Good Morning! On this day in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law at the White House. Johnson was born and raised in the Texas Hill Country near Stonewall.
Speaking of Lyndon Johnson, he was ranked No. 1 on a new list of the people who have shaped Texas the most since 1776, featured in The Roundup below.
It’s a list guaranteed to start arguments, but it made us curious: who would your top 3 most influential Texans of the last 250 years be? Hit reply to let us know. Maybe we’ll make a list of our own.
Sleep experts have a new answer for why so many of us struggle to sleep well, and it has less to do with how many hours we log than you think. A new study followed adults in their 50s, 60s, and 70s for six weeks and found five specific habits that made a real, measurable difference in how rested people felt, some of them surprisingly simple. Tune in to today’s Flyover Podcast as Ayla reveals what those five habits are and why researchers say it only took a few minutes to see results. Ready to sleep better tonight? Tune in here to learn more!
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Gov. Greg Abbott called for banning new AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods and ending their tax breaks at a June 30 campaign stop in Bullard.
It marks a turn for the governor, who in November called Texas the “epicenter of AI” after Google pledged a $40 billion investment in data centers.
Last month, he directed the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to make data centers fund their own power, reuse their water, and lower residents’ electric bills, setting a July 17 deadline for the agencies to respond.
The move follows local resistance. Hill County imposed a moratorium on new data centers before developers sued, and the moratorium was later lifted, while Angelina County said it lacks the authority to block them.
“Data centers cannot come before Texas families,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said.
Home-school and other nonpublic students get the full $2,000, while private-school students receive 25% now, another 25% on Oct. 1, and the rest on Feb. 1, 2027, if still enrolled.
The 73,000 accounts are about three-quarters of the 102,000 students approved in the program’s first year. The remaining 29,000 have until July 15 to choose a participating school.
Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock called it “the nation’s largest year-one school choice program.” Families can spend the funds on tuition, textbooks, and tutoring through a state marketplace that opened Wednesday.
The accounts stem from Senate Bill 2, which Gov. Abbott signed in 2025 after repeated failed attempts to pass school choice in prior sessions.
Chron Ranks Most Influential Texans
The Houston Chronicle‘s Chron unveiled Texas 250: Who Shaped Texas?, a ranking of the 250 people it says most shaped Texas since 1776.
Editors weighed influence, historical importance, name recognition, and ties to Texas identity, narrowing more than 400 candidates to 250 over months of research.
The top 10 includes Lyndon B. Johnson, Sam Houston, Beyoncé, and Willie Nelson. Readers helped shape the outcome through four rounds of voting on music, politics, sports, and the full list.
“A lot of the national conversation around America’s 250th birthday is going to look East. We wanted to look at Texas,” said Chron executive editor Wes Wilson.
The project spans politicians, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, and military leaders, and invites readers to argue over who ranked too high or was left off. Wilson said that determining where political leaders ranked compared with cultural icons sparked some of the project’s biggest discussions.
