeled defund APD anymore,

but it did at the time that Talley Rico donated. And in 2020, Tala RICO defended the donations as a gift to a well-respected civil rights organization in our community that champions educational equity, economic opportunity, and police reform. So that was a high point. That was Paxson's statement. And afterwards, after he finished giving his prepared remarks, you know, we were there, the media were there in,

in attendance and he fielded a few questions. The first one had to do with his home purchases. And he's gotten some plaque for different reasons for multiple home purchases, for some possible discrepancies on where his official residence is, alleged mortgage fraud and stuff like that. There's, you know, you can look at the headlines. And so he got, he fielded a question from a reporter about this. and Paxton and his, a member of his campaign staff said that he wouldn't answer any questions

except those pertaining to law enforcement. So quickly shut down the first question of the press conference. And that happened once or twice more with other questions. But he answered a few, then hit the road. And so it was a pretty quick conference. And so we've got, you know, Paxton's primary issue that he wanted to get focused to And also, yeah, like you put it out, Rob, a little behind the scenes intrigue that took place. Well, it's always interesting, of course, because Paxton's, if I recall correctly, it was home remodeling.

That was a major feature of the impeachment allegations against him was relating to perhaps, you know, claims of using money he wasn't supposed to use on having his home remodeled. Granite countertops, whether or not he actually got granite countertops was a big topic. I remember of the trial and all that. But thank you for your coverage on that issue, Isaiah. Mary Elise, turning back to you. Speaking of these major elections going on, campaign finance numbers dropped last week. What are some of your top takeaways from the newest numbers? Yeah, well, these reports came out.

I think it was last Wednesday, where we saw some reporting from essentially the first half of the year from the Texas ethics mission. And that was that reporting window there for statewide. And then Federal Ethics Commission had the second quarter reporting window, which is from covers April 1st to June 30th. So this is interesting, of course, as we're, like we said, you know, 103 days away from the election to be to see where these candidates are financially. And to compare it to, you know, where they were before. How much have they raised?

So we kind of keep up the same pace. There's more money being funneled in, et cetera. one of the more interesting aspects of this was Governor Greg Abbott and his, the Texas governor race against State Representative Gina. He knows they had about a $19 million difference between the massive campaigns raised, I think which is expected if you just look at the trajectory so far and Governor Abbott's fund raise and capabilities. She raised about $6 million and then she wrapped up with having about $3 million in cash on hand. And then his Texans for Greg Abbott, a specific purpose political committee came in with, it was just over $25 million raised. And then

they have about $67 million in cash on hands. You see kind of a large gap there. But it's worth noting that Abbott, you know, the money that he's fundraising here, he's made it clear that he plans to intend, he intends to spend, excuse me, a large amount of this on other Republicans who are further down the ballot. And he's also something that he's really been talking about recently. We talked to him about at the Republican Party Texas Convention when that was held in Houston recently, is that he's hoping to turn Harris County, quote, dark red after this election. And so he's going to definitely be using a bit of this war chest to be working towards that goal in Harris County, but also just helping other Republicans down the ballot. So that's

something to keep in mind whenever you look at Governor Abbott's numbers for sure. If you go to the federal side of things in the U.S. Senate race, which is, of course, top of mind, we saw Tala Rico handily outraised Paxton by about three times the amount of Paxon race. So that's pretty interesting there. His team shared about a week before this deadline that he had raised about 32 million. during the quarter. They were also saying, you know, this is the largest amount ever raised by U.S. Senate candidate during the second quarter of an election year. And then he's got $21.5 million in cash on hand. Paxton raised about $9.2 million. And then he, on the other hand, was touting that this is the largest fundraising quarter for any non-incumbent GOP Senate candidate. And then he's got about $1.7 million in cash on hand.

And so there is a gap there as well. I think it's just going to be fascinating to watch Tala Rica and the money that's flowing into his campaign and to see kind of the Democratic Party's focus on him and kind of the vision that they have for him, the hopes that they have for him. We see this money kind of flowing into Tala Rico's race. One thing we noted in here, too, was also that there was Grand Platner, who was a former Democratic nominee, who was challenging Senator Susan Collins, in Maine. He has exited the race, and so that's one aspect there for the Democratic Party. That may

push some more money into Talarico's campaign. And so it's just always interesting to see Taylor Rico's numbers and to see, you know, kind of what the focus is here for the Democratic Party, and he's clearly having no problem, raising quite a bit of money. Also, there were a couple of South Texas races that stood out to me looking at these numbers. Of course, we've We've got Congressman Monica De La Cruz. She's facing her Democratic challenger, Bobby Polito. They weren't very far apart in the fundraising halls. And the incumbent, De La Cruz,

Cruz did not come out in the lead. She raised $1.2 million, but Polito actually came in with $1.4 million. So, as I said, there wasn't a huge gap here, like we saw in some of the earlier numbers I mentioned. But Pulido came in with $1.4. She was at $1.2 million. De La Cruz does have a more solid cash on hand.

