EDITORIAL

The Mexican Immigrant Who Became One of America's Most Decorated Soldiers Three Allied nations pinned their highest military decorations onto the chest of a young Mexican immigrant while General John J. Pershing looked on. France honored him. Italy honored him. The United States honored him. Marcelino Serna became one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War I after volunteering to fight for a country that did not require his service. One distinction remained abse

For more than a decade, the number of followers on a page meant something. A large audience signaled influence, credibility, and reach. People often decided whether someone mattered before watching a single post because the number beneath the profile photo shaped expectations. That number has stopped mattering the way it used to. Creators across Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are now watching a strange split unfold. A single video can pull in hundreds of thousands of views,

The World Cup Had One Champion But Someone Else Tried to Win the Spotlight Spain spent years earning the right to lift the 2026 FIFA World Cup trophy. President Donald Trump apparently thought he had earned a spot in the victory photo. If you've followed Trump over the years, none of this came as a surprise. He has long demonstrated a remarkable ability to turn virtually any event, whether it belongs to him or not, into a stage where the spotlight somehow drifts in his direct

My son turned 24 today, and for the first time in a long time, I did not celebrate his birthday without him. I need you to understand what a strange sentence that is for me to type. There was a time when Vicente came to his own birthday parties. SpongeBob cake, a piñata, a kid who hadn't yet been handed the keys to his own life and didn't know he could refuse. Vicente showed up because showing up was still someone else's decision. He didn't know he had a choice. Then he got o

For generations, women were told they could "have it all." Higher education. A successful career. Financial independence. Marriage. Children. A beautiful home. Community involvement. Personal fulfillment. Yet what many women discovered is that "having it all" often came with the expectation of doing it all. Today's working mother frequently balances professional responsibilities while carrying much of the invisible labor that keeps a household functioning. She remembers docto

The theological effect was immediate and durable. A woman with a claim to independent religious authority became instead a symbol of redeemed sin, forgiven rather than empowered. Historian Susan Haskins called the matter "settled" for nearly fourteen hundred years, and the settlement held remarkably well for something built on a mistake.

Bishop Robert Barron says he hates the tribalism eating Catholic social media, the scapegoating mobs, the little liberal and conservative teams throwing punches at each other online. He has a point. Anyone who has spent ten minutes in Catholic Twitter knows exactly what he means. But the timing of that complaint, arriving after a year in which Barron himself became one of the more polarizing figures in American Catholicism, deserves a second look. Fifteen years ago, then-Fath

There are political books that tell readers something new, and then there are political books that simply confirm what many Americans have been screaming at their televisions for the better part of a decade. Regime Change by journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan belongs firmly in the second category. For anyone who has spent the last several years asking, “Wait… this is really happening?” This book arrives carrying enough receipts to wallpaper the entire kitchen. Draw

Somebody's mother taught her children to keep their hands where officers could see them, to speak slowly, to do exactly what the badge said and nothing more. That lesson used to buy safety. Renee Good followed it. Alex Pretti followed it. Ruben Ray Martinez followed it, brake lights lit, car barely moving, hands where anyone could see them. All three ended up dead anyway, and the country owes their families more than a press release calling it self-defense. "Comply or die" is

Your Brain Treats Your Ex Like a Bag of Chips Nobody wants to hear that a two a.m. ex spiral runs on the same neurochemical wiring as a Doritos binge, but it does, and understanding that turns the habit from a moral failure into a pattern with an off-ramp. Someone spirals into thinking about an ex the same way someone else opens the pantry at midnight, restless and unfocused, chasing a specific hit of familiar comfort. The urge shows up when loneliness gets loud or when an or

For many Texans living in rural counties, statewide offices often feel distant from everyday life. Yet one of the least-discussed statewide positions is the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, which oversees programs that directly affect food security, rural development, school nutrition, water conservation, and the economic future of small farming communities. That is why Democratic nominee Clayton Tucker has drawn attention from rural advocates. A fifth-generation Texas ranc

Funny How Breathing Got Easier When Hate Needed a Mask There was a time not long ago when wearing a face covering was portrayed by many Americans as the greatest assault on personal liberty since someone suggested vegetables with dinner. "Can't breathe." "My body, my choice." "Government tyranny." The mask, they insisted, represented oppression. Then came the 2026 Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of men marched through the nation's capital dressed in matching unifo

There are some people you meet at political conventions whose influence extends far beyond the ballroom walls. Meeting Carlos Eduardo Espina at the Texas Democratic Convention was one of those moments. Finding him, however, proved to be an adventure in itself. While most of the convention trainings took place in the main conference areas, Espina's session seemed tucked away in a corner of the convention center, almost hidden from the bustling flow of delegates and activists.

The Long Line Of Women Who Refused Silence There is a saying heard in many Latino homes: "Si quieres que algo se haga bien, dáselo a una mujer." If you want something done right, give it to a woman. It is usually said half-jokingly while preparing tamales, organizing a fundraiser, planning a quinceañera, balancing the household budget, caring for aging parents, and somehow still finding time to remind everyone to call their grandmother. But history suggests there is more trut

2026 Democratic Convention For readers unfamiliar with the convention, it is a statewide gathering where Democrats from across Texas come together to discuss party priorities, adopt resolutions, receive training, hear from elected officials and candidates, and organize for future elections. Delegates, who are selected through the party process at the local and state levels, represent their communities and play an active role in shaping the future direction of the party. Being

I was looking for a book and found a newspaper article by R. Daniel Cavazos, editor of The Monitor, called "Starr: diamond in the rough," written sometime around 1994, mas o menos. A Rio Grande City businessman, Lauro Lopez, gets quoted in it, joking that the new Wal-Mart and H-E-B "SOO-PER" centers were coming because of trade with Mexico, not drugs. Decades later, Rio Grande City still has its Walmart and HEB, along with a Marshalls, a Ross, a Chick-fil-A and three differen

There Is No Democracy Without Journalism Scott Pelley has been shot at. He spent nights in waterlogged foxholes in the desert, filed dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait, and did all of it in service of an informed American public. When Donald Trump called him "fake news" and "the enemy of the people," Pelley did not retreat into polite hedging. Pelley joined CBS News in 1989 after years covering local Texas politics and anchored the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 201

Life Lessons In many Latino households, strength is not taught through lectures, it’s modeled in silence. It lives in the mother who works double shifts, who holds a family together through uncertainty, who loves fiercely but rarely says “I’m tired.” But somewhere between survival and sacrifice, there’s a quieter lesson that often goes unspoken: strength must be intentional, not inherited. Raising strong daughters today means preparing them for a world that will test their wo

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that does not explode loudly. It settles quietly into the walls of a marriage like cigarette smoke trapped in curtains. It lingers in routine, in silence, in the way two people continue passing each other coffee cups after trust has already been dragged bloody across the floor. This is the wife who stays. Not the naïve woman people mock from a distance. Not the weak woman strangers imagine when they ask, “Why didn’t she leave?” But the

There may be no greater prank nature has ever played on humanity than the orgasm. Think about it. Entire civilizations have been built around the pursuit of power, wealth, status, and meaning. Philosophers have spent centuries asking why we exist. Religions have wrestled with the nature of the soul. Poets have sacrificed their sanity trying to describe love. And then there is the orgasm, a fleeting event that lasts only seconds, yet somehow convinces otherwise rational adults