Editor’s Note: This story was supported by grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California. Seated inside a Starbucks café last February, Grace Bellido, 14, shares some of her … Continued
The gaping mouth of Bracken Cave, created when limestone collapsed into a sinkhole in this rocky patch of Hill Country millennia ago, reveals only darkness to the human eye. Yet the room inside is filled with the pulsing life of … Continued
You’ve probably heard about the Trump administration’s plans for a border wall through Big Bend. Or its plans not to build a wall at all, but instead to put up a futuristic forcefield of lights and sensors. You may have … Continued
If Texas is, as its pledge of allegiance states, “one state under God,” this begs a question. What God? Whose God? For many Texans, it’s undoubtedly the Christian God, because (so they say) we’re a Christian nation. They can point, … Continued
Editor’s Note: Lupe Mendez, poetry editor of the Texas Observer, is author of the new book We Exist in the Whisper: Huelga School Verses (Arte Público Press, 2026)–one of the first works to tackle Houston’s 1970s huelga school movement. Mendez’s … Continued
Every Thursday and Sunday evening, a dozen volunteers file into the back room of Vesper, a community space in East Austin. In the workroom-turned-library, there is a small kitchen, bright overhead lighting, and hundreds of books and magazines stacked every … Continued