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A Courtroom Drama About Feeding Unhoused Houstonians
The Observer follows Food Not Bombs volunteers fighting against Bayou City’s anti-food sharing ordinance. Nick Cooper stands in the security line amid a sea of people with parking tickets and moving violations. He has an 8 a.m. hearing at the Houston Municipal Court about a citation he received this year for distributing food to unhoused people outside of the Central Houston Library branch downtown. Cooper is one of many volunteers with Food Not Bombs Houston (FNBH) who is facing trial after the City of Houston began enforcing a decade-old ordinance that makes the group’s food distribution—which has been occurring at the site for about 20 years—illegal.
Judge Strikes Down Lege’s Power-Grab Against Cities, HB 2127
A judge ruled Texas "Death Star" law, which would preempt local legislation in broad areas of policy, of violating the state constitution. In her judgment on a lawsuit brought by the City of Houston and joined by the cities of San Antonio and El Paso, Gamble declared, “House Bill 2127 in its entirety is unconstitutional—facially, as applied to Houston as a constitutional home rule city and to local laws that are not already preempted under Article XI, Section 5 of the Texas Constitution.”
Justice Department Seeking to Dismiss Lawsuit over Family Separation
The lawsuit, filed by the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project in federal court, alleges that the family’s forced separation traumatized Leticia, who suffered untreated facial paralysis because of the separation from her son. Government officials and the detention facility left her condition untreated, despite recognizing that she required medical attention.
A Sanctuary for Sounds
A well-traveled journalist reveals world music to Austin. The result: World Music Encounters, a groundbreaking nine-part performance and interview series starting in September in an unusually economical Austin venue that happens to be the historic church, St. David’s Episcopal, where Burnett himself recently got hitched. “We just happened to belong to this really wonderful downtown church that’s open-minded and has a gorgeous 170-year-old sanctuary that just got renovated in time for this series.”
As Springs Dry Up, a Warning of Future Water Shortages
Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”. Articles cannot be rewritten,...
Austin Theater Teacher Sued by Ex-Students Dies
Diane “Betsy” Cornwell had been accused of emotional abuse and sexual misconduct. Diane “Betsy” Cornwell, the longtime Austin theater teacher at the center of state and federal lawsuits filed by former students, reportedly died this month of natural causes. The instructor’s death coincided with the start of classes for the Austin Independent School District, one year after she left the classroom amid allegations of misconduct.
Ignoring Water Worries, Texas Permits Lignite Mine Expansion
Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”. Articles cannot be rewritten,...
The Ken Paxton Files: What’s in House Investigators’ New Trove of Impeachment Evidence?
Nearly 4,000 pages of exhibits paint the clearest picture yet of the allegations against the attorney general for prolific abuse of power, bribery, philandering, and apparent coverups. It was a document dump of epic proportions, comprising nearly 4,000 pages of records, ranging from blockbuster interview transcripts from marquee witnesses; emails...
A Queer Teacher in Edgewood Picked a Fight He Couldn’t Win
Learn4Life of San Antonio suspended Michael Gonzales after he tweeted a picture of himself in his classroom beside a pride flag. A teacher at Learn4Life Edgewood of San Antonio—a public charter school in the Edgewood Independent School District (EISD)—Gonzales posted a picture of himself in his classroom in front of a “progress” pride flag on Twitter, daring Libs of TikTok, a conservative troll account that frequently targets queer people, to go after him.
The Rise of Ma and Pa Paxton?
If history repeats itself, the attorney general's wife could prosper even if he goes down in an impeachment trial. The forthcoming impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton is guaranteed to provide a colorful show, spotlighting exhibits recently uploaded to the Texas Senate website with salacious details on the alias Paxton apparently established on Uber to obscure records of rendezvous with his alleged mistress and dealings with his disgraced developer pal.
