• Texas’ Medicaid Waiver is a Ploy to Pay Even Less for Women’s Health
   
• Texan Kathleen Hartnett White Too Extreme for Trump Administration

• Climate Change, Mexican Folk Healing and Fantastical Beasts Collide in South Texas Painter’s Austin Show
   
• Let the Concrete Pour: ‘Power Moves’ Tracks Houston’s Bleak Transportation History

The Lede
Senfronia Thompson on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

• As the longest-serving woman and African American in the Texas Legislature, state Representative Senfronia Thompson, or Ms. T as she is affectionately known, has seen a lot in the nearly 45 years she’s represented her Houston district.
   
• In the midst of the #MeToo movement and following allegations that two Texas lawmakers had sexually harassed women, the 79-year-old Democrat spoke with the Observer about her experiences with racism and sexism under the pink dome.
   
• "Women have not had an opportunity to be as bold and forceful as I was," Rep. Thompson said. "Society has not been kind to women who have come forward."

• Strangest State: February 2018
   
• Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

From the archives
Endangered Science

• The Texas hornshell mussel was placed on the endangered species list Friday.
   
• Last year, environmental reporter Naveena Sadasivam dug into the fight to list six other mussels as endangered – a debate that falls, inscrutably, in the lap of Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar.
   
• From the story: "From the looks of them, it’s hard to imagine that the smooth pimpleback, the Texas fawnsfoot or the Texas fatmucket could threaten the Texas economy. Found at the bottom of rivers, these inconspicuous bivalves measure only a few inches in length, at most. Despite their fanciful Harry Potteresque names, they lack the charisma of other rare species. The spotted owl, the bald eagle or even the golden-cheeked warbler, they are not. Still, the prospect of listing up to six freshwater mussel species found in Texas as endangered has become a preoccupation of the Texas comptroller, the state office better known for collecting taxes and maintaining a registry of unclaimed property."

What’s Happening at the Observer

• Our annual rollicking Rabble Rouser returns! Admission is $30. The first 100 tickets sold include a beer (if you hurry, you can still snag one of them!). All tickets come with a free Observer Fight for Truth koozie.

• This week, we completed a major upgrade of our digital app. Digital edition subscribers should have received an email with update instructions. If you did not receive this email, or are having trouble accessing the application (available from both the iTunes and the Google Play stores) please email business@texasobserver.org. 
   
• In other digital edition news, we’re happy to report that users of Readly and Magzter – two Netflix-like magazine subscription services – can now read the Observer as part of their subscriptions. We’re also still available through Amazon’s Kindle and, now, Zinio’s newsstand offerings. In fact, we’re happy to offer a discount for Zinio users: two years for the price of one.