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Newsclips - March 19, 2024

Lead Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

Unchecked forces: How unchecked police agencies became a political powerhouse in Harris County

If you live in the Houston area, chances are you’ve run into the Harris County constables at some point. You might have seen a police car emblazoned with “Constable” making a traffic stop, or patrolling a street near your home. You might have been asked to “subscribe” to your local constable’s services. And over the last few weeks, you might have seen flyers, urging you to vote for someone as a constable candidate in the primary elections. So what exactly is a constable? In many states, city police departments and county sheriffs are the main agencies charged with keeping the peace; constables aren’t even in the vocabulary. But in Texas, constables have been part of the fabric of law enforcement for nearly two centuries. Harris County has eight of them, and they collectively employ nearly 1,800 sworn deputies – hundreds more than any other county constables’ offices in the state. And in recent years, they’ve mounted an increasingly aggressive campaign for more resources and recognition – making a rare show of force in October 2022, when scores of uniformed officers went to a meeting of county leaders and demanded more funding.

The Chronicle found that many of the constables’ claims about themselves are untrue or missing important context. For years, the constables have argued they are being “defunded” by county leaders. Yet their budgets, taken together, have hit record highs every year for a decade. At times, they’ve cast themselves as the last bastion against lawlessness in a county teetering toward collapse. Yet the vast majority of calls they respond to involve traffic stops, minor disturbances, alarms and other non-criminal activity, their own data shows. Their supporters say they are the most accountable form of law enforcement in the county. Yet they have virtually unchecked powers and extraordinary protections from accusations of misconduct that many police do not have. The Chronicle began reaching out to all eight constable precinct offices last fall, seeking information about their role in Houston-area law enforcement. Seven precincts provided detailed information about their activities. Precinct 6, which is led by Democrat Silvia Trevino and covers much of Houston’s east side, did not release records or data despite repeated requests under Texas open records laws. Members of the command staffs in three precincts agreed to answer questions from Chronicle reporters, either in writing or in brief interviews. All three said their departments play a crucial role in public safety, especially as other law enforcement agencies struggle with lack of personnel. They also emphasized that each of the constable precincts operates differently. “We’re all on a first-name basis with residents,” said Carl Shaw, an assistant chief deputy in Precinct 1, which covers North Houston and part of the city’s urban core and has more than 300 deputies. “They know they can pick up a phone and call our dispatch line when they’re scared.”

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Grist - March 19, 2024

In Texas, as in California, big fires lead to big lawsuits

As firefighters contained the largest wildfire in Texas history last week, the electricity provider for the state’s Panhandle region, Xcel Energy, announced some bad news: The wildfire, which burned more than a million acres of land and killed at least two people, seemed to have been caused by one of the utility’s electrical poles. “Based on currently available information, Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire,” the statement read, referring to the largest of several fires raging in the area. An investigation from the state’s forest management agency found that the fire began when a decayed wooden pole splintered and fell, sending sparks onto nearby grass. Photos obtained by Bloomberg News appear to show that the pole had been marked unsafe before the fire. Seizing on this evidence, multiple landowners in the area have already filed lawsuits against the company — as have family members of the fire’s victims, seeking millions of dollars in damages. Xcel has denied that it was to blame for the historic fire: In the same statement, the utility said it “disputes claims that it acted negligently in maintaining and operating its infrastructure.”

The lawsuits are just the latest in a string of high-profile wildfire cases against major electrical utilities, whose flammable power lines are among the most common culprits for major fire events. California companies such as Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison have paid out billions of dollars to fire victims and insurance companies over the past decade. Earlier this month, a jury delivered a verdict against the Oregon utility PacifiCorp, which could owe victims billions of dollars. Xcel itself is fighting hundreds of lawsuits in Colorado over its similar role in the 2021 Marshall Fire near the city of Boulder. These lawsuits have hit utilities with huge charges that they have passed onto customers in the form of rate increases. The emergence of the trend in Texas, a state that has avoided massive fire losses over recent years, underscores that wildfires are now a national threat to utilities, according to Karl Rábago, a former Texas utility regulator and expert on utility law. “They’re not pivoting to the world in which we live,” he told Grist. “When we face these situations, we do have a legal system that will likely dole out a measure of pain. The sad thing is, after paying out a certain amount of money, the problem will become so ubiquitous, and so oft-repeating, that we will treat it as business as usual.” As in many previous lawsuits, the question in Texas is what counts as negligence on the part of a utility. If the fact that Xcel knew the pole needed repairs but hadn’t yet repaired it is sufficient evidence of neglect, the company will likely be on the hook for a large share of the fire damages, which could amount to hundreds of millions.

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El Paso Matters - March 19, 2024

U.S. Supreme Court blocks Texas immigration law again

The U.S. Supreme Court extended its temporary block on Senate Bill 4, a Texas law that makes unauthorized border crossing a state crime. SB 4 allows state law enforcement to arrest people accused of illegally entering Texas from Mexico. The law was originally set to go into effect on March 5, but the nation’s highest court on March 12 extended a temporary stay on SB 4, blocking its enforcement, after immigrant rights advocates and the federal government sued the state. The Supreme Court had until today, March 18, to make a ruling on the case. Instead of issuing a ruling, the court just extended the temporary stay until further notice. Immigration law falls under federal jurisdiction and is enforced by agencies under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Critics of SB 4 say the new law is an unconstitutional attempt to usurp the federal government’s authority while forcing local police to reallocate already strained resources.

But Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican lawmakers have complained the federal government is not doing an adequate job. Since taking the gubernatorial office in 2015, Abbott has removed Texas from the federal refugee resettlement program, expanded U.S.-Mexico border wall construction and commenced Operation Lone Star, which deploys National Guard members and Department of Public Safety troopers to the border. Abbott signed SB 4 into law in December 2023 after it passed both the Republican-majority Texas House and Senate. In response, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project sued Texas on behalf of two immigrant rights organizations, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso and American Gateways in Texas. The U.S. Department of Justice later filed a lawsuit against Texas and the lawsuits were combined.

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State Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

Texas bankers worry early payment of $300M TxDOT bond could cost them

State bankers on Monday urged the Texas Transportation Commission to rethink a plan to pay off a $300 million bond issued in late 2020, more than nine years ahead of schedule and at a time when that initial investment has some bond buyers losing money on the purchase. If paid off early, potentially by the end of April, the move could lead the state to save about $80 million compared to letting the bond mature further. The banks who bought it, however, would be absorbing that loss. That move would leave banks “feeling hoodwinked at best and betrayed by their state at worst,” said Christopher Williston, president of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas.

Williston and other banking industry officials urged the commission on Monday to not proceed. After the comments, transportation commissioners met for more than two-and-a-half hours in executive session, then adjourned without taking any action. The commission’s next scheduled meetings are March 27 and 28, but any bond sale does not require commission approval, said Adam Hammons, spokesman for the Texas Department of Transportation. Hammons said the agency "is in the process of refunding previously issued bonds to save money for the citizens of Texas through unusual market conditions" and "fully disclosed the ability to redeem the bonds at the time of initial sale." Bonds are a common tool used to fund most of Texas’ transportation needs, especially capital programs where funding from federal sources and statewide fuel taxes can be spread over multiple years. As of the end of August, the state had 33 active transportation-related bonds, totaling more than $17 billion -- not counting those related to specific toll projects such as the Grand Parkway.

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Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

Astroworld planners foresaw crowding before deadly festival: ‘No way we are going to fit 50k’

Ten days before the 2021 Astroworld music festival, the event’s safety director was worried about whether organizers could cram throngs of fans in front of main act Travis Scott. “I feel like there is no way we are going to fit 50k in front of that stage,” Seyth Boardman wrote to the festival’s operations director. “Especially with all of the trees!” Boardman’s fears became deadly reality on the night of Nov. 5, 2021, when 10 young fans packed into a section near the stage suffered fatal injuries from a crowd crush during Scott’s musical set.

Boardman’s message was one of several high-level conversations about crowding at the festival in the days and hours leading up to the festival’s deadly climax, according to a review of hundreds of pages of court records filed in recent weeks. Those documents, submitted in connection with the mass of civil litigation from victims, contain the most detailed information yet about the lead-up to the festival, which has never been the subject of an independent investigation. Harris County commissioners rejected Judge Lina Hidalgo’s request for one after the tragedy. In the absence of an outside review, contract experts for the plaintiffs have authored their own attempts to make sense of the disaster. They contend festival planners relied on a fundamental misunderstanding of how many people they legally could pack into its grounds – and they did not have enough space even by their own, generous estimates.

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KUT - March 19, 2024

Texas Attorney General Paxton targets Austin's light-rail plans

Austin's effort to build a high-frequency urban rail network is facing a challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose legal arguments seek to dismantle the funding mechanism behind the voter-endorsed transit expansion. In a court filing, Paxton slammed the city's payment plan for the 10-mile light-rail starter system. The financial strategy was designed to navigate the increasingly tight strictures the state Legislature has placed on how Texas cities raise money. If a court sides with Paxton, it could kill the light-rail expansion known as Project Connect. In November 2020, Austin voters approved a 21% increase in the maintenance and operations portion of their property tax rate to fund the project. The tax hike generates about $166 million a year and growing.

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Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

Texas Supreme upholds jail time order for Austin investor at center of Paxton impeachment

A real estate investor accused of bribing the Texas attorney general is facing jail time after the Texas Supreme Court denied his appeal of an order holding him in contempt for lying in court. The state’s highest civil court narrowly denied Nate Paul’s petition in a 5-4 decision. Paul had been sentenced to 10 days in jail by a Travis County judge. On Monday, Travis County Judge Jan Soifer ordered Paul to report to jail on April 1 to begin his sentence.

The Austin-based investor was central to the Texas House’s impeachment case against Attorney General Ken Paxton and was accused of offering him home renovations and other favors in exchange for legal help. Paxton was impeached last fall by the majority-Republican House but acquitted by the Senate. Paul and Paxton are the targets of an FBI investigation launched in 2020 when Paxton's aides went to local and federal authorities, claiming the third-term Republican abused his office and took bribes from Paul. A grand jury has reportedly been convened in San Antonio and called witnesses close to Paxton. Paxton has denied all wrongdoing. Paul is also facing federal criminal prosecution for allegedly giving false statements to lenders and committing wire fraud and will face trial in November. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

Harris County's guaranteed income program will notify chosen families this week

Applicants selected to participate in Harris County's guaranteed income pilot program will be notified beginning today through March 22, according to the Harris County Department of Public Health. Around 1,900 participants were chosen to receive $500 monthly payments for 18 months. The first payment will be distributed as early as April 24. Over 82,500 applications were submitted for the Uplift Harris program, which is funded using $20.5 million in federal COVID-19 recovery funds.

More than 45 cities and counties have implemented similar programs providing families with direct cash payments, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. Many of them were launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and fueled by federal aid. The objective of the Harris County program is to alleviate income inequality in the county's high-poverty ZIP codes. Participants were chosen using a two-stage lottery system. Around 6,000 eligible applicants were randomly selected for the first stage. Then, the final participants were randomly selected from that group. To be eligible for the program, households must live below 200% of the federal poverty line, which means around $60,000 for a family of four or $29,000 for an individual. They must also live in one of the target zip codes: 77026, 77028, 77033, 77050, 77051, 77060, 77081, 77091, 77093 and 77547.

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Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

Joe Biden returning to Dallas, Houston this week

Just weeks after touring the Texas border, President Joe Biden is headed back to the Lone Star State for a pair of fundraising events. The Democrat is scheduled to be in Dallas on Wednesday and Houston on Thursday, according to a White House advisory. No further details of either event have been released publicly. It’s part of a ramped-up travel schedule since Biden delivered his State of the Union address this month. Since then, he’s made trips to Wisconsin and Michigan and will be in Nevada and Arizona to start the week before heading to Texas.

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Houston Chronicle - March 19, 2024

HISD Superintendent Miles defends controversial principal screenings that sparked parent outrage

Houston Independent School District appointed Superintendent Mike Miles defended the results of his controversial principal screenings Monday, after nearly half of the district's principals were notified that they had not yet met the requirements to guarantee their jobs next year. The 117 principals who must undergo a second screening to remain in HISD include both longtime veterans and principals appointed by Miles' administration just this year, representing Houston’s highest- and lowest-performing schools. Miles projected confidence Monday that the majority of those principals would keep their jobs, and he noted that most of the district's remaining school leaders had already passed the bar.

"There are 124 (principals) who are already above the proficiency bar, and the 117 (others) are the ones we told are making good progress, and you need to continue to make progress," Miles said. "The overwhelming majority, between 80% and 90%, will be asked to return." Miles' estimates hinge on an evaluation system that includes a targeted distribution in which only a fraction of HISD principals will receive top ratings, while the largest segment, or about 40%, would receive a rating of "Proficient I." He informed 117 principals in an email this month that they had scored below "Proficient I" on a separate midyear principal screening and that they would have to achieve proficiency on a second screening in April to automatically retain their jobs next year. About 22% of principals who score below proficient, in a category called "Progressing II," may remain in their position at the discretion of their supervisors. The 10% who receive the lowest rating, "Progressing I," will be removed from their schools, according to Miles' targeted distribution.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 19, 2024

Texas doctors weigh in on possible abortion law exceptions

Confusion around Texas’ abortion law has scared doctors, who worry they could be prosecuted, fined or lose their medical license for performing an abortion procedure when a patient’s life or health is at risk. The Texas Medical Board could offer some clarity, but North Texas OB-GYNs are warning about the difficulties of legislating often-murky medical emergencies. The board, which oversees the licensing and regulation of physicians, is scheduled to consider and take possible action on “rules regarding exceptions to the ban on abortions” on Friday. The agenda item comes after of confusion over what qualifies as a medical emergency under Texas’ abortion laws. Doctors, legal scholars and reproductive health experts have said state law is unclear, raising questions about when an abortion can legally be performed.

Texas law allows an abortion when a doctor practicing “reasonable medical judgment” believes “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” The Texas Supreme Court weighed in after a North Texas woman sued the state to obtain an abortion. The court said in December the Texas Medical Board “can do more to provide guidance in response to any confusion that currently prevails. “Each of the three branches of government has a distinct role, and while the judiciary cannot compel executive branch entities to do their part, it is obvious that the legal process works more smoothly when they do,” the Dec. 11 opinion reads. The Texas Medical Board’s upcoming discussion comes after Texas attorneys and lobbyists Amy and Steve Bresnen, who are married, filed a petition with the board seeking guidance on when an abortion can be performed under state law. They saw a comment from the board’s director to the Texas Tribune holding off on clarifications until issues played out in court and in turn asked the board to consider clarifying its rules.

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El Paso Matters - March 19, 2024

César Blanco: Texas closer than ever to turning blue

We are on the cusp of a historic shift for our state’s electoral politics with Texas closer than ever to turning blue. We all have a critical part to play in this pivotal moment and the pathway to securing victory begins in El Paso at the 2024 Texas Democratic Convention, from June 6-8. From the bustling markets of the historic Segundo Barrio to the serene beauty of the Franklin Mountains and the selfless service members stationed at Fort Bliss – El Paso embodies the essence of our great state – and our community is thrilled to welcome thousands of Texans joining us for this celebration of Democratic values, taking place in just a few short weeks. In Texas, we know that simply showing up to the ballot box is not enough. Our fight for working families doesn’t end in November. The organizing work done daily by El Paso Democrats impacts the important work done in the Capitols in Austin and Washington D.C.

That’s why I’m honored to lead our Texas Democratic Convention in partnership with my Co-Chair, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar because we will all take important action that will help reelect President Biden, elect Colin Allred to the U.S. Senate and tack on more victories here across Texas. We’re working day and night to encourage our Party’s rank-and-file members to take an active role as delegates in the Democratic convention process, both locally and at the state and national levels. By attending these conventions and assuming the role of delegates – our neighbors become the architects of the political future they envision. At these forums, we move beyond narrow ideological divides and zero in on the shared principles that bind us together. In Austin, I’ve been fighting to ensure world-class public education, accessible healthcare, top-notch reproductive care, economic stability, improved healthcare and support for fellow military veterans, and a sustainable future for generations to come. And after a white supremacist with a weapon of war attacked our community in 2019 – I wanted to continue the fight to keep our communities safer. But now, Texas faces a new threat: the rise of far-right extremism.

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El Paso Matters - March 19, 2024

El Paso Electric grapples with rising temperatures, record demands as it pushes toward clean energy future

There’s a simple energy question with an increasingly complex answer looming over El Paso Electric and this community: Can El Paso counter climate change and, at the same time, keep the lights on? “We’ve already surpassed our demand that we expected to see in 2029,” said Kelly Tomblin, El Paso Electric’s chief executive. “I want that to sink in: We are six years ahead of our demand.” At a time when people are increasingly using power-hungry refrigerated air conditioners and driving electric vehicles, and where big technology companies need massive amounts of electricity to run data centers – such as Meta’s incoming facility in far Northeast El Paso – the demand for electricity is racing past utilities’ expectations. That raises the specter that electricity supplies may fall short and, at some point, leave El Paso homes and businesses in the dark.

While out of plain view of El Paso Electric’s customers, the sizzling heat last summer pushed the region’s power grid to the brink. Last July, EPE’s operators were “holding our breath, crossing our fingers” that the utility would be able to keep customers’ lights and AC units on, Tomblin said. Now, as it works to meet escalating power demand and also produce cleaner electricity, El Paso Electric is walking a tightrope. On one hand, EPE is in the middle of developing four separate, huge solar farms across the Borderland, after the utility brought the region’s first major solar farm online a year ago just outside Chaparral, New Mexico. Those incoming seas of new solar panels will shift the energy landscape in El Paso by generating vast amounts of clean, zero-emission electricity here for the first time.

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Houston Landing - March 19, 2024

City declines to release records about Houston Avenue median, citing terrorism concerns

The city’s planning department has declined to release records related to the controversial installation and subsequent removal of a concrete median on Houston Avenue, citing concerns about terrorism and the candor of its employees. The city’s legal department has cited those two exemptions in the Texas Public Information Act in a letter asking the Texas attorney general’s office to withhold some of the records requested by the Houston Landing. The decision to remove the concrete medians on Feb. 2 prompted traffic safety advocates to complain it would move Houston backwards in its efforts to lower pedestrian deaths and injuries. Houston Mayor John Whitmire ordered the removal of the median a month after it had been installed by the previous administration, citing complaints about traffic flow and impeding emergency responders.

Houston Public Works began removing the median on Feb 6, though workers would encounter back-to-back delays after striking a water main and a gas line. Since then, information about the decision to install and remove the median has been scarce. District H Councilmember Mario Castillo said he had not been informed of the decision until it had been made, and he did not receive more information about the decision until much later in the month. Castillo said work to remove the project would cost $230,000, with an additional $500,000 for asphalt resurfacing. Those costs do not include repairs for the water and gas line ruptures. The Houston Landing submitted a Texas Public Information Act request for “any data, studies, plans, communications (both internal and external), and any other records” related to both the installation and removal of the median.

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County Stories

KUT - March 19, 2024

For the first time in 20 years, more people are leaving Travis County than moving in

Between July 2022 and July 2023, roughly 2,500 more people moved out of Travis County than moved in. This figure, which comes out of population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week, marks a reversal in population trends over the last two decades. “I haven’t seen negative net migration to Travis County in a long time,” said Lila Valencia, demographer for the City of Austin, most of which sits in Travis. The last year fewer people moved to the county than left was 2002. Travis County has long been known for its ability to attract tens of thousands of transplants each year. Despite dwindling migration numbers recently, the county’s population still climbed by about 7,000 people between the end of 2022 and the first half of 2023. The increase was driven by births instead of by people moving here.

The U.S. Census Bureau does not provide reasons for why more people are leaving the county than moving in. But Valencia has several theories — starting with the obvious. “Austin is not as affordable as it used to be,” she said. Between 2019 and 2023, the median sales price of homes rose nearly 53%. Rent prices also climbed, though at a slower rate. Valencia said historical county-to-county migration data shows people are leaving Travis County for neighboring areas. This includes Williamson County to the north and Hays County to the south. In the last half of 2022 and the first half of 2023, roughly 20,000 more people moved to Williamson County than left. Although home prices there have shot up since the pandemic, homes are still cheaper than in Travis County and Austin.

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National Stories

Stateline - March 19, 2024

‘Tough-on-crime’ policies are back in some places that had reimagined criminal justice

Fueled by public outrage over the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and other high-profile incidents of police violence, a seismic shift swept across the United States shortly afterward, with a wave of initiatives aimed at reining in police powers and reimagining criminal-legal systems. Yet less than half a decade later, political leaders from coast to coast are embracing a return to “tough-on-crime” policies, often undoing the changes of recent years. This resurgence is most palpable in the nation’s major urban centers, traditionally bastions of progressive politics. San Francisco voters earlier this month approved ballot initiatives that would require drug screenings for welfare recipients and would loosen restrictions on police operations. The District of Columbia, too, has pivoted toward a harder stance on crime, with its mayor signing into law a sweeping package that toughens penalties for gun crimes, establishes drug-free zones and allows police to collect DNA from suspects before a conviction.

Local and state leaders in blue and red states — including California, Georgia, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont — also have looked to toughen their approaches to crime and public safety in a variety of ways. Lawmakers have proposed bills that would stiffen retail theft charges, re-criminalize certain hard street drugs, keep more suspects in jail in lieu of bail and expand police powers. Many are passing with bipartisan support. Policymakers are responding to public concerns over rising crime rates and heightened fear and anger due to a surge in offenses such as carjackings and retail theft. To some criminal justice experts, the legislative actions represent more of a partial rollback of progressive criminal justice changes rather than a complete return to past punitive policies. “The issue for most people isn’t whether something is up or down by 10%. It’s that they are seeing randomness and brazenness, and getting a sense of lawlessness,” said Adam Gelb, the president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. “Some of what we’re seeing is more like … shaving off the edges of some of the policies that felt too lenient.” The percentage of Americans who think the United States is “not tough enough” on crime grew for the first time in 30 years, according to a Gallup poll released in November. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they believe the criminal-legal system is too soft, up from 41% in 2020. While national crime data is notoriously difficult to track and understand, violent crime across the United States decreased in 2022 — dropping to about the same level as before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the FBI’s annual crime report.

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New York Times - March 19, 2024

The zombies of the U.S. tax code: Why fossil fuels subsidies seem impossible to kill

As a candidate in 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. campaigned to end billions of dollars in annual tax breaks to oil and gas companies within his first year in office. It’s a pledge he has been unable to keep as president. Mr. Biden’s budget request to Congress this week was his fourth attempt to eliminate what he called “wasteful subsidies” to an industry that is enjoying record profits. “Unlike previous administrations, I don’t think the federal government should give handouts to big oil,” Mr. Biden said after his inauguration. His new budget proposal calls for the elimination of $35 billion in tax breaks that would otherwise be provided to the industry over the next decade. Mr. Biden’s wish is opposed by the oil industry, Republicans in Congress and a handful of Democrats. In Washington, it seems, oil and gas subsidies are the zombies of the tax code: impossible to kill. “Everybody agrees fossil fuel subsidies are wasteful, stupid and moving things in the wrong direction,” said Michael L. Ross, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies fossil fuel tax breaks.

“Getting rid of them seems to be one of the hardest things to achieve on the climate agenda.” The oil and gas industry enjoys nearly a dozen tax breaks, including incentives for domestic production and write-offs tied to foreign production. Total estimates vary widely; environmental groups take a broad view of what constitutes a subsidy while the industry hews to a more narrow definition. The Fossil Fuel Subsidy Tracker, run by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, calculated the total to be about $14 billion in 2022. Two of the biggest tax breaks have been in place for about a century. The oldest, known as “intangible drilling costs,” was created by the Revenue Act of 1913 and was aimed at encouraging the development of U.S. resources. The deduction allows companies to write off as much as 80 percent of the costs of drilling, things like employee wages and survey work, in the first year of operation, even before producing a drop of oil. Another subsidy, dating from 1926 and known as the depletion allowance, initially let oil companies deduct their taxable income by 27.5 percent, a number that seemed strangely specific. “We could have taken a 5 or 10 percent figure, but we grabbed 27.5 percent because we were not only hogs but the odd figure made it appear as though it was scientifically arrived at,” Senator Tom Connally, the Texas Democrat who sponsored the break and who died in 1963, was quoted as having said in “Sam Johnson’s Boy, a Close-Up of the President From Texas,” a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.

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CNN - March 19, 2024

Emails show how a right-wing group steers GOP leaders on major policy issues

When Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft jumped into the state’s gubernatorial race last year, the Republican vowed to tackle a slew of culture war issues, promising to fight the “woke politics” of “left-wing” banks and touting how he used his position to enact a regulation targeting those financial firms. Ashcroft also said candidates shouldn’t focus on issues that let the one percent “force their beliefs on 99 percent of the population.” While Ashcroft positioned himself as a champion for working class voters, emails obtained by CNN and the progressive watchdog group Documented show that he was steered toward adopting his “anti-woke” investment regulation by a little-known, right-wing think tank with deep ties to conservative billionaires. The communications show that officials with the Foundation for Government Accountability suggested regulatory language to Ashcroft and even wrote an op-ed article that Ashcroft published in a national conservative magazine under his own name.

The emails not only reveal FGA’s influence over Ashcroft, they offer a snapshot of the group’s growing influence across the country, particularly in red states. And that influence can carry a high cost for workers and taxpayers. The “anti-woke” investment measures have cost states hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investment fees and can lead to smaller returns for public employee retirement plans. One study estimated a 2021 Texas law would cost taxpayers up to $500 million in higher interest rates just on bonds sold in the first eight months after the law passed. Another study calculated that the law cost local governments $270 million a year in added fees, resulting in an annual $668 million in lost economic activity and thousands of full-time jobs. Along with attacking “woke” investing, FGA has worked with legislators and elected officials to push for laws to deregulate child labor, stop Medicaid expansion and slash food stamps, among other initiatives. Since the 2020 presidential election, the group also has played a key role in the push to advance voting restrictions and other legislation pitched as promoting election integrity in Republican states – claiming more than 70 such policy wins across the country in 2022 alone. In Wyoming, a GOP state senator forwarded an FGA draft bill to Secretary of State Chuck Gray that would prohibit sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms. “This is great!” Gray enthusiastically replied. It sailed through the legislature before the state’s Republican governor scuttled the measure, angering Gray. “The Governor just vetoed the absentee ballot request form bill. Very troubling,” he wrote to an FGA contact in an email.

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Associated Press - March 19, 2024

Supreme Court seems favorable to Biden administration over efforts to combat social media

The Supreme Court seemed likely Monday to side with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security. The justices seemed broadly skeptical during nearly two hours of arguments that a lawyer for Louisiana, Missouri and other parties presented accusing officials in the Democratic administration of leaning on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view. Lower courts have sided with the states, but the Supreme Court blocked those rulings while it considers the issue. Several justices said they were concerned that common interactions between government officials and the platforms could be affected by a ruling for the states.

In one example, Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed surprise when Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga questioned whether the FBI could call Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) to encourage them to take down posts that maliciously released someone’s personal information without permission, the practice known as doxxing. “Do you know how often the FBI makes those calls?” Barrett asked, suggesting they happen frequently. The court’s decision in this and other social media cases could set standards for free speech in the digital age. Last week, the court laid out standards for when public officials can block their social media followers. Less than a month ago, the court heard arguments over Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. The cases over state laws and the one that was argued Monday are variations on the same theme, complaints that the platforms are censoring conservative viewpoints. The states argue that White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency are among those who coerced changes in online content on social media platforms.

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Newsclips - March 18, 2024

Lead Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 18, 2024

Climate change emerges at Houston's largest energy conference: 'There's big momentum'

As downtown Houston teems with crowds attending the annual CERAWeek conference, its organizers expect new faces and a new genre of conversation around an industry-wide hot topic: climate change. S&P Global Commodity Insights, which runs the conference from March 18-22, created an independent Climate Hub last year within the event’s energy innovation and emerging technologies program, known as Agora. The Climate Hub boasts 40 sessions this year, up from 32 in its inaugural year. Climate interest picked up among industry leaders following new U.S. incentives for clean tech and the move toward emissions caps and tariffs in Europe and other key markets, while world leaders are fresh from a slew of new commitments made at the COP28 climate conference in November.

“This is one of the first opportunities, really, since COP28 to have these policy and technology discussions at a high level,” said Ken Downey, executive director of CERAWeek’s Innovation Agora. “I think there’s big momentum coming out of COP.” Among other changes, the hub’s schedule will focus far more on climate science this year, offering panels by top researchers as well as policy and industry experts. “I’ve noticed the growing attention to climate and the clean energy transition at CERAWeek over the years,” said David Sandalow, a fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and former Department of Energy regulator who will speak on two Climate Hub panels this year — one on generative AI and the other on U.S.-China relations. CERAWeek climate panelist Bryan Fisher is now managing director of the sustainability consulting firm Rocky Mountain Institute, but wore industry shoes for years as an oil and gas executive, power investments leader and energy business consultant. He said the spike in interest in the climate within the conventional energy sector has been spurred by Inflation Reduction Act incentives, but would make sense regardless.

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Dallas Morning News - March 18, 2024

Texas now leads the nation in solar energy: What that means for the grid

For about five hours on Feb. 25, electricity for most of Texas cost nothing. As the sun shone on a banner day of near-perfect sunny, mild and breezy weather across the state, wind and solar produced electricity at an unprecedented rate. At its peak, renewable energy produced nearly three-quarters of Texas electricity that day — setting a record that pushed the real-time price of energy to $0 for five hours as nuclear and fossil fuel plants offered lower and lower prices to stay competitive and keep from making the costlier decision to shut their operations down. It was a record driven partly by a four-year build-up that saw solar energy’s capacity increase eightfold in the past five years. Late last year, Texas topped California to become the No. 1 state for solar energy, marking a second renewable energy boom in Texas following the recent rise of wind energy. More than anywhere else in the country, Texas has capitalized on renewable energy in the past decade.

“It’s an exciting time,” said Judd Messer, vice president of the renewable energy group Advanced Power Alliance. “We’re going to break solar records, it seems, several times a month from here on out.” Advocates hope solar can provide daytime renewable energy that complements wind energy’s tendency to produce more actively after sundown. But it is not without its obstacles. While solar is now the fastest-growing energy sector in Texas and rivals wind in its share of energy production, critics say renewable energy has made the grid less reliable because it can be limited by cloudy days and calm winds. Others say solar includes hidden costs that outweigh the benefits of a clean energy source. And while solar — like wind — has the inherent advantage of zero-cost fuel over its non-renewable counterparts like coal or natural gas, consumers have seen little in energy cost savings. “Renewables can serve to reduce the price of electricity,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist with the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin. “I’ve done research showing that and showing the impacts of renewables and how much money they’ve saved.” But Rhodes said that the amount of money being spent on electricity has increased even as low-cost renewable energy has ramped up.

