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/.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY

Online age checks are on the rise in the U.S. and elsewhere, asking people for IDs or face scans to prove they are over 18 or 21 or even 13. To proponents, they’re a tool to keep children away from adult websites and other material that might be harmful to them.

But opponents see a worrisome trend toward a less secure, less private and less free internet, where people can be denied access not just to pornography but news, health information and the ability to speak openly and anonymously.

“I think that many of these laws come from a place of good intentions,” said Jennifer Huddleston, a senior technology policy fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “Certainly we all want to protect young people from harmful content before they’re ready to see it.”

More than 20 states have passed some kind of age verification law, though many face legal challenges. While no such law exists on the federal level in the United States, the Supreme Court recently allowed a Mississippi age check law for social media to stand. In June, the court upheld a Texas law aimed at preventing minors from watching pornography online, ruling that adults don’t have a First Amendment right to access obscene speech without first proving their age.

Elsewhere, the United Kingdom now requires users visiting websites that allow pornography to verify their age. Beyond adult sites, platforms like Reddit, X, Telegram and Bluesky have also committed to age checks. France and several other European Union countries also are testing a government sponsored verification app.

And Australia has banned children under 16 from accessing social media.

“Platforms now have a social responsibility to ensure the safety of our kids is a priority for them,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in November. The platforms have a year to work out how they could implement the ban before penalties are enforced.

To critics, though, age check laws raise “significant privacy and speech concerns, not only for young people themselves, but also for all users of the internet,” Huddleston said. “Because the only way to make sure that we are age verifying anyone under the age of 18 is to also age verify everyone over the age 18. And that could have significant impacts on the speech and privacy rights of adults.”

The state laws are a hodgepodge of requirements, but they generally fall into two camps. On one side are laws — as seen in Louisiana and Texas — that require websites comprised of more than 33% of adult content to verify users’ ages or face fines. Then there are laws — enacted in Wyoming or South Dakota — that seek to regulate sites that have any material that is considered obscene or otherwise harmful to minors.

What’s considered harmful to minors can be subjective, and this is where experts believe such laws run afoul of the First Amendment. It means people may be required to verify their ages to access anything, from Netflix to a neighborhood blog.

“In places like Australia and the U.K., there is already a split happening between the internet that people who are willing to identify themselves or go through age verification can see and the rest of the internet. And that’s historically a very dangerous place for us to end up,” said Jason Kelley, activism director at the nonprofit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

What’s behind the gates is determined by a “hundred different decision-makers,” Kelley said, from politicians to tech platforms to judges to individuals who have sued because they believe that a piece of content is dangerous.

While many companies are complying, verifying users’ ages can prove a burden, especially for smaller platforms. On Friday, Bluesky said it will no longer be available in Mississippi because of its age verification requirements. While the social platform already does age verification in the U.K., it said Mississippi’s approach “would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky.”

That’s because it requires every user to undergo an age check, not just those who want to access adult content. It would also require Bluesky to identify and track users that are children.

“We think this law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals, and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms,” the company said in a blog post.

Some websites and social media companies, such as Instagram’s parent company Meta, have argued that age verification should be done by app store owners, such as Apple and Google, and not individual platforms. This would mean that app stores need to verify their users’ ages before they allow them to download apps. Unsurprisingly, Apple and Google disagree.

“Billed as ‘simple’ by its backers, including Meta, this proposal fails to cover desktop computers or other devices that are commonly shared within families. It also could be ineffective against pre-installed apps,” Google said in a blog post.

Nonetheless, a growing number of tech companies are implementing verification systems to comply with regulations or ward off criticism that they are not protecting children. This includes Google, which recently started testing a new age-verification system for YouTube that relies on AI to differentiate between adults and minors based on their watch histories.

Instagram is testing a similar AI system to determine if kids are lying about their ages. Roblox, which was sued by the Louisiana attorney general on claims it doesn’t do enough to protect children from predators, requires users who want to access certain games rated for those over 17 to submit a photo ID and undergo a face scan for verification. Roblox has also recently begun requiring age verification for teens who want to chat more freely on platform.

Face scans that promise to estimate a person’s age may address some of the concerns around IDs, but they can be unreliable. Can AI accurately tell, for instance, if someone is 17.5 or just turned 18?

“Sometimes it’s less accurate for women or it’s less accurate for certain racial or ethnic groups or for certain physical characteristics that then may mean that those people have to go through additional privacy invasive screenings to prove that they are of a certain age,” Huddleston said.

While IDs are a common way of verifying someone’s age, the method raises security concerns: What happens if companies don’t delete the uploaded files, for instance?

Case in point: the recent data breaches at Tea, an app for women to anonymously warn each other about the men they date, speak to some of these concerns. The app requires women who sign up to upload an ID or undergo a scan to prove that they are women. Tea wasn’t supposed to keep the files but it did, and stored them in a way that allowed hackers to not only access the images, but also their private messages.