She's got $2.5 million, and then Polito is at about $1.2 million. So anyways, there are a lot of numbers in this piece. I recommend you read the whole thing. But there's, I think there are some South Texas races that are particularly interesting, especially this one with Congresswoman Dela Cruz being outraised by Bobby Polito. And then, of course, the Tala Rico versus Paxton Gap there and Governor Abbott. coming in with a large hall as is typical for him. Well, thank you very much, Mary Elise.

Definitely interesting to see. You know, I wish I had $30 million in the bank, but, you know, good for James Tala Rico, I guess. My Venmo is open, as it is to Paxon, of course, Rural opportunity here at the Texan. But, Holly, speaking of Congress, actually, that'll serve as the segue for this story. A Texas congressman has introduced a bill to restrict an issue that's become kind of controversial in recent days and weeks, flock cameras.

So if I understand he wants to restrict flock cameras, assuming that there are any still left standing and that they're not all cut down by vandals, tell us what's going on with that story. Right. So, yeah, this has become a really hot topic just here. I would say in the last 30 days, and it's something we've covered at the Texan for a couple of years now. you know, there's been this sort of mounting opposition to these cameras. Flock is just one of many providers, but they are probably the nation's leading provider of these automatic license plate readers. And these readers, of course, are scanning every car that passes initially and matching the

license plate information and other details about the vehicle with other information. It's been creating a database for law enforcement in particular to try to solve crimes. But more and more people are learning about flock and finding that it's capable of doing a lot more than just reading these license plates. Some people are alleging that the new cameras can do facial recognition and they're really concerned about the correlation with the information collected at these cameras and using it for all. all kinds of nefarious purposes. And we've seen a number of reports coming in about misuses of the system, mistaken identities, where someone is at least, if not arrested, actually, you know, visited by the police, thinking that they are guilty of one case.

It was a porch pirate where someone was accused of stealing packages off a doorstep and these kinds of things. And, you know, so you've got all this, this angst. kind of building here and concerns about whether or not use of the evidence collected by these automatic license plate readers or other surveillance technology is subject to the United States Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure. So there's been a couple of attempts to kind of curtail use of that, but the latest is this bill introduced by a Congressman from Texas, Representative Keith's self, has a new bill called the Privacy Act.

And in this act, which is co-sponsored by a couple of other Republicans, it would create a federal list of all the available surveillance technologies and prohibit the use of federal funds to purchase or install the systems with just a few exceptions. But the big thing is it would require the federal law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before. using information from these readers. And it also would apply to some of the other technologies that are out there. So, you know, it's an ongoing controversy. There are a number of lawsuits across the country filed and challenging the constitutionality

of the automatic license plate readers in particular. There's been, you know, a lot of different kinds of decisions. Some courts have ruled that, you know, when you're, driving on a public highway, you don't have that expectation of privacy that you would have elsewhere. And so the information collected is admissible. Others have said, no, you probably need a warrant to actually look at this information. And some people are looking at the Supreme Court decision that came down. I think it was last month about geo-fencing, about using cell phone location services in the Supreme Court ruling that police do need a warrant to obtain that information.

No case so far on this issue has gotten to the Supreme Court, although I think probably some of them are headed that way. So we don't really have a definitive ruling, but Keith Self and some of these other representatives want to go ahead and have a congressional statement about that. And interestingly enough, there have been bipartisan attempts to rein in this technology. So this is an issue that, you know, kind of crosses us as party lines where you have some people who are very concerned about individual liberties and making sure that we're not turning into a surveillance state. And they are represented in both sides of the political aisle. And on the other side, we see people who are saying, well, this technology, really helps us solve crime. And we saw its usage recently here in Austin where police were able to use that reader data to track those young men who went on a shooting spree. And, you know, they, they tracked them all over the place, but those ALPRs helped them find these guys. So, you know, there's this ongoing debate about, you know, how to use these new technologies, how to make them comply

with constitutional rights, in particular the Fourth Amendment's provisions. But, yeah, it's definitely a heated topic. And as you referenced, we've started to see a lot of vandalism of these cameras as people get more and more upset about them. Even here in the state of Texas, there's been some that have been cut down in the city of Houston in that area, but certainly all across the country. And so I think we're going to continue to talk about this. and hear a lot about it.

Well, thank you very much for your reporting on the issue, Holly. We'll see if they can use the remaining flock cameras to catch the flock camera vandals before they are all completely cut down. Meredith, thank you. Meredith, turning next to you. This week, Midland Independent School District filed a lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency over school finance and the state's Robin Hood Recapture System. Can you break that down for us?

I will do my best to break it down. School finance is very complicated. Recently, I've heard a lot of lawmakers and longtime reporters talking about how complicated it is to keep up with how school finance works. So we're doing our best here. So, yeah, they sued specifically Commissioner Moraff. Obviously, he represents the Texas Education Agency over the Robin Hood system, which is one of my least favorite Disney movies.

