Paxton Impeachment

The alleged bribery and abuse of office in Ken Paxton's impeachment trial. Plus: Big-time lawyers! Billionaire donors! Burner phones! | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 8 months ago

During the thirtieth anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy, no less. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

Did JFK Eat the World’s Largest Tamale?

How a San Antonio restaurant manager pioneered the art of taco diplomacy. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

The Innocent Man, Part One (2012)

The National Magazine Award–winning story about Michael Morton, a man who came home from work one day in 1986 to find that his wife had been brutally murdered. What happened next was one of the most profound miscarriages of justice in Texas history. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

The free speech elephant in the Alex Jones courtroom

The trial to determine Infowars’ damages for defaming Sandy Hook parents could have had huge free-speech implications. Because of Jones’s choices, it won’t. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

What Happens When Texans Protest Their “Mind-Boggling” Property Taxes?

Homeowners in hot housing markets got a nasty surprise when their appraisals arrived this spring. Here’s what happened when some tried to get reductions. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

Texas Has Always Been a Great Setting for the Apocalypse

‘After the Revolution’ is the latest work of speculative fiction drawing on our real-life deadly climate, big money, sinister villains, and true believers. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

At 88, Poker Legend Doyle Brunson Is Still Bluffing. Or Is He?

The Texas gambler has been winning at poker for seventy years—long enough to become an icon and watch an outlaw’s game become an industry. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

The West Texas Rancher Exposing Big Oil’s Buried Secrets

After an abandoned well began spewing toxic water onto her land, Ashley Watt would stop at nothing to determine the cause—and to hold Chevron accountable. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

Cattle Trader’s Formula

CEO Jim Schwertner credits the persistent success of Capitol Land & Livestock to a data-driven algorithm. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 1 year ago

How a 27-Year-Old Texan Became the Face of Russia’s American TV Network

The Russian-funded network may have folded, but Texas native Rachel Blevins is still propagandizing for Putin. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

The Dead Sea of West Texas

A Pecos County well has leaked noxious salt water for almost two decades. No one is taking responsibility for getting it cleaned up. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

In Praise of Enron?

Twenty years have passed since the notoriously corrupt energy-trading company collapsed. Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that it wasn’t all bad for Texas. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

The Newest Texans Are Not Who You Think They Are

The record influx of recent arrivals from all over might be exactly what the state needs. That includes Californians. (And no, they’re not turning Texas blue.) | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Reality Bytes

Origin Systems founder Richard Garriott has sometimes lived his life like a computer game, but now that the multimedia industry is changing, he can’t play around anymore. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Red Snapper Filet Might Have Been Caught by Drug Runners

Federal agencies have long struggled to stop illegal fishing and drug smuggling in the Gulf of Mexico. In recent years, it’s only gotten worse. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

The Resurrection of Bass Reeves

The deputy U.S. marshal's almost superhuman exploits made him one of the West's most feared lawmen. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Eat, Prey, Love: A Day with the Squirrel Hawkers of East Texas

The ancient art of falconry is alive and well. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Art Blocks Brings Big Money to Artists Who Paint with Code

The Houston-based website makes use of blockchain technology—and an element of surprise—to attract a sizable new audience for computer-generated works. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Elon Musk Wants to Sell Texans Electricity

Tesla has filed to become a Texas power retailer in a move that could shake up an already fast-changing market. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Behind the Fight to Save the Gulf's Coral Reefs

Some of the healthiest coral communities in the world beckon off the Texas coast. Can unlikely allies save this undersea paradise? | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

Are Some People Born Lucky? A UT Psychologist Argues Inequality’s Genetic Roots

Kathryn Paige Harden’s new book says social scientists must acknowledge how DNA shapes our lives. Critics call that dangerous. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

The Texas Horned Lizard

Can we save our beloved ant-eating, blood-spurting, quickly disappearing state reptile? | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 2 years ago

The Great Roadside Motel Comeback

Motels were once a reliable respite for budget-conscious road warriors or transitory locals, but today's motel owners are seeking a younger generation of travelers who have more cash to spend. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Opening a Small-Town Bookstore During the Pandemic

But twelve months of renovations and a few burst water pipes later, our dream came true. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

“Ladders and walls go together like peas and carrots,” says one McAllen Border Patrol agent. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire – Military Isn't Interested

Thirty years ago, Ralph Hayles fired the missiles that killed two American soldiers in Iraq. Ever since, he has worked to develop technology that could prevent similar deaths, while the military has looked elsewhere to address the problem—with little success. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

Car clubs have gathered for decades at “Chicano Park” in the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood. But residents of a new luxury apartment building have started calling the police to stop them. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

In Private Call, ERCOT Chairman Pledged to Protect Wall Street Blackout Profits

Public Utility Commission chairman Arthur D’Andrea apologized to Bank of America last week for the “uncertainty” around its profits. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

May you make direct eye contact with your neighbor during your yard pee. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Remember That Time a Nuclear Weapons Bunker Blew Up in San Antonio?

In 1963, Lackland Air Force Base experienced a cataclysmic explosion. People thought World War III had started. Today, it's been almost completely forgotten. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Interchange in Houston Is the Same Size as an Entire City Center in Italy

Siena, Italy crams 30,000 people into the same space occupied by a five-stack interchange in the Bayou City. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Expert: A Major Hurricane Hitting Houston Would Be “America’s Chernobyl”

Terence O'Rourke has spent a decade warning officials a storm making landfall directly in Galveston Bay could be much worse than even Harvey. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

Theodore Robert Wright III carried out one of the boldest insurance fraud schemes Texas has ever seen. That was only the half of it. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Miss Girard’s Christmas Gift (2019)

When her former student was found wandering the highway a decade after she'd last seen him, Michell Girard immediately agreed to take him in. Then she set off to give him more, including the Christmas he’d never had. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Master Auctioneer?

Eight days inside America’s Auction Academy, learning the secrets of “the dynamo from Dallas” | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

“I Can’t Believe This Is America”: Austin’s Injured Protesters

They thought they’d be treating heat exhaustion this weekend. Then police started firing rubber bullets and bean bag rounds. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

The Battle of Boca Chica (2014)

With support from the Legislature, SpaceX may soon be launching rockets from Texas’ southernmost beach. That doesn’t mean a few nature lovers aren’t still ready to fight. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

Where Have All the Briskets Gone?

Texans are about to pay the price for living in the beef state. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 3 years ago

The plan deviates considerably from what many public health officials say is needed for Texans to reopen businesses. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

This Is a Matter of Survival

The restaurateur on pandemics, mass furloughs, and why he’s not selling his yachts. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

Seeking Connections in the Time of Coronavirus, Lonely Texans Turn to Craigslist

Social distancing mandates have been instituted to slow the pandemic’s spread—a necessity that also coincides with a loneliness epidemic. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

The grocer started communicating with its Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.) | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

H-E-B Planned for the Pandemic

The grocer started communicating with its Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.) | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit (2014)

When the 85-year-old matriarch of a prominent pecan-farming clan in San Saba was murdered, her death shook the town—and exposed how obsession and greed can fell a family from within. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

Waymo’s Autonomous Trucks Are Rolling into Texas – Bringing Debate About Jobs

Coming soon to a Texas highway near you: self-driving semis.  | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

Houston Is Now Less Affordable Than New York City

A new report finds that, when transportation costs are factored in, Texas’s biggest metros aren’t the bargain they often claim to be. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago

The Art of Racing Pigeons

A homing pigeon will return to the place where it first learned to fly, no matter how many hundreds of miles it takes to get there. | Continue reading


@texasmonthly.com | 4 years ago