Upon signing school vouchers into law last May, Governor Greg Abbott pronounced that he had delivered “education freedom to every Texas family.” But the billion-dollar program, which opens to parents on February 4, has enrolled dozens of private schools that openly discriminate against Texas families on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, […]

The post Texas Taxpayers Will Fund Dozens of Private Schools that Openly Discriminate appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This story is the third installment in a series produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.  Goliad County police kicked off one human smuggling investigation not with a suspect’s name, but with a discarded receipt and cell phone surveillance software. In June 2021, Chief Deputy Tim Futch chased a speeding […]

The post Texas Police Invested Millions in a Shadowy Phone-Tracking Software. They Won’t Say How They’ve Used It. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On October 15, 2024, the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee held a wide-ranging special hearing in the Capitol’s underground extension. The first subject was “addressing homelessness,” an issue that affects tens of thousands of Texans on any given night. Among those who testified were elected politicians, law enforcement officials, and service providers from major cities […]

The post A Dallas Megadonor, a New Nonprofit, and the War on ‘Housing First’ appeared first on The Texas Observer.

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section. Find Observer political reporting here.

The post Loon Star State: That Dog Hunts appeared first on The Texas Observer.

President Donald Trump’s deadly invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president could be an unusually clear example of “blood for oil.” The president has nearly said as much himself. But one hitch is that Houston’s oil giants don’t immediately appear eager to buy what Trump is selling. Following the administration’s military coup, Trump suggested […]

The post Why Houston Oil Majors Are Hesitant to Go All In on Venezuela appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Even some of his most passionate supporters were surprised by the number of votes Democrat Taylor Rehmet received in the November special election for Texas Senate District 9.  His competitors, Republicans Leigh Wambsganss and John Huffman, each had mountains of cash and the backing of major PACs and political players across Texas. Even so, Rehmet, […]

The post Could This State Senate Runoff be a Tipping Point for Tarrant County?  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Much like how a sailor, lost and withering at sea, at least gets the chance to see the world, Texas’ ailing Democrats will get the chance this year to recreate some of the magic of the 2018 midterms. You know the drill: Donald Trump’s in the second year of a presidential stint, and his megalomaniacal […]

The post Midterm Memo: The C-Team. Maybe B-. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Texas Observer reader, Call me biased, but I do believe you’re holding a damn good magazine in your hands right now. Michelle Pitcher continues her ascent as one of the state’s best criminal justice reporters and narrative feature writers. Josephine Lee again takes you into a corner of Houston culture you might otherwise never know […]

The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our January/February 2026 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Web traffic is a fickle thing, but online readership numbers do at least give us at the Observer a sense of what stories are making a splash with a bigger audience, and that’s useful information for us to have. So, for my benefit and perhaps yours, here’s a moderately curated list of our most-read stories […]

The post Our Most-Read Stories of 2025 appeared first on The Texas Observer.

In case you find yourself this holiday season with a little extra reading time, or maybe time to return to a story you left open in a tab some many months ago, here are 10 of the best Observer longform stories from 2025 (in chronological order). May they enrich you for the now, and steel […]

The post Our Best Longform Stories of 2025 appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The editor of this publication wasn’t exaggerating when he called 2025 “this frankly awful year”: Things are dark, and likely to get much darker.  Our politics nationally and here in Texas is now firmly in the grip of a narrow, petty tribalism that feeds on enmity. Each day brings new horrors; scrolling through social media […]

The post A Light the Darkness Cannot Extinguish appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The train tracks leading to my grandma’s house always reminded me of a spine. Curved & ancient, a body of splintered wood & metal hinges groaned when the train was coming. & my mom once told me that the train tracks split the town in two. Everything here is split in two. If it isn’t […]

The post Hereditary appeared first on The Texas Observer.

For labor organizing, Texas was long dismissed as a forlorn place. “Right-to-work” laws restrict organizing here, most public-sector workers can’t collectively bargain or strike, and local governments are broadly banned from passing their own worker rights ordinances. Yet total membership in Texas unions has been growing. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, […]

The post At the Texas AFL-CIO, a Changing of the Guard in a Time of Growth appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Texas Republicans have been wary of unmanned aerial vehicles, with some even backing proposed laws to allow the citizenry to gun down invasive airborne drones. Now, thanks to years of Operation Lone Star, Governor Abbott’s multi-billion dollar border mission, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is ushering in the Drone Star State with an […]

The post Under Operation Lone Star, Texas State Police More Than Doubled Its Drone Fleet appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Last Monday, just hours before the candidate filing deadline, Dallas Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett made it official: The high-profile political flamethrower is running for the U.S. Senate. The move was not a surprising one, but it did finally bring resolution to the weeks of her very public consideration of whether to get into the race, […]