I find it to be dark. I hated the snake growing up. But Robin Hood, the recapture system is what it sounds like where the state is taking some of the property tax revenue from property wealthy districts will go towards property poor or, yeah, property poor districts. And this has happened since it was created in the early 1990s with this idea to approve funding for poor school districts. The Texas Supreme Court found that felt that the state was not upholding its constitutional obligation to provide an efficient. system of public free schools. So it's interesting to watch. We link in there a video of Josh Gwyn, who's the board president, giving kind of like a, he gave just like a good speech about it. And sometimes when you watch a lot of these local meetings and you're just sitting there

hours and hours of watching stuff, they kind of drone on and on. He's kind of an engaging speaker and did a good job, I think, of making it clear to the public what's going on and what they're trying to do. So, and he had a little humor, a little sarcasm in there, but he, said he thought in the beginning, I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I used to think, why don't we just not pay it? You know, and he's like, that's obviously not right. There's legal ramifications. So then he just kind of goes into, they've been working with lawyers for a while about this. And on July 4th, he posted to Facebook that this was something that they were going to be doing. And just that because they say that the state, their district has given over a billion dollars to

the state so far and recapture, this is something that they really want to take a stance about. And so they say like in their lawsuit specifically it says Texas law grants Midland ISDs board of trustees the exclusive authority to govern the district adopt a budget set a tax rate and appropriate funds and each of those grants of authority has become a legal fiction um so for those of you and also whenever I'd write these I always like reiterate this to myself because there's many parts of this huge like formula for school finance and you kind of hone in on one and you get it and then there's another one and then there's another one. I was even in an Ed House committee meeting where all the legislators were talking about like, how come, how come this is so complicated? How come we don't

seem, it's always like moving and shifting and confusing. So this is something that everyone's confused about. Sounds like. So every district has this tax rate for its day-to-day operations, which is called maintenance and operations or M&O. And the state has been lowering it or compressing it for property tax relief. Once again, all of this also ties into property tax stuff. So the school finance bit, it'll be interesting to see that them try to like pick it apart in this next legislative session and people fight for it because of its really close relationship to schools. And so the districts then tax at that compressed rate to generate their tier one entitlements, which are kind of a basic level of per student funding through multiple different allotments. So this is how much we think you should be giving per student. So if your local tax rate, that's the compressed rate comes in higher than your entitlements are going to take that and recapture it and send it back to the states to redistribute it to other property poor districts.

So Midlands upset. They're like, we should be doing, we should be in charge of this. We should be handling this. And a press release, the district breaks down exactly how much they're making it, how much they're getting in tax revenue, how much they're giving back to the states. It was $83 billion or billion. billion, good Lord, million, but probably feels like a billion to them. 83 million went back in their recapture. And so, yeah, Gwen, the president or the board president just kind of drove that home of like, he said, in theory, we already approved this budget. We know how much money we need for next year. And then they're compressing our rate higher than the amount that we've already approved and already need and then send back money to the state.

And so he says, this is essentially a property tax, a statewide property tax for the school. year. And he just went on to say it's a violation of Article 8 of the Texas Constitution. And so he had a little back and forth of the CFO sarcastically of like, okay, if we as a board could work with you, you're the CFO, you know, the finances. Why don't we just set a tax rate to have a no new revenue and give Midland tax payers. They're $3 million back. And he's like, unfortunately, that doesn't work that way. And I know that, you know that. That's an example. And basically, This is everything in a nutshell. And one of the things they also wanted to highlight, which a lot of districts do, is that there are not a lot, but there are some districts that are, let me get this right, property wealthy because of industry or because of businesses, they have a lot of oil tech, whatever it is going on there.

But they are, the population is more economically disadvantaged. So their argument is like we have a lot of needs and we do need a lot of funding. and so they don't match. And so they pointed out Midland ISD serves about 29,000 students and 60% of them are economically disadvantaged, 23% are emergent bilingual learners, and 13% receive special education services. And so all of those are things that would usually need more money or finances for those programs. We reached out to TEA and they're not commenting on this legal situation. But yeah, this is a, an interesting, like one of the many interesting things that are coming out of property taxes. And so we'll see how far this gets, how far it gets within the legislative session next year. So, and if it comes up at all.

Well, kudos to you, Meredith, for trying to understand school finance. I mean, it really is ridiculously complicated. And, you know, people always struggle to understand what's going on. But I want to challenge you on Robin Hood. I think that's hilarious that you hated the movie. I love that movie. But when I posted your story on X, one of the troll replies I got was, oh, Robin Hood was bad because he started by stealing. And I'm kind of like, well, actually.

And actually, the original myth involves the reign of King John in England. And Robin Hood was stealing back confiscatory tax money collected. by government officials and returning it to the people. It's more the Disney. I don't mean metaphor here, right, that we're using. I don't mind a Robin Hood story, but I hated the snake. I hated just the way that the Disney cartoon did it. So I don't like the story of Robin Hood or Robin Hood.

But I remember just being like, oh, this one's kind of, I don't like it. Is it a metaphor for politicians at all? Listen, you said that. You heard that her first year with Holly. Yeah. I do not remember any of this happening in the Mel Gibson movie, so I'm very confused. There's a Russell Crow one too, right? Everyone did one.

