Money’s always a hot topic in Texas elections — and this year it’s blazing. A staggering $128 million has been spent so far in Texas’ Senate primary, making the race the most expensive on record, according to AdImpact, a political advertisement tracking platform. Republican ad spending is responsible for the lion’s share of that amount […]
Author Archives: Cara Kelly
Cara Kelly is Managing Editor of The Barbed Wire. Her reporting has uncovered institutional sexual harassment and violence in massage schools, ride-share companies and the Boy Scouts of America. She spent nearly five years on the investigations team at USA Today after a stint as entertainment editor for the paper during the height of the Me Too movement. Before that, she worked in the Style section of the Washington Post.
Cara is an adjunct professor at American University, where she earned her masters degree in journalism. She's an adopted member of the Texas press corp after spending a year investigating sexual harassment in the senate for Texas Monthly. She's convinced Texas is a top-tier news state, alongside her home of South Carolina.
Posted inNews
Jasmine Crockett Was Asked About Her ‘Electability’ Again. Some Say That’s Just a ‘Pretext’ for Race.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Texas state Rep. James Talarico faced off in a debate on Saturday, giving Texas voters their first true glimpse at the U.S. Senate candidates’ policy proposals — and contrasting political styles — ahead of the March 3 primary election. During Saturday’s debate, moderators Daniel Marin, a KXAN news anchor, and […]
Posted inInvestigations
Where Did Anti-Trans Laws Start? How a Forgotten Houston Ordinance Turned Into a Massive, Nationwide Culture War
This story is a collaboration between The Barbed Wire and the Investigative Reporting Workshop— a nonprofit newsroom at American University that trains student journalists on in-depth reporting. When she was elected mayor of Houston in 2009, Annise Parker became the first openly gay mayor of a major American city. In 2014, Houston was one of […]
Posted inCulture
Micah Parsons’ Dallas Return Resulted In a… Tie? And More Texas Football Talk
If you weren’t actively rooting for the Cowboys or Texans to make it all the way this year — we have new motivation to unlock your inner armchair coach. Bad Bunny is headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in February. That’s right, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio will succeed Kendrick Lamar as the headliner of the […]
Posted inSports
This Weekend in Texas Football: Cowboy Tears, a Camp Mystic Tribute & a Texas Tech Victory
Well, it turns out that even the great Brandon Aubrey couldn’t kick his way out of a slightly cringe-y weekend for Texas football. Welcome back to The Barbed Wire does football, in which our team of completely unqualified-to-write-about sports writers recap the highlights (and lowlights, and baby lights) of Texas teams. After the thrill of […]
Posted inCulture
Heartache for Texans Fans, Boos for Arch, Brandon Aubrey’s Golden Leg, and More Texas Football
Are you football-curious? Want to know what your coworkers are talking about but don’t know who Kirk Herbstreit is (or he gives you the ick)? We’ve got you covered. We’re trying out a new approach to football coverage at The Barbed Wire in which we share some of our internal dialogue, text exchanges, and jokes […]
Posted inCulture
Journalists Are Just as Fucked Up as Everyone Else. Admitting It Might Help Us Save Democracy.
I was sitting in the florescent haze of a conference room in New Orleans this June when something snapped in my chaotic brain. Thousands of journalists had descended like locusts on a Canal Street Marriott for the annual Investigative Reporters & Editors conference which, in my opinion, is the best (if most pretentious) gathering in […]
Posted inNews
Author of Texas Abortion Ban Denies He Paid for Abortions Amid Bombshell Allegations from Former Exotic Dancer
State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, who authored Texas’ “trigger ban” on abortion, said in a statement on Friday that he has never paid for an abortion. The statement, posted on X, came after Alex Grace — who describes herself as a mother of four, political news curator, and exotic dancer — alleged that the Southlake-based Republican […]
Posted inNews
In Natural Disasters, Community Matters More Than Ever. ‘Help’s Not Coming from the Government.’
“I’m about to lose her,” yelled a volunteer firefighter in Wall, Texas on July 4. Chief John Manera’s team of unpaid men without swiftwater rescue training were stopping the current from dragging a woman to near-certain death. In a video capturing the operation, two men are submerged up to their necks, their orange flotation devices […]
Posted inNews
I’ll Admit It, the All-Female Blue Origin Space Launch Made Me Cry
I met the news of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launch with a bit of an eye-roll this morning. Even though it put Van Horn, Texas (almost two hours southeast of El Paso), at the epicenter of seemingly every major news outlet — and Texas news is sort of my job — it had barely […]