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New York Times - March 18, 2024

White House’s efforts to combat misinformation face Supreme Court test

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday on whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in combating what it said was misinformation on social media platforms. It is the latest in an extraordinary series of cases this term requiring the justices to assess the meaning of free speech in the internet era. The case arose from a barrage of communications from administration officials urging platforms to take down posts on topics like the coronavirus vaccines, claims of election fraud and Hunter Biden’s laptop. Last year, a federal appeals court severely limited such interactions. Alex Abdo, a lawyer with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the Supreme Court’s review of that decision must be sensitive to two competing values, both vital to democracy.

“This is an immensely important case that will determine the power of the government to pressure the social media platforms into suppressing speech,” he said. “Our hope is that the Supreme Court will clarify the constitutional line between coercion and persuasion. The government has no authority to threaten platforms into censoring protected speech, but it must have the ability to participate in public discourse so that it can effectively govern and inform the public of its views.” The court this term has repeatedly grappled with fundamental questions about the scope of the government’s authority over major technology platforms. On Friday, the court set rules for when government officials can block users from their private social media accounts. Last month, the court considered the constitutionality of laws in Florida and Texas that limit large social media companies from making editorial judgments about which messages to allow. Those four cases, along with the one on Monday, will collectively rebalance the power of the government and powerful technology platforms in the realm of free speech.

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Wall Street Journal - March 18, 2024

Once America’s hottest housing market, Austin is running in reverse

The Sunbelt city that came to symbolize the pandemic housing boom is now leading a national property cool-down. Home prices and apartment rents in Austin, Texas, have fallen more than anywhere else in the country, after a period of overbuilding and a slowdown in job and population growth. That marks a sharp reversal from previous years when Austin’s real-estate market was sizzling. The city attracted waves of remote workers on six-figure tech salaries. Others arrived after companies such as Tesla and Oracle moved offices there, taking advantage of lower taxes and less business regulation. Austin’s economy grew at nearly double the national rate, and it became the country’s 10th-largest city. Now, it is contending with a glut of luxury apartment buildings. Landlords are offering weeks of free rent and other concessions to fill empty units. More single-family homes are selling at a loss. Empty office space is also piling up downtown, and hundreds of Google employees who were meant to occupy an entire 35-story office tower built almost two years ago still have no move-in date.

Austin’s recent downswing is a sign that migration patterns that were turbocharged by the pandemic continue to fade. Housing markets in other Sunbelt cities, including Phoenix and Nashville, Tenn., that swelled with new residents in recent years, have also softened from overbuilding, slowing population growth and a lack of affordability. Austin was at the forefront of the U.S. housing boom, when rock-bottom borrowing costs near the start of the pandemic fueled robust sales and sent home prices to new highs. Austin prices soared more than 60% from 2020 to the spring of 2022. A surge in interest rates crushed the housing market nationwide, and existing-home sales fell to a nearly 30-year low in 2023. Despite that collapse, home prices remain near record levels thanks to tight supply. But in Austin, according to the Freddie Mac House Price Index, prices have fallen more than 11% since peaking in 2022, the biggest drop of any metro area in the country. “Austin’s housing market remains extremely overvalued,” said Matthew Walsh, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Housing affordability hit a four-decade low, even with recent price declines, he added. By Moody’s count, Austin home prices still run 35% higher than what the city’s underlying economic trends would typically support. Austin’s per capita income rose 23% between 2020 and 2022, but home prices increased more than twice as much. That disparity has veered greatly from historical norms. “It’s unsustainable,” Walsh said.

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State Stories

Houston Public Media - March 18, 2024

Report: Plastic manufacturing companies in Texas, Harris County, receive over $1.6 billion in tax breaks since 2013

A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project shows various companies in Texas and Greater Houston have received over $1.6 billion total in subsidies since 2013 while violating air pollution control permits. The Environmental Integrity Project is a non-partisan, non-profit watchdog organization that advocates for effective enforcement of environmental laws. Their report shows compliance and enforcement information from 2020 to 2023. Many plastic manufacturing plants have been cited for releasing known carcinogens, or cancer-causing substances, particularly in Latino and Black communities. Alexandra Shaykevich is a co-author of the report and a research manager at the Environmental Integrity Project. She said plastics plants pay relatively small amounts of money in penalties for violating air pollution regulation laws.

“What we’re advocating for is that in the future, taxpayer subsidies be tied to environmental compliance,” Shaykevich said. “If companies cannot obey the law, they should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies. And if companies can’t comply, they should be forced to reimburse taxpayers.” Brandy Deason is a Climate Justice Coordinator for Air Alliance Houston. She said one plant in Channelview alone has had to pay over $500,000 in penalties but has received over $11 million in subsidies since 2016. “This plastic production plant had six Clean Air Act enforcement actions taken against them, and paid what would amount to pocket change relative to their earnings,” Deason said. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Clean Air Act authorizes them to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants. The report shows the plant in Channelview has been non-compliant for three fiscal quarters, while other plants in the area have been non-compliant for up to 12 fiscal quarters.

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Houston Chronicle - March 18, 2024

Ray M. Bowen: Texas A&M-Qatar partnership was a 20-year success story. Why end it?

(Ray M. Bowen is a former president of Texas A&M University.) For over 20 years, Texas A&M University has partnered with the Qatar Foundation to offer engineering degrees in Doha, Qatar. The campus was opened to offer engineering education from a prominent Western university to students from Qatar and surrounding countries. So I was surprised and disappointed when I learned that the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents chose to cancel the contract, effective 2028, with the state-run Qatar Foundation that entirely funds the campus. The board, of course, has every authority to cancel the contract. But for the hundreds of students currently enrolled in the Qatar program, the decision was unexpected, leaving their futures and the value of their degree in jeopardy. Faculty and staff were also caught off guard. A news release from Texas A&M stated the board decided to reassess the contract “due to the heightened instability in the Middle East” and to advance the university’s mission by “concentrating its focus in Texas.”

Given a history of national and international activities in other components of Texas A&M, these statements are difficult to understand. In the early days, I had a small role in the decision to partner with the Qatar Foundation. They made their request to Texas A&M a few months before I ended my time as university president. In response to that request, then-Provost Ronald Douglas took a small delegation of faculty and administrators to Doha to evaluate whether we should pursue the opportunity in Qatar. This group returned with a strong positive assessment. It wasn’t until Robert Gates became president in August 2002 that A&M moved forward on the opportunity. With the help of his provost, David Prior, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the program and, subsequently, the first contract was accepted by the Board of Regents. It is sensible to speculate that Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, supported the partnership after a careful evaluation of its long-term benefits to the university, the state and our nation. In the environment of a now-terminated contract, it is ironic to look back and recognize that our partnership was negotiated and accepted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. I have other opinions, but a broad criticism from a long-departed former president and faculty member is not helpful to a university I love and respect. I just hope Texas A&M finds a way to protect the interests of the current students, faculty and staff of the Qatar campus. Some of these individuals have been with the Qatar campus for all of its 21 years. They deserve to be kept in mind.

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KERA - March 18, 2024

Texas’ poorest renters face a shortage of 679,000 rental homes they can actually afford

Texas has one of the least hospitable rental markets in the nation for poor people. A new report finds the state has a massive shortage of available rental homes that extremely low-income renter household can afford. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s annual report on the nation’s affordable housing shortage found that the nearly 907,000 renter households making less than 30% of their area’s median income are essentially competing for the roughly 227,000 available rental homes they could actually afford. That’s a shortage of more than 679,000 rental homes the state’s poorest residents, which includes families of four with annual incomes below $29,000. The result, according to Michael Depland from the advocacy group Texas Housers, is that the state’s most vulnerable households — overwhelmingly seniors, people with disabilities, and the working poor — typically pay more than half of their incomes to keep a roof over their heads. Nearly 80% of these households are considered severely cost burdened, which forces terrible choices.

“They’re having to choose rent over food. They’re having to choose rent over medications. These are things that extremely low-income renter households unfortunately have to face,” Depland said. “Four out of five extremely low-income renter households have to spend more than half of their income on rent.” When most of a household’s income goes to rent, they’re also much more vulnerable to eviction, said National Low-Income Housing Coalition Vice President Andrew Aurand. And evictions, he points out, drive poorer mental and physical health, worse education outcomes for kids, and lost jobs and wages, which further destabilizes families. “Imagine if you’re paying 70% or even 80% of your income for rent: If you have a disruption in that income or you have an unexpected expense, you fall behind on your rent. Then you’re suddenly in a situation where you’re losing your home,” Aurand said. Eviction cases in Texas counties where data show sharp upticks in recent years as housing prices shot up and pandemic-era assistance programs and renter protections ended. This is a nationwide problem, said Aurand. No state has anywhere close to an adequate supply of homes for their poorest renter households. While the numbers vary year to year, the trendlines are clear: Things are getting worse as supply decreases as demand grows.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 18, 2024

Son of Texas A&M football coach accused of killing girlfriend and unborn baby, arrested in Utah

Blaise Taylor, former college football star and son of Texas A&M’s associate head coach, has been arrested after being accused of killing his girlfriend and unborn baby in 2023. Taylor, 27, was arrested this past week in Utah after a Nashville grand jury indicted him in the poisoning deaths of his girlfriend, Jade Benning, and her 5-month-old fetus, according to a news release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. On Feb. 25, 2023, Taylor called 911 and said Benning appeared to be having an allergic reaction. She was rushed to the hospital, where her medical condition immediately became critical, and her unborn fetus “which Taylor is alleged to have fathered” died the next day, the release says.

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Texas Monthly - March 17, 2024

Has SXSW lost its cool?

The music portion of South by Southwest has endured a tumultuous week. The festival, once an exemplar of cool, has seen artists pull out of their official showcase performances over the past few days—first as a trickle over the weekend, then, by Monday evening (the first official day of SXSW Music), as something of a flood. By Tuesday afternoon, more than eighty artists had announced that they wouldn’t be performing, citing two factors stemming from the bombing and starving of Palestinian civilians amid Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza and the U.S. government’s accelerating military aid to Israel. One factor is the presence of the United States Army as a “super sponsor” of the festival, one of the above-the-fold names listed on all of SXSW’s promotional materials. A second factor is the inclusion in the festival of panel discussions and other speaking events featuring representatives of U.S. weapons manufacturers, including RTX, formerly Raytheon, and its subsidiary Collins Aerospace. What started as a decision by a single artist (Chicago’s Squirrel Flower) ballooned into a movement, which wound up gaining the support of some of the festival’s biggest names. On Monday, rising Brooklyn pop and R&B star Yaya Bey, a major get for the festival, announced that she would be skipping her official festival performance. Instead, she would be playing a free show at an event sponsored by the democratic socialist–aligned Working Families Party.

This year’s controversy comes at an inflection point in SXSW’s history. After the 2020 edition of the festival was canceled, the first major U.S. event to pull the plug amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the business that runs it was in dire straits. It sold a 50 percent stake in 2021 to Penske Media, which controls a portfolio of lifestyle brands including Variety, Billboard, and the Hollywood Reporter, and the festival returned as an in-person event in 2022. That year was bleak—the hip tech companies that had been fixtures throughout the previous decade were largely absent, and the festival economy was buoyed by cryptocurrency cash, a bubble that even the tech enthusiasts who typically populate the first few days of SXSW seemed to sense was on the verge of bursting. The festival culminated with a joyless Dolly Parton performance that was minted as an NFT, or non-fungible token, for blockchain enthusiasts to buy as a piece of digital property. It marked a steep fall for an event that over the years had grown from a local party to an international powerhouse. SXSW was widely regarded as one of the coolest events in the world for more than a decade. But nothing remains cool forever, and this year’s boycott by many of its scheduled performers puts the festival’s credibility at risk once more. Which leads many fans, performers, and sponsors to wonder: Can SXSW keep its cool? Most major American festivals are fairly straightforward: the promoters book artists and pay them to perform, and fans buy tickets to attend. SXSW operates in a more complex and delicate ecosystem. The festival barely pays the majority of its performers. (Through 2023, solo artists received $100, while bands got $250; amid protests last year, those numbers went up to $150 and $350, respectively). There are no official grounds. The event takes place throughout Austin, primarily downtown, in individual venues—some of which require attendees to purchase a badge for a chance to get in (music badges start at $995 for a walk-up purchase). Performances in some other venues are not only free; they ply attendees with free booze, food, and other giveaways. Those enticements can range from draft beer to handmade craft cocktails, from stacks of pizza to catering by famed pitmaster Aaron Franklin, from branded sunglasses to free iPads—all of which has helped foster a sense that attendees are always missing something better, if only they knew it was happening and were important enough to get in.

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Chron - March 18, 2024

Changing Gulf Coast landscape may have wiped out horny toads

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is an unabashed throwback to the days of loose-cannon Lone Star politicians whose naked candor planted one foot squarely in their mouths as often as not. We won’t even get into his unique taste in office decor. Over the years, Miller has quoted Tupac Shakur, doubled down on his department’s transphobic dress code, and allegedly called 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton an offensive term. He blamed that one on a staffer, who was later fired. The late Molly Ivins would have probably loved Miller, bless his heart. But almost everyone has at least a few redeeming qualities, and Miller’s turns out to be a soft spot for the Phrynosoma cornutum, better known to you and me and TCU fans everywhere as the Texas horned lizard, or “horny toad,” which is a threatened species according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission.

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WFAA - March 18, 2024

His North Texas GOP primary was one of the most expensive in the country, but Brandon Gill escaped without a runoff

Brandon Gill calls the North Texas district he hopes to represent in Congress “Trump country.” He defeated 10 other candidates in the Republican primary on Super Tuesday and now faces Democrat Ernest Lineberger III, a former Navy officer, in November’s general election. But District 26, which spans parts of Tarrant, Wise, Denton, and Cooke Counties, is favorable to Republicans. Rep. Michael Burgess has held the seat for more than two decades. He is retiring. Gill, 30, moved to Flower Mound a little more than a year ago. In the final few weeks of the primary campaign, ads for and against him seemed to fill every commercial break. “Just out of nowhere, we saw these big D.C. swamp super PACs starting to come after me, and they didn't go after anybody else, and they didn't prop up anybody else,” Gill told us on Inside Texas Politics.

He believes he was the target of an effort to hurt candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump. “They spent more money in my race than we've seen anywhere else,” Gill said. “Over $2 million in a congressional primary prior to a runoff when there's 11 people on the field, I mean, that's pretty unusual.” “They knew Trump was going to be the nominee," he added. "So they looked to take out his candidates and they failed miserably in this case.” If elected in November, Gill said he will be a “solid, across-the-board constitutional conservative” because that’s what he believes the people of District 26 want. He said border security is the number one issue for the district. Gill pledged to complete a border wall, reform asylum laws, and bring back the remain-in-Mexico policy if he's elected. “In other words, all of the policies that were in place under President Trump that Biden got rid of basically on day one,” he said.

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Houston Public Media - March 18, 2024

Some question previous crime stats amid Houston Police suspended cases review

When Houston Mayor John Whitmire's Independent Review Panel gets underway sometime next week, one question they are expected to answer is if crime rate numbers, shown to be improving over the years, were affected by the lack of personnel code. The code was used to suspend over 264,000 cases, including sexual assault cases and family violence cases. Whitmire brought the issue up this week: "I believe it has manipulated our crime rate. I believe the credibility of the City of Houston about crime was going in the right direction... ...it's been revealed that was a spin. Because the credibility of the data collected by HPD and released to the public, for at least the last eight years is flawed and been misrepresented of the true facts."

Whitmire added that the city "knew we had a criminal justice, crime problem in the City of Houston." "I ran on that," Whitmire said. "We had no idea how bad it was in terms of data collection and suspension of incidents." Sam Houston State University Criminal Justice Professor, Dr. Jay Coons said he believes it's too early for an assessment of blame. "Anything's possible at this stage because we've got some very, very general findings, we don't have any specifics," Coons said. "We haven't broken these quarter million cases down into specific offenses." With more than 264,000 Houston Police Department incident reports shelved under the code of ‘Suspended—lack of personnel', still being examined, the question remains: did the omission of roughly 33,000 cases a year on average skew the crime rate counts? "There are things that are certain and simply unacceptable to the public, as we're finding out," Coons said. "Clearing the case because we don't have enough cops is just not something that is publicly unacceptable."

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Houston Landing - March 18, 2024

Manny García, Angel Rodríguez announced as new top editors at Houston Landing

Manny García is the new editor in chief of Houston Landing, CEO Peter Bhatia announced Friday. Angel Rodríguez will join him as managing editor. “Manny and Angel… bring decades of experience, leadership and success in our field, an appreciation of the digital world, and a commitment to Houston,” Bhatia said. “They will build partnerships within our Houston Landing team, and the community, and will help us find new ways to make our journalism of more value to a wider swath of readers, using all the reporting, visual and technology tools available.” After leadership roles at the Austin American-Statesman, the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative, the USA Today Network, The Naples Daily News, the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald (the Spanish-language paper produced at the Miami Herald), García is excited to work in Houston. He describes it as the city of today and of the future. “It is the gateway of opportunity, the start of the American Dream,” he said. That growth comes with pains, he continued, including a lack of affordable housing, poor infrastructure, worker exploitation, immigration abuses and more.

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Dallas Morning News - March 17, 2024

At least 13 people have died since 2022 in unlicensed North Texas facilities, police say

At least 13 people have died since 2022 under the care of a woman who was allegedly operating four different homes as part of an unlicensed care facility, authorities wrote in a search warrant affidavit. Arlington police said this week it is conducting an investigation into multiple unlicensed community living homes run by a company called Love and Caring for People. The company operates homes in Arlington, Grand Prairie and Mansfield. Regla Becquer, the owner, was arrested Feb. 15 and faces a charge of abandoning or endangering an individual, leading to imminent danger of bodily injury, police said. She remains in Tarrant County custody, with her bail set at $750,000, records show. Police have said additional charges are pending.

Police wrote in a news release that Becquer, 49, and her staff are accused of improper care of clients, attempting to cut off communication with family and making purchases with clients’ money without their knowledge or consent. Officials noted that she “has only been charged in connection to one case involving one client.” An attorney representing Becquer declined to comment. Investigators suspect Becquer and her staff kept the property of deceased clients, including their phones and vehicles. A search warrant affidavit sheds light on the alleged conditions inside the homes along with the names of several people who were reported to have died under Becquer’s care. Arlington police Chief Al Jones said in a statement that the investigation “has resulted in multiple clients being pulled from the homes so they can receive the legitimate care they need.”

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Dallas Morning News - March 18, 2024

Mega Millions jackpot grows to $875M; 6th largest in game history

The Mega Millions jackpot grew to $875 million ahead of Tuesday’s drawing. The prize is the sixth largest in game history with an estimated cash value of about $413.5 million, according to Mega Millions. Friday’s drawing will be the 29th in the current sequence. The last jackpot payout, in which a player had all six matching numbers, was won Dec. 8. One ticket Friday had five matching numbers worth a $1 million prize, according to the Mega Millions. It was purchased in New York.

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Dallas Morning News - March 18, 2024

If you voted in the Texas primaries, you’re in the minority, and that’s a problem

So many Texas voters don’t like participating in primaries. Only 18% of the nearly 18 million registered voters cast ballots in the March 5 Democratic and Republican primaries. That’s down from 25.3% in 2020, when there were 16.2 million registered Texas voters. Turnout in the Republican primaries was slightly up, with 12.6% voter turnout, compared with 12.4% in 2020. Democratic primary voting dipped significantly from 2020, when nearly 13% of voters showed up for a competitive race between Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Democratic turnout two weeks ago was 5.4%. For this year’s primaries, 82% of registered voters stayed home. That made nonvoters the most influential bloc in the primary process, though not for their own interests. By not participating in the nominating process, nonvoters empower the more extreme set of voters in both major political parties.

Because Texas’ legislative districts were drawn to produce few competitive general election contests, low-turnout primaries allow a fraction of Texas voters to determine who’s elected to office — and the laws and policies that result. “There’s just a general apathy,” said Joyce LeBombard, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas. “Some people just don’t think their votes matter.” LeBombard said apathy this year started at the top of the ticket, with polls showing a clear majority of Americans unenthusiastic about a rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, who dominated the primary process long before the race got to Texas. “Having that apathy at the presidential race level really impacts those down-ballot races,” she said — even though those races have more direct impact on people’s lives. Other voting advocates agree. “There’s a lot of disillusionment with both the candidates, particularly the presidential candidates, and also the parties and the process,” said Ramiro Luna, a leader in Somos Tejas, a nonprofit voter advocacy group. “That’s disappointing because the real fight is often in the primaries.”

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City Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 18, 2024

Pro-Palestine demonstrators disrupt Mayor John Whitmire’s address at boycotted Houston Iftar

A group of pro-Palestine demonstrators protested Mayor John Whitmire's appearance at the annual Houston Iftar dinner Sunday, calling for the mayor to support a ceasefire in Gaza after his refusal to do so prompted some Muslim leaders and organizations to boycott the city's premier Iftar event. Sporting red latex gloves to symbolize the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Israel's monthslong bombardment of the Gaza Strip, dozens of protesters led by the group Houston for Palestinian Liberation stood up at the beginning of Whitmire's keynote address Sunday evening at the Bayou City Event Center. They unfurled a banner that read "No ceasefire, no iftar" as they chanted pro-Palestine slogans. The group has become heavily involved in organizing pro-Palestine protests around Houston and its members have regularly addressed local officials at recent City Council meetings.

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Austin American-Statesman - March 17, 2024

Bridget Grumet: Transparency should be non-negotiable at Austin police contract bargaining table

Negotiations are often hold-your-nose affairs, filled with tough tradeoffs and begrudging concessions as both parties inch toward common ground. But certain things must be nonnegotiable for a government agency. Like allowing the public to see the terms of the deal before it’s approved — especially when we’re talking about an Austin police contract that will affect public safety, taxpayers’ dollars, a worrisome shortage of police officers and the oversight provisions Austin voters demanded last year. Once negotiators reach a handshake deal — whenever that happens — people deserve to see what’s in the contract before the City Council votes on it. I’m encouraged that everyone is coming to that understanding now, but that’s not where things began last week, when the city resumed negotiations with the Austin Police Association after a yearlong pause.

The public can watch the negotiations in person or via livestream. But the city initially agreed to the union’s request that a contract and related documents would be “available to the public only after the agreement is ratified by the City Council” (emphasis mine). The Austin Police Association's lead negotiator, Ron DeLord, speaks during contract negotiations Wednesday. For the first time in over a year, the Austin police union and the city have restarted contract talks. After swift backlash, city officials shifted their stance. By Wednesday, Assistant City Manager Bruce Mills said the public would get a chance to see the contract before any City Council vote. But how much of a heads-up? Historically these contracts have been densely worded, 100-page documents. “There are too many unknown factors to definitively say at this time how far in advance, but it will be as much as is reasonable and practical,” Mills said. When I caught up Friday with Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock, he said he, too, expects the public will get to see the contract before any council vote — which could be well in the future, judging by all the issues that need to be hashed out by negotiators.

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National Stories

Washington Post - March 18, 2024

Pro-Trump disruptions in Arizona county elevate fears for the 2024 vote

As the board of supervisors for Arizona’s largest county abruptly ended a meeting late last month, a swarm of people rushed toward the dais, shouting that the members were illegitimate. The Maricopa County leaders made a beeline for a side door and were swiftly escorted out of the chamber by security guards, who called for backup from the sheriff’s office. After the meeting’s live-feed went dead, a member of the crowd yelled that a “revolution” was underway. “I’m here today to put you on public notice and to inform you that you are not our elected officials,” said Michelle Klann, co-founder of a pro-Trump group, from a podium she had commandeered. “This is an act of insurrection. Due to all the voter fraud, you have never been formally voted in.” The scene at the Feb. 28 meeting terrified many Maricopa employees and others who were reminded of what happened after Joe Biden won the county — and, with it, Arizona — in the 2020 presidential race.

Back then, Trump supporters used baseless fraud claims to try to pressure or scare elected leaders into changing the results for the metro Phoenix county, which is home to more than half of Arizona’s residents. Now, with another presidential election quickly approaching and Arizona again likely to be central to Donald Trump’s electoral strategy, the incident late last month has revived fears that officials responsible for running Maricopa County elections will be targeted with a campaign of threats and abuse — or worse. “This was an organized, coordinated attack,” said one top county official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters. “It was a dress rehearsal for the election.” Since the 2020 vote, the Maricopa supervisors — most of whom are Republicans — have faced relentless public ridicule, conspiracy theories and death threats for signing off on the results and refusing to go along with Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome. Trump’s razor-thin loss of the state — a mere 10,457 votes of nearly 3.4 million cast — thrust its most important battleground county into the heart of national efforts to undermine confidence in elections.

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CNN - March 18, 2024

Netanyahu’s response to Schumer widens rift in US-Israeli relations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to bow to calls by the top US senator for a new election and is pushing back against White House warnings about a potential new offensive in Gaza, widening a rift with top Democrats in Washington. An extraordinary turn in US-Israel relations in recent days is coinciding with intense diplomacy aimed at securing a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas and the release of hostages as the conflict deepens bitter divides in US politics. But the gulf in trust and goals between Israel and Hamas has thwarted hopes for a breakthrough for weeks. Netanyahu’s defiance shone through an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, three days after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – the highest-ranking Jewish American in the US government – said that a new Israeli government was needed to reset war strategy and that Netanyahu was an obstacle to peace.

“It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something that Israel, the Israeli public does on its own, and we’re not a banana republic,” Netanyahu said on “State of the Union.” “The majority of Israelis support the policies of my government. It’s not a fringe government. It represents the policies supported by the majority of the people. If Sen. Schumer opposes these policies, he’s not opposing me. He’s opposing the people of Israel,” Netanyahu said. Despite the Israeli prime minister’s stand, there is increasing criticism of his approach in the US and overseas, at a time when his position among some Israeli voters is fragile, five months after terror attacks that besmirched his brand as the country’s ultimate security guarantor. Thousands of protesters filled the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Saturday night, in two separate groups, one calling for the government to resign and others demanding the release of the hostages in Gaza.

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The Hill - March 18, 2024

Trump doubles down on call for Liz Cheney to be prosecuted

Former President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his push for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to be prosecuted over allegations she and the other Jan. 6 committee members purposely withheld testimony and details from their investigation into the former president’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Trump, on Truth Social on Sunday, posted a piece from former Trump administration aide Kash Patel published in The Federalist last week, in which Patel claimed Cheney and the House Jan. 6 committee “suppressed evidence” about the former president’s authorization of National Guard troops during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. “SHE SHOULD BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT SHE HAS DONE TO OUR COUNTRY! SHE ILLEGALLY DESTROYED THE EVIDENCE. UNREAL!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social while linking to Patel’s piece.

Cheney clapped back Sunday at Trump’s calls for her to be jailed on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, writing, “Hi Donald: you know these are lies. You have had all the grand jury & J6 transcripts for many months. You’re trying to halt your 1/6 trial because your VP, WH counsel, WH aides, campaign & DOJ officials etc. will testify against you. You’re afraid of the truth and you should be.” Cheney served as vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee and emerged as one of the most outspoken GOP critics of the former president. She has repeatedly pinned the blame on Trump for allegedly inciting the riot. Cheney lost her seat in the House after three terms to Trump-backed challenger Rep. Harriet Hageman during the 2022 primaries in Wyoming, where Trump maintained wide support with voters. The back-and-forth comes nearly a week after House Republicans released a new report on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in an attempt to discredit Congress’s initial investigation into the Capitol insurrection and clear Trump of any wrongdoing as he pursues reelection.

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Wall Street Journal - March 18, 2024

FedEx and Amazon discussed partnership as competition for returning packages intensifies

After a high-profile split, FedEx and Amazon.com have explored doing more business with each other. The two companies last year discussed FedEx accepting returns of Amazon packages at its retail locations, bringing the delivery giant a share of the business, according to a person familiar with the matter. Amazon has partnerships with a number of companies, including FedEx rival United Parcel Service to handle the millions of returns it has annually. The two sides didn’t reach a deal, but the developments come as FedEx has sought to boost parcel volumes amid an industry slump and Amazon seeks to improve the experience its customers have in returning items. The talks with FedEx happened last spring, around the same time that Amazon introduced a fee for some customers who bring their returns to UPS stores. In October, UPS signed a $465 million deal to buy Happy Returns, which has partnerships with several retailers and thousands of return drop-off sites in its network.

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New York Times - March 18, 2024

The G.O.P. flamethrower with a right-wing vision for North Carolina

As Mark Robinson completed his rapid six-year rise from conservative internet sensation to the Republican nominee for North Carolina governor, he worked relentlessly to sell his political vision to evangelical Christians. Traveling from church to church and thundering away on social media, he condemned “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” as “filth.” He said Christians should be led by men, not women. And on at least one occasion, he explicitly called to upend American tradition on God’s role in government. “People talk about the separation of church and state,” Mr. Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, said in a speech in October. “I’m trying to find that phrase somewhere in our Constitution. Trying to find it somewhere in our Declaration of Independence. Trying to find it in the writings of any patriot, anywhere, and I cannot. And I cannot because it does not exist.”

He concluded, “There is no separation of church and state.” Mr. Robinson’s long history of inflammatory statements has generated a torrent of headlines since he became the Republican standard-bearer in this year’s most closely watched race for governor. But underlying his combative proclamations on race, abortion, education and religion is an exceptionally right-wing worldview — with deep roots in modern evangelical Christianity — that would make him one of the most conservative governors in America if elected. Mr. Robinson has telegraphed, often in bombastic terms, how far to the right he would try to push North Carolina, supporting a ban on all abortions once a heartbeat is detected, calling for arresting transgender women if they do not use the bathroom of their sex assigned at birth, and urging the introduction of prayer in schools. As he runs to replace the term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and give Republicans full control of state government, Mr. Robinson has shown no sign that he plans to moderate his message for the November general election.

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Wall Street Journal - March 18, 2024

If TikTok is banned, free-speech litigation could follow

The bipartisan TikTok legislation that sailed through the House this past week gives the company and its Chinese-controlled parent, ByteDance, a stark choice: Sell the platform’s U.S. operations or face a ban. TikTok, though, may go for option three: Sue the government. It isn’t guaranteed that the Senate will pass the Biden-backed legislation. But if the bill is approved, it would shut down TikTok’s U.S. operations unless sold to a non-Chinese owner. ByteDance would have six months to comply. Since China has already signaled its opposition to a forced sale, the fate of the video app juggernaut could ultimately be decided by the federal courts. Any litigation could raise several legal issues, but at its core, a court dispute would require judges to weigh the national security objectives of the ban against the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its users.