I think they made one in like the early 2010s, which was one of those like dark, grayed-out historical, like epic movies that often, you know, nobody really remembers that. Well, people are going to remember Robin Hood Men and Tights for many years to come, but I don't think anybody's going to remember the Russell Crow movie. Or even they meet with Hugh Jackman was just in a movie called The Death of Robin Hood About Robin Hood is like a like a very old man Who's like regrets his life And I don't I think I never saw the movie But um lots of stuff like that

See it's all these like it's these inter uh what's the word Um Intercurricular or what's the word for when you when you combine stuff from different Interdisciplinary I don't know Point is making connections from Texas politics to a movie I think that's great. Absolutely. But getting on back on track to our news for the week, Mary Elise, give us an update on where we currently stand with the New World Screw Worm in Texas.

Yeah, just a bit of an update on New World Screw Worm. We haven't discussed it in a little bit, but we are at, we've had 40 more cases that have been confirmed since that first one was discovered in Texas in early June. so that's a 41 in total. And a dozen of those affected animals are not yet free from the parasite. So they've got on their website where they track these cases, they've got active and inactive. And active essentially means that the animal is still have the parasite on them. This still has new world squirrel.

Essentially, they are not free from this parasite. As we covered before, this first American case of this flesh-eating livestock pest was discovered on June. third, and that was in Zavala County. And then since then, there were two more cases reported in that specific county. And then we've got 38 other cases that have been discovered across the state, and then also in New Mexico along its border with Texas. Of course, federal and local authorities that kind of hit the ground running on this. They were working to expedite different methods of wording off the pest, including through producing sterile flies, which are released to breed with the pests and then prevent their reproduction. And that was a method that was helped to

weed out New World Screw Worm in the U.S. previously. There is a facility we've mentioned before in Edinburgh that's underway that Governor Abbott is expediting. It's a $750 million facility and it's projected at least once it's fully operational to produce 300 million sterile flies each week. They also, the USDA shared that they've opened or they're using New World Screw Worm traps. And so these are essentially coded with an insect adhesive and then they've got this chemical attractin.

So they kind of work together there. They've got nearly 600 of those traps that are deployed across Mexico. And then they said they have expanded coverage along U.S. Mexico border and then some new traps specifically in Sonora. Crockett County is currently sitting at the highest number of detections. They have 11, and its latest case was discovered on July 11th. And then there's half a dozen cases that have occurred in Edwards County. I mentioned this earlier, but there's an interactive map we link in this piece from USDA

that confirms where the detections have been discovered. So it's a pretty easy way to figure out, okay, which county is really getting lots of detections and where is it across Texas? It gives you a good visual of kind of where this is located where these cases have been and gives you the dates and also the type of animal that's been infected for the most part. It looks like it's cattle, but sometimes it'll be a goat or dog, et cetera. So just an update here on New World Screw Worm. We'll keep following it as it progresses. But like I said, we are now sitting at 41 cases confirmed in the U.S. Well, thank you very much for the update, Mary Elise. I think it's interesting.

those traps. And if I recall correctly, that was one of the points of contention between the USDA and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller was that Miller was like a big proponent of these traps, whereas Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, was not. And in fact, she outright criticized some of these traps. I think sometimes using a little bit of harsh language saying, like, I don't know why he thinks these traps are going to work or something like that. But always interesting to see what's going on there with the screw-worm issue, since, of course, that'll probably continue to remain relevant going forward. As this week has shown, you know, Americans don't really know what to do

if we start to feel like our food supply is threatened, as anybody who's had Taco Bell can note. Holly, turning next to you for the news of the week, a Lubbaca County Justice of the Peace was given $200,000 bond for compelling prostitution shortly before he committed suicide. Tell us what's going on with this story. Yeah, this is a really interesting story coming out of LaVaca County, very rural area, very small population there.

But we've had this situation with this Justice of the Peace, who was arrested on July 11th on multiple charges, including compelling prostitution and the charges of first-degree felony, which indicates that the victim, was very likely a minor. Usually it's a second-degree felony. But there's been a lot of questions about what happened because apparently he was arrested on Saturday and then transferred to nearby county's jail. There was something about him being released. It's a little unclear about when and who authorized the release. But he was released without the court-ordered ankle monitor,

GPS ankle monitor. And then he was supposed to report back to Lavaca County to get fitted for that monitor and did not show up. And so we've been trying to look at what happened here. And interestingly enough, the county hasn't been very forthcoming with producing the documents, but a source did get a hold of the documents. And so we can see that initially this Justice of the Peace, his name is Travis Hill, was given a $200,000 bond, was supposed to be fitted with that ankle monitor

and had a no-contact order with the victim and the victim's family. We were told that very likely there would be additional charges as the investigation ensued. But when police tried to re-arrest Mr. Hill on, I believe it's July 15th in the evening, they report that he committed suicide.

