It seems like almost a lifetime ago, given the pandemic’s ability to stretch our perception of time: Last year, after the elections, a handful of commentators noted that one of the biggest challenges for the incoming Biden Administration would be managing expectations . That is already proving to be true. Now that it's President Biden in control, critics on the left and the right appear to pose a challenge that the Biden Administration is finding it tough to manage. With the numbers of undocumented minors crossing the border reaching new levels, we are seeing images and hearing news stories about youth being sheltered at convention centers or in tent facilities, and held for days without showers or with rotating sleep schedules due to of a lack of space. As conservatives try to spin this story as a problem caused by the Biden’s own policies, and progressives demand the White House go further than it has to prevent long detention times, there are signs the administration is trying to better control the narrative. NBC News now reports that the optics of the situation are such that the Border Patrol has been ordered not to give information to local reporters. Against this backdrop, the Biden Administration is trying to overhaul restrictive Trump Administration policies on both legal and illegal immigration. With the peak season for border crossings coming soon, many expect this story to get even more attention in coming days and weeks. Since much of this is playing out in Texas, it's a story we're tracking closely. You can get caught up on our reporting so far at the links below, and we invite you to explore more on the Texas Standard website . Until next week, we'll see you on the radio.

- David Brown

Work safe, Texas. Texas Work Comp Insurance

Texas Republicans Eye Crackdown On Pandemic-Era Voting Procedures

A series of Republican-backed bills in the Legislature would put stricter rules in place for early voting and main-in ballots while banning drive-through voting completely.

One Year Later: How Austin’s Mayor Made The ‘Horrible Choice’ To Cancel SXSW

Plus: Mayor Steve Adler on legal action by the Texas attorney general to invalidate Austin’s ongoing mask mandate.

Texas Ranks 46th Of States In Percentage Of Population Fully Vaccinated. Why? Depends Who You Ask.

State leaders say the federal government is allocating vaccines using old census data that underestimates the population.

Rapper Mama Duke’s New Album Is A ‘Braggadocious Body Of Work’

Being a gay, mixed-race woman in hip hop has put a chip on her shoulder. But her new album “Ballsy” confronts those frustrations.

It Will Take 5 Months To Vaccinate All San Antonio Residents With Current Allocation From State, Official Says (Texas Public Radio)
Atatiana Jefferson's Family Calls For A Trial Date For Her Killer (KERA North Texas)
Houston Leaders Grapple With Continued Rise In Violent Crime (Houston Public Media)
“It Is Too Difficult:” Presidio Officials Call For More State Help To Vaccinate Residents (Marfa Public Radio)

Hi, I’m Caroline Covington, Texas Standard’s digital producer/reporter. It was my job to help develop the digital presentation for our latest special, “The Long Haul: Texas And The Pandemic.” It wasn’t clear until days before the show aired how this special would “live” on the web. Unlike our other special shows, this one had more of a narrative style, weaving together numerous audio clips from people we’ve interviewed over the past year who helped us tell the story of the pandemic. A map became one of the ways we realized we could show the depth and breadth of COVID-19’s effects on Texans. I got to work mapping the locations of all of the people whose voices you hear in the radio special. But we decided to take the map one step further and make it a visual archive of sorts, showing the locations of every COVID-19 story we’ve reported over the last year – almost 750 of them! You can search the map yourself to find stories in your area. And this map isn’t a first for Texas Standard. You can find other interactive maps, like this one I produced for a story with Texas Standard editor Terri Langford about nursing home and assisted living facility power outages during the February winter storm. Thanks for reading, and with all that’s happening, stay safe.

- Caroline Covington
@coco_covey

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