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Excerpt: How to Close a Camp

https://www.texasobserver.org/excerpt-how-to-close-a-camp/

Published: July 21, 2026 19:00

Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted with permission from How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention, out from Haymarket Books this July. The Prison-Immigration Knot By the late 1980s, thanks to over a decade of laws…

The Tides of Tarrant

https://www.texasobserver.org/tarrant-county-judge-alisa-simmons-tim-ohare/

Published: July 21, 2026 12:15

In 2022, longtime Tarrant County Judge R. Glen Whitley, a consummate moderate Republican, opted to retire after a nearly 30-year reign.  Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, another moderate GOPer, was his most likely successor. But the county’s conservative…

A Love Letter to the Black Woodswomen of Deep East Texas

https://www.texasobserver.org/love-letter-black-woodswomen-deep-east-texas/

Published: July 20, 2026 12:15

When you were 8, you could control the wind. The trees would listen, waving their long branches at you. The leaves would applaud as you made your way down Marcus Street. That was when the birds called your name and the squirrels followed you. Back then,…

The Real Lesson Behind Texas’ New Bible Curriculum Requirements

https://www.texasobserver.org/sboe-bible-curriculum-requirements/

Published: July 17, 2026 14:59

In late June, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) set controversial new curriculum requirements for the state’s public schools, which educate approximately 5.5 million students. Alongside further curtailing of cultural, ethnic, and geographic…

Inside the Dark World of Romance Scammers

https://www.texasobserver.org/austin-novel-romance-scammers/

Published: July 16, 2026 13:33

Amanda Eyre Ward is an Austin writer and author of 13 novels—three of which are set in Texas and the rest scattered all over the world. Her latest book, Arrivals and Departures, out June 16, delves deep into the dark world of international romance scammers…

A Birth Plan for the Dying

https://www.texasobserver.org/abortion-ban-houston-texas-medical-center-fetal-anomaly/

Published: July 15, 2026 20:41

We have a plan for the day you are born and the day you die.  We can make you breathe—or at least try to—when your lungs fail and your blood can no longer clot. At the Texas Medical Center (TMC) in central Houston, we repair spinal defects before birth and…

The Hard Ceiling Over Texas Cities’ Climate Plans

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-cities-climate-plans-preemption/

Published: July 15, 2026 14:59

In 2015, a 25-year-old flooring installer named Roendy Granillo collapsed and died of heat stroke on a construction job in Melissa, a small town northeast of Dallas, after his family said he was denied a water break. They carried his story to Dallas City…

A Jailhouse Snitch and the System that Made Him

https://www.texasobserver.org/review-colloff-book-jailhouse-snitch/

Published: July 14, 2026 12:30

Paul Skalnik was a con artist, passing bad checks, role-playing as a successful businessman, and racking up a series of sometimes overlapping marriages. Over the years, he bilked numerous people out of their savings with hollow promises and half-cocked…

In Texas Schools, a Crisis of Arrests of Kids as Young as 10

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-school-arrests-crisis-kids-as-young-as-10/

Published: July 13, 2026 11:30

Editor’s Note: This story was supported by grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California. Seated inside a Starbucks café last February, Grace Bellido, 14, shares some of her…

The Bats of Bracken

https://www.texasobserver.org/the-bats-of-bracken/

Published: July 10, 2026 14:26

The gaping mouth of Bracken Cave, created when limestone collapsed into a sinkhole in this rocky patch of Hill Country millennia ago, reveals only darkness to the human eye. Yet the room inside is filled with the pulsing life of tiny, furry, pregnant…

What Is (and Isn’t) Happening with the Border Wall in Big Bend

https://www.texasobserver.org/state-of-play-border-wall-big-bend-trump/

Published: July 9, 2026 14:52

You’ve probably heard about the Trump administration’s plans for a border wall through Big Bend. Or its plans not to build a wall at all, but instead to put up a futuristic forcefield of lights and sensors. You may have even heard that public pressure…

One State Under Whose God?

https://www.texasobserver.org/one-state-under-god-book-review/

Published: July 8, 2026 13:00

If Texas is, as its pledge of allegiance states, “one state under God,” this begs a question. What God? Whose God? For many Texans, it’s undoubtedly the Christian God, because (so they say) we’re a Christian nation. They can point, for instance, to the…

Inside Houston’s 1970 School Strike

https://www.texasobserver.org/inside-houstons-1970-school-strike/

Published: July 7, 2026 18:01

Editor’s Note: Lupe Mendez, poetry editor of the Texas Observer, is author of the new book We Exist in the Whisper: Huelga School Verses (Arte Público Press, 2026)–one of the first works to tackle Houston’s 1970s huelga school movement. Mendez’s moving…

Throwing the Book at Books in Prison

https://www.texasobserver.org/prison-crackdown-reading-access-profile/

Published: July 6, 2026 14:03

Every Thursday and Sunday evening, a dozen volunteers file into the back room of Vesper, a community space in East Austin. In the workroom-turned-library, there is a small kitchen, bright overhead lighting, and hundreds of books and magazines stacked every…

Turning Back the Clock

https://www.texasobserver.org/turning-back-the-clock/

Published: July 1, 2026 12:00

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section. Find Observer political reporting here. The post Turning Back the Clock appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Unity and Discontent at the Texas Dems’ Corpus Convening

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dems-corpus-convention-2026/

Published: June 30, 2026 16:27

At this year’s Texas Democratic Party convention, sounds of the Corpus Christi coastline lulled Lone Star liberals into the recurring dream of a blue wave crashing over the state. After 30 years of Republican rule, Democrats once again insisted that 2026…

Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our July/August 2026 Issue

https://www.texasobserver.org/editors-letter-july-august-2026/

Published: June 29, 2026 12:30

Texas Observer reader, The following are my remarks, in part, from our May 6 MOLLYs fundraiser gala: Last year, some of you may remember, we published a very viral story in which we identified an ICE prosecutor in Dallas as the operator of an extremely,…

Portrait of Us, 2019-2023

https://www.texasobserver.org/portrait-of-us/

Published: June 26, 2026 12:00

The post Portrait of Us, 2019-2023 appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Worker’s Death at SpaceX Factory Followed Hundreds of Injuries in Recent Years

https://www.texasobserver.org/worker-death-starbase-spacex-osha-elon-musk/

Published: June 25, 2026 13:15

Around 4 a.m. on May 15, in the 1-year-old South Texas town of Starbase, Jose Luis Bautista, a 25-year-old man from nearby Donna, rode a scissor lift around 50 feet up toward the ceiling of the “Starfactory,” where Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes parts for its…