'Unplanned,' a new film about Johnson's conversion from Planned Parenthood administrator to anti-abortion crusader, puts her back in the spotlight. But her story still doesn’t add up.
After Aliah Hernandez was brutally beaten in a New Braunfels motel room, her attacker walked away free.
Welcome to the Frisco Gun Club, where the elite pack heat.
Filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe discusses “Evolution of a Criminal,” a riveting work of self-examination.
If the Border Patrol really wants to be more transparent, it should release key surveillance footage of questionable shooting incidents.
How a big chunk of East Texas might end up underwater to keep Dallas swimming in growth potential.
Why are Texas police officers confiscating property from people who haven’t committed a crime?
Heightened security measures along the border—including a dramatic increase in personnel and highly sophisticated military equipment—have made that part of our state resemble a war zone. As violent clashes with Mexican citizens increase, a crucial question emerges: Who will hold the U.S. Border Patrol accountable?
Marc Levin, the director of the Center for Effective Justice and co-founder of Right on Crime, makes the fiscal conservative’s argument for closing correctional facilities.
The Legislature was looking in the wrong place when it tried to solve the state’s water crisis.
An El Paso police investigator bullied sixteen-year-old Daniel Villegas into falsely confessing to two murders. Where were his parents? Where was his lawyer? And why, after eighteen years in prison, does the district attorney want to keep him locked up?
It’s not all sweetness and light in the grapefruit groves of the Rio Grande Valley.
Ron Paul may be out of office, but he’s still trying to save the country from itself.
Reflecting on his ten years as the executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a center-left think tank based in Austin, Scott McCown makes the case for why some Texans should be paying higher taxes and explains why Governor Perry’s Texas doesn’t work for everyone.
Ted Cruz is going all in against immigration reform. But would his win be our loss?
Jamie Meltzer, a documentarian, talks about his new film "Freedom Fighters," about a grassroots detective agency started by a group of exonerees in Dallas.
Over the past two decades a movement to increase the importance of standardized testing in public schools has swept across the country. It was born in Texas. Is Texas also where it might die?
The Texas Tribune reported Monday that the president of the Fort Bend County Tea Party formerly served as the “director of propaganda” for the American Fascist Party. Listen to a speech Ives gave in September at Tea Party meeting where he hosted Michael Quinn Sullivan.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife department is temporarily suspending its controversial policy of shooting wild burros in Big Bend Ranch State Park to control the animal population.
The future is likely going to require us to move large amounts of water from wet but sparsely populated places (a.k.a. East Texas) to thirsty, booming cities. Good thing there’s a plan for that. There is a plan, right?
Texas Parks and Wildlife has embarked on an ambitious plan to restore the desert bighorn sheep population in Big Bend Ranch State Park. To accomplish this goal, the department has had to make hard choices about which animals live, which animals die, and what truly belongs in the Trans-Pecos.
A brief history of every Legislature we’ve ever covered.
For the Eighty-second Legislature (our twentieth at the Capitol), everything old was new again: the state faced a budget deficit; the governor harbored presidential ambitions; the members of the Best list were hard to find; and the names on the Worst list picked themselves.
Despite rampant fears to the contrary, the bloody drug violence in Mexico hasn’t spilled over into Texas—but that doesn’t mean it’s not transforming life all along the border.
It has more supporters here than anywhere else. It fueled the Republican landslide. It has its own caucus. But what is the tea party? And how will it use its power?
As we head into the most critical legislative session in decades—maybe ever—the question is not just, Who are the people with the most clout at the Capitol? It’s also, What do they want?
Who’s the toughest opponent for Republicans who want to crack down on illegal immigration? Other Republicans.
The future of Texas depends on how well we are able to educate kids who can’t speak English. Has an elementary school in El Paso figured out the best way to do it?
State representative Allen Fletcher is the chairman of a House subcommittee on white-collar crime. So how did his very own company get tangled up in a white-collar-crime investigation?
