Lead Stories

Consumers are ‘running out of money’ and cutting back, CEOs warn

Executives across retail, restaurants and packaged goods are increasingly worried about US shoppers with tighter budgets amid surging gas prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East. “They’re literally running out of money at the end of the month,” Kraft Heinz Co. Chief Executive Officer Steve Cahillane said in an interview this week. “We’re seeing negative cash flows in the lower-income brackets where they’re dipping into savings.” Since the pandemic, Americans have continued to spend at surprising levels despite high inflation, keeping the US economy growing and thwarting recession fears. But rising fuel costs might be too much to overcome. “The war in Iran amplified consumer concerns about the cost of living,” Whirlpool Corp. CEO Marc Bitzer said Thursday on a call with analysts.

The maker of washers and dryers said it’s counting on purchases picking up after a harsh US winter slowed shopping, but the war caused a collapse in consumer sentiment. The company described the resulting 15% hit to industry demand as similar to the global financial crisis in the aughts. In fast food, McDonald’s Corp. CEO Chris Kempczinski said confidence among shoppers isn’t improving and may be getting worse. The company cited “heightened anxiety” and gas prices that disproportionately impact low-income consumers. Sit-down dining is also taking a hit. “Our price-sensitive, more value-oriented guests seem to be staying home a bit more,” Dine Brands Global Inc. CEO John Peyton said on an earnings call this week. The company, which owns the Applebee’s and IHOP chains, said it hasn’t seen a similar pullback in other income levels. Eyewear retailer Warby Parker Inc. said younger shoppers are feeling the pinch from higher-than-usual unemployment and student debt bills. Gas prices, now at $4.56 a gallon on average, are at their highest levels since July 2022, according to data from the American Automobile Association. As shoppers put more of their income toward fuel, they have less money for discretionary spending like eating out. Enlarged tax refunds helped blunt some of the impact, but sentiment has still soured to a record low.

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Mayor John Whitmire unanimously endorsed by Houston police union PAC for reelection

A month after the president of the Houston Police Officers Union implied he wouldn’t support Mayor John Whitmire's reelection bid next year, the union's political action committee unanimously voted to endorse him Thursday. “HPOU stands with Mayor Whitmire because he stands with Houston police officers and the communities we proudly serve,” the union wrote on social media. “He has also shown a willingness to make tough decisions and take on the long-term issues facing our city instead of kicking the can down the road." Neither the union nor the mayor's office immediately responded to requests for comment Thursday afternoon. Whitmire's office has not responded to requests for comment from the Houston Chronicle since August.

Whitmire for decades has been a close ally of the union, which endorsed his initial run for mayor in 2023. Whitmire then negotiated a five-year contract giving police officers raises of 36.5% at a cost to the city of almost $1 billion. The context made HPOU's recent rift with the mayor over the city's work with federal immigration agents notable. Whitmire initially supported an ordinance the council passed last month limiting police cooperation with U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement. After the vote, HPOU president Doug Griffith said the union wouldn’t support any council members who voted for the ICE ordinance, and told Houston Public Media "that will include the mayor." The union quickly changed course, however, saying endorsements would be made by its political action committee. Whitmire later pushed the council to amend its ICE ordinance after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull $114 million in public safety grants if the city did not act. The Houston Police Department has now returned to the ICE policy it used last year, before the issue roiled City Hall this spring.

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U.S. intelligence says Iran can outlast Trump’s Hormuz blockade for months

A confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers this week concludes that Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship, four people familiar with the document said, a finding that appears to raise new questions about President Donald Trump’s optimism on ending the war. The analysis by the U.S. intelligence community, whose secret assessments on Iran have often been more sober than the administration’s public statements, also found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense U.S. and Israeli bombardment, three of the people familiar with it said. Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began.

Trump painted a rosier picture in Oval Office remarks on Wednesday, saying of Iran: “Their missiles are mostly decimated, they have probably 18, 19 percent, but not a lot by comparison to what they had.” Three current and one former U.S. official confirmed the outlines of the intelligence analysis, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. Asked for comment, a senior U.S. intelligence official emphasized the blockade’s impact. “The President’s blockade is inflicting real, compounding damage — severing trade, crushing revenue, and accelerating systemic economic collapse. Iran’s military has been badly degraded, its navy destroyed, and its leaders are in hiding,” the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said in a statement. “What’s left is the regime’s appetite for civilian suffering — starving its own people to prolong a war it has already lost.” Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials have consistently presented the war as an overwhelming U.S. military victory, despite Iran’s rejection of Washington’s demands that it abandon nuclear enrichment, surrender its uranium stockpiles, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and take other steps.

