I’ve had it with hearing the same story over and over again—another 100-year-plus rainfall event, another tragic result from people occupying the floodplain without an adequate warning system. More pain. More loss. The bottom line is—we Texans keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We are not going to change […]

The post Floodplains Belong to the Rivers appeared first on The Texas Observer.

One poem in Jorge Renaud’s new collection, The Restlessness of Bound Wrists, makes the reader question whether the book in their hands would be allowed into Texas prisons—or whether it would be culled by administrators, left “to burn with other / slashed seditionary / lies, all lies, unfit for our rehabilitation.” Lamentation for Literature (excerpt) […]

The post Penned Poetry: A Formerly Incarcerated Activist’s Turn to Verse appeared first on The Texas Observer.

In 2021, the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature redrew the state’s political maps that determine the lines of power in the Texas House, the Texas Senate, and the representatives in U.S. Congress. Thanks to a decade’s worth of population growth fueled by Latinos, Asian Americans, and African Americans, Texas gained two new congressional seats—bringing the state’s total […]

The post The Texas GOP’s ‘Unprecedented,’ Risky Gerrymandering Scheme 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: Among the Tragically Missing… appeared first on The Texas Observer.

We forget what we don’t want to remember. While I understand that impulse, there are dangers embedded in our forgetfulness. This is especially true for anyone living in Flash Flood Alley, or what we like to call the Hill Country (a concept that softens the nature of this flood-sculpted and -scoured terrain). So I have […]

The post The San Antonio Flood of 1921 Held Lessons We Refuse to Learn appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Carmel Swann moved to Texas in June 2021 looking for a fresh start and a chance to leave bad decisions behind. But, within weeks, she was in the Harris County Jail after an altercation with the man she’d moved in with. Then, she discovered she was pregnant from a prior relationship. She began working on […]

The post The Adoption Trap appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Last week, the Family Research Council’s longtime president Tony Perkins exulted over the win the Trump administration delivered to the Christian right: “Churches will now be unshackled,” he declared.   In a federal court filing, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) signaled it would reinterpret a longstanding ban on candidate endorsements by tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofits. The so-called […]

The post  How Trump’s IRS May Unshackle Churches from Their Political Restraints appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Attorneys for Robert Roberson and for the State of Texas went toe-to-toe in a Palestine courtroom Wednesday, arguing over the fate of the man whose 2024 execution date was halted in a dramatic eleventh-hour intervention by state legislators—and whose appeals have raised the question of whether a crime occurred at all. After hearing arguments, Smith […]

The post Robert Roberson Faces New Execution Date in Controversial ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ Case appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Houstonian Mike Peppercorn bought property along Lake Livingston in 2008, choosing timberland where his family would have privacy and pasture where they could raise cattle for Future Farmers of America projects. He and his neighbors with acreage along Barrett’s Landing Road all figured that surely this lake—which serves as a reservoir for the City of […]

The post Proposed Transmission Line Threatens Texas’ Largest Reservoir  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

I’ll admit: Having grown addicted to the treats of literary nonfiction, I don’t make it through too many academic histories these days. If I’m going to, there’d better at least be a decent lede—and the Marxian opening to a new history of the eugenics movement in Texas fits the bill. “Monsters haunted the imaginations of […]

The post The History of Eugenics in Texas Isn’t What You Think appeared first on The Texas Observer.

I remember the river,  flowing so peacefully and slowly you could almost miss its motion I remember the river, mirroring the vastness of the starry sky stretched far beyond the nestled valley I remember the river,  with its deep, dreamy green reflecting neighboring, billowing trees  I remember the river, offering its soft morning mist to […]

The post Poem for the Guadalupe River from a previous Mystic camper appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Search and rescue teams were still combing the mangled banks of the Guadalupe River Tuesday at Patti and Kent Richardson’s mildewing home in Center Point. Vultures and helicopters circled overhead, looking for the same thing the Richardsons had so recently just narrowly avoided: death. As they were making their morning coffee early on July 5, […]

The post ‘I Think We’re Gonna Stay’: Texans Hang On in Tragedy-Stricken Hill Country appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Avantika Gori is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Houston’s Rice University who is currently examining how to improve flood hazard detection and resilience in rural counties in Texas. Her three-year project began in 2025—so far it’s been funded with $1 million from the National Science Foundation. That’s only enough, she says, […]

The post In the Hill Country and Beyond, Rural Texas Counties Lack Resources for Flood Detection appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org. Camp Mystic, the private summer camp that now symbolizes the deadly Central Texas floods, sat on a tract of land known to be at high […]

The post ‘Disasters Are a Human Choice’: Texas Counties Have Little Power to Stop Building in Flood-Prone Areas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On July 4, 2002, my childhood home just south of Kerr County flooded after a heavy rainstorm moved through the Texas Hill Country, hitting the headwaters that feed the Medina and Guadalupe rivers hard. That morning 23 years ago, I, age 8, woke up in a cabin at an overnight summer camp near Kerrville rattled […]