So the suicide has really gotten the public's attention and people asking about why he was released, especially in the circumstances when there's this, you know, perhaps a minor age victim and her family, and why he was released before he had been fitted with that ankle monitor. So the sheriff's office has provided a statement defending and saying that they followed state guidelines and so forth. The victim was notified when he was released and all of that. But, you know, there's a lot of questions swirling about what happened here. We also got this week to look at the actual grand jury indictments that were handed down for Mr. Hill. And it sounds like Mr. Hill, who was a criminal defense attorney, was coercing some of his clients. and that's what resulted in sexual assault and compelling prostitution charges for him. But we're continuing to follow this story.

It's, you know, another one of these small towns, small area stories where they're interesting twists and turns. And a lot of people in the community very upset and asking a lot of questions about what's happened here, how many potentially more victims are there. and how his case was handled. We haven't gotten a lot of response from the sheriff's office. They've continuously referred us to the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Attorney General, which is reportedly handling the case now because people locally have recused themselves,

has not provided any information either. Well, thank you for your continued coverage on this story, Holly. as you noted, local politics, local news in particular, always has some of the most curious things going on, I think, yeah, I think in the news business. But speaking of local stuff, Isaiah, returning next to you, because a group of city officials went to the Texas Capitol to defend housing regulations that they have implemented. And they were defending it to a group of state lawmakers who thought that those regulations might be in common. with a state law passed last year about housing. Give us the details. Yeah, it was an interesting meeting, and there were four bills under discussion,

but the one that really took up the most time that had incited the most controversy previously was SB 840. And these were all bills that had passed last session, so they're a law now, and they've been effective since September 2025. And SB 840 is the intent of the bill is to facilitate a, housing development in commercial areas. And so, for example, if you've got an office building that's collecting dust, you can turn that into a department more easily under SP 840. That's the idea behind the bill.

And what it does in particular is that it forbids, or it says that municipalities, cities must allow housing development by right in these commercial areas. And the exception is for heavy industrial zones, you know, factories and stuff like that. but offices, warehouses, retail, under SB840, cities must allow developers to build apartments, houses, condos, townhomes without going through a zoning process that was the norm before SB840 took effect. And something that's interesting,

long-time watchers of TechSledge will know that the legislature is often engaged in a bit of a tug of war with municipalities. And usually, if there's a bill that's passed, that's aimed at a particular city, it'll be someplace like Austin, for example. And there's generally tension between our most populous metros and the legislature. But in this case, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth,

were named as cities that had implemented SB 840 with generally a sense of cooperation with what the legislature was trying to do. But Grand Prairie, Frisco, Plano, Irving, Baytown is one that doesn't isn't mentioned as much, but there are a lot of suburban municipalities that oppose legislation, including SB 840,

but others in a similar vein during the last session. And before it took effect, but after it was passed, instituted ordinances that actually made it harder for developers to build housing in commercial areas, to build an SB at 40 development, as they're called. So at the meeting,

on Monday, it's the Texas Houseland and Resource Management Committee, Chairman is Representative Gary Gates, and the mayors, or the officials who showed up represented Plano, Arlington, and Grand Prairie. So a few of the cities that have been implicated in this tug of war. And what was interesting about it is that we've heard now for, you know, a little more than a year about a lot of friction between the legislature and these cities. And all three of these officials took the friendly approach and defended the ordinances that their cities have passed as actually a way to support SB 840 and really more of a guardrail than a hurdle. And there were some slight differences between the three, but a spokesperson for the city of Plano

said the city has complied with SB 840 in both the spirit and the letter of the law. So it's interesting that Plano, for some background, Plano officially testified against SB840 before passed last year. And to give you an example of the ordinances that supporters of SBAT 40 claim are making it more expensive to build SB at 40 developments, they usually amount to mandatory amenities that add a lot of cost to the building. So in Grand Prairie, for example, a lot of testifiers and Representative Gates returned to this requirement for large swimming pools. Gates called them Olympic-sized swimming pools. And another one is mandatory dog spas,

wrought iron fences, just other amenities and aesthetic details that can make it more expensive to build one of these apartments or townhome developments. And the other category that a lot of these ordinances fall into is construction. And so in some places that passed ordinances like this, it had been legal to build an apartment

that was, say, two stories high. And so conventionally those are made out of wood. They call it stick built. And some of these cities have since passed ordinances that require apartments built in commercial zones to be 75 feet high, for example. And so that effectively mandates a steel construction, which is a lot more expensive, and the math might not pencil for that area. And so it effectively makes it, it just reduces the cost effectiveness of building an apartment in that area. So those are the ordinances that really came out of scrutiny at this meeting. And Gates and other testifiers who had lobbied in support of SB 840 teased ideas to thwart these local efforts to thwart SB 840 in turn that would include,

for example, one idea that got tossed around a lot was some kind of a clarification bill that adds a line to the law that says outright statewide, any apartment development or housing development, development, the city cannot mandate a requirement for housing development in a commercial zone that's not already mandated in a non-commercial zone, something that's already zoned for multifamily or residential. So we got some, you know, a hint that this is going to be another big issue for this session. Following some hints that we talked about on the last podcast, you know, Justin Burroughs, Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott, releasing this letter that included housing affordability as a potential priority for the next legislature. And so it just looks like this issue is not going to be going away anytime soon, Rob. Well, it never will. As we've noted, local stuff is always going to continue being an endless supply of interesting things worth talking about. And speaking of Meredith, data centers seem to be the hottest topic in Texas right now.

