The UT System’s New ‘Controversial Topics’ Policy Is About Policing Knowledge
Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:23:45 +0000
In a recent classroom conversation, a student asked whether it was still “allowed” to talk about immigration policy in relation to Texas history. He did not ask because the topic was abstract. He asked because his family lives at the center of it. That question should concern all of us. The University of Texas System’s […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/ut-system-new-controversial-topics-policy-policing-knowledge/
Snow on Market Street
Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:43:48 +0000
The year I turned 7 has blurred in my mind the way old photographs fade and fray at the edges. We had just moved to Mabank in the thick of “white flight,” though I wouldn’t understand that phrase until much later. Life here, an hour southeast of Dallas, felt small-town simple: penny candy at Hughey’s […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/snow-on-market-street/
Trump’s New Wall Will Destroy Irreplaceable Border Treasures—Unless Congress Acts
Thu, 19 Feb 2026 18:55:33 +0000
The procession of more than a thousand people walked from Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Mission to the grounds of La Lomita chapel, the historic riverside mission which gave the border town its name. It was August 2017, early in Donald Trump’s first term, and the marchers carrying signs that read “Salvar La Lomita” […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/trump-new-wall-rio-grande-valley-protected-sites/
Can Labor Candidates Help Texas Dems Win Back Power?
Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:46:37 +0000
After pulling off an upset special election win for the solid-red Tarrant County Senate District 9 in late January, Democrat Taylor Rehmet told his cheering supporters at the Nickel City bar in Fort Worth: “This win goes to everyday working people.” The local Machinists’ union president beat his right-wing Republican opponent Leigh Wambsganss by 15 […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-labor-candidates-run-for-office/
A Motley Crew of Dems Vie to Become New Bexar County DA
Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:37:52 +0000
After nearly eight years—two terms—in power as the top prosecutor in Texas’ fourth largest county, Democratic District Attorney Joe Gonzales is not running for reelection in Bexar County. And while there is no clear successor, there is no shortage of contenders on the crowded Democratic primary stage. Eight candidates are vying to be the Democratic […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/bexar-county-district-attorney-dem-primary/
Ken Paxton’s ‘Shoddy’ Prosecution of a Midwife Is Part of a Strategy to Expand His Power. Low-Income Houstonians Are Paying the Price.
Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:18:13 +0000
Houston attorney Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube sat flabbergasted at her desk in early October. A press release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had just touted the arrest of eight people affiliated with a network of Houston-area medical clinics alleged to have practiced abortion care in violation of the state’s extreme ban. Paxton, currently a U.S. […]
The post Ken Paxton’s ‘Shoddy’ Prosecution of a Midwife Is Part of a Strategy to Expand His Power. Low-Income Houstonians Are Paying the Price. appeared first on The Texas Observer.
https://www.texasobserver.org/ken-paxton-prosecution-midwife-power-low-income-houston/
The ‘Antifa Scare’ Goes on Trial in North Texas
Tue, 17 Feb 2026 18:14:36 +0000
On a warm Saturday afternoon in February, a small group of 10 people walked through a metal gate, propped open with a black trash can, and into a beige, fluorescent-lit room inside a teachers union hall in the Oak Cliff neighborhood in southern Dallas. They were there for a presentation titled “The Prairieland Defendants: A […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/antifa-scare-prairieland-19-trial-ice-detention/
Loon Star State: The Texas Republican Olympics
Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:05:58 +0000
To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section. Find Observer political reporting here.
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https://www.texasobserver.org/loon-star-state-the-texas-republican-olympics/
My Home Is Treated Like a War Zone. That Militarization Expanded to Minnesota.
Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:52:34 +0000
The two shooters during the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota on January 24 were Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from South Texas. The same place I’m from. For years, local activists and community leaders here have demanded the demilitarization of the border. For decades, natural landscapes, rivers, and deserts have been used as […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-border-militarization-minnesota-alex-pretti/
How Radioactive Oil and Gas Waste Could Lie Beneath a North Texas Elementary School
Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:43:12 +0000
Editor’s Note: This story was produced in collaboration by Truthdig and the Texas Observer. On a cold winter morning in Johnson County, at the southwestern edge of the booming Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, 52-year-old Lee Oldham stands beside the Pleasant View Elementary School and wonders what the drilling waste he helped lay underneath might mean for […]
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https://www.texasobserver.org/radioactive-oil-and-gas-waste-north-texas-elementary-school/