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With a first real chance for wintry precipitation in the forecast this year, people are doing what they can to prepare. That winter weather is set to arrive about a week into the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, where staff are working to minimize the impact as much as possible. “When you have a public event in January and February. We’ve been having a public event in January and February since 1896. You’re prepared going into the show well in advance,” said Communications Director Matt Brockman. As winter weather predictions solidify, Brockman said event staff is working closely with those at Dickies Arena, Will Rogers Memorial Center and the City of Fort Worth’s transportation and public works departments. “Sand is stockpiled. Salt is stockpiled. It’s kept in bins and ready to go when we need it,” said Brockman. “One thing that will probably happen early on is those street sanding crews will get deployed very quickly, depending on when that precipitation begins to fall. And then shortly thereafter, the work for the walkways and pedestrian areas will ensue.” Throughout its history, the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo has weathered plenty of winter storms, at times, closing the midway carnival or petting zoo, but never a rodeo. “Most everything else here at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo is indoors, so we encourage people to layer up, come out, get comfortable. Most everything you’re going to enjoy is in a climate-controlled facility,” he said. Rodeo Jan 17 Images from the 2026 FWSSR All Western Parade Fort Worth Jan 16 What to expect at the 2026 Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo

VSCO filters, Kylie lip kits and the summer of Pokemon Go. The year 2016 is making a comeback in 2026 as people flood Instagram with throwback posts reminiscing about what they viewed as an iconic year for popular culture and the internet. In the past two weeks, many people online — from celebrities to regular Instagram users — dug through their camera rolls and Snapchat memories to unearth hyper-filtered photos of themselves a decade ago. Many of the photos share common themes now emblematic of the era: a matte lip and winged eyeliner, bold eyebrows and glamorous eye shadow. Acai bowls and boxed water. Chokers, aviator glasses and boho outfits made trendy by Coachella. “When I’m seeing people’s 2016 posts, even if they were in different states or slightly different ages, there’s all these similarities, like that dog filter or those chokers or The Chainsmokers,” said Katrina Yip, one of many people online who posted 2016 throwback photos. “It makes it so funny to realize that we were all part of this big movement that we didn’t really even know at the time was, like, just following the trend of that time.” The trend has become the latest example of people online romanticizing a different time as a form of escapism. Last year, Gen Zers, typically defined as those ages 14-29, posted videos expressing love for the charm and “cringe” of millennials. There has also been a recent surge in millennial-focused pop culture, which has been celebrated online. To many millennials and older Gen Z, 2016 was a year when community flourished on social media. People dumped their entire camera rolls into messy Facebook photo albums, sent each other silly Snapchat selfies and eagerly posted what they ate for brunch. “If you’re older, like maybe you were 50 in 2016 and you weren’t on Instagram or a heavy internet user, you might be like, ‘Why does everyone care about this random year?’” said Steffy Degreff, who shared her own throwback photos last week. Degreff, 38, said that for those who’ve been on social media for more than a decade, there’s nostalgia for the way social media used to function — with chronological feeds that focused only on the users people followed. There used to be an end to scrolling (specifically, when you ran out of updates from your friends). Platforms back then felt “a little bit less malicious” in their design, she said. “I do think that 2016 was the beginning of the end of a golden era of when people felt really good about the internet and social media and politics,” she added. “And then, obviously, the pandemic happened.” Many online who voiced their nostalgia described the overall energy of 2016 as “colorful” and “carefree.” Social Media Jan 18 Social media addiction's surprising challenger? Anti-doomscrolling influencers Celebrity News Dec 28, 2025 Influencers reveal how much money they make Social Media Dec 3, 2025 Is brain rot real? Researchers warn of emerging risks tied to short-form video People often went out in crop tops and jeans with a flannel tied around their waist. They’d snap pictures of an outfit laid out carefully on their bed or of a giant acai bowl. Then, they’d pore over VSCO (a popular photo editing app) filters with their friends, debating which preset to choose. “Now, we’ve gone very neutral-toned, like quiet luxury aesthetic, very minimal,” said Paige Lorentzen, who shared throwback photos featuring some of the trendiest brands of the time, such as Boxed Water Is Better and Triangl Swimwear. “Whereas back then, it was the brighter the saturation on your photos, the better. Everything felt like summer.” The new year marked exactly 10 years since 2016; therefore, many online began posting the phrase “2026 is the new 2016,” according to the database Know Your Meme. But “as the trend carried on, some social media users began posting videos denouncing the idea of making 2026 the new 2016, citing problems with living in the past and pointing out bad things that happened in 2016,” Know Your Meme…

