EXCLUSIVE: A whistleblower tells @thebarbedwire.com he spent years burying radioactive fracking waste, which melted the bones in his neck and jaw. Then a residential community — and an elementary school — was built on top. 🧵 thebarbedwire.com/2026/02/11/a...

The incredible @saulelbein.bsky.social reported this harrowing, vitally important story for us. It’s just the beginning.

A college friend, Tony, never came back to school after the freshman winter break, because he was doing this in a parking lot and slammed into the bumper of a parked car. He was permanently brain damaged and disabled. Do not do this.

Kaleb Blain, a 35-year old trans man and pitmaster, was fired from the legendary BBQ restaurant Terry Black’s after he was doxxed over Charlie Kirk comments. Now he’s running his own barbecue spot in Waco: “I feel better than I ever have.” By @kitoconnell.com thebarbedwire.com/2026/01/21/b...

REMINDER: The first rule of Wine Moms Gang is not to talk about Wine Moms Gang, especially not to those narcs on the PTA. If you must refer to the group, acceptable cover stories are book club or Bunco. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/win...

After federal agents shot another protester in Minnesota, Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. If he follows through, our democracy is in extreme danger, according to a retired brigadier general. From our friends at @revealnews.org:

A lot of new nuggets in here, including the context in which ICE arrested a 5-year-old U.S. citizen and deported her to Honduras: Austin’s police chief says the girl’s mom called cops after a man she had an expired restraining order against showed up at their home.

Cat really got me with this line: “It’s hard to know where to begin, how to even start parsing through the near-constant deluge of tragedy, misinformation, and violence that has become part and parcel of life under ICE.”

update on Orange Julius! also hopefully a dose of vitamin People Are Fundamentally Good which we all need right now

9-year-old Amber Hagerman was kidnapped on this day 30 years ago, and 1,200 missing kids have been saved by the Amber Alert system made in her honor. But her murder remains unsolved. Still, police are hopeful they can one day crack it using DNA testing. thebarbedwire.com/2026/01/13/a...

“She’s still taking care of little children like she did her younger brother,” said Amber’s mother, Donna Williams, on the 25th anniversary of the kidnapping. “I’m very, very proud of my daughter.”

our whole newsroom is now very invested in Orange Julius and his female support team. thanks @keribla.bsky.social for sharing

Our first investigation of the year just landed, and it’s a doozy. More than 1,000 children across Texas were affected by this. Through interviews with more than a dozen former employees and the review of internal documents and court records, The Barbed Wire found:

Our first investigation of 2026 is live! We found one of the largest immigration legal service providers in TX had funding cut by the Trump admin for 2 weeks before a judge ordered it reinstated. RAICES declined to take it, but blamed the cuts in legal documents for why it dropped child clients.

RAICES Raised Millions to Protect Minors from Deportation. Then It Dropped Them ‘Like It Was Nothing,’ Ex Staffers Claim. thebarbedwire.com/2026/01/07/r...

The House investigation said the “entirety of law enforcement… shares systemic responsibility” for the Uvalde school shooting deaths. So… why is only this one low level officer facing charges this week? Read our attempt to answer that seemingly basic question.

“To prosecute the very first officer on the scene is probably a good measure of whether or not other prosecutions might succeed,” Bassett said. “I think they started with the most obvious possible defendant to see how that would go through the court system.”

Did you know it's been 2 years since SB17, Texas' anti-DEI campus law went into effect? I'm working on a survey of LGBTQ+ orgs affected by this law, for @thebarbedwire.com. If you were part of, or know of a campus org that shut down or was forced to change goals due to SB17, please get in touch.

“What’s suing Tylenol going to do? Is it going to help the kids? Is it going to bring more awareness? Is it going to get our kids diagnosed more early?” Please read this one. @thebarbedwire.com spoke with parents of autistic kids in Texas. They had a lot to say. thebarbedwire.com/2025/12/16/t...

This week a bathroom bill went into effect in Texas for the first time. After 10 years and 19 attempts. To regulate bathrooms for 1% of the population. The obvious question is… why? Here are the answers we found, after years and so much reporting. thebarbedwire.com/2025/12/04/a...

Work for this story began in 2023 as part of a project by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a nonprofit newsroom at American University. Students, interns, and editors over the past two years combed through more than 1,600 bills filed nationally since 2015. thebarbedwire.com/2025/12/04/a...

Amanda Aguilar, an immigration lawyer, said cartels held one of her clients for ransom immediately after his deportation to Mexico via the Tamaulipas border. “My clients will say, ‘Can you please ask them not to drop me off in Tamaulipas?” Aguilar said. “And I do ask, but ICE just doesn’t care.”

This article by @19thnews.org and @thebarbedwire.com tells the story of Emmanuel Gonzalez, a 15-year-old with an intellectual disability who was in ICE custody for 48 days. Follow both publications on Flipboard. flipboard.com/@19thnews flipboard.com/@thebarbedwire

Maria Garcia reported her intellectually disabled son missing in Oct. Police called federal immigration instead of his mom. He was kept in custody — until Friday. “In front of the entire world, they tried to make others believe I was a bad mother,” said Garcia. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/24/d...