The post I Remember the 2002 Fourth of July Hill Country Floods. This Year, the Water Returned. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. Heavy rains over the weekend that pushed the Guadalupe River in Texas’ Hill Country to its second-highest height on record had by Tuesday resulted in more […]

The post Climate Change Helped Fuel Heavy Rains that Led to Devastating Hill Country Flood appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The first data center in the Stargate project—a $500 billion artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure initiative backed by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank—is being built in a surprising location: Abilene.  The data center is set to cost $1.1 billion, and, to hear local officials say it, Abilene and its 130,000 residents have just struck gold. “It will […]

The post In Abilene, Stargate Project Puts AI Boom Ahead of Human Health appeared first on The Texas Observer.

When police removed four photographs by Sally Mann from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in early January, Marshall K. Harris, a former NFL player-turned-local artist, wasn’t surprised. Local politics had been shifting to the right recently, especially since the election of conservative firebrand Tim O’Hare as Tarrant County judge in 2022. Furthermore, a […]

The post Can a Great Museum City Survive the Censorious Right? 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: What the Lege Won’t Be Doing… appeared first on The Texas Observer.

President Donald Trump’s commitment to “energy dominance” would seem to be good news for the Texas economy. But in the administration’s reversal of environmental policies—including via the chaos of DOGE trashing federal agencies—it is easy to overlook changes that are of particular importance for the state.  Federal resources for managing climate-augmented weather disasters are being […]

The post Trump’s DOGE Cuts Are Texas-Sized Disaster appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Trudy Taylor Smith is senior administrator of policy and advocacy with Children’s Defense Fund-Texas. I want you to imagine a toddler appearing in court to face off against a government-trained attorney trying to deport them. Think of their terror as they take their seat in the courtroom, legs swinging because they’re not long enough to reach the floor. […]

The post How Republicans Are Willfully Endangering Immigrant Kids appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Alonso Montañez killed the outboard, and the boat swung against the scum and trash that had accumulated in the stagnant water on the high side of the dam.  “Escucha,” he said, gesturing at the surface of the lake.  In the quiet, we heard water slapping the hull, a life jacket buckle pinging on a metal […]

The post ‘With What Water?’ appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Partial remarks given at the 2025 MOLLY Prize Gala on May 28: Suddenly, it’s become a bit of a sad time for the Texas Observer community. Later in the program, you’ll hear about Carlton Carl—our former publisher and longtime board member who passed away in March. Then, yesterday, we learned that the Observer’s founding editor, […]

The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our July/August 2025 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Samuel Junior Sanchez had served around 15 years of a 75-year sentence for a violent road-rage incident and had seemingly exhausted all appeals when his sister contacted a group of Abilene attorneys in 2021 about new information she hoped might finally give her brother another chance at life. As an angry young man, Sanchez had […]

The post Moonlighting Midland Prosecutor Means Freedom for Samuel Sanchez appeared first on The Texas Observer.

We were just about done setting up for our workshop at the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum when Hector Ruiz, president of the South Texas Equality Project (STEP), walked in. STEP is a coalition of diverse groups that celebrate and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community in the Rio Grande Valley.  “Friend!” I rushed over to […]

The post The Rio Grande Valley as Heart of LGBTQ+ Resistance and Joy appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On April 5 at 4 p.m., Reality Winner was hustling: She’d just learned she was needed to find additional last-minute female competitors for a Crossfit competition in Corpus Christi—a hassle for the 33-year-old who was already busy with other duties that day, including cleaning out dog kennels as one of the many requirements for her […]

The post Reality Winner Rebuilds in Kingsville appeared first on The Texas Observer.

As a rainstorm rolled in last Friday evening, hundreds of people eagerly filed through metal detectors at an 1,800-seat performing arts center in McAllen—the urban hub of Hidalgo County in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley—ahead of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ 13th stop on his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Normally a stage for orchestra concerts and […]

The post Can Economic Populism Win Back the Rio Grande Valley? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Gathered in a half circle, eight young equestrians atop multicolored horses bowed their heads for a prayer led by their coach, Heidi Ramirez. They prayed for many things, including their own safety, given that the synchronized routine they perform while riding sidesaddle in layered embroidered dresses, though beautiful, is both challenging and potentially dangerous.  They […]

The post Dancing on Horseback appeared first on The Texas Observer.

air so cold      breath rattles down my throat  like a penny tumbling in  the cracked engine of a 2008 ford ranger     going 75 on 45    with a broken a/c &  full of candles    during an ice age exhaling    2 centuries worth  of disappointment.   a loose spark plug coughs […]

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