And you were able to speak with a grassroots group that is taking on elected officials over this issue. Tell us more. Yes, there is a group called Grassroots Granbury from the city of Granbury, which is south of Fort Worth in that area. And it is a little bit of a longer article, so I'm just going to give a couple of points that stood out. Definitely go ahead and check it out for especially some of the interviews with people from the organization and a little bit more of the nitty gritty. But yes, data centers are, I can't decide if data centers are property taxes, like which one is. going to, I mean, they're both like very important, but they, I feel like they're competing to be the hottest topic in the upcoming legislature. So this group that grassroots Granbury has done quite a few different things, and we link their website there as well. They're very organized.

They made a joke about being unorganized. And I was like, you guys are quite organized. They have everything linked on their website. They are filing recall petitions for the mayor and four different city council members. They've collected signatures for votes. of no confidence for the city clerk and their legal representative lawyer and also filed a lawsuit. And they're just calling for accountability and transparency regarding some upcoming projects that are related to data centers and just how they feel that the city is not being honest and open, transparent with whether they're building data centers or not, what's going on there. And so like I said, there's a lot of details there in the lawsuit.

And, but what was interesting that really stood out to me was it's a small town. It's only 11,000, around 11,500 voting adults in that area. And they had gathered anywhere between, anywhere between like 14,500 and 1,500 signatures for each of these recall petitions, which is compared to some of their voter turnout, like, except the mayor who had 14, 1,480 votes in his last race. every single council member received more votes for their recall or more signatures for the recall than they did votes in their actual election. So that was interesting that people are very worried, concerned, worried, upset, whichever negative emotion you'd like to put with it about data centers. And they're getting out organizing together.

Like I said, these are people from the community that had different things that they, like, each of, there were different like initiatives or things they were trying to do. And they kind of collectively came together, organized them all. They've been supporting each other, helping each other knock on doors. They've been out in the heat. They were saying they took a break from the heat, but they've been out one day. But they've been out a lot, literally pounding the pavement to get attention to this and to really do something on the local level.

And so, yeah, it walks through just some of the allegations and claims that they feel there's things going on behind the scenes that they've not been open about. Things like trying to avoid quorum by like staggering certain meetings so that they don't have to provide like information through the Open Meetings Act and things like that. So yeah, we talked to a couple of the people that have been involved in this and just there is like a running thread through I feel a lot of things, including different projects like the 765KV, which is not exactly the same as data centers, but it's this idea of building and certain larger projects in rural or smaller areas where a lot of people have a sentiment of we're not against

progress. We see how this is good and helpful for Texas. We just want either transparency. We want you to slow down. We want different requirements and we want to kind of curb this because it seems to be happening very quickly. We don't seem to understand what's going on and we want to just like pause, pause, pause. So I've heard that from lawmakers, heard that from locals, local people that are concerned. So they're, yeah, they're looking to get initiatives on the ballot. They want these recalls. And so yeah, it's just some interesting things from some local people. that are making a wave in their small communities. And so we've seen a little bit of a turn

with data centers recently with some of the language and some of the wording, even having this morning like one of the companies announcing, they weren't going to be doing a data center in a certain area because they didn't qualify for some of the directives from Abbott that have been more recent. So this is part of that local grassroots.

They're called grassroots Granbury, grassroots turn in this issue. Well, thank you very much for your coverage, Meredith. It's always interesting to see how this issue has, you know, how should we say people have really soured on data centers, generally speaking, as a major sort of grassroots issue. I remember Governor Greg Abbott even issued new directives saying that data centers are going to have to provide their own electricity because of concerns about them using electricity on the power grid, an issue that Texas. are intimately familiar with over the past few years. It wasn't quite as big of an issue, I think, after the 2023 legislative session. But, of course, that and water have both come roaring back as a result of the data center question.

But let's shake it up a little bit and talk about local politics instead. So, Holly, a new study indicates that the city of Austin's 2026 homicide rate is over 70% higher than it was in 2019. Is that true? What's going on? Well, it looks like it's true. This is based on a study that was released Thursday from the Council on Criminal Justice, which is a nonpartisan group that analyzes these things. They look at 36 cities across the United States and look at their crime reporting. And crime reporting is a little bit of a strange area to work in because it fluctuates. and no one really agrees on whether or not you can get accurate numbers until far after a year is completed. But this study compares what's happened in the first six months of 2026 with what happened last year and also compares with the peak in crime in 2022 as well as crime rates in 2019.

And what they found is that across the nation, we are seeing a state. deep decline in crime rates, particularly violent crime and homicides. But one of the outliers is Austin, Texas, which we've talked a lot about at the Texan News and in state politics because of the way the Travis County District Attorney is handling a lot of these criminal prosecutions he's been handed. What this study found is that it looks like Austin's homicide rate for the the first six months of 2026 is 74% higher than it was in 2019. So it was the worst of all the cities that they studied. It was worse than Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk, Virginia.

