Best Read Texas Headlines
Headlines from our Texas Topic Page with the most time spent reading.
#1 Texas Pecan Farmers Fight to Save Water Supply
Nov 1 2024 // FORT STOCKTON — Zachary Swick plucked a pecan from one of the 78,000 trees at a sprawling West Texas farm — a rare sight in the desert known for oil rigs and pump jacks. He peeled away the pecan’s layers, leaving...
#2 Wastewater Is Polluting Rivers and Streams in Central Texas
Apr 29 2025 // Margo Denke set out to rally the town when she learned that a Christian youth camp planned to build a wastewater treatment plant and discharge its effluent into the pristine Hill Country creek that ran through her small...
#3 Texas Farmers Say Forever Chemicals in Fertilizer Poisoned Their Land
Dec 2 2024 // JOHNSON COUNTY — Tony Coleman recognizes the signs all too well. A cow drools strings of saliva. Then it starts to limp, each step slower. Then it grows stiff. Then it’s quick. There’s nothing to be done. The...
#4 Study Links Fracking Wastewater Injection to Surface Blowouts in West Texas Oil Wells
Aug 7 2024 // Fracking wastewater, injected underground for permanent disposal, traveled 12 miles through geological faults before bursting to the surface through a previously plugged West Texas oil well in 2022, according to a new...
#5 These Texans Aren’t Taking Buyouts Despite Repeated Floods
May 21 2024 // HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn’t think twice about whether to fix them. He...
#6 Texas Panhandle Town Grapples with Recovery One Year After Devastating Wildfire
Feb 27 2025 // Past the terracotta canyons and sloping hills in the Texas Panhandle is a colorful, small town center. A vibrant mural of the town’s name greets visitors, the yellow and blue paint from a historic motel can be seen...
#7 Texas’ Push to Meet Power Demand Could Spark Uranium Mining Revival
Dec 9 2024 // In the old ranchlands of South Texas, dormant uranium mines are coming back online. A collection of new ones hope to start production soon, extracting radioactive fuel from the region’s shallow aquifers. Many more...
#8 Texas Lawmakers Zero In on Exploding Hemp Industry
May 15 2024 // Austin hemp entrepreneur Shayda Torabi is looking at a year filled with uncertainty. For the six years they’ve been in business, Torabi and her two sisters have operated Restart, their hemp dispensary, in a modest...
#9 Harris County Officials Say Texas Law Limits Settlements Against Polluters
Oct 10 2024 // It wasn’t immediately clear what chemicals erupted into the air from the Channelview fire. The most anyone knew was that the large plume of black smoke billowing across the late afternoon sky — visible for miles...
#10 How Texas Weakened Its Own Air Pollution Monitoring Team
Oct 8 2024 // When disaster affects the sprawling industrial complexes of Texas, the state’s environmental authority often posts pictures online of its white vans patrolling public streets, verifying the local air is safe to...
#11 Rural Texas Hospitals Scramble to Respond to Measles Surge
Mar 10 2025 // Five years ago, Melanie Richburg used a roll of duct tape, a HEPA filter and a portable fan to draw contaminated air out of a hospital room where patients were tested for the coronavirus. Now, as the state’s largest...
#12 Pressure Mounts on Texas Regulator as ‘Zombie’ Oil Wells Spill Toxic Fluids
Aug 15 2024 // PECOS COUNTY, Texas – On a sprawling ranch in Pecos County in late July, oil well control specialist Hawk Dunlap used a backhoe to uncover an abandoned or so-called zombie well that had sprung back to life despite being...
#13 The Future Is Near for Self-Driving Trucks on US Roads
May 1 2024 // On a three-lane test track along the Monongahela River, an 18-wheel tractor-trailer rounded a curve. No one was on board. A quarter-mile ahead, the truck’s sensors spotted a trash can blocking one lane and a tire in...
#14 West Texas Town Endures Another Well Blowout, Putting Residents at Risk
Oct 11 2024 // TOYAH — After a restless night of sleep, Elida Machuca texted her neighbor, searching for answers. The air around her house in this West Texas town stunk of rotten eggs. “Last night, about 1 a.m., it was so bad we...
#15 Texas Jury to Decide if a Student’s Parents are Liable in Deadly School Shooting
Aug 19 2024 // DALLAS (AP) — An attorney for the parents of a Texas student accused of killing 10 people in a 2018 school shooting near Houston told trial jurors Friday that they didn’t know their son would have a psychotic...
#16 Texas Beekeepers Facing Soaring Bee Losses, Threatening Agriculture Industry
Mar 4 2025 // Since starting their beekeeping business southwest of San Antonio in late 2019, the Wheeler family has aimed to produce about 3,000 bee colonies each year, many of which are used to pollinate crops like watermelons and...
#17 HUD Quietly Drops Civil Rights Cases Involving Housing Discrimination in Texas
Mar 25 2025 // The findings were stark. In one investigation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development concluded that a Texas state agency had steered $1 billion in disaster mitigation money away from Houston and nearby...
#18 Delta-8 Hemp, Medical Marijuana Industries to Face Off in Texas Legislative Session
Nov 1 2024 // Jack Stinnett got life-changing news in 2020 when he learned the lump that appeared on the side of his neck was tongue and mouth cancer. He and his wife Karen quickly enrolled him at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,...
#19 Texas Measles Outbreak Could Become National Epidemic: Public Health Experts
Mar 24 2025 // With its measles outbreak spreading to two additional states, Texas is on track to becoming the cause of a national epidemic if it doesn’t start vaccinating more people, according to public health experts. Measles, a...
#20 Why Texas Mass Power Outages Continue to Happen
Jul 19 2024 // It’s become a familiar cycle: A powerful storm sweeps through a swath of Texas and takes the electric system down in its grip. Trees might bend and topple, crashing down onto a power pole. Sometimes the weight of ice...
