Brian is founding member of The Barbed Wire team. A longtime Texas journalist, he has written for the Austin American-Statesman, the Waco Tribune-Herald, Texas Monthly, and more. He was also a writer and producer at Rooster Teeth.
Culture
They’re not just crawling across your lawn — they’re on a mission. These lawn-destroying caterpillars move like a tiny, hungry army, munching on everything in their path: grass, plants, even the weeds. Meet the armyworm, so named because they roll deep in Texas this fall, launching an all-
Crime & Justice
At least 120 people have come forward to accuse Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual misconduct, and a prominent Texas attorney is representing them. Houston lawyer Tony Buzbee on Tuesday revealed that the victims include 60 men and 60 women, with 25 of them being minors at the time of the
Culture
Somebody—well, a man—bought a perfectly good Taylor Swift guitar just to smash it up. It happened recently in Waxahachie at the Ellis County Wild Game Dinner, where a man paid a reported $4,000 for the guitar (plus a wall hanger), according to WFAA. But the winner brought
News
Turns out, it’s not cool — or legal — to raid the homes of people trying to register voters and threaten them with a decade in prison! A federal judge has declared that parts of the Texas voter security law are unconstitutional, meaning that our state can no longer kick in
Culture
Score one for Houston. The famed Michelin Guide will be announcing its first-ever picks for best restaurants in Texas in Space City, passing over its eternal rival, Dallas. The guide, famous for its iconic star ratings and tire man mascot, says it’ll announce which restaurants in Austin, San
Food
If you’re someone who enjoys quality meats, we have a devastating story for you. Authorities confiscated more than 700 pounds of bologna at the Texas-Mexico border on Monday, when Border Patrol agents busted a woman who apparently had an uncontrollable addiction to cold cuts. In addition to seizing
Health
Turns out that kicking millions of people off Medicaid is really bad! The Texas Tribune and ProPublica investigated how Texas behaved in the aftermath of COVID-19, and — surprise!! — we were extremely shitty toward poor people who needed healthcare. To briefly sum up, we kicked more than two million people
Money
Great news! Alex Jones’ shitty media empire could be dead soon! The former Austin public access TV host may finally be suffering some consequences for his disgusting lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting being fake, which led to grieving parents being harassed for years by Jones’ followers. (One
Culture
The fall is a magical time of year for Texans. It brings all the best stuff, like football, frigid 89-degree temperatures, and election season. It also brings lots of disgusting crickets that get everywhere, stink to high heaven, and make us wonder which vengeful god we’ve pissed off
News
Most of the “Trump Train” supporters have officially beaten voter intimidation allegations in a civil trial after a federal jury decided that they weren’t financially liable for swarming a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign bus on Interstate 35 in 2020. Well, all except one. A lone Trump supporter, however,
News
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton bravely came to the defense of the oil and gas industry Monday, suing the Biden administration for daring to try and protect a rare lizard. The tiny reptile in question is the dunes sagebrush lizard, which lives in sand dunes about 30 miles west of
News
We’ve got another story about a Waco-area religious group accused of being culty (no, not that one). The Independent, a U.K.-based online newspaper, interviewed six former Homestead Heritage members who were born into the insular religious community but left the church as adults. They called it