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?
Dallas
More Highways, More Problems
Highway expansion is the Lone Star State’s status-quo solution to easing traffic—but it actually leads to more congestion and displaced communities.
Strangest State: This Month in Gator News…
Plus: a matchmaking scam, a thief’s Beto O’Rourke cover story, and a footlong shrimp.
Little Arthouse on the Prairie
In tiny Albany, Texas, you can’t shop at Walmart or buy a beer, but you can see one of the state’s best and quirkiest art collections.
In NO God We Trust?
An atheist seminar in Fort Worth drew a capacity crowd, evidence that Texas’ growing nonreligious population is finding its political voice here in the Bible Belt.
The Texas GOP’s War of Municipal Aggression
With their approval of a bill to “protect” Confederate monuments from liberal city halls, Senate Republicans exposed the raw racial dynamics of the party’s preemption crusade.
The Big Blue Obstacle to Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform
In the era of right-on-crime-backed efforts to curb mass incarceration, police unions have increasingly become a voice in the wilderness.
Dallas County DA John Creuzot Calls New Reforms ‘A Step Forward in Ending Mass Incarceration’
The policies announced Thursday range from refusing to prosecute certain drug cases to reforming probation and changing how the office handles crimes related to poverty and homelessness.
At Home in the World
Houston artist Prince Varughese Thomas blurs boundaries of politics, medium and identity.
New Chicken Farms are Ruining Roads and Fowling the Air in Upshur County
As industrial chicken farming expands to East Texas, local residents say they’ve been bombarded with the waste of hundreds of thousands of birds, an “overpowering” stench and heavy truck traffic.