In this week’s episode, the TribCast crew is joined by Tribune reporter Kayla Guo to break down the evidence in the Robert Roberson death penalty case.

The Texas GOP will vote Saturday to possibly bar some state legislators from running in the 2026 primary, despite repeated Texas Supreme Court rulings saying they cannot.

Secretary of State Jane Nelson said in a filing that Paxton’s office gave her less than an hour’s warning that they’d be siding against her agency in court.

Roberson was scheduled to be executed Oct. 16 after being convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki.

While a three-judge panel hears a legal challenge to Texas’ new congressional map, TribCast breaks down the arguments.

The governor posted a photo Monday showing guardsmen deploying but did not mention a destination. Trump called for troops to deploy to Illinois and Oregon, where a judge temporarily blocked their arrival.

The latest calls to stave off the politically charged execution come after a summer where GOP leaders asked the state courts to kick Democrats out of office and throw Beto O’Rourke in jail.

On the first day of a two-week trial, the plaintiffs’ lawyers honed in on who drew the new map and whether race was a factor.

The El Paso federal judge said the Trump administration is violating the constitutional rights of Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago, a DACA recipient who has lived in the U.S. for two decades.

If a judge accepts the plan, the Trump administration will reopen new applications for DACA for the first time in four years — but Texas applicants would no longer receive work permits.

The same plaintiffs who are challenging the state’s 2021 maps have asked the court to block the new GOP-approved districts from being used in the fast-approaching midterms.

A Texas State spokesperson said Monday evening that the professor’s employment had been “terminated, effective immediately” after a university review.

Blaine Milam previously had two scheduled executions stayed for the 2008 killing of his then-fiancée’s daughter.

Roberson, convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his 2-year-old daughter, will continue to push for a new trial. He has maintained his innocence.

Gov. Greg Abbott called for a student to be expelled for celebrating Kirk’s death. Legal experts say the student’s speech is likely constitutionally protected.

Learn more about all the ways you can register to vote, cast your ballot and protect your rights at the polls.

The suit, filed in 2023 after the launch of SpaceX's Starship in Boca Chica ended in an explosion, accused the agency of not properly assessing environmental impacts.

The court, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, recently allowed O’Rourke to continue raising and dispersing donations, and cast doubt on Paxton’s main arguments.

An immigration judge ruled ICE can’t deport Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago, who has permission to be in the country, unless the agency can provide evidence that her legal status was revoked.

Opponents of reunification therapy say it can psychologically harm children, while supporters say it’s unnatural for children to reject parents.

Currently, any Texas voter can cast a ballot in GOP primaries. The party wants to limit eligibility to registered members.

The law banned “expressive activity” on campuses from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., among other restrictions. “The Court cannot trust the universities to enforce their policies in a constitutional way,” the judge said.

Two California-based companies accuse the state of government overreach for banning the sale of their products for the next two years.

Despite explosive growth turning Tarrant into a racially diverse swing county, two new political maps will leave it with whiter, more Republican representation.

The measure comes four years after the state’s highest criminal court ruled the agency could not bring election cases without an invitation from local prosecutors.

One lawsuit, filed by LULAC on behalf of 13 Texas residents, states that the redrawn districts in the new map are racially discriminatory and violate voter protection laws.

A new petition claims Anderson County judges acted unconstitutionally multiple times in both Roberson’s case and in recognizing custody of his daughter.

The victims sued the employer of the alleged shooter, the former warden of a migrant detention center. Three different prosecutors have so far opted not to file criminal charges.

In a split decision, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the school’s prohibition on drag performances, finding students are likely to prove it violates the First Amendment.

The third-term governor appears determined to win any battle — even if it means scorched-earth primary crusades or trying to boot duly elected legislators from office.

Senate Bill 11 shields victims from prosecution from some crimes if they’re threatened or coerced into the act by their trafficker.

Judge Scott Larson ruled that the Texas speaker and attorney general had “failed to present a legal basis for the court” to take up the issue.

