By GERALD HERBERT and TED ANTHONY, Associated Press

The power of place is real.

In an increasingly virtual world, the physical spots where momentous things happened remain potent — and able to evoke some of our deepest-cutting moments.

That was the thinking behind these photos from New Orleans on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. By projecting images of places at some of their worst moments onto the way those places and neighborhoods appear now, something of a rudimentary visual time machine emerges.

The photos haunt. They bring back the chaos and fear of those jumbled days two decades ago. Images of moments captured and gone — water pushing up against buildings, makeshift memorials, empty roads with the projection of the days when people were using them in desperate bids to get out.

In one frame, the wreckage and rubble outside a house in 2005 is projected, at night, against the house as it stands today. In another, a woman, huddled up, wrapped in an American flag, braces herself against the elements and the world around him. Today, projected against a building, it is a phantom portal into another era.

Photography freezes and preserves moments. By having those moments touch time — reappearing in the city, in the spots where they happened in the first place — the power of the photos is magnified.

Remembering history is grounded in summoning the past in vivid and relevant ways. By bringing August 2005 in New Orleans to August 2025, a generation later, these photos show not only what disaster looked like, but what recovery and moving on look like as well.

This photo of a man pushing his bicycle through floodwaters near the Superdome in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto the same spot in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a makeshift tomb at a New Orleans street corner, concealing a body that had been lying on the sidewalk for days in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Dave Martin, is projected onto the same sidewalk Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo showing throngs of New Orleans residents gathering at a evacuation staging area along Interstate 10 in Metairie, La., in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Dave Martin, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto the same roadway. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a New Orleans resident walking through floodwaters coated with a fine layer of oil in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Bill Haber, is projected Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, in New Orleans, underneath the same overpass where photo was made. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of people taking goods from stores on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto a storefront in the same location. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of Milvertha Hendricks, 84, waiting in the rain with other flood victims outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, next to statues of the king and queen of Mardi Gras next to the center. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of receding floodwaters leaving their mark on a house and automobile on Orleans Avenue in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Ric Francis, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto the same house. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of Valerie Thomas and her nieces Shante Fletcher, 6, and Sarine Fletcher, 11, viewing the destruction of her brother’s home in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Gerald Herbert, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, onto the same block, while a heat lightning storm illuminates the clouds. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a young man wading through chest-deep floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Dave Martin, is projected Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, next to a mural of New Orleans music legend Allen Toussaint, below the overpass where the original photo was made. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo showing the body of a flood victim tied to a telephone pole in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Steve Senne, is projected Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, onto the same spot the original photo was taken. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a poodle perching itself precariously upon a pile of trash while surrounded by floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Rick Bowmer, is projected Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, onto a house in a neighborhood that was flooded by the storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of the FEMA markings indicating a deceased victim in the home of Michael Harrison, who died inside during Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Miss., taken by AP photographer Gerald Herbert, nephew of Harrison, is projected Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, onto his grave in Pass Christian, Miss. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo showing flood victims sitting at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center where they had been waiting for days to be evacuated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, along the Mississippi River behind the convention center. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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By SOPHIE BATES, Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The gun used in the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till is now on display for the public to see, 70 years after the killing.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History unveiled the .45-caliber pistol and its holster during a news conference Thursday, which is the 70th anniversary of Till’s murder.

The gun belonged to John William “J.W.” Milam who, alongside Roy Bryant, abducted Till from his great-uncle’s home on Aug. 28, 1955. The white men tortured and killed Till after the teenager was accused of whistling at a white woman in a rural Mississippi grocery store.

Till’s body was later found in the Tallahatchie River. Bryant and Milam were charged with Till’s murder, but they were acquitted by an all-white-male jury.

The gun was previously in the possession of a family in the Mississippi Delta, who donated it on the condition of anonymity. It will be displayed in the Emmett Till exhibit at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The gun was authenticated using the serial number, which matched the one written in FBI reports on Till’s murder.

Michael Morris, the director of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History, said he hopes the anniversary will cause people to reflect on how Till’s story has impacted societal progress.

