‘Forever Chemicals,’ Religion, and Family Tragedy in Texas

Editor’s Note: This excerpt is adapted from Loose of Earth: A Memoir (April 2024) with permission from University of Texas Press. The Environmental Protection Agency announced limits on PFAS in drinking water earlier this month. A blade of light glances off my grandparents’ white Lincoln. They park at the curb. A torque of despair turns […]

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The Epic Texas Panhandle Fire Is Just a Preview

Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted with permission from the Sierra Club magazine. On February 26, a tiny flame sparked a mile north of the ranching community of Stinnett, Texas. This part of the Texas Panhandle is sparsely populated—Hutchinson County has 20,000 people and roughly the same number of cows—so no one saw the smoldering […]

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In Travis County, a Fight over Bail Hearings Has Big Stakes for Criminal Defendants

In Travis County, the magistration process—the initial bail hearing after someone is arrested—isn’t cinematic. Arrestees are either led to a small room within the jail’s central booking area, or a Travis County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) employee might bring a computer to their holding cell. At the end of a short conversation, during which the arrestee […]

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Saving Lone Star Literary Life

Out in West Texas, a pair of aspiring novelists and enterprising small-town newspaper owners, Barbara Brannon and Kay Ellington, were dismayed by the number of publications that were dropping book sections, cutting critics, and otherwise decimating literary coverage, especially in the Lone Star State. By the 2010s, “93 percent of the state’s newspapers offer no […]

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Strangest State: Airplane Etiquette, Australian Octopi, and an Itinerant Police Chief

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Is Ted Cruz’s Podcast PAC Payoff Scheme Illegal?

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz is facing yet another complaint to the Federal Elections Commission that claims he has “brazenly” violated federal campaign finance laws through his podcast deal with one of the nation’s largest media conglomerates.  Cruz struck a deal in 2022 with San Antonio-based radio giant iHeartMedia to pay for the production, marketing, and […]

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Water Scarcity and Clean Energy Collide in South Texas

A chemical company, Avina Clean Hydrogen Inc., has purchased the last available water supply from the Nueces River of South Texas, raising concerns as reservoirs dwindle and drought persists.  Avina’s Nueces Green Ammonia plant plans to separate the hydrogen from water, convert it to ammonia and export it as a high-tech fuel alternative to oil […]

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Loon Star State: Cult of the All-Powerful Orange Czar

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here.

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TPPF’s Long Love Affair with Ken Paxton

Ken Paxton has spent almost the entirety of his decade leading the Office of the Texas Attorney General while also under felony indictment for alleged securities fraud. Yet, like every other time Paxton has faced allegations of wrongdoing, including misuse of office, retaliatory firings, and criminal misdeeds, he has once again managed to evade real […]

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Nine Years, Nine Lives: Paxton’s Latest Legal Escape

Call him Kevlar Ken. Once again, Texas’ attorney general has proven to possess an impenetrable shield of impunity.  Last week, special prosecutors struck a deal to essentially let Ken Paxton off the hook for three felony securities fraud charges just before the nearly decade-old case was set to go to trial in Houston. The charges […]

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