The post Everyone Knows Jasmine Crockett. Could That Be a Good Thing? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This is part one of what will be a two-part series supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Ida B. Wells Society Investigative Reporting Fellowship. (Leer en español aquí.) For the Gulf Coast oil and gas industry, the mini-region around the 50-mile-long Laguna Madre is the final frontier. A rare hypersaline lagoon that […]

The post Peering Into the Rio Grande Valley’s Fossil Fuel Future appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Nota del editor: esta serie fue apoyada por la Beca de Periodismo de Investigación de la Sociedad Ida B. Wells y el Centro Pulitzer. (Read in English here.) Para la industria del petróleo y el gas de la Costa del Golfo, la miniregión alrededor de la Laguna Madre, de 80 kilómetros de largo, es la […]

The post Mirando hacia el futuro: Los combustibles fósiles en el Valle del Río Grande appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The post Strangest State: Drones, Drugs, Deer, and a Dutiful Dog appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Between 2022 and 2025, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding’s Islamophobia Index increased by 8 points. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that online Islamophobia was widespread throughout Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral race in New York City. From June to October 2025, the study found that online Islamophobic narratives frequently labeled Mamdani […]

The post With Islamophobia on the Rise, Houston Becomes Home to First Ismaili Center in the U.S.  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Former Congressman and felon Steve Stockman, a Friendswood-area conservative who was convicted of 23 federal corruption charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison back in 2018, has declared himself rehabilitated and fit to run again for the U.S. House of Representatives. This week, Stockman, once dubbed Texas’ “weirdest lawmaker”, entered a crowded field of […]

The post Ex-Con Congressman Attempts a Texas Comeback appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On September 9 at 6:51 p.m., Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo exited an ongoing budget meeting in protest. “Shame on you,” she scolded her colleagues—namely her fellow Democratic Commissioners Lesley Briones and Adrian Garcia, but also Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey—after they refused to fund several early childhood education programs and a juvenile probation program. It […]

The post Lina Hidalgo Had a Vision. Harris County Won’t See It. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This article was produced and published by In These Times. It is republished here with permission. Angelique Estes knew her stay would be rough as soon as she arrived at her new home in Arlington, Texas, in early December 2023. At 53 years old, Estes had learned to read her environment quickly. She’s […]

The post Nowhere to Go: Inside the Texas Boarding Home System Where Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation Are Widespread appeared first on The Texas Observer.

In a pre-dawn raid in November 1990, feds armed with warrants, padlocks, and chains seized everything Willie Nelson owned—his golf course, ranches, studio, all of it. Only one thing slipped through the IRS perimeter: Willie’s guitar, “Trigger.” Thirty-five years later, Willie still has Trigger. Oh, and he eventually got back the ranches, studio, and golf […]

The post A Trip Through Willie Nelson’s Golf Course, His Unorthodox Rules, and His Uncertain Tribal Identity appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On November 13, surrounded by family and listening to Guy Clark songs in the capital of the state on which he left such an enormous mark, David Richards left us at the age of 92. How to capture the life of such a man in such a small space?  The obituary his daughter, Ellen Richards, […]

The post Remembering David Richards, 1933-2025 appeared first on The Texas Observer.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Researchers at Texas Southern University in Houston have analyzed demographic data around the locations of almost 100 industrial facilities proposed statewide and found that about 90 percent are located […]

The post Petrochemical Expansion in Texas Will Fall Heavily on Communities of Color, Study Finds  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in Texas for more than 35 years. In 2018, Beto O’Rourke came the closest when he lost to Ted Cruz by only 2.6 percentage points. In 2024, Cruz, boosted by Donald Trump’s performance in the state, beat then-Congressman Colin Allred by 8.5 percentage points. But, as many Texans […]

The post With Primary Field Still in Flux, James Talarico Pitches His Big Tent Revival appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The post The Ballad of Betty Rizzo appeared first on The Texas Observer.

My dad’s list is short and simple. He loves the Marines, his grandsons, menudo on Sundays, and Clint. If pressed, he’ll own up to loving the Cowboys but admits they’ve lost much of his admiration, largely thanks to Jerry Jones. It’s best not to get him started on Jerry Jones.    Daddy is a sentimental man […]

The post ‘Mija, Solamente Me Importa Clint’ appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Around 30 people recently gathered at a Fort Worth co-working space to discuss ways to build a more inclusive community for all of Tarrant County’s residents. “Welcome to the one-year anniversary of the 817 Gather,” Nydia Cardenas, the event organizer, told the crowd. “Whether it’s your first time or your 12th time, you are welcome […]

The post In Tarrant County, a Grassroots Coalition Pushes Back on Christian Nationalists appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Pam Perillo greets me at the door of her trailer, the yaps of a chihuahua named Peewee nearly drowning out our niceties. Perillo had just been looking for something to put on TV to soothe her animals—the territorial dog, two cats named Karla Faye and Tucker, plus a kitten she just rescued—while she leaves for […]

The post Pam Perillo’s Sisterhood of the Condemned appeared first on The Texas Observer.