The governor and attorney general have asked the court to find that Democratic lawmakers abandoned their seats when they left Texas to delay a new congressional map.

Since Democratic lawmakers left Texas to delay Republicans’ new map, state leaders have challenged the limits of traditional democratic norms to break the impasse.

Local records released this week — after a yearslong lawsuit —affirm previous reporting about law enforcement’s flawed response to Texas’ deadliest school shooting.

The order came at the request of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who O’Rourke accused in a separate lawsuit of going on a “fishing expedition, constitutional rights be damned.”

The Texas Supreme Court said in 2021 the Constitution allows members to thwart legislation by leaving the state. Abbott wants them to reconsider.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the state’s voter ID requirements for mail-in ballots do not violate the Civil Rights Act.

The three-judge panel agreed with a lower court that Ken Paxton’s office can’t question officials from Catholic Charities under oath without first filing a lawsuit.

A similar proposal stalled out earlier this year over disagreements between the House and Senate. This time, lawmakers might clash over whether to approve the new bill along with a constitutional amendment.

Professor Timothy Jackson was accused of making racist remarks at the height of the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd's murder. His free speech suit against the university comes to an end in the era of DEI bans.

The Texas attorney general said U.S. Masters Swimming violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s events.

Eighteen news organizations including The Texas Tribune have been seeking the records since 2022, when 19 children and 2 teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School.

The TribCast gang is finally reunited, just in time to dive into the big cases and unresolved questions from the term.

Texas’ attorney general alleged the City of Dallas and the fair were violating state law and the second amendment with the ban, which was adopted after a 2023 shooting.

A North Texas man charged with capital murder after slipping mifepristone into his girlfriend’s food signals another attempt to rein in abortion pills.

The decision, stemming from a 2022 lawsuit, narrows the public’s legal options to challenge Texas officials under the state’s open records law.

The case involves a 2023 state law requiring adult websites to verify users’ ages, but the ruling is expected to have broader implications for free speech law.

The ruling was a partial victory for President Donald Trump who has made immigration his signature issue.

In dueling lawsuits, current and former employees of the attorney general’s office sling allegations that threaten to intrude on Paxton’s U.S. Senate bid.

College access experts urged affected students not to withdraw from school while they assess their options.

Two groups tried to intervene in a case that blocked Texas’ decade-old law allowing certain undocumented students to pay the lower tuition rates at public universities. They’re appealing that decision.

Legal challenges have failed, elections haven’t moved the needle and the fight for a narrow clarification shows how immovable these laws are.

Experts say Wednesday’s action to eliminate the long-standing policy could be a “collusive lawsuit,” where the state and feds worked the courts to get a desired outcome.

The trial of the Peruvian woman was the first test of the Trump administration’s new policy aimed at prosecuting immigrants who crossed the border illegally with military-related charges.

Within hours of a federal lawsuit targeting Texas’ policy of letting undocumented students qualify for lower public tuition rates, the 24-year-old law was no more.

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.

Former Empower Texans leader Michael Quinn Sullivan has challenged a $10,000 fine from the Texas Ethics Commission for failure to register as a lobbyist for more than 10 years at nearly every level of the state court system.

The goal of the bill, according to the author, was to curb “nuclear verdicts” — ones that award victims $10 million or more.

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

Senate Bill 1362 would prevent officials from taking someone’s firearms if they haven’t been charged with a crime or aren’t subject to a protective order under the Texas Family Code.

The House made changes to the proposal that leave open ways for victims to be compensated beyond medical bills.

Democrats declined to support Senate Joint Resolution 87, which sprinted through the Senate and needed 100 votes to clear the lower chamber.

The trial in El Paso will hear a challenge over the redistricting maps drawn by the Legislature that are based on the 2020 census.

The House passage of the measure asking voters to amend the state Constitution to tighten the state’s bail laws hands a major policy win to Gov. Greg Abbott.

Lawyers representing foster children asked the high court to reinstate a contempt order against the state, and the judge who issued it.

