Reporting Texas
News and features from UT-Austin's School of Journalism
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.
bySamantha Eisenmenger
Rep. John Bucy, D-Austin, has filed House Bill 1346, which would give counties the ability to allow sales of liquor for off-premise use on Sundays. HB 1346 would empower counties to hold an election and allow voters to decide the matter. Bucy filed a similar bill in 2021, but it never made it to a vote.
Since distilleries cannot sell their bottled product on Sunday, they are at a competitive disadvantage with wineries and breweries, which can sell their bottled products to consumers every day of the week, Bucy said. The measure would allow distilleries to better compete with wineries and breweries, he added.
byKeaton Peters
Under proposed legislation, the Texas Grid Security Commission would develop standards “to ensure that energy, electric power, and fuel supplies are protected and readily available for recovery in the event of a severe outage,” said a spokesperson for Senator Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, who is a sponsor of the bill.
bySamantha Eisenmenger
The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup, first held in 1958, began as a rattlesnake hunt with the goal of controlling the snake population in this small northwest Texas town. The event is now billed as the largest rattlesnake roundup in the world.