Texas Monthly

One Woman’s Fight to Free Herself From a Mental Hospital

Mimi Swartz — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 12:00:00 +0000

John Kerr thought he was doing right by his only daughter when he put in a call to the Menninger Clinic, known as one of the best psychiatric hospitals in the country. Millie Kerr was 41 and had been going through an awful time. She had flown to San Antonio from her adopted home in London a week earlier for surgery. Theoretically, the operation was no big deal—the removal of some scarlike tissue that was causing Millie pain—but it was a follow-up procedure to surgery she’d had the year before to treat ovarian cancer. She’d been in remission for a few months, but the surgeon had some concerns about a recurrence and so took a tissue sample for a biopsy as well. Millie had been in a…

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Dems Are Finally Admitting Texas Is a Red State. It’s Why They Might Actually Win.

Ben Rowen — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 12:00:00 +0000

It was no surprise that James Talarico was ready for the Question, only that he hadn’t been asked it before. It’s the inquiry pundits have posed for three decades, the one that blossoms on the lips of hopeful national Democrats every election-year spring and then, like a rock rose, withers ignominously in early November. It’s the question most everyone has tired of: Will Texas go blue? It was asked of Talarico in Killeen, at a press conference during which the genteel Presbyterian seminarian accepted the endorsement of a number of grizzled combat veterans. After he fielded inquiries about tax exemptions for servicemen and his veterans’ relations staff, a reporter asked him the old classic. “I’m not interested in turning Texas blue,” Talarico answered, in his calm…

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The Daily Crossword: November 2, 2026

Texas Monthly — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:00:00 +0000

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Word Wrangler: November 2, 2026

Texas Monthly — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 10:59:00 +0000

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The Daily Crossword: November 1, 2026

Texas Monthly — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:00:00 +0000

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The Crossword: It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity

Brandon Koppy — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:00:00 +0000

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Word Wrangler: November 1, 2026

Texas Monthly — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 10:59:00 +0000

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How Texas’s First Openly Gay Legislator Did the Unimaginable

Mark Warren — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Decades ago this man did my family a kindness that we will never be able to repay, at the moment of our greatest vulnerability. Now, as he struggled to get out of his chair and reached for his cane, I had no choice but to accept that Glen Maxey was finally, impossibly, an old man. He had told me many times, “I’m retired.” And now I could see it for myself: Glen Maxey was retired.The former state representative and longtime political activist lives in a modest rental in North Austin that smells of cat with his roommate, Hector Corona, who is half his age. The walls of his house are festooned haphazardly with pictures from throughout his life and career, and of the progressive idols…

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The Daily Crossword: October 31, 2026

Texas Monthly — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

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Word Wrangler: October 31, 2026

Texas Monthly — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:59:00 +0000

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Meanwhile, in Texas: DEA Agents Discover a Load of Cabbage Worth a Load of Cabbage

Meher Yeda — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

DEA agents in McAllen discovered more than two thousand pounds of meth hidden inside a shipment of cabbages.Two Lubbock men reportedly disembarked from a cruise in Galveston to find that their car was overrun with newborn spiders.After reaching antitrust settlements with three national egg producers, state Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he had “secur[ed] 7 million eggs for the people of Texas.”When a Lake Jackson resident won a Texas Lottery jackpot worth nearly $27 million, they said, “I want to be as responsible as possible. But first, I’m going to get a steak and pair of boots.”A man was charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after he spent eight years allegedly using fake names to enter gyms across the Metroplex and steal…

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Greg Abbott Hired an Election Denier to Protect Texas Elections. He’s Using the Job to Attack Muslims.

Robert Downen — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:56:21 +0000

One evening in early September, Nate Schatzline stood onstage before a group of right-wing activists, eager to tell them about all he was doing to save America. Speaking in his new role as a top adviser to Governor Greg Abbott on election-security issues, he outlined how he planned to combat widespread voter fraud. He described how as a young father and pastor, he was “radicalized” by COVID-19 church closures and compulsory sex education in schools. And he vowed to continue battling “demonic forces” and the “globalist agenda.”But his primary focus was an existential menace: “The greatest threat to our Western society right now is the rise in Islam in the state of Texas,” Schatzline told the members of Texas First Conservative Alliance, a grassroots GOP…

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I Finally Had My First Steak. My Mom Was Disappointed.

Meher Yeda — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:50:45 +0000

In the Texas Firsts series, old and new residents alike experience linchpins of Lone Star State life and culture. I’ve never thought much about beef. Cows, sure. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, where we’d go on elementary school field trips to local dairy farms and sheepishly attempt to milk cows before a teacher would beckon us for fresh ice cream. I grew up Hindu, and the sanctity of all sentient creatures was a value instilled in me by my mother before I ever really learned about burgers. My bedtime stories often featured the adventures of the various chickens, cats, and, yes, cows that would run around her grandmother’s village. Cows have feelings, my mom would remind me. I dreamed of the chance to pet…

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We Sent a Grown Man to Five Texas Corn Mazes to See How Fast He’d Escape

David Courtney — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:45:21 +0000

The trepidation was mounting as I neared the first stop on my early-fall corn maze odyssey. Though it was a beautiful morning in the Hill Country, a sense of foreboding hung over my rented Toyota Prius as I approached Hondo. I was also in desperate need of a urinal, having possibly overcaffeinated on the road between Austin and San Antonio.We never experience storybook autumns in Texas, the kind with reliably cool temperatures, sweaters, picturesque foliage, and hot apple cider or mulled wine. The seasonal change annually heralded by the arrival of pumpkin spice lattes is more often than not just an unfulfilled promise made by crafty marketers who prey on a heat-weary populace jealous of those who actually experience autumn. But sure, let’s pretend. Bring…