“To me, that’s the legacy. It’s not just his death. It’s the way that he still finds a way to inspire folks to be the change that they want to see in the world,” Morris said.

Till’s murder was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Thousands came to his funeral, and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on an open casket so the country could see the gruesome state of her son’s body.

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Texas Observer reader,

Gall. We live in a state whose top leaders have entirely, vastly, monumentally too much goddamn gall. 

Just five days after the deadliest Texas flood in 104 years, Governor Greg Abbott announced a special legislative session not narrowly focused on the disaster but rather covering a Christmas list of far-right pet political projects including a Trump-led redistricting power grab. At the time of his announcement, more than 150 human beings were still officially missing in the Hill Country. 

By the time you read this, you’ll already know how that special session turned out. You might even—God help you (me, us all…)—be already following stories about a second one. So it goes. Today’s news moves at an unnatural speed, accelerated by technology, and today’s politics do the same, unimpeded by accountability.  

September/October 2025 Issue (Texas Observer)

Maybe you know that all too well, or feel it, something like a buzzing in the brain dispersing complex thoughts or strong moral sentiment. Maybe that’s part of why you picked up this magazine, a journalistic product whose norms developed in a bygone era but may be most needed today. Novelty, clarity, challenge, curation, empathy, elegance—all features of this form that are disfavored by profit-driven algorithms.

In this issue, I hope you’ll find and enjoy these sorely missed anachronisms. Whether in our investigative features that tackle stubborn policy issues—each amounting in its own way to state mistreatment of the vulnerable—or in our shorter pieces that illuminate a Jewish case against border militarization, an intellectual battle over Texas history, and, yes, the state of screamo music in Austin bookstores. 

It’s a pleasure to edit this stapled stack of papers you hold in your hands (or PDF you view on your screen), even in shadowy days for our profession. As always, I hope you’ll find pleasure, alongside the inevitable indignation, in reading it. 

Anyhoo, I’ve spent too long writing this. It’s time I got back to studying various forms of witchcraft to ward off that second special session…

Solidarity,

Note: To be the first to get all the stories in our bimonthly issues, become a Texas Observer member here.

The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our September/October 2025 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By MICHAEL BIESECKER and JOSHUA GOODMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump’s administration last month awarded a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to build and operate what it says will become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex, it didn’t turn to a large government contractor or even a firm that specializes in private prisons.

Instead, it handed the project on a military base to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that has no listed experience running a correction facility and had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million. The company also lacks a functioning website and lists as its address a modest home in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer.

The mystery over the award only deepened last week as the new facility began to accept its first detainees. The Pentagon has refused to release the contract or explain why it selected Acquisition Logistics over a dozen other bidders to build the massive tent camp at Fort Bliss in west Texas. At least one competitor has filed a complaint.

The secretive — and brisk — contracting process is emblematic, experts said, of the government’s broader rush to fulfill the Republican president’s pledge to arrest and deport an estimated 10 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. As part of that push, the government is turning increasingly to the military to handle tasks that had traditionally been left to civilian agencies.

A member of Congress who recently toured the camp said she was concerned that such a small and inexperienced firm had been entrusted to build and run a facility expected to house up to 5,000 migrants.

“It’s far too easy for standards to slip,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss. “Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.”

Attorney Joshua Schnell, who specializes in federal contracting law, said he was troubled that the Trump administration has provided so little information about the facility.

“The lack of transparency about this contract leads to legitimate questions about why the Army would award such a large contract to a company without a website or any other publicly available information demonstrating its ability to perform such a complicated project,” he said.

Ken A. Wagner, the president and CEO of Acquisition Logistics, did not respond to phone messages or emails. No one answered the door at his three-bedroom house listed as his company’s headquarters. Virginia records list Wagner as an owner of the business, though it’s unclear whether he might have partners.