The U.S. has long restricted foreign ownership of radio and television broadcasting, but Congress has never taken such drastic actions against an internet platform used by millions of Americans to communicate. Though the legislation doesn’t authorize enforcement actions against U.S. residents who attempt to keep using the app, judges in previous TikTok litigation have recognized that the app’s fans have constitutional free-speech rights in posting and consuming content that would be harmed by its shutdown. That means the government’s legal defense of any ban will have to do more than show the legislation advances U.S. interests in preventing undue Chinese influence or access to Americans’ data. For the ban’s free-speech infringements to pass muster, the government will likely need to demonstrate that less drastic measures wouldn’t work. “It will really depend on how the government explains the reasons for the law,” said David Greene, a lawyer with digital civil liberties nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the ban. ByteDance, which declined to comment, has had some court successes in the past, but First Amendment concerns haven’t always been the reason judges sided with the company. That leaves the free-speech questions somewhat untested.

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Newsclips - March 17, 2024

Lead Stories

New York Times - March 17, 2024

Powerful realtor group agrees to slash commissions to settle lawsuits

American homeowners could see a significant drop in the cost of selling their homes after a real estate trade group agreed to a landmark deal that will eliminate a bedrock of the industry, the standard 6 percent sales commission. The National Association of Realtors, a powerful organization that has set the guidelines for home sales for decades, has agreed to settle a series of lawsuits by paying $418 million in damages and by eliminating its rules on commissions. Legal counsel for N.A.R. approved the agreement early Friday morning, and The New York Times obtained a copy of the signed document. The deal, which lawyers anticipate will be filed within weeks and still needs a federal court’s approval, would end a multitude of legal claims from home sellers who argued that the rules forced them to pay excessive fees. In a statement released on Friday morning, Nykia Wright, the interim chief executive of N.A.R., said “It has always been our goal to preserve consumer choice and protect our members to the greatest extent possible. This settlement achieves both of those goals.”

Housing experts said the deal, and the expected savings for homeowners, could trigger one of the most significant jolts in the U.S. housing market in 100 years. “This will blow up the market and would force a new business model,” said Norm Miller, a professor emeritus of real estate at the University of San Diego. Americans pay roughly $100 billion in real estate commissions annually, and real estate agents in the United States have some of the highest standard commissions in the world. In many other countries, commission rates hover between 1 and 3 percent. In the United States, most agents specify a commission of 5 or 6 percent, paid by the seller. If the buyer has an agent, the seller’s agent agrees to share a portion of the commission with that agent when listing the home on the market. An American homeowner currently looking to sell a $1 million home should expect to spend up to $60,000 on real estate commissions alone, with $30,000 going to his agent and $30,000 going to the agent who brings a buyer. Even for a home that costs $400,000 — close to the current median for homes across the United States — sellers are still paying around $24,000 in commissions, a cost that is baked into the final sales price of the home. The lawsuits argued that N.A.R., and brokerages who required their agents to be members of N.A.R., had violated antitrust laws by mandating that the seller’s agent make an offer of payment to the buyer’s agent, and setting rules that led to an industrywide standard commission.

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New York Times - March 17, 2024

How Trump is scrambling to raise cash

As many as three nights a week, Donald J. Trump has been hosting private dinners at Mar-a-Lago, schmoozing with some of the Republican Party’s biggest financiers as he races to address a sizable cash shortfall against President Biden. There is no request for money from the attendees at these meals, which have included Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, and Pepe Fanjul, the sugar magnate, according to people familiar with the sessions. But advisers to Mr. Trump’s campaign and his super PACs hope the charm offensive will eventually pay political and financial dividends. One of the most pressing issues facing Mr. Trump is the financial disparity he and allied groups now face with Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party. Democrats have boasted of entering February with $130 million. The Trump operation did not release a full total, but his campaign account and the Republican National Committee had around $40 million.

Mr. Trump enters the general election ahead of Mr. Biden in public polls. But Mr. Biden has taken full advantage of one of the benefits of incumbency, both socking away cash and building out a political operation earlier than his challenger. Despite years of professing massive wealth and boasting of his desire to “drain the swamp,” the deeply transactional former president is leaning yet again on the cash of others, turning Mar-a-Lago into a staging ground for billionaires and others with their own agendas. One potential leverage point with the biggest G.O.P. financiers is the package of tax cuts Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017. Many of those cuts expire at the end of 2025, and Mr. Biden has vowed not to extend them for the nation’s highest earners. Money often winds up mattering less in presidential races than in down-ballot races. Voters pay attention to the candidates naturally, especially Mr. Trump, and the key states all wind up awash in advertising by the fall. Yet recent presidential contests have been so excruciatingly close that everything has mattered, and Mr. Trump is preparing to face an especially large avalanche of Democratic spending this year. Just a single union this week announced plans to spend $200 million, ten times what the main Trump super PAC had on hand. A cash edge can help Democrats tilt or expand the battleground map in their favor.

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Dallas Morning News - March 17, 2024

Gov. Abbott takes aim at investors hounding single-family market

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott may have already signaled where he wants the 2025 legislative session to go, at least in part. In a Friday post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, the governor wrote: “I strongly support free markets. But this corporate large-scale buying of residential homes seems to be distorting the market and making it harder for the average Texan to purchase a home. This must be added to the legislative agenda to protect Texas families.” His comment was a response to a viral post from the @WallStreetApes account that collected over 700,000 views by Friday afternoon. The WallStreetApes post said “new reports show economists have been lying to all of us about the rate financial firms have been buying up all single-family homes.” It continued by saying in 2023, private equity firms purchased 44% of all single-family homes in America. It said that “means death for our middle class.”

Private equity firms are again expected to buy another 44% of single-family homes in 2024, according to the post. By 2030, private equity firms would own 60% of all homes in the U.S., it said. WallStreetApes did not cite a source for its data about private equity ownership. The Texas legislature’s next 140-day regular session isn’t set to commence until Jan. 14, 2025. Abbott is authorized to designate issues as emergency items, which would allow lawmakers to act. Figures cited by WallStreetApes, which has more than 300,000 followers, are similar to those that circulated in a viral Medium post late last year. A Housing Wire story dove into the claim made in the Medium story and reported about 30% of homes are owned by investors, with mom-and-pop shops owning the majority of them. The investor rush into the single-family space is credited with some of the rise in home prices in markets that have traditionally been more affordable.

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Wall Street Journal - March 17, 2024

The Fed’s challenge: Has it hit the brakes hard enough?

When the Federal Reserve began sharply raising interest rates two years ago, the prospect of mortgage rates hitting 7% terrified Dwight Sandlin, a home builder based in Birmingham, Ala. “I was scared to death. Scared. To. Death,” he said. He just booked his most profitable year ever. While sales of his modern farmhouse-style homes have dipped since the postpandemic frenzy, profits are strong because a shortage of existing homes for sale has propped up prices. “The market is still very firm—not great, but firm. And there’s only one reason: There ain’t enough inventory,” said Sandlin. “If you can’t make money in the home-building business right now, you need to go do something else.” The Fed meets this week to decide whether, when and by how much it should cut rates later this year. A key question it must answer: Just how tight is its monetary policy? Not very tight, judging by the experience of builders such as Sandlin and consumers’ overall resilience.

For Fed officials, that argues against cutting rates much, or soon, especially after two months of firmer-than-expected inflation. On the other hand the federal-funds rate target, at 5.25% to 5.5%, is relatively high in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms, and there are signs the economy’s current strength won’t last—a point Chair Jerome Powell has hinted at. If so, then monetary policy might soon start to look tight, reinforcing the case for cutting. A key gauge of inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, has fallen below 3% in recent months from nearly 5% early last year. Because of lags, the question of whether growth perseveres or rolls over in the face of past interest-rate hikes might well be resolved in the next six months. The Fed raises short-term interest rates to cool inflation by slowing demand, hiring and wage growth. It does that through the ripple effects on broader financial conditions such as stock prices and long-term bond and mortgage rates. The interest rate that achieves financial conditions that keep the economy at full strength and inflation steady is called “neutral.” To slow growth and reduce inflation, the Fed must push rates above neutral. Some business executives, economists and Fed officials say solid growth suggests rates might not be that far above neutral right now.

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State Stories

Austin American-Statesman - March 17, 2024

Political baggage only seems to make Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton grow stronger

Sometimes getting impeached, getting indicted, being the target of a federal investigation and sundry civil litigations — and having allegations of marital infidelity aired on the public square — can be good for a politician's career. We're not talking about former President Donald Trump here, although we could be. We're talking about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who in the recent Republican primaries came out as well as or better than Gov. Greg Abbott. Attorney General Ken Paxton opposed three longtime judges in statewide races, and all were sent packing by voters. Eight Paxton-backed House candidates won their GOP primaries, and House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Paxton nemesis, was forced into a runoff. Recall that Abbott spent millions of dollars, and an untold amount of his political capital, in the March 5 GOP primaries to help pull eight candidates for the Texas House who support his push to pass school voucher legislation across the finish line. And in the process he waged war with no fewer than 10 anti-voucher Republican incumbents, toppling five of them and sending three others into runoffs that will be decided May 28. Paxton, who like Abbott is in his third four-year term, also launched primary offensives against Republican incumbents, and not only against members of the Texas House who voted to impeach him on 20 charges, including bribery and obstruction of justice.

Three of the attorney general's targets were longtime judges who were elected in statewide races, and all were sent packing by voters. Paxton launched what has come to be known in numerous media accounts as his "revenge tour" soon after he was acquitted by the Texas Senate, largely along party lines, of his impeachment charges. His chief targets were the Republican House impeachment managers and several rank-and-file GOP members who voted to recommend his removal from office. Some of the intended targets, including lead manager Rep. Andrew Murr of Kerrville, opted not to seek reelection. But Paxton's "white whale" was, and remains, Speaker Dade Phelan, who was adamant that Paxton's actions that prompted several of his one-time top aides to file a whistleblower lawsuit against the attorney general made him unfit for office. The impeachment effort gained steam when Paxton would not answer a House committee's questions about the lawsuit at the same time as he was asking lawmakers to fund the $3.3 million settlement agreement that would have made the litigation go away. Eight Paxton-backed House candidates won their GOP primaries. Another one, David Covey, forced Phelan into a runoff for his Beaumont House district. If Phelan is ousted by his own primary voters, it would probably be seen as Paxton's biggest coup, perhaps even larger than the toppling of the three GOP judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

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KHOU - March 17, 2024

Fire in Texas Panhandle that burned over a million acres now 100% contained

Firefighters have completely contained the Smokehouse Creek fire in Hutchinson County after a nearly three-week battle with what quickly became the largest wildfire in Texas history. That inferno and a series of other wildfires killed at least two people as it burned more than 1 million acres across several counties. Many Panhandle residents lost homes, farms and ranches. Thousands of livestock were killed. Relief efforts in the region are ongoing. The U.S. Small Business Administration has set up disaster loan outreach centers in Canadian and Borger for people affected. A Texas House committee is investigating the cause of the fires, as well as the response and effectiveness of disaster preparedness. The Saturday announcement that the Smokehouse Creek fire is 100% contained means that crews have secured its entire perimeter and stopped it from spreading.

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Dallas Morning News - March 17, 2024

Texas abortion pill case cited in new ‘judge shopping’ policy

The federal judiciary announced a new rule Tuesday to discourage so-called “judge shopping” nationwide by making sure high-profile lawsuits seeking to overturn statewide or national policies are randomly assigned among a larger pool of judges. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the advisory body for the federal judiciary, announced the change after its semiannual meeting on Tuesday, March 12. In the days after the policy changes was announced, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina sent letters to about a dozen chief judges across the country, urging them to change their case assignment practices, saying “Judicial Conference policy is not legislation,” The Washington Post reported.

The conference has faced pressure from Democrats in Congress and outside groups for more than a year to make a national policy change in response to a trend of conservative litigants challenging Biden administration policies in locations where they are likely to get assigned to a particular judge. The nation’s federal courts are divided into districts, and some of those are split into divisions where there is only one or just a handful of judges to handle the case. Jeff Sutton, a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit who chairs the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference, said certain major cases will be randomly assigned to a judge within an entire district rather than only within the division where the lawsuits are filed. That could mean cases with national implications will be assigned from a pool of a dozen or more judges rather than a pool of one, Sutton told reporters in a conference call. Sutton said the rule would go into effect immediately but actual implementation could take some time. He also said it would not apply retroactively to litigation that has already been filed. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sent the Judicial Conference a letter last year that highlighted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s propensity for filing suits in single-judge divisions.

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D Magazine - March 17, 2024

The depressing reality about Dallas in the new U.S. Census numbers

People are coming to North Texas, but they are not moving to Dallas. The regional success story told in this week’s Census data dump—8.1 million people now call the region home for the first time—is not actually a tale about the center of our metro area, Dallas County, which charted a meager growth that was outpaced by even Kaufman County. Dallas County added about 4,300 people in 2023, only because there were about twice as many births as there were deaths. Last year, more people decided to leave Dallas County than those who moved here. The most populous county in North Texas lost more existing residents than all but seven other counties in the nation. The domestic migration numbers are particularly depressing: 34,330 U.S. residents packed up and left. Luckily, about 19,000 people moved here from other countries, making Dallas’ loss 15,057. The 39,000 babies who were born last year is the only reason the county had any population growth. Compare that to Collin County, which welcomed 28,886 new people. Or Denton County, where 23,090 now have new addresses.

Tarrant County added another 14,000. I jabbed at Kaufman, but by percentage, it’s the fastest growing county in the country. It added about 12,000 new people, a 7.6 percent increase. And remember, those numbers do not include births; they are the raw totals of the human beings who made a decision to move to one of those suburban counties. This is rough news for Dallas, which, one year ago was buzzing after finally landing in the black on the annual U.S. Census report. The .5 percent increase in population—a little under 13,000 total—was the most significant gain for Dallas County since 2017. This year’s increase was about .16 percent; but again, the real story is about how people are choosing to pick up and leave. We don’t know exactly where in Dallas County is losing all these people; the city breakdown generally lags the county analysis. We do know the city of Dallas lost about 15,000 people from 2020 to 2021, and then added a little under 9,000 between 2021 and 2022. This has to be alarming for city and county officials. The North Central Texas Council of Governments is planning for 12 million people in the region by 2045, which will lead to infrastructure investments that further the sprawl and make it even easier to leave the city proper.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 17, 2024

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro pushes for release of FBI, CIA files on Latino civil rights leaders

At the urging of U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, U.S. intelligence leaders on Tuesday said they would look into declassifying and releasing materials relating to surveillance of the Latino civil rights movement. The San Antonio Democrat pressed the heads of the CIA and FBI to “correct the historical record” during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing. “I want to ask you whether you’ll commit to working with me to improve the historical record and ensure that U.S. intelligence agencies can correct the mistakes of the past with regard to surveillance of Latino civil rights organizations,” Castro said.

CIA Director William J. Burns replied: “Yes.” FBI Director Christopher Wray said he would “see what we can provide.” The exchange came after Castro and U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, sent a letter to both intelligence leaders pointing to reports that the CIA and FBI may have been involved in monitoring and collecting information on activists and organizations that were part of the Latino civil rights movement. They include labor leader César Chávez and the American G.I. Forum, a civil rights group founded by Mexican American veterans, according to the letter. Attempts by both agencies to monitor and disrupt groups pushing for civil rights for Black Americans and opposing the Vietnam War have been described extensively in declassified, released documents, they wrote. But there is no similar record on the reported attempts to do the same with the Latino movement.

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Texas Tribune and VoteBeat - March 17, 2024

Republicans in a Texas county ditched technology and counted votes by hand. Here ’s what happened.

Bruce Campbell, chairman of the Gillespie County Republican Party, predicted that results from the 13 GOP precincts would start trickling into the county elections office by 8:30 p.m. By 9:30 p.m., he expressed surprise that none had returned. Shortly after, he informed county Elections Director Jim Riley it might be hours before workers finished hand-counting the thousands of early and mailed ballots — a task they’d begun at 7:30 that morning in a glass-walled tasting room at a winery called The Resort at Fredericksburg. “Are you kidding me?” Riley said. Campbell wasn’t kidding, or even hedging. In the end, the counting took all night long.

At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, Gillespie County Republicans completed hand-counting more than 8,000 ballots, following through on a decision the county party made months ago amid a statewide push led by individuals who have promoted some of the wildest election conspiracy theories since the 2020 election. Gillespie County Republicans decided to hand-count primary ballots even though experts agree, and studies show, the method is time-consuming, costly, less accurate and less secure than using machines. In each precinct and at one winery selected as the counting site for ballots cast during early voting, workers paid $12 an hour were hand-counting nearly 8,000 primary ballots, around half of which had been cast that day. The workers couldn’t stop until they finished: Texas law requires the count be continuous. While the Gillespie County Republican Party has so far paid for the hand-count, the state, which allocates money to reimburse political parties and counties for their primary and runoff election expenses, will ultimately reimburse most of its costs. The total has yet to be tallied, but that means Texas taxpayers will foot the final bill.

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KSAT - March 17, 2024

‘Burdensome and unnecessary’: Bexar County DA responds to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s proposed rule

A proposed rule by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton would allow him to remove some DA’s who do not provide additional reporting on certain cases. On Friday, Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales called the proposal “burdensome, unnecessary and potentially very costly to our citizens.” “The mission of the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office is public safety and holding accountable those who endanger our community. Shifting limited resources from the courtroom to the copy room in order to comply with these new rules will greatly impact our mission. We are already required to report case dispositions to the Office of Court Administration,” Gonzales wrote in the statement. Paxton’s office announced the proposed rule earlier this week in a press release.

It would require district and county attorneys in counties with populations over 250,000 to provide additional reporting to the AG’s office. That additional reporting would be for cases in which a person arrested for a violent offense is not indicted. It also includes cases in which a poll watcher or peace officer is indicted. “District Attorneys who choose not to prosecute criminals appropriately have created unthinkable damage in Texas communities,” Paxton’s statement read. “These enhanced reporting standards will create much-needed transparency and enable the public to hold their elected officials accountable.” The proposed rule was filed with the Secretary of State in late February and was published in the Texas Register on March 8. That marked the beginning of a 30-day public comment period. According to Paxton’s office, he could enact the new rule following the public comment period.

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Chron - March 17, 2024

VPN searches soar after Pornhub blocks Texas users

Less than 24 hours after adult video site Pornhub blocked users in Texas from accessing its content, Google searches for VPNs have soared in the state. VPNs, or virtual private networks, are software that spoof an internet user's physical location. They are often used to access streaming content only available in other countries, blacked-out sports games, and other geographically limited internet content. New data on Google search trends, compiled by tech site SlashGear, show searches for VPNs increased by more than 1,750 percent after Pornhub cut off access to Texas users. The block came after a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on March 8 that Texas can enforce a new law requiring age-verification systems on adult websites. Pornhub's parent company Aylo Global Entertainment views the law as flawed and unconstitutional. Instead of creating a system that would require Pornhub to collect and store government identification info, the site simply removed access for all Texans.

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Houston Chronicle - March 17, 2024

Texas State Board of Education faces takeover by GOP challengers backed by influential donors

For more than 20 years, Fort Worth Republican Pat Hardy has been a reliably conservative voice on the State Board of Education. Hardy has fought for Moses to be included in social studies standards, advocated for presenting creationism alongside evolution in science textbooks and said she was an early voice to call for the banning of critical race theory from the state’s public schools. But in 2024, Hardy is not conservative enough for Republican voters: She lost her primary election earlier this month against Brandon Hall, a former youth pastor who has pitched himself as a fighter for Christian conservative values. In addition to Hardy’s outright loss, two other Republicans on the board — Pam Little and Tom Maynard — were forced into runoff elections against opponents pitching themselves as stronger conservatives.

All three challengers received heavy financial support from Texans for Educational Freedom, a right-wing advocacy group that cut its teeth trying to sway local school board elections but has turned its attention to overhauling the state board, spending more than $300,000 this year. Hall and the others are poised to have a big impact right away, as the board is scheduled to revise the state’s social studies curriculum standards next year for the first time in more than a decade. The board’s decisions will influence what children will learn about government, Texas history and American history, among other topics. Despite getting contributions from three times as many donors, Hardy’s campaign only raised about a third as much as Hall, who brought in $146,623. Of that, $145,758 came from Texans for Educational Freedom — 99.4 percent. Hall said he was proud to receive TEF’s support, which he said he earned because of his positions on the issues. “We ran our campaign on parental rights, reforming our schools and giving our kids an excellent education, and that’s really what drove the support for our campaign,” he said.

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Houston Chronicle - March 17, 2024

Houston ISD will reduce, remove some stipends for employees, teachers who sponsor extracurriculars

Houston ISD officials plan to reduce or remove several stipends for extra work of up to $2,500 for district employees in the 2024-25 academic year, according to its proposed compensation plan. HISD released its compensation plan for the upcoming school year in early March, outlining the annual base salaries for all of the district’s employees and the incentives and stipends they are eligible to earn. The district offers stipends for duties that are unrelated to an employee’s primary job, such as working days outside of their normal schedule. While many stipends will remain next year, the district no longer lists stipends for several positions, including academic coaches, teacher mentors, speech and debate sponsors and department chairs.

Jessica Neyman, HISD’s chief human resources officer, called the removed stipends “an inefficiency” and “extraneous” during a news conference earlier this month. “Our expectation is that professionals go above and beyond in a high performance culture,” Neyman said. “That is the model now at Houston ISD. There were some habits that were formed in the past about anytime someone did anything a little bit extra, they anticipated that a stipend would be created.” The district also has removed stipends for sponsoring yearbook, newspaper, student council or robotics in New Education System schools. Teachers earning those stipends in non-NES schools will keep their stipends next year, although some may see their stipends reduced if they are currently making the maximum allowed stipend. The changes come after the district reduced the compensation plan from 130 pages last year to 27.

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Houston Chronicle - March 17, 2024

Five years after ITC fire, emergency communications have improved across Harris County

The Intercontinental Terminals Co. fire that broke out March 17, 2019, did not just lead to a massive black plume of smoke lingering for days over east Harris County, before spreading 20 miles to downtown Houston and other parts of the city. It also led to Harris County officials rethinking their emergency notification systems, after hearing from deeply concerned residents who said they hadn't received timely information about what was happening at the chemical plant near their homes. Five years later, they have results to show for their efforts, but staying informed during an incident can still be a complicated challenge for residents. The fire at the ITC Deer Park facility was the first test for the new Harris County Commissioners Court. County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who represents east Harris County, had taken office less than three months earlier, flipping the court to a Democratic majority.

They were quickly thrust into the complexities of a chemical fire – a not uncommon occurrence in east Harris County, where the economy is anchored by an expansive petrochemical industry. In recent years, the Houston Ship Channel area has experienced more than half a dozen incidents, among them an explosion at a Kuraray America EVAL facility in Pasadena in May 2018, a fire at an Exxon Mobil Baytown plant in July 2019, a chemical leak at a Dow Chemical plant in Deer Park in July 2021 and a fire at a Kinder Morgan facility in Pasadena in July 2023. The ITC incident was, however, uncommon in its severity. It took three days for firefighters to extinguish the blaze as it spread from a tank holding the toxic chemical naphtha to a total of 11 tanks, some of them holding gasoline blend stocks and products containing the cancer-causing chemical benzene. The fire produced more than 21 million gallons of potentially hazardous wastewater.

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Dallas Morning News - March 17, 2024

Matt Rinaldi won’t seek reelection as Texas Republican Party chair

Matt Rinaldi, the leader of the Texas Republican Party who worked to push his party and the state Legislature further to the right, said Friday he will not seek a third term as chair. Rinaldi gave no reason for the change, aside from saying it was “time for me to focus on my obligations as a husband to my wife, Corley, and as a father to my 6-year-old son, Rush.” As party chair since 2021, Rinaldi adopted a confrontational style and routinely attacked GOP lawmakers in the Legislature and Congress who were not seen as conservative enough. “Together, we have made the Republican Party of Texas and its millions of grassroots members more than just a cheerleading society for anyone with an ‘R’ next to their name,” Rinaldi said in a statement. “We made it an important and influential center of power for the grassroots in Texas politics.”

Rinaldi, whose term will expire in May, replaced former chair Allen West, who resigned in 2021 to launch an unsuccessful primary challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott. Rinaldi was reelected to a full term in 2022. Rinaldi served in the Texas House from 2015-19 and was more closely aligned with the conservative priorities of Attorney General Ken Paxton and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Republican Speaker Dade Phelan was among the top recipients of Rinaldi’s criticism for continuing the tradition of appointing Democrats to lead some legislative committees. Rinaldi also blamed Phelan for last year’s vote to impeach Paxton, calling it an attempt to overrule the will of voters, and he called on Phelan to resign after the Senate voted to acquit the attorney general. The Republican Party of Texas’ executive committee censured Phelan earlier this year for Paxton’s impeachment, for appointing nine Democrats to lead committees and for the chamber not sending a school choice bill to Abbott. Rinaldi joined state leaders – including Abbott, Patrick and Paxton – in targeting Phelan and other House incumbents who voted against school choice or supported Paxton’s impeachment.

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Associated Press - March 17, 2024

U.S. Supreme Court turns down case over blocked drag show at West Texas A&M

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from a student group that has been blocked from staging a drag show at a public university in Texas. The justices did not comment Friday in refusing to issue an order that would have allowed Spectrum WT — a group for LGBTQ+ students and allies — to put on a charity show on March 22 on the campus of West Texas A&M University in Canyon, located just south of Amarillo. The high court had previously refused to allow Florida to enforce its law targeting drag shows, while lower federal courts in a Montana, Tennessee and Texas blocked state bans from being implemented. Drag shows across the country have been targeted by right-wing activists and politicians, and events nationwide like drag story hours, where drag queens read books to children, have drawn protesters.

The Texas college dispute first arose last year when the school's president, Walter Wendrell, announced in a letter and column laden with religious references that drag performances would not be allowed on campus. Wendrell wrote that the shows discriminate against women and that the performances were "derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny, no matter the stated intent." Wendrell blocked a show scheduled for a year ago. Spectrum WT sued, arguing that drag wasn’t designed to be offensive and portraying it as a celebration of many things, including “queerness, gender, acceptance, love and especially femininity.” But U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled against the group. “The First Amendment does not prevent school officials from restricting ‘vulgar and lewd’ conduct that would ‘undermine the school’s basic educational mission’ — particularly in settings where children are physically present,” Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote last year.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 17, 2024

Norovirus cases on the rise in Texas, United States

Norovirus, the stomach bug that can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, is surging throughout the U.S., and cases are rising in Texas as well. The highly contagious contagious virus can spread easily, and is the most common cause of unpleasant symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea. “Especially this time of year, it’s pretty common to see norovirus,” said Dr. I. Carol Nwelue, the chief of hospital medicine at Baylor All Saints Medical Center Fort Worth. “We’re seeing it more than we have in the recent past.” The share of people testing positive for norovirus increased to 13.5% in last week in the South, and could continue to rise. That means that of everyone getting tested, more than 1 in every 10 people has the bug. Last year, norovirus peaked in mid March in the South, with 16.5% of all tests performed coming back positive for norovirus. There’s no data of the exact number of norovirus cases in Texas, because the virus is not a reportable condition in the state.

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Fort Worth Report - March 17, 2024

Fort Worth to Houston high-speed rail on track despite Dallas concerns

The once-smooth sailing high-speed rail connection from Fort Worth to Dallas is dealing with a major hurdle as regional planners and Dallas city officials stand off over the project’s future. Could this gridlock over the advantages of connecting Dallas to Fort Worth derail Cowtown’s ability to capitalize on this economic opportunity? Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, isn’t raising alarms just yet. “It’s just the natural process of really big, important projects — getting everyone on the same page as we move forward,” Morris told the Fort Worth Report. “This is our generation’s DFW Airport.” Transportation disputes have long marked Fort Worth and Dallas’ relationship, starting in 1876 when Fort Worth residents galvanized to bring the Texas & Pacific rail line to town. Similar conflicts played out with the construction of Interstate 35 East and West and then again with the creation of the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.

The concerns first surfaced at the December 2023 Regional Transportation Council meeting, the independent transportation policy group of the North Central Texas Council of Governments or NCTCOG. The high-speed rail connection between the east and west sides of the metroplex was moving “full steam ahead” last summer until Dallas started raising concerns about the seven-story high, elevated rail line that would cut through planned local redevelopment work in the area, including a new $3.7 billion convention center. Fort Worth and Arlington’s stops would, in contrast, be underground. NCTCOG explored an underground option in Dallas, Morris said, but that option didn’t work for the one-seat ride approach that would eventually connect Fort Worth to Houston through Dallas. “You would defeat the whole purpose of having a high-speed rail to have the seamless connection because you’d have a 40-minute travel time penalty, so we just need time for people to understand that,” Morris said. As for the rail line and elevated station running through Dallas’ planned projects, it wasn’t NCTCOG that selected the location of the station years ago, Morris said.

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County Stories

Fort Worth Report - March 17, 2024

New chief at Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors ready for fast-growing housing market

In February, the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors named Suzanne Westrum as its new chief executive officer. Westrum brings more than 15 years of experience, most recently as CEO of the Prescott Area Association of Realtors. She also brings plenty of knowledge of Texas, originally hailing from San Antonio. Westrum began her career in real estate there, first as communications director and later as vice president of communications and marketing at the San Antonio Board of Realtors. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Communication Arts from St. Mary’s University and a Master of Arts in Public Relations from Webster University, both in San Antonio. In working with Realtors, Westrum, 41, led strategic initiatives, oversaw signature events and helped advance advocacy goals of the organizations; she plans to continue that work here.

Along with a focus on strategic direction, she will also promote the value of Realtors, enhance member engagement and provide members with educational opportunities. “Advocacy is a big part of what we do as a trade association,” she said. “Making sure that we’re protecting private property rights in the area, that’s something we’ll continue to do. “ Westrum is also big on developing leadership and that will be another focus for her. “We’ve got strong leadership here at the association and we want to continue with that, identifying the leaders, kind of building them up and having that strong pipeline of leaders going forward,” she said. Key for membership is for the organization to be the best resource for information on what is going on in the industry. “I’ve been in the real estate industry since 2012 and it has changed a lot,” she said. “It continues to evolve with technology, so we want to make sure our agents and members are staying up to date on the latest technology so that they can stay relevant for their consumers.”

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City Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 17, 2024

Two San Antonio women and crime partners to do hard time for smuggling migrants

Two San Antonio women and two other members of a human smuggling ring have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 6.5 to 15 years for trafficking migrants for cash. A federal judge in Del Rio sentenced Eva Maria Galeas, 43, to 15 years and her daughter, Lisa Marie Ortega, 25, to 13 years for their roles in what prosecutors described as “an extensive human smuggling organization” that reached into Mexico and Honduras. Members of the smuggling outfit transported undocumented migrants, hid them in rented stash houses and used the fees they collected to pay drivers and fund personal purchases, including cars, the U.S. Justice Department said.