‘We’re Going to Need to Save Each Other’: ‘Drag Ban’ Will Be Fought in the Streets & the Courts
SB 12 has already sent a chill of fear and uncertainty through the LGBTQ+ community. On August 3, the ACLU of Texas sued the state over the legal conundrum that Bandit, who is nonbinary, and others like them could face September 1 if Senate Bill 12 goes into effect as scheduled. That bill, which passed during the 88th session of the Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in June, is popularly known as the “drag ban” despite not mentioning the art form by name. Under this law, anyone caught performing acts that invoke a “prurient interest in sex” around minors could spend up to a year in prison, and the venue where the show takes place gets slapped with a stiff fine, too. The law also bans the use of prosthetic devices like false breasts, which are a key part of Bandit’s Dolly Parton costume.
Building D.E.E.P. Bridges
A version of this story ran in the July / August 2023 issue. It’s a Thursday in mid-May, and Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton, Houston’s multitalented poet laureate emeritus, is busy. She’s getting ready for an event the following night, a collaboration involving herself, jazz drummer and composer Kendrick Scott, and the Harlem String Quartet. They’re honoring the Sugar Land 95, African-Americans who died as convict laborers and whose remains were found in 2018 during excavation for a construction project in Sugar Land, just west of Houston.
Houston ISD Takeover, The Musical
New superintendent Mike Miles put on a play to inspire teachers. Not everyone was amused. Hundreds of Houston’s teachers gathered at the NRG Center early morning Wednesday, where they were directed to wear school colors, wave school banners, and shake sparkly pom poms. Facilitators started the Harlem Shuffle dance in the aisles. And then, as the teachers were motioned back into their seats, the room turned dark and silence fell.
These Christians Think God Needs You Rich and to Rule the World
Wealthy megachurch televangelists are blending what’s known as the “prosperity gospel” with nationalist politics. These words may strike those unfamiliar with Copeland’s preaching as an odd thing to say to an audience overburdened with debt. But they’re emblematic of the heady world of the Word of Faith, a nondenominational Christian movement pioneered by another Texan, Kenneth Hagin. Word of Faith goes by many names—Word-Faith, the Faith movement, Positive Confession—and is most well known for promoting the prosperity gospel, the notion that true believers can use their words to bring about supernatural blessings and material well-being.
Staying Afloat
Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”. Articles cannot be rewritten,...
Strangest State: Ken Paxton and Other Odd Creatures
A version of this story ran in the July / August 2023 issue. This year’s regular session of the Texas Legislature ended with GOP lawmakers failing to pass a number of party-priorities bills, while passing some legislation targeting vulnerable Texans including transgender kids. It seemed like a new low even for the Lege. But then, out of the blue, a Texas miracle: Attorney General Ken Paxton was impeached in an overwhelming House vote.
The Hill Country’s Lost Utopia
A version of this story ran in the July / August 2023 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”
Isolation Makes Heat Waves More Deadly
When Donna Crawford didn’t hear back from her brother Lyle, she began to fear the worst. It was Monday, June 28, 2021, at the tail end of a blistering heat dome that had settled over the Pacific Northwest. Two days prior, daytime temperatures had soared to 108 degrees Fahrenheit in Gresham, Oregon, where Lyle lived alone in the small yellow house the siblings had grown up in. “I hope you’re doing OK in the heat,” she had said into his answering machine that day.
How Less-educated Whites Fell Behind and Blamed Race
A version of this story ran in the July / August 2023 issue. The fortunes of rural towns like Clinton, Arkansas collapsed during my young adulthood, from 2000 to 2010. The period was marked by recessions—the dot-com bust, the economic slump after 9/11, and the Great Recession. But those disasters laid bare a longer-running problem, a contraction of good jobs and an expansion of lowpaying ones in the service sector at places like Walmart, which began in Arkansas. On the East Coast, I entered job markets that were vibrant and growing, however fitfully, but in my hometown and places like it, the manual labor jobs once fueled by the building and infrastructure booms started to disappear.
Conservative Group Pushes Religious Books While Seeking to Ban Others
The Brave Books campaign promoted their own publications under the guise of protecting free speech. An overflow crowd of hundreds of people snaked around the Taylor Public Library on Saturday, August 5. They were there to attend a children’s book reading which featured two well-known conservative activists—Brave Books author and Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron and Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who now opposes the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports.
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