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Hackers breach Canvas learning platform, exposing data on millions of students and teachers

A cybersecurity attack on the nation's most widely used classroom software has potentially exposed the personal data of millions of students and educators across the country. Instructure, the company that runs the Canvas learning management system used by more than 7,000 universities, K-12 districts and education ministries worldwide, disclosed the breach to affected institutions this week. The company confirmed names, email addresses, student ID numbers and private messages between users had been accessed before the breach was contained. Canvas was offline Thursday evening as the company placed the app in maintenance mode after reports of users encountering issues logging into student ePortfolios. By late Thursday, Instructure said most users should be able to access the app.

Canvas is used by 41% of higher education institutions across North America to deliver courses. Millions of K-12 students rely on it as well. In North Carolina alone, the state Department of Public Instruction has used Canvas across all public K-12 schools since 2015. The criminal extortion group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack. On a dark web leak site, the group alleged it had stolen more than 3.65 terabytes of data and threatened to release it unless its demands were met. The group said it stole roughly 275 million records tied to students, teachers and staff, and shared a list of 8,809 school districts, universities and online education platforms it claims were affected. ShinyHunters warned that a failure to pay could result in the release of "several billions of private messages among students and teachers." A ransom message on the platform appears to give Infrastructure until May 12 to respond and "negotiate a settlement" before the hackers leak information. The company stated that the affected data might have included full names, email addresses, student ID numbers and messages, but that there is no evidence passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers or financial information were exposed.

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State Stories

Two Texas residents were on cruise ship with hantavirus outbreak, CDC tells state

Two Texas residents were aboard a cruise ship that reported an outbreak of hantavirus — an infection that can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Texas health officials said Thursday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the state about the Texas passengers on the MV Hondius. The Texas Department of State Health Services, or DSHS, said the passengers had left the ship and returned to the U.S. before the outbreak was identified. Hantavirus is a “rare but severe disease that can be deadly,” according to WHO. It is typically spread when people have contact with wild rodent urine, droppings and saliva. However, DSHS said in a statement the strain in this outbreak, the Andes virus, can spread from person-to-person “in limited circumstances.” “It typically requires close, prolonged contact with a person who is actively sick with the disease,” the agency said.

“It is not known to spread through casual contact such as shaking hands or being in the same room for a few minutes. There have been no documented cases where a person without symptoms spread it to someone else.” DSHS said public health officials in Texas have reached the two individuals, who report they are not experiencing any symptoms and weren’t in contact with anyone who was sick while on the ship. The state said it will not release additional personal details about the passengers due to privacy concerns. KERA reached out to DSHS to see where in Texas the passengers are but did not immediately receive comment. The agency said the individuals agreed to “monitor themselves for symptoms with daily temperature checks” and reach out to public health officials at any sign of a possible illness. As of May 4, the World Health Organization, or WHO, said seven cases have been identified – two confirmed with lab testing and five suspected – including three deaths, one critically ill patient and three patients reporting “mild symptoms.” WHO noted the initial appearance of symptoms was characterized by “fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, rapid progression to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock.” The organization also said investigations are ongoing.

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Is Brownsville getting a refinery? America First CEO is confident; industry analyst skeptical

When Donald Trump announced on Truth Social March 10 that Brownsville would be the site of the first U.S. oil refinery to be built in 50 years, it seemed to come out of the blue. But in fact, Port of Brownsville officials have been in communication with the principals behind the proposed America First Refining (AFR) project for about a dozen years, according to Brownsville Navigation District Chairman Steve Guerra. Back in June 2024, AFR founder and CEO John Calce announced that his company (then Element Fuel Holdings) had completed the site preparation and pre-construction work for a large oil refinery at the port. In a statement, he said the company had secured the permits necessary to construct and operate a refinery with a capacity of more than 160,000 BPD, or “approximately 6.7 million gallons, per day of finished gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.”

