Latest Texas Headlines
All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Nearly 894,000 Texans Apply for FEMA Harvey Aid
Dec 4 2017 // Nearly 894,000 people in Texas met this week’s deadline to register for federal disaster assistance to help them recover from Hurricane Harvey, with more than $1.4 billion in funding approved so far, the Federal...
La Nina Adds to Wildfire Threat in South Central, Plains States
Dec 4 2017 // Conditions are ripe for winter wildfires from the mid-South through the Great Plains thanks to a combination of weather factors, including the climate phenomenon known as La Nina, that have left a lot of dry growth. In...
Study: North Texas Quakes Spurred on Faults Dormant for 300M Years
Dec 4 2017 // Earthquakes that have swarmed North Texas in recent years occurred on faults awakened by human activity after they had been dormant since dinosaurs roamed the area, according to a new university study. There have been...
Surplus Lines Premium Up for the Year in Texas
Dec 4 2017 // Texas has recorded $4.6 billion in surplus lines premium through the end of October 2017, a 6 percent increase over the same period in 2016, according to the Surplus Lines Stamping Office of Texas (SLTX). At the annual...
Texas Officials: At Least 1 Roadway Death per Day Since 2000
Dec 4 2017 // At least one person has died on Texas roadways every day since November 2000, state transportation safety officials say. The Texas Department of Transportation reported that from Nov. 7, 2000, through Nov. 7, 2017,...
Rate Increases Approved for Texas Automobile Insurance Plan Association
Dec 4 2017 // Texas Insurance Commissioner Kent Sullivan has approved changes in the rates for private passenger and commercial automobile insurance provided through the Texas Automobile Insurance Plan Association (TAIPA), which is the...
Businesses Receive $3M in Texas Mutual Early Qualifier Dividends
Dec 1 2017 // Texas Mutual Insurance Co. has paid more than $3 million in early qualifier dividends to approximately 4,000 newer policyholder owners across the state. This payout is the final component of the company’s $260...
Harvey Flooding Put Some Texas Christmas Tree Farms Out of Business
Dec 1 2017 // For more than two decades, Deidra Marler and her family piled into pickup trucks after Thanksgiving lunch and headed over to the K&K Evergreen Farm to pick out their annual Christmas tree. The Beaumont Enterprise...
Texas Company Agrees to Pay $545.1K Penalty Following Worker Fatality
Nov 30 2017 // The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Marshall Pottery Inc. in Marshall, Texas, have reached a settlement agreement including a penalty of $545,160, after the death...
Liberty Mutual Insurance Opens New Campus in North Texas
Nov 30 2017 // Liberty Mutual Insurance Chairman and CEO David H. Long officially opened the company’s one million square foot office complex in Plano, Texas, on Tuesday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Texas Governor...
New Sensors Tracking Earthquakes Across Texas
Nov 29 2017 // Note: This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Three years ago, a series of quakes rattled North Texas — and some residents’ nerves. Larry Walden, a Parker County commissioner, remembers a public...
Texas’ Hochheim Prairie Farm Mutual Ratings on CreditWatch; Harvey Cited
Nov 29 2017 // S&P Global Ratings has placed its ‘B+’ financial strength ratings for Hochheim Prairie Farm Mutual Insurance Assoc. (HPFMIA) and its subsidiary, Hochheim Prairie Casualty Insurance Co. (HPCIC; collectively...
Day Laborers Being Exploited in Texas after Harvey, Advocates Say
Nov 28 2017 // Guillermo Miranda Vazquez starts his day in a parking lot near the Home Depot where he easily finds work alongside other day laborers who are cleaning up Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Some days, he clears rotted drywall...
2017 Hurricane Season Ranks as Costliest Ever for U.S.
Nov 28 2017 // This year’s U.S. Atlantic hurricane season is officially the most expensive ever, racking up $202.6 billion in damages since the formal start on June 1. The costs tallied by disaster modelers Chuck Watson and Mark...
Texas Officials: At Least 1 Traffic Death per Day Since 2000
Nov 27 2017 // At least one person has died on Texas roadways every day since November 2000, state traffic safety officials say. The Texas Department of Transportation said that since Nov. 7, 2000, fatalities resulting from motor vehicle...
How Much Harm Did Harvey Do to Texas Homes?
Nov 27 2017 // Note: This story originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. As the state undertakes what could be the biggest housing recovery in American history after Hurricane Harvey, potentially thousands of Texas renters and...
Best Agencies to Work For South Central: Garrett Insurance Agency – Bronze
Nov 22 2017 // A Century Young and Still Going Strong A family-owned insurance agency doesn’t make it to 100 years and counting without doing a lot of things right, and the fact that Garrett Insurance Agency (GIA) in Kerrville,...
Some Businesses in Dickinson, Texas, Still Recovering from Harvey
Nov 22 2017 // Some Dickinson business owners are getting back on their feet — or trying — after flooding from Hurricane Harvey swamped more than 80 shops, restaurants and offices. The Galveston County Daily News reports Keith...
Texas Governor Calls White House Disaster Aid Bill ‘Inadequate’
Nov 20 2017 // Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Nov. 17 criticized as “completely inadequate” the Trump administration’s $44 billion request to Congress for disaster relief in his hurricane-ravaged state and other...
A Storm of Claims Likely Following 2017 Hurricane Season
Nov 20 2017 // The aftermath of this year’s hurricanes includes massive reconstruction across the impacted areas, which in turn creates an increased possibility for construction defect claims that would affect the liability...
