“We have to travel outside the country sometimes to feel accepted and to feel ourselves,” Fabelina Guerra, a board member with the Gateway City Pride Association in Laredo, told The Barbed Wire. thebarbedwire.com/2026/03/18/a...

It’s not just that it’s Texas — because in 2020 we had 15 more LGBTQ+ businesses than we do now. It’s the economy, it’s tariffs, and it’s increased discrimination under the leadership of the federal government and the Texas lawmakers pushing anti-DEI initiatives.

“Search and rescue in the United States is 99% volunteer,” Chris Boyer, the executive director at the National Association for Search and Rescue, told The Barbed Wire in an interview days after the July 4, 2025 Central Texas flood disaster. thebarbedwire.com/2025/07/12/t...

Getting ready for my first #sxsw panel as a speaker!! Talking about @thebarbedwire.com approach to climate change storytelling. It’s close to my heart after writing about my family’s experience during Hurricane Helene and our coverage of the Texas floods. thebarbedwire.com/2025/07/12/t...

Ad spending in the Texas Republican race has stacked up to $98.9 million, according to AdImpact, which noted that GOP spending alone would be one of the most expensive Senate primaries on record. We’re here to break down the numbers for you. thebarbedwire.com/2026/03/03/t...

Happy election day!!! The Texas Democratic primary for U.S. Senate has been a wild ride, and while we wait for results to roll in, @thebarbedwire.com is hosting a live stream where we’ll unpack it all at 6pm CT. LINK HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI6b...

dove into the $ in Texas’ Senate primary, here are a few tidbits: - Republicans have spent $98.9 million - mostly for Cornyn - bc establishment GOP thinks Paxton would lose to Dems in the general - Paxton lost a big donor - Talarico ad spends are 4x Crockett’s thebarbedwire.com/2026/03/03/t...

The Texas Democratic primary for U.S. Senate has been a wild ride. The Barbed Wire will unpack it all while we all wait for the results to roll in, from the primary’s historic turnout to the scandals (with a keen eye on fact-checking).

What did we learn from data from a White Supremacist dating site? A lot, actually. @stevanzetti.bsky.social went beyond individual Texas accounts, bringing in his knowledge of ultra conservative politics right now. Also tried to answer questions we’ve gotten on past reporting about fascists etc.

a 2-month-old with bronchitis. Castro just confirmed he and his mother were not kept at the hospital — they were deported. feeling downright sick about this one. thebarbedwire.com/2026/02/17/2...

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. ⬇️