Jayme Lozano and Robert Downen, The Texas Tribune

The picturesque landscape can yield beautiful sunsets, but it also brings dirt.

Lots of dirt.

This week, the region has been blanketed in a thick layer of dust kicked up by powerful winds that reached as high as 69 miles per hour, according to the Lubbock office of the National Weather Service....

State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, hired Jake Neidert, 22, last month as his office’s legislative director amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ violence and rhetoric, and ahead of an impending legislative session that is expected to focus heavily on anti-trans bills.

Tinderholt, one of the most conservative members of the Texas House, is currently mounting a long-shot challenge to Beaumont Republican Rep. Dade Phelan’s House speakership. Tinderholt has previously pushed for legislation that proposed the death penalty for Texans who get and perform abortions.

Neither Tinderholt nor Neidert responded to multiple requests to be interviewed for this story....

“We are a broken body,” Presiding Bishop James G.Nunn, said as he explained to his hundreds of congregants how the communion bread represented both the broken body of Jesus Christ but also the tension within the faith. “But it teaches us that the breaking is not the end.”

Nunn continued, calling the accompanying communion juice “cups of forgiveness.” He prayed for the congregation’s mercy and forgiveness toward one another.

“Even in the best of circumstances, there are feelings that are hurt, and sometimes, relationships are rendered in two,” Nunn said....