Bill Elliott was placed on administrative leave in October after his son Caleb, a football coach at Celina’s middle school, was accused of secretly filming boys in the school’s locker room and possessing child pornography.

House Bill 7, which would allow people to sue manufacturers and distributors of the drug, is one vote away from Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

House and Senate members agreed that judges needed a pay raise. But they spent the final hours of the legislative session debating whether Texas lawmakers should also benefit from the boost.

A bill to increase judicial salaries from $140,000 to $175,000 a year stalled amid a disagreement over lawmakers’ own retirement benefits.

The bill won bipartisan support despite efforts from multiple Democrats that would have also required students to learn about fascism and Nazism.

Conservative lawmakers say DEI efforts are discriminatory and push liberal ideologies on children. Critics point to research showing a diverse teacher body helps students succeed academically.

The bill originally allowed pregnant women to drive in HOV lanes, to be consistent with Texas abortion laws, but legislators extended it to all mothers.

House Bill 6 is a response to reports of more violent classroom disruptions after the pandemic. It lowers the bar for when schools can discipline for the state’s homeless and youngest students.

The proposal aims to make working conditions safer for teachers but critics worry it could push the state’s most vulnerable students out of the classroom.

The motion escalates a tense standoff between Paxton and a bipartisan Texas House committee, which had subpoenaed Roberson to testify at the Capitol on Friday.

The new subpoena comes after lawmakers say Ken Paxton’s office stalled a previous effort to get Roberson’s legislative testimony about his conviction in “shaken baby” case.

Roberson was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in a “shaken baby” case that many say led to an innocent man’s death sentence.

The state’s highest civil court ruled that legislators can’t use subpoenas to block death row inmates’ executions, but suggested there’s still time for Roberson to testify before a Texas House panel.

Even before the Texas man’s death sentence became a political lightning rod, law enforcement and medical experts had differing opinions on the evidence that convicted him.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is calling for the resignation of State Representative Jeff Leach after his admission to sending text messages to a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge last week saying that death row inmate Robert Roberson deserved a new trial.

The AG also said he’d make a criminal referral against the lawmaker, who apologized for texting a Court of Criminal Appeals judge about a new trial for the death row inmate.

Members of a Texas House committee say in a Texas Supreme Court filing that Paxton’s office is blocking the death row inmate from complying with a legislative subpoena.

Leach, one of the driving forces behind the effort to stop Roberson’s execution, later apologized to the judge, who told the lawmaker there were still pending matters before the court.

Neither of the Texas GOP’s dueling factions landed a clean knockout blow during a grueling primary season that only seemed to set up further chaos and strife.

Hartzell’s protest response has also resulted in condemnations from students and faculty.

In a rare joint statement, the district attorney and the defense agreed that prosecutors withheld evidence that could point to a Rio Grande Valley woman’s innocence in the death of her toddler.

Violations could bring a $50,000 fine under an amendment adopted Wednesday. The bill’s sponsor said the ban would be the strongest in the nation.

A jury pay increase went into effect in Harris County and the State of Texas, the county’s district clerk office announced Friday.

The bipartisan legislation was long sought by advocates for disabled voters, including some of the governor’s own allies.

Led by Andrew Murr, a West Texas rancher and lawyer, and Ann Johnson, a former prosecutor, the team of 12 includes 11 with law degrees.

Despite its tendency to distort memories, hypnosis has been used on witnesses in numerous investigations, including death penalty cases. Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a similar bill in 2021.

The shooter’s “RWDS” patch offers troubling clues about his ideology — and how it connects to views that are common among white supremacists.

After mall shooting, residents of the Dallas suburb are experiencing familiar rituals: mourning, anger and despair.

News publications and First Amendment advocates are fighting a bill to revise a state law meant to prevent litigants from weaponizing the legal system to punish people for speech they don’t like.

A competitive match-up in Austin is heating up around mobile sports betting in Texas.The business of sports betting through a mobile device in the Lone Star State has been viewed as an underdog by many, but it is very much alive according to key players in Austin.

In a statement, the attorneys for the four former top deputies who accused Attorney General Ken Paxton of crimes said state employees “cannot be expected to report government corruption in the future if they know the Legislature won’t back their rights.”

The Texas Sports Betting Alliance threw its weight behind new legislation Monday to let voters decided whether to legalize online sports betting.