Reuters reported at the time that Calce had tried before to build a refinery at the port, through start-up firms ARX Energy and Jupiter Brownsville LLC, one such attempt resulting in a bankruptcy filing. Now branded as AFR, the facility is designed to refine U.S. shale crude oil exclusively, which no other domestic refinery is equipped to do, the company said. AFR said the approximately $4 million project has investment from a “global supermajor,” identified by Trump as Reliance Industries, India’s largest private company and owner of the world’s largest oil refinery. The Financial Times reported that Reliance, which has not commented publicly on the deal, is committing a “modest initial outlay” of about $40 million to the project. In a May 5 phone interview with The Brownsville Herald, Calce declined to say how much Reliance is investing, but when asked about the likelihood of AFR actually getting built, said the project is moving forward with much of the pre-construction work already done. “In a lot of ways we’ve already commenced construction, because we’ve spent an extraordinary amount of money on … permitting, design, engineering etc.” he said. “In these kind of projects, so much of what you do in the development piece of it is engineering.”

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House Speaker Mike Johnson raising campaign cash in Dallas

House Speaker Mike Johnson will headline a fundraiser and “fireside chat” Friday in Dallas to ramp up efforts to protect Republican congressional candidates in November. The event, sponsored by Johnson’s Grow the Majority committee, also will feature members of the Texas congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, who is in the GOP runoff May 26 for attorney general. The Dallas fundraiser, part of a two-day North Texas swing by Johnson, comes as Republicans are mobilizing to maintain control of the House and defy the midterm pattern of the president’s party losing seats. President Donald Trump’s poll numbers have sagged this year, and rising living costs could make it harder for Republicans to hold the House.

Texas has a special role in the 2026 midterm races. Last year, Republican lawmakers redrew congressional boundaries at Trump’s request to try to add five GOP seats, sparking redistricting fights in other parts of the country. At least three of the five districts revamped to favor Republicans are competitive, so Johnson and Republicans may be forced to spend national resources to help those candidates. Texas remains a major fundraising base for Republicans, including in Democratic-controlled Dallas County. According to an invitation reviewed by The Dallas Morning News, Friday’s event is hosted by Dallas business leaders and GOP donors, including Kathy and Harlan Crow, Ross Perot Jr. and Catherine “Trinka” Taylor. Contributions range from $25,000 to $250,000.

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Despite anger over bills, Austin considers new contract with Texas Gas Service

The Austin City Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a plan to continue partnering with Texas Gas Service for another 10 years. That's even though the council and residents have had plenty of complaints about the cost of the service being provided. Two years ago, renewing the contact felt less guaranteed. The relationship between the city and Texas Gas Service, the for-profit utility that provides the city with natural gas, was in a bad place. Repeated rate hikes angered customers, and plans for another increase had City Council members suggesting they had reached a breaking point. They discussed finding another utility to work with when Austin’s contract expired in 2026, or even buying out the local distribution system entirely and creating a public gas service.

“Please, work with the city, our representatives and the outside stakeholders to meet the moment,” Council Member Ryan Alter asked representatives for the utility in 2024, “and not motivate us two years from now to really question whether this is a good partnership.” Two years later, gas bills have kept going up, public anger persists, but a new contract appears inevitable. The question is under what terms. “This [contract] is going to be well discussed before we reach the finish line. And we'll hopefully have a product in place that protects customers and limits these rate increases,” Alter said. The vote Thursday is over a proposed agreement drafted by city staff in negotiations with Texas Gas Service, that would allow the utility to continue as the the primary provider of gas for Austin homes and businesses.

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‘It chokes us out’: San Antonio Rodeo bucks county’s ‘alternate vision’ for the East Side

Seven months after voters overwhelmingly approved plans for an expanded rodeo district on the East Side, leaders of the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo are accusing Bexar County leaders of going behind their backs to pursue an “alternative vision.” In November, voters approved Propositions A and B to help fund a new Spurs arena downtown, as well as convert the existing Frost Bank Center and Freeman Coliseum grounds into a year-round stock show and rodeo district. Now Cody Davenport, executive director and CEO of the San Antonio Livestock Exhibition, says Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and county commissioners have been negotiating without them on a mixed-use development that was long expected to accompany the rodeo grounds — but as written, is “fundamentally incompatible” with the plan voters approved.

“It chokes us out,” he said. Davenport played a key role in getting Props A and B over the line in November. But the county appeared to be dragging its feet on his contract, Davenport said, and when multiple people alerted him about movement on this other vision, he sent county leaders a three-page letter expressing his frustration. In it, he vents frustration over the developer’s plans to eliminate parking, saying the rodeo wouldn’t be able to use the $193 million voters approved in Proposition A to expand the rodeo grounds and grow its event calendar. He also suggested the plan was at odds with the rodeo’s prior agreement with the county, which said that development shouldn’t interfere with or restrict rodeo activities. “[County leaders] have been presented with an alternate vision advanced by the Hunt Companies and Lincoln Group that was not presented to voters, not described on the ballot, and not approved by the public,” Davenport wrote.

