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Most Recent in Politics:

1Yet Another Rural Texas Hospital is in Jeopardy After Anti-Tax Activists Kill Funding Proposal

2Meet Maria Espinoza, the Texan Elevating ‘Angel Moms’ to the National Stage

3Democrats Finally Play Hardball on the Border Wall

4‘We Got Nothing:’ Few Wins for the Christian Right in the 86th Texas Legislature

5‘All it Took was 25 Years’: Legislature Ponies Up Cash for Underfunded Texas Parks

6‘Consider What the Most Powerful Least Want You to Do, and then Do That’

Most Recent in Environment:

1‘All it Took was 25 Years’: Legislature Ponies Up Cash for Underfunded Texas Parks

2Carbon Sequestration Isn’t The Long-Term Solution. Is it a Short-Term One?

3Report: Oil and Gas Producers May Be Pushing the Permian Basin Past Federal Air Quality Limits

4The EPA Told Texas to Crack Down on Dangerous Air Emissions in 2015. The State Never Did, and Now It Won’t Have to.

5The Flood Next Time

6Port of Corpus Christi Pushes Ahead with Oil Terminal Project, Environment Be Damned

Most Recent in Border:

1Meet Maria Espinoza, the Texan Elevating ‘Angel Moms’ to the National Stage

2Democrats Finally Play Hardball on the Border Wall

3Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

4With Proposed Tariffs on Mexico, Trump Attacks Texas

5When Crossing Over Becomes a Deadly Game

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Death Penalty Reform Bill Gets Watered Down to ‘Nothing’ Before Passing Senate

2With a Bizarre Assist by Democrats, Police Groups Kill Bill to Limit Arrests for Fine-Only Offenses

4‘The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons

5Four Years Later, Sandra Bland’s Arrest Continues to Sow Distrust in Law Enforcement

6Immune from Justice

Most Recent in Education:

1Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

2Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

3‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

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

5In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

6Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Yet Another Rural Texas Hospital is in Jeopardy After Anti-Tax Activists Kill Funding Proposal

2Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

3Inside Texas’ Failed Experiment to Replace Planned Parenthood with an Anti-Abortion Group

5Texans with Disabilities are Struggling to Find Health Care Attendants. Lawmakers Didn’t Do Much to Help.

6Texas Legislature Set to (Slightly) Expand Medical Marijuana Access

Most Recent in The Interview:

2The Interview: Mass Resistance

3Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

4Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

5The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

6Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

Most Recent in Books:

1‘Human Matter’ Dredges up the Dark History of the Guatemalan Civil War

2With Sprawl and Serial Killers, Houston Noir Packs a Mean Punch

3When Crossing Over Becomes a Deadly Game

4Beasts of the Border

5Invasive Species Have Reshaped Texas. Now What?

6A New Crime Novel Asks Tough Questions About Revenge and Redemption

Most Recent in Features:

1Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

2Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

3At Home in the World

4Plight at the Museum

5The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

6East Texas Photographer Captures 50 Years of Haunting, Ordinary Magic

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: Loren Elliott

2Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

3Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

4Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

5Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

6Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

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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