<iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-MR922DG" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe>

Most Recent in Politics:

1The Borderlands are a Sacrifice Zone for Our Terrible Politics

2How 50 Years of Feminism in the Texas Legislature Shaped the Fights We See Today

3Christian Conservatives Bring Alarmist #BanTheBible Message to Texas Capitol

4Loon Star: VOTER FRAUD ALERT

5‘Thrown Under the Bus’: Rio Grande Valley Residents Criticize New Border Deal

6The Border Debate is Changing at the Capitol. With Newfound Influence, Can Democrats Go Beyond Playing Defense?

Most Recent in Environment:

1A New Study Shows that the Oil and Gas Industry is Wasting a Shocking Quantity of Natural Gas in Texas

2Texas State Park Could Close as Vistra Energy Seeks to Sell Land Near Shuttered Power Plant

3El Paso School Consolidation Exposes More Kids to Lead and Other Hazards, Parents Say

4Could Kinder Morgan’s ‘Permian Highway’ Scar the Hill Country?

5Millions of Plastic Pellets in Lavaca Bay? Formosa Says it’s Just ‘Trace Amounts’

6Environmentalists Fear Conservative Group’s Push to End Corporate Subsidies is Really Just a Hit on Renewables

Most Recent in Border:

1The Borderlands are a Sacrifice Zone for Our Terrible Politics

2Valeria Luiselli’s Third Novel Reckons with the Trauma Inflicted on Migrant Kids

3‘Thrown Under the Bus’: Rio Grande Valley Residents Criticize New Border Deal

4The Border Debate is Changing at the Capitol. With Newfound Influence, Can Democrats Go Beyond Playing Defense?

5Federal Judge Dismisses Butterfly Refuge’s Lawsuit over Wall Construction

6New Border Wall Funding for Laredo Would Devastate Our Landscape, Ecology and Heritage

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2The Tattooed Star of the ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ Movement Braces for His First Death Penalty Trial

3‘Ignored to Death’ in the Bexar County Jail

4The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

5Botham Jean’s Death Could Lead to an Overhaul of Police Oversight in Dallas

6When Prison Reform Goes Bad

Most Recent in Education:

1In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

2Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

3Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

4What’s in a Name? Texas SBOE Tentatively Approves ‘Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies’

5SMU Just Lost Its Independent Student Newspaper. Is Your College Next?

6Lawsuit: Texas Art Teacher Suspended Because She Told Students About Her Wife

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Faith Groups: Texas ‘Ignored and Disrespected’ Religious Freedom in Passing Fetal Burial Law

2Expecting Care

3The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

4Six Stories About Rural Texas You Should Read Before 2018 Ends

5‘How Can You Do This to People?’: After Rural Hospitals Close in Milam County, Residents Scramble to Find Care

6Four Texas Abortion Court Cases to Watch in 2019

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

2The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

3Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

4Senfronia Thompson Says #MeToo: Texas Lawmaker on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

5Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo on Sanctuary Cities, Police Unions and Tommy Guns

6Meet Nueces County’s New DA, a Self-Professed ‘Mexican Biker Lawyer Covered in Tattoos’

Most Recent in Books:

1Elizabeth McCracken’s ‘Bowlaway’ Spins a Dark, Magical Tale of Love, Loss and Bowling

2Valeria Luiselli’s Third Novel Reckons with the Trauma Inflicted on Migrant Kids

3‘Last Woman Standing’ Tackles Toxic Masculinity and Keeps the Pages Turning

4The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

5‘Life Was Her Art’: Nadine Eckhardt Remembered as an Influential Cultural Conduit in Texas and Washington

6Our 10 Favorite Texas Books of 2018

Most Recent in Features:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2Raspa Revolution

3100 Ways to Draw a Line

4Homeward Bound

5The Sisterhood

6The Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Lower Pecos

Most Recent in Essay:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2The Trouble with Yoga

3Heads in the Mud

4The Day the Windows Shook

5Women’s Work

6I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

2Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

3Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

4Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

5Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

6Eye on Texas: Transgender Youth in Texas

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

3Parallel Planes

5Poem: ‘Resistance’

6Poem: ‘Screenplay for a Homemade Movie’

The Borderlands are a Sacrifice Zone for Our Terrible Politics

In the last year, Democrats agreed to border-wall funding that will fence off much of the Rio Grande Valley from Brownsville to Falcon Lake.

by Forrest Wilder

Features

by Rebecca Grant
Health Care
Expecting Care

How Texas is failing foster care kids and contributing to an alarming teen pregnancy rate.
by Rose Cahalan
Culture
Plight at the Museum

The best Texas history museum you’ve never heard of is staring down a financial crisis. Will it survive?
by Melissa del Bosque
Border
Checkpoint Nation

Border Patrol agents are extending their reach deep into the country’s interior.
by Naveena Sadasivam and Zoë Schlanger
Environment
Shallow Waters

This nine-part collaboration between the Texas Observer and Quartz explores the complexities of border water in a hotter, drier world.

Border
The Surge
by Melissa del Bosque and G.W. Schulz
Health Care
Indoctrinated
by Sophie Novack
Criminal Justice
Stand By Your Man
by Michael Barajas
Politics
Access Denied
by Christopher Collins
Culture
Big Trouble in Little Cambodia
by Michael Hardy
Education
Nazis Go To School
by Candice Bernd and Jordan Buckley
2017 in Review
The Rise and Fall of the ‘Freest Little City in Texas’
by James McCandless
Criminal Justice
A Prison By Any Other Name
by Michael Barajas
Environment
Too Big To Fine, Too Small To Fight Back
by Naveena Sadasivam

The Magazine

Texas Observer members get the first look at our in-depth investigative reporting before it’s published online. Join today to get the magazine so you don’t miss out!

In This Issue

Past Issues

Top