A federal judge preserved Harris County’s misdemeanor bail agreement. An appeal is underway.

A federal proposal would remove Head Start’s national expulsion ban and strict suspension limits.

More than 20 million Medicare Part B enrollees are expected to receive a one-time $90 payment.

Aqua RichJo | September 26, 2026 The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily cleared the way for states to use the federal SAVE database to check voter eligibility while a lawsuit continues. The September 25 emergency order pauses a lower court’s restrictions on the revamped system. It does not finally decide whether the system is lawful, and states are not required to use it. The Court’s three liberal justices dissented. The ruling lands as Texas counties are already processing a

Aqua RichJo | September 26, 2026 The known backlog of delayed Texas voter-registration records has reached at least 200,000. Applications and updates submitted through the Department of Public Safety’s online driver’s license portal were not sent to counties as expected. DPS now says the problem was connected to an October 2025 software update by a third-party vendor. People using the portal had no warning that their information had stalled. Counties must now process those de

Aqua RichJo| September 26, 2026 Texas’ next maternal-mortality report was expected September 1. Now the state says it will come in December—after voters go to the polls on November 3 and after lawmakers can begin filing bills on November 9. Women’s-health advocates and lawmakers rallied outside the Texas Department of State Health Services on Friday, demanding answers about the delay. The report is supposed to examine deaths associated with pregnancy and recommend ways to pre

Aqua Jones | September 25, 2026 Dallas County has received more than 68,000 voter-registration records that were delayed by a state transmission error. Collin County received about 40,000. Across seven counties that have reported figures, the known total exceeds 178,000 records—and Texas still has not said exactly what caused the failure. Let’s get the number right: 178,000 records does not necessarily mean 178,000 people lost their right to vote. The files include applicatio

Aqua RichJo| September 25, 2026 Crystal Mason cast a provisional ballot in 2016. It was never counted. The Fort Worth woman was still convicted of illegal voting, sentenced to five years in prison and left to fight the case for nearly a decade. Now her acquittal stands. On September 24, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed prosecutors’ request to review the ruling that cleared Mason. The court said it had improvidently granted review, meaning it should not have taken

Aqua RichJo| September 24, 2026 More than 40,000 voter registration records have landed in Collin County for review. That does not mean 40,000 people were left unregistered—but with Texas’ October 5 deadline approaching, voters deserve to know whether their own records made it through. The records came from a backlog of applications and updates submitted through the Texas Department of Public Safety’s online driver’s-license portal. Some records were never sent to county vote

Aqua RichJo | September 24, 2026 The Texas U.S. Senate race has a North Texas question: What happens if voters who usually back Republicans decide they cannot support Republican nominee Ken Paxton? In reporting published Thursday, The Texas Tribune spoke with Republicans across the Dallas–Fort Worth area who said they were considering leaving the Senate contest blank or voting for Democrat James Talarico. Former Southlake Mayor Laura Hill said she plans to skip that race. Oth

Those questions come from two separate stories. One is a national lawsuit about alleged voter intimidation. The other is a Texas registration backlog. There is no evidence that the two are connected. Together, they show why voters need clear answers before Election Day. On September 18, the NAACP, National Urban League and seven other organizations filed a federal lawsuit over administration statements and policy changes involving armed federal officers at or near voting sit