Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Amarillo News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST We're leading with the State Capitol. Texas lawmakers are about to pocket a ten-thousand-dollar annual pay raise, effective next session. The Salary Commission voted to bump legislative compensation from just under forty-one thousand to fifty-one thousand a year. That's the first raise since 2009. The move is automatic under state law unless the commission votes it down — they didn't. It affects all 181 House and Senate members.

KELI The counter-read here is straightforward: this will get framed as a "finally paying them fairly" story in some outlets, a "fat cats voting themselves more" story in others. The structure underneath is that Texas keeps legislative pay so low that most lawmakers either come from money or run on outside income — which creates a specific kind of capitol: you can afford to stay only if you're already rich or you're getting paid by someone else. The ten grand moves the needle for a subset of members. Watch whether this gets spun as solving the problem or whether the real question — why does a state the size of Texas run a part-time legislature on forty grand a year — gets asked at all.

HAST Staying at the Capitol: state representative James Talarico told a school board this week that police officers stationed in schools make students less safe. He was speaking in opposition to school resource officers. Talarico's district includes parts of the Austin area. His claim runs counter to several district policies across Texas, including major urban systems, that place officers in buildings as a standard security measure. The data on this is contested in education and law enforcement literature.

KELI On a different front, the state attorney general's office reported that a major retailer has halted pesticide use at its facilities following an enforcement action by Ken Paxton's office. Details on the specific chemicals and facilities are slim in the reporting so far, but the move signals Paxton's consumer-protection division is active on product and workplace safety. We'll track whether this expands.

HAST Lighter footing for this one. West Texas A&M football returns home to Canyon this Saturday for a matchup against Midwestern State. The Buffs are two-and-oh in conference play after beating Angelo State last week. Midwestern is the only other undefeated team in the conference. Kickoff is set for this weekend.

KELI On this day in 1992, a Nigerian Air Force transport plane crashed near Lagos, killing one hundred and fifty-nine people on board. It remains one of Africa's deadliest aviation accidents.

HAST That's the Amarillo News Drop. Full script and sources at inkwell.wiki/news/amarillo.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. Gil's Intelligent Version has a new companion piece on how the Latter-day Saints read the Trinity — three distinct beings, one in purpose, rather than three persons of one substance.

HAST It's an evenhanded look at the same question, decided the other way. At inkwell dot wiki, slash godhead.