The grants will go to private and public sector recipients in Texas for a variety of public safety priorities, including securing the southern border.

Denton has renamed itself Halloween, Texas, and has planned 31 days of events to drive up tourism and family entertainment.

Local leaders began debating a household limit on the number of pets after two residents were arrested for having 93 dogs and a cat in their home.

Many of the solutions are costly, putting them out of reach for small towns. But the region's most populous cities are getting innovative.

A former Texas Juvenile Justice Department correctional officer has been arrested for crimes against a child in a correctional facility.

Texas is losing an estimated 1,000 acres of farm land a day, mostly to other industries. The Rio Grande Valley is losing land at a faster clip.

A Texas jury has recommended that a south Texas man be sentenced to death for fatally shooting a state trooper in 2019.

Operation Lone Star originally targeted single men suspected of crossing the border illegally in mass trespassing arrests, but some claimed that not arresting women violated equal protection laws.

Democrat Beto O’Rourke says his campaign for Texas governor raised another $25 million over the past three months as a big-spending race with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott enters the final stretch.

Abbott’s team rejected the assertion, saying that O’Rourke agreed to the audience-free debate months ago.

In a news conference ahead of the only gubernatorial debate, 35 family members of Uvalde school shooting victims said they would support O’Rourke because of Gov. Greg Abbott’s inaction on gun control measures.

The one-hour debate took place in Edinburg. It was the only scheduled debate between the two candidates before the November election.

A former South Texas mayor has been acquitted of organized election fraud and illegal voting.

Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Richard Molina of participating in “an organized illegal voting scheme,” when he announced the arrest in 2019.

Cheap regulated and unregulated medication is available over the counter at Mexican pharmacies, including abortion-inducing drugs that are strictly regulated in the U.S.

The Texas Department of State Health Services reported Monday a pandemic high 11,351 hospitalizations from COVID-19. This hospital data does not account for people who are hospitalized but have not gotten a positive test, and DSHS says some hospitals may be missing from the daily counts. As of Monday, the state is also reporting 49 deaths from COVID-19, a lagging indicator of the extent of transmission rates, and more than 12,800 new confirmed COVID-19 cases. Earlier this month, Texas' ICU capacity was already the lowest since the start of the pandemic, leaving health care experts worried hospitals could be pushed to the brink as coronavirus cases continue to climb. Across the state, COVID-19 patients occupy 17.8% of the state's hospital beds, and only 745 staffed ICU beds are still available.

Texans who are 65 years old and older, and those who are at least 16 with certain chronic medical conditions will be next in line for the COVID-19 vaccine, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced on Monday. There are nearly 1.9 million Texans in that group, so it will likely take a few weeks before the state transitions to the next phase, state health officials said. The state expects to receive 1.4 million vaccine doses by the end of the month. A panel — comprised of state lawmakers, state and local health officials, medical experts and researchers — recommended those eligible for the next phase on Dec. 17. More than 42,000 doses of the vaccine had been administered in Texas as of Monday, state data shows.

HOUSTON – A Texas school district has made the decision to remove the Edinburg High School football team from the playoffs after a player assaulted a referee Thursday night during a game. The incident occurred during a game between Edinburg High School and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Early College High School in Edinburg, Texas. Check out the video from the incident here:The Edinburg CISD released the following statement:“The district has decided to remove the Edinburg High School football team from the playoffs after an unexpected incident involving a student that occurred during a football game on December 3, 2020. On behalf of the Edinburg CISD Board of Trustees and administration, we apologize to the athletes, staff, and our school community. Unfortunately, this type of blind‑sided assault on an official while working on the field is not new to Texas Football.

After months of undercounting coronavirus deaths, Texas formal tally of COVID-19 fatalities grew by more than 600 on Monday after state health officials changed their method of reporting. The revised count indicates that more than 12% of the states death tally was previously unreported by state health officials before Monday. The Texas Department of State Health Services is now counting deaths marked on death certificates as caused by COVID-19. State health officials said Monday that the policy change would improve the accuracy and timeliness of their data. As of July 26, state officials said about 5,030 people who tested positive for the virus had died.

The U.S. Navy has deployed teams to help deal with coronavirus surges in the Rio Grande Valley and other Texas hot spots. Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneMedical professionals from the U.S. Navy were deployed Sunday to aid hospitals in four cities across southern Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, according to Gov. Early on in the pandemic, hot spots were mainly tied to outbreaks in enclosed spaces, like meatpacking plants and nursing homes. Five U.S. Navy teams were sent to four locations across Texass southern region: Harlingen, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and Rio Grande City. Ambulance operators in the Rio Grande Valley area described wait times of up to 10 hours to deliver patients to packed emergency rooms.

The virus is showing no signs of slowing in the worst-affected countries: the United States, Brazil and India. The U.S. reported nearly 59,000 new daily cases, just short of the record 60,000 cases set a day earlier, as President Donald Trump insisted that schools reopen in the fall. Brazil reported nearly 45,000 new cases. The virus has also been spreading rapidly in South Africa, which reported nearly 9,000 new cases in its latest daily update. He complained that his own public health officials safety guidelines are impractical and too expensive.

Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneNeed to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? With cases of the new coronavirus and related hospitalizations rising at alarming rates, Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday expanded his ban on elective medical procedures to cover more than 100 counties across much of the state. "We are freeing up more resources to address upticks in COVID-19 related cases, Abbott said in a statement. Hospital capacity is currently most taxed around the states biggest cities, as well as most of South Texas.

On Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported more than 10,000 new cases representing nearly 20% of the nations new cases for the day. There has never been a higher risk of getting COVID-19 in Texas, the states public health agency wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. #COVID19TX update: https://t.co/ofycOLqWQZCurrent #COVID19 hospitalizations continue to increase. There has never been a higher risk of getting COVID-19 in #Texas. We are going to be in a situation where we have to seriously consider sheltering in place again, said Dennis Perrotta, a former Texas state epidemiologist.

Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneHospitals in the Rio Grande Valley sounded the alarm Saturday as their beds filled to capacity with COVID-19 patients and some began transferring patients elsewhere. The local and Valley hospitals are at full capacity and have no more beds available, Starr County Judge Eloy Vera said in a statement. Hospitals in Starr County were also transferring patients, with at least two severely ill patients flown to Dallas and San Antonio, Vera added. As COVID-19 cases have exploded across Texas, health officials in other areas are also expressing concern about hospital capacity. Greg Abbott, who began allowing Texas businesses to reopen on May 1, expanded his June 25 ban on elective surgeries to counties in South Texas on Tuesday to preserve hospital capacity.