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Texan olympians to watchWhen the members of Team USA float down the Seine at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, only California and Florida will have more athletes representing the red, white, and blue than Texas, which is sending more than forty Olympians and Paralympians to compete this summer. From global superstars like Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in the history of her sport, and Sha’Carri Richardson, the reigning fastest woman in the world, to a skeet shooter and a speed climber who are the very best in the world at what they do, this batch of Texan Olympians is as close as it gets to a sure bet to make fans in Texas and across the nation proud. Hailing from major metros such as…

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8 Essential Texas Recipes For Tapping Into Your “Brat Summer”When British singer Charli XCX released her sixth album, the hyperpop Brat, fans declared it to be a “brat summer,” indulging in lime green (the eye-catching color of the album art) and dancing through emotional crises to catchy club music.But the term reached a new stratosphere when Charli XCX posted “kamala IS brat” on social media platform X shortly after President Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination. Harris’s campaign page even changed its header image on X to reference the album cover.But brat summer is much more than presidential preferences, and being a brat isn’t about tantrums and toddlers. “You’re just, like, that girl who is a little messy, and likes to party, and maybe says some dumb things sometimes—who feels…

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The Houston Toros.The bats are wooden, the beer is cold, and the merch is a home run. Sandlot baseball clubs in Texas run on an “everyone’s welcome, just grab a bat” ethos—once you score a coveted spot on a team, that is. Choose your playing level: most of the clubs include a handful of teams that offer everything from local pickup games to competitive travel opportunities, known as barnstorms. Texas teams can end up playing one another even if they’re based in opposite corners of the state. The sandlot spirit is one of Texas nostalgia—from the makeshift dugouts to the new communities made inside them.Even with friends and neighbors on the diamond, it’s the vintage-inspired team gear that truly caught our eye. Sandlot teams get creative with…

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Southwest Airlines open seating endsHailed by some as egalitarian but decried by others as a cattle call, the open boarding process at Southwest Airlines is on the way out. The Dallas-based carrier on Thursday said that it will soon offer assigned seats for the first time systemwide in its 53-year history.In a barrage of corporate jargon, Southwest called the change a “product evolution,” one of many “transformational commercial initiatives” aimed at “driving shareholder value” and improving “operational efficiency.” The bottom line? The airline decided it can make more money with assigned seats than without.For many customers, open seating was the last notable difference between Southwest and its competitors, including crosstown rival American Airlines and longtime competitor United Airlines. Southwest has come to resemble those competitors by flying bigger planes,…

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Why 'Twisters' Needs to Cross Over With 'Fast & Furious'Last weekend, Twisters posted the third-biggest opening weekend of 2024, a monster hit for Universal Studios. The film turns an unlikely nineties blockbuster into a bona fide franchise in an age when any movie that shows some box office juice inevitably gets a slew of sequels greenlit. It may have finally created an honest-to-gosh movie star out of Austin native Glen Powell. The question of whether there will be a Twisters 2 was likely answered as soon as studio execs saw the opening weekend numbers. The question now is simply where the series will go, to which we would like to offer a modest proposal—a crossover with the Fast and Furious franchise. This may seem like a silly idea, but we live in a world of…

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Ode to Marfa by Cat MartinezThe first thing you notice when you walk into Women & Their Work, an East Austin contemporary art gallery and nonprofit, is the butt of a missile. The six-foot-high shape is suspended in a fragment of wall, decorated with white and gray brick-patterned wallpaper. Illuminated by the gallery’s front windows, the light bouncing off the harsh contours of the missile’s Mylar surface draws your eye away from the pile of rubble beneath it, the glowing outline almost disappearing into the wall itself. This sculpture, The Strike, is part of “Bending Light” (on view through August 22), a group exhibition designed to explore “the intricacies of Black femininity and queer identity.” Its four Texas-based artists depict adversity and strength in pieces that employ disparate materials from…

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Texas GOP Leaders Blatant Racism Post-Biden/Harris NewsWhen President Joe Biden on Sunday announced that he would step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris as his successor, the historic move opened several floodgates. Among Democrats, one could almost hear an audible sigh of relief; they were finally freed from trying to defend the octogenarian president’s age and mental acuity. Meanwhile, some Republican officials and activists in Texas pounced on the news of a Black woman running for president as an opportunity to engage in thinly veiled racism.In a Sunday social media post, Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who declined an interview request, wrote that the elevation of Harris represented an effort to secure a “fourth term” for former president Barack Obama. (Patrick also alleged, without evidence,…

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Buddy's Place BurnetMy hands trembled a little as I locked my car in the parking lot of a small, blue, windowless building off Burnet Road with an image of John Wayne spray-painted on a boarded-up side door. There was nothing to be anxious about, I tried to remind myself. Still, my voice came out a pitch higher than I was aiming for. “Hey! I’m here to see about the beertender job,” I squeaked. Duane Johnson was behind the bar at Buddy’s Place. His blond hair was thinning but hanging in there, framing his round cheeks as he flashed me a welcoming smile. His face was flushed pink, undoubtedly because he was fixing something between taking care of customers. Duane was always fixing things at the 65-year-old bar. He…

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Martin DiesFor four years in the thirties, the U.S. government invested in theater to an extent that seems impossible, even shocking, today. The Federal Theatre Project, one of a slew of New Deal programs designed to alleviate poverty during the Great Depression, created about 12,000 jobs and launched the careers of such greats as Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, and Paul Green (author of the Texas outdoor musical, performed to this day in Palo Duro Canyon). Some 30 million Americans watched the project’s free or very affordable plays—more than a thousand productions across 29 states. The majority of those in attendance had never been to the theater before, including immigrants who enjoyed shows staged in their native languages, such as Spanish and Yiddish. In Texas, Federal Theatre…

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Bitcoin mining in west TexasSporting work boots, cargo pants, a camo tee, and a bottom lip packed with dip, Jason Wilson looks like the sort of guy who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Prius. And yet that’s what he pulls up in when he meets me at a ranch gate off Interstate 10 more than a hundred miles south of Midland. Beyond the fence line, a handful of cattle graze. As we pass through one gate, then another and another, there’s no hint that this land is used for anything other than ranching. Then, about six miles down the road, the industrial scaffolding of an electrical substation appears in the distance, surrounded by a chain-link fence. Wilson, my personal tour guide, parks his Prius outside a prefab building that…

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