Texas Is Trying to Punish Its Way Out of a Prison Overdose Crisis
While quality treatment options remain scarce—even in the hardest-hit lockups
Featured Stories
The Latest
Who Stands Between Texas and a Fascist Railroad Commission?
This man here—and a plurality of voters if he can find them
ICE Contractor for Controversial Camp East Montana Is Trailed by Fraud Allegations
To continue running the deadly El Paso detention center, the feds turn to a company that’s faced numerous lawsuits from labor unions and former employees and is actively fighting a whistleblower in court.
Reviews ⋆
The Year for Magical Thinking
How one progressive Texan’s blog, filled with years of misplaced optimism and disproved predictions, has come to seem increasingly… reasonable
Mexico’s Deportation Capital
Tapachula, five miles from Mexico’s border with Guatemala, has become a principal destination for the world’s deportees. And in a cruel twist, even Mexicans expelled from the United States have found themselves there, regrouping after being deported—not home to Mexico—but first to Central America.
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Politics
Come and Take Them, Dan Patrick
An Abilene public school librarian has a message for the lieutenant governor and his book-banning crusade.
A Texas Austerity Crisis Is Playing Out City by City, School by School
Texas’ local governments are facing growing fiscal pain. What’s that mean for the 2026 elections—and the 2027 session?
Texas Maternal Mortality Committee’s Next Report Will Skip Post-‘Roe’ Deaths. Lawmakers Suspect Political Influence.
And one Texan says the body’s decision “retriggered” the pain of losing his wife, who counts among the preventable deaths that soon followed the state’s abortion bans.
Border and Immigration
Immigrants Keep Saying She’s Ripping Them Off. Why Won’t Texas Stop Her?
The attorney general’s office once aggressively pursued fraudsters targeting immigrants. Not on Ken Paxton’s watch.
Indigenous Group Sues to Stop Big Bend Border Wall on Religious Grounds
The lawsuit seeks an immediate injunction, arguing that CBP construction and surveying activities in Big Bend violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Cuba’s Government Is in Trump’s Crosshairs, but Political Dissidents Find No Refuge Here
As the president has mulled invading the island and imposed harsh sanctions, old legal pathways have closed while asylum denial rates for Cubans are near 80 percent.
Culture
Kam Franklin Goes Solo
The accomplished Houston musician, known as lead singer for The Suffers, draws on surprising sources of inspiration and puts “the message into the music” in her new album, “Land of the Neon Sun.”
‘Cocks Not Glocks’ at 10
A decade on, the iconic campus protest has come to symbolize a time of relatively free expression.
An Ode to Austin’s Unsung Proletariat
A new novel about workers at an organic grocery store asks us to consider questions of labor and dignity in the Texas capital.
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September/October 2026
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