And we also saw a little bit of a higher rate in Dallas this year, but overall, their's is down since 2019. One of the authors of the study cautioned that, you know, Austin is a, is a smaller city and has a lower number of homicide rates. So what he pointed out is that in 2019, the first six months that Austin had 14 homicides and now they've had 25 in the first half of 26. So we're not talking about, you know, Chicago level numbers, but it is a steep increase. And I, I think what you're going to see from this is a continued push for state reforms in how to address what a lot of leaders, including the governor, has called rogue prosecutors. And these are prosecutors who perhaps aren't necessarily following state law and requirements when handling especially violent criminals or repeat violent criminals. So we've seen Jose Garza drop charges, drop cases, drop cases.

There's been a lot of curious reporting about how he's handled that office, and he's been in office since 2020. So a lot of people are going to look at this and see a correlation between those policies and what we're looking at as possible crime rates, particularly homicide rates in the city of Austin. The group last year released their end of 2025 report, which also showed a kind of a national decline in homicide and other violent crimes. And President Trump has even cited their statistics because, as they say, the crime rate nationally seems like it's going to be on track to be the lowest murder rate since 1900. Now, again, you know, some of these statistics take a little time to fully culminate. They don't show up in a lot of the federal databases until almost, gosh, I think it was 18 months sometimes after the end of the year. So a lot of these figures can change, but it certainly was a very stark and interesting contrast in Austin from what seems to be happening in the rest of the country and the rest of the state attack. Well, thank you very much for your coverage on that story, Holly.

Always interesting to see what's going on with crime statistics, especially with that big crime wave that we had during and just after the COVID-19 pandemic. So always good to see what's going on. Take sort of a microscope, you know, peek under the hood at what's going on in our cities. But does anybody have any thoughts about to get into our tweetery section? by the way, that's what this is for. Does anybody have any thoughts about a new movie that came out? I don't know if anybody's heard about this.

It's called The Odyssey. Has anybody heard of this before? Maybe. Potentially. It's all over the news right now. Everybody seems to want to weigh in on it, right? Yeah. So who has seen it?

I've seen it. Okay, so Isaiah, you and I are, I believe, the only ones who have not seen it yet. Is that right? Yeah. All the girls, all the females have seen it, and the two guys haven't seen it yet. They had this soccer game last weekend. Like, it kind of was a bit, it was some soccer game, yeah. Viva Spagna.

So you put soccer ahead of an American movie. Well, I'd have my ticket to see the Odyssey at 2 o'clock on a Sunday, which is then when I found out that that's when the World Cup final game. was. So I was like, well, I can always go to the next one next Sunday. So I will be seeing it this weekend. Well, I thought it was a good movie. You know, but I think I'm not saying anything. A lot of critics haven't already said. It's not exactly the original Homeric poem. It's, you know, it's loosely based on the original story. And, you know, it was fun. I had watched a review before that talked about the amount of like a-listers that were in it and that that was very distracting to

somebody so i don't know if i would have noticed that i mean i do you do notice it immediately every single in the first shot a few shots it's like famous famous famous i you just everyone is an a-lister so that was kind of interesting the amount of someone was saying the amount of famous people that you have that are so well-known you actually feel like you're watching different characters whether you're watching like um spider-man act as this or you know you you really do kind of lose yourself in more of who they are. Or I think it was Travis Scott. The rapper had a cameo.

And so those are things that you're kind of like, you wouldn't expect that. So that was kind of an interesting, like, view lens to look at it. Yeah, it was interesting. You have no idea who those people are. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, this is the second time Matt Damon, I guess, has played like a super smart guy, who's also kind of a jerk and screws up his personal relationships, right? and after Goodwill hunting. Well, the joke about Matt Damon, he's always trying to come home, you know, like he played, whether it's the Martian,

is it interstellar? Interstellar, yeah. All these movies that he's like desperately trying to get home. And I was like, help get Matt Damon home. So this is no, this is like the ultimate getting back home film. There you go. Well, please just make sure not to spoil a 3,000 year old story for me

because I can't deal with that if I know going into it what's going to happen. So I don't think I can handle that. I thought that they did a good job with the different encounters they had on the island. I thought that as far as making it feel realistic, but also kind of epic at the same time, I thought that that was pretty fun to watch. Like the Cyclops, I thought the cyclops. I thought the Cyclops was done impressively well But it was entertaining

Yeah for sure I'm looking forward to seeing that The most interesting thing of course About this whole thing is that this movie is actually a prequel to Doom Because in Dune You know the main characters are called the Atreides Which is son of Atreus Which is Agamemnon and Menelaus's family

And in Dune they claim to be descended from Agamemnon So it's good to see Like that's the thing is before Dune Part three comes out, I want to make sure I'm totally caught up on the story. I have all the context for everything. Well, I'll tell you that, you know, before the movie started, we saw it at Alamo City Draft House and they showed, they were showing clips from previous renditions of The Odyssey,

which was fun because one of the clips they included was from Life of Brian, which Lonnie Python fans will find hilarious. And also one of my favorites is O'Brother Where Art Thou? Which is a fun way to reinterpret the Odyssey. If you've never seen it, great flick. I think that is probably my personal favorite Odyssey adaptation, perhaps second only to the SpongeBob SquarePants movie, which is actually an adaptation of the Odyssey,

with the Cyclops and everything. Or at least it borrows heavily from the Odyssey. But I remember we watched a brother where art thou in high school when we read The Odyssey. That was the movie our teacher put on. So that one's a lot of fun. So good. Just a little bit of a Texas tie in here. The Odyssey is on the TEA's like reading list that has been so controversial.