Some measures that made it through before midnight dealt with jail bonds, an unconstitutional ban on gay sex, and the liability of vaccine manufacturers.

Twelve House Republicans joined Democrats to approve repealing the ban, which has been unenforced since 2003. It is the first time the bill has made it to the House floor since it was first proposed decades ago.

House Bill 2988 was centered on who pays the legal fees of those who successfully defend themselves against libel or defamation lawsuits.

Before the House takes a final vote on the bill, it could face a proposal that would allow adults and minors to marry if their age gap is three years or less.

Amending the Texas Constitution to crack down on the state’s bail practices has been an elusive priority of Gov. Greg Abbott’s for three consecutive sessions.

The state attorney general sued Google in 2022, alleging it unlawfully tracked and collected users’ private data.

Lotto.com’s suit, which was filed Thursday, comes less than a week before the state agency votes to ban the third-party services.

School leaders have privately criticized a bill that would make it harder to contest their performance ratings in court. But they did not testify against it to avoid lawmakers’ ire.

Moises Mendoza, who was convicted in 2005 of killing a Farmersville woman, became the third inmate Texas has put to death this year.

The three former students went to UT-Arlington and UT-Dallas. While they have prevailed in court so far, many other international students’ education futures remain uncertain.

The four students were involved in minor criminal cases that have been resolved, which they argue shouldn’t be used to justify ending their higher ed goals in Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott will have the opportunity to appoint Boyd’s replacement, furthering his influence on the high court.

Paxton vowed to appeal the “bogus ruling” that found he improperly fired the four plaintiffs after they reported him to the FBI on allegations of corruption.

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the city in April after it approved $100,000 to help residents travel out of the state for abortions.

Weeks after a federal judge declared hot conditions in Texas prisons unconstitutional, a bill requiring air conditioning in those facilities by 2032 has gained traction in the House.

Abbott’s closed-door address to the Federalist Society at UT Law Thursday drew peaceful protests.

Maria Rojas’ attorneys got their first chance to address the claims against her Thursday. She was released on bond but a judge ordered the clinics to remain closed.

A Texas judge last month ordered Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices north of New York City, to pay the penalty for allegedly breaking that state’s law by prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine.

About two-thirds of Texas prisons are not fully air conditioned, and dozens of inmates have died in the sweltering heat.

The new DA campaigned on seeking the death penalty for the 2019 massacre, but said he offered the gunman a plea deal of life in prison to avoid dragging out the case for several more years.

The removal of the death penalty as an option could lead to a quick guilty plea and life sentence, as happened with federal charges in 2023.

People in Maverick County spend months in jail waiting to be charged with minor crimes. Some are simply lost in the system

Judge Lee H. Rosenthal said the student group that organizes Draggieland, the Queer Empowerment Council, was likely to succeed in showing the ban violates the First Amendment.

Supporters say diversity initiatives close educational and income gaps born from a history of prejudice. Republican officials say they prioritize identity over merit.

Two-thirds of the state’s roughly 100 jails and prisons in Texas are not fully air conditioned in inmate housing areas.

The attorney general office’s lawsuit is based on an undercover video published in February by a conservative activist group.

Per the attorney general’s nonbinding opinion, state agencies should change gender markers on government documents back to a person’s sex assigned at birth.

Proposed legislation includes increased penalties for retail theft, car burglaries and forgery, among others.

The Biden administration had challenged a Republican-led redistricting plan that diluted the political power of minorities. Other legal challenges will continue.

The proposal is part of a push by Republican legislators aimed at helping property owners deal with squatters.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not clarify why it halted the execution of David Wood in its order granting the stay.

Brittany Marlowe Holberg was convicted in 1998 of robbing and murdering an 80-year-old man in his Amarillo home. The appeals court said critical evidence was withheld.

The case could establish the nation’s first independent repository for spent nuclear fuel in West Texas, despite the objections of state leaders.

Texas’ indigent defense commission wants lawmakers to spend $35 million on public defender offices in rural areas, but some say that isn’t nearly enough to ensure compliance with the U.S. Constitution.