This story was published as a part of Voting Rights Day, a collaboration with the . Follow them on , , or , or .Durrel Douglas says most of the people he met during his first get out the vote campaign inside the Harris County jail in January 2018 were surprised to see him there. As he and other volunteers with the Houston Justice Coalition went from pod to pod, registering people to vote and helping them apply for mail-in ballots, jail staff told him they didn’t realize anyone behind bars was allowed to cast a ballot. People incarcerated inside the hulking lockup in downtown Houston were...…This story was published as a part of Voting Rights Day, a collaboration with the . Follow them on , , or , or .Durrel Douglas says most of the people he met during his first get out the vote campaign inside the Harris County jail in January 2018 were surprised to see him there. As he and other volunteers with the Houston Justice Coalition went from pod to pod, registering people to vote and helping them apply for mail-in ballots, jail staff told him they didn’t realize anyone behind bars was allowed to cast a ballot. People incarcerated inside the hulking lockup in downtown Houston were...WW…

Graciela Sánchez, the director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, would like to see Alazán-Apache improved but largely preserved.By Gus BovaApril 13, 2020ayla Miranda never thought she’d need public housing. Raised between Illinois and San Antonio in a Republican military family, the 36-year-old always believed hard work would be enough. Over the years, she helped run a construction company, worked at a post office, and managed gas stations. But starting in 2011, things took a turn: Her parents’ house was foreclosed on, her husband was arrested and they divorced, and her son was...…Graciela Sánchez, the director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, would like to see Alazán-Apache improved but largely preserved.By Gus BovaApril 13, 2020ayla Miranda never thought she’d need public housing. Raised between Illinois and San Antonio in a Republican military family, the 36-year-old always believed hard work would be enough. Over the years, she helped run a construction company, worked at a post office, and managed gas stations. But starting in 2011, things took a turn: Her parents’ house was foreclosed on, her husband was arrested and they divorced, and her son was...WW…

ruce Elementary School sits in the shadow of one of Houston’s countless towering, concrete overpasses. From the playground, the sound of cars zooming past and heavy-duty trucks heading to Interstate 45 drowns out the voices of community advocates. Dozens of people have gathered outside the school’s front gates for a press conference, ahead of a late July vote by the Houston-Galveston Area Transportation Policy Council that allocated $100 million toward expanding the portion of the highway closest to the school. The noise pollution here is obvious, but less so is the fact that the...…ruce Elementary School sits in the shadow of one of Houston’s countless towering, concrete overpasses. From the playground, the sound of cars zooming past and heavy-duty trucks heading to Interstate 45 drowns out the voices of community advocates. Dozens of people have gathered outside the school’s front gates for a press conference, ahead of a late July vote by the Houston-Galveston Area Transportation Policy Council that allocated $100 million toward expanding the portion of the highway closest to the school. The noise pollution here is obvious, but less so is the fact that the...WW…

In the decade leading up to 1920, suffragists in Texas won a series of dramatic victories for women’s voting rights. They organized to impeach a governor, convinced his replacement to partially enfranchise women by promising to support his reelection, and leveraged their new voting power to lobby crucial support for the Nineteenth Amendment—which prohibits denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex—in both the U.S. Congress and the Texas Capitol.Despite their importance to the amendment’s eventual ratification 100 years ago, Texas’ suffragists remain relatively unknown. For...…In the decade leading up to 1920, suffragists in Texas won a series of dramatic victories for women’s voting rights. They organized to impeach a governor, convinced his replacement to partially enfranchise women by promising to support his reelection, and leveraged their new voting power to lobby crucial support for the Nineteenth Amendment—which prohibits denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex—in both the U.S. Congress and the Texas Capitol.Despite their importance to the amendment’s eventual ratification 100 years ago, Texas’ suffragists remain relatively unknown. For...WW…

This story is . Sign up for their daily newsletter, .Unauthorized pollution has become the norm in Texas. Every single day last year, at least one industrial facility in the state emitted more toxic pollutants than it’s allowed to under state and federal laws. In the Midland region, home to the country’s most productive oil and gas basin, fossil fuel operators emitted more than 61 million pounds of pollutants above permitted levels last year. In the Houston area,  lasted more than three months and emitted 15 million pounds of pollution, blanketing the city in smoke and forcing...…This story is . Sign up for their daily newsletter, .Unauthorized pollution has become the norm in Texas. Every single day last year, at least one industrial facility in the state emitted more toxic pollutants than it’s allowed to under state and federal laws. In the Midland region, home to the country’s most productive oil and gas basin, fossil fuel operators emitted more than 61 million pounds of pollutants above permitted levels last year. In the Houston area,  lasted more than three months and emitted 15 million pounds of pollution, blanketing the city in smoke and forcing...WW…

