Texas Observer

Announcing our MOLLYs special guest: @SkyePerryman, President & CEO of @DemocracyFwd and one of TIME’s 100 most influential people. Join us in Austin for a powerful night supporting independent journalism. 🎟️ Get your tickets now—link in bio.

Last week: We obtained Flock license-plate reader logs that show police conducted 117 immigration-related searches of local data from Jan to March. One depts search: "Obstructing Justice – Suspicious female filming traffic stop & making comments about ICE” texasobserver.org/license-plate-…

Earlier: "Castroville, 'the Little Alsace of Texas,' was founded in 1844 by colonists from that region of France. The 'native sons' as I’ve heard them called, occupied a caste to which I, a Puerto Rican and Greek ... from the city, would never belong." texasobserver.org/time-comes-for…

This Thursday - The Myth of Red Texas tour hits Austin. Will be a lot of fun and honored to be joined by @by_jmiller of @TexasObserver

Out today: Political and business leaders along the Texas Gulf Coast and into Louisiana have bent over backward to bring in LNG; since then, they’ve seen explosions, air pollution, gutted shrimping income, and transformed neighborhoods and natural spaces. texasobserver.org/brownsville-la…

From @MichellePitcher: If the U.S. Supreme Court renders a decision in favor of Charles Flores and others, it would likely force the Court of Criminal Appeals to relax its extremely strict handling of appeals based on shoddy and outdated science. texasobserver.org/texas-top-crim…

“Brownsville cannot keep selling us out to these toxic polluters.” From @GaigeDavila in our magazine: Residents are resisting this town's plans to make liquefied natural gas a key part of its future. texasobserver.org/brownsville-la…

“It’s showing that the government is willing to literally waste billions upon billions of dollars to make these useless walls … instead of taking that exact same money and making sure that everybody has housing or clean water and food and education.” texasobserver.org/trump-border-w…

In poetry: Fine thread nearly invisible in the early light kept getting caught again and again in our mouths. We gave up after walking through the fourth web, turned around, and saved the outing for some other day. texasobserver.org/poem-late-spri…

Previously: “The Dallas Express ‘news story’ about Texas state Representative and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Gene Wu’s juvenile son does not pass the ethical sniff test, from its newsworthiness to its use of anonymous sources and a fake byline.” texasobserver.org/dallas-express…

Featured story: Cuba is in the dark. Literally—for most of the day, most of the country has no electricity. The national power grid, known by its Spanish acronym, SEN, has collapsed 7 times in the past 18 months. texasobserver.org/cuba-oil-block…

Previously: Applications for vouchers had been submitted for about 275,000 students as of late March. But just 25% percent were for students currently enrolled in public schools. (That amounts to about 1% of the state’s 5.5 million public school students.) texasobserver.org/school-voucher…

From Wednesday: Flock has sold nearly 92,000 cameras to local police departments—including more than 10,000 in Texas, according to an open source map. Privacy advocates are determined to bring that number down, and they're starting to get their way. texasobserver.org/license-plate-…

“It’s basically like: Either work with them, or they’re going to do it anyway. I know a lot of landowners down here don’t really have the means to fight back in court, or the means to get legal representation, or even know that process.” texasobserver.org/trump-new-tool…

From Wednesday: Though they haven't won every battle, privacy advocates in Texas are fighting an increasingly successful war against Flock Safety's invasive network of cameras. texasobserver.org/license-plate-…

The Texas Legislature created a path to relief for people convicted by "junk science" like hypnosis and faulty forensics. But the state Court of Criminal Appeals has created an impossible bar to pass in order to use the law. Could SCOTUS offer relief? texasobserver.org/texas-top-crim…

Observers of the runoff have argued that the overall lack of disparity between Colin Allred and Julie Johnson has made this race less about progressive politics and more about personality and political grudges. texasobserver.org/allred-johnson…

May Day events - rain or shine! Details: texasaflcio.org/events/statewi…

Texans weren't automatically conservative. Join me to hear about cowboys who fought against the death of the open range, when workers & farmers united against the money power, and how we can reignite that fight Austin May 7 at Alienated Majesty with @by_jmiller of @TexasObserver

@joehilley 4,835,250 people in Texas voted for Harris.

@TexasObserver Y’all voted for him

Nearly all the land along the Texas-Mexico border is privately owned and this has slowed down past presidential administrations’ wall-building efforts in the state. Now Trump is using an underhanded trick to get the barrier built: texasobserver.org/trump-new-tool…

Meenu Batra has been released from ICE detention: texasobserver.org/immigration-co…