• The Border Debate is Changing at the Capitol. With Newfound Influence, Can Democrats Go Beyond Playing Defense?
   
• Could Kinder Morgan’s ‘Permian Highway’ Scar the Hill Country?
   
• El Paso School Consolidation Exposes More Kids to Lead and Other Hazards, Parents Say

• Valeria Luiselli’s Second Novel Reckons with the Trauma Inflicted on Migrant Kids
   
• As a Citizen Included on Texas’ Fake Voter Fraud List, I Call for the Resignation of Secretary of State David Whitley

The Lede
No News is Bad News

• For the last eight years, Cochran County, Texas, a square of farming and ranching country in the High Plains, has gone without a local newspaper. The weekly Morton Tribune printed its last issue in 2011, putting the county of 2,900 people on a growing list of “news deserts” — communities without a single local source of news.
   
• People now rely on word of mouth for news, gathering in the senior citizen center to keep up with happenings. But without a paper regularly covering city and county government, civic life is impoverished. Morton Mayor Kim Silhan attributes declining voter turnout to the Tribune’s closure. “They don’t realize we’re having an election,” she said.
   
• Morton is among more than 1,300 communities across the country considered a news desert, according to an October report by University of North Carolina researchers. The UNC scholars found that 146 weekly newspapers and 14 dailies have closed in Texas since 2004 — half of them in rural areas. Meanwhile, the corporate owners of newspapers in metro areas are struggling to fill in the gaps. In May, the San Antonio Express-News laid off 14 reporters, the largest cut since 2009 when 75 reporters were laid off.

From the archives
Reckoning With Rosie

• In 1977, single mother Rosie Jimenez died after a botched, illegal abortion. Though Roe v. Wade had legalized abortion four years earlier, the 1976 Hyde Amendment banned the use of Medicaid to cover costs for pregnancies that weren’t the product of rape or incest. Jimenez couldn't afford a safe abortion, and she died for it. 
   
• From Alexa Garcia Ditta’s 2015 story: “Jimenez’s death — covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and ABC News — roiled the national dialogue over abortion rights. Reproductive rights organizations held candlelight vigils across the country, attracting as many as 300 people in Washington, D.C. At rallies in New York and at the U.S. Capitol, protesters decried the federal government and Congress, blaming Jimenez’s death on the cutoff of Medicaid funds. A New York Times editorial called Jimenez the ‘first victim’ of the Hyde Amendment. Among abortion rights activists — even, to some degree, within the U.S. public at large — she became a symbol of the destructive power of the bill.”

What’s Happening at the Observer

• Save the Date! Join us on Tuesday February 26 for our annual Rabble Rouser! There are still a few tickets that include a beer left! RSVP here.
   
• Have you done great journalism in 2018? The deadline for submissions for the 2019 MOLLY National Journalism Prize is fast approaching. Winner gets a $5,000 cash award and, more importantly, a beer stein. Submit here: https://www.texasobserver.org/mollyawardsubmissions/ by February 28.
   
• The Observer will be taking part in Amplify Austin beginning on February 28 at 6 p.m. For 24 hours, you can support the local giving in Austin by donating to support our work. Watch for more details to come!
   
• The magazine is on a new schedule! Starting this year, the print edition of the Observer will hit mailboxes on odd months. That means the next issue will hit mailboxes March 1. Email subscriptions@texasobserver.org or call (512) 477-0746 with questions.