And it was pointed out by multiple people at different meetings of being just not relatable, out of touch, white men writing it kind of thing. And so it's just interesting to see all the, I know that I'm aware that the pure. are not upset with Nolan and his take on it. But the idea that it's the biggest summer blockbuster and, or years blockbuster, it's a huge movie and has the largest star-studded cast that don't seem to be, aren't probably considered out of touch, right? You know, that are, and so it's just kind of, that's interesting to me that as everyone get, some people getting very worked up about that type of literature being included. And yet that's what a lot of people are talking about this summer. So that's a good point. I think as a, as a fan of history, and in my personal,

opinion, um, something is only unrelatable or outdated if you choose to present it that way. You know, when, when I was in, in school and I had some really good teachers who really found a way to bring, you know, really bring classical literature to life. You know, I think it's about, it's about the way you read it. It's about the way it's taught. Um, so yeah, I don't think anything has to be unrelatedable unless it is done in a boring way. So, I'm glad to hear that Christopher Nolan did not do it in a boring way, though. My tweetery is about Christopher Nolan, though.

It's just a little quick, random thing that popped up. A couple years ago, he did an interview with Colbert. And he said he unashamedly likes the Fast and Furious franchise, which I just found to be so funny. And so I was kind of looking. And he said to start at Tokyo Drift, which I found to be very, I think it's one of the ones. I've seen quite a few. They all run together. I don't know which ones anymore.

But I did not watch that one because it was more on the racing side. And I was really watching it because, you know, as a millennial. team. Paul Walker was so cute, a horrible actor, but you know, you just have to watch for those reasons. But that just made me laugh that he was like, yeah, Fast and Furious, which is probably considered some of more trashed movies compared to things. A list of brow. I've seen one Fast and Furious movie and it's the one where they drive a car into outer space. That's the only one I've seen. That's probably more towards the end. It got really bad um but yeah yeah you know at alamo draft house actually speaking of hollick's that's one of my

favorite movie theaters um they are going to be showing the original the fast and the furious for i think it's like i think it's just 25th anniversary so they're going to be re-showing it again in theaters so i will get to see if it's actually a good movie i'll report back it's not spoiler no right oh okay it's part of our or it's part of the culture cultural zeit guys stuff they're It's important, but it's not great acting. Not my cup of tea. I think I'll pass. That is pretty disappointing because I really wanted to see it just for the acting.

Very high standards, Rob. Very high standards. Absolutely. Well, before we wrap up here, I wanted to ask Isaiah, I see you did have some tweetery, and I didn't want to completely exclude you since, of course, like me, you haven't seen the movie. so you can't contribute anything about it.

So what was your tweetery for the week? Well, this is a worthy high note to end on, but I don't know why. I don't remember who retwote it, why it ended up on my feed, but I saw a video that said, you're witnessing the pinnacle of ballard greatness. And it was a Rolls-Royce.

It just got destroyed by running into a ballard. And like the Motorola was spilling everywhere on the ground, and this guy was, like, feebly trying to piece it back together. and I thought, what is this account? And it's the World Ballard Association. And all they post is videos of Ballard's destroying cars that try to run over them. And, you know, it hooked me for a few minutes. I was just scrolling through the feet of the World Ballard Association,

which I guess exists to promote Ballard craftsmanship. I don't know. But I thought like there's some intern. That is wild. Yeah, there's some intern whose job it is is to post Ballard. content online. Wow. And it was pretty engrossing.

That even ties into the Odyssey, because it's kind of the same theme of preventing you from going where you want to go. It actually all ties in together. So what is the Cyclops? A ballard association. Do the bollards have automatic license plate reader cameras installed on them too? That's the question. I don't know.

I mean, I did the fancy ones that like pop out of the ground, you know? Yeah. And she's back in. but I don't know if they can do much more than that. No, I think Holly, the Cyclops with its eye is the metaphor for the automatic license played reader. That's exactly what it is. Yeah.

So that's why they have to sneak around it by, well, I won't give it away how they sneak around the cyclops. You'll have to watch the movie or read the book to find out. Absolutely. Well, thank you to everybody for joining us on this episode of the weekly roundup. You can catch us every Friday morning at the Texan. News, YouTube, or wherever you get podcasts. So thank you to all of our reporters for joining, and we'll catch you all next week. Thank you to everyone for listening.

If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, visit us at the Texan. dot news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.