Tomball state representative Allen Fletcher is on his way to a second term. His former business associate may be on his way to the federal penitentiary.
Does the country’s most popular conspiracy talk radio host really believe that 9/11 was an inside job? That global warming is a plot cooked up by the World Bank? That an elite cabal wants to kill most of the people on the planet (including you)? Two million listeners think so—and
After a sudden pang of conscience, former Bryan Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson became a pro-life activist and a star on the conservative talk show circuit. But is she telling the truth?
Does Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq war make him a traitor to his party and his country? Or the only real Republican in the presidential race?
After his son died of a drug overdose in his fraternity house at SMU, Tom Stiles began asking questions that campus authorities preferred not to answer. Two years later, he is still learning the truth about what happened—and why.
Michael Quinn Sullivan is the most powerful (and feared) activist at the Capitol. So who is he?
Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have given us a natural gas boom—and a whole lot of questions.
This year’s Republican primary will most likely be Ron Paul’s final run for office. And to the surprise of a political establishment that long ago wrote him off, he’s going out on a high note.
No state has defied the federal government’s environmental regulations more fiercely than Texas, and no governor has been more outspoken about the “job-killing” policies of the EPA than Rick Perry. But does that mean we can all breathe easy?
After last night’s dramatic play by Senator Davis, the calculation this morning seems to be: Will the Dems fare better or worse in a special? There is still time to undo the maneuver, if six Democrats join the Rs in a 4/5 vote to suspend the rules today. Perry’s spokesperson
Patrick was genuinely angry when he blamed Lt. Gov. Dewhurst for sinking his anti-groping bill Tuesday night. But his decision to stand by that accusation in the cold light of day Wednesday afternoon was much more interesting, as was his choice of words. "Someone who will not stand up
As the Morning News's Bob Garrett reported this morning, the question of funny money came up at last night's first public hearing of the budget conference committee. The budget only balances if billions of dollars worth of hoped-for Medicaid savings materialize, and Sylvester Turner questioned LBB officials on how
Dewhurst wanted to bring up SB 22, the school finance bill, this afternoon, but couldn't get the two Democratic votes he needed to suspend the two-thirds rule, even after a thirty minute huddle in the middle of the floor before the end of today's session. Finance chair Ogden has identified
Senator Deuell stopped by the press table yesterday in the ominous quiet before the budget debate storm began, and told us a story about Archie Bunker. Sally Struthers (or maybe it was Meathead) walks into the kitchen and asks Edith what she is cooking. “Yankee pot roast,” she says. Whereupon
A rumor is floating around the Senate that Republicans might try an end around on the two-thirds rule to pass the budget. Under the Senate rules, Wednesdays are “House bill days” in which House bills already on the calendar may be brought up for consideration without suspending the regular order
With public education facing an estimated $7 billion in cuts, the question on everyone’s mind is, Are Texas schools doomed? So we assembled a group of dinner guests (a superintendent, advocates on both sides, an education union rep, and the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency) to find out. Check,
Traditionally, swing votes are found in the middle of the political spectrum, but this session’s Anthony Kennedy in the state Senate may come from the far right. While all eyes have been on Royce West and Chuy Hinojosa, the two Democrats considered most likely to vote with the Republican caucus
We talked to Senator John Whitmire Wednesday afternoon about his objections to the Senate budget proposal and how he sees the budget endgame playing out.
It has been three weeks since the creation of Senator Duncan’s Subcommittee on Fiscal Matters, the panel charged with finding around $5 billion in non-tax revenue to cover the funding the Senate Finance Committee intends to restore to public education and health and human services, among other items. Today we
We spoke with Houston Senator Dan Patrick, the chair of the legislature’s Tea Party Caucus, about whether the state has a structural deficit, his opposition to using the Rainy Day Fund for the next biennium, and his vote to restore funding to public education.
Buried in the four-inch stack of amendments to the house budget bill is a subtly crafted ambush on the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s office. This is the outfit that investigates corruption cases involving public officials, the most famous of which in recent memory was Ronnie
