Fine thread nearly invisible in the early lightkept getting caught again and again in our mouths.We gave up after walking through the fourth web,turned around, and saved the outing for some other day. We crossed back over the river that by nowHad been getting lower and lower, nearly dried out—a coyote crossed with ease toward […]

The post LATE SPRING ENDING WITH LUNAR ECLIPSE appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Curtis Riser had some concerns about the problem of wrongful convictions. He wasn’t the only potential juror to raise this point ahead of the 2009 capital murder trial of James Broadnax, in which the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office was seeking death, but attorneys for the state used one of their limited peremptory strikes to […]

The post A Looming Execution Raises Questions of Race, Responsibility, and Rap appeared first on The Texas Observer.

“What’s in the water?” state Representative Erin Zwiener asked when talking to the developers of a proposed data center in her district, which covers most of fast-growing Hays County, south of Austin. “There are additives to try to help the water be more efficient with cooling, and I couldn’t get a straight answer. I asked, […]

The post When the AI Cloud Comes for Texas Water appeared first on The Texas Observer.

My grandmother sent me a photo last week. In it, a white candle burns inside a metal bucket. Balanced on the bucket’s rim are the cast-iron grates from the gas stove—the stove that no longer has gas. And, on top of the grates, sits the coffee maker. The idea is that the candle’s small, dying […]

The post Making Coffee with a Candle—and Other Notes from a Cuba Gone Dark appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Victoria Hernandez, 23, was brought into work at the Blanco Road San Antonio Starbucks location in August 2025.  She’d begun working for the company at 17, while still in high school, dutifully weathering the often thankless rush of caffeine-seeking customers for just $10 an hour—even throughout COVID. Soon, Hernandez was helping the $115-billion company open […]

The post As Contract Negotiations Drag On, Texas Starbucks Workers Have Learned the Power of Organizing appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The post Off the Charts appeared first on The Texas Observer.

It’s the day after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive her lawsuit against the local officials who orchestrated her arrest nearly a decade ago, and Laredo citizen-journalist Priscilla Villarreal is on Facebook Live to deliver a much-awaited statement. For several minutes, viewers are treated to little more than the radio playing in the background […]

The post ‘La Gordiloca’ Lost at the Supreme Court but Won in Laredo appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Houston ISD pays its state-appointed superintendent, Mike Miles, a base salary of $462,000, and the district also gave him a bonus of $173,660 approved by its state-appointed board in September. Yet, all along, the leader of Texas’ largest school district has also been moonlighting—earning another $190,000 over the past three years, according to receipts obtained by […]

The post Mike Miles Cancels Moonlighting Contract with His Former Charter School Network appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Last month, Meenu Batra, 53, who has lived in the South Texas border colonia of Laguna Heights since 2002, was on her way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to work another case. She’s been a court interpreter for over 20 years, the only one licensed in Texas for Hindi, Punjabi, or Urdu. Her language skills are requested […]

The post Longtime Immigration Court Interpreter Arrested by ICE at South Texas Airport appeared first on The Texas Observer.

If you have driven anywhere in the city of Denton over the past few years, you have noticed it. Orange barrels. Lane closures. Freshly churned earth where sidewalks used to be. Here is my opinion, formed by watching this city tear itself apart and rebuild wider: we are committing more than $1 billion to projects […]

The post Denton Promised Net Zero. Then It Kept Building Roads. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Nestled about a foot deep in a makeshift well of sand on the no-man’s-land of shoreline between dunes and waves, about 75 eggs laid bare, vulnerable to the dangers of the Texas coast. But not for long. Within hours of the nest’s arrival, members of the Nueces County Coastal Parks Turtle Patrol cordoned the area […]

The post How Trump’s ‘God Squad’ Could Devastate Endangered Species Along Texas’ Gulf Coast  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Fifteen years ago, in May 2011, dozens of newly inducted Teach for America (TFA) corps members gathered at Trinity University in San Antonio to prepare for a five-week summer training institute, which would be hosted at Rice University in Houston. It was the first time I had ever been selected for anything exclusive—TFA’s acceptance rate […]

The post How Teach for America Helped Set Up James Talarico’s Political Rise  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

What would’ve been school-choice proponents’ triumphant publicity tour after the application period closed on Texas’ shiny new voucher program, in mid-March, was instead consumed by catty finger-pointing between two top state officials over who’s to blame for the state seemingly botching its attempt to religiously discriminate against some program participants. It’s the sort of comedic […]

The post Who Accounts for Freedom? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The elusive lady caught my eye from across the cul-de-sac on the street of my childhood home, her brilliant orange-and-black wings fluttering. The monarch butterfly sailed through the breeze, searching for a spot to land amid the manicured green lawns of North Texas suburbia. This fuzzy memory and others like it were a cornerstone of […]

The post The Plight of the Monarch appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Under threat of possible takeovers by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), nine school districts are set to hand over 15 public schools to Third Future Schools-Texas (TFS-Texas), a charter school operator previously run by state-appointed Houston ISD superintendent Mike Miles.  In recordings of school board meetings and interviews with the Texas Observer, some leaders of […]

