Katy Vine

Before convicting the Austin auto executive in a murder-for-hire conspiracy, a jury was mistakenly given evidence it shouldn't have seen. That may mean a whole new trial next year.

Host Katy Vine speaks with two men at the heart of the most infamous murder-for-hire case in Texas history.

The Reverend William Lawson, a beloved preacher and community leader known as “Houston’s pastor” who led efforts to desegregate the city, died Tuesday at the age of 95. Lawson was judicious in the fight for social justice, his prudent approach evident from the start. One spring evening in 1960, on the Texas Southern University campus, Lawson—then a lanky 31-year-old who’d arrived in Texas just five years earlier—invited a handful of students from the Progressive Youth Association, which was dedi…

One of the few things thirteen-year-old McKenzie Mullins likes more than squeezing a horse’s nose is messing with its lower lip. “It’s all about the lip,” she told me one morning last summer, standing in her family’s stables, in Gordon, which house seventy horses, including Twister, Swingin’, Bully, Fancy, Player, Lizzie, Plagiarism, and Snoopy. When we’d arrived, McKenzie had hopped up onto a fence and waved to the horses with the enthusiasm of somebody entering a giant family reunion. “Hello,…

My teenager and I filled our South Padre itinerary with horseback riding, parasailing, fishing, and surfing.

We sold a horse. We sold Yeti coolers. We sold wireless meat thermometers, Craftsman shop vacs, trailer tires, and vintage saddles. When stomachs were growling, we sold popcorn snacks. A rum cake, made by one woman’s ninety-year-old Hawaiian grandmother, sold for hundreds of dollars. A three-speed 1921 Emerson fan and a football signed by former Oklahoma Sooners coach Bob Stoops each went for much less. In desperate times, we sold whatever we saw nearby: eyeglass frames, an American flag, a Texa…

On South Padre Island, change happens not just seasonally—from the crowded summer to the quiet winter—but every day, right under your feet. As you drive north through the resort town on State Park Road 100, the beach shops and fried-fish restaurants give way to one of the prettiest features of the island: the sand dunes. Keep going and watch as the small mounds become more abundant and massive—some can reach as high as fifty feet—until the encroaching beach seems to be swallowing the road. Park,…

Just west of Interstate 35, in the region where the flat Texas coastal plain ends and the rolling Hill Country begins, ancient history rules us still. It was here, 20 million years ago, that the limestone began to shift and break in a stair-step pattern of fractures and form the Balcones Fault Zone, providing an infrastructure for life. From above, moist air from the Gulf rises over the escarpment and swirls, forming generous, pregnant clouds; from below, cold and clear springs burst through the…

Although most of the state’s nearly seven thousand known caves are on private property, Texas does boast many popular cave systems that are easily accessible and open to the public, including these seven attractions and parks. If you develop more than a passing interest in going underground, join your nearest grotto (caving club). There are seven around the state; learn more on the Texas Speleological Association website. These groups host training events and meetings, organize trips, and are a…

Although most of the state’s nearly seven thousand known caves are on private property, Texas does boast many popular cave systems that are easily accessible and open to the public, including these seven attractions and parks. If you develop more than a passing interest in going underground, join your nearest grotto (caving club). There are seven around the state; learn more on the Texas Speleological Association website. These groups host training events and meetings, organize trips, and are a…