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San Antonio Mayor Ortiz Jones, council standoff boils over during Project Marvel consultant contract debate

Long-simmering tensions between the mayor, council and city staff again boiled over publicly Thursday, leading Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones to cast the lone vote against the two consultant contracts related to the downtown development Project Marvel. By a 10-1 vote, council members approved two contracts, one to determine costs and the other to lead the multi-million-dollar investment surrounding a Spurs NBA arena in downtown San Antonio. The council was set to hear a briefing by City Manager Erik Walsh on the city’s plan to develop a $3 billion to $4 billion sports and entertainment district near an expanded convention center and anchored by the new arena. It would have been the first full update since January, with 37 detailed presentation slides outlining how the district study and executive program manager consultants were selected.

It also included some updates on progress toward acquiring federal and UTSA-owned properties for the development. But that briefing was pushed off to June after council members joined Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3) in agreeing that such an update should be given during a future B Session of the council, which has more time for such updates. (The previous staff update was provided during B Session on Jan. 14.) Jones again pushed for the update to occur before the vote, saying it was necessary for “transparency.” “I think it’s important that we share the information,” Jones said. “There may be questions about why we would not talk about the overall picture, or taking action on contracts related to the projects.” Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) said the entire council had met with city staff during the past two weeks and had been fully updated on progress with the project.

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Casinos are illegal in Texas. So why did Las Vegas Sands post casino software jobs in Dallas?

A year after Las Vegas Sands made an unsuccessful push to include casino gaming in a North Texas mixed-use development, the resort company has posted several jobs based out of Dallas on its website. At least nine Dallas-based jobs had been posted on the Sands website in the last 30 days as of Thursday. Posted roles are for application architects, data engineers, and technology support. One position includes a senior product manager role that leads development of the casino management systems software "from the ground up". A spokesperson with the company said that Sands does "not have any projects being undertaken in Dallas." However, the company has established an office in the area to centralize software development, strengthen operational efficiency, and "innovate at scale."

"DFW was selected for its strong concentration of skilled technology talent, robust infrastructure, and thriving innovation ecosystem supported by leading universities," Sands spokesperson Ron Reese said in an email. "The region’s connectivity across North America, cost-effective operating environment, and business-friendly policies enable sustainable growth and efficient collaboration with partners." Sands proposed rezoning a mixed-use development in Irving last year that would have included casino gaming in its destination resort, pending legalization in Texas. Following strong pushback from Irving residents, Sands took out the casino-related portion of the development plans. Those plans were ultimately approved by the Irving City Council without the casino gaming element. It was not the first time Sands floated the idea of casino gaming in Texas. Las Vegas Sands has lobbied to legalize gambling in Texas for years and formed the Texas Sands PAC in 2022.

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Abbott orders North Texas Muslim school to stop offering degrees

Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that the Texas American Muslim University at Dallas, a North Texas school that advertises degree programs with Islamic studies courses, must cease operations. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board said the school is offering higher education courses and degrees without a proper certificate of authority, violating Texas laws for operating a higher education institution. At Abbott’s direction, the state agency ordered the school, which is based in Richardson, to cease advertising its programs and enrolling students. “Texas will not allow illegal educational institutions to operate in our state,” Abbott wrote Thursday in a post on X. Shahid Bajwa, the school’s founder, said the school was “actively engaging” with state officials to “clarify any misunderstandings and to ensure full compliance with state regulations.”

Bajwa said that the school, which started its first semester in October 2025 with 26 students, was aware of the state’s process for authorization. School leaders are “in the process of seeking the necessary authorizations and accreditation and will not offer degrees until all regulatory approvals are secured,” he said in a statement Thursday evening. The school has not granted degrees, certificates or credentials, he said, adding that it is primarily funded through donations. Abbott’s directive comes as state leaders have increasingly scrutinized Islamic schools and sought to curtail activities hosted by Muslim groups. The state comptroller’s office initially held up dozens of Islamic K-12 schools from enrolling in Texas’ new voucher-like program, with Abbott deeming the schools sites of “radical Islamic indoctrination.” Texas American Muslim University at Dallas, whose website says its “north star” is to “advance Texas,” advertises itself as the first university in the country to offer STEM degree programs with mandatory courses in Islamic studies.