A video of a Black woman seemingly denied care while in labor has left a lot of people saying: This isn’t an outlier. Texas is one of the worst states for maternal healthcare, and the Black maternal mortality rate is nearly 3X that of white women, per state data. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/18/v...

preach.

in the same breadth, Talarico blamed the media for the recent @axios.com article about his social accounts following porn actors and escorts, calling it “clickbait” and claiming Axios published it just to make money. was quick to dismiss the notion of hypocrisy. www.axios.com/2025/11/08/t...

“When did pedophilia become a partisan issue?” Talarico in response to questions about the Epstein files and Trump connection. American people deserve all the information, he added. #tribfest25

back in Texas for #Tribfest25 and the James Talarico panel is packed this morning. lot of excitement as Talarico talks about faith and love for neighbors. “Politics is just another word for how we treat our neighbors.”

Nikalie Monroe conducted what she called a social experiment on TikTok, calling churches across the country to ask for baby formula for a fictional two-month-old. The majority do not offer to help her, including three in Texas. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/11/t...

After the verdict was read and the jury released, 379th District Court Judge Ron Rangel turned to the family of slain 46-year-old Melissa Perez, including her four children.  “The jury wanted me to tell the family they were very sorry for your loss,” said Rangel.

Forget false bravado. Vergil Ortiz Jr., the boxer known as ‘The Texas Machine,’ is “relentless” in the ring, but in conversations, his quiet confidence and curiosity rival his athletic prowess.  Our contributor sat down with him in Saudi Arabia after his last win. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/06/v...

Are you a social media manager who is passionate about the culture and lives of Texans? Our incredible social media manager was recruited for an exciting, glossy new opportunity, which means ...we’re hiring! Come work with us at @thebarbedwire.com 💕 www.journalismjobs.com/job-listing/...

for all the journalists on this platform — if you haven’t read about Ya’akub yet, now’s the time. his work straddles activism + journalism (documenting activism, I’d say). I feel slightly unhinged, but this is a test case for labeling media as aids of terrorists. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/04/h...

DHS is accusing Ya’akub Vijandre of “glorifying terrorism” via social media posts. He didn’t violate immigration law, or any laws that we’re aware of. This is the most blatant case we’ve seen yet that the Trump admin is labeling dissent as terrorism. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/04/h...

Ya’akub Ira Vijandre is a 38-year-old Muslim Filipino photojournalist who sheds light on human rights abuses. As a DACA recipient, his arrest holds drastic implications for the state of free speech in America.

A photojournalist was arrested by ICE at gunpoint — and his DACA status revoked. “Ya’akub isn’t being accused of breaking immigration law — his DACA protection doesn’t expire until May 2026. In fact Ya’akub’s lawyers say he hasn’t been accused of any crime.” thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/04/h...

Today’s the day to vote!!! Let @briangaar.bsky.social be your guide thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/07/t...

Texans love to gripe about property taxes, potholes, and school funding, but when it’s time to vote for the people who actually fix (or ignore) those things, most folks suddenly remember they’ve got laundry to do.

"To be queer in Texas is to be enraged, joyful, desperately frustrated, emboldened by solidarity, sometimes scared for yourself and your friends, and other times grateful for a thoughtful, sparkling community." Our EIC, @oliviamesser.bsky.social, opens up about how queer Texas really is. ⬇️

Texas is one of the queerest states in America — 1.8 million of us, more than double the number of queer New Yorkers. Welcome to Big & Bright 🌈⭐👏 , The Barbed Wire’s new space for queer life in Texas! Subscribe here: thebarbedwire.com/subscribe-bi...

So proud of @oliviamesser.bsky.social — it was almost exactly a year ago that I read her draft and we decided it wasn’t the right time to publish. It sat in our trello board until we started to build Big & Bright — our first vertical dedicated to the full spectrum of queer life in Texas.

I wrote the first version of this draft almost exactly a year ago, but I wasn’t ready. I am now. thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/27/t...

A judge ordered Leqaa released on bond — twice — and DHS appealed and used a rare automatic stay to keep her in detention — twice. Even compared to other pro-Palestinian protesters detained by the Trump administration her case stands out. thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/27/l...

“Listen we could either have groceries for a week or two or spend a day at the fair.” thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/21/t...

such wild questions to have to ask… Can a woman in her own apartment behind a locked glass patio door with a blunt object really be a threat to police officers? Enough of a threat they need to shoot and kill her? thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/16/s...

Can a woman in her own apartment behind a locked glass patio door with a blunt object really be a threat to police officers? A San Antonio jury will decide the answer, as former officers are tried for murder for the first time in the city’s history. thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/16/s...

If you weren’t actively rooting for the Cowboys or Texans to make it all the way this year — time to unlock your inner armchair coach. Bad Bunny is headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. And we’ve got less than 18 weeks to ensure a Texas team is there for it. thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/29/m...

I’ve edited several stories in a row about federal immigration and protest-related cases. and I’m noticing a trend: at the beginning, rhetoric is hot, fingers are pointed, charges are severe. then, as we dig in, the cases start to fall apart… thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/24/n...

NEW: @thebarbedwire.com conducted an in-depth review of the court records and statements thus far in the July 4 Prairieland case and found holes that call into question the government’s narrative. thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/24/n...