Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1Amid a National Reckoning Over Racial Injustice, Royce West Seeks to Upset MJ Hegar—and the DSCC

2Doctors Reverse Course, Say Texas GOP Should Cancel In-Person Convention

3The Next Census Could Determine the Future of Port Arthur

4Texas Had a State Office That Could Have Investigated Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Cases. Lawmakers Defunded it Three Years Ago.

5The COVID-19 Disaster Has Made a Mess of Texas’ Open Government Rules

6‘I’m in Limbo Here’: Texans Are Met with an Overwhelmed and Antiquated State Unemployment System

Most Recent in Environment:

1How Texas Lawmakers and Industry Have Weakened Citizens’ Rights to Fight Pollution

2Texas Relaxed Environmental Enforcement During the Pandemic, State Data Show

3Editorial: Air Pollution Was Already Killing Us. Then Came the Coronavirus. Why Won’t the EPA Act?

4City Nature Challenge Can Help Us Find Resilience and Mindfulness at Home

5Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

6COVID-19 is Buying Time for Gulf Coast Towns Fighting Oil and Gas Projects

Most Recent in Border:

1Between Borders

3Along the Border, Witnesses of Smuggling Crimes Are Being Held in Detention, Despite Coronavirus Concerns

4In Migrants Camps Along the Texas-Mexico Border, Close Quarters and Closing Borders Raise Concerns

5U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Trump Administration on ‘Remain in Mexico’

6Following a Protest, ICE Moves Asylum-Seekers For the Second Time in Two Weeks

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Reform vs. Rebuild: Defunding Law Enforcement in Texas

2As COVID-19 Cases Surge, Some Incarcerated People Remain Behind Bars After Making Bail

3A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses

4COVID-19 Has Delayed Programs That Texas Prisoners Need to Get Out

5Why Is APD Responding to Mental Health Crises like Violent Crimes?

Most Recent in Education:

1The New Ensemble

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

4‘Almost Akin to a Political Coup’: Houston Teachers Fight Back Against State Takeover of HISD

5The Creature of Martin Creek Lake Won’t Die

6The Cost of Carve-Outs

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Neglected in Care

2COVID-19 is Surging in Rural Texas, Threatening to Overwhelm Local Hospitals

3He Removed Labels That Said ‘Medical Use Prohibited,’ Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Officials Who Distribute to Hospitals

4Promising Results Reported for COVID-19 Patients Treated with Plasma Therapy in Texas

5The Traveling Midwife

6In Rural Texas, COVID-19 Contact Tracing is Largely Up to Local Officials, If It Happens at All

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

2How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

3Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

4Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

5American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

6Thousands of Rape Kits in Texas Went Untested For Years. Lavinia Masters Is Ending That.

Most Recent in Books:

1In ‘Separated,’ One Journalist’s Close-up View of the Family Separation Crisis

2Lawrence Wright Embraces Pandemic Panic in ‘The End of October’

3Is it Time to Rethink Texas Suburbia?

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5In ‘All I Ever Wanted,’ Kathy Valentine Reclaims Her Narrative

6A New Book on the Sutherland Springs Shooting Explores Resilience, Forgiveness, and Grace

Most Recent in Features:

1Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

3San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

4The Ghosts of Jefferson

5Little Arthouse on the Prairie

6The Clothes that Make the Man

Most Recent in Essay:

1What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3What’s a Bookstore for?

4Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

5In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

6Loneliness in the Age of Coronavirus

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

2Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

3Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

4Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

5Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

6Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

2Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

3Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

4Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

5Parallel Planes

Articles tagged: West

by Priscila Mosqueda

Report: Firefighter Deaths at West Fertilizer Plant Disaster Could Have Been Prevented

Fri, May 16, 2014 |

The State Fire Marhsal's Office reports that the deaths of 10 volunteer firefighters who perished in the West fertilizer plant disaster in April 2013 were preve...Read More

Members of the West Volunteer Fire Department proceed to a memorial in Waco on April 25, 2013, for victims of the West explosion.

by Jonathan McNamara

Observer Radio Episode 54: Lingering Questions From West, Texas

Fri, Apr 18, 2014 |

We discuss the one-year anniversary of the West fertilizer plant disaster and what is being done (and not done) to prevent it from happening again....Read More

by Jonathan McNamara

Recovery: West, Texas Rebuilds

Thu, Apr 17, 2014 |

Today is the one-year anniversary of the fertilizer plant explosion in the small town of West, Texas, which killed 15 people and injured an estimated 300....Read More

by Priscila Mosqueda

Hero Complex

Last year was the deadliest on record for Texas firefighters. Can dampening a culture of heroism keep them safer?

Tue, Apr 1, 2014 |

Last year was the deadliest on record for Texas firefighters. Can dampening a culture of heroism keep them safer?...Read More

by Forrest Wilder

Inspections Show Texas Fertilizer Plants Still Vulnerable

Thu, Feb 27, 2014 |

Nearly a year after the West fertilizer plant explosion, holes in the system that allowed it to happen in the first place have not been addressed. ...Read More

Duke

by Alex Hannaford

Rescue Dogs: The Canines and Their Handlers Who Search the Aftermath of Catastrophe

Fri, Sep 20, 2013 |

Texas Task Force II currently has four dog handlers. Five more, currently in training, will join the team later this year. All are taught to find survivors. ...Read More

Aerial photo of the West explosion site taken several days after blast.

by Priscila Mosqueda and Forrest Wilder

State Agencies Meet Resistance in Policing Fertilizer Industry

Mon, Aug 26, 2013 |

In the aftermath of the West, Texas fertilizer disaster, state agencies meet resistance from other fertilizer facilities....Read More

by Forrest Wilder

The Lessons from West

Mon, Aug 19, 2013 |

I think it’s clear that West wasn’t an unavoidable act of God. It was a man-made industrial crime....Read More

by Forrest Wilder

Conservative Think Tanker Proposes Tax Cuts to Pay for West Disaster

Fri, Aug 2, 2013 |

Texas Public Policy Foundation deep thinker John Davidson proposes tax cuts for businesses to help West, Texas recover from the April fertilizer explosion....Read More

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