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Calling All Marfans: Mystery Lights Inspire Annual Celebration
Marfa is full of contradictions. It has a population of less than 2,000, yet it attracts international tourists. It is located deep in the heart of the scorching west Texas desert, yet the weather remains cooled by its near-mile high elevation. And although the skies are some of the darkest in Texas, locals and visitors alike marvel at the mysterious lights nine miles east of town.
Uvalde Vive
A version of this story ran in the September / October 2022 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...
Three Months After Uvalde Tragedy, Hundreds Demand Increase in Assault Weapon Age Limit (Photos)
“Our children's lives depend on common-sense laws that the vast majority of Texans desperately want.“. On Saturday, a few hundred gathered on the Texas Capitol’s south steps and lawn to demand that Republican Governor Greg Abbott call a special legislative session to raise the legal age of purchase for assault-style rifles from 18 to 21 or higher. The event included a large contingent of family members of children killed in the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, the worst school shooting in state history. Survivors and parents of the lost from the 2018 school shootings in Santa Fe and in Parkland, Florida, attended too. The rally was hosted by March for Our Lives, the nationwide gun control movement born of the Parkland tragedy that now connects an ever-growing web of the bereaved and outraged.
Abbott and ERCOT Keep Texans in the Dark
From selecting a new CEO to an obscure committee report, the governor kept tight control over significant post-storm energy changes. In the one and a half years since the deadly winter power failures of 2021, Governor Greg Abbott has repeatedly promised that everything is copacetic regarding Texas’ shaky power grid. He’s even gone so far as to micromanage how often the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s beleaguered independent grid operator, issues public updates on grid conditions. Behind the scenes, he’s also kept a tight grip on the regulatory machinations that have largely taken place behind the scenes with little transparency or public input.
A Brief History of Junk Science and Bad Forensics
“Texas has a long history with the use of unreliable evidence. [It also has made] unique efforts to address that searing history.”. John and Sally Sweek, a young married couple living in east Dallas, were known by friends—a lively party crowd—to sell cocaine out of their apartment. Two of those friends found their bodies there in 1987: The Sweeks had been stabbed to death.
Greg Abbott’s Foul Spectacle
Shortly after Governor Greg Abbott announced in April that he would bus asylum-seekers from Texas to Washington, D.C. in what critics called a knee-jerk stunt to pump poll numbers against challenger Beto O’Rourke ahead of the upcoming election, Texas state Representative Gene Wu of Houston mocked the governor in a Tweet: “This was a well thought-out [sic] plan with no easily foreseeable unintended consequences.”
‘Don’t Say Trans’ Policy Passes in North Texas School District
“I transferred to another district this year because of the culture of fear you continue to create,” said one LGBTQ+ student. The parking lot was packed Monday evening when I arrived at the administrative headquarters of the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD), from which I graduated over a decade ago. Four pop-up tents had been set up in the parking lot by conservative activist groups who held a tailgate party ahead of the meeting. Among the tailgaters was Julie McCarty, the founder of the True Texas Project, a right-wing group descended from the NE Tarrant Tea Party that’s been designated an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
With Mohammed Amer, ‘Mo’ Means More Love
From the landmarks, music and people—among them, one is trill-ing, one is monuMINTal and one is sittin’ sidewayz—Houston-based comic Mohammed Amer’s latest endeavor really should have come with a disclaimer. “Hoard up on Bengay, Houstonians, since you will be pointing out all the references you know until your finger goes numb,” or something like that.
Money for Nothing and Your Chips for Free
Big business is feasting in the final days of Texas' signature corporate tax break, while lobbying for a new program to refill the trough. Like a designer outlet store holding a liquidation sale for all its merchandise, the Texas Comptroller’s office has had a constant crowd of corporate customers forming a line out the door, eager to get their high-end property tax deals rung up at the register before the sale ends and the store closes for good.
