Jonathan Baker

The Trump Administration is threatening a trade war with its closest allies, and the move could hurt Texas Panhandle businesses.

As The Dallas Morning News reports, the White House has pledged to slap tariffs on imports from the Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, with those entities warning that they plan to respond in kind.

According to a new survey in Amarillo, most residents of the city feel safe.

As The Amarillo Globe-News­ reports, more than 80 percent of the survey’s respondents said they feel “somewhat safe,” “very safe” or “neutral” in Amarillo.

A number of abortion-rights groups are suing the State of Texas, in an attempt to overturn dozens of laws they say hinder the rights of Texas women.

As The Dallas Morning-News reports, six organizations and one doctor have brought a federal suit against the state, hoping to repeal several laws, including one requiring a 24-hour waiting period between having a sonogram and an abortion, and another that says parents must consent to a minor having an abortion.

A fire in northwestern Oklahoma has consumed over 4,000 acres, with the damage stretching into northeastern New Mexico.

As KFOR reports, fire crews struggled to contain the so-called Porter Fire, which began in Cimarron County. The fire was attributed, like most of the recent fires on the High Plains, to “high temperatures and low-relative humidity.”

The former Chase Tower in downtown Amarillo has a new resident bank and namesake. Going forward, the tallest building between Fort Worth and Denver will now be known as the FirstBank Southwest Tower.

As The Amarillo Globe-News reports, the institution that began as First National Bank of Ochiltree in 1907 will now, 111 years later, have its name stamped on the most prominent structure in the skyline of the largest city on the High Plains.

The State of Texas has revealed a program that offers incentives to residents who purchase or lease cars that use alternative fuels. This state is offering a $2,500 cash back deal two Texans who decide to buy green automobiles.

A poet from the Texas Panhandle has brought home one of the most prestigious poetry awards in the American West.

Chera Hammons is the winner of the PEN Southwest Poetry Award for her book, The Traveler’s Guide to Bomb City. Judge Allison Adelle Hedge Coke called Hammons’s book an “astute take on life on the Southern Plains,” adding “we are the better for [this book] being here.”

Last week, Amarillo unveiled the first historic Route 66 sign along the famed route that traverses the city.

As The Amarillo Globe-News reports, State Sen. Kel Seliger and State Rep. Four Price were on hand to celebrate the sign’s reveal.

Dora Meroney is the president of the Old Route 66 Association of Texas, and she said she hopes to erect signs along the entire 178-mile stretch of the former highway in the panhandle.

Oklahoma now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, reports to The Tulsa World.

According to a new study, Oklahoma recently overtook Louisiana as the state with the highest per capita number of citizens in prison.

Beto O’Rourke has now appeared in every county in Texas, including each of the counties in the Texas Panhandle.

But, as The Dallas Morning News notes, the young congressman from West Texas still has an uphill battle to unseat Senator Ted Cruz. O’Rourke has been crisscrossing Texas for 14 months, live-streaming his effort to visit all 254 counties in the Lone Star State.

Texas has removed more Confederate monuments than any other state, according to a new study.

As The Dallas Morning News reports, a new breakdown from the Southern Poverty Law Center notes that, since a 2015 shooting in a historic black church in Charleston, 110 Confederate monuments have been taken down or changed nationwide. Over a fourth of those monuments were in Texas.

Amarillo will host a town hall today to explore ways to improve broadband access in rural areas today.

Representative Four Price and Senator Charles Perry will be in attendance, in hopes of better understanding the issue of rural broadband and how to better connect rural areas to the internet. 

According to a press release, attendees will be encouraged to voice their concerns “about the obstacles, and potential solutions” for providing better internet to all Texans.

A proposed policy change by the largest insurer in Texas has been put on hold after a big backlash from doctors across the state.

As Houston Public Media reports, Blue Cross Blue Shield had planned to enact a new policy wherein each of the company’s half-a-million statewide HMO members would have to shoulder the full cost of a non-life threatening ER visit if they went out of network.

Fewer Texans are reporting domestic violence, and police say the drop is a result of immigrant fears of deportation.

As The New York Times reports, many Texas women who are beaten or raped by their partners fail to report the crimes, choosing to go into hiding rather than appear in court and risk being separated from their children.

California has banned state-funded travel to the state of Oklahoma, in response to the Sooner State’s recent LGBTQ adoption law.

As the political journal The Hill reports, late last week the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra released a statement reading, in part, “California taxpayers are taking a stand against bigotry and in support of those who would be harmed by this prejudiced policy.”

Many sports fans across the Texas Panhandle were left scratching their heads on Wednesday, while others erupted in outrage, as the five finalists for the name of Amarillo’s new baseball team were announced.

