The Interview
The Future of Fair Housing in Texas
Scientist Peter Hotez on Why Vaccine Development is ‘Critical to the Security of Our Nation’
Several years ago, Hotez and his colleagues developed a vaccine that may have prevented the new coronavirus—but they couldn’t get it funded.
Peter Hotez has spent his career studying infectious diseases that others weren’t paying attention to, developing vaccines that “no one else will make.” F...Read More
Researcher Jeremy Slack on the Horrors that Await Immigrants Deported from the U.S.
Slack led a massive research effort to learn what happens to those whom immigration authorities deport and dump all along the Mexican border.
As an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Arizona, Jeremy Slack began crossing the border into Mexico not to down shots of tequila, but to interview the d...Read More
Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication
To celebrate our 65th birthday, we asked our founding editor about where the Observer has been and what he thinks about its future.
On December, 13, 1954, Ronnie Dugger published the first issue of the Texas Observer. In it, he wrote the newspaper’s founding mission: We will serve no group...Read More
How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms
The Texas Tech professor and lead author on the last three National Climate Assessments wants you to talk about how to live in a warming world.
Katharine Hayhoe loves talking to her Uber drivers—it’s one way she practices finding common ground on climate change with just about anyone. A Texas Tech p...Read More
Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma
“There are 364 other days in the year when people’s lives are shaped by the possibility of deportation or a raid.”
On a cold Thursday morning in November 2013, Santiago (a pseudonym) was leaving his apartment on the top floor of an auto repair shop in Washtenaw County, Michi...Read More
Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform
Texas Gun Sense’s Ed Scruggs on how Abbott and Patrick talk about guns behind closed doors—and what that says about the prospects for change.
Ed Scruggs has been on the frontlines of the battle to reform Texas’ gun laws ever since the Sandy Hook massacre. That 2012 tragedy galvanized a movement that...Read More
American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?
Physician Marty Makary’s new book shows how sky-high medical bills can ruin patients’ lives—but puts the burden on individuals to demand change.
Add yet another first place health care ranking no one wants for Texas: We have the highest hospital bills in the country. A new study has found that Texas pr...Read More
Thousands of Rape Kits in Texas Went Untested For Years. Lavinia Masters Is Ending That.
The Lavinia Masters Act, which goes into effect in September, is the culmination of more than ten years of Masters’ advocacy in Texas, where a backlog of about 20,000 untested rape kits was identified in 2011.
Lavinia Masters was 13 years old when a stranger raped her at knifepoint in her Dallas bedroom. For more than two decades, her rape kit—the evidence collected...Read More
Floodplain Maps Are Outdated. This Scientist Wants to Change That.
More than half of FEMA’s flood maps rely on decades-old data. Now, a group of Texas researchers is tackling the problem with a $3 million grant and crowdsourced data.
Talk to any scientist long enough, and eventually they’ll bring up an old aphorism: all models are wrong, but some are useful. Even with better data, and more...Read More