Emily McCullar

The stinging fireworm’s venom causes pain, nausea, and dizziness—but you’ll almost certainly never see one of these weird marine creatures.

The former Real Housewife of Beverly Hills and lifelong horse girl has set up camp in Cowtown with a pair of leather chaps and a LOT of equine-themed art.

Twenty-plus years after the Dubya incident heard round the world, the Dallas trio is still the face of left-leaning country.

The Olympian is the Beyoncé of gymnastics, and Bey is the Simone Biles of pop stars.

Every reality show promises some reward. Often these are explicit—a million dollars, a proposal, a recurring role on hit teen drama Glee—but even those without a formal prize offer a steady paycheck, and attention, which can be even more valuable to the aspiring star. For sixteen seasons, the CMT show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team did both. Though it was canceled in 2022, a new Netflix docuseries, America’s Sweethearts, picks up the megaphone on June 20 and promises an even bigger…

Fast-food mascots come in every shape and size, but personally, I like to see ’em with a little girth. Big Boy’s belly isn’t just his body type—it is proof to road-weary travelers that the burger he hawks is worth eating in large quantities. Ronald McDonald is unfortunately quite ectomorphic, but by his side is Grimace, whose portly pear shape signals to all that at least one guy on the team gets high on his own supply. For more than forty years, Texas’s most famous fast-food mascot, Buc-ee…

When the movie Saltburn was released, in 2023, viewers of a certain age quickly clocked a familiar yellow bracelet on the main character. The particular shade of yellow—let’s call it Homer Simpson meets caution tape—and the half-inch width were all anybody needed to identify the Livestrong wristband, a $1 piece of silicone that first debuted in 2004. The costuming choice was logical. The movie was, after all, set in 2006, and the accessory had been as ubiquitous in that decade’s fashion as the V…

When I think about what makes a Texan, I am reminded of the 1964 Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio, when Justice Potter Stewart tried to define pornography and wrote, “I know it when I see it.” As a staff writer at this state’s national magazine, where I have worked for a decade, determining who and what counts as “one of us” is part of my job. And I am well suited to the task: I was born and raised here, and all branches of my Texan family tree are several generations long. My first sip…

All due respect to Ireland and its musicians, but the greatest trick the devil ever played was to permanently associate the phrase “take me to church” with Hozier. Before a milquetoast single by that name dominated the 2013 pop charts, the act of “taking ____ to church” was a colloquialism in African American Vernacular English that referred to a musical or sermonic performance so moving it could instill in both performer and audience a feeling of the presence of God. The exact origin of the…

West Texas boasts no shortage of peaks from which to look out and be humbled by the Trans-Pecos volcanic field unfolding before you. Davis Mountains State Park contains dozens of vistas, but a particularly hypnotic one can be found at the Keesey Canyon Overlook. The highest point along the park’s Skyline Drive Trail, it offers a rustic wooden bench that serves as an ideal resting spot for hikers who’ve conquered the formidable switchbacks along the climb to get here. From 5,500 feet above sea le…

The yellow-crested helmetshrike hadn’t been seen in decades—and it wasn't the only rare species spotted by the UT–El Paso team.

Maybe you’ve heard that old urban legend about the guy who adopts what he thinks is a puppy. The location changes: sometimes it’s Mexico, sometimes the Bay Area. The “guy” can be anything from a tourist unfamiliar with the fauna of the region he’s visiting to a mom coerced by her puppy-loving kids. But one aspect is consistent: the “puppy” is not actually a puppy. It’s a giant, monstrous rat. In Texas and Louisiana, this urban legend usually ends with a nutria. Quite literally a rodent of un…

Anyone who’s taken Interstate 35 between Dallas and Austin knows the Alico building. The tallest skyscraper in the state when it was completed, in 1911, it remains the tallest building in Waco, by ten stories. But it’s hardly the city’s most prominent structure. The roughly two million people who visit Waco each year might notice the giant red Amicable Life Insurance Company sign that tops the tower, but many are coming to visit the Silos, the Disneyesque 5.3-acre downtown shopping complex built…

When the fifth season of Love is Blind aired on Netflix last year, bloggers and Reddit commenters alike agreed that it was the worst of the show so far. Only two couples from the Houston-set season—in which Space City singles date “blindly” and get engaged before ever seeing each other in person—made it to the altar, and fans bemoaned the lack of chemistry between them. It was obvious that other couples had been completely cut out of the season (you could see them in the background of the footag…

WHO: Vicki Nichols, a music teacher in Grandview WHAT: After 23 years as the director of Grandview Elementary’s Zebra Strings program, Nichols has been named a semifinalist for the Grammy Museum’s Music Educator Award. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Fewer people live in Grandview, a Central Texas hamlet with a population of 1,889, than were nominated for this year’s music education Grammy, an annual award for teachers who have made “a significant and lasting contribution to the music education field.…

For roughly ten minutes at a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, a man moved from patron to patron, shooting them at close range with a Glock 17 and a Ruger P89. As police closed in, he turned one of his guns on himself, ending what was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The killer took the lives of 23 people on October 16, 1991, and wounded roughly two dozen more. Dozens of others survived without significant injury, carrying the memories with them for years afterward. But the ma…

I am an Austin native, and as such, I proudly exercise my right to complain about this city nonstop. It can be hard for those of us who grew up here to be okay with how much this place has changed. When focusing on traffic and rent prices, it’s easy to spiral into despair. When this happens, I force myself to list the (handful of) ways that insane population growth has actually improved the city: there are a lot more direct flights in and out of Austin-Bergstrom. There is, without question, more…

The running started around 6:47 p.m. The destination, an onstage conversation between home renovation megacelebrities Chip and Joanna Gaines, wouldn’t materialize for another 43 minutes, but security had just let in the first wave of ticket holders—who had been in line for three hours—and they all wanted a spot right up front. The fans kept their cool at first, walking briskly past the clothing, jewelry, bath and body, plant, and men’s accessories shops that are the most recent additions to the…

Decades after the Nashville establishment turned its back on Tanya Tucker, the spitfire from Seminole is finally getting the recognition she deserves.

Matriarchy Build connects home-improvement-seeking customers with a database of vetted tradespeople, all of them female or nonbinary.