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➤ Groesbeck: A Texas prison bus overturned on State Highway 164 near Groesbeck, hospitalizing six staff and inmates, all of whom are expected to recover. The wreck shut the highway in both directions. (More)
➤ President Trump announced Republicans will hold their first-ever national midterm convention Sept. 9-10 at Dallas’ American Airlines Center, aiming to boost turnout in races that will decide control of Congress. The GOP last held a convention in Dallas in 1984. (More)
➤ Lewisville: A three-alarm fire broke out on the roof of Killough High School late Tuesday, drawing a heavy firefighter response into the early morning. The building was empty, and no injuries were reported. (See Details)
➤ East Texas: Camp, Cass, Upshur, and Wood counties voted Tuesday to join a proposed 16-county groundwater conservation district, aiming to regulate pumping before outside interests tap the aquifer. Leaders call unchecked pumping an “imminent and real threat” and hope lawmakers approve the district in 2027. (See Details)
➤ Statewide: Texas is among 17 states in a CDC investigation into a cyclospora outbreak that has sickened 145 people since May, with the food source still unidentified. The parasite spreads through contaminated food or water and causes prolonged, sometimes “explosive,” diarrhea. (See Details)
➤ Harris County: District Attorney Sean Teare is pushing 3D-printer makers to build in safeguards that block the printing of untraceable firearms and parts, part of a wider prosecutor effort as police report more 3D-printed “ghost guns” at crime scenes. (See Details)
➤ San Antonio: The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office arrested one of its own deputies, a 12-year veteran, this week on a family violence charge, jail records show. The deputy was released on bond. (See Details)
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➤CBS Sports ranked Texas as the No. 1 overall college athletics program for the 2025-26 season across six major sports. Texas A&M was ranked No. 4, followed by Texas Tech at No. 11, TCU at No. 13, and SMU at No. 26. (See List)
➤ Texas State is officially a Pac-12 member after the rebuilt conference launched yesterday with seven new schools. The Bobcats left the Sun Belt to become the conference’s eighth football-playing school, the minimum the NCAA requires for FBS status. (More)
➤ The Dallas Stars traded forward Mavrik Bourque and defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin to the Nashville Predators yesterday for a pair of draft picks. (More)
➤ Former Cincinnati and Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby and the NFLPA will not sue the NFL over its decision to skip the supplemental draft this year. Sorsby, whose college career ended after a gambling scandal, will instead prepare for the 2027 NFL Draft. (More)
➤ The Houston Rockets signed Marcus Smart, a former NBA Defensive Player of the Year, to a two-year, $13 million contract yesterday, their first big acquisition of the free agency period. (See All Deals)
➤ Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs signed forward Tobias Harris to a two-year, $31 million deal. (More)
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➤ Schulman’s Movie Bowl Grille, the stalled Bryan entertainment project, must repay a $2 million city loan by July 17, another deadline for the long-unfinished development. (See Details)
➤ The Kilgore location of Mazzio’s Italian Eatery is closing after 41 years in business. (See Details)
➤ The state launched its 2026 gold and silver commemorative coins this week to promote the Texas Bullion Depository. The silver coin runs just under $70, and a 1-ounce gold coin costs about $4,142. (See Details)
➤ Austin Energy increased its residential and commercial solar rebates beginning Wednesday. The homeowner rebate for a system larger than 3 kilowatts rose from $2,500 to $4,000, a 60% increase, while commercial and nonprofit incentives climbed 25% to 66% depending on project size. (See Details)
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➤ UTEP unveiled a modernized design for its Paydirt Petemascot on Wednesday, the same day the Miners officially joined the Mountain West Conference after two decades in Conference USA. A costume version debuts at football games in September. (See Pete)
➤ Crews demolishing an old building on North Walnut Street in Tomball uncovered what appears to be headstones from the early 1900s, and the city has fenced off the site while historical officials assess whether it is a lost cemetery. (See Details)
➤ Austin Head, a Kilgore native known as the Lunge King, now a New York fitness instructor, set two Guinness World Records while wearing a 20-pound vest, notching 71 lunges in one minute and 200 in three minutes. The June feat raised about $3,200 for charity. (See Video)
➤ Midland hosts its first LEGO fan convention July 11 and 12 at the Midland Convention Center, with vendor booths, large-scale displays, open build areas, and meet-and-greets with professional LEGO artists. (See Details)
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The following stories are featured exclusively on The Flyover Podcast—a daily show that gives you the most important headlines in under 15 minutes. Clicking the links will take you directly to these stories:
➤ Researchers highlighted five habits that are guaranteed to help you fall asleep quicker and stay asleep longer. (See Habits)
➤ The Justice Department and 17 states have accused three major egg producers of manipulating prices, inflating the market. (Hear Episode)
➤ A new report suggests everyday phone use may be quietly reshaping the body in ways few people realize. (Listen Now)
Do you think it makes sense to have music artists on a list of the top 10 most influential Texans of the last 250 years?
Abbott Seeks Rural Data-Center Ban
