Prosecutors Drop Only Criminal Cases from Hays County Airbnb Raid
Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:15:41 +0000
In the early hours of April 1, state and federal police raided a party at an Airbnb in a wealthy Austin suburb, arresting nearly 50 people including nine children. The participating agencies—the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and the Hays County Sheriff’s Office—claimed […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/prosecutors-drop-charges-hays-county-airbnb-raid/
Texas’ Top Voucher Vendor Taps Abbott Allies in Contract Bid, Program Rollout
Thu, 13 Nov 2025 17:34:11 +0000
Even before the Texas Legislature finally passed its private school voucher bill earlier this year, the race was on among the handful of firms in the burgeoning voucher vendor sector to win the lucrative contract to launch and administer what will be the largest program of its kind in the nation. That race is now […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-voucher-vendor-abbott-allies/
Pro-Life, Anti-Death Penalty
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 15:19:25 +0000
National support for the death penalty is at an all-time low, with younger adults from both major political parties spurning capital punishment. But in Texas’ execution chamber, the pace of lethal injections has not let up, even as some condemned Texans—including Melissa Lucio and Robert Roberson—have had their high-profile executions halted with only days or […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/pro-life-anti-death-penalty/
Crypto’s Cryptic Texas Takeover
Mon, 10 Nov 2025 13:12:00 +0000
Eli McKay and John Weber, volunteers for the Sierra Club’s Coastal Bend Group, already had their hands full fighting plans for water- and energy-intensive projects in Corpus Christi when Bootstrap Energy’s proposal for two cryptocurrency mines appeared on the city council’s agenda in March 2022. By then, Bitcoin mines were already popping up all over Texas, […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/crypto-energy-grid-texas-bitcoin-water/
Jane Goodall, the Natural World, and Why I Track Skunks
Fri, 07 Nov 2025 15:19:56 +0000
In a final message, Jane Goodall urged us not to lose hope, even “as we destroy one ecosystem after another, as we create worse climate change and worse loss of biodiversity.” She believed our actions still mattered on this beautiful Earth. Above all, she said, in a statement released soon after her October 1 death: […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/jane-goodall-nature-skunks-tracking/
Houston’s Top Magnet High Schools Could Become Private Partnership Charter Schools, Raising Equity Concerns
Thu, 06 Nov 2025 15:04:04 +0000
Each year, thousands of students apply for a seat at one of the top performing magnet high schools in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) through an open-enrollment lottery system. Regardless of their background, all district applicants have the same chance of being admitted to these elite schools if they meet the criteria for their […]
The post Houston’s Top Magnet High Schools Could Become Private Partnership Charter Schools, Raising Equity Concerns appeared first on The Texas Observer.
https://www.texasobserver.org/houston-magnet-hspva-private-charter-tea-takeover-mike-miles/
My University Just Taught Extremists How to Eliminate Academic Programs They Don’t Like
Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:47:52 +0000
On October 17, Texas Christian University announced it would close its Women and Gender Studies (WGST) and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) departments, folding what remains of the programs into the English department. The official reason given was “low enrollment.” But I know what this decision really means. I know because I’ve watched my […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/tcu-eliminates-academic-programs-extremists/
Texas Turns Its Sprawling State Police Force Into Immigration Agents for Trump
Tue, 04 Nov 2025 22:59:04 +0000
Between mid-October and early November, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a pair of agreements that will authorize some state police within DPS’s Criminal Investigations and Highway Patrol divisions to effectively operate as ICE agents. The move marks a significant expansion of what are called 287(g) […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-287g-ice-trump-abbott/
The ‘Queen Mother’ of the Reparations Movement Gets Her Due
Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:15:00 +0000
The image that graces the cover of historian Ashley Farmer’s new biography of Pan-African activist Audley “Queen Mother” Moore is no less regal than the iconic photograph of Black Panthers founder Huey Newton in a rattan throne chair that many of us are more familiar with. Moore sits in an old striped armchair, wearing an […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/queen-mother-reparations-movement-gets-her-due/
Black Bookstore Owners, Government Spies, and Murder
Mon, 03 Nov 2025 13:15:00 +0000
Texas has grown a bumper crop of book authors and, with that, an ever-expanding list of literary festivals. San Antonio’s sprawls around its towering tomato-red public library every spring. Lubbock daringly throws its in sweaty August, while Boerne awaits the arrival of typically more bearable October weather. Then there’s the biggest of them all: the […]
The post Black Bookstore Owners, Government Spies, and Murder appeared first on The Texas Observer.
https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-book-festival-nonfiction/