The five finalists are: The Amarillo Boot Scoters, the Amarillo Bronc Busters, the Amarillo Jerky, the Amarillo Long Haulers, and the Amarillo Sod Poodles.

The recent teachers’ strike in the Sooner State has led The New Yorker to publish an investigation into how the somewhat unsuccessful teacher protests have spawned a “movement of politically engaged” Oklahomans.

In response to the walkout this year, Oklahoma Republicans offered the state’s teachers $6,000 raises. The GOP lawmakers funded the raises with a series of measures that will disproportionately hit the wallets of low-income residents.

In a unanimous vote, the Amarillo City Council has now approved plans for a proposed Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine in Amarillo.

As the Amarillo Globe-News reports, the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation has pledged to give almost $70 million toward the completion of the $90 million project.

A couple of weeks ago, HPPR reported on a herd of buffalo the state of Oklahoma had put up for auction.

The herd, consisting of around 60 head of bison, was located at Foss State Park, near Elk City, about 90 miles west of Oklahoma City. The animals were being auctioned on the state of Oklahoma’s surplus auction site.

It appears that the Texas foster care system still needs a good deal of work, despite a federal order to overhaul the system.

As The Austin American-Statesman reports, last month 50 foster children were forced to sleep in Child Protective Services offices for at least two consecutive nights as they awaited placement.

Texas voters participated in a runoff election on Tuesday, with decisions being finalized in both major statewide races and local Panhandle races.

Statewide, in the race to decide Gov. Greg Abbot’s Democratic challenger this November, Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez defeated Texas businessman Andrew White. If she’s victorious this November, CNN notes, Valdez would be the state’s first lesbian and first Latina governor.        

As Texas reels from yet another school shooting, as 10 students were killed in the small suburb of Santa Fe over the weekend, officials in the Lone Star State are at loggerheads about how to deal with the problem.

As USA Today reports, Texas Attorney General Dan Patrick reiterated his belief that state lawmakers should not tighten gun laws in the wake of the tragedy. Meanwhile, the police chief of Houston, the largest city in Texas, of which Santa Fe is a suburb, said he did not believe that “thoughts and prayers” were enough.

Primary runoff elections will be held across Texas tomorrow.

As The Texas Tribune reports, in more than 30 races statewide, no candidate drew more than 50 percent of the vote. That means Texans will go to the polls to decide between the candidates who placed first and second in those races. The most high-profile race is for which Democratic contender will face off against Gov. Greg Abbott this November.

Businesses in the Lone Star State are growing increasingly worried that President Trump's “America first” economic policies might do harm to trade between Texas and Mexico.

As the BBC reports, Texas industry leaders are worried that Trump’s hostility toward the North American Free Trade Agreement could cut into profits and lead to job losses.

Last year, Texas rejected almost 2,500 vanity license plates that violated approval guidelines. As The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles turned down the requests for a variety of reasons, including messages that were too political or too sexy.

Some of the requested messages that ran afoul of political guidelines included plates reading NOTRUMP, NOBAMA, and N2TRUMP.

Oklahoma's Mary Fallin has been much in the news over the past week, as the governor signed one controversial piece of legislation and vetoed another.

As CBS news reports, late last week Fallin vetoed a bill that would have allowed Oklahoma residents to carry firearms without any type of license or certification. This so-called “Constitutional Carry” bill sailed through both houses of the Oklahoma Legislature with only opposition from some Democrats.

When it comes to the availability of help for those addicted to drugs, Texas performs worse than any other state.

According to a new study by the personal finance website Wallethub, Texas lands at the top of the list of states with the fewest substance abuse treatment facilities per 100,000 residents.

The State of Oklahoma is auctioning off an entire herd of buffalo, KOKH reports.

The herd of bison is currently located at Foss State Park, near Elk City, about 90 miles west of Oklahoma City. The herd consists of around 50 buffalo.

A new wind turbine in the Texas Panhandle is the largest in the United States.

As The Amarillo Globe-News reports, the turbine is located at the UL Advanced Wind Turbine Test Facility at West Texas A&M University, in Randall County.

The hub of the turbine stands 427 feet above the ground, and the tip of a blade at its highest point rises to 654 feet. By comparison, that’s one hundred feet taller than the Washington Monument, and over twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

The Texas Panhandle has seen a high number of wildfires in recent years, as climate change and drought take their toll. Last year alone, grass fires in Potter, Gray, Wheeler and other Panhandle counties burned more than half a million acres and killed four people.  

Now, as The Texas Observer reports, that problem may be about to get worse. Experts say a federal initiative called the Conservation Reserve Program has exacerbated the fire risk.