The trafficking ring was a family business. It was led by Galeas’ husband, Roberto Galeas-Mejia, 47, of Honduras. He is also Ortega’s stepfather. He oversaw “activities that included the transportation and harboring of undocumented noncitizens and the coordination of payments,” the Justice Department said. Authorities found more than $600,000 in U.S. currency in a safe during a search of the home Galeas-Mejia shared with his wife and stepdaughter. U.S. District Judge Alia Moses ordered the money forfeited under laws that allow the government to seize the proceeds of criminal activity. Galeas-Mejia’s two sisters, Sandra Galeas-Mejia, 48, of Mexico, and Norma Galeas-Mejia, 52, of Honduras were part of the conspiracy. They and the two other women handled the money, funneling it through their bank accounts. They paid drivers, rented the stash houses and paid the stash house operators.

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National Stories

Washington Post - March 17, 2024

How a sleuth defense attorney and a disgruntled law partner damaged the Trump Georgia case

In early September, a lawyer for one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case scheduled a call with the other defense attorneys to share what he thought could be a game-changing allegation. Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor on the case, did not seem qualified for a job that was paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars, Manny Arora told his colleagues. And he’d heard that Wade was in a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), potential grounds for Willis’s disqualification from the case. The reaction was muted. Some of the lawyers didn’t even participate in the call. It was just three weeks after their clients had been indicted, and they were busy preparing their cases. “Truthfully, I thought it was too salacious, and I thought it would irritate the judge,” said one defense lawyer, who like several other individuals spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the case. “Everybody had just been arraigned. We were working on discovery and getting our defense together.”

Arora, who represented lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, told the group that he didn’t have the bandwidth to investigate the romance claims, he later recounted to The Post. But one lawyer on the call was interested. Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign aide Mike Roman, filed open-records requests for Wade’s contracts and billing invoices. She obtained a trove of financial records from his pending divorce case. And crucially, she leaned on a long-standing friendship with Wade’s former law partner, who claimed knowledge of all of it in hundreds of now-public text messages. That effort culminated in a blockbuster pleading that Merchant filed in January accusing Willis of improperly hiring Wade while they were dating and then profiting by allowing him to take her on lavish vacations. The unusual pleading, which cited unnamed individuals and provided no evidence, called for Willis’s disqualification from the case and for the charges to be dismissed. In the weeks that followed, Merchant frantically rushed to try to find proof for her claims. Ultimately, the gambit fell short when Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday that Merchant and other defense attorneys had failed to prove Willis and Wade were in a relationship when she appointed him or other disqualifying conduct. But the ruling sharply criticized Willis and Wade, and demanded that one of them step away from the case.

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Reuters - March 17, 2024

Trump predicts the end of U.S. democracy if he loses 2024 election

Donald Trump said on Saturday if he does not win November's presidential election it will mean the likely end of American democracy. The Republican presidential candidate, speaking to supporters in Ohio, made the claim after repeating his baseless assertion that his 2020 election defeat to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of election fraud. During an outdoor speech that was whipped by strong winds and punctuated by some profane language, Trump predicted that if he does not win the Nov. 5 general election, American democracy will come to an end. "If we don't win this election, I don't think you're going to have another election in this country," Trump said. Trump, who is under criminal indictment in Georgia for trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election there, this week won enough delegates to mathematically clinch the Republican nomination. A general election rematch with Biden is likely to be extremely close. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found the two candidates in a statistical tie with registered voters.

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CNN - March 17, 2024

‘Knock it off’: Speaker Mike Johnson tries to stop Republicans from campaigning against each other in bitter primary battles

House Republicans, who have seen their time in the majority devolve into a seemingly endless series of internal party feuds, now have a new problem: GOP lawmakers targeting other sitting members in their primaries. In at least four primaries – in South Carolina, Illinois, Texas and Virginia – Republican members are actively campaigning against one of their own, inflaming tensions in a conference where emotions are still raw in the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy’s unprecedented ouster atop the House. Speaker Mike Johnson has had enough.

“I’ve asked them all to cool it,” Johnson told CNN at the House GOP retreat in West Virginia last week. “I am vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries because it’s not productive. And it causes division for obvious reasons, and we should not be engaging in that.” “So I’m telling everyone who’s doing that to knock it off,” Johnson added. “And both sides, they’ll say, ‘Well, we didn’t start it, they started it.’” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz – the Florida firebrand who is spearheading the effort against two of the GOP incumbents, Reps. Mike Bost of Illinois and Tony Gonzales of Texas – is unmoved. “I would love nothing more than to just go after Democrats,” Gaetz, who led the charge to oust McCarthy, told CNN. “But if Republicans are going to dress up like Democrats in drag, I’m going to go after them too. Because at the end of the day, we’re not judged by how many Republicans we have in Congress. We’re judged on whether or not we save the country.”

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CNN - March 17, 2024

Marriage rates are up, and divorce rates are down, new data shows

After Covid-19 lockdowns, 2022 was a year of marriages, according to new data. The number of marriages took a dive around the start of the pandemic, numbers show. For the past two decades, the number of marriages stayed around 7 to 8 per 1,000 people a year, according to new data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. But in 2020, the marriage rate was down to 5.1 per 1,000 people, the data showed. The rate started to climb the next year, and by 2022, the number of marriages had reached 6.2 per capita and over 2 million in a year, according to the report. Growth in marriage rates may be due to more than just rescheduling, said Marissa Nelson, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Washington, DC.

Being in lockdown together gave many couples a unique hurdle to overcome, one that made them get intentional about how they approached important things like finances, compromise and autonomy. Many people walked out of that experience with a better sense of what they need in a life partner, Nelson said. Intentionality may also be behind declining divorce rates, she added. In 2022, the divorce rate was 2.4 per 1,000 people. Although that isn’t the lowest it has ever been – in 2021, it was 2.3 – it continues a downward trend, according to the data. By comparison, the rate of divorces in 2000 was 4 per 1,000, which means the current rate is a big decline from two decades earlier. Being stuck in a home together during lockdown forced a lot of couples to face problems in their relationship head-on, Nelson said. That might have caused additional strife, or it could have helped them lay better groundwork for a stable future, she added.

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Politico - March 17, 2024

Hal Malchow is going to die on Thursday. He has one last message for Democrats.

On Thursday, March 21, one of the Democratic party’s most accomplished campaign consultants will die. In a sense, Hal Malchow has been planning for this day ever since 1987, when a genetic marker test revealed he was likely to develop Alzheimer’s. At the time, he was barely 35 years old, a hustling political operative who had recently come off managing Al Gore’s first Senate campaign while overcome with worry about his mother’s early descent into dementia. (Around her 50th birthday, she was discovered wandering lost in a parking lot in the Mississippi town where she had lived her whole life.) After his mother’s untimely death, in 1990, Malchow was intent on never letting himself endure the same thing. If he showed symptoms for Alzheimer’s, Malchow resolved at the time, he would take his life before he became too diminished — and became a burden to those around him. That vow hung over Malchow for decades as he helped to pioneer the specialty of direct mail in political campaigns, first with letters seeking donor contributions and then glossy flyers hunting for votes.

Before scheduling his death, Malchow made sure he had time to launch a final salvo at the way campaigns are run. Malchow built his career championing marginal improvements to existing tactics, like rewriting a leaflet’s wording to improve turnout among recipients by 1 or 2 percentage points. But now, as he faces his ultimate deadline, Malchow is taking aim at a much bigger piece of electoral strategy: winning minds via mass media. “We’ve done a lot of good work figuring out the turnout piece of it, but it’s still very small,” Malchow says in his modern adobe home in the hills above Santa Fe, as a playlist mixing country-rock and classic jazz wafted through the airy space. “The persuasion is a big opportunity.” That is the urgent message of his new book, Reinventing Political Advertising, where, using reams of empirical research and decades of personal experience, Malchow implores his peers to rethink their entire approach to paid communication, especially on television. It is time, he argues, not to reengineer the targeting of 30-second spots, direct-mail pieces and digital pre-roll ads but to rethink their basic purpose. Political communicators are sticking to approaches developed for an era when ticket-splitters and swing voters composed a sizeable chunk of the electorate. But with a body politic that has sorted into two highly polarized parties — with just one-tenth of voters torn between them — the logic of persuading voters to support a candidate has grown obsolete. Ad campaigns should instead promote the Democratic Party itself, Malchow proposes, particularly at moments when news events might help it win new adherents, such as after a mass shooting, when gun-control policy is thrust back into the news and voters might be ready to reconsider their allegiances. “Ninety percent of voters are choosing parties,” he writes. “Yet our approach to advertising has not changed at all. Almost 100 percent of our advertising dollars are spent on candidate choice. The decision driving 9 out of 10 votes is not being addressed at all.”

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Dallas Morning News - March 17, 2024

Blackout buster: DirecTV will allow customers to opt out of local stations

DirecTV users were left in the dark in December as the Texas Longhorns and SMU Mustangs competed for conference championships, angering college football fans across the state. El Segundo, Calif.-based DirecTV blamed Tegna, one of the country’s largest broadcasters, for denying the company access to stations like WFAA-TV in their fight over transmission fees. But now, DirecTV thinks it may be closer to giving its customers some control during blackouts. Satellite customers will now have the ability to opt out of local stations as long as they want, whenever they want, using the company’s new “No Locals“ deal, according to DirecTV. Customers who select the option will receive a discount from DirecTV of up to $140 annually.

For satellite providers, the market has turned into a perfect storm. Since 2020, there have been 83 television blackouts, some of which are still ongoing. Paid TV subscriber numbers have also dwindled from 100 million to 74 million since 2015, according to DirecTV. That number is expect to tumble to 62 million by 2027. Meanwhile, retransmission fees have also soared 270% since 2017. Though it’s not a direct response to the rising issue of broadcasters blacking out certain stations during high-demand times, like a Big 12 or AAC championship, it’s a way to let customers fight back when broadcasters pull their signals, said DirecTV’s chief content officer Rob Thun. “This isn’t directly because of blackouts. We know programming rates are rising quickly and that customers want more control over their content,” Thun said. “We’re trying to find more modular ways to give customers choice and control with their packages. In the midst of these kinds of disputes [station blackouts], if they don’t want to pay for a station they don’t use, it will be their choice.”

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Washington Post - March 17, 2024

Biden needles Trump on age, mental fitness, finances at D.C. dinner

After sitting through hours of jokes about his age at Saturday’s Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner, President Biden turned the tables on the journalists putting on the skits. “The big news this week is, two candidates clinched their parties’ nomination for president. One candidate is too old, mentally unfit to be president,” Biden said. “And the other is me.” The joke landed well with most of the 650 journalists and politicos who gathered for the annual white-tie event, which features skits ribbing Republicans and Democrats, stand-up sets from actual Republican and Democratic officials and a whirl of schmoozing. Biden was making his first Gridiron appearance as president, and he seized the occasion to lay into former president Donald Trump — who, despite facing criminal charges and recent civil judgments that could cost him hundreds of millions of dollars, poses a serious threat to Biden as the two men head toward a rematch in the fall election.

“The other day, a defeated-looking man came up to me and said, ‘I’m being crushed by debt. I’m completely wiped out,’” Biden said. “I said, ‘Sorry, Donald, I can’t help you.’” The $400-a-plate dinner, held at the Washington Grand Hyatt, also featured speeches by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). Ambitious politicians from both parties have, in previous years, used the opportunity to introduce themselves to a tipsy Washington press corps in the hopes of gaining national notice. And at the past two dinners, Republican speakers have made headlines for taking shots at the leader of their own party. In 2022, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) called Trump “crazy,” using an expletive. In 2023, former vice president Mike Pence said history would hold Trump accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. (Attempts to hold the president legally accountable have run into delays.) Cox wouldn’t go there this year, but he managed to impress the D.C. crowd anyway, eventually getting a standing ovation at the end of his remarks. (Some people stood for Whitmer, but it was clear who won the popular vote between the two governors.)

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Newsclips - March 15, 2024

Lead Stories

Washington Post - March 15, 2024

Judge Cannon rejects Trump’s attack on the Espionage Act

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Thursday shot down one of Donald Trump’s bids to toss out the charges against him for allegedly mishandling classified documents, rejecting his claims that the Espionage Act was unfairly vague when used against a former president. In a brief written order, Cannon said some of Trump’s arguments warrant “serious consideration” but added it was too early to dismiss charges based on disagreements over the definition of some terms used in the Espionage Act. She did say Trump could raise the issue later “in connection with jury-instruction briefing and/or other appropriate motions.” The decision came shortly after a hearing in which Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, sat in court as a criminal defendant and listened carefully to the legal arguments swirling around him.

Cannon voiced skepticism during the hearing at Trump’s claims that he could not be charged because the wording of the Espionage Act was too murky, and a different law called the Presidential Records Act was too broad. “You would agree that declaring a statute is unconstitutionally vague is quite an extraordinary step?” she asked Trump lawyer Emil Bove at one point. The judge, who was nominated by Trump and has been on the federal bench since late 2020, sounded especially doubtful of the defense claim that the Presidential Records Act means Trump could simply declare highly classified documents to be his personal property and keep them at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and private club. “It’s difficult to see how this gets you to a dismissal of the indictment,” Cannon said. As a judge overseeing the first-of-its kind case, in which a former president is charged with dozens of counts of violating national security laws by allegedly stashing classified documents at his home after he left the White House, Cannon has generally been careful not to reveal too much about her thinking in pretrial hearings, but she was more plain-spoken Thursday.

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Dallas Morning News - March 15, 2024

Pornhub responds to AG lawsuit by blocking Texans from viewing adult content

Pornhub, one of the largest adult-content websites, shut down access to Texas users Thursday after the state attorney general sued its parent company to enforce a new state law requiring stricter age verification. Texas internet addresses that access Pornhub and several affiliated sites were directed to a message stating that a recently enacted law requiring users to verify their age using a government-issued ID violates the First Amendment. “Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas,” the Pornhub message states. “In doing so, we are complying with the law, as we always do, but hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.”

Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the age-verification law known as House Bill 1181, passed last year, does not violate the First Amendment and that the law fell within Texas’ “legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography.” Paxton sued Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo USA Inc., for $1.6 million in February, saying it was not complying with the law. On Thursday, Texans seeking access to Pornhub and other Aylo-owned websites were greeted with a black screen and a message in white letters. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk,” the messages said. The law requires adult-content websites to verify that users are at least 18 years old by entering a government ID or a suitable alternative identification. The bill, which created a $10,000-a-day fine for violators, faced little opposition at the Capitol and passed in May with wide bipartisan support. Before the law could take effect on Sept. 1, the porn trade group Free Speech Coalition sued, arguing that HB 1181 violates free speech protections. A federal judge in Austin agreed, ruling that the law ran afoul of the First Amendment by deterring adult access to sexually explicit, but legal, material.

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Wall Street Journal - March 15, 2024

The rough years that turned Gen Z into America’s most disillusioned voters

Kali Gaddie was a college senior when the pandemic abruptly upended her life plans—and made her part of a big and deeply unhappy political force that figures to play a huge role in the 2024 election season. Her graduation was postponed, she was let go from her college job and her summer internship got canceled. She spent the final months of school taking online classes from her parents’ house. “You would think that there’s a plan B or a safety net,” she said. “But there’s actually not.” Today, Gaddie, 25, works as an office manager in Atlanta earning less than $35,000 a year. In her spare time, she uploads videos to TikTok, where she’s amassed thousands of followers. Now, that’s at risk of being taken away too. All of this has left her dejected and increasingly skeptical of politicians.

Young adults in Generation Z—those born in 1997 or after—have emerged from the pandemic feeling more disillusioned than any living generation before them, according to long-running surveys and interviews with dozens of young people around the country. They worry they’ll never make enough money to attain the security previous generations have achieved, citing their delayed launch into adulthood, an impenetrable housing market and loads of student debt. “It’s funny how they quickly pass this bill about this TikTok situation. What about schools that are getting shot up? We’re not going to pass a bill about that?” Gaddie asked. “No, we’re going to worry about TikTok and that just shows you where their head is…. I feel like they don’t really care about what’s going on with humanity.” She isn’t alone in expressing frustration. In recent days, congressional offices have been flooded with calls from young people begging lawmakers to leave the app in place. Gen Z’s widespread gloominess is manifesting in unparalleled skepticism of Washington and a feeling of despair that leaders of either party can help. Young Americans’ entire political memories are subsumed by intense partisanship and warnings about the looming end of everything from U.S. democracy to the planet. When the darkest days of the pandemic started to end, inflation reached 40-year highs. The right to an abortion was overturned. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East raged. All of the turmoil is being broadcast—sometimes with almost apocalyptic language or graphic video—on social media.

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Dallas Morning News - March 15, 2024

Texas Medical Board may clarify state abortion ban exemptions

The Texas Medical Board will consider issuing guidance to clarify legal exceptions to the state’s abortion bans after months of requests by pregnant women, doctors and even the state Supreme Court. The decision to issue guidance on the law comes after the attorneys and lobbyists Steve and Amy Bresnen filed a petition asking the board to clarify who can receive an abortion under state laws, which allow the procedure only to save the life of the mother. Some doctors and patients have complained that the vagueness of the Texas law has prevented or delayed healthcare providers from performing abortions even in dire situations out of fear of prosecution or potential lawsuits. The board, whose members are appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott and charged with regulating the practice of medicine in Texas, has stayed noticeably quiet on abortion regulations. It will meet March 22, starting a 30-day rulemaking session.

Last year, the Texas Supreme Court turned down Kate Cox’s plea for permission to end her pregnancy, saying in its decision that physicians, not judges, are the only ones who can determine when someone qualifies for an abortion under a medical exemption. It also said the Texas Medical Board could provide any clarity it deemed necessary. In the footnotes of its decision, the court defined how the board might provide clarification, be it through hypothetical examples or identifying boundaries to the law. The Texas Medical Board provided similar clarification during the COVID-19 pandemic, a reality that the December opinion references. Texas Impact, an interfaith advocacy organization that advocates for limiting abortion penalties, called on the Texas Medical Board to kickstart the rulemaking process. If the law is an order for a cake, Texas Impact executive director Bee Moorhead said, the rules would be the recipe for that cake. “This isn’t going to change the law, it’s just going to make it clearer,” Moorhead said. Moorhead’s organization is asking for guidance on when an emergency qualifies under the exemption, how physicians can ensure their decision meets the standard of reasonable medical judgment and what level of detail needs to be provided to substantiate a claim that an abortion wasn’t protected by the exception.

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State Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 15, 2024

Barbs between Ken Paxton and John Cornyn raise prospect of 2026 clash of Texas GOP titans

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recent success in ousting several Republican House incumbents may foreshadow a more ferocious political fight targeting longtime U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Paxton has deliberately and conspicuously attacked Cornyn as too moderate for today’s Texas GOP — a tactic in the March 5 primaries that helped the attorney general unseat eight Republicans who voted last year to impeach him and force seven others into a May 28 runoff. A darling of his party’s most strident hard-right activists who has a powerful ally in former President Donald Trump, Paxton increasingly appears to be looking toward entering the 2026 primary in hopes of toppling fellow Republican Cornyn. “Super Tuesday showed there is a large base of Paxton-friendly voters who not only admire him but want his kind of unapologetic aggressive conservatism in the United States Senate,” said conservative radio talk show host Mark Davis, who has interviewed Paxton numerous times on his Dallas-based show.

Paxton suggested a willingness to take on Cornyn during an interview shortly after the Senate cleared him on impeachment charges in September. “I think it’s time for somebody to step up and run against this guy,” Paxton told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, adding that when it came to future plans, “everything is on the table for me.” More recently, Paxton criticized Cornyn’s support for a bipartisan foreign aid package and dismissed Cornyn’s aspiration to lead Republicans in the Senate, saying the party deserved better. Cornyn’s quest to become Senate Republican leader is a career-defining goal that could prove pivotal to his legacy, particularly if he has to fend off a primary challenge from Paxton that could end his long career in politics. “Cornyn is one of the last of the great statesmen,” said Jeremy Bradford, former executive director of the Tarrant County Republican Party. “It would be good to have the majority leader in your state, but that’s a purely political calculation. Many of the grassroots folks are more ideological than pragmatic, and that could have an impact in a primary.” Plano-based Republican consultant Vinny Minchillo, who worked on Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, believes Cornyn can withstand a Paxton challenge. “He’s won statewide at the state level and won statewide at the federal level,” Minchillo said, noting Cornyn also has been elected as attorney general and a Texas Supreme Court justice. “He would be an incredibly tough candidate to beat, and I just feel like Paxton’s grassroots likability has its limits.”

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Houston Chronicle - March 15, 2024

‘The game’s not over’: Future of vouchers, Texas House at stake in GOP runoffs

Gary VanDeaver’s career has revolved around public education for more than 30 years, from his first teaching job — high school vocational agriculture — to his current role leading the Texas House committee that oversees education funding. His fidelity to public education could now be his undoing as a lawmaker, driven by the five-term Republican’s stubborn resistance to private school vouchers. VanDeaver is one of several GOP House incumbents who have been pushed into runoff elections after a wave of spending from Gov. Greg Abbott and pro-voucher groups. In his case, Abbott and the American Federation for Children spent nearly $600,000 to promote primary challenger Chris Spencer, who has called school vouchers “the civil rights issue of our time.” “It's really a battle for the heart and soul of rural Texas,” VanDeaver said of the GOP runoffs. “There's no doubt that we're seeing a purification of the Republican Party in Texas. And the message is very clear: you either toe the line or we’ll come after you.”

The runoffs could cement the lower chamber’s rightward lurch after a record nine House Republicans were taken out by hardline primary challengers last week. But establishment GOP incumbents see hope of reasserting power in the overtime contests, while Democrats are eyeing the internecine power struggle as an opportunity to go after more right-wing nominees who, they believe, could be more vulnerable in November’s general election. The May 28 contests center on a marquee matchup between House Speaker Dade Phelan and GOP activist David Covey, who finished ahead of the Beaumont Republican but failed to snag a majority of the vote. Seven other GOP incumbents, including VanDeaver, will face off against challengers who have branded themselves as more conservative and promised to shake up the status quo. The record turnover in the House has threatened Phelan’s control of the chamber even if he survives his race, while Abbott is a few seats away from installing a clear pro-voucher majority. Phelan and other incumbents will likely be armed with their own avalanche of PAC spending. Phelan’s right-wing critics — including several likely incoming House GOP freshmen — want to remove any vestiges of resistance to the more conservative Senate. Their outrage over vouchers, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment and the longstanding practice of appointing some House Democrats as committee chairs has outweighed recent conservative wins such as banning abortion, allowing the permitless carry of handguns and restricting transgender athletes and transition care.

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Houston Chronicle - March 15, 2024

Kristi Noem sued over viral endorsement of Sugar Land dentist

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is facing a lawsuit after travelling to a Sugar Land dentist and promoting the business in a social media video. On Monday, Noem posted a video on X, formally known as Twitter, where she talked about her experience at Smile Texas, a cosmetic dental practice. In the video, the governor said she was visiting the dentistry to fix her teeth after years of having to adjust them due to a biking accident, which knocked out all of her front teeth.

The video is edited to appear like an infomercial, with the Republican governor praising Dr. Bret Davis, one of the dentists at the office, and the staff — as clips are played showing the dentists working on other patients. Travelers United, a consumer advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Noem shortly after the video was posted, accusing the governor of doing an “undisclosed advertisement” for Smile Texas, CNN reports. Former President Donald Trump, who is waging a comeback bid, has said Noem is on his short list of possible vice presidential picks. The lawsuit claims “There are many dentists and cosmetic dentists in South Dakota. No one with an extremely important job in the South Dakota would fly to Texas to receive dental treatment and then sit in that office and film an advertisement without some form of compensation," CNN reports. The relationship is unclear between the governor and the dentist office. When asked about the lawsuit, a staff member at Smile Texas said they could not speak about it due to patient privacy laws. The dentist office acknowledged the governor's video in an Instagram post, while sharing it as well.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 15, 2024

Texas AG Ken Paxton accuses Colony Ridge developers of deceptive trade practices, fraud in lawsuit

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the business behind the controversial Houston-area development Colony Ridge, alleging deceptive trade practices and fraud in a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court. In a news release Thursday, Paxton’s office said the lawsuit was the result of a monthslong investigation into the Colony Ridge developer’s company, which is led by brothers John and William “Trey” Harris III, and alleges it engaged in “false, misleading, and deceptive sales, marketing, and lending practices that enabled their business model.” “Colony Ridge’s business model is predicated on churning land purchasers through a foreclosure mill,” the lawsuit reads. “Namely, Colony Ridge targets foreign born and Hispanic consumers with limited or no access to credit with promises of cheap, ready to build land and financing without proof of income."

The developers denied Paxton’s allegations, saying their business model has helped low-income families buy property for themselves. Colony Ridge, in nearby Liberty County about 40 miles northeast of downtown Houston, has also attracted many immigrant families fleeing rising housing costs concentrated in urban areas. Its population is estimated to be upwards of 40,000. “There is nothing new in the Texas Attorney General’s Lawsuit,” said Colony Ridge CEO John Harris in a statement. “Colony Ridge complies with the law. Full stop. … We will be reviewing the specifics of this lawsuit with our attorneys and look forward to sharing the true story about Colony Ridge.” Although his office’s lawsuit is targeting the company behind the development for its alleged deceptive practices, Paxton had previously taken issue with the fact that many of those living in the community are immigrants. In a letter he sent last year to members of Texas' congressional delegation, Paxton claimed that Colony Ridge had “become an issue of national concern” because it was “enabling illegal alien settlement in the state of Texas and distressing neighboring cities and school districts.”

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San Antonio Express-News - March 15, 2024

'AK Guy' campaigns with Matt Gaetz in bid to oust U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales

Brandon Herrera, the so-called AK Guy forcing U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales into a primary runoff, brought U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to San Antonio on Thursday as he ramps up campaign efforts ahead of the May 28 election. The appearance came hours after the GOP House speaker reportedly criticized members for campaigning against their colleagues in what will likely be a tough election year for Republicans looking to maintain or expand their slim majority. Standing before a crowd of more than 200 people at the Angry Elephant in northern San Antonio, Herrera celebrated his No. 2 finish in last week’s primary election and trashed Gonzales, who has represented the sprawling 23rd Congressional District since 2021. Gaetz also took aim at his colleague, calling the former Navy cryptologist a “lackluster congressman.”

“The turnout of this room just might be the amount of votes required to win this runoff,” Herrera said. Gonzales is the only GOP Congressman in Texas facing a runoff election after being heavily targeted for his 2022 votes to codify same-sex marriage rights and tighten background checks for young gun buyers. The 23rd district leans Republican but is one of only congressional districts in Texas that could be competitive in November. Gaetz is known as a strong ally of former President Donald Trump and a far-right firebrand who helped lead the effort to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his job last year. “Tony Gonzales votes with the uniparty,” Gaetz said Thursday. “He votes with the uniparty and against the interests of the America First movement.” Herrera said Gaetz’s comments will resonate with voters in the 23rd district because “he ruffles a lot of feathers. He makes a lot of noise, and he upsets the right people.” Both Gaetz and Herrera, a gun manufacturer and social media personality, went after Gonzales for his vote on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Congress passed just weeks after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Gonzales represents Uvalde and has defended his vote.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 15, 2024

Texas A&M hires Nebraska's Trev Alberts as Aggies' new athletic director

Texas A&M has named Trev Alberts its new athletic director. Alberts is currently athletic director at Nebraska, his alma mater, and he takes over for the departed Ross Bjork at A&M. Bjork left A&M in January for his new role as Ohio State’s athletic director. A&M has had four athletic directors over the past decade: Eric Hyman, Scott Woodward, Bjork and now Alberts. “With Trev’s expertise, the Aggies are poised to not only excel on the fields, tracks and courts, but also successfully navigate the multi-faceted intersection of sports, commerce and student-athlete empowerment,” A&M president Mark Welsh said. “He has a profound understanding of the intricate business of athletics and the evolving landscape of college athletics, particularly in the realm of name, image and likeness (NIL).

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Dallas Morning News - March 15, 2024

North Texas families still await action years after reporting discrimination at schools

The moment is burned into Angela Jones’ memory. One day after school, her teenage son climbed into her car and told Jones that he’d been called “filthy N-word” by a classmate in Southlake. Jones flashed back to second grade, when that happened to her. Why was she now, in her 50s, hearing that despicable word thrown at her child? Jones recounted the moment and other racist experiences her son faced at school in a 2021 complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces federal laws that protect students against discrimination. She believed the department would swoop in to investigate Carroll ISD and mandate fixes, perhaps training for teachers and students about the impact of hateful language. The Office for Civil Rights is empowered to call for such changes, which Jones thinks would make Southlake schools safer for Black students.

“I had hoped it would happen while my son was still there, so he could see, for all kinds of reasons, that if something’s not right, you have the voice to stand up and speak out about it. Make change or get someone to help you make change, and then reap the benefits,” she said. “But that hasn’t happened for my son.” Instead, the federal investigation into Jones’ case remains open nearly three years after she filed it. Jones pulled her son out of CISD before he graduated. Eight investigations into discrimination allegations at Carroll schools are pending, according to a department database. Three were opened in 2021. These North Texas families are far from alone in waiting for answers from the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates discrimination complaints at colleges, universities and K-12 campuses. Investigations regularly take months, even years, to reach a resolution, leaving students in potentially hostile environments. The office saw a record number of complaints in fiscal year 2022, according to its latest annual report. It received roughly 18,800 complaints, as schools increasingly became a battleground in broader fights about race, gender and sexuality. That number blew past the office’s previous record high of 16,720 complaints in fiscal year 2016.

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Dallas Morning News - March 15, 2024

Barry Wernick requests recount after close primary loss to Rep. Morgan Meyer

Barry Wernick, a Dallas attorney who challenged incumbent Rep. Morgan Meyer in the March 5 Republican primary, said Thursday he is requesting a manual recount after losing by 523 votes. “This is not a challenge to overturn the election results,” Wernick said in a statement Thursday. “It is an effort to expose flaws, if any, in the current elections system and to protect future elections.” Meyer received 12,280 votes to Wernick’s 11,757 – a 523-vote gap that falls within state guidelines for recounts because the difference was less than 10% of Meyer’s total. Wernick was endorsed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who targeted Republican lawmakers who voted last year to impeach him. Meyer, R-University Park, voted for impeachment and was one of 12 impeachment managers for Paxton’s trial before the Texas Senate. The Senate acquitted Paxton in a largely party-line vote in September. Meyer was first elected in 2014 and is one of two House Republicans who represent Dallas County.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 15, 2024

'Helpless': Uvalde police chief was golfing in Arizona when he learned of school shooting

Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez was playing golf with friends in Phoenix, Ariz., on the morning of May 24, 2022, when his phone rang. It was his civilian administrative assistant, John Guerra, back in Uvalde. An active shooter was on the loose at Robb Elementary School. Guerra said he could hear gunshots. "I cautioned John to be careful and stay out of the way of law enforcement's duties," according to a log Rodriguez kept of his phone communications that day. It was 9:43 a.m. in Phoenix, two hours earlier than in Texas, and the news would not get any better. At 10:11 a.m., the department's public information officer, Jessica Zamora, called and "informed me that she anticipated there will be several victims," Rodriguez wrote in the log. Eva Mireles, a beloved teacher and the wife of Police Officer Ruben Ruiz, had been critically injured, Zamora said. Mireles died soon afterward.

