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The Latest Breaking News from Texas Observer

‘Suicide by Cop’: How a Poorly Defined Term Shifts Accountability for Lost Lives

Austin officers killed an unarmed 17-year-old at a park last month in what the chief swiftly deemed "suicide by police." Some call the concept a type of "junk science."

Texas Observer

Observer Masthead Additions and a Farewell

A note from the editor

Texas Observer

What the Data Says About Electricity Shutoffs During Sweltering Texas Summers

The state's retail heat-advisory rule exempts municipal utilities or electric cooperatives. For those providers, federal data shows final notices continued through summer while actual disconnections varied sharply from one utility to another.

Texas Observer

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Texas Maternal Mortality Committee’s Next Report Will Skip Post-‘Roe’ Deaths. Lawmakers Suspect Political Influence.

And one Texan says the body’s decision “retriggered” the pain of losing his wife, who counts among the preventable deaths that soon followed the state’s abortion bans.

Texas Observer

Indigenous Group Sues to Stop Big Bend Border Wall on Religious Grounds

The lawsuit seeks an immediate injunction, arguing that CBP construction and surveying activities in Big Bend violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Texas Observer

The Takeover Tab: State-Imposed Superintendent Buyouts Cost School Districts Big Bucks

And, critics of TEA takeovers say, those costs are just the beginning of expenses that come with state intervention but without state recompense.

Texas Observer

Permian Basin Community Seeks Fix for Radium in Its Drinking Water

Utilities serving thousands of Texans exceed legal limits for radium.

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Who Pays for the High-Powered Grid that Data Centers Need?

Texas would make large AI hyperscalers pay for the wires that connect them. Whether they must also pay directly for the broader grid work needed to serve them is still an open question.

Texas Observer

‘Cocks Not Glocks’ at 10

A decade on, the iconic campus protest has come to symbolize a time of relatively free expression.

Texas Observer

An Ode to Austin’s Unsung Proletariat

A new novel about workers at an organic grocery store asks us to consider questions of labor and dignity in the Texas capital.

Texas Observer

Cuba’s Government Is in Trump’s Crosshairs, but Political Dissidents Find No Refuge Here

As the president has mulled invading the island and imposed harsh sanctions, old legal pathways have closed while asylum denial rates for Cubans are near 80 percent.

Texas Observer

The ‘Houston Miracle’ Shell Game

How Houston ISD’s takeover regime inflated school accountability ratings by systematically holding back certain students

Texas Observer

University of Houston Is Gutting Its Gender and Sexuality Classes. That Won’t Stop Texas’ Crusade Against Higher Ed.

College administrators wrongly hope that anticipatory obedience will satisfy a GOP-run Texas Legislature that is increasingly hostile toward education.

Texas Observer

American Skater

A Venezuelan immigrant tries to make a home in San Antonio in exclusionary times.

Texas Observer

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Texas Observer

ICE Never Stopped Chasing People in Cars in the Rio Grande Valley

Immigration agents sped after a vehicle through a residential neighborhood on the same day of the agency’s traffic stop pause, reportedly endangering a mother and son—before pulling a gun on and briefly handcuffing a U.S. citizen.

Texas Observer

In Congress, Christian Menefee Says He’s Fighting for ‘the Least, the Last, and the Lost’

The latest politician to represent H-Town’s historic 18th Congressional District talks about his recent primary against Al Green, ICE, voting rights, and the U.S. Senate race.

Texas Observer

With Texas’ Data Center Boom, Uncertainty Is the Business Plan

Proposed projects are driven by sketchy numbers nobody has to prove: inflated demand, water use most companies never report, power plans that route around ordinary review. Either way, the public pays.

Texas Observer

Houston Is Testing Whether Trump’s ICE Is Above Texas Law

After the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, local authorities have struggled to stake their claim on an investigation into a killing within the most populous Texas city’s limits.

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Texas Observer

The Fall of Hope Rising

The demise of a Brenham organization intended to help young victims of trafficking is a cautionary tale about the state's overreliance on religious groups to help foster kids.

Texas Observer

Cycling the Rio Grande as Trump’s Wall Looms

“We’re gonna be riding around areas where most everybody thinks it’s unsafe, and you’re gonna see that there’s really nothing to be worried about.”

Texas Observer

Can a Tejano Star Restore Dems’ Power in South Texas?

In his bid to win a Trumpy congressional seat, Bobby Pulido is blending his moderate message with charismatic campaigning.

Texas Observer

‘Where Do We Go from Here’: Forward or Backward?

In our nation’s civil rights fight, we seem to be losing the hard-fought progress for which so many bled and died.

Texas Observer

Excerpt: How to Close a Camp

Detention was sold as both a law-and-order necessity and an economic opportunity, welding together the racist politics of the drug war with the rise of private prisons.

Texas Observer

The Tides of Tarrant

In Texas’ key swing county, this Democratic commissioner is turning to voters to oust the arch-conservative Tim O’Hare.

Texas Observer

A Love Letter to the Black Woodswomen of Deep East Texas

Where I’m from, the Afro-Texans who made me know our lives are forever woven into the ecology of the Thicket.

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