Nine accused of sex trafficking at center
 
Nine employees at a Bastrop County facility that cares for young victims of sex trafficking have been accused of trafficking those same girls, according to the Austin American-Statesman.  

Several races headed to runoffs
 
A number of statewide races are headed for a May 24 runoff after the votes were tallied in the March 1 primary.
Topping the ballot in the Republican races is the contest for attorney general, where incumbent Ken Paxton led the field with 42.7% of votes cast, followed by George P. Bush, current land commissioner, who garnered 22.8%. The remainder of GOP ballots went to former Supreme Court justice Eva Guzman at 17.5% and U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert with 17%.

State high court hears challenge to abortion law
The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week on the question of whether state regulators can be sued by abortion providers hoping to block enforcement of the state’s restrictive abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8.

Early voting ends Friday
Early voting for the March 1 primary ends Friday. Initial reports indicate turnout has been low, as is traditional in midterm primary elections, with less than a fourth of registered voters going to the polls most years.
Voters will pick nominees for Texas’ governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner, comptroller and railroad commissioner, as well as legislative and county races.

Mail-in ballot applications rejected at high rate

By Jim Pumarlo, consultant

By RUSSELL VIERS, 
Digiveristy.tv
Between Takes: Thoughts from the Set of Digiveristy.tv is a new column.
If the list of new features for newspapers in the recent Creative Cloud release from Adobe left you underwhelmed, you’re not alone. However, one of InDesign’s new features, Share for Review, can be especially useful for newspapers in ad proofing and workflow.

As most of you know, we lost my beloved wife Suzanne on Jan. 7. She was killed in a car wreck.
Suzanne was a very passionate person. She loved teaching, and it showed as hundreds of former students — many of them newspaper and yearbook students — returned that love by turning out for her funeral either in person or online through the livestream and thousands of tribute posts on Facebook.
It was truly amazing. Never have I seen such an outpouring of affection for a former teacher or a regular person. But then I remembered: Suzanne was never just a regular person.

Early primary voting starts on Valentine’s Day
 
Early voting in the March 1 primary begins on Feb. 14 and runs through Feb. 25. The last day to apply for a ballot by mail is Feb. 18.
There are seven statewide seats on the ballot: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner, comptroller and one seat on the railroad commission. Winners in the Republican and Democratic primaries will face off in the Nov. 8 general election.

Two proposed amendments on May ballot