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Lyndon Johnson Knew That Part of Wielding Power Is Knowing When To Let It GoSixty years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act, a high point in one of the greatest runs of policymaking of any president in American history. The Johnson administration was sprinting for most of the president’s years in office, and as he approached the end of his first full term a few years later, he was exhausted and unhappy. In 1967, when Johnson was just 58 years old, he commissioned a secret actuarial study to try to determine how much longer he should expect to live. His father died at just 60, and Lyndon had had a heart attack in 1955. The study suggested he should expect to expire at 64. “I figured that with my history of heart…

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Ken Paxton Annunciation HouseAn El Paso judge on Tuesday denied Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to shut down Annunciation House, a Catholic migrant shelter. Paxton had targeted the 45-year-old nonprofit in February, when he accused its staff, without evidence, of “operating a stash house” and “harboring aliens,” and requested a host of records from the shelter in an attempt to prove it. But in granting Annunciation House relief from Paxton’s requests, District Court Judge Francisco X. Dominguez wrote that Paxton didn’t establish what laws the shelter was violating, and that he used the records request to harass its guests and operators. The judge, in his ruling, called this breach “outrageous and intolerable.”Dominguez reasoned that closing the shelter, as Paxton intended, would violate the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act,…

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Winners at the National Spanish Spelling Bee.WHO: Richardson eighth grader Antonietta Perozo Gamero.WHAT: The National Spanish Spelling Bee, in El Paso, where fourth through eighth graders compete entirely in Spanish.WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Antonietta Perozo Gamero was confident she knew how to spell the word she’d just been assigned, but she still took her time. First she wrote the word down. Then she asked for the definition and mouthed the word silently to herself. Finally, she heard the word repeated and wrote it down again. “I was so motivated to win in that moment,” Perozo said. “I was really listening and trying to get every piece of information that I could get to help me spell the word correctly.” She spelled “jovialidad,” or “joviality” in English, quickly and smoothly, and with…

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Beer and Tacos: Celestial BeerworksTortilla chips and margaritas. Chocolate and red wine. Caviar and champagne. They’re all excellent food and beverage matchups, but a less talked-about pairing that deserves more attention is tacos and beer.While it’s hard to go wrong with a Mexican lager (Modelo alongside a suadero taco is difficult to beat), there are a myriad of other options to try if you want to expand your palate. I visited some of my favorite craft breweries that have on-site taquerias to ask what they recommend to their customers.Molly Reynolds, co-owner of Celestial Beerworks and its in-house truck, Cosmic Cantina, in Dallas, prefers washing down Cosmic’s chipotle and tomato–stewed chicken tinga taco with Celestial’s Satellite, an American light lager. On Reynolds’ recommendation, I ordered the Single Star hazy IPA…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

When Kinky Friedman launched his independent bid for the Governor’s Mansion in the 2006 campaign, it initially sounded like the legendary Texan wit doing what he did best: having fun by playing a prank on the rest of us, the cigar clenched between his teeth as he tried to keep a straight face. The campaign utilized slogans that did nothing to persuade Texans to take Friedman seriously: they included “He Ain’t Kinky, He’s My Governor,” “How Hard Could It Be?,” and “Why the Hell Not?”Texans took him seriously anyway. His campaign became a legitimate factor in the race; for two quarters in 2006, Friedman’s fund-raising totals surpassed those of Democratic nominee Chris Bell, whom he also polled ahead of at several points in the summer.…

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A Stroke Didn’t Stop Me From Paddling Eighty Miles Down the Nueces River to the SeaIt was something I always had wanted to do—go under my own power down a river to the sea. At its core was both the idea and the sensation of freedom. Living in a world so thoroughly carved up and sold off, there were only two ways I had discovered to really experience freedom in nature the way it once must have been everywhere. One way was hiking through a national forest. The other was traveling on a river, which, although usually flanked by private property, nevertheless was itself considered public, and by Texas law one was allowed to camp along its banks when en route. I had thought first of a canoe trip, perhaps floating down the Colorado from Austin to the Gulf of…

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The Problem With ErikListen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read the transcript below.“Maund was freaking out. Everything is at a fever pitch, and that’s when Gilad Peled says, ‘The guys on the ground have offered to take him out.’ ”—Rob McGuireFacing the blackmail threat, Erik Maund decides not to pay up or go to the police. Instead, he turns to Gil Peled, a security guy at the Maund family car dealership who seems qualified to solve sensitive problems. Built like a bodybuilder, Peled claims to have experience in the Israeli special forces, and he spent years in Hollywood protecting Charlie Sheen. But Gil Peled isn’t quite the success story he pretends to be.Executive producer is Megan Creydt. The show is reported and written by Katy Vine and written, produced, and…

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The Problem With ErikListen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read the transcript below. Subscribe Apple Podcasts — Spotify “Maund was freaking out. Everything is at a fever pitch, and that’s when Gilad Peled says, ‘The guys on the ground have offered to take him out.’ ”—Rob McGuireFacing the blackmail threat, Erik Maund decides not to pay up or go to the police. Instead, he turns to Gil Peled, a security guy at the Maund family car dealership who seems qualified to solve sensitive problems. Built like a bodybuilder, Peled claims to have experience in the Israeli special forces, and he spent years in Hollywood protecting Charlie Sheen. But Gil Peled isn’t quite the success story he pretends to be.Executive producer is Megan Creydt. The show is reported and written by…

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The Problem with Erik Episode 1Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read the transcript below. Subscribe Apple Podcasts — Spotify “I got this emotion inside of me, and I could feel what they were feeling. And I knew that this was the morning of these two people’s deaths.”—Matt GarrettBill Lanway met Holly Williams through mutual friends in the Nashville EDM scene. Soon after they started dating, he moved into her apartment. It was only then, after snooping around on her phone, that he discovered Holly was an escort. Bill reacted with jealousy and violence against Holly, but the scheme he hatched next put them both in peril.Executive producer is Megan Creydt. The show is reported and written by Katy Vine, and written, produced, and reported by Ana Worrel. It was produced…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

The Problem with ErikListen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read the transcript below. Subscribe Apple Podcasts — Spotify “He’s the most simple rich person you’ve ever met in your life. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was as happy as he could be just being what he was.”—Joe JosephIn early 2020, Erik Maund—an executive at one of the top Toyota dealerships in the country, founded by his grandfather—had a problem. A stranger was blackmailing him for having an extramarital affair. Erik’s response to the threat set off a series of fateful decisions that left two people dead.One of those victims was Holly Williams, a Nashville woman who’d trained as an aesthetician, loved to party in the local EDM scene, and worked as an escort. After months in an abusive relationship,…

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