A call at 10:59 a.m. from Lt. Mariano Pargas, the acting police chief in Rodriguez's absence, confirmed the worst. Pargas "informed me there were numerous deceased children," Rodriguez wrote. "But he didn't yet have a count." Rodriguez had had no breakfast that morning, only coffee. He "felt helpless and began to try and figure out how to get out of Phoenix," he recalled months later. He left his two golf companions, climbed into a golf cart and began trying to find a way home as quickly as possible. He would not get there until it was all over, until 19 fourth graders and two teachers lay dead. The chief was a few days into an eight-day Arizona vacation when a teenage gunman armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire on a pair of classrooms at Robb Elementary a few days before summer break. The police response to the massacre is widely regarded as disastrously ineffective, a portrait of disorder, hesitation and poor leadership.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 15, 2024

As colleges turn to Congress, their sports concerns ring hollow

Tuesday morning, the greatest coach of his era sat next to a U.S. senator and pined for the good old days, when college football players cared about more than money. As is so often the case at these congressional roundtables and hearings, there was plenty of prerequisite head-shaking, and no shortage of grave warnings about a system on the purported verge of collapse. Nick Saban and Ted Cruz both looked very, very concerned. The next day, back in the state represented by the aforementioned senator, officials at a prestigious university came to a decision. Four months after agreeing to pay a coach more than $70 million to stop coaching, they were ready to pay another school a reported $4 million just for the right to buy out a different contract.

This new money is not being spent to acquire a star quarterback. It is not for a head coach. It is, believe it or not, for an administrator. Now, time will tell if Texas A&M choosing to reopen its ample coffers to hire Nebraska’s Trev Alberts as athletic director turns out to be a brilliant investment. It might be, just as the gargantuan tab for replacing Jimbo Fisher with Mike Elko might pay off at some point, too. But it’s getting harder and harder to look at these folks — the wealthy coaches disgruntled about kids these days; the wealthy administrators disgruntled about donors not ponying up enough name, image and likeness money; the wealthy school presidents disgruntled about the idea of paying de facto employees as employees — and feel sympathy for any of them. They’re the ones who made this mess. They’re the ones who now expect somebody else to clean it up. And in their search for a governing body competent and organized and functional enough to establish order amid the chaos, they’re turning to … Congress?

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San Antonio Express-News - March 15, 2024

Henrich was a ‘giant’ who guided UT Health San Antonio through growth, pandemic

Dr. William L. Henrich, longtime president of UT Health San Antonio, led a transformation of the medical school into a top-ranked institution with programs in cancer treatment, obesity, diabetes, dementia and aging. Henrich, 77, died early Thursday from complications related to a medical procedure, the school said. He had suffered from a form of blood cancer called myelodysplasia. Dr. Rob Hromas, acting president, and James B. Milliken, chancellor, announced the passing of the school’s president, who had held the position for 15 years, “with very heavy hearts.” “He was a visionary leader and a joy to work with, and his creativity, hard work and passion will always be examples for all of us. His laugh will ring through our corridors for many years. Among the many people we have known both professionally and personally, he gave the most of himself to all of us,” the school said.

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Border Report - March 15, 2024

Another lawsuit challenges Texas’ SB4 immigration law

Another civil rights organization has filed a lawsuit challenging Texas’ controversial new immigration law SB4 from taking effect. La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), which is based in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas on Tuesday sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, alleging the new law violates the Constitution and is a breach of the state’s role regarding immigration. SB4– passed last year during a special session of the Texas Legislature and signed in December by Gov. Greg Abbott — would allow any Texas peace officers to arrest and detain people they suspect of being in the country illegally. Municipal and state judges would decide the cases, not federal immigration judges, and they could rule to deport the defendant. In that case, law enforcement could be tasked with driving the person to the border and forcing them to walk over an international bridge to Mexico.

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County Stories

Houston Public Media - March 15, 2024

Appointed attorneys are ‘doing less than the bare minimum’ for capital murder defendants in Harris County, report says

People charged with capital murder in Harris County aren’t being regularly visited by their court-appointed attorneys, according to a new report. The report from the Texas Center for Justice and Equity (TCJE) reviewed jail visitation logs and court filings for jailed people who are granted court-appointed attorneys because they cannot afford their own attorney. TCJE researchers found that of the 603 people held in the Harris County Jail while charged with capital murder between Jan. 2015 and March 2020, nearly half were visited by their court-appointed attorney less than twice per year. The report also found that 137 people were visited less than once per year and 51 weren’t visited at all.

Over the five-year time period, 12 people were convicted after never being visited by their attorney, according to the report. Additionally, 56 people — less than 10% of cases — were visited by an attorney more than once per month. “It speaks to the nature of our system,” said Jay Jenkins, the Harris County project attorney for the TCJE. “We arrest so many people that cannot afford their attorney and then provide inadequate representation for them.” According to Jenkins, who co-authored the report, the problem lies in the county’s decision to appoint all capital cases to private attorneys. Jenkins claims this creates a “pay-to-play” system that “allows for attorneys to donate to judicial election campaigns and subsequently then be appointed to these cases,” regardless of the attorney’s caseload. “All of our capital cases are going to appointed attorneys, which raise all of these ethical issues,” Jenkins said. “It’s just a total and complete mess.” The report recommends an overhaul to the Harris County Public Defender’s Office, which doesn’t currently take on capital cases. According to Jenkins, county officials could invest more money into the department to create a division specifically tasked with tackling capital cases in order to ensure the cases are handled properly.

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National Stories

NBC News - March 15, 2024

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is putting together an investor group to buy TikTok

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued existence in the U.S. The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bipartisan bill that if signed into law would force ByteDance to either divest its flagship global app or face an effective ban on TikTok within the U.S. “I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.” The bill is now headed to the Senate, where its future is uncertain, though President Joe Biden’s administration has indicated that he will sign the legislation if it passes.

“This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China,” Mnuchin said. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have highlighted TikTok’s reach in the U.S. — by its own estimates, 170 million people in America use the app — as providing the Chinese government with ready access and influence over the U.S. Major tech investors, including Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois, have publicly or privately decried the social media platform as a pernicious influence. Still, it remains unclear if the Chinese government would permit ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. buyer. TikTok has lobbied furiously against the bill, including a concerted pitch to its user base and through videos on its platform.

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CNN - March 15, 2024

GOP nominee to run North Carolina public schools called for violence against Democrats, including executing Obama and Biden

The Republican nominee for superintendent overseeing North Carolina’s public schools and its $11 billion budget has a history marked by extreme and controversial comments, including sharing baseless conspiracy theories and frequent calls for the execution of prominent Democrats. Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden. In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

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Roll Call - March 15, 2024

Schumer signals slower pace on TikTok measure in the Senate

Lawmakers’ long-held concerns about the growing reach of China’s technology platforms and its ability to influence Americans culminated in a bill overwhelmingly supported in the House that would require the divestiture of TikTok. The bill’s next step is the Senate, though, where the attitude was summed up Wednesday by Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, who greeted the House passage by saying, “The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” offering no indication of a timetable. Some senators may be equally alarmed about the rise of China’s technology platforms, but the chamber clearly doesn’t have the House’s fervor, which took the bill from introduction to passage by a 352-65 vote within a week.

House members of both parties — including Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who lead the House select China committee and introduced the legislation — urged senators to act quickly in passing companion legislation, as did former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The measure would require TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to divest its U.S. subsidiary within six months of the law taking effect. The bill also would give the president the authority to deny other social media apps owned and operated by foreign adversaries access to U.S. users unless they sever ties to their foreign owners. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee with access to intelligence information on China’s potential to use TikTok to influence the thinking of its 170 million American users, welcomed the House measure.

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CNN - March 15, 2024

Johnson tells senators he’s still looking for path on Ukraine aid

Speaker Mike Johnson told Republican senators during their closed-door retreat Wednesday that he was committed to finding a path ahead for Ukraine aid in the House of Representatives, a sign GOP senators took to mean that aid to the embattled country isn’t yet dead in Congress. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, told CNN that Johnson made clear “he understood the importance and the urgency of it and was looking for a path forward.” But Johnson’s message to senators also indicated the package he is looking at is unlikely to look like the $95 billion package the Senate passed. Republicans have been looking at using some kind of loan program, which wouldn’t outright give equipment to Ukraine, but would be part of a kind of lend-lease program.

CNN reported earlier this month that Johnson has been working closely with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, to find a way to craft a Ukraine aid package that could include elements like McCaul’s REPO Act, which would seize Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine – and perhaps a way to include some of the aid in a loan program, an idea originally floated by former President Donald Trump. The goal of McCaul and Johnson’s efforts was always to get the bill to the floor by late March or early April. McCaul said Johnson will put such a House foreign aid bill on the floor after the appropriations process is done. The federal government faces another deadline to avert a partial government shutdown March 22. “It is my belief that he will,” McCaul told CNN on Thursday when asked whether the speaker would put a bill on the floor. McCaul dismissed the concept of sending Ukraine aid through a discharge petition, saying he is “worried” about that approach, highlighting instead the REPO Act and formatting aid as a loan.

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Politico - March 15, 2024

An obscure group hounded Kyrsten Sinema for four years — and it worked. Is this a sign of things to come?

Officially, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s announcement that she wouldn’t seek another Senate term was about a campaign that won’t be happening. But as the Democrat-turned-Independent senator went before a camera to take herself out of contention, a group of operatives in Arizona and Washington said it felt a lot like the end of a campaign that did happen. In fact, as they texted back and forth on the Wednesday afternoon of Sinema’s announcement, it was as if they were watching a hated rival’s concession speech on election night. For nearly four years, Sinema was on the receiving end of a relatively unusual political-money phenomenon in the capital’s politics industry: the single-target PAC, an outfit geared towards creating precisely the outcome that became real when the senator announced her exit. For better or worse, it is a model that probably won’t stay rare for long. And whatever you think of Sinema, the effort against her is also likely to speed up some of the most brutal trends in politics, another way for deep-pocketed donors to further wage permanent war on rivals who might not always make such obvious targets.

Other political committees might beat up on a senator in the name of an issue or to help a particular rival. The Replace Sinema super PAC, by contrast, existed solely to run robust oppo research on, buy ads against, pitch unflattering media stories about and otherwise hound, harry and hector one solitary elected official: Sinema, who had enraged progressives with hostile stances on the filibuster, the minimum wage and Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill, among other things. And while most senators don’t draw a focused campaign until their election cycle arrives, Sinema was targeted by the super PAC for four of her six years in the upper chamber. Her exit came after years of negative media stories, local ethics complaints, surprisingly on-target journalistic investigations and other misfortunes that tend to happen to pols who become the target of a well-funded group of professional campaign operatives. Launched in 2021 as Primary Sinema, the group took a $400,000 donation from Way to Win, a deep-pocketed network of progressive donors. “They came to me and they said, Look, we just think that she needs to be held accountable in a public way,” said TJ Helmstetter, who would become the organization’s executive director. The goal, Way to Win President Tory Gavito said, was to expose Sinema in the hopes that she’d either change her ways or that some Democrat would come along to challenge her. After a challenger did come along in the form of Rep. Ruben Gallego, prompting Sinema to declare herself an independent, the organization rebranded itself as Replace Sinema and kept doing basically the same thing. Because federal rules prohibit naming a PAC for a candidate, the formal name was the much less memorable Change for Arizona 2024 PAC. But all the branding, which includes a thumbs-down logo evoking the much-giffed gesture Sinema made as she voted to maintain the filibuster, is Replace Sinema. Way to Win wound up kicking in another $225,000 later, and the group raised $675,000 from just under 18,000 donors on the liberal ActBlue platform.

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Washington Post - March 15, 2024

Schumer calls for ‘new election’ in Israel in scathing speech on Netanyahu

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for the Israeli government to hold a new election in a speech warning that Israel risks becoming an international “pariah” under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing cabinet. Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States and a staunch ally of Israel, said he thinks Israelis understand “better than anybody that Israel cannot hope to succeed as a pariah opposed by the rest of the world” and would choose better leaders if elections were held. “I believe that holding a new election once the war starts to wind down would give Israelis an opportunity to express their vision for the postwar future,” Schumer said Thursday in a speech on the Senate floor, in remarks that did not set an exact timeline for a new election. Schumer, who opened his speech saying he felt “immense obligation” as a Jewish American to speak, stressed that the outcome of that election would be up to the Israelis — not Americans.

The call, from one of Congress’s strongest supporters of Israel, marks the clearest signal to Israel yet that frustrations over Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza are boiling and could even threaten the future of the close relationship between Israel and the United States. President Biden has frequently expressed frustration with Netanyahu in recent months, but he has never publicly suggested that Israelis replace him. The prime minister is deeply unpopular at home after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, and he has tangled with U.S. officials over his hampering of humanitarian aid into Gaza and his stated desire to conduct a ground invasion in the crowded city of Rafah, which the United States thinks would lead to an unacceptably high level of civilian casualties. He also has explicitly rejected U.S. entreaties to discuss a pathway to a two-state solution. U.S. officials have increasingly come to believe that Netanyahu is prioritizing his own political survival above all else and that he is more focused on placating far-right members of his coalition than on what is best for Israel. Biden told MSNBC in an interview last week that Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”

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Newsclips - March 14, 2024

Lead Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 14, 2024

New federal court rule could block Texas AG Ken Paxton, others from 'judge shopping'

A new federal policy cracking down on so-called "judge shopping" could impede Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ability to thwart Biden Administration policies by strategically filing suits in geographic areas with only one judge. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body of the federal courts, said Tuesday that the new rule will apply to all civil cases that seek to block or mandate state or federal actions. Under the policy, judges would instead be assigned through a random selection process spanning the entire judicial district. Texas has four districts splitting the state by north, south, east and west. The new rule “promotes the impartiality of proceedings and bolsters public confidence in the federal Judiciary,” said Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr., the conference’s secretary, in a statement.

Most federal court districts already assign cases at random to judges, but some, like the Northern District of Texas, assign cases to judges in the lower-level division where the case is filed. In the Northern District, for example, two divisions have just one judge each, and a third has two judges, allowing plaintiffs to essentially choose which judge they want to hear their case. As a result, by filing in Amarillo, Paxton can all but guarantee his office’s cases get assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump and is a former attorney for a conservative religious liberty legal group. That was the case in Paxton’s high-profile 2022 lawsuit seeking to ban a common abortion pill. Kacsmaryk sided with Paxton, and it’s been appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments on it later this month. The case has the potential to constrain abortion access nationwide. Had the new Judicial Conference rule been in place at the time, the case would have been randomly assigned to any of the 16 judges in that district. Paxton’s office did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the new rule. The conference has not yet released the full text of the policy.

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Politico - March 14, 2024

The Freedom Caucus has been wreaking havoc On Washington. Now it’s exporting the chaos to the States.

Since its founding in 2015, the hardline House Freedom Caucus has been a polarizing presence, using confrontational and obstructionist tactics to push Congress, and the Republican Party, to the right on a variety of issues. In the process, the group ousted a Republican House speaker and became a far-right conservative power center of its own. But it’s come at considerable cost to the House as a legislative body, and created an even more factionalized and dysfunctional chamber. Now, those same issues are surfacing in statehouses across the nation where in recent years the Freedom Caucus has exported its model. Many of the 11 legislatures with state-based Freedom Caucuses have seen their Republican majorities splinter and descend into bitter conflict with the application of the Congress-honed tactics.

“It’s the same kind of battles that are going on with the Freedom Caucus in Washington, D.C.,” said South Carolina state Rep. Jay Kilmartin, who has been a member of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus since 2022. “We ran because we got frustrated with what we were getting out of our state Republican Party for so long.” Few states have experienced as much intraparty turmoil as South Carolina, where state Freedom Caucus members and more mainstream GOP leaders have clashed over a wide variety of issues, leading to litigation and sparking numerous primary challenges. Freedom Caucus members have used the state budgeting process to bring up social issues like diversity initiatives within universities, spoken out against what they call government handouts to private companies and pushed for more restrictive bans on gender-affirming care. “They are a ‘let’s govern by bumper sticker’ entity,” said South Carolina state Rep. Micah Caskey, a Republican who is an outspoken critic of the caucus. “I have a general contempt for what I see as the lack of integrity and honesty with which they approach legislating.” Freedom Caucus-aligned legislators who spoke with Nightly said that their support came from grassroots activists, but they also receive significant help from the State Freedom Caucus Network, a D.C.-based group that is helping the upstart caucuses go toe-to-toe with the established GOP order. The network pays the salaries of state directors who help legislators read bills, do policy analysis and act as a kind of connective tissue for ideologically similar lawmakers across the nation.

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Austin American-Statesman - March 14, 2024

A Texas law geared to help energy, firearms industries comes at multimillion-dollar cost

A 2021 Texas law designed to protect the energy and firearms industries is costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars in business-related activity while increasing costs for state and local governments to borrow money to build highways, schools and countless other public projects, according to a new report by an economic analysis and public policy consulting firm. According to a study by Austin-based firm TXP released Wednesday, the so-called Fair Access law, which prevents governmental entities from doing business with financial institutions that have environmental, social and governance policies against fossil fuels and firearms, is making financing big-ticket projects more expensive and forcing some high-end lenders out of Texas. “These findings illustrate that when government attempts to mandate values, no matterwhat kind, to businesses, the market loses,” said Jon Hockenyos, TXP president and author of the report conducted on behalf of the Texas Association of Business Chambers of Commerce Foundation.

TXP's report largely praises Texas' historically business-friendly policies, which the analysis found are largely responsible for the state's sustained economic growth dating back decades. But it acknowledges that many businesses, including financial institutions, have chosen to adopt environmental, social and governance policies, commonly called ESGs, at the behest of shareholders and employees. By eliminating these companies from participating in the bond market and other segments of the economy, the report said, competition is limited, thereby removing some forces that drive down the cost of doing business in Texas. As a result, the report said, the state stands to lose: $668.7 million in lost economic activity, $180.7 million in decreased annual earnings, 3,034 fewer full-time, permanent jobs, and $37.1 million in losses to state and local tax revenue. Since the Fair Access law took effect, financial powerhouses Citigroup and Barclays "have been forced to exit Texas' municipal finance market due to a perception of discrimination." On its website, Barclays says it is committed to reducing greenhouse emissions "through energy efficiency, electrification of our buildings and vehicles, renewable electricity sourcing and replacing fossil-fuel-powered infrastructure with low-emission alternatives." "We also continued to pursue the integration of ESG considerations and expectations into processes throughout the procurement lifecycle," the company's website says.

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Dallas Morning News - March 14, 2024

Proposed rules would give AG Ken Paxton access to DA case files, policy documents

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will seek case files, correspondence with federal authorities and policy documents from urban-area district attorneys under expansive rules his office proposed last week. Paxton’s office seeks to require district attorneys in Texas’ most populated counties to provide investigative files for cases involving indicted police officers, poll watchers and defendants claiming they acted in self-defense. The proposed rules would expand the power of the attorney general’s office by giving Paxton unprecedented access to district attorneys’ prosecutorial decisions and policies. Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, a Democrat, called the proposed rules an “overbroad” burden on his office and said allegations of wrongdoing by prosecutors should be aired in a courtroom.

“Is the purpose of getting the file to call us and give us some help? Are we going to analyze [the case] from Austin and say, ‘Hey, we have some suggestions for you?’” Creuzot, a former judge and trial lawyer, told The Dallas Morning News. He added: “I don’t know that the attorney general has the skills to try an important criminal case.” In addition to case files, Paxton wants access to prosecutors’ communications with federal authorities. DAs who fail to comply with the new rules would be subject to lawsuits, misconduct allegations and removal from office. The rules, which would apply to county attorneys who prosecute misdemeanors, are subject to a 30-day comment period, which began last week, and adoption is left solely to the attorney general’s office. The earliest they can be adopted is April 8. “District attorneys who choose not to prosecute criminals appropriately have created unthinkable damage in Texas communities,” Paxton said in a statement. “Some of these officials have developed an unacceptable pattern of failing to uphold the law and adopting policies that privilege criminals over innocent victims.”

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State Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 14, 2024

‘I can’t replace your babies’: Wrenching council meeting yields no comfort for Uvalde families

The mayor told them he cared about them, that he “can’t even imagine” how they’ve suffered and that try as he might, “I can’t replace your babies.” Still, at the end of another wrenching City Council meeting, the families of the 21 people gunned down at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, left disappointed and further embittered. They showed up at the civic center Tuesday night expecting the Uvalde City Council to pass judgment on a consultant’s report that examined the police department’s response to the Robb massacre, the worst school shooting in Texas history and the second-worst ever in the U.S. The report absolved local police officers of blame for failing to neutralize the shooter early in the incident.

Many family members thought it was a whitewash, and some of them wanted police officers fired for failing to risk their lives to end the siege earlier. Council members took no action. They said they needed more time to consider the matter. The victims’ loved ones said they’d heard it all before. “We have waited almost two years now, and you keep asking us for more time,” Veronica Mata, who lost her 10-year-old daughter, Tess Marie, told council members. “How much more time do you want us to wait? These officers let our children down. Do the right thing and fire them. Our children deserve better than this. The community deserves better than them. Do the right thing.” The controversial report by private investigator Jesse Prado said Uvalde police officers followed department policy, acted “in good faith” and were not to blame for the heavy loss of life. Nineteen fourth-graders and two teachers were killed that day by a teenager armed with an assault-style rifle. Prado outlined his findings during a contentious special council meeting March 7. But the only action council members took on the matter Tuesday was to approve the minutes from the earlier meeting.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 14, 2024

IDEA charter school launches massive expansion days after TEA put conservators in charge

Just days after putting the state's largest charter school network under conservatorship for misusing public funds, the Texas Education Agency agreed to let the network, IDEA Public Schools, carry out a major expansion. IDEA is allowed to increase student enrollment from 78,200 to more than 90,000 by the 2025-2026 school year. The 10 new campuses will be mostly in Fort Worth and the Permian Basin, with two in Humble, near Houston. The application went in on March 6 — the day TEA assigned a pair of conservators to oversee IDEA — and was approved on March 8. Critics, including teachers unions, said the TEA’s rapid approval of a charter network under scrutiny exemplified their concerns with GOP leaders’ push to privatize the state’s public education system. While school districts are run by elected boards of trustees, charter schools are public schools run by private organizations.

“This is an insider deal, behind-the-scenes, shady transaction that had no public input whatsoever,” said Patty Quinzi, director of public affairs with the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers union. TEA spokesman Jake Kobersky wrote in an emailed statement that the new IDEA schools met the requirements in state law to be eligible for expansion and would lead to “improved educational outcomes for students.” The charter network said the expansion would allow it to serve more students. “IDEA Public Schools has a long track record of achieving excellent results for kids -- especially helping low-income and traditionally underserved students succeed in college and adulthood,” said Brian Whitley, spokesman for the Texas Charter Schools Association. “It's important that Texas families have access to these opportunities.” New charter schools require approval from the elected State Board of Education, but for the last decade, existing charter schools have been allowed to expand with only the approval of TEA Commissioner Mike Morath. During that time the number of charter schools has increased rapidly.

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Houston Chronicle - March 14, 2024

South Dakota governor raises questions by touting Sugar Land dental clinic on former Twitter

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has puzzled political observers with a new video touting her experience at Smile Texas, a Sugar Land clinic focused on cosmetic dentistry. “I love my new family at Smile Texas!” Noem said in a tweet accompanying the video posted Monday to her personal account on X, the former Twitter. In the video, Noem said that for years she needed “an adjustment” to her teeth after a biking accident in which she lost all her front teeth. After an initial consultation with the clinic via Zoom several years ago, she explained, she traveled to Houston twice to have the work done. “The team here was remarkable and finally gave me a smile that I can be proud of and confident in,” Noem said.

Neither Noem’s office nor Smile Texas responded to questions Wednesday about the cost of the governor’s treatment, whether she received a discount or whether the treatments were covered by insurance. While the sparsely populated state of South Dakota does have some cosmetic dentistry clinics, Noem suggested that her research pointed her to Smile Texas. “They’re the best, first of all,” Noem said. The Republican, a farmer and rancher by background, is in her second term as governor, having first been elected in 2018. She is an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump and is widely seen as a contender to be his running mate. While Noem’s video was released on her personal account, political ethics experts have described it as unusual, to say the least. According to the nonprofit Coalition for Integrity, South Dakota law prohibits elected and appointed officials from accepting gifts from lobbyists or principals worth more than $100 in any calendar year. But “there are no other rules regarding acceptance of gifts,” in the state, the coalition notes, nor are officials required to list gifts on their financial disclosure forms.

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Houston Chronicle - March 14, 2024

Mayor Whitmire names committee to review suspension of Houston police reports

Mayor John Whitmire on Wednesday named the five people who will run an independent investigation into the Houston Police Department's handling of over 264,000 suspended incident reports. The committee will be led by a former state representative with a long history of advocacy for victims of sexual assault, a Texas Ranger, a local church leader and two city employees. "I've asked them to collect the data, review HPD, look over their shoulder, make sure the process is transparent and report back to me," Whitmire said. "I will report back to Houstonians and let them know exactly... how in the world this existed for eight years without someone having the good sense to sound the alarm."

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San Antonio Express-News - March 14, 2024

George Cisneros: Alabama's IVF decision shows my late sister, Dr. Pauline Cisneros, was ahead of her time

(George Cisneros is music and media director for URBAN-15.) A recent decision by the Alabama Supreme Court regarding in vitro fertilization reminds me of my sister, Dr. Pauline Polette Cisneros, and her pursuit to bring healthy children into the world for barren families. I thought of our extended dialogues that ran parallel to the real-world issues. When the Alabama Supreme Court declared that frozen embryos are children, it implied that charges of homicide or manslaughter could be leveled on donors, patients, doctors and medical technicians. To me, it's ironic that these very complex questions would arise and come to the public’s attention so close to the sixth anniversary of Pauline’s death. In the aftermath of the Alabama decision, it hit me: Pauline was thinking so far ahead of us.

Her pioneering journey into the world of IVF research and implementation came at a time when most of our family could barely pronounce or understand it. She announced her interest in pursuing this field of science when she accepted a scholarship to the University of Dayton. Unable to conceive, the concept of science as a participant in conception gave my sister great joy — and deep questions — during her doctorate studies at the University of Houston. My sister was concerned about the fertilized embryos that were left after a woman received an implant and successfully carried her fetus to term. The policy at the clinic where she worked held that unused fertilized eggs were the property of the clients and only they could decide on continued storage or destruction. Pauline raised the question with her boss about protocols if the clients failed to continue making payments for the storage of the embryos. Would this be similar to a self-storage unit where the contents are tossed? Or would the embryos be made available to other potential parents? Or would they go up for auction to other IVF centers? The ethical questions around ownership of embryos left behind was also a topic among her peers and colleagues.

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Dallas Morning News - March 14, 2024

Dallas police oversight members end meeting in ‘chaos, confusion’ after few answers given

Members of Dallas’ Community Police Oversight Board assembled Tuesday evening with hopes that the uncertainty and turmoil that has thrown their power into question would be addressed. The appointed watchdogs adjourned in frustration and confusion — city officials who could assuage their concerns weren’t there. “We’re not getting specifics,” Dee Wadsworth, who represents council member Cara Mendelsohn’s district in Far North Dallas, told The Dallas Morning News after the meeting at City Hall. “The chief of police, the city manager, the city attorney’s office — why aren’t these people here?” Board members’ concerns stem from a sudden legal opinion from the city that appears to limit some of their authority and investigatory power. Members at the meeting pointed to conflicting information and said it’s unclear whether they’re allowed to operate as usual under the newer interpretation, which states oversight can’t investigate anything that the Dallas Police Department rules a “no investigation.”

Dallas police Chief Eddie García told The News he’s been to the board’s retreats and several of its meetings even though it’s not a requirement. The city attorney’s office said in a statement there have been no changes to the board’s authority since the ordinance that governs oversight was last amended in 2019. Board members said they came to Tuesday’s meeting ready to deal with the festering issue and to discuss the city’s search for a new police monitor. Tensions rose after the interim monitor told the board the search for a permanent monitor has been unsuccessful, and they learned the new interpretation of the ordinance that governs the oversight office wasn’t on the agenda. They’d need to wait until April to discuss it. Just before the meeting ended with no resolution, members erupted in exasperation. “I’m just very dissatisfied with this whole process,” board member Brandon Friedman said. He referenced the February meeting, when City Manager T.C. Broadnax made an impromptu appearance.

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Dallas Morning News - March 14, 2024

Judge dismisses defamation suit against Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in federal court

The defamation lawsuit filed by a woman who says Jerry Jones is her biological father, alleging the Dallas Cowboys owner and his associates worked to portray her in the public as an “extortionist,” was dismissed by a judge Wednesday. The lawsuit sought a multimillion dollar payout. Alexandra Davis, a 27-year-old congressional aide, said in the lawsuit that Jones and his team of lawyers and media and marketing professionals concocted a plan to destroy her reputation by publicly attacking her as a “shakedown artist” motivated by greed and money. Also listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Cowboys spokesman James Wilkinson; Wilkinson’s employer TrailRunner International; Jones’ friend and attorney Donald Jack Jr.; and the Cowboys.

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Bloomberg - March 14, 2024

Texas fires have emitted a near-record amount of carbon

Massive wildfires raging across Texas released a combined 920,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in January and February, the second-largest release on record for that period. In January, Texas fires pumped out 120,000 tons of carbon emissions, according to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service data shared with Bloomberg Green. February saw even more fire activity, including the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the state’s largest fire on record. It and other blazes across the state, emitted a staggering 800,000 tons of carbon emissions in February, or roughly 28% of US fire-driven carbon emissions.

Comparing Texas fire-linked carbon emissions over the past two decades — the extent of Copernicus’s satellite record — 2024 ranks behind only 2008, when nearly 1.2 million tons of carbon were released over the first two months of the year. These calculations don’t include emissions from the fires burning in the first half of March, as dry, windy weather has continued to make fully containing fires a challenge. Researchers made the calculation using the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service’s Global Fire Assimilation System, which “provides up-to-date information on the location, intensity, and emissions of wildfires, vegetation fires, and open burning around the world,” said Luis Carlos Palomino Forero, who works with the agency’s communications office. The monitoring service makes use of satellite instruments that can gauge how hot a fire is burning, which can in turn help estimate emissions. Beyond the staggering carbon footprint, the Texas fires have killed more than 7,000 livestock animals, as well as burned down ranches and homes.