The post Mike Miles’ Former Charter School Network Expands Its Footprint in Texas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Around Jim Wells County, dwindling levels in main reservoirs have triggered a rush on local aquifers as cities, towns, chemical plants, and ranchers drill for water. The nearby city of […]

The post Corpus Christi Water Crisis Spurs Stampede on South Texas Aquifers appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Though journalism remains an unlicensed profession, and standards do vary across news outlets, some rules are very broadly accepted. The most common reference point is the code of ethics of the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ), which compiles guidelines that aim to keep practitioners honest, minimize unintended harm, and build trust. For example, journalists are […]

The post ‘Gossip and Sleaze’: Dallas Express Smears State Rep’s Son Under Fake Byline appeared first on The Texas Observer.

For years, climate scientists have projected that South Texas would grow hotter and drier—that drought cycles would lengthen, that rainfall would become less reliable, and that the water systems built for a wetter century would eventually face conditions they were never designed to absorb. In Corpus Christi, that projection has become a daily operational reality. […]

The post The Corpus Christi Water Crisis Isn’t Exceptional. It’s Early. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

When a teenager in Texas is pushed out of their home because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, foster care is supposed to help. It is meant to offer safety, stability, healing, and the chance to begin again. But for many LGBTQ+ youth, rejection does not end when the state steps in. It simply […]

The post Foster Care Repeats Rejection for LGBTQ+ Texans appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Over the course of filming two documentaries about the fathers of transgender and nonbinary children, Luchina Fisher has watched these families’ rights rapidly erode.  “In [2023], we thought things were bad: we were having conversations around safety for our children,” she told the Texas Observer. “This is another level that we haven’t ever seen before.” […]

The post ‘Proudly Claiming Our Tears’: Fathers Stand Together for Their Trans and Nonbinary Kids appeared first on The Texas Observer.

After Democrat Taylor Rehmet beat the GOP’s Leigh Wambsganss in the January 31 special runoff election for state Senate District 9 , Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called the loss “a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas.” It’s been a common sentiment in the Republican Party in recent days, especially since a Democrat hasn’t won that […]

The post Does Taylor Rehmet’s Victory Foreshadow an Anti-MAGA Wave?  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Poems are selected by Poetry Editor Lupe Mendez, the 2022 Texas poet laureate and author of Why I Am Like Tequila. To submit a poem, please send an email with the poem attached to poetry@texasobserver.org. We’re looking for previously unpublished works of no more than 45 lines by Texas poets who have not been published […]

The post Oh, Texas Our Texas, appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: The author of this article is currently one of eight Democrats running in the March 3 primary for state House District 49, the seat vacated by gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa. You can read more about the candidates here. I grew up undocumented in this country. From an early age, I learned how fear […]

The post When Local Police Collaborate with ICE, Children Pay the Price appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The world’s largest artificial intelligence data center complex is being built in Amarillo, and it’s almost seven times the size of Central Park.  On June 26, 2025, Fermi America, an AI development firm cofounded by former Texas Governor Rick Perry, announced that it will partner with the Texas Tech University System to transform 5,800 acres […]

The post The Texas AI Boom is Outpacing Water Regulations appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Let’s begin with a definition, by example, of dysfunctional governing: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the United States Health and Human Services Secretary. In 2000, the World Health Organization determined that according to its criteria, the United States had eliminated measles. But 2025 saw sustained outbreaks, notably […]

The post How to Cause a Dysfunctional Government appeared first on The Texas Observer.

In Hindu folklore, the goddess Durga appears with her dark eyes serene, wearing a billowing scarlet sari, and riding atop a lion as she battles the half-beast, half-human demon Mahishasura, who seeks world dominance. For nine long days and nights, Durga manifests in different forms, her power growing with each, to prevail where male gods […]

The post A Reporter’s Religious Quest in Houston Suburbia appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The post Strangest State: Escaped Exotics, Tariffs, Trickery, and Guns 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. Texas’ environmental regulator this week issued the largest air pollution permit in the country to an enormous planned complex of gas power plants and data centers near the oilfields […]

The post Country’s Largest Air Pollution Permit Issued to Power Plant for Data Centers in West Texas, Developer Says appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On the back porch of his Southeast Austin home, Willy Baltazar displays a vibrant Día de los Muertos-style altar that honors more than just ancestors. Lined up are portraits of legends who have shaped Mexican culture and beyond: Vicente Fernández, Paquita la del Barrio, Frida Kahlo, Bob Marley, and Michael Jackson. Each icon is paired […]

The post Austin’s Willy Baltazar Is a Man of Many Masks appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The ascent of Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old socialist Muslim, to New York City’s mayoralty once seemed an almost absurdist dream. Yet, propelled by an army of 100,000 volunteers who took on the city’s political machine from below, the question now is not whether someone like Mamdani can win but whether his victory can carry beyond […]

The post In Texas Cities, Let a Hundred Mamdanis Bloom appeared first on The Texas Observer.