This home in a suburb of Richmond, Va., is listed as the headquarters of Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that won a contract from the Trump administration worth up to $1.2 billion to build and operate what is expected to be the nation’s largest immigrant detention facility inside a U.S. Army base in Texas. Property records show the house belongs to Kenneth A. Wagner, the president and CEO of the company. (AP Photo/Alan Suderman)

Army declines to release contract

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved using Fort Bliss for the new detention center, and the administration has hopes to build more at other bases. A spokesperson for the Army declined to discuss its deal with Acquisition Logistics or reveal details about the camp’s construction, citing the litigation over the company’s qualifications.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to answer questions about the detention camp it oversees.

Named Camp East Montana for the closest road, the facility is being built in the sand and scrub Chihuahuan Desert, where summertime temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit and heat-related deaths are common. The 60-acre (24-hectare) site is near the U.S.-Mexico border and the El Paso International Airport, a key hub for deportation flights.

The camp has drawn comparisons to “Alligator Alcatraz,” a $245 million tent complex erected to hold ICE detainees in the Florida Everglades. That facility has been the subject of complaints about unsanitary conditions and lawsuits. A federal judge recently ordered that facility to be shut down.

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The vast majority of the roughly 57,000 migrants detained by ICE are housed at private prisons operated by companies like Florida’s Geo Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic. As those facilities fill up, ICE is also exploring temporary options at military bases in California, New York and Utah.

At Fort Bliss, construction began within days of the Army issuing the contract on July 18. Site work began months earlier, before Congress had passed Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, which includes a record $45 billion for immigration enforcement. The Defense Department announcement specified only that the Army was financing the initial $232 million for the first 1,000 beds at the complex.

Three white tents, each about 810 feet (250 meters) long, have been erected, according to satellite imagery examined by The Associated Press. A half dozen smaller buildings surround them.

Setareh Ghandehari, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Detention Watch, said the use of military bases hearkens back to World War II, when Japanese Americans were imprisoned at Army camps including Fort Bliss. She said military facilities are especially prone to abuse and neglect because families and loved ones have difficulty accessing them.

“Conditions at all detention facilities are inherently awful,” Ghandehari said. “But when there’s less access and oversight, it creates the potential for even more abuse.”

Company will be responsible for security

A June 9 solicitation notice for the Fort Bliss project specified the contractor will be responsible for building and operating the detention center, including providing security and medical care. The document also requires strict secrecy, ordering the contractor inform ICE to respond to any calls from members of Congress or the news media.

The bidding was open only to small firms such as Acquisition Logistics, which receives preferential status because it’s classified as a veteran and Hispanic-owned small disadvantaged business.

Though Trump’s administration has fought to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs, federal contracting rules include set-asides for small businesses owned by women or minorities. For a firm to compete for such contracts, at least 51% of it must be owned by people belonging to a federally designated disadvantaged racial or ethnic group.

One of the losing bidders, Texas-based Gemini Tech Services, filed a protest challenging the award and the Army’s rushed construction timeline with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’ independent oversight arm that resolves such disputes.

Gemini alleges Acquisition Logistics lacks the experience, staffing and resources to perform the work, according to a person familiar with the complaint who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Acquisition Logistics’ past jobs include repairing small boats for the Air Force, providing information technology support to the Defense Department and building temporary offices to aid with immigration enforcement, federal records show.

Gemini and its lawyer didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

A ruling by the GAO on whether to sustain, dismiss or require corrective action is not expected before November. A legal appeal is also pending with a U.S. federal court in Washington.

Schnell, the contracting lawyer, said Acquisitions Logistics may be working with a larger company. Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic Corp., the nation’s biggest for-profit prison operators, have expressed interest in contracting with the Pentagon to house migrants.

In an earnings call this month, Geo Group CEO George Zoley said his company had teamed up with an established Pentagon contractor. Zoley didn’t name the company, and Geo Group didn’t respond to repeated requests asking with whom it had partnered.

A spokesperson for CoreCivic said it wasn’t partnering with Acquisition Logistics or Gemini.

Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Alan Suderman in Richmond, Va., and Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, N.M., contributed to this report.

Contact the AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.