This spring, in the early days of the lockdown, my family joined thousands of other Houstonians in taking advantage of the car-free streets to go for long bike rides. It was surreal. Streets in Houston are for cars, not people, and yet there they were: People on brand-new bicycles, seeing the city up close for the first time. Kids rode bikes in packs like characters from The Sandlot. Families, like mine, luxuriated with toddlers on once-dangerous streets. Bike rentals skyrocketed.In cities across Texas, people were unable to gather in their usual spots—offices, malls, movie theaters—without...…This spring, in the early days of the lockdown, my family joined thousands of other Houstonians in taking advantage of the car-free streets to go for long bike rides. It was surreal. Streets in Houston are for cars, not people, and yet there they were: People on brand-new bicycles, seeing the city up close for the first time. Kids rode bikes in packs like characters from The Sandlot. Families, like mine, luxuriated with toddlers on once-dangerous streets. Bike rentals skyrocketed.In cities across Texas, people were unable to gather in their usual spots—offices, malls, movie theaters—without...WW…

This article was published in partnership with . Founded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.Last month, cars snaked through the parking lot of San Antonio’s AT&T Center as volunteers in bright yellow MOVE Texas t-shirts directed traffic through the sprawling complex. Some of them wore face shields and carried clipboards as they bounced between cars registering people to vote. The...…This article was published in partnership with . Founded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.Last month, cars snaked through the parking lot of San Antonio’s AT&T Center as volunteers in bright yellow MOVE Texas t-shirts directed traffic through the sprawling complex. Some of them wore face shields and carried clipboards as they bounced between cars registering people to vote. The...WW…

Read more from the Observer: The Electric Reliability Council of Texas—the corporation at the center of the power grid failure that left millions of Texans with heat or power last month and dozens of deaths—is refusing to turn over records related to its preparation for and response to Winter Storm Uri. In a letter sent to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office last week, ERCOT argued that it’s not subject to state open records law because it isn’t a public agency and have asked the AG’s office to rule as such. Paxton’s office didn’t respond to inquiries seeking a timeline for its...…Read more from the Observer: The Electric Reliability Council of Texas—the corporation at the center of the power grid failure that left millions of Texans with heat or power last month and dozens of deaths—is refusing to turn over records related to its preparation for and response to Winter Storm Uri. In a letter sent to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office last week, ERCOT argued that it’s not subject to state open records law because it isn’t a public agency and have asked the AG’s office to rule as such. Paxton’s office didn’t respond to inquiries seeking a timeline for its...WW…

A meatpacking plant in Deep East Texas appears to be connected to an outbreak of in a rural part of the state where the number of coronavirus cases has skyrocketed in recent weeks. The state health department is investigating cases at a Tyson poultry processing plant in Shelby County that may comprise a significant number of the county’s 69 confirmed cases. While meatpackers across the nation have been slammed with high numbers of coronavirus cases, leading to the deaths of workers and facility closures, this represents one of the first known outbreaks of the virus at a plant in Texas.The...…A meatpacking plant in Deep East Texas appears to be connected to an outbreak of in a rural part of the state where the number of coronavirus cases has skyrocketed in recent weeks. The state health department is investigating cases at a Tyson poultry processing plant in Shelby County that may comprise a significant number of the county’s 69 confirmed cases. While meatpackers across the nation have been slammed with high numbers of coronavirus cases, leading to the deaths of workers and facility closures, this represents one of the first known outbreaks of the virus at a plant in Texas.The...WW…

On the morning of July 20, journalists at the Dallas Morning News they were forming a union, a historic move in a state that hasn’t had a union newspaper in nearly 30 years. If successful, the Morning News employees would join the NewsGuild, a fast-growing union representing more than 24,000 media workers around the country.On Tuesday, however, Morning News Publisher Grant Moise sent a letter to organizers saying the paper’s parent company, the A. H. Belo Corporation, is refusing to voluntarily recognize the union. That means the workers will have to pursue a federally conducted election, a...…On the morning of July 20, journalists at the Dallas Morning News they were forming a union, a historic move in a state that hasn’t had a union newspaper in nearly 30 years. If successful, the Morning News employees would join the NewsGuild, a fast-growing union representing more than 24,000 media workers around the country.On Tuesday, however, Morning News Publisher Grant Moise sent a letter to organizers saying the paper’s parent company, the A. H. Belo Corporation, is refusing to voluntarily recognize the union. That means the workers will have to pursue a federally conducted election, a...WW…