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KERA - March 14, 2024

'Fear', 'intimidation': Texas school districts, experts respond to AG's electioneering lawsuits

Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuits accusing at least seven school districts of electioneering ahead of last week’s primaries have school administrators and attorneys worried about how it will shape the conversation around school vouchers this election year. Gov. Greg Abbott unsuccessfully pushed for the creation of education savings accounts — a school voucher-like program — throughout the 2023 legislative session and ensuing special sessions. The programs would set aside public funds for parents to use to pay for their children’s tuition at private schools, homeschooling or other alternative education programs. James Riddlesperger, a political science professor at Texas Christian University, said it’s not surprising educators raised the alarms about school vouchers ahead of the primary elections. He said Paxton's flurry of lawsuits is another sign of the growing polarization in Texas politics and education, and the political motives behind Paxton’s lawsuits are especially clear.

“Obviously, what the Republican leadership at the state level is trying to do is leverage letting go some money for public schools and for teacher salaries predicated upon some kind of a school voucher program," he said. "And teachers are opposed to school vouchers.” Opposition to vouchers has not only come from Democrats, but also conservative Republicans living in rural areas where there are no private school alternatives. “This is not a unilateral situation where it's just teachers against everyone else," Riddlesperger said. "This is a complex issue that divides people not only by political party, but also by place of residence and has really complex implications for public education.” Paxton said in a news release he filed the lawsuits to ensure elections are not “illegally swayed by public officials improperly using state resources.” Like the governor, Paxton used his own endorsements in the primaries to unseat lawmakers he saw as political enemies — in his case, those who voted for his impeachment. Some of his endorsements overlapped with Abbott’s, while others didn't. “These are government employees charged with the education of our children,” the statement reads. “They must respect our laws. I will continue to use every legal remedy available to me to stop this unlawful conduct.”

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KERA - March 14, 2024

Bands pull out of SXSW Festival in protest of U.S. Army sponsorship

A growing number of bands are pulling out of the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin to protest the U.S. Army’s sponsorship of the event. The UK indie band Lambrini Girls said March 9 on X, “We can’t affiliate ourselves whatsoever with SXSW. Without our solidarity becoming totally inauthentic.” Other bands pulling out for the same reason include Ireland’s Kneecap and Chalk, and American musician Ella Williams, who goes by Squirrel Flower. The U.S. has been a key supplier of military aid to Israel after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, when over 1,200 Israelis were killed, most of them civilians. Since Israel declared war on Hamas, more than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza. The protests have caught the attention of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “Bye. Don’t Come Back,” Abbott posted Tuesday on X.

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Austin American-Statesman - March 14, 2024

Back at the table, Austin police union, city differ on police oversight implementation

After the first day of contract negotiations between the city and the union representing Austin police officers, one thing continues to remain clear: neither seems willing to budge on issues related to implementing the voter-approved police oversight ordinance. These issues spur from the Austin Police Oversight Act, formerly known as Proposition A that voters overwhelmingly approved last May that increased police oversight in the city. The Austin Police Association held steadfast on Wednesday that it was “not our objective to be in compliance with Prop A,” lead negotiator Ron DeLord said. The city’s lead negotiator, Lowell Denton, essentially said a contract would not be ratified unless it was in accordance with the police oversight ordinance. A major point of contention on both sides has been the use of what's called a "G-file." This is a secret personnel file that some police and fire departments keep in Texas under state law. The Austin Police Oversight Act called to do away with this file, but the union says it would be against state law to force them to do so.

Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock has previously told the Statesman he's concerned that doing away with the file would allow unfounded complaints against officers to be made public and could ultimately harm members. The city said that a contract between the two cannot include a g-file. Additionally, Equity Action, the organization that got the Austin Police Oversight Act on the ballot last year, filed a lawsuit in December, stating that the city has not moved fast enough on implementing the ordinance. The g-file was one of those issues stated in the lawsuit. A hearing is set for April 9 that will likely determine the future of the g-file and its use in the city.

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Texas Observer - March 14, 2024

The booksellers' revolt

January 17 was a big day for opponents of book bans in Texas schools. Charley Rejsek, CEO of indie bookstore BookPeople, had just returned home from a routine meeting at the Austin Central Library. She opened her email and screamed with joy: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in her favor in BookPeople v. Wong, a challenge to Texas’ Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (READER) Act. “READER had felt like a death sentence,” Rejsek said. “With the ruling, BookPeople and all book vendors can continue to service school districts the way they always have. … The judges agreed with the unconstitutionality of the law as written. That’s validating.” The decision came in the nick of time: Signed into law in June 2023, the READER Act would have barred booksellers from conducting business with Texas’ K–12 libraries if they hadn’t first identified whether the books they were selling were “sexually explicit,” “sexually graphic,” or had “no rating.”

By April 1, booksellers would have also had to identify every explicit book they had ever sold to any Texas school district that was still “in active use” by that district. Vendors were to submit these ratings to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which could override them. Noncompliance ran the risk of placement on a list of unapproved vendors. Many bookstores derive significant income from school sales, and the thin-margin and often resource-strapped indies incapable of complying would have had to rethink their businesses, if not shutter entirely. Opponents of the law, which was coauthored by state Representative Jared Patterson, of Frisco, lambasted it as a draconian effort to censor primarily LGBTQ+ authors, characters, and subjects. READER would harm booksellers’ bottom line, its terms were unconstitutionally vague, and forcing vendors to rate books is compelled speech, critics said. To the relief of booksellers and freedom-to-read advocates, the 5th Circuit—often considered one of the nation’s most conservative—upheld a lower court’s temporary injunction against the ratings mandate, finding that it would harm vendors economically and constituted compelled speech.

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City Stories

Austin American-Statesman - March 14, 2024

Bastrop City Council files ethics complaint against mayor, says he interfered in inquiry

The Bastrop City Council has filed an ethics complaint against Mayor Lyle Nelson, saying he interfered in an investigation of a city contractor with whom he had a romantic relationship, according to the document. The complaint, filed in January, says Nelson refused to give officials eight and half months of the communications between him and Susan Smith, who is being investigated for misuse of public funds while she was CEO of Visit Bastrop. Visit Bastrop is a marketing company that promotes tourism and is funded by more than $1.5 million of the city's hotel occupancy tax. Nelson initially denied that he had been involved with Smith until 232 pages of intimate text messages between them were discovered on her work IPad, the complaint said. He then admitted to the City Council "that there was a relationship that was sexual in nature and apologized to council for lying about the same," it said.

Nelson said on Wednesday that he had not interfered in the investigation. He declined to comment on the nature of his relationship with Smith. "That's between me, my family and my God," he said. He also said an attorney hired by the city concluded in a report that he had no knowledge of the alleged misuse of funds by Smith. The attorney's report said "the Mayor denied any knowledge of misuse of public funds, and my investigation to date uncovered no evidence otherwise." "I turned over all the official documents they requested including texts, messages and emails," he said. "There is no credence to the claim I did not turn over all the information required by law." The ethics complaint was made after the City Council received a report in December on an investigation it had asked for about interactions between Nelson and Visit Bastrop officials. The council approved the investigation in August after four Visit Bastrop employees complained to the city's human resources director, the city manager and a City Council member that Smith had misused public funds while pursuing an "inappropriate relationship with Lyle Nelson," the complaint said.

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National Stories

Associated Press - March 14, 2024

Election disinformation takes a big leap with AI being used to deceive worldwide

Artificial intelligence is supercharging the threat of election disinformation worldwide, making it easy for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create fake – but convincing – content aimed at fooling voters. It marks a quantum leap from a few years ago, when creating phony photos, videos or audio clips required teams of people with time, technical skill and money. Now, using free and low-cost generative artificial intelligence services from companies like Google and OpenAI, anyone can create high-quality “deepfakes” with just a simple text prompt. A wave of AI deepfakes tied to elections in Europe and Asia has coursed through social media for months, serving as a warning for more than 50 countries heading to the polls this year.

“You don’t need to look far to see some people ... being clearly confused as to whether something is real or not,” said Henry Ajder, a leading expert in generative AI based in Cambridge, England. The question is no longer whether AI deepfakes could affect elections, but how influential they will be, said Ajder, who runs a consulting firm called Latent Space Advisory. As the U.S. presidential race heats up, FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned about the growing threat, saying generative AI makes it easy for “foreign adversaries to engage in malign influence.” With AI deepfakes, a candidate’s image can be smeared, or softened. Voters can be steered toward or away from candidates — or even to avoid the polls altogether. But perhaps the greatest threat to democracy, experts say, is that a surge of AI deepfakes could erode the public’s trust in what they see and hear.

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Associated Press - March 14, 2024

Musk abruptly cancels 'The Don Lemon Show' on X after he sits for the program's first interview

Elon Musk abruptly canceled “The Don Lemon Show” on his social media network X after the former CNN anchor recorded an interview with the billionaire for its as-yet unaired first episode. Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter, and frequently proclaims himself a “free speech absolutist.” In a post on X, the San Francisco-based company said only that after careful consideration, it “decided not to enter into a commercial partnership with the show.” It added that Lemon’s show “is welcome to publish its content on X, without censorship, as we believe in providing a platform for creators to scale their work and connect with new communities.” In a video posted to X, Lemon declared that “ Elon Musk is mad at me ? and said he will be airing his interview with the Tesla CEO on YouTube and via podcast on Monday.

Lemon didn’t go into specifics about the source of Musk’s alleged unhappiness, but wrote, “Throughout our conversation, I kept reiterating to him that although it was tense at times, I thought it was good for people to see and hear our exchange and that they would learn from our conversation.” “But apparently free speech absolutism doesn’t apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me,” he added. In a later CNN discussion with Lemon on Monday, anchor Erin Burnett played clips of his Musk interview in which the Tesla and SpaceX CEO grew testy when asked about content moderation and the spread of hate speech on the X platform. In the clip, Lemon asked Musk if he believed that he and his social platform held any responsibility to moderate hate speech on X. He singled out the spread of the “ great replacement theory,” a racist belief that, in its most extreme form, falsely contends that Jews are behind a plot to diminish the influence of white people in the U.S. Musk replied sharply that he doesn’t have to answer questions from reporters. “The only reason I’m in this interview is because you’re on the X platform and you asked for it,” he said. “Otherwise I would not be doing this interview.” When Lemon followed up with a question about the criticism Musk has faced over the issue of hate speech, the CEO replied, “I’m criticized constantly. I could care less.”

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Washington Post - March 14, 2024

Biden aims to repair places left broken by previous economic strategies

President Biden, speaking Wednesday in a community that he cited as a painful example of racist urban policy, highlighted a new economic strategy aimed at revitalizing places that for decades have been cut off from the nation’s growing prosperity. Biden spoke at a Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee in a largely Black and Latino neighborhood where 17,000 homes and 1,000 businesses were destroyed in the 1960s to make way for an interstate highway. The president’s trip, which includes a stop in Michigan on Thursday, is part of an effort to court minority voters in states that are key to his political future. In conjunction with the Midwestern swing, the White House unveiled $3.3 billion in federal grants to remove or retrofit highways that separate minority neighborhoods in many cities from jobs, entertainment centers, hospitals and other services.

“Too many communities across America faced the loss of land, wealth and possibilities that still reverberate today,” Biden said. “Today we’re recognizing that history to make new history.” Milwaukee is one of 132 communities in 40 states that will benefit from the Transportation Department program, which is among a number of new federal initiatives designed to aid places suffering long-term economic ills, officials said. “For communities too often left behind, we’re rebuilding the roads, we’re repairing cracks in the sidewalk,” Biden said. “We’re creating places to live and play safely and to breathe clean air.” Biden’s embrace of strategies aimed at spurring development in specific locations marks a significant shift in U.S. policy, part of the broadest government intervention in the economy in at least four decades and one with significant political overtones. States such as Wisconsin are critical to Democratic hopes in November, and Biden’s appeal to Milwaukee’s large number of Black voters may decide his fate there. The administration’s “place-based” approach aims to use a mix of spending and tax credits to spread prosperity more evenly, rebuild communities devastated by the loss of factory jobs and prevent blight in areas that otherwise would suffer during the transition to cleaner energy sources.

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CNBC - March 14, 2024

House passes bill that could lead to a TikTok ban; fight shifts to the Senate

The House approved a bill Wednesday that calls for China tech giant ByteDance to divest TikTok or the popular social video app will effectively be banned in the U.S. The measure passed with a resounding 352-65 vote and with one member voting present. The legislation, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, was introduced March 5 by Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Two days later, House members on the Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously to approve the bill, which refers to TikTok as a threat to national security because it is controlled by a foreign adversary. The bill now heads to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future as senators appear divided about the legislation, and other federal and state-led efforts to ban TikTok have stalled.

“This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it’s a ban,” a TikTok spokesperson said after the vote was passed. “We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.” In a short-video clip that was posted on TikTok later in the afternoon, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew expressed dismay to TikTok users over what he described as a “disappointing vote in the House of Representatives,” and said that the bill “gives more power to a handful of other social media companies” and that “it also take billions of dollars out of the pockets of creators and small businesses.” “Over the last few years, we have invested to keep your data safe in our platform, free from outside manipulation; we have committed that we will continue to do so,” Chew said. “This legislation, if signed into law, will lead to a ban of TikTok in the United States, even the bill sponsors admit that that’s their goal.”

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NBC News - March 14, 2024

A small city in Oklahoma elected a white nationalist. Will it be able to vote him out?

The photo of Judd Blevins was unmistakable. In it, Blevins, bearded and heavyset, held a tiki torch on the University of Virginia campus, on the eve of Unite the Right, a 2017 coming-together of the nation’s neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. Connie Vickers had found the photo online along with others showing Blevins marching alongside an angry mob — a crowd of men recorded throughout the night spitting and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” Vickers had it enlarged at a local print and copy shop. On a January night in 2023, she and Nancy Presnall, best friends, retirees and rare Democrats in a deeply red Oklahoma county, brought it to a sparsely attended forum where Blevins, a candidate running to represent Ward 1 on Enid’s six-seat City Council, was making his case. They had hoped to get a question in while Blevins was on stage, but settled for confronting him after.

Hearts pumping, Presnall and Vickers approached the 41-year-old former Marine. From a kitchen trash bag, Vickers pulled out the blown-up photo of Blevins and asked about his ties to white nationalists. As his campaign manager whisked a red-faced Blevins away, Vickers and Presnall followed, yelling, “Answer the question, Judd!” “He ran away from two little old ladies,” Presnall recalled. Two weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, Blevins won his race, unseating the Republican incumbent, widely viewed as a devoted public servant, who died from cancer later that year. Voters seemed to appreciate Blevins’ bio: a veteran who’d served in Iraq and who’d worked a manual job in Tulsa before moving back to his hometown to take over his father’s roofing business. Blevins described himself as a man of God and extolled the city as a place where “traditional values” remained the norm. The message resounded in Enid, a city nearly 100 miles north of Oklahoma City with just over 50,000 people. In 1980, more than 90% of the area's residents were white; now less than 3 in 4 are. Enid is both one of the country’s most quickly diversifying places and one of the most conservative, where residents describe the ever-present whirring of jets from nearby Vance Air Force Base as “the sound of freedom.” It’s not clear how many voters knew about Blevins’ white nationalist ties. There was an article in the local paper, which Blevins labeled “a hit piece,” but beyond the confrontation with Vickers and Presnall, it just wasn’t talked about.

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Wall Street Journal - March 14, 2024

Inside the steel deal that has Biden on edge

When Nippon Steel agreed to buy United States Steel in December, it looked like a victory for the Biden administration’s attempts to revive American manufacturing. The Japanese giant, whose imports once tormented American steelmakers, would make steel in the U.S. A faded industrial icon, U.S. Steel, would receive an injection of capital and technology. The U.S. and Japan would together take on China’s dominance in the global steel market. But the $14.1 billion deal has instead become an election-year football. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for the Biden administration to use national-security powers to block the deal. Former President Donald Trump has promised to scuttle it if he wins a second term. White House officials are closely scrutinizing it, and President Biden is expected to release a statement soon highlighting his concerns about the deal, according to people familiar with the matter.

Behind the scenes, a company with more bottom-line considerations is helping orchestrate the populist revolt. Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs had also tried to buy U.S. Steel last year, and now confronts the prospect of a competitor vastly strengthened by Nippon Steel’s deep pockets and close ties to Japanese automakers. After losing in the boardroom, Lourenco Goncalves, the combative CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs, is trying to kill the deal on Capitol Hill as well as through an unusual alliance with the United Steelworkers union. In meetings with Republican and Democratic lawmakers, Cleveland-Cliffs staff have amplified union concerns about how Nippon Steel could lay off workers at U.S. Steel plants in Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere, according to people familiar with the matter. During a recent private call with investors, Goncalves appeared to mock the Nippon Steel executives while speaking with what sounded like a Japanese accent, two people who were on the call said. Cleveland-Cliffs didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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Newsclips - March 13, 2024

Lead Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 13, 2024

Is Ted Cruz in danger of being unseated in November? He thinks so

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign is warning donors this week that he’s already tied with Colin Allred and bracing for a tougher 2024 reelection campaign than GOP voters might expect. The push comes less than a week after Allred secured the Democratic nomination in the race and six years after Democrat Beto O’Rourke emerged from relative obscurity to push Cruz to the brink of losing his seat. While no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since the 1990s, Cruz has been telling Republicans for weeks that they can’t take things for granted in Texas anymore, partly because of that close call to O’Rourke. “I will say, my race here in Texas is a battleground race,” Cruz told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo last month. “My last race I won by less than three points because I’m the Democrats’ top target.”

Allred has been telling supporters he has a real shot at toppling Cruz based on limited early public polling and fundraising data. At his primary victory party in Dallas last week, the congressman acknowledged being the underdog but pointed to his history of knocking off veteran U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican, in 2018 to win his seat. “I’m used to overcoming long odds,” Allred said, pointing not just to his races in 2018, but his upbringing as the child of a single mother and making the NFL as a linebacker despite being undrafted. The early polling is mixed. A University of Texas at Tyler survey released two weeks ago showed Allred and Cruz tied, but nearly 20 percent of voters were undecided. That poll showed 48 percent of the 1,167 respondents had an unfavorable impression of Cruz, compared with just 39 percent with a favorable one. Just 18 percent of respondents had a negative view of Allred, and nearly 30 percent said they didn’t have an opinion of him. But fundraising also suggests a closer race. Federal Election Commission reports released in February showed Allred with more campaign money on hand going into the stretch run of the primary season than Cruz had, despite the Dallas Democrat having a vastly more competitive primary. FEC filings show Allred had more than $8.5 million in his campaign account going into last week’s primary while Cruz had just over $6.5 million. Since launching his campaign last May, Allred has bested Cruz in every fundraising quarter.

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Washington Post - March 13, 2024

Biden and Trump secure their parties’ presidential nominations

President Biden and Donald Trump on Tuesday both secured their parties’ nominations for the presidency, formalizing a general-election rematch that many voters dread but that had appeared virtually inevitable for months. Biden won a critical mass of delegates to the Democratic National Convention with a victory in Georgia, hours before Trump clinched the Republican delegates he needed with a victory in Washington state. The Associated Press quickly projected wins for both men in Georgia, Washington and Mississippi on Tuesday evening as Hawaii was also set to hold its GOP caucuses. The general election is effectively well underway, with Trump and Biden sparring over immigration, the economy, abortion and each other’s fitness for office. Biden’s State of the Union address last week resembled a campaign curtain-raiser as he sought to reassure voters about his age and reinvigorate swaths of the Democratic coalition that are not enthused about 2024.

Trump’s campaign this week took control of the Republican National Committee and fired dozens of staff as they sought to function as a single operation and catch up to Biden’s fundraising. Biden is attacking Trump’s antiabortion record and disdain for many U.S. commitments abroad, and he is arguing that Trump poses a unique threat to American democracy after attempting to overturn the 2020 election. “Donald Trump is running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday after winning the nomination. Trump is capitalizing on voters’ disapproval of Biden and his handling of the economy and southern border — and he is preparing for his first trial in several pending criminal cases, which have rallied the GOP but could give swing voters pause. “Our nation is failing. … We’re going to turn it around,” Trump said in a video posted to social media late Tuesday. General elections typically draw much broader turnout than primaries, complicating efforts to draw lessons from Tuesday’s results for November. But the vote in Georgia, a key swing state where both candidates campaigned Saturday, offered some clues to Trump’s and Biden’s political strengths and weaknesses. Biden needed to win 1,968 delegates to Democrats’ convention this summer, while Trump needed to win 1,215 delegates to the Republican National Convention to lock down the nomination. A large share of delegates were awarded last week on Super Tuesday, when 15 states voted at once.

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Houston Chronicle - March 13, 2024

Shale boom sends US oil production to new world record

The U.S. produced more crude oil last year than any nation ever has, setting new records for total annual production and average monthly production, according to data released Monday by the Energy Department. The nation’s oil production reached an average of 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, up from the previous global record of 12.3 million barrels per day set by the U.S. in 2019. The monthly average in December — 13.3 million barrels per day — was high enough to set a new monthly record.

The U.S. has become a global energy superpower in the 16 years since the Texas shale boom began reshaping the global energy industry. The Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is the largest oil-producing region in the country, accounting for roughly 40% of all U.S. crude oil production, and among the largest in the world. The U.S. has outpaced global oil powerhouses Russia and Saudi Arabia every year since 2018, the Energy Department’s data showed. Russia produced 10 million barrels per day in 2023; Saudi Arabia produced 9.7 million barrels per day. Before hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling unleashed the shale boom, U.S. oil production had peaked at 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970 and fell to a low of 5 million barrels per day in 2008. Production has increased steadily since 2009, when the so-called shale revolution reversed the trend.

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Wall Street Journal - March 13, 2024

Special Counsel’s testimony on Biden report angers both sides

Partway into Robert Hur’s testimony before lawmakers Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Henry C. “Hank” Johnson of Georgia accused the special counsel of making a calculated partisan attack on President Biden when he called him an elderly man with a poor memory in his report on whether Biden mishandled classified documents. “You knew that that would play into the Republicans’ narrative that the president is unfit for office because he’s senile,” Johnson said. Hur cut in to stop him. “Congressman, I reject the suggestion that you have just made,” he said. “I can tell you that partisan politics had no place whatsoever in my work.” The sharp exchange distilled how Hur’s report and his explanation for his decision not to charge Biden criminally for his handling of classified information has shaken Washington and accomplished a rare feat: Angering all sides of the political world.

Hur’s hours of testimony Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee were his first public remarks since his blockbuster report came out in February. House Republicans on Tuesday pressed Hur on why Biden hadn’t been charged with a crime, after their party’s likely standard-bearer, former President Donald Trump, was charged with mishandling classified material and for obstructing justice after papers marked secret were found at his Mar-a-Lago club. Democrats—fearful that the report’s language poses a threat to the 81-year-old Biden’s re-election campaign—gambled that homing in on Biden’s interview in October with Hur would lead voters to conclude the special counsel unfairly characterized the president’s memory lapses. They wanted Hur to explain why he used what they called “gratuitous” language to describe the president. Just hours before the hearing was set to begin, the Justice Department released to Congress a transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur that occurred over two days in October. The transcript revealed that the president meandered and stumbled at times but also was able to provide full and detailed answers to questions from Hur. Biden’s allies had pushed for the material to be released, thinking the full exchange would show the president to be present and engaged—even if he made several slip-ups.

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State Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 13, 2024

Supreme Court extends order blocking Texas law that allows police to arrest migrants

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday extended an order blocking Texas from enforcing a new law that gives the state a role in arresting and deporting immigrants. Alito — who handles emergency petitions in cases out of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — had originally blocked Texas from enforcing the law, known as Senate Bill 4, until Wednesday afternoon to give the Supreme Court time to study and rule on the matter. Alito’s latest order gives the court until Monday to determine if Texas can enforce the law while a lower court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, considers whether SB 4 is constitutional.

The U.S. Justice Department sued Texas in January, arguing that the law violates the Constitution because it undermines the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement and foreign policy. Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas officials have defended the measure, saying it’s a necessary response to an “invasion” of undocumented migrants crossing into Texas that the Biden administration has failed to stop. Last month, U.S. District Judge David Ezra sided with the Biden administration in a ruling that called SB 4 “patently unconstitutional” based on a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar Arizona law. Texas appealed, and the 5th Circuit Court responded by allowing the state to enforce SB 4 during the appeals process. The Supreme Court will determine whether Texas can enforce the law while the 5th Circuit Court considers the case.

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Houston Chronicle - March 13, 2024

Texas teens cannot get birth control without parental consent, appeals court rules

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a Texas father can deny his daughters access to contraception, finding that a state parental rights law trumps a federal program that allows some clinics to forgo getting that approval. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit marks the first major decision on birth control access since federal protections for abortion were overturned almost two years ago. Texas minors are required by state law to have parental consent before accessing contraception; however, the case decided Tuesday pertains to federal Title X clinics, which are meant to provide affordable family planning services. The rules of the program, in place since the 1970s, require that the clinics serve all adolescents and encourage family participation “to the extent practical.”

The court ruled that if Title X were to take precedence over a state law, it would be an “invasion” of the father’s “state-created right” to consent to his child’s medical care. The decision affirmed a lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that since December 2022 has blocked Texas minors from seeking contraception at federal clinics without parental approval. The decision, which could reach the Supreme Court if appealed, also represents a major departure from longstanding precedent. Federal courts have repeatedly held that youths have a right to receive birth control without parental approval. “Title X’s goal (encouraging family participation in teens’ receiving family planning services) is not undermined by Texas’s goal (empowering parents to consent to their teen’s receiving contraceptives),” reads the ruling written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump. “To the contrary, the two laws reinforce each other.” The plaintiff, Alexander Deanda, is the father of three minor daughters and had said that he is raising them according to his Christian beliefs to abstain from premarital sex. Deanda, who lives in the Texas Panhandle, said he wanted to be informed if his daughters access or try to access birth control.

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KUT - March 13, 2024

UT Austin will again require standardized test scores for admission

UT Austin will once again require students to submit their SAT or ACT test scores for admission, the university announced Monday. UT put the requirement on hold in spring 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The requirement will go into effect for the fall 2025 semester. UT President Jay Hartzell said reinstating the requirement is part of the university’s goal to attract top students and ensure they’ll be successful in college. He said UT has found the test score is a key predictor of student success. "But also a predictor of where we need to be more diligent, supportive of the students that come our way and do all we can to position them to succeed," he said. "If we're going to get to where we believe we can go in terms of graduation rates and success this is an important tool for us to get there." He said UT had been looking at the impact of the test-optional policy.

"After a year we found that students who did not submit their scores were less likely to perform as well," he said. UT is not alone in reinstating standardized test requirements. While many colleges and universities stopped requiring scores during the pandemic, several elite institutions have changed course on their test-optional policies. So far this year, selective universities such as Yale, Brown and Dartmouth shared plans to require standardized test scores again. Other schools in Texas are still test-optional. Texas State does not require SAT or ACT scores for first-time applicants. Texas A&M does not require them for freshmen but encourages students to submit scores if they have them. UT had a record 73,000 applicants last year, and the university estimates that about 90% took a standardized test. Forty-two percent of freshman applicants for the fall 2024 semester asked for their SAT or ACT scores to be considered as part of their application. Nearly half of the students applying under Texas’ auto-admit rule — because they’re in the top 6% of their high school class — also asked that their standardized testing scores be considered. Some current UT students said they are wary of the test scores being required again.

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KUT - March 13, 2024

I-35 tunnel vision: Austin nabs $105 million for highway caps

Austin is getting closer to raising the money it needs to put I-35 in a partial tunnel after Texas lowers the main lanes 30 to 40 feet from Holly Street to Airport Boulevard. The city just raked in a $105 million grant from the U.S Department of Transportation, and the council could vote next week to borrow $193 million more from a state infrastructure bank. The Texas Department of Transportation is planning to sink the lanes as part of a decade-long construction project that includes tearing down the upper decks and adding four high-occupancy vehicle lanes along an 8-mile stretch from Ben White Boulevard to U.S. 290 East. TxDOT won't pay to cover the lowered lanes, but will install so-called caps over the trenched highway if the City of Austin and University of Texas foot the bill. The city could also add mini-caps, so-called stitches, that stick out of bridges to create more public space.

Austin is considering spending $881 million or more on a menu of caps and stitches that would create slightly more than 27 acres of space. Caps would cover the highway from Cesar Chavez to Seventh Street, from 11th to 12th and from 38 1/2 Street to Airport Boulevard. Stitches would be installed at Holly Street, 32nd Street and 51st Street. Annual operations and maintenance would cost up to $35 million, according to a staff estimate. Caps require large and costly ventilation and fire suppression systems. For comparison, Austin spends almost $40 million per year on municipal courts. Meanwhile, the city wants to borrow up to $193 million from a special loan fund managed by TxDOT. The State Infrastructure Bank provides low-interest loans for transportation projects. The City Council is scheduled to vote on whether to apply for the loan at a March 21 meeting. Even with the TxDOT loan, the city would still be hundreds of millions of dollars short from being able to pay for caps and various amenities on top. Some caps could be constructed to support buildings. Other ideas for amenities have included parks or elevated walkways.

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Texas Observer - March 13, 2024

Pregnant workers' health and livelihoods face a new threat

In an appalling decision that took effect in March, a federal court in Texas took away the right of Texas state employees to protect women’s health, and enable them to keep their jobs, during pregnancy and while recovering from childbirth. It is notable that while the court ruled the entire Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 violated the U.S. Constitution’s quorum requirements, the court chose only to block enforcement of the bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)—a landmark civil rights law included in the package that went into effect almost a year ago, on June 27, 2023. My organization A Better Balance launched and led the fight for over 10 years to pass this law, which finally guarantees millions of workers (including state employees) with known pregnancy-related limitations an affirmative right to reasonable accommodations so they’re no longer forced to choose between maintaining a healthy pregnancy and delivery and supporting their families. How did the court get there? The reasoning is astonishing.

In significant part, the judge found the state established an “injury” by showing it would bear the small sum of $6,600 in one-time costs for the Texas attorney general’s office to update policies and amend trainings to comply with the PWFA and a $5,200 annual cost to stay in compliance. But how can a “pro-life” attorney general, like the one who filed this lawsuit in Texas, contend that pregnant workers aren’t even worth the marginal dollar amounts it would cost the state to comply? These de minimis administrative costs pale in comparison to the unbearable health and economic costs incurred when pregnant and postpartum workers are unable to access the immediate relief they need to maintain a healthy pregnancy, or safe recovery from childbirth, and remain in the workforce. Consider women like Tasha Murrell, a pregnant warehouse worker from Tennessee, who worked for a national logistics company lifting heavy boxes during her 12-hour shifts. Tasha began experiencing extreme stomach pain and needed light-duty work, per doctor’s orders, to prevent pregnancy-related complications, but her boss refused to assist her. Shortly thereafter, Tasha suffered a miscarriage. Unfortunately, we’ve heard from countless women like Tasha on our free legal helpline who have experienced profound health complications—from premature birth to a worsening of pregnancy-related conditions like preeclampsia—simply because their employers refused to provide them basic, temporary accommodations at work. Her experience predated both the federal and Tennessee Pregnant Workers Fairness Acts and she advocated alongside A Better Balance’s Southern Office for passage of both bills to advance maternal and infant health.

