Publisher David Flash has been documenting the happenings in Jeff Davis County since 2020. Last year, he was banned from county buildings over allegations of harassment.  ODESSA — Rarely do Jeff Davis County commissioners’ meetings generate commotion in the county of fewer than 2,000 residents. A recent budget meeting was the exception.  David Flash paced around the room, lined with rows of wooden chairs inside this Far West Texas county courthouse, and took photos.  The independent publisher of the Big Bend Times regularly attends these meetings, documenting and recording live footage for the website and social media, where he has amassed 285,000 followers on Facebook.  His presence in the room — and county at large — has vexed officials. view article

The county never disbursed the funds to anyone, despite spending millions to administer the program.  Harris County Commissioners voted Thursday to officially end its troubled guaranteed income pilot program and reallocate $14 million in unspent federal COVID-19 relief funds. The program, originally launched as Uplift Harris and later rebranded as the Community Prosperity Program, was designed to provide $500 per month to nearly 1,900 low-income residents.   Uplift Harris was funded with $20.5 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. view article

Not long ago, developers of the massive server farms talked about powering them with wind and solar energy. Now they’re bypassing the grid and building their own gas-fired power plants on site  NEW BRAUNFELS — Abigail Lindsey worries the days of peace and quiet might be nearing an end at the rural, wooded property where she lives with her son. On the old ranch across the street, developers want to build an expansive complex of supercomputers for artificial intelligence, plus a large, private power plant to run it.  The plant would be big enough to power a major city, with 1,200 megawatts of planned generation capacity fueled by West Texas shale gas. It will only supply the new data center, and possibly other large data centers recently proposed down the road. view article

While Washington, D.C., is awash with chaos and mass confusion over Trump administration policies gutting the federal government, our state Legislature in Austin is full speed ahead in passing perhaps the biggest boondoggle in Texas history.  I’m referring to school voucher plans that will pump billions of dollars into private education but won’t have a fraction of the promised benefits that Republicans are arguing to pass these bills.  Gov. Greg Abbott is calling the House bills on vouchers the “Texas Two-Step,” which Texas Democrats call a clever marketing label. Here’s what the party is saying about these measures: view article

That’s the reality — and challenge — facing Fort Worth ISD. School board candidates in the May 3 election will almost certainly play a role in determining which campuses close as the district deals with declining enrollment. view article

   Talia Natterson is a sophomore at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, a private school in Los Angeles, California. She writes for her school publication, Crossfire.