An annual report on capital punishment says public support and use of the death penalty continued a more than two-decade decline in the U.S. in 2022.

With Melissa Lucio’s execution put on indefinite hold by a Texas appeals court, her attorneys will now be focused on trying to convince a judge to recommend she get a new trial.

Lucio learned of her reprieve in a phone call from state Rep. Jeff Leach.

Acknowledging substantive questions about Lucio’s guilt and the fairness of her conviction, the appeals court blocked her Wednesday execution so the case can be further investigated.

Nearly half of the jurors who sentenced a Texas woman to die for the 2007 death of one of her 14 children have called for her upcoming execution to be halted and for her to get a new trial.

Despite substantive doubts surrounding the cause of her child’s death and a suspect “confession” obtained after hours of interrogation, Lucio is set to be executed next month for killing her 2-year-old daughter.

Leach, a Plano Republican, and Moody, an El Paso Democrat, co-chair the House Criminal Justice Caucus.

As Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to punish any school district that defied Abbott’s ban on mask mandates, Republican legislators were largely indifferent on the matter.

Among the bills approved by the Senate Jurisprudence Committee is one that would require police officers to keep their body cameras activated during investigations.

House lawmakers expressed frustration on Thursday that some of their priority legislation had not moved in the upper chamber, including a package of health care and criminal justice reform bills pushed by House Speaker Dade Phelan.

HB 19’s sponsors say the bill will prevent excessive lawsuits against companies, but road safety advocates say the bill would make Texas roads more dangerous and prevent victims of crashes from receiving justice.

A Texas lawmaker has filed a bill that would abolish and criminalize abortions, leaving women and physicians who perform the procedure to face criminal charges that could carry the death penalty. The legislation, filed Tuesday by state Rep. Bryan Slaton, does not include exceptions for rape or incest. All my bill does, is say that an unborn child is the same as a born child and should be treated the same by the laws.”Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has identified two abortion bills that will be priority items during the legislative session that started in January. One would ban nearly all abortions if the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision or otherwise altered abortion laws.

Republicans have dominated Collin County for years. Six years ago, Collin County was so solidly Republican that many of its representatives in Austin and Washington didn’t even draw Democratic opponents. Collin County was among the first Texas counties this week to exceed its 2016 turnout, and 62% of its voters had already voted as of Wednesday. At the same time, Democrats also see opportunity in injecting the president into the Texas House races in Collin County. “What’s happening in Collin County is what’s happening all across the country,” Leach said.

Democrats need to gain nine seats to win control of the Texas House. Taken together, the reports point to a wildly competitive battle for control of the lower chamber, where Democrats are nine seats away from the majority. Republicans held $9.9 million cash on hand across the 34 districts, while Democrats had $6.2 million. Furthermore, in the four open seats that Democrats are trying to flip, all the GOP nominees were outraised. The Republican State Leadership Committee, the main national GOP group focused on state legislative races, is also playing big in Texas.

Two Republican Texas House incumbents were considerably behind their primary runoff opponents as early election results came in Tuesday. State Rep. Dan Flynn of Canton trailed Bryan Slaton 37% to 62%. State Rep. J.D. The winner will face off against Republican Lacey Hull in November after state Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, opted against seeking reelection. No matter what happens in the general election, House members will have a new speaker for the 2021 legislative session.

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers is calling for the state to cancel the upcoming April STAAR test — as more public school districts suspend classes in the wake of heightened concern over coronavirus. State Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, sent a letter to the governor Friday asking that “any and all requirements and mandates related to the provision of the 2020 STAAR test” be canceled, since area school districts have “substantially limited” classroom instruction. The federal government is already considering waivers from testing requirements for areas heavily impacted by the COVID-19 disease. "The University is working closely with Tarrant County health officials and assisting in identifying individuals who may have had contact with the individual." The school announced last week it was extending spring break and switching to online classes "until further notice" beginning on March 23.

The bubbles windows open to the east, providing a view of the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. Basecamp owner Jeff Leach says he first discovered the concept when he stayed in a bubble lodging at the Campera Hotel in Baja California. Inspired, he brought two bubbles to Terlingua, making Basecamp the first bubble hotel in the country. The popularity of the bubbles led Basecamp to introduce a new lodging, Bubble X, available to book starting Dec. 1, 2019. According to the National Park Service, Big Bend traffic jumped 13 percent from 388,290 visitors in 2016 to 440,276 in 2017.