As Gen Z Struggles to Navigate Sex, Texas Makes It Harder to Get Information in Schools

byOisakhose Aghomo

Experts say Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, is struggling to navigate real-life sex and dating culture in a digital age, and research points to this generation having less sex. Now, their teenage counterparts will have less access to information about sex after parents’ rights groups successfully lobbied for a new law that restricts Texas schools from teaching sex education or providing student health services unless parents have specifically authorized it.

Pyramid or Diagram? Whole Milk or Low-Fat? Dietitians Assess the Impact of New Dietary Guidelines

byAJ Muonagolu

Weeks after the federal government announced new dietary guidelines, Texas schools and food assistance programs are studying how the changes might affect their services.School districts like Austin’s are waiting to see how the new guidelines will shape their programs – especially when it comes to costs and federal reimbursement rates for student meals.

Nurses Rally Against ICE after Slaying of One of Their Own

byNoemi Castanon

Over 100 people, many of them nurses, moved by the death of one of their own, gathered outside Ascension Seton Medical Center for a candlelight vigil to honor Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis nurse killed by federal immigration officers.

On the Edge of Closure: The Daily Struggle of Rural Hospitals in Texas

byErika González

Hundreds of workers in Texas’ rural hospitals face long shifts but without any certainty that their hospital will still be there next year. 
Texas leads the nation in rural hospital closures, according to the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals. In the past 20 years, 26 rural hospitals have shut their doors.

UT Students Help to ‘Crush’ $1.5 Million in Medical Debt

byRachel N. Madison

In 2020, Austin resident Zachary Cook was run over by a car while walking down a sidewalk. After several weeks in a hospital for severe injuries, he returned home to find a $78,000 medical bill in the mail. Unable to pay, Cook searched for assistance online and found Dollar For, a national nonprofit that helps patients navigate medical debt and health care expense reduction programs.  Cook’s story is one of many that  inspired UT students to form Let’s Crush Medical Debt, an Austin chapter of Dollar For.

Amid Crisis in Veterans Care, Texas Embarks on a ‘Psychedelic Revolution’

byMichael Karlis

The staggering number of veteran suicides, combined with Texas’ large population of former service members, has led the state to becoming what some experts are calling the center of the “psychedelic revolution.”
A slew of bills in the Texas Legislature have garnered broad, bipartisan support, including House Bill 3137, which would mandate the largest appropriation of public funds for psychedelic research in U.S. history.

Lunches for Texas Students Expected to Suffer After USDA Pulls Plug on Local Food for Schools Program

byMadeline de Figueiredo and Rebecca Butler

The Local Food for Schools initiative was set to distribute $660 million to state agencies in fiscal 2025, aiming to help schools and child care facilities buy locally grown food in 40 states.

A Conference on UT Campus for ‘Pro-Natalists’ Draws Ire

byAlex Lamb

In April 2024, state and local police cracked down on University of Texas students protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza, following calls for intervention by university administrators. As with protests on other college campuses, university and political leaders accused the pro-Palestinian protesters of antisemitism.
Almost a year later, one of the same groups involved in those protests, the Austin Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, took part in another protest — this time to oppose the presence of alleged neo-Nazis and eugenicists at a conference held on the UT campus. The activists highlighted what they called a disconnect between the treatment of two groups accused of connections to antisemitic views

Texas’ Suicide Hotline, Overburdened and Underfunded, Could Get Support from a Proposed Bill.

byMadeline De Figueiredo

Each month, thousands of Texans reach out for support in difficult moments by dialing 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. But, for some, their calls are met with long wait times and multiple transfers to out-of-state centers. Texas faces a $7 million shortfall in funding for the 988 system.

Texans Rally in Defense of Science and Against Trump Administration Cuts

byMadeline De Figueiredo

Hundreds gathered in front of the Texas Capitol for a “Stand Up to Science” rally Friday, demanding the defense of scientific integrity, expanded funding and the protection of diversity in research. The rally, one of 32 in cities across the country, was organized in response to the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific funding, the removal […]

Austin Schools’ Low Vaccination Rate Draws Concern Amid Measles Outbreak

byMadeline de Figueiredo

Travis County is ramping up its vaccination efforts, particularly for schoolchildren, as neighboring Hays County warned Sunday of possible measles exposure in San Marcos. 

