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Most Recent in Politics:

1GOP Continues to Stonewall Efforts to Improve Voter Access in Texas

2‘Lies into Laws’: Texas House Passes ‘Born Alive’ Anti-Abortion Bill Despite Protest

3Texas Republicans’ Push for a Religious ‘License to Discriminate’ is Depressingly Familiar

4Texas House Advances Bill that Could Actually Clear the Rape Kit Backlog

5With Accidental Gun Deaths on the Rise, Some Texas Lawmakers Won’t Even Support a Gun Safety Public Awareness Campaign

6Dallas County DA John Creuzot Calls New Reforms ‘A Step Forward in Ending Mass Incarceration’

Most Recent in Environment:

1Invasive Species Have Reshaped Texas. Now What?

2Documents: CBP Ignored Federal Biologists’ Input on Border Wall

3Is a Dam Failing in Your Neighborhood?

4Dammed to Fail

5A New Study Shows that the Oil and Gas Industry is Wasting a Shocking Quantity of Natural Gas in Texas

6Texas State Park Could Close as Vistra Energy Seeks to Sell Land Near Shuttered Power Plant

Most Recent in Border:

1Documents: CBP Ignored Federal Biologists’ Input on Border Wall

2The Interview: Mass Resistance

3‘The River and The Wall’ is a Visually Stunning Borderland Adventure

4Instead of Building Family-Friendly Jails for Migrants, We Should Just Stop Jailing Them

5Many Texans Want a Border Wall Without a Federal Land Grab. That’s Impossible.

6The Borderlands are a Sacrifice Zone for Our Terrible Politics

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Dallas County DA John Creuzot Calls New Reforms ‘A Step Forward in Ending Mass Incarceration’

2The Sandra Bland Act Was Stripped of the Provision That Could’ve Prevented Her Arrest. Now It Has a Chance.

3A New Crime Novel Asks Tough Questions About Revenge and Redemption

4A Tale of Two Prison Systems

5Texas Legislature Considers Bills to Break the Cycle of Debtor’s Prison

6Texas Prison Reformers Demand Dignity for Incarcerated Women

Most Recent in Education:

1Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

2‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

3‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

4In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

5Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

6Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

Most Recent in Health Care:

1‘Lies into Laws’: Texas House Passes ‘Born Alive’ Anti-Abortion Bill Despite Protest

2Texas House Advances Bill that Could Actually Clear the Rape Kit Backlog

3Watchdog Organization Calls for (Another) Investigation into Failed Texas Anti-Abortion Group

4Texas Republicans Dismiss Research as They Move to Further Defund Planned Parenthood

5Texas Lawmakers Propose Funding Increase to Eliminate Waitlists at Rape Crisis Centers

6In Texas, Three More Measles Cases and Four New Anti-Vaccine Bills

Most Recent in The Interview:

1The Interview: Mass Resistance

2Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

3Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

4The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

5Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

6Senfronia Thompson Says #MeToo: Texas Lawmaker on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

Most Recent in Books:

1Invasive Species Have Reshaped Texas. Now What?

2A New Crime Novel Asks Tough Questions About Revenge and Redemption

3A New Book on the American Political Divide Calls, Unconvincingly, for Civility

4Swamp City Serenade

5A Sweeping History of Texas Blues Celebrates Little-Known Musicians

6Elizabeth McCracken’s ‘Bowlaway’ Spins a Dark, Magical Tale of Love, Loss and Bowling

Most Recent in Features:

1Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

2At Home in the World

3Plight at the Museum

4The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

5East Texas Photographer Captures 50 Years of Haunting, Ordinary Magic

6Who Writes History? The Fight to Commemorate a Massacre by the Texas Rangers

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: Charlotte Moore

2Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

3Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

4Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

5Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

6Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

2Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

3Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

4Parallel Planes

6Poem: ‘Resistance’

Tag Archives: Alpine

by Christopher Collins

Government Transparency Suffers a Major Setback Thanks to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

The all-Republican court has removed criminal penalties for violating a portion of the state Open Meetings Act.

Thu, Feb 28, 2019 |

The windows of Texas government have been tinted even darker thanks to a landmark ruling Wednesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The nine-member panel...Read More

An Alpine police officer stands watch outside the Purple Zone smoke shop during a federal raid in May.

by Patrick Michels

Alpine Synthetic Drug Case Ends in Plea Deal for Purple Zone Owner

Reason magazine features Purple Zone case in documentary alleging affair between shop owner and prosecutor

Sat, Nov 15, 2014 |

Since the Observer featured the strange tale of a synthetic drug crackdown in Alpine, the cases have ended in plea deals, and Reason magazine has detailed new a...Read More

Purple Zone merchandise on the shelves.

by Jonathan McNamara

Observer Radio Episode 69: How an Alpine Smoke Shop Became a National Civil Liberties Cause

Fri, Aug 1, 2014 |

Patrick Michels tells the tale of a controversial Alpine smoke shop swept up by the federal government's zeal to snuff out synthetic drugs....Read More

An Alpine police officer stands watch outside the Purple Zone smoke shop during a federal raid in May.

by Patrick Michels

The Thin Purple Line

After a controversial raid on a West Texas smoke shop, nothing is hazier than the truth.

Mon, Jul 28, 2014 |

After a controversial raid on a West Texas smoke shop, nothing is hazier than the truth. ...Read More

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