A 15-year-old student shot a teacher at Hill Country College Preparatory High School, resulting in the student's death. Data indicates a rise in student violence against educators in Comal ISD over three years. Additionally, a political action committee, largely funded by conservative donors, significantly supported a candidate's campaign for the Texas Railroad Commission.
Student dead after shooting teacher at Hill Country College Preparatory High School in Comal ISD, sheriff saysEaster weekend front: good rain chance, gusty winds, and cooler weatherReports of student violence against Comal ISD educators surged over 3 school years, data showsHill Country College Preparatory High School in New Braunfels was the scene of a shooting March 30, 2026, in which a 15-year-old student shot a teacher before turning the gun on himself.
Erik Cantu expected to make court appearance for second consecutive dayRead full article: Fire damages unit at North Side quadplex; no injuries reportedSubscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state. A political action committee funded by Texas’ most prolific hardline conservative donors was the main benefactor to Bo French’s campaign for the Texas Railroad Commission in the March Republican primary, spending $375,000 to bolster his bid.The Texas Freedom Fund for the Advancement of Justice, formerly known as Defend Texas Liberty, gave French $225,000 and spent another $150,000 on an ad promoting his candidacy in a widely circulated conservative newsletter. The two PACs have been predominantly financed by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have deployed tens of millions of dollars to pull the Texas GOP and Legislature toward their hardline, anti-LGBTQ+ and immigration stances. Dunn and Wilks’ PAC accounted for more than half of the $637,139 French raised from the start of his campaign through late February, helping him secure a spot in the May runoff against incumbent Jim Wright. The winner will face Democrat Jon Rosenthal in November for one of the three seats on the commission, which regulates Texas’ oil and gas industry.By contrast, Wright, who won his seat on the Texas Railroad Commission in 2021, received nearly $1 million in the year leading up to the primary, with more than a dozen PACs and donors affiliated with the oil industry contributing at least $10,000 a piece. “I don’t think Jim Wright took seriously,” said Ted Auch, a researcher at Fieldnotes, a national oil and gas watchdog group, who has closely followed the commission and election. He also suggested that Dunn and Wilks — who both made their fortune in the oil business — saw Wright’s lackluster campaign as an opportunity to replace him with their preferred candidate. Experts said the rush of donations signals an interest in elevating French, an evangelist of the far right, as he embarks on his statewide political career. So far, it has worked. In the March primaries, French kept Wright from securing a 50% majority necessary for nomination, giving him more time to make his case in a May 26 race where turnout is all but certain to be much lower — and the electorate is typically. Incumbents forced into runoffs are especially vulnerable, coming off a March primary in which a majority of voters pulled the lever for someone else. Wright received 32% of the vote in the primary. French netted 31%. Another three candidates split the remaining vote. Whoever wins the nomination is likely to win a seat on the commission, which no Democrat has occupied in decades. As commissioner, the winner of the November election will have far-reaching influence over the state’s oil and gas industry. The commission oversees decision-making on issues crucial to energy production, the environment, and the health of the state’s economy. Texas is one of the leading producers of the nation’s oil and gas. Texas is home to three oil basins. If it were its own country, Texas would rank fourth in oil and gas production, said Virginia Palacios, executive director of Commission Shift, a Texas-based oil and gas watchdog group. But in his bid for office, French has scarcely spoken publicly about the issues the commission has grappled with. Those include a growing list of abandoned oil and gas wells, a groundswell of industry wastewater, known as produced water, and carbon capture and sequestration that the commission has recently obtained the authority to permit. Instead, French, who, according to his campaign website owns and operates energy security businesses in the Middle East, has made Islam, the Chinese Government and diversity the cornerstone of his campaign. French, on his website and social media, has said that the commission has allowed the Chinese Communist Party and Islam to run rampant in the Texas oil fields. Inside the commission’s Austin office, French said the commission allowed diversity efforts to go unchecked. In one social media post, French suggested the money that he said has gone toward diversity could be used to pay for abandoned oil and gas wells. “If we strip the RRC of all the DEI spending and focus that on the most qualified service companies, the budget for plugging orphan wells goes much further,” he said.and called for the deportation of 100 million people — far more than the estimated number of people living in the county without authorization. Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at University of Texas Austin, said the donations signal an interest by Dunn and Wilks to bolster French’s political prospects early in his career. He suggested that support could benefit the donors should French run for higher office later on. Blank said French’s political stances and rhetoric have made him a “natural ally” of donors such as Dunn, who has used his wealth to advance more conservative candidates to replace the moderate wing of the party. “We are in the midst of a shake-up in the political order in Texas, at the very least, represented by a new attorney general, but potentially by a new senator, and certainly by a new member of the railroad commission,” Blank said. “These are opportunities for those with resources and a desire to get in on the ground floor when it comes to influencing new politicians, and if those politicians already fit the profile of the same kinds of politicians that they have supported in the past, it’s that much more natural.” Auch, on the other hand, said he believes the outcome of the runoff election could unravel initiatives at the commission, including efforts to gather data on how much produced water oil and gas companies generate. “This is a wall of water and a wall of waste that they are facing as an existential crisis for them,” Auch said. “The Railroad Commission and to some degree the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, there’s a choose your own adventure moment right now. And they could go one way, or they could go the other. And I am quite worried about where they’re gonna go.” Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. 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