Max Christie scored a season-high 26 points, Cooper Flagg had 18 in his first pro game at Madison Square Garden and the Dallas Mavericks rolled to a 114-97 victory Monday over the New York Knicks, who were booed frequently in the first half while falling behind by 30. The Knicks lost their fourth straight and ninth in 11 games, even with Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart back from ankle injuries to return them to full strength. The Mavericks, meanwhile, are missing numerous injured players but the ones who did suit up ran the Knicks off the floor in the first half to win their third straight game. Flagg had missed the previous two, both victories over Utah, with a sprained left ankle. The No. 1 pick also had seven rebounds, while Naji Marshall scored 18 points. Karl-Anthony Towns had 22 points and 18 rebounds for the Knicks, and Brunson also had 22 points. Mitchell Robinson had 12 points and 15 rebounds. The Knicks won the NBA Cup in December and were 23-9 entering their final game of the month. They have fallen to 25-18 and entered play Monday in third place in the East in coach Mike Brown’s first season. The Mavericks raced to a 16-4 lead that New York cut to 31-22 after one quarter despite missing all nine 3-point attempts. Flagg scored the Mavericks’ first seven points of the second quarter, and a 13-0 run gave Dallas a 51-31 lead. Towns then scored five straight, but on the next possession was called for a flagrant foul for kicking Dwight Powell in the groin area while attempting a shot. Marshall later scored nine straight points to make it 72-43 before Christie’s 3 made it a 30-point blowout. The boos began during the onslaught in the second and rang out once more as the Knicks walked to the locker rooms down 75-47. Up next Mavericks: Host Golden State on Thursday. Knicks: Host Brooklyn on Wednesday. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued legal guidance on Monday morning, declaring many diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public and private spaces unconstitutional. For several years, Republican state lawmakers have pushed to phase out diversity programs in state government. Now, the private sphere may be next. On Monday, people attending the Martin Luther King Jr. Parade celebrated gains made after the Civil Rights Movement, such as affirmative action and diversity recruitment and hiring efforts. “You have people who don’t know the whole background story to that. So why take it away? That’s something we need,” said Gregory Harrington in an interview at the parade. “It helped with education. It educated our people more,” said Jeanine Robinson. Also on Monday morning, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton laid out a 74-page memo arguing that those very programs were unconstitutional and constituted race-based discrimination. It supported Governor Greg Abbott’s earlier efforts to end the practice of boosting contracts to Black, Hispanic, and women-owned businesses through the Historically Underutilized Business Program. “There is a prohibition in the Constitution to discriminate on the basis of race or sex. And that doesn’t mean that if you’re Black or Hispanic or a woman or a man or white or whatever, you’re going to be denied access,” said Gov. Abbott in an earlier interview with NBC DFW. But Paxton also went further, stating that race-based hiring, promotion, mentoring, and training programs may also violate state and federal law. He wrote: “The race- and sex-based public sector preferences discussed in this opinion cannot survive strict scrutiny and are therefore unconstitutional. Furthermore, a large body of DEI practices in the private sector triggers liability…” “The opinion also poses a real threat to the corporate community by inviting lawsuits and unwarranted hostility toward institutions that have attempted, however imperfectly, to broaden opportunity in workplaces that still do not reflect full equality for Black and Brown Americans,” wrote Gary Bledsoe, President of the Texas NAACP, responding to the AG memo. “We’ve never lived in a colorblind society, and you can’t ignore color,” said Texas Rep. Venton Jones, D – Dallas. Monday afternoon, Jones told NBC DFW he sees this as a signal that Attorney General Paxton may soon launch lawsuits against private companies. “And this isn’t the first signal. This is a string of examples since I have been elected, indicating that there is a ramping up of policies that are becoming more and more discriminatory,” said Jones. Arthur Fleming, the former president of the NAACP in Dallas, said some of the diversity programs, both public and private, were intended to help white women along with black and Hispanic Texans. He argues that this action will encourage people to only rely on their own race for support and business. “The fact that we had diversity benefited everybody, the city, everybody. So going against that, it’s going to hurt a lot of people,” said Fleming. Texans will find out the full scope of this legal guidance in the weeks and months ahead. There was also a political element to the opinion on Monday. Paxton is in a competitive race with Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary. Cornyn used to be the Texas Attorney General. Online Paxton wrote his opinion overruled “a flawed opinion from then-AG Cornyn that allowed DEI to flourish.” In response, Sen. Cornyn wrote: “You’d think a competent Attorney General would know that what I issued more than 25 years ago was a retraction of incomplete guidance due to litigation, not an “opinion.” There’s nothing for him to overturn because nothing was issued, so this is yet another waste of time and taxpayer dollars by the TX AG, showboating for attention.”