SAN ANTONIO —
Property Taxes in Texas
Politicians have been working hard to reduce Texans' property taxes but now they're realizing it might be a lot of money if they do.
According to the Texas Tribune Texas would need around $81.5-billion a year to end property taxes.
A lot of law makers on the Republican end in Texas have been trying to make lower property taxes a reality for years but that now comes with a cost. Some have wanted to get rid of them all together.
Getting rid of all property taxes collected by school districts would have cost the state $39.5 billion in tax year 2023, figures presented to the Texas Senate Finance Committee by the Legislative Budget Board show. School property taxes, which pay for costs like teacher salaries and new facilities, represent the largest chunk of a property owner’s tax bill.
Read more from The Texas Tribune here.
Texans, Italians and healthcare
According to the Texas Tribune the state of Texas has fewer primary care providers per capita than any other state.
Sue Bornstein is the co-director of the Texas Primary Care Consortium, which advocates for more access to primary care. She said in the piece that COVID killed primary care in Texas.
“There were so many practices that went under and people retired early. It really shone a bright, very unfavorable light on just how fragile this was," Bornstein said in the Tribune.
Now there's a question of whether to look to Italy for answers when it comes to healthcare.
Italy’s national health system pays for most medical care for residents. The country spends less per capita on health than most other European Union countries, but Italians still tend to live long, healthy lives, according to the Tribune.
What Italy has done is they've taken healthcare to the home, focusing on peoples' health by treating basic health needs in hope of avoiding the hospital.
The country is pouring the equivalent of $17 billion in COVID-19 relief funds from the European Union into its health system, mostly in primary care.
You can read more on this here.
Fungi-controlled robots
When you think of a robot you might picture something futuristic like the one above, but Cornell researchers are developing a type of robot with less human like features... and more fungus.
They're called biohybrid robots and they're controlled by electrical impulses in mushrooms. The proper term for what researchers are studying is fungal mycelia.
Having fungi interact with robots essentially helps them work better than on that is simply synthetic.
According to Cornell University, these hybrid robots mimic the way living creatures move, sense their environment and even regulate their internal temperature through perspiration.
Some robots have incorporated living material, such as cells from muscle tissue, but those complex biological systems are difficult to keep healthy and functional. It’s not always easy, after all, to keep a robot alive.
You can read more on this discovery here.