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CBS News - March 13, 2024

Abuse, neglect, theft alleged at unlicensed care home; Arlington police investigating

North Texas families trusted her with caring for their loved ones. Arlington police say she violated that trust. Forty-nine-year-old Regla "Su" Becquer is accused of putting her clients in danger. Police say her business, Love and Caring for People, LLC was operating illegally, billed as providing supervised personal care for adults in need. Becquer is connected to five properties across Tarrant County, three in Arlington, one in Mansfield, and one in Grand Prairie. For months, detectives investigated multiple allegations of abuse, neglect and fraud tied to Becquer and her staff. According to the arrest warrant, police were called to the Arlington property in December after a victim texted a friend saying she was being held against her will. Officers were familiar with the address, knowing it to be an unlicensed bed and board operated by Becquer.

When officers found the victim in the home, body camera footage showed the first words out of her mouth were, "I don't want to be here," the report states. The victim, who has cerebral palsy and diabetes, said she was being held against her will, having asked staff to leave and not being allowed. The officers said she smelled of urine and feces. She told officers she was forced to stay on a mattress on the floor, as she is immobile, only able to move her arms. She also said staff rarely changed her diaper. According to the arrest warrant, the victim said staff members poured hot water over her, which made it difficult to breathe, and kicked her. She also said the people at the home who were not patients and supposed to care for her gave her minty liquid medication she was not prescribed when she got upset about not being able to leave. After repeatedly requesting to leave, the victim told police she tried to cut her wrists and attempted suicide in the hope that someone would call 911 and she would be taken to a hospital.

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CBS News - March 13, 2024

Paxton takes aim at more Texas businesses

Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking aim at more Texas businesses. Paxton is suing The Factory in Deep Ellum, Texas Trust Theater in Grand Prairie and Grapevine's Meow Wolf in addition to the State Fair of Texas. San Antonio's The Lucky Duck is also named in the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims the businesses didn't allow off-duty officers to bring their firearms into the venues on multiple occasions, violating a 2017 law allowing officers to bring their weapons into public venues, whether or not the officers are on duty. Prior to Paxton's lawsuit, the businesses confirmed to the Office of the Attorney General, in writing, that they would follow the 2017 law, according to the OAG. However, Paxton's office continued receiving complaints from peace officers claiming the businesses were not following the law.

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Associated Press - March 13, 2024

Uvalde police chief who was on vacation during Robb Elementary shooting resigns

The Uvalde police chief who was on vacation during the Robb Elementary School shooting submitted his resignation Tuesday, less than a week after a report ordered by the city defended the department’s response to the attack but outraged some family members of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed. Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez was vacationing in Arizona when a teenage gunman entered a fourth-grade classroom in Uvalde with an AR-style rifle on May 24, 2022. In his resignation statement sent via email by the Uvalde Police Department, Rodriguez said it was time to embrace a new chapter in his career. “Together we achieved significant progress and milestones, and I take pride in the positive impact we’ve made during my tenure,” Rodriguez said in the statement. He then thanked his colleagues for their dedication to “serving and protecting the community,” as well as city leaders, but did not mention the 2022 shooting or last week’s report. The resignation is effective April 6.

The announcement came hours before the Uvalde City Council was scheduled to meet for the first time since a private investigator hired by the city unveiled a report that acknowledged missteps by police but concluded that local officers did not deserve punishment. Nearly 400 law enforcement agents who were at the scene of the attack, including Uvalde police officers, waited more than an hour after the shooting began to confront the gunman. A critical incident report by the Department of Justice in January found “cascading failures” in law enforcement’s handling of the massacre. The report specifically mentioned Uvalde Police Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the acting police chief that day in Rodriguez’s absence. According to the almost 600-page DOJ report, nearly an hour after the shooter entered the school, Pargas “continued to provide no direction, command or control to personnel.” The city’s report agreed with that of federal officials regarding a lack of communication between officers command and a response plan, as well as a insufficient officer training. A criminal investigation into the police response by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell’s office remains ongoing. A grand jury was summoned earlier this year and some law enforcement officials have already been called to testify.

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Dallas Morning News - March 13, 2024

As NIL deals roil college sports, Ted Cruz sees 50-50 chance of Congress acting in 2024

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz downgraded the chances that Congress will act this year to address the name, image and likeness deals that have created chaos in college sports. The Texas Republican said progress is being made and predicted lawmakers will eventually tackle the issue, but he put the odds at 50-50 whether it will do so this year rather than waiting until next session. “The only reason is just we’re running out of time,” Cruz told reporters after a roundtable he convened on the topic Tuesday. “It’s not too late to get it done, but we’re getting close to it being too late to get it done.” College sports has struggled to deal with fallout from a 2021 Supreme Court decision allowing college players to profit from their own name, image and likeness. Texas Christian University athletic director Jeremiah Donati testified before Congress last year that NIL deals are being negotiated in a “wild, wild West environment” with little accountability.

Donati called on lawmakers to guide colleges and protect student athletes from unscrupulous individuals. With big money and many competing interests involved, lawmakers are hearing conflicting messages about the best approach, making it difficult to find a consensus. A range of proposals has been floated, with some giving student athletes more power than others. Cruz could play a key role in shaping a compromise as the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, which is likely to handle NIL legislation. He released draft legislation last year aimed at preserving the NCAA’s authority while providing more legal certainty for everyone involved. That proposal would create a standard contract for NIL deals with key terms, give athletic associations legal protections in enforcing their own rules, preempt state NIL laws and clarify that student-athletes are not employees of their schools or associations. Cruz has objected to federal regulators taking over the responsibility of setting rules for college sports. “The last thing we want to have is congressional hearings to define what pass interference is,” Cruz said. “That is not the role of politicians or a government agency.”

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Dallas Morning News - March 13, 2024

House Democrats launch effort to flip border security script ahead of general election

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas joined fellow Democrats on Tuesday in launching a new group calling for bipartisan solutions on immigration and pushing back against Republican criticism that they don’t care about the border. Allred is running against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden and Democrats on the border and illegal immigration. Standing outside the U.S. Capitol behind a podium bearing a “Democrats for border security” sign, Allred highlighted his Rio Grande Valley roots, saying his family is from Brownsville and his grandfather was a customs officer. “I know that our border communities are not just political backdrops,” Allred said. “They’re not just places you go to point out problems. They are places where real people live, where they’re trying to raise their families. And I am sick and tired of politicians talking about the problem, about the crisis that we are experiencing at our border, but being unwilling to actually solve it.”

Polling shows a clear advantage for Republicans on border issues as the November election approaches. Cruz and other Republicans have pummeled Biden and Democrats over their handling of immigration, saying executive actions reversing the policies of former President Donald Trump have helped drive migrant apprehensions to record levels. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, co-chair of the new task force, said Republicans have long pushed a distorted narrative that the border is a dangerous, out-of-control area. Democrats need to respond with their own message, he said. “Some of us don’t visit the border, we live there,” Cuellar said. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time.” Allred and others at Tuesday’s news conference repeatedly criticized Republicans as being more interested in exploiting the border situation than fixing it — including working to kill a proposed Senate compromise and opposing additional funding for operations at the border. Border and immigration issues have long been at the core of Trump’s agenda, and he has continued that focus as he asks voters to return him to the White House. Republicans last year insisted that any aid package for Ukraine include border security provisions. U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., negotiated a deal with Democrats, but Trump slammed the proposal and urged GOP lawmakers to reject it.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 13, 2024

Walmart to open $350 million milk processing plant in Texas, its third in the U.S.

Walmart is planning its first Texas milk processing plant near Waco, the big retailer’s third in the U.S. as it continues expanding its in-house supply chain to meet increasing demand for milk products. The $350 million facility in Robinson will process and package a variety of milk options under Walmart’s Great Value and Sam’s Club’s Member’s Mark brands. Its products will be sold at more than 750 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, including stores in the San Antonio area. The 300,000-square-foot plant is expected to employ nearly 400 people when it opens in 2026.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 13, 2024

Real estate tycoon's heirs go after their lawyer for malpractice over how estate was split up

More than seven years after the death of San Antonio real estate tycoon James F. Cotter, legal battles over his estate continue to play out. Late last month, his three oldest children accused their San Antonio probate lawyer and his firm of malpractice for advising them to sign a settlement agreement that allegedly let the trio’s two half-siblings share equally in their father’s estate — even though they weren’t named in his will. James Val Lee “Val” Cotter, Vivian Mueller and Valeri Cotter Zaharie allege in their suit that attorney Martin “Marty” Roos and his firm, Clark Hill PLC, failed to explain “all the facets of the conflicts of interest that existed between Plaintiffs on the one hand, and their half-siblings, Adam and Andy Cotter, on the other.” Roos represented all five children.

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Houston Public Media - March 13, 2024

Houston ISD warns 120 principals to improve performance, suggests possible legal action against Houston Chronicle over leak publication

Earlier this year, Love Elementary principal Sean Tellez had a choice to make. It was late January. State-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles announced a surge in the number of Houston ISD schools that failed to meet state standards, from less than 10 in the 2021-22 school year to more than 100 in the 2022-23 school year. Miles promised to "arrest the decline," arguing those schools "need to change what they're doing." Love Elementary was on the list of D-plus-rated schools, along with 23 other campuses. Tellez and the other principals had about two weeks to gather community input and either request sweeping reforms under Miles' New Education System — the controversial turnaround program launched in 85 schools this school year — or reject the changes. "I had calls, daily visits, daily physical presence on campus from executive directors, the senior executive director, the division superintendent," Tellez told Houston Public Media. "There was always this fear. There were rumors that Superintendent Miles himself was going to be out here, and this was during the decision phase."

In two informational meetings with district administrators, parents from Love Elementary blasted the New Education System. Tellez said there was "very unanimous" opposition among parents and educators who feared changes to school culture, shifts in dual-language programming and increased teacher turnover. In February, Tellez was one of five principals who rejected the reforms. 19 other campus leaders accepted the changes and will enter the New Education System in August, when the reform program will cover almost half of the schools in Houston ISD. In subsequent conversations with district administrators, "the word ‘regrettable' was used multiple times," Tellez said. "My decision was ‘regrettable for my community,' and for myself as a leader, and I was starting to read between the lines." Tellez chose to leave the district for a position in Spring ISD. His last day was Friday, March 8 — the day after the district told about 120 other principals they could be forced out unless they pass additional screenings because they fell below "proficient" on performance evaluations. Shortly after principals received their performance ratings, the state-appointed administration found itself again embroiled in internal strife and public controversy. Miles criticized the city's daily newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, over its publication of the specific principals who received an email about their potential removal. Miles announced an internal investigation to find the source of the leak. Community members expressed outrage when they read the Chronicle’s coverage and discovered some longtime, popular principals at high-achieving schools included in the list.

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Austin American-Statesman - March 13, 2024

Texas nabs final Big 12 women's basketball tournament title before heading off to the SEC

Late Tuesday night, Texas women's basketball coach Vic Schaefer sat on a podium inside of the T-Mobile Center and proclaimed, "Mission Control, we're home." It was a reference to Apollo 13. Over the past few months, Schaefer has often leaned on the story of that 1970 space mission when speaking about what Texas had to endure this season after losing its best player for the season in December. When Rori Harmon went down with a knee injury, Schaefer said the team was "spinning out of control." As the head coach, it was his job to get them home. Of course, that reference may seem a little dated. The Apollo 13 mission took place in 1970. The blockbuster movie that told its story came out in 1995. The oldest player on the Texas roster was born in 2000. When Texas players were asked Tuesday night if they had seen the movie, freshman Madison Booker said she had even though her teammates didn't believe her. Shay Holle hadn't seen it, but the senior guard added that from what she knew, "it's a good comparison. Our world kinda got flipped around, but it was how we responded and today showed that."

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County Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 13, 2024

Some child care centers won’t have to pay property taxes in Bexar County — and possibly San Antonio

Some child care centers in Bexar County no longer have to pay the county portion of their annual property tax bill. They may soon be exempt from paying the city of San Antonio property taxes. Bexar County Commissioners Court voted unanimously on Tuesday to grant a 100% property tax exemption to child care centers that are both Texas Rising Star-certified and have at least 20% of their enrolled children receiving state-subsidized child care. The Texas Rising Star accreditation specifies licensing and staff qualifications to ensure children receive high-quality care. “I really hope that this encourages more child care centers to get accredited, and hopefully, this will help to keep fees affordable,” said County Commissioner Precinct 1 Rebeca Clay-Flores, who put the tax break on the agenda.

The passage of Proposition 2 in last November’s constitutional amendment election allowed Texas counties and cities to waive between 50% and 100% of eligible child care centers’ appraised property value. Sixty-eight percent of Bexar County voters approved the measure. While public schools are exempt from property taxes, child care centers are not. Supporters of Proposition 2 see the exemption as a way to help keep expenses down and give centers a better shot at staying open. The coronavirus pandemic dealt a blow to child care centers, which were only allowed to remain open to children of essential workers. Those temporary closures turned permanent for more than 20% of Bexar County’s child care centers, according to Children at Risk, a Texas-based research and advocacy nonprofit.

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Houston Chronicle - March 13, 2024

Harris County prosecutors seek Judge Natalia Cornelio's recusal over 2019 death penalty remarks

On the eve of an August 2019 meeting between now-Judge Natalia Cornelio and one of Harris County’s top prosecutors, defense attorneys for Ronald Haskell asked jurors to consider his mental health during his trial. Cornelio, then a staff attorney for County Commissioner Rodney Ellis but months away from launching a judicial bid, voiced her opposition to the death penalty the next day. She referred to Haskell as a sick man, apparently agreeing with the defense attorney's arguments from the highly publicized death penalty trial. The prosecutor, David Mitcham, new to the job as District Attorney Kim Ogg’s first assistant, kept a mental note of her comment for more than three years and then documented her reaction in a sworn affidavit. By then, Cornelio had won the 351st District Court seat and was well into her first term. With that role, she inherited a sizeable chunk of death penalty cases, including one involving Haskell, whom a jury went on to convict and sentence to die for killing six members of the Stay family in 2014.

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City Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 13, 2024

Despite spike in unemployment, San Antonio job count is up from a year ago

Texas added nearly 264,000 jobs in the 12 months through January, a 1.9% increase from January 2023, according to the latest data from the Texas Workforce Commission and Bureau of Labor statistics. Locally, the story was similar: The number of jobs in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area was up 2.7% over the past year. As the area’s labor force continued growing from December through January, though, the unemployment rate spiked to 3.8% from 3.1% the month before. The state’s seasonally adjusted job count grew by 18,900 positions, hitting more than 14 million jobs across the state in January. Statewide unemployment was 3.9%. “Texas continues to lead the nation in job growth and economic stability,” Texas Workforce Commission Chair Bryan Daniel said in a statement. “As we make our way into 2024, the Texas labor force continues to upskill and become the workforce of tomorrow.”

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National Stories

CNN - March 13, 2024

Many Republicans plan to skip House GOP retreat as they grumble about location and spending time with one another

Many Republicans plan to skip the House GOP retreat as they grumble about both the location and the idea of spending time with one another, with tensions still running high inside the party in the wake of their unprecedented speakership drama. Fewer than 100 Republicans have RSVP’d to attend the retreat, which is less than half of the entire conference, according to a GOP source familiar with the attendance sheet. The retreat is scheduled to take place Wednesday and Thursday in West Virginia. Publicly, Republicans have cited a litany of reasons for not attending: from having to tend to reelection races to scheduling conflicts. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, for example, is scheduled to appear on “Real Time with Bill Maher” later this week. Meanwhile, when asked if he was attending, GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota told CNN: “No way, I have to run for governor.” And Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee quipped: “I don’t retreat, I move forward! I got a farm to run.”

But privately, some Republicans have complained about the venue choice. Sources said Speaker Mike Johnson selected the Greenbrier Resort because it was “family friendly,” in a break from past retreats which have taken place in sunny Florida – the preferred location of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And other GOP lawmakers and aides told CNN they were simply not enthusiastic about the idea of having to huddle with the rest of their party at a time when Republican infighting has prevented them from even passing procedural votes. In a remarkable split screen, firebrand GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida will be attending a rally in Texas on Thursday in support of Brandon Herrera, a far-right candidate who is challenging GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales. In another hiccup for the retreat, the House GOP’s keynote speaker – Fox Business Host Larry Kudlow – had to drop out at the last minute, sources say. Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will take his place instead. Among the Republicans who have decided to skip the retreat include Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee; Reps. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota and Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, the co-chairs of the Main Street Caucus; and Rep. Dave Joyce of Ohio, chairman of the Republican Governance Group.

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The Hill - March 13, 2024

Buck to retire next week, narrowing House GOP majority

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) will retire from Congress next week, he said Tuesday, a stunning announcement that will narrow the House GOP’s razor-thin majority even further. Buck — who has become known for breaking from his party on various issues and criticizing Republicans on election denialism — announced last year that he would depart the House at the end of his current term, but expedited that timeline Tuesday. “It has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado’s 4th District in Congress for the past 9 years. I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week. I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado with my family,” he wrote in a statement.

The announcement from Buck, 65, puts a bookend on his nine-plus-year tenure in Congress, which in the past year included a number of controversial votes that put him in direct conflict with other members of the House GOP conference — including his decision to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his opposition to the effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His impending departure will knock the House GOP’s majority down by one, bringing the breakdown in the House to 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats. Buck’s exit will not change the margin: Republicans will still only be able to afford to lose two of their members on any party-line votes, assuming all lawmakers are present. But his resignation will, nonetheless, decrease the cushion GOP lawmakers will have on those partisan measures, making it more difficult to pass messaging legislation in the coming months. “It’s gonna make it tough,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said of Buck’s departure. “I wish he could’ve waited.” Colorado law says that a special election is required to take place between 85 and 100 days after Buck vacates the seat. Gov. Jared Polis (D) on Tuesday said he would set it to “align with the primary election on June 25.”

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Wall Street Journal - March 13, 2024

How TikTok was blindsided by U.S. bill that could ban it

Two weeks ago, executives from TikTok’s U.S. operations flew to their company’s international headquarters in Singapore with good news. They told bosses that after years of battling over its fate in the U.S., the popular video app wasn’t in imminent danger of being banned in its most important market, according to people familiar with the meetings. Among the positive signs: President Biden’s election campaign had just joined the app, on Super Bowl Sunday. Days after returning to the U.S., they learned they had miscalculated. Behind the scenes in Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Biden administration officials had been quietly planning new legislation to ban TikTok or force its sale to a non-Chinese owner.

The legislation was a culmination of a more than yearlong effort to curb TikTok by a coalition of China hawks in Washington and Silicon Valley, and it had gained new momentum in part because of anger over TikTok videos about the Israel-Hamas conflict. When lawmakers went public last week with their plans, the broad support for the bill caught TikTok by surprise. “This process was intentionally conducted in secret because the bill authors knew it was the only way they could move it forward,” a TikTok spokeswoman said. Now TikTok faces the most serious threat yet to its existence in America. The House is set to vote Wednesday on the new bill, which could effectively ban one of the world’s most popular apps in the U.S., with more than 170 million users. Approval is widely expected. The legislation faces a steeper path in the Senate. Biden has said he would sign it if it reaches his desk. Inside TikTok, some leaders were aware that lawmakers were working on legislation, but they didn’t expect it to win so much support so quickly, some of the people familiar with the matter said.

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CNBC - March 13, 2024

Inside the organized crime rings plaguing retailers including Ulta, T.J. Maxx and Walgreens

In a tony suburban enclave in the San Diego foothills, police say, an organized retail crime “queenpin” had built an empire. Tucked behind the stone walls of her 4,500-square-foot Spanish-style mansion, Michelle Mack had stockpiled a small fortune in cosmetics that had been stolen from Ulta and Sephora stores across the country, authorities said. Police don’t suspect that Mack, 53, took the items herself. Instead, they say, she pulled the strings from the shadows, employing a network of around a dozen women who stole the items for her so she could resell them on Amazon .

With their airfare, car rentals and other travel expenses paid by Mack, the suspects committed hundreds of thefts up and down the California coast and into Washington, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio, investigators said. Mack selected which stores to target and what merchandise to take and the women were sent to clear out entire shelves of merchandise before making off with the stolen goods stuffed into Louis Vuitton bags, investigators said. Investigators began referring to the theft group as the “California Girls” and considered Mack the crew’s ringleader. She made millions reselling the stolen items on Amazon to unwitting customers at a fraction of their typical retail price, investigators said, before she was arrested in early December. Law enforcement officials say Mack’s alleged theft ring is just one of the many that are plaguing U.S. retailers and costing them billions in losses annually. Their rise has led many companies to lock up merchandise, hire security guards and lobby lawmakers for stricter regulations. These organized theft groups don’t typically carry out the splashy “smash and grab” robberies seen in viral videos. Instead, they pilfer goods quickly, quietly and efficiently. They often function within elaborate, organized structures that in some ways mimic the corporations they’re stealing from, police said.

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CNN - March 13, 2024

How Biden hopes to recapture voters scarred by inflation

As President Joe Biden barnstorms battleground states this week, he is framing the debate with former President Donald Trump around themes of economic populism that Democrats have employed, often with success, for decades. But Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, may prove to be a more elusive target for those arguments than a typical GOP candidate. Biden is portraying himself as committed to standing up for average Americans against powerful interests and the wealthy. But polls consistently show that significantly more Americans, including substantial numbers of Black and Hispanic voters, believe they personally benefited from Trump’s policies than Biden’s. That sentiment risks blunting Biden’s populist arguments: even if he can convince voters that Trump’s policies helped the rich and corporations the most, they may not mind as much if they believe that they also benefited more under Trump than they have under Biden.

For Biden – who spent Tuesday meeting with Teamsters leaders and is headed to Wisconsin and Michigan the next two days – the critical question may be whether voters’ support for key ideas in his policy agenda can outweigh their frustration with their lived economic experience during his presidency. “You are really hitting on the crux of what a lot of swing votes will be [weighing] going into the election,” said Democratic pollster Danielle Deiseroth. Biden has plenty of ammunition to mount a traditional populist case against Trump. The former president’s principal legislative accomplishment was a massive tax cut that provided most of its direct benefits to corporations and the most affluent. Trump came within one Senate vote of repealing the Affordable Care Act, which has significantly increased health care coverage for lower-income working Americans. As a candidate in 2016, Trump pledged to seek legislative authority for Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices from pharmaceutical companies, but in office, under intense pressure from the industry, he abandoned that promise. Across a wide range of regulatory issues, from the environment to consumer protection, his administration consistently sided with business interests.

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Stateline - March 13, 2024

Facing public backlash, some health care companies are abandoning hospital deals

Worried about hospitals closing and higher costs for patients, state lawmakers are increasingly tangling with hospitals over potential health care mergers, in some cases derailing deals they think don’t serve the public interest. Financially strapped hospitals often look to merge with or be acquired by other systems. After a pandemic-era slowdown, health care mergers and acquisitions have risen steadily over the past two years. But some proposed hospital deals in Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota and elsewhere have fizzled amid heavy pushback from lawmakers, organized labor and grassroots organizations. At least 10 health care “megadeals” were called off or unwound just last year, due in part to increased oversight, reported Becker’s Hospital Review, an industry publication.

“We have seen situations nationally in certain health care transactions where a lot of promises were made, but when you look into it, clinics are closing, prices are going up, access is down,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, told Stateline. Ellison was in the middle of campaigning for reelection in late 2022 when he learned that Minnesota-based Fairview Health Services intended to merge with Sanford Health, a larger South Dakota-based health care system. The proposed deal drew intense criticism from Minnesota’s Democratic legislators, from nurses unions, University of Minnesota leaders and community groups. Fairview owns the University of Minnesota Medical Center, which is funded by state taxpayers. If the systems merged, Minnesota tax dollars might be spent across state lines. Some legislators also argued the resulting system would create a local health care monopoly that could lead to fewer services and higher costs for patients.

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Newsclips - March 12, 2024

Lead Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 12, 2024

Thousands of HISD students are leaving the district post-takeover, raising risk of possible closures

Maria Miño-Salazar spent nearly two years trying to get the proper support for her third-grader with dyslexia before eventually losing faith in her daughter’s well-regarded Houston ISD campus. By January, she had finally had enough of HISD — and the state takeover was just “icing on the cake.” She transferred her daughter, Lucia, from Poe Elementary to a private school with specialized dyslexia intervention instruction, the same type required under state law at all Texas public schools. “With all of the curriculum changes being imposed by the new superintendent at HISD we are fearful of how Poe is trying to adapt to this change. And in this rush of trying to adapt, may be sidelining special education students,” Roberto Salazar, Lucia’s dad, wrote in an email to her daughter’s teacher, explaining their family’s decision to withdraw her from HISD.

Lucia’s younger brother, Robbie, will leave HISD at the end of the school year, because of the “ridiculous” curriculum and the difficulties of having children in schools miles apart, Miño-Salazar said. The family is among thousands who have opted to leave HISD since the Texas Education Agency’s takeover, exacerbating a yearslong enrollment decline. HISD reported an enrollment of about 183,900 in late October, a drop of more than 6,000 students since the 2022-23 school year and more than 30,000 students since the 2016-17 school year, when the district hit a 10-year peak of 216,106 students. While annual enrollment data counts the number of students in a district on the last Friday of October, membership data reflects the number of students enrolled in the district on a specific day who have attended at least one day of school. HISD, for example, had 183,439 students attending school Feb. 23, a nearly 3% decline from the previous year. Families appear to be fleeing to suburban districts, private and charter schools, and even homeschooling. Coupled with lower birth rates, most urban school systems across the U.S. have seen declines, and the National Center for Education Statistics projects that 2 million fewer students will be enrolled in American public schools through 2030. However, Duncan Klussmann, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Houston, said the state takeover may be expediting declines in HISD.

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CNN - March 12, 2024

‘Trump Employee 5,’ who unknowingly helped move classified documents, speaks out

A longtime Mar-a-Lago employee who is a central witness in the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is now speaking publicly because he believes that voters should hear the truth about his former boss and the case before the November election. Brian Butler, who is referenced as “Trump Employee 5” in the classified documents indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith, told CNN in an exclusive interview that he doesn’t believe the criminal case against Trump is a “witch hunt,” as the former president has claimed. Butler gave testimony to federal investigators that informed crucial portions of last year’s criminal obstruction charges against Trump and his two co-defendants, Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago who had been Butler’s closest friend until recently.

Butler, who was employed at Mar-a-Lago for 20 years, has spoken repeatedly with investigators, paying for his own attorney and breaking with the orbit around Trump that he knows so well – setting him apart from his former colleagues and friends as his former boss has been named in multiple federal investigations. Butler told CNN how he unknowingly helped Nauta deliver boxes of classified information from Mar-a-Lago to the former president’s plane in June 2022 – the same day that Trump and his attorney were meeting with the Justice Department at Mar-a-Lago about the classified documents. That day, June 3, 2022, Butler received what he remembers as a strange request from Nauta, who wanted to know if he could borrow an Escalade from the car service Butler ran for Mar-a-Lago. Trump and his family were about to fly to New Jersey that day for the summer, and it was typically Butler and his valets who handled getting their luggage onto the plane.

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El Paso Matters - March 12, 2024

El Paso judge blocks Texas AG Ken Paxton’s effort to close Annunciation House

Attorney General Ken Paxton “acted without regard to due process and fair play” in seeking to shut down a leading migrant service provider, an El Paso judge said Monday in a ruling that blocks the state’s efforts for now. Ken Paxton “The Attorney General’s efforts to run roughshod over Annunciation House, without regard to due process or fair play, call into question the true motivation for the Attorney General’s attempt to prevent Annunciation House from providing the humanitarian and social services that it provides. There is a real and credible concern that the attempt to prevent Annunciation House from conducting business in Texas was predetermined,” 205th District Judge Francisco Dominguez said in his ruling. Dominguez said Annunciation House’s petition for declaratory judgment means the case is governed by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, which essentially blocks any action by Paxton until the court reviews the case.

The judge denied motions from Annunciation House to issue a temporary injunction or quash the attorney general’s request to examine its documents. But his ruling saying the case is subject to court rules has a similar effect of blocking further action in the case until Dominguez can review arguments about the constitutionality of Paxton’s request. The Texas Rules of Civil Procedure provide a timeline on the production of documents in a civil lawsuit. Ruben Garcia, the founder and director of Annunciation House, said he was grateful for the judge’s ruling. He said Paxton’s actions could threaten businesses across Texas. “It kind of sends a shiver through all incorporated entities in the state of Texas, because people are going to ask, does this mean that the attorney general feels that they have the authority to arrive at any institution, any business, any entity, and just walk up and say, we are submitting a request to examine. And I think that’s a really fundamental question about whether that’s a way to function,” Garcia said. Paxton’s office has not responded to a request for comment.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 12, 2024

Report: Though outgunned and underequipped, Uvalde police didn’t run from school shooter

Uvalde police officers who responded to Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, were outgunned, hamstrung by poor radio communications and missing critical pieces of equipment, notably vests and shields strong enough to provide protection from the shooter’s high-powered rifle. Those are some of the main findings of a review of the Uvalde Police Department’s performance that day. The review was conducted for the city by Jesse Prado, a retired Austin police detective who is now a private investigator and consultant. Nineteen fourth graders and two teachers were killed at Robb in the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. Perhaps Prado’s most controversial conclusion was that Uvalde officers, including those closest to the shooter, did nothing wrong, acted in “good faith” and complied with department policies.

Nearly 400 officers from two dozen local, state and federal agencies responded that day. Prado’s 182-page report focuses on Uvalde police officers. Uvalde police and officers from other law enforcement agencies have been condemned, even called cowards, for failing to storm the classroom where the gunman was holed up. When faced with an active shooter threatening innocent lives, police are trained to confront and neutralize the person immediately, even at risk to their own lives. At Robb, 77 minutes passed before a Border Patrol-led team breached the classroom and killed the gunman. But Prado said the first Uvalde officers on the scene were anything but faint-hearted. They took their active-shooter training seriously and tried to follow it, he wrote. Sgt. Daniel Page and several other officers moved toward the sound of gunfire after entering the school, Prado wrote. They encountered a hallway filled with smoke.

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State Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 12, 2024

ERCOT gets new watchdog: Texas utility regulators pick Jeff McDonald as independent market monitor.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas has named a new independent watchdog to keep tabs on the state’s grid operator and the power marketplace it operates. Jeff McDonald, who will work under a contract with Potomac Economics, has been working in the U.S. wholesale electric marketplace for more than two decades. The previous independent market monitor, who resigned after butting heads with grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas over analysis that found it was unnecessarily costing Texas utilities billions of dollars annually, was also under contract with Potomac Economics. “We are very proud to continue serving the state of Texas and the ERCOT market in this important role,” Potomac President David Patton said in a statement.