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The Daily Crossword: October 30, 2026

Texas Monthly — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

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Word Wrangler: October 30, 2026

Texas Monthly — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 09:59:00 +0000

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Elvis Has Watched Over the Austin Film Festival for Decades

Lauren Castro — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

This Old Thing highlights the stories behind notable Texans’ prized possessions. In the 33 years since Barbara Morgan cofounded the Austin Film Festival (which begins today and runs through November 5), the organization has repeatedly moved its headquarters. Morgan, now AFF’s executive director, has moved along with it, bringing only a few treasured items from office to office—including this ceramic bust of Elvis Presley. Ivory-colored, surprisingly light, and often accessorized with beads or a hat, depending on which holiday might be near, its value to Morgan has less to do with its looks—“I don’t want Elvis to hear it, but it’s ugly,” she says—or her Elvis superfandom than with what it represents. She received it as a gift in the early days of AFF and found…

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Will Hurd Worked With Sam Altman. His (P)Doom Is “Not Zero.”

Eric Benson — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:44:38 +0000

Almost three years ago—long before an artificial intelligence researcher named Jacob Coxon warned that “the people building AI earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade”—former Texas Congressman Will Hurd went public with his own AI dreams and nightmares. Hurd likened AI to nothing less than nuclear fission. “How do we ensure the discovery of [AI] is a net positive for humanity, not an extinction-level event?” he wrote in an essay in Politico.Hurd was well positioned to offer an answer. A former undercover CIA officer and computer science major at Texas A&M University, he had served three terms as a Republican in the U.S. House, where he demonstrated a keen interest in tech policy. After leaving Congress in 2021, he…

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There’s A New Kind of Steakhouse to Get Excited About

José R. Ralat — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:43:06 +0000

For ten days this past December and January, Suerte transported diners to northeastern Mexico. The Austin restaurant replaced its beloved dishes, such as cheese-stuffed tetelas and suadero tacos, with standards one would find at a typical norteño steakhouse—with some Suerte flair, of course. That included ribeye aguachile, with segments of seared steak bathed in a thin salsa of charred habaneros and cacao; a ribeye steak garnished with garlic-chile paste and chimichurri; and tacos de fideo seco, its tortillas filled with vermicelli noodles stewed in tomato sauce. The last item baffled customers. Their common reaction, according to co-owner and executive chef Fermín Núñez, was “Spaghetti tacos? This is insane.” Seatings for the pop-up sold out in minutes, and the experience gave diners a glimpse into a…

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Paris, Texas, Is Way More Than an Eiffel Tower Wearing a Cowboy Hat

Courtney Bond — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:42:17 +0000

When you think of Paris, Texas, you might picture its famous miniature Eiffel Tower bedecked with a jaunty red cowboy hat (“miniature,” that is, in relation to the 1,083-foot original). The 65-foot-tall steel structure was built in 1993 and acquired the shiny chapeau six years later to distinguish it from other replicas around the country. It’s the kind of wayside kitsch that draws road trippers, content creators, and, during my visit, a couple of RVers valiantly trying to get their cocker spaniel to stayyy . . . stayyyy at the tower’s feet for a picture. (They got the shot.)Or perhaps right now there’s a mournful, dusty-sounding slide guitar melody floating up from the recesses of your mind, conjuring the 1984 film that had nothing in common with the…

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The Daily Crossword: October 29, 2026

Texas Monthly — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

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Word Wrangler: October 29, 2026

Texas Monthly — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 09:59:00 +0000

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UT Students Tried to Condemn Bo French’s Racism. They Say a School Official Pushed Back.

Robert Downen — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 21:24:34 +0000

Dean Young felt compelled to say something. On September 13, the University of Texas at Austin, where Young is a sociology major, was unwillingly thrust into the center of the raging culture war after Bo French, the far-right Republican candidate for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, complained that there were too many non-white students in the fan section during the school’s historic, come-from-behind victory over top-ranked Ohio State University. “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French wrote in a series of social media posts, one of which included a photo of South Asian students jubilantly celebrating at the game. “I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined . . . The entire system is…

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Can the Texas Early-Voting Numbers Tell Us Anything?

Christopher Hooks — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 10:57:41 +0000

In October, Texans may raise their eyes toward the sky to see Swainson’s hawks passing through, ruby-throated hummingbirds headed south, and yellow-rumped warblers moving in for the winter. In even-numbered years, they will also hear relentless chittering, in the last two weeks of the month, from partisans trying to make sense of the state’s early-voting numbers. They’re good for Republicans, some will say with perfect conviction, or they’re good for Democrats. A third group, the Election Knowers, smugly chides anyone trying to divine meaning from early-voting patterns. Lingo is fired back and forth—red shifting, backloading, three of three.They do this because there’s a huge audience for it. By this time in the election cycle, most of us hate democracy and hate Cleisthenes for inventing it,…

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How Good Is the Cheapest Steak Dinner in Dallas?

Daniel Vaughn — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 10:38:11 +0000

On Jefferson Boulevard in Dallas’s Oak Cliff neighborhood sits the still-open Texas Theatre, where Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended after shooting President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Earlier that year, another business had opened two blocks west, and today Charco Broiler is similarly iconic. A horned Hereford steer effigy named Sonny is mounted on the roof, looming over the front door as an advertisement for the bargain beef bounty within. While our dining critic Paula Forbes was traveling the state in search of premium steaks, I wanted to find out how much we can and should expect from the cheapest steak dinner I’ve found in Dallas.The $29.99 T-bone is on the high end of the Charco Broiler menu. During weekday lunch hours, a chopped…

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