Roberta Colindrez: From Class Clown to the Baseball Diamond
"I want people to see themselves more," the Latinx actress says of her role in the Prime Video reboot of A League of Their Own. When young thespians are first bitten by the acting bug it’s usually because it provides them with an opportunity to show-off. That was the...
Loon Star State: Moloch
A version of this story ran in the July / August 2022 issue. To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here. Everyday Gun Ownership Set the Stage for the Uvalde Massacre: TXO’s Editor in Chief Gabriel Arana considers...
Impending Water Crisis in Laredo
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,...
Juror Speaks Out Hours Before Execution in Death Penalty Case
One of the people who voted to convict Kosoul Chanthakoummane said the condemned man’s appeal deserved to be heard. Update 7:15pm: As noted by the media, including the Texas Tribune‘s Jolie McCullough, the execution of Kosoul Chanthakoummane proceeded as scheduled. “His mother watched him die,” McCullough reported.
Trans Citizens Fight for ‘the Right to Exist’ in Mexico
This story was originally published by Global Press Journal. When Santiago Santiago Rodríguez began his hormonal transition a year ago, he discovered that he wouldn’t be able to change his name and gender on his documents in his home state of Chiapas, which doesn’t have a law regulating the administrative process.
Mexican Drought Spurs a South Texas Water Crisis
This story is a collaboration between The Texas Observer and Inside Climate News. Northern Mexico’s water crisis is spilling into Texas, drying out the two bi-national reservoirs of the Rio Grande, on which millions of people and a billion dollars in agriculture rely. One reservoir, Lake Falcon, is just...
There Are ‘No Real Consequences’ for Toxic Emissions Events
This piece is being published in collaboration with Public Health Watch. On July 26, black clouds rose from flares at a Chevron Phillips chemical plant in Baytown, Texas, after a power outage hit the plant and the surrounding area. The company estimated in a preliminary report to the state that...
Wind Capital in the Gulf
Upcoming offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico could bring jobs as well as clean energy to Texas communities. President Biden is currently dangling a tantalizing clean energy opportunity in front of the Gulf Coast, one that seems tailor-made for Texas to seize. Last month, he announced that 700,000 acres of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico should soon be available to lease for offshore wind development. With Louisiana already gunning for the leases, it’s unclear how much enthusiasm Texas officials have for the opportunity, or whether these projects would connect to ERCOT versus the larger electric grid serving the eastern United States.
Zavala County Joins Call for Special Session on Assault Rifles
Local governments in and near Uvalde are still urging the governor to consider raising the age to purchase AR-style weapons. On Wednesday, the commissioners court of Zavala County—the 11,000-person county immediately south of Uvalde—passed a resolution urging Republican Governor Greg Abbott to call a special legislative session to consider increasing the age of purchase for assault-style rifles from 18 to 21.
Upcoming Execution Based on Discredited Forensic Science
Kosoul Chanthakoummane is set to be executed August 17 for the murder of a Dallas realtor in a case built on hypnosis and faulty evidence. Kosoul Chanthakoummane, the son of Laotian immigrants, is set to be executed on Aug. 17 in Texas for the murder of Dallas-area realtor Sarah Walker. On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, Walker’s body was discovered by a couple visiting a model home in the Craig Ranch subdivision in McKinney. She had been stabbed 33 times, but the Collin County Medical Examiner noted that ten knife wounds had punctured vital organs or blood vessels—any one would have been fatal. She had put up a fight. She had a broken nose and fractured teeth. And—a point that would later prove critical at the trial—she had a bite mark on the back of her neck.
Notorious Houston Serial Killer Requests Compassionate Release
Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr is currently serving six life sentences for participating in a murder, rape, and torture ring when he was a teenager. Elmer Wayne Henley Jr, a gray-haired 66-year-old serving six life sentences for his role in Houston’s most notorious serial killings, is requesting compassionate release from Texas prison, according to letters some victims’ families recently received.
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