“Jeff’s deep expertise and decades of experience make him the perfect person to lead the IMM team in Texas and ensure the market is operating efficiently, fairly and competitively.” Previously, McDonald has had monitoring positions in regional transmission organizations that managed grids in New England and California. Prior to joining Potomac, he held leadership roles at Concentric Energy Advisors and Libertas Market Analysis. “Jeff is uniquely qualified for this role, having led market monitoring efforts in major wholesale electricity markets across the country,” PUC Interim Executive Director Connie Corona said in a statement. “His experience working with other large grid operators around the country will give us an expert perspective on the ERCOT region and how we can continue to improve reliability and affordability for Texas energy customers.” Texas statute created the independent market monitor role in 2005. It works with staff of the PUC, which is charged with overseeing ERCOT, and was designed to protect consumers.

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Texas Monthly - March 12, 2024

More migrants are drowning in the Rio Grande than ever. No agency is keeping track of how many.

Ever since immigration policies have been enforced along the Rio Grande, migrants have drowned trying to cross it. In 1920 eleven Mexican laborers trying to avoid border officials under cover of night perished when their skiff overturned in the river. In 1945 law enforcement agencies in Hidalgo County, home to McAllen, had hauled thirty bodies from the water by August of that year, while officials in Cameron County, just downstream, recovered nineteen in a single week. But the pace of drownings has increased rapidly in recent years, according to Stephanie Leutert, a researcher at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. During the Clinton presidency, U.S. immigration policy was designed to funnel migrants into dangerous crossing areas—the punishingly hot Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts, for instance—to deter them by appealing to their survival instincts. The policy has remained in place through subsequent Republican and Democratic administrations. Leutert estimates, conservatively, that 2,700 migrants drowned in the Rio Grande between 1997 and 2022. (Based on early data she has seen, 2023 was less deadly than 2022 but still one of the deadliest years for migrant drownings.)

By 2021 the section of river that divides Eagle Pass from Piedras Negras had become ground zero for Texas’s immigration enforcement. State troopers and national guardsmen had unrolled spools of concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande and later would set buoys in the river. Drownings there continue to mount: according to the Eagle Pass Fire Department, at least seventeen migrants had drowned in 2024 as of mid-February. No U.S. or Mexican agency, however, keeps a comprehensive count of migrant deaths. U.S. Border Patrol maintains a national database of such fatalities, but a damning 2022 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the agency failed to record all incidents and to report them to Congress as it is required to do by law. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection has worked to address the GAO’s recommendations. Spokespeople declined to discuss the particulars of migrant deaths that occurred in 2022 or 2023.) Between September 2021 and September 2022, the most recent period with available data, the Border Patrol recorded 895 migrant deaths along the southwest border, 172 of them “water related.” The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration determined that the U.S.-Mexico border is the world’s most dangerous land frontier for migrants. The difficulties in accounting for drowning deaths are partly geographic. The Rio Grande flows past fourteen Texas counties and four Mexican states. The direction and strength of the current on a given day can dictate on whose shore a migrant’s corpse is found, which can determine how a death is recorded and what efforts are made to identify the body. Officials in the two nations occasionally share information, if it helps assist with an investigation, but they are not required to do so.

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Houston Chronicle - March 12, 2024

Houston chief development officer Andy Icken resigns from John Whitmire's administration

Houston’s chief development officer Andy Icken has resigned, marking the latest major departure from Mayor John Whitmire’s administration. The chief development officer, a key position in the mayor’s office, is tasked with promoting economic growth and recruiting businesses and investors to Houston. The officer oversees a number of economic development tools and tax incentive initiatives, including Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones, which have long sparked controversy for trapping city revenue in affluent neighborhoods. Icken, who joined the city almost two decades ago, initially served as the deputy director of Houston’s Public Works Department until former Mayor Annise Parker appointed him to the role of chief development officer.

Under Parker, Icken spearheaded efforts to expand the reinvestment zone program and create more than two dozen tax reimbursement deals that led to construction of more downtown residential towers and mixed-use projects. During this period, some council members openly called Icken the "mini-mayor" for his sway over the administration's policy. Former Mayor Sylvester Turner kept Icken in the same position and asked him to get involved in developing Complete Communities, Turner’s signature community development initiative that later received mixed reactions from the neighborhoods involved. The program has since been moved under the Mayor's Office of Complete Communities. After nearly 18 years spanning four administrations, Icken left the city last week, according to Mary Benton, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. She added there is currently no timeline to replace Icken, and Whitmire will take the necessary time to review the position and select the right individual.

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Baptist Press - March 12, 2024

Abuse allegations a blight on Pressler legacy

Paul Pressler is a study in contrasts. To many, he was a hero of the SBC’s Conservative Resurgence, a mastermind of the strategy that helped turn the nation’s largest Protestant denomination back to its conservative theological roots. He was rewarded for that accomplishment with unopposed election as the Convention’s first vice president in 2002. Pressler’s book about the Resurgence, “A Hill on Which to Die,” was published by Lifeway Christian Resources in 1999 and received broad dissemination. Former SBC president Adrian Rogers was among the book’s endorsers. “No one can better tell the story [of the Conservative Resurgence] than Paul Pressler,” wrote Rogers, then-pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn. “Southern Baptists owe an incredible debt to this man.”

But hints of a darker side to Pressler, a former Texas state judge, began to emerge two decades ago. The church where he served as a deacon, Houston’s First Baptist Church, rebuked Pressler for being nude at his home with a young man from the congregation. “Your encouraging (name redacted) to be naked with you conflicts with the 2003 HFBC Deacon Document that you and other deacons personally endorsed,” a First Baptist committee wrote in a 2004 letter to Pressler. “… We believe it is biblical and consistent with the culture of HFBC to hereby communicate an expectation that you no longer engage in behavior such as occurred with (name redacted) on the night in question.” First Baptist did not respond to BP’s request for comment. Also in 2004, Pressler settled a lawsuit by Duane Rollins that alleged assault by Pressler, according to more recent court filings. In exchange for confidentiality and the destruction of “all tapes, affidavits or other written or audible information,” Pressler agreed to pay $1,500 per month until 2029 – nearly half a million dollars. Then things got worse. In 2016, a young lawyer named Brooks Schott alleged Pressler invited him to engage in sexual activity. According to Schott’s 2018 sworn statement, when he told the office manager at his law firm about what happened, the office manager replied “this was not the first time that Pressler had acted inappropriately around young men.”

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WFAA - March 12, 2024

Cowboys QB Dak Prescott files lawsuit against woman accusing him of sexual assault, calls allegations an "extortion plot"

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has filed a civil lawsuit -- and also filed a criminal report -- against a woman who has accused him of sexual assault and demanded $100 million in exchange for not reporting the alleged incident to police. Prescott filed his suit against the woman and her lawyers on Monday. Police in Prosper confirm to WFAA that it received a reported Attempted Theft by Coercion filing on Monday as well. In a press release detailing the suit they filed on their client's behalf, Prescott's lawyers say the All-Pro quarterback is the victim of an "extortion plot" and deny the allegations that he sexually assaulted the woman in question, calling it "a completely fabricated story."

In the alleged letter sent to Prescott's legal team and included in Monday's court filings, the woman's legal team alleged that Prescott sexually assaulted their client on or about Feb. 2, 2017, after the end of Prescott's rookie NFL season. "Mr. Prescott -- a new father to a baby girl -- has great empathy for survivors of sexual assault," the press release from Prescott's legal team reads. "He fervently believes that all perpetrators of such crimes should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. To be clear, Mr. Prescott has never engaged in any nonconsensual sexual conduct with anyone." The letter states that the woman and Prescott became acquainted through her job, and that he invited her to hang out after talking on Snapchat. When the two eventually met up, the letter states Prescott picked the woman up in Plano while accompanied by "two members of [his] entourage" and "a couple additional female friends." At some point, the letter included in the filing states, the group allegedly entered a black SUV, and Prescott directed the woman to the back of the vehicle. At that point, the letter alleges, Prescott exposed his genitals.

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Dallas Morning News - March 12, 2024

UT Southwestern reports data breach affecting more than 2,000 Texans

Nearly 2,100 people at UT Southwestern Medical Center have been affected by a data security breach that included medical and health insurance information, addresses and dates of birth. The academic hospital reported the breach to the office of the attorney general on March 7. It has not yet contacted customers regarding the information that may have been accessed, according to the report. “We consider the protection of our patients’ privacy of utmost importance and regret the occurrence of this incident. UT Southwestern provided initial notification to the OAG in compliance with state regulations,” a UT Southwestern spokesperson said in a statement. “We are assessing the data to prepare notifications to those impacted in accordance with federal regulations. The incident involved internal use of unapproved software and did not involve a cyberattack or external exposure of data.”

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Dallas Morning News - March 12, 2024

Dallas’ T.C. Broadnax was among several last-minute applicants for Austin City Manager job

Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax applied for the same job in Austin one day before the Feb. 26 deadline — which was four days after his resignation was announced, according to his cover letter. Of the 39 people who applied for the Austin City Manager job, Broadnax was at least one of nine people whose application materials are dated either the day before or the day of the deadline. That group includes the other two named finalists alongside Broadnax, Denton City Manager Sara Hensley and Kansas City (Mo.) City Manager Brian Platt. In his résumé and cover letter, which was obtained by The Dallas Morning News through a public records request, Broadnax touts his leadership of Dallas emphasizing his strategies in addressing public safety, equity and inclusion, housing and homelessness, transportation, economic development, historic preservation, community engagement and other areas. He wrote that he is committed to local government and “eager to work in partnership with the mayor and City Council to advance the city of Austin and take the city to the next level.”

“My professional work experience provides a solid local government management foundation, well-suited for the responsibilities and duties of this position,” Broadnax’s cover letter said. “As the city manager of the city of Dallas, TX, my skills, and abilities qualify me for this position and allow me to bring a unique perspective and proven record in city management, financial, and operational performance to support the Austin City Council’s goals for the next city manager.” A review by The News of the résumés and cover letters for all 39 applicants shows Broadnax is the only one with experience as a city manager leading a city comparable to the size of Austin, which has the 10th largest population in the country with more than 970,000 residents. The next closest is Platt, who has managed the municipal government operations for a city of more than 500,000 residents since 2020. Platt announced Sunday that he was withdrawing his name for consideration for Austin city manager. The Kansas City Star reported Monday that the Kansas City Council recently authorized negotiations to extend Platt’s contract on the condition he drop out of Austin’s city manager search. Since March 2022, Hensley has been the permanent city manager in Denton, which has around 150,000 residents. Between May 2019 and March 2022, she has worked as Denton’s interim city manager, deputy city manager, and assistant city manager, according to her résumé. She also worked as an interim Austin assistant city manager for two years starting in March 2017 and was Austin’s parks and recreation director from December 2008 to March 2017.

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Dallas Morning News - March 12, 2024

$588 million in financing propels Texas solar project involving Microsoft

More than half a billion dollars in financing will propel a North Texas solar project forward. The Ash Creek Solar project, located on thousands of acres in Hill County south of Dallas, recently closed commitments of $588 million in debt financing that includes a construction loan, tax credits and other letters of credit. Technology giant Microsoft has agreed to buy the solar plant’s entire capacity under a long-term deal. Its capacity can power about 90,000 homes for a year. Primergy Solar LLC is behind the project in the communities of Penelope and Abbott. Ash Creek Solar was originally developed as a joint venture between Orion Renewable Energy Group LLC and Eolian. It was acquired by Primergy in 2021.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 12, 2024

Cindy Offutt: Rep. Tony Gonzales should vote to protect national security by helping Ukraine

(Cindy Offutt is a U.S. Air Force veteran who lives in Fair Oaks Ranch.) I implore Rep. Tony Gonzales to support sending urgently needed weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. My husband and I are both retired from the U.S. Air Force. We can't comprehend how he and his Republican colleagues in the House can continue to ignore the extremely urgent needs of Ukrainians in the defense of their country. Gonzales retired from the U.S. Navy, so I can't understand how he could not support sending further assistance to the incredibly resolute and brave Ukrainian resistance. I'm heartsick at the recent loss of the Ukranian city Avdiivka, due in large part to Republican obstinance and the party's incomprehensible and unforgivable failure to stand firm with an ally.

Ukraine is fighting at the vanguard of the West’s escalating conflict against authoritarianism and autocracy, and against tyrants who are willing to ignore a country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in their quest for land and power. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a clear and present danger to the West. He must be stopped in Ukraine and deterred from advancing any farther into Europe or Asia. My assumption as to why Gonzales and his fellow Republican leaders in Congress are objecting to further aid to Ukraine is that, in lockstep fashion, they oppose any and all efforts from the Biden administration. They do this knowingly, without regard for the effects on the national security of our country or that of our allies. They need to consider the humanitarian reasons for supporting Ukraine. Putin’s invasion has been unbelievably brutal. He has ordered indiscriminate attacks against civilians, encouraged (and perhaps ordered) Russian troops to commit all manner of violent crimes against the Ukrainian people, and kidnapped Ukrainian children and had them brought to Russia.

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San Antonio Express-News - March 12, 2024

Federal judge rules on oil and gas businessman Brian Alfaro's bid for shorter prison sentence

Convicted felon Brian Alfaro, the former San Antonio oil and gas businessman who swindled investors, has failed in a bid to have his eight-year prison sentence cut short. U.S District Judge Fred Biery on Friday denied Alfaro’s request to have the sentence shortened to 78 months from 97 months. Alfaro, 55, argued in a Feb. 20 motion that his term of imprisonment was based on a sentencing range that had since been shortened by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that establishes policies and practices for federal courts. Those include guidelines for the appropriate form and severity of punishment. Biery ruled Alfaro is ineligible for a reduction in part because he caused “substantial financial hardship” to at least one of his victims.

The judge also found he wasn’t eligible for a reduction because he hadn’t been assessed “status points” in his case. Such points are included as part of the sentencing guidelines if a defendant committed his offense “while under any criminal justice sentence, including probation, parole, supervised release, imprisonment or work release, or escape status.” A defendant may be eligible for a sentence reduction if he didn’t already receive an adjustment for his “aggravating role” in the crime and was not engaged in a “continuing criminal enterprise.” But Biery ruled Alfaro had received an adjustment and had engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise. After an eight-day trial in 2020, a jury found Alfaro guilty on seven counts of mail fraud. His company promoted oil and gas wells to investors, who bought units in the drilling projects.

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Inside Climate News - March 12, 2024

Proposed new lake OK’d to fuel petrochemical expansion on Texas Coast

Texas regulators last month approved water rights for a new, 2,500-acre reservoir to meet the growing needs of chemical plants, refineries and other industries on the Gulf Coast. A draft permit issued Feb. 23 by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality authorizes the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority to divert up to 31 billion gallons per year from the Lavaca River. It would go into a reservoir proposed on property that Formosa Plastics owns, about 2 miles east of its massive Point Comfort chemical complex, where the company has quietly pursued permits to expand in recent years since its Louisiana megaproject has been stalled by legal complaints. The draft will undergo a 30-day period of public comment before being adopted.

It’s the first time in 50 years that the small river authority has sought additional water rights, general manager Patrick Brzozowski said. “There is interest in our area to develop industrial plants,” he said. “That’s where the demand is going to come from.” The 20-year-old fracking boom in Texas continues to fuel a downstream buildout on the coast, where pipelines deliver oil and gas to enormous facilities that refine it into chemical products or prepare it for export by sea. Around Lavaca Bay, this mostly rural middle section of the Texas Gulf Coast still lacks the great conglomerations of chemical manufacturers that ring the water at Houston and Port Arthur to the north and Corpus Christi to the south. Here, a single actor reins supreme: Formosa Plastics, a $460 billion Taiwanese company, and its 2,500-acre complex on Lavaca Bay, which turns Texas shale gas into the materials for common single-use plastics.

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Associated Press - March 12, 2024

Federal judge in Texas blocks US labor board rule that would make it easier for workers to unionize

A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new rule by the National Labor Relations Board that would have made it easier for millions of workers to form unions at big companies. The rule, which was due to go into effect Monday, would have set new standards for determining when two companies should be considered “joint employers” in labor negotiations. Under the current NLRB rule, which was passed by a Republican-dominated board in 2020, a company like McDonald’s isn’t considered a joint employer of most of its workers since they are directly employed by franchisees. The new rule would have expanded that definition to say companies may be considered joint employers if they have the ability to control — directly or indirectly — at least one condition of employment. Conditions include wages and benefits, hours and scheduling, the assignment of duties, work rules and hiring.

The NLRB argued a change is necessary because the current rule makes it too easy for companies to avoid their legal responsibility to bargain with workers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups — including the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the International Franchise Association and the National Retail Federation — sued the NLRB in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas in November to block the rule. They argued the new rule would upend years of precedent and could make companies liable for workers they don’t employ at workplaces they don’t own. In his decision Friday granting the plaintiffs' motion for a summary judgement, U.S. District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker concluded that the NLRB’s new rule would be “contrary to law” and that it was “arbitrary and capricious” in regard to how it would change the existing rule. Barker found that by establishing an array of new conditions to be used to determine whether a company meets the standard of a joint employer, the NRLB's new rule exceeds “the bounds of the common law.” The NRLB is reviewing the court's decision and considering its next steps in the case, the agency said in a statement Saturday.

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Dallas Morning News - March 12, 2024

Feds release nearly 2,000 pages of new information related to deadly Dallas air show crash

The National Transportation Safety Board published Monday an in-depth look into the moments before, during and after the 2022 Dallas air show crash that killed six people. The public docket consists of nearly 2,000 pages of new information, including interview transcripts, photos, medical and toxicology reports, maintenance records and laboratory examinations. It is not a final report and does not declare a cause for the crash. On Nov. 12, 2022, two World War II-era planes, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra, collided at Dallas Executive Airport during the Wings Over Dallas show. One pilot was in the P-63 while two pilots and three crew members were in the B-17.

The Commemorative Air Force, which hosted the show, identified the men who died as Terry Barker, Craig Hutain, Kevin Michels, Dan Ragan, Len Root and Curt Rowe. No one on the ground was injured or killed. A short, preliminary investigative report was released less than three weeks after the crash, and officials have said the final report was expected to take 12 to 18 months from the date of the incident. The federal safety board did not provide an updated timeline Monday, but said the final report will include analysis, findings, recommendations and probable cause determinations. Skies were clear when both airplanes departed at 1 p.m. No wind gusts were present and no turbulence was reported, officials said. The Bell P-63 Kingcobra sat one pilot and had one engine. Craig Hutain, 63, of Montgomery, was flying in the single-seat plane and wearing a four-point restraint, similar to a harness that goes over a person’s shoulders. Pilots are required by the Federal Aviation Administration to be cleared for medical purposes, both physically and mentally. Hutain’s last medical certificate was Nov. 1, 2022, and he had no limitations.

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County Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 12, 2024

Ex-Hays County GOP official sentenced to 410 years in child sex abuse case

A former official with the Hays County Republican Party has been sentenced to more than 400 years in prison after pleading guilty to child sexual abuse and child pornography charges. Bo Michael Dresner, 44, pleaded guilty to 65 counts of continuous sexual abuse of multiple children and possession of child pornography with intent to promote, according to court records. State District Judge Gary Steel sentenced Dresner to consecutive 75-year sentences on each of four counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child. He added stacked sentences from 10 to 20 years on the 61 child pornography charges for a total of 410 years. Hays County District Attorney Kelly Higgins said in a news release Monday that Dresner changed his plea to guilty after his trial started, during the first day of testimony.

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City Stories

San Antonio Current - March 12, 2024

San Antonio Express-News' parent continues expansion into Austin

San Antonio Express-News owner Hearst Media is continuing its push into the Austin market, having snapped up magazines Austin Monthly and Austin Home from Open Sky Media Inc. over the weekend, the newspaper's publisher, Mark Medici, said in a Saturday LinkedIn post. Word of the acquisitions comes three months after Hearst finalized its purchase of San Antonio Magazine, another OpenSky publication, for around $150,000 and a month after the Express-News launched its Austin-based online newsletter Austin Daily. "Austin Monthly is an iconic city magazine, and reinforces our commitment to sustaining but growing local journalism in the fastest growing region in the country," Medici wrote on LinkedIn.

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National Stories

Washington Post - March 12, 2024

RNC fires dozens of employees after Trump-backed leadership takes over

The new leadership team at the Republican National Committee — picked by former president Donald Trump — started firing dozens of employees days after taking over, according to three people familiar with the firings who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. About 60 people were told they were no longer employed, according to a person with direct knowledge of the changes. One of the people familiar with the firings said data, political and communications staffers were affected, and notifications were made on Monday by Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump adviser who was at the RNC’s Capitol Hill headquarters. LaCivita had complained about the staff of the RNC for several months, people who spoke to him said, and long planned to make changes. The Trump adviser had studied the organization’s payroll and employees for several weeks, the person said.

LaCivita also told some contractors that they would not be renewed, and some of the ousters included employees who worked in the campaign’s state offices. Some staffers were described as shocked by the firings, which took place over the course of the day. “Gutting a committee just before the election seems insane,” said a former RNC employee. An email sent to some RNC employees from chief operating officer Sean Cairncross, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post, said “certain staff are being asked to resign and reapply.” The email went on to say that those employees who did not reapply would have their last day with the RNC on March 31. The RNC voted Friday to install the new leaders, which include Michael Whatley as chair and Lara Trump as co-chair. Lara Trump is the former president’s daughter-in-law. LaCivita, a top aide for Trump’s 2024 campaign, took over as the committee’s chief of staff. In a speech Friday, Whatley said the RNC “will work hand in glove with President Trump’s campaign” as he faces an expected rematch against President Biden. The RNC is at a crossroads in a critical election year. According to a January campaign finance filing, it had a historically low $8.7 million cash on hand compared with $24 million at the Democratic National Committee. More broadly, Trump and his allies are racing to close a fundraising gap with Biden and his affiliated groups.

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Associated Press - March 12, 2024

House GOP moves ahead with TikTok vote as Trump voices opposition to possible ban

House Republicans are moving ahead with a bill that would require Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States even as former President Donald Trump is voicing opposition to the effort. House leadership has scheduled a vote on the measure for Wednesday. A Republican congressional aide not authorized to speak publicly said that's still the plan and there has not been significant pushback to the bill from lawmakers. A vote for the bill would represent an unusual break with the former president by House Republicans, but Speaker Mike Johnson and others have already forcefully come out in favor of the bill, and dropping it now would represent a significant reversal. "It's an important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security," Johnson declared last week.

Trump said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss. "Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it," Trump said in a call-in interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." "There's a lot of good and there's a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don't like is that without TikTok you're going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media." "When I look at it, I'm not looking to make Facebook double the size," he added. "I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections." Trump has repeatedly complained about Facebook's role during the 2020 election, which he still refuses to concede he lost to President Joe Biden. That includes at least $400 million that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife donated to two nonprofit organizations that distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Washington Post - March 12, 2024

How a doctored photo of the Princess of Wales triggered a media crisis

Paul Clarke, a veteran photographer, was out rowing on the River Thames in the rain Sunday when his phone started lighting up. The royal family had just released a photo of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her three children — officially, a greeting in honor of Mother’s Day in Britain, yet one that also arrived amid frenzied speculation about the future queen’s striking absence from the public eye since abdominal surgery in January. Clarke is an expert in the art of editing and retouching photos, and friends wanted his opinion of the image. He quickly noticed some, uh — inconsistencies. What was up with Princess Charlotte’s hand, which seemed distorted by the cuff of her sleeve? Why were her mother’s fingers so blurry against the crisp knit of Prince Louis’s sweater? Were those glints of professional catchlights in the family’s eyes, in a photo supposedly snapped by Prince William? The photo, Clarke noted in a social media post that quickly went viral, contained “numerous … manipulations easily visible.”

He added: “What *were* they thinking?” Within hours, the major news wire services that had circulated the palace photos — companies such as Getty Images, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press — were asking clients to stop using it because of concerns that the image had been altered in violation of their ethical standards. And on Monday, Catherine apologized: “Like many amateur photographers,” she explained in an official statement, she had “experiment[ed] with editing.”The incident highlighted a growing clash between two sets of media standards. On one side, the ever-heightening expectations of celebrity perfection — smooth faces and cellulite-free thighs, best achieved with a little Photoshopping. On the other, certain ideals of journalistic transparency and integrity that are increasingly under assault as artificial intelligence deepfakes and cries of “fake news” have wormed their way into culture.It also raised questions about whether an awkward crisis PR effort by Kensington Palace to address mounting anxiety and wild conspiracy theories about Catherine — whose last public appearance was Christmas Day — had only exacerbated the situation.

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Reuters - March 12, 2024

Goldman Sachs seeks to expand private credit portfolio to $300 billion in five years

Goldman Sachs Asset Management, a unit of Goldman Sachs Group aims to expand its private credit portfolio to $300 billion in five years from the current $130 billion, a senior executive said, laying out an aggressive expansion plan. "It's a huge opportunity," Marc Nachmann, Goldman's global head of asset and wealth management, told Reuters in an interview. Goldman's private credit aspirations are larger than those of its peers, including Morgan Stanley which aims to double its private credit portfolio to $50 billion in the medium term as it gathers funds from large investors.

JPMorgan Chase has earmarked at least $10 billion for private credit, and Wells Fargo and Citigroup have set up partnerships to get deeper into the market. Of the $40 billion to $50 billion Goldman plans to raise for alternative investments this year, at least a third will be dedicated to financing private credit strategies, he said. Non-bank lenders, or shadow banks, have expanded their lending in recent years as they faced fewer regulatory hurdles than traditional lenders. Wall Street banks have also joined forces with private equity giants and asset managers to expand their private credit businesses. Goldman Sachs has been active in private credit for almost three decades. The asset management arm has a variety of strategies for private credit for different tiers of investors in companies who get paid back depending on the type of debt or equity they hold, Nachmann said. Goldman Sachs has touted asset and wealth management as a growth area as it stepped back from an ill-fated foray into consumer banking. Its investment banking and trading division accounts for about 70% of the firm's revenue. Nachmann, a three-decade Goldman veteran, was put in charge of asset and wealth management after CEO David Solomon merged the businesses in 2022.

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Oregon Capital Chronicle - March 12, 2024

Gov. Kotek signing expansive drug addiction bill while reviewing other proposals

Gov. Tina Kotek said she plans to sign the centerpiece bill that lawmakers passed in response to the state’s soaring drug addiction and fentanyl overdoses. House Bill 4002, a compromise proposal that won bipartisan support, will recriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs, reversing part of Measure 110, which voters approved in 2020. The bill has provisions to offer drug users multiple opportunities to enter treatment after an encounter with a police officer. “Finally, reforms to Measure 110 will start to take shape, as I intend to sign House Bill 4002 and the related prevention and treatment investments within the next 30 days,” Kotek said in a statement released late Thursday. “As governor, my focus is on implementation.”

She has 30 business days to sign or veto the 115 bills that were passed, and once that happens, the $211 million lawmakers approved can be distributed. It would provide money for outpatient clinics, residential facilities, sobering centers, opioid treatment in jail, public defenders and court diversion programs. They also allocated $18 million for recovery houses. A new misdemeanor would take effect in September, with up to 180 days in jail if probation is revoked. Kotek said she’ll closely monitor the rollout, specifically its impact on communities of color. “House Bill 4002 will require persistent action and commitment from state and local government to uphold the intent that the Legislature put forward: to balance treatment for individuals struggling with addiction and accountability,” Kotek said.

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Washington Post - March 12, 2024

White House-Justice Dept. tensions high as Hur prepares to testify on Hill

When Robert K. Hur testifies to Congress on Tuesday about his investigation of President Biden’s handling of classified documents, he is expected to defend a special counsel process created to shield fraught cases from political interference. But Hur’s testimony will also highlight how Attorney General Merrick Garland’s use of special counsels to handle the most politically sensitive cases has calcified tensions between the White House and the Justice Department. It will be the first time Hur has addressed the public since his special counsel report last month on why he would not seek to charge Biden for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his vice presidency. He said in the report that a jury might see Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” not a criminal trying to break the law.

Biden and his top aides exploded at that portrait of the 81-year-old president, whose age and cognitive abilities have become a crucial issue in the 2024 presidential race. The report fueled White House anger at Garland, who Biden aides say has over-relied on special counsels — including to investigate the president’s son, Hunter — in a way they believe has insulated the attorney general from some of the Justice Department’s toughest decisions. To many, Garland has been dealt an improbable hand: Unprecedented Justice Department investigations into Biden and former president Donald Trump as they prepare to face off in the 2024 election. The separate probe of Hunter Biden, whose legal troubles stem from years of drug addiction. A mandate to insulate the Justice Department from politics at a time when Trump and his allies repeatedly, and without evidence, claim the investigations of his actions are politically motivated. In all these cases, the Justice Department says that following protocol and requests by prosecutors, Garland had no choice but to appoint special counsels. White House officials and Biden allies, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, see it differently. They accuse Garland of allowing prosecutor David Weiss’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s business dealings to drag on for years, only to result in a plea deal that embarrassingly collapsed in public and led to Weiss’s appointment as a special counsel. Two indictments quickly followed — on gun and tax charges — that Biden allies say would not be levied against most Americans in similar circumstances.

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New York Times - March 12, 2024

Anti-Trump group of Republicans lays out $50 million plan of attack

A Republican group dedicated to opposing former President Donald J. Trump is planning to spend $50 million to stop him through a series of homemade testimonial videos of voters who backed him in past elections but say they can no longer support him in 2024. The group, Republican Voters Against Trump, first emerged in the 2020 campaign and made a return appearance for the 2022 midterm elections. It is run by Sarah Longwell, a leading figure in Never-Trump politics whose focus groups and polling are a staple of center-right podcasts and have made her a go-to figure for political reporters aiming to decipher the motivations behind Trump supporters. Unlike Democratic organizations that aim to help President Biden by promoting his record in office, Ms. Longwell’s group focuses solely on attacking Mr. Trump through the voices of his former backers. The Republican Voters Against Trump website features 100 videos, from one to three minutes long, of Republicans speaking to a computer or mobile-phone camera about why they voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 or 2020 and will not do so in 2024.

The personal testimonial style, Ms. Longwell said, has proved far more successful in her focus groups at cleaving Trump voters away from him than traditional attack advertising that contrasts Mr. Trump with Mr. Biden. Notably, the speakers in the videos do not praise Mr. Biden or offer a case for why he deserves a second term. Nor do any of the initial testimonials address abortion rights — the issue that has powered Democratic electoral victories since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022. “It’s really important to understand you’re not building a pro-Joe Biden coalition,” Ms. Longwell said. “You’re building an anti-Trump coalition.” In 2020, Republican Voters Against Trump ended the presidential campaign with more than 1,000 homemade videos on its website of people who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but said they would not do so again. For 2024, the group is starting with 100 testimonials and instructions on its website for past Trump supporters to submit their own stories. So far, the anti-Trump Republicans who have recorded their thoughts for Ms. Longwell have focused on Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, blaming him for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

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