Each data center can “drink” as much as an entire community. Yet Texas does not require data center operators to disclose projected water use or report actual consumption. This makes research difficult and limits visibility for water-stressed municipalities.

"A melting, a chili pot OF TEXAS OH TEXAS. Created here and here and all the way over and down there. IN. The Gulf and engulfed and gulping and drinking the water with no lights no home for the home of the brave Natives.

Let’s begin with a definition, by example, of dysfunctional governing: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary.

"I grew up undocumented in this country. From an early age, I learned how fear can live quietly inside a child. I learned to listen for sirens, notice unfamiliar cars, and worry whether a normal school day would end with my family separated."

Our top story: “He’s a union leader, veteran, very disciplined on his messaging and very hyper-focused on the working class and making life better for people. Leigh is a zealot who spends all of her time denigrating public school teachers and trying to dismantle public school institutions.”

When children witness classmates detained, hear about neighbors deported, or watch a parent disappear after a routine interaction with police, the damage ripples outward. Entire communities retreat into silence.

Featured story: Propelled by an army of 100,000 volunteers who took on the city’s political machine from below, the question now is not whether someone like Zohran Mamdani can win but whether his victory can carry beyond the borders of the Big Apple.

“For the first time in a very long time, Democrats were operating as a team, moving in the same direction with the same goal, and that’s to win an election.” New from Tyler Hicks: What can we learn from the historic upset in Tarrant County?

#ICYMI, MOLLY Award Submissions are OPEN! Our annual prize for investigative journalism is open to both print and digital outlets, with an annual award of $5000. Stories can be submitted until March 20. Find out how to enter your work here:

Talarico's Super Bowl ad is an ad showing people alone on their phones/tablets watching footage from the same staged speech used in a prior ad. I make no comment on the effectiveness, only on what it implies about the state of our one precious lives on this planet www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_1...

More on James Rodden:

Is religious liberty in jeopardy in Texas public schools? Baker Institute's Michael O. Emerson interviews me on how faith-based politics, Christian nationalism, and recent legislative actions are reshaping classrooms across Texas www.bakerinstitute.org/research/rel...

Plans for the border wall now cut through wildlife refuges and cultural sites in the Rio Grande Valley insideclimatenews.org/news/0402202...

My latest at @thebarbedwire.com ... I spent weeks interviewing current and former students, faculty, nonprofits and others about the way queer campus life has suffered over the past 2 years and how, in some cases, community members have stepped up to help.

Texas AG Ken Paxton has announced legal action against the Houston area Screwston Antifascist Committee, alleging commission of terrorism and doxing. Their account has been quiet for some time, but this was one of their last posts — identifying a neo-Nazi.

New from Ebony Stewart: WE are living here ALL heavy and wet and flat and obsessed with the heat and sweat and sneezing and Bar-b-Que and winter shorts and holding on and smiling next to bluebonnets or driving and stopping at Buc-ee's.

Only China has more gas power projects in development than Texas. Nearly half of all upcoming gas power projects in Texas, totalling 40 GW of capacity, are planned to directly power data centers.

From our magazine: On the back porch of his Southeast Austin home, Willy Baltazar displays a vibrant Día de los Muertos-style altar that honors more than just ancestors. It's here he's helping preserve the masked spirit of the Xantolo festival ...

Previously: The expansion raises questions long-term about the size, strength, and investigative firepower of the state’s press corps—particularly at the Capitol. Is it in fact a good thing that Hearst now runs the papers servicing the four largest metros in Texas?

These celebrations to honor Durga and other goddesses—devoted mothers, fierce warriors, and the divine sources of creativity and wisdom—happen throughout the Indian diaspora, from stadiums in Gujarat and ancient Tamil Nadu temples to community halls in England & an unlikely spot in Texas: Pearland.

Featured story: By converting a digital camera to reveal infrared light, photographer Jordan Vonderhaar turns surveillance tech back on itself, with bright foliage highlighting the intensity of Texas' border militarization. www.texasobserver.org/the-river-an...

here's the thing. do data centers use far less water than ag? yes, absolutely, and ag is horribly wasteful in much of the country. but is adding a lot of water use *in places hydrogeologically not equipped* a smart call?

“Because there are already unmet needs, including the current 4.8-million-acre-foot shortage, data centers’ unknown unmet needs are poised to place unprecedented stress on local water supplies across the state.”

"A call for help triggered a chain of events that ended with the deportation of a mother and her U.S. citizen child. This is not public safety. This is a system that punishes families for seeking help and turns local police into extensions of federal immigration enforcement."

New from Montserrat Garibay: "I know exactly what message the recent deportation of an Austin mom and her 5-year-old sends to kids. They learn that calling 911 is dangerous."

