Houston awarded $579 million to certified minority-, women-, and small-business contractors last year. Now, a federal judge has blocked the city from using race in those contracting decisions. What happens next?

A private company built a 100,000-camera surveillance grid, wired it so federal authorities can access it, and operated it for more than a year without a license. Is that okay?

Texas home prices are still climbing in some of the state’s most expensive communities; can the property‑tax system keep up without shifting costs onto everyone else?

The places seeing the biggest dollar jumps tell us something important about who pays for local government.

San Antonio hasn’t raised its property tax rate in 33 years.

But with a $172 million deficit looming, a September 17 council vote ahead, and projections showing the shortfall could grow to $264 million by 2031, the city is nearing a choice it can’t avoid: raise the rate by the maximum allowed without an election or cut more than $130 million in services.

This Texas Tomorrow episode uses San Antonio as the warning flare for every major Texas city squeezed between the state’s 3.5% revenue cap, rising public-safety and infrastructure costs, and years of deferred budget decisions.

The homestead exemption investigation is producing results. The Harris County Appraisal District is reviewing 19 Doors Holdings properties, and Austin’s St. Tropez Rentals LLC just had its illegal exemption flagged as a vendor error and corrected. But the loopholes that made all of this possible are still on the books, and Senator Bettencourt is warning cheaters that the attorney general may be coming for them next.

Across the state, property owners are claiming ineligible exemptions, but who covers the cost?

With no zoning powers, counties are coming up with unique ways to stop emerging data centers. Will they work?

Texas' eighth-largest city is on track to become one of the first major U.S. cities to run short of water — and it just spent 15 hours deciding not to decide, while its mayor fights removal in court.