Skip to content

Portfolio

BeSomeone2

Who Keeps Painting ‘Be Someone’ on a Prominent Houston Bridge?

July 10, 2023

Tens of thousands of drivers pass under a Union Pacific rail bridge tagged with a big, blocky exhortation as they travel southbound on Interstate 45 every day.

“Be Someone,” it says.

It first appeared more than a decade ago. It’s been painted over with other graffiti multiple times, but “Be Someone” has always reappeared. The message resonates in Houston, a freewheeling city with no zoning and an entrepreneurial spirit that attracts people from all over the world looking to make their bones.

IMG_0312

A Huge Caravan Of Central Americans Is Headed For The US, And No One In Mexico Dares To Stop Them

March 30, 2018

Taking a drag from her cigarette, a Mexican immigration agent looked out toward a caravan of migrants that grew larger with each step they took on the two-lane highway.

When the agent, who'd covered her uniform with an orange and white shawl, learned that the Central American migrants heading her way numbered more than 1,000, she took off for the restaurant across the street.

LoveBorder

Two Couples Shared What It Was Like Falling In Love At A Migrant Camp At The US–Mexico Border

February 14, 2020

Thousands of immigrants hoping to get asylum in the United States spend months in this tent city in Mexico while they wait for their cases to be reviewed. They cook on makeshift stoves, survive on donations, and live in fear of kidnapping and violence if they venture too far from the camp.

Many are fleeing violence in Central America, and they hang on to a shred of hope that the US will let them in. Under the Trump administration, though, very few have been successful.

RyanWalters

He Taught AP History. Now He Targets Teachers for Being Too Woke.

Jan. 31, 2024 

Four years ago, Ryan Walters was a popular Oklahoma high-school teacher known for engaging Advanced Placement history lessons. Now, he is arguably the most incendiary critic of public-school teachers in the country.

Since taking office last year, Oklahoma’s elected schools superintendent has labeled teachers unions as terrorist organizations and said that radical leftists have turned schools into an “Epstein island” of sexual predators, as he has waged a verbal war against what he sees as a dangerous “woke ideology” infecting public education.

People running out of hotel

Haitians Who Fled The US Border Are Now Facing Nights Of Raids And Terror In Mexico

Sept. 22, 2021

Mexican authorities carrying rifles and flashlights combed through this city’s downtown early Wednesday, searching for the Haitians who were in hiding after being pushed to flee the US just days ago.

“If you send me to Haiti, I have no one there to help me,” said a father, holding a shard of glass to keep Mexican authorities from entering a hotel room holding his family. “I can’t go back.”

LoboGhostTown2

The Housing Supply Is Tight. How About a Texas Ghost Town for $100,000?

June 2, 2023

For five days Alexander Bardorff sat under the canopy of a deserted gas station and heard from more than 70 people who made the trek to this West Texas ghost town selling for $100,000—each one pitching a vision for the future.

It isn’t just about the money, said Bardorff, who is from Frankfurt, Germany. He and his friends, who paid $20,000 for Lobo in 2001, want to sell it to someone who understands how special the land they fell in love with is. Finding a good caretaker is hard, said Bardorff, tearing up. He interviewed each bidder at a round table under the canopy.