I am the Houston bureau chief for The New York Times, reporting on the people and politics of Texas and Oklahoma from a home base in the nation’s fourth largest city.
I cover Texas, a broad mandate that involves lots of driving. I try to focus on the political and cultural debates that impact the direction of the state and, often, the rest of the country. I am interested in understanding, and helping readers understand, what Texas is like today, and the ways that such a fast-growing, larger-than-life place has been changing — and not changing — on a variety of fronts, from partisan affiliation to energy infrastructure to law enforcement. And I like good stories out of West Texas.
My Background
I have been a reporter for The Times since 2010. Before moving to Texas, I spent time in the state writing on the impact of the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. As a reporter in New York, I covered money in Albany politics, the downfall of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York Police Department. I graduated from Williams College and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. My first job in journalism was as a clerk at The International Herald Tribune in Paris, a job I landed by chance after giving guitar lessons to an editor there. I was born and raised in New York City, but my dad is from Dallas. I live in Houston.
Journalistic Ethics
All Times journalists are committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. What that means to me is that I make sure my work is fair to the people involved and an accurate reflection of what’s going on, representing issues from multiple angles. I fight to protect my sources and don’t accept gifts from anyone who might figure into my reporting. I don’t make political donations or participate in political activities.
More than 400 demonstrators across the country have been taken into police custody since arrests at Columbia University in New York set off a wave of student activism nationwide.
By Alan Blinder, Anna Betts and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
There were more than 120 new arrests as universities moved to prevent pro-Palestinian encampments from taking hold as they have at Columbia University.
By J. David Goodman, David Montgomery, Jonathan Wolfe and Jenna Russell
A crackdown on demonstrators at Columbia University in New York spawned a wave of activism at universities across the country, with more than 700 arrests.
The arrest marked at least the second time in the last year that National Guard members in Texas had been caught trying to transport migrants from the border.
Nearly a decade after his indictment for securities fraud, Mr. Paxton will pay restitution, take legal ethics classes and do community service as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has spent $10 billion building his own border security network. In Eagle Pass, where it has been concentrated, far fewer migrants have been crossing this year.
The Tulsa County district attorney said a fight involving the nonbinary student in an Oklahoma high school bathroom was “mutual combat.” The death has been ruled a suicide.