Cover
Monitoring Truancy
Some advocates think Texas’ treatment of tardy students is a crime.PETER GORMAN
Last spring at a truancy court appearance in front of Johnson County Justice of the Peace Pat Jacobs, a 17-year-old high school student who routinely skipped her last class of the day was ordered to wear an ankle monitor to con...
Down to the Wire
The Wendy Davis-Gregg Abbott race hasn’t been pretty, but this is Texas.ERIC GRIFFEY AND JEFF PRINCE
Winning the Republican primary in the Texas governor’s race these days is almost like being handed the keys to the mansion. Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the top office since 1991. Since then, Republican governors Geor...
Scared/Silly
A local gun rights group says it carries loaded semi-automatic rifles in public to show it’s ludicrous. Others agree with the ludicrous part.CHRISTIAN MCPHATE
In a Home Depot parking lot near AT&T Stadium in Arlington, a small group of people, mostly in their mid- to late 20s, stand by pickup trucks filled with flags. It’s a Saturday afternoon in late September, and they’re g...
A Crisis in Care
Profound changes may be coming for Texas’ mental health services and its whole healthcare bureaucracy.EDWARD BROWN
Texas’ massive health services agency, which oversees the state’s psychiatric hospitals and many other aspects of healthcare, is failing to do its job. Its aging hospitals are in crisis and short of staff, and patients ar...
Bad Air Day
Around North Texas parks and playgrounds, children are breathing dangerous doses of toxic fumes from gas industry sites.PETER GORMAN W/ PHOTOS BY LEE CHASTAIN
On a crisp Saturday morning, Delga Park, just north of downtown Fort Worth, was beautiful. The deep blue sky was spattered with cumulus clouds, and birds flitted among shade trees at one end of the park, sandwiched between I-35...
Welcome to Best Of 2014
GAYLE REAVES-KINGThis, our Best Of 2014 issue, is like a telethon for a good cause, except that you don’t have to listen to people in tuxedos and ruffled shirts begging for your money. And you can read it at your leisure (please do), and it d...
A Script For Texas
An investment banker assembles money, talent, and backing to shoot Windsor in North Texas.STORY AND PHOTOS BY JEFF PRINCE
The upstairs dining room buzzed with hungry patrons at Amelia’s Attic, an antique store on the Gainesville town square. The customers were drenched in sweat and a bit smelly. Some wore prison uniforms marred by dirt and grass...
The Other End of the Pipeline
On the Texas coast, natural gas export development threatens the tourist economy.DAVID ROBLEDO
I’m kayaking the bay that separates Port Isabel and South Padre Island when a large dorsal fin breaks the water. Another fin surfaces, and several more. My heart skips a few beats. And it looks like I’m surrounded … by on...
General Rick’s Hospital
The governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid coverage in Texas is costing lives and — even closer to his heart — jobs.PETER GORMAN
Patters Barnes works two jobs, running the register at a retail store and cooking at a fast-food restaurant in Dallas. Neither employer provides her with health insurance, but they do influence her healthcare choices: Combined,...
Two Futures for Lake Worth
Dredging has brought new life and new questions for the 100-year-old reservoir.JEFF PRINCE
A silvery fish jumps in the air, curls toward the sun, and lands with a splashy smack before disappearing back into the water. Not an uncommon occurrence at a lake, until you consider that this happened last week near the south...