Our David McHam Fellowship For Investigative Reporting is open and accepting applications through Feb 6, 2026: www.texasobserver.org/jobs/

"We have no way of reconciling what these cases will do to water supplies." New from Miranda Williamson: The world’s largest artificial intelligence data center complex is being built in Amarillo, and it’s almost seven times the size of Central Park.

From our magazine: Donald Trump’s in the second year of a presidential stint, and his megalomaniacal unsuitability for public service is catching up with him. Off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey have given Dems new reason to believe.

Last week: Pacifico’s GW Ranch in Pecos County is authorized to release more than 12,000 tons per year of regulated air pollutants. The complex can also release up to 33 million tons per year of greenhouse gases, equal to nearly 5% of the total annual greenhouse gas emissions of Canada.

Our reporting: www.texasobserver.org/revealed-fou...

Featured story: Here in Texas, to the Republicans and the billionaires whose power they entrench, the prospect of the Lone Star State being swept up in a similarly insurgent candidacy still sounds like its own far-fetched fantasy.

The kind of shit you don't have to have read a single Orwell book to call Orwellian. "Today, in classrooms across Texas, tomorrow’s leaders are learning the foundational, critical thinking skills," such as love for our masked federal agents www.texastribune.org/2026/02/03/t...

New today: RFK Jr. has floated the notion that autism is caused by environmental toxins, but to date extensive research has not found such a causal link. Lacking sufficient facts to support his conclusions, he cannot argue, but merely pontificate.

Our MOLLY Award Submissions are now OPEN! Our annual prize for investigative journalism is open to both print and digital outlets, with an annual award of $5000. Stories can be submitted until March 20. Find out how to enter your work here:

Our top story: “I think their policies were so extreme, they caused so much trouble on the school board, that in just a short time period, voters were like, ‘Okay, yeah, we’ve seen enough. We’re done,.”

New from Oscar Salinas: In a world run by science, the government would respond to a Texas measles outbreak by increasing vaccination rates. But today, our government is controlled by dysfunctional, radical idealists like RFK, Jr.

The bigger Hearst paper uses significantly more words in endorsement of Talarico. In summary, "Nobody really knows what electability looks like in Texas;" however, Democrats need to stop counting on an "unseen army of low-propensity voters." www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/endo...

Today @theflytrapmedia.com published a really powerful piece by @kwanetaharris.bsky.social on gender-based violence against incarcerated women. She writes: "We become perfectly obedient victims of intimate partner violence, except the violence is legal and the abusers wear badges."

Featured story, from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: “Isn’t it ironic that the same system that punished him for his addiction on the outside continued to supply and feed it on the inside?”

"As a journalist and a curious woman, I wanted to dig deeper into what seemed to be a refuge from the usual isolation I felt. Did the Hindu reverence for female goddesses reflect the realities of ordinary women?"

Earlier: “Rick understood that if you want to have a movement that lasts, you need to constantly be developing new leadership.”

Featured story: The last time Democrats won statewide office in Texas was 1994. That year coincides closely with an important index of organizational power: peak union density in the state.

New today: "I regarded Pearland as a bleak place to endure as part of my sacrificial motherhood. So I was surprised to find a temple here where women were both being celebrated and celebrating with so much joy."

New from @josephinelee.bsky.social: "I lived in Pearland for six years, but I didn’t learn about the Sri Meenakshi Temple until last year when I made a wrong turn. The temple’s sculpted stone tower rises 58 feet, seeming to materialize out of nowhere in this otherwise humdrum space ..."

An emerging trend is statewide Texas Dem candidates basing a lot of their pitch on having flipped a seat in 2018. So it's odd to me how rarely media notes their performance vs. Beto in those districts. Allred ran 4 points under O'Rourke; Talarico ran 9 under.

Update: On January 31, Taylor Rehmet won the special runoff election by 14 points. “That is not something you might’ve seen as recently as two cycles ago.”

Featured story, from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: The number of people whose deaths in state jails or prisons were attributed to synthetic cannabinoids increased from 16 in 2023 to 65 the following year.

Venezuela presents a unique tinderbox of conditions: from the recent removal, prosecution and imprisonment of its president by U.S. special forces, to the oil riches that lie beneath it and the layered patchwork of armed groups that control the ungoverned nation.

Previously: In December 2020, the state police had fewer than 200 drones; now the agency’s inventory has ballooned to more than 450 drones, and nearly 400 employees are trained to remotely operate them. DPS says the fleet is valued at around $3.7 million.

Huge crowd at anti-ICE rally in East Austin. This is a very random angle from the playground area -- but basically Pan Am is packed to the gills.