In March 2023, we became two of the first women to sue Texas over its abortion bans. While pregnant with twins, we’d each learned that one of our twins had severe complications that were threatening the lives of the other — and our own. Yet, we were denied potentially live-saving abortions. So we asked the […]
Category: News
Posted inCulture
Black-Owned Bookstores in Texas Bring Communities Together. They’re Also Harassed and Vandalized.
Fort Worth sisters Donna and Donya Craddock refer to 2020 as “the unicorn year.” There was the COVID-19 shutdown, but there was also something more — a death that prompted a period of racial reckoning. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered on camera by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What followed […]
Posted inOpinion
Texas County Pursues Death Penalty ‘Almost Exclusively’ Against People of Color, Report Shows. We Have an Opportunity to Change That.
My brother was wrongfully convicted. My wife is a police officer. My sister is the former city attorney for Austin, Texas. I have worked to free innocent people who were wrongfully convicted in Tarrant County and in the state more broadly. I was not shocked — but still incredibly disappointed — when I heard about […]
Posted inPolitics
Trump Finally Endorses Paxton, Cornyn Reduced to ‘Good Man’ Status
Donald Trump has officially endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, bucking his party’s mainstream donors and siding with the MAGA favorite in the May 26 Republican runoff. In a statement roughly the length of a Russian novel, Trump praised Paxton as an “America First Patriot,” a “MAGA Warrior,” and most importantly, “extremely […]
Posted inInvestigations
She Thought Her Daughter Was Faking Sick. Then She Found Out Her Elementary School Was Built on a Drilling Waste Site.
EXCLUSIVE If anyone had told Joey Giminiani what was under his house, he never would’ve bought it. On April 23, Giminiani took off work at the electric utility and joined a Zoom meeting from the home he had sunk his life savings into. He watched as the residential developers on the call insisted on two […]
Posted inCulture
‘When You Know Homeless People, You Can’t Ignore Them’: Inside ‘The Challenger,’ a Newspaper Written by and for Unhoused Austinites
Clifton Pappas, who is unhoused, has been a distributor for The Challenger newspaper for a year. He walks Austin streets wearing a black cowboy hat with a short rim and a backpack. He also carries what all distributors do: printed copies of the paper, as well as an ID badge with his photo and number, […]
Posted inNews
An Oilfield Leak Springs Under a Permian Basin Baptist Church
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Salty water is gurgling up from underground in the middle of the small Permian Basin town of Grandfalls, Texas. The liquid began pooling in the parking lot of the First Baptist […]
Posted inNews
It’s Not Just Tony Gonzales. Four More Texans Are in a New Report on Widespread Sexual Misconduct in Congress.
Five Congressmen from Texas are included in a new report released this week on sexual harassment in Congress, which has been rocked with recent sexual misconduct allegations against former U.S. Reps. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio and Eric Swalwell of California. The report by the National Women’s Defense League, a nonpartisan sexual harassment prevention organization, […]
Posted inOpinion
There Was Yet Another ‘Ugly Fight’ in Houston Over Immigration Enforcement. But the City Already Knows What’s Right.
Editor’s note: The views and opinions presented by guest contributors to The Barbed Wire do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the company, the newsroom, its staff, advisers, or advertisers. Emmanuel Gonzalez, a 15-year-old who has a serious intellectual disability, walked away from his mom’s fruit stand in Houston in October. His mother […]
Posted inNews
‘Accusations of ‘Indoctrination’ Were Nothing but an Excuse’: Texas Tech Roiled by Axing of Programs, Free Speech Lawsuit
In recent days, Texas Tech University has come under fire by free speech advocates over its decision to cancel programs — and a first amendment lawsuit filed by a student after she was disciplined in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death. The university system will shutter its programs focusing on gender identity and sexuality, according […]