In Rural West Texas, Measles Outbreak Signals Concerns over Federal Changes

byMadeline De Figueiredo

Amid concerns that Trump administration policies have reduced access to public health data, the Texas Department of State Health Services has confirmed a measles outbreak in Gaines County, which borders New Mexico, with six cases reported so far.

They provide for others. Now community attendants want the Legislature to provide a livable wage.

byMadeline de Figueiredo

Thomas Greenwell wakes up each morning and gets ready twice — he goes through the motions of brushing teeth twice, doing hair twice and getting dressed twice — once for himself and once for his client, Edgar. But Greenwell doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to afford to take care of Edgar as a community-based care provider under Medicaid. “The attendant care wages are not sustainable at all,” he says. The Legislature will revisit attendant wages in this spring’s legislative session as caregivers and advocacy groups push for more competitive and livable wages.

Advocates Race to Inform Immigrants, Hospitals as Abbott Demands Citizenship Reports

byMadeline de Figueiredo

In the leadup to the Nov. 1 implementation of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order requiring Texas public hospitals to report on health care for undocumented immigrants, advocacy groups raced to inform affected communities and providers about the policy’s implications and limitations.

Child-free Texans Raise Voices Despite Stigmatized Life Choice

byKatrina L. Spencer

Sending a message to his more than 40,000 followers on social media platform X in March, Houstonian Adrian C. Jackson told the world he had made a major life decision. “Might as well make this a public journey to inform & encourage other men,” he tweeted March 10. “The appointment is booked. I’m going through with it. I’m getting a vasectomy.”
Jackson is one of an increasing number of child-free Texans who intend to remain so. 

As Younger Drinkers Forgo Alcohol, Bartenders Are Mixing Up More Booze-free Cocktails

byKatrina L. Spencer

“A cocktail is interesting whether it has alcohol or not,” said Armando Garza, a bartender at the Roosevelt Room.
The Roosevelt Room and other Austin bars are tapping into the trend of consumers forgoing alcohol when they go out for happy hours, gatherings and celebrations. A 2023 Gallup report found that only 62% of 18- to 34-year-olds said they had occasion to drink in 2021-23, down from 72% two decades ago.

Texas politicians point to mental health as the cause of mass shootings — experts say more funding won’t help

byIsabella Zeff

When Jesse Woche heard about the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, the now 24-year-old felt galvanized to work in the gun violence prevention space full time. She had been interested in advocacy since she was 15, shifting between environmental conservation, abortion access and other causes that mattered to her. “(The shooting) just […]

Lifesaving Mix at ACL: Thousands of Overdose Reversal Drug Doses, Education and Music Come Together for First Time

byAnissa Sanchez

From a booth on the east side of Zilker Park, a husband and wife from Ohio exceeded their dreams of helping to save lives by distributing 6,000 doses of overdose-reversing drugs.
“We thought we were gonna do a couple of festivals in the Midwest; that’s all we hoped for,” William Perry said of his lifesaving operation called This Must Be the Place. “This year, we went coast to coast and now we’re here in Austin.”
Their booth at Austin City Limits Music Festival the past two weekends served as a beacon of information on preventing fatal overdoses of fentanyl and other opioids with the nasal spray naloxone.
Perry said they found a receptive crowd in Austin. 
“We were prepared to talk people into taking it and talk people into why they should have it, and obviously that was not the case,” Perry said. “All you have to do is sit and listen to us explain the signs and symptoms and how to administer the medication. It takes people two and a half minutes or so and now they’re equipped to go save a life.”

Surviving For A Reason

byAmber Williams

Crystal Chen’s soft voice echoed through the Senate chamber as she recounted nightmares of persecution by her own government for her religious beliefs. In the prime of her 20s, Chen was sentenced to four and a half years of forced labor and torture in China. “I was pinned to the concrete floor and force-fed an all-salt mixture which nearly killed me,” Chen said. The room filled with lawmakers was silent. “Some guards handcuffed me to a radiator pipe,” she continued. “I was left there for three days while a police chief groped my body.” Chen was among a group of victims of political and religious persecution who testified before the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services of the Texas legislature in support of Senate Bill 1040 that would prohibit health insurance companies and other benefit plans from covering organ transplant procedures in which the organs come from a country known to engage in forced organ harvesting — namely China.

Six Months Post-Roe, Activists at Texas Rally for Life Vow to Continue Fight

byDominique Bejarano 

Several attendees at the Texas Rally for Life said that the end of Roe v. Wade has further entrenched an increasingly hostile fight over the abortion issue.