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Texas Election Results: Ted Cruz, Donald TrumpEditors’ note: We’ve made this article free to access as a service to our readers. To support our ongoing coverage of this election cycle, consider becoming a paying subscriber. That’s All, Folks Ben Rowen, 11:15 p.m. Thanks for following along with our live blog. While the presidential race has yet to be called nationally, we have a pretty good handle on the major Texas results.  Donald Trump won Texas handily, as expected. Ted Cruz sailed to victory over Democratic Congressman Colin Allred, who Democrats had grown convinced would run a tight race. With an estimated 84 percent of the vote in, it has proven to be anything but: Cruz leads by a million votes and ten percentage points.  Republicans improved their vote shares significantly in South…

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Fish Company TacoWhen I spoke to Dayatra Myers-Hurt in September of last year about her restaurant, Fish Company Taco, in Galveston, I didn’t expect it to close a month later. In our interview, she did mention that her small taqueria wasn’t even making enough money to install air-conditioning, but the excellent food—especially the rotating catch of the day and nixtamalized tortillas—was worth the uncomfortable perspiration. When I dined there, a large family came in to celebrate someone’s graduation from Texas A&M University at Galveston, and no one complained about the heat. But, sadly, the operating costs were too much to handle. The small shack selling fresh fish in exquisite tortillas of heirloom corn was gone. I was saddened to see a small business close. I was also disappointed…

The post This Galveston Taqueria Reopened With a New Owner and Chefs but Hasn’t Captured the Magic of the Original appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Dwell with DignityWhen Adriana Trejo and her two kids moved into their Dallas apartment, they didn’t need for a moving truck—their furniture consisted of two mattresses and a small sofa. Trejo had saved enough for first and last month’s rent, but the budget left little room for anything else. She was prepared to make do, but then Dwell with Dignity selected her for an HGTV-worthy makeover.Interior designer Lisa Robison started the nonprofit in 2009 to serve families experiencing homelessness because she believes in the “transformative power” of design. “Oftentimes it’s people who can least afford it who can benefit from it the most,” Robison says.Dwell with Dignity has since partnered with social services agencies, design firms, retailers, major fundraisers like the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, and…

The post Is Good Interior Design the Key to Ending Homelessness? These Texans Think So. appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Daylight Savings in TexasThis past weekend was one that most of us were dreading. At two o’clock in the morning on Sunday, our clocks rolled back an hour, and the day suddenly got shorter. The natural progression of the seasons, in which the sun gradually sets earlier each night, was upended, and the early onset of sunset happened all at once—as early as 5:13 p.m. in some parts of the state. It’s a disorienting and confusing adjustment, and most Americans loathe it: According to a 2022 CBS–YouGov poll, nearly 80 percent of the country wants to stop changing the clocks each November and then again in March.Frustration over the time switch led the state’s agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, to declare in a social media post that “Texas can…

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Cocktail Recipe Round-up For Tough DaysFeeling a weird sense of pressure right about now? Maybe it’s this week’s wave of humidity, or tree pollen ravaging your allergies. Perhaps you’re anticipating some kind of news that could change the future of your city, state, and country. Just a hunch!There’s also the Halloween hangover and gearing up for the major holidays ahead that render the last couple months of the year chaos.It’s a lot. Take a deep breath, and dust off the cocktail shaker. These drinks, while not able to actually solve any problems, bring moments of levity and fun—or, at the very least, distraction. “Sorry, can’t watch the election returns on TV—have to run to H-E-B to gather supplies for a mango margarita!”Take the opportunity to not only make something delicious…

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The Curious Case of the Hill Country HS With Two MascotsIn nature, bobcats and deer rarely clash. A bobcat might attack a fawn, but the feline predator is too small to present much threat to an adult deer. At Comfort High School, the peaceful coexistence of the two animals exceeds that in the natural world. This is because the school, located about fifty miles northwest of San Antonio, has two mascots: a bobcat, for the boys teams, and a deer, for the girls teams. According to the school district’s website, “Comfort may be one of a few, if not the only school district with two mascots.” I intended to leave no stone unturned to prove this claim and help the unincorporated Hill Country town drop the “may be.”My search quickly led me to Comfort athletic director and…

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2024 Election Live BlogEditors’ Note: We’ve made this article free to access as a service to our readers. To support our ongoing coverage of this election cycle, consider becoming a subscriber. What’s at Stake in the “Most Important Election of a Lifetime” Ben Rowen, 11:00 a.m., 11/4/24 Welcome to the Texas Monthly 2024 general election live blog! Starting tomorrow at 6 a.m. and running until we have demonstrative calls on the races—whether that be 2 a.m. Wednesday as the networks shift to showing Young Sheldon reruns or (as in 2020) 11 a.m. on Saturday right after I decide to leave my phone at home for a four-hour kayak excursion—we’ll be keeping you up to date on the results and what they mean. Follow along for live updates from Michael…

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LBJ movie stills collage illustrationFilmmakers have long been drawn to “the Texan” as a character type. Our series Playing Texan revisits some of the most notable of these portrayals, from the legendary to the ludicrous, to determine what they say about how the world sees Texas—and how we see ourselves.  For a guy who always seemed so stiff in front of a camera, whose lack of Hollywood glamour and mystique (especially compared with his predecessor) was such a constant thorn in his side, and who’s been dead for more than a half century, Lyndon B. Johnson has enjoyed a surprisingly durable career in showbiz. LBJ has popped up in scores of plays, movies, TV shows, and even video games, everything from Hey Arnold! to Oppenheimer to Metal Gear Solid.…

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Black GoldStanding in Black Gold’s pit room about a week before the Austin restaurant’s opening day on November 9, Mems Davila rests his hand on the handle of Stevie Ray, one of two 22-foot-long smokers custom-made by Cen-Tex Smokers in Luling. (The other pit is named Jimmy.) The mustachioed pitmaster and former musician has been serving barbecue out of his Wünder Pig food truck since 2014, and he’s spent the past three years working with local firm 3 Fold Design to transform this former Crestview van-customization shop into an upscale barbecue restaurant with a style as sexy as the crispy bark on Davila’s brisket.Stevie Ray and Jimmy, their names a nod to Davila’s music background, power both the food and design of Black Gold. Because Davila…

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How blue could Texas be gerrymandered (in theory)As they sat down to draw the state’s congressional maps in 2021, Republican state lawmakers in charge of the once-a-decade process pored over detailed electoral and demographic data. This allowed them to pick with precision which voters they’d like to have in each district—a process known as gerrymandering. Typically, the party in control of the state legislature has two ways to protect its legislative and congressional candidates and weaken the power of voters who lean toward the opposition. “Packing” takes voters who favor the other party and places as many as possible in a single district, thus ceding one seat to political opponents but increasing the majority party’s odds in multiple adjacent districts. A second tactic, “cracking,” splits voters for the opposition into multiple districts that…

The post How Undemocratic Is Gerrymandering? Look at How Blue Texas Could Be if Democrats Drew the Maps. appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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