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Roy, Self target anti-drunk driving ‘kill switch’ tech, advocates call fears overblown

Republican U.S. Congressman and Texas Attorney General candidate Chip Roy is attempting to repeal legislation requiring technology in vehicles designed to combat drunk driving. Advocates say it represents a step back. When former President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law in 2021, the legislation included the HALT Drunk Driving law. Long sought by anti-drunk-driving advocates, the law sets requirements for new vehicles in the U.S. to be equipped with advanced impaired driving technology that detects impaired drivers and, if necessary, prevents them from driving via a so-called “kill switch.” Roy has added an amendment to the GOP’s upcoming Foreign Intelligence Security Act renewal to repeal the section of the infrastructure bill requiring the technology to be added to all new non-commercial motor vehicles.

Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie filed a similar amendment in January to prevent funding for the initiative, although 57 fellow GOP representatives joined with Democrats in voting to maintain the requirements. The “kill switch,” Roy argues, is a government overreach that violates U.S. citizens’ civil liberties. “Do you really want to put that kind of data collection mandated inside every car? At what point is there just literally no privacy at all anywhere? A lot of Americans died to protect our Fourth Amendment rights so that we don’t have government looking at our stuff,” Roy said at an April 28. Committee meeting. As set forth in a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, the technology will utilize passive, consumer-ready mechanisms to detect impairment in motor vehicles. Breathalyzers and other traditional methods for detecting blood alcohol content do not fall under that definition. Instead, cars would have camera systems and vehicle-based sensors capable of identifying a drunk driver. U.S. Rep Keith Self from Collin County has also voiced opposition to the technology. On Wednesday, Self tweeted, “Imagine a woman fleeing an attacker—and her car won’t start because it thinks she’s impaired. Imagine a farmer injured on the job—his truck won’t start because it thinks he’s drunk.”

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Paxton opens investigations into 29 Texas ISDs over Ten Commandments law

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is launching investigations into 29 Texas school districts to ensure schools display the Ten Commandments in classrooms in compliance with Texas law. This comes after a federal appeals court's April 21 decision to uphold a contentious Texas law requiring public school districts to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, setting the stage for a potential Supreme Court fight. "Texas school districts must comply with Texas law by displaying the Ten Commandments and taking a school board vote regarding the implementation of prayer time in schools," said Paxton in a statement. "I will never stop defending our students’ religious freedom and the moral foundation of our nation."

The Texas Ten Commandments law — SB 10 — was passed by the Legislature during the 89th session in 2025 and requires public schools to display donated copies of the Ten Commandments that meet certain specifications. Schools must also comply with SB 11, passed in 2025, which requires school boards to vote on whether to implement a designated time for prayer and the reading of the Bible or other religious texts. According to the Office of the Attorney General, it has demanded that school districts provide proof of a board vote on implementing SB 11. The demands issued to these schools also require them to produce documents regarding the display or lack thereof of the Ten Commandments and their policies regarding SB 10.

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‘In the presence of Jesus:’ Founder of Daystar Television Network dies at 65

Joni Lamb, the founder and president of the Daystar Television Network, has died at age 65, according to a statement from the network. Lamb founded the Christian television network in 1993 with her husband, Marcus, according to WFAA-TV. Its headquarters are located in Bedford. “We know that she is in the presence of Jesus, reunited with Marcus, and receiving her reward for a beautiful life lived in surrender to the Lord,” the statement reads. “She has modeled what it means to be fearless, to be bold, and to stand for righteousness even when it’s unpopular. Her love and compassion for people were unparalleled. She will be so greatly missed.”

Prior to her death, Lamb had been dealing with “serious” health issues that were made worse by a past back injury, according to the statement. Her condition worsened over the last few days despite “the dedicated efforts of her medical team and the prayers of so many around the world.” Lamb spent 40 years “building a ministry that brought the Gospel into millions of homes,” according to the statement. The network will continue programming “uninterrupted” with tributes to air in the coming days, officials said. Lamb met with the network’s board prior to her death to ensure a leadership team was in place that would allow the network to continue.

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Bud Kennedy: Ex-party chair tells Texas Republicans: Unite or expect Senator Talarico

Steve Munisteri of Austin remembers back when young Texans were Republicans. Now, he’s a senior adviser with a warning: Republicans can lose. The party’s former state chairman brought a sobering message to two Fort Worth-area Republican clubs last week: Texas Democrats can elect James Talarico to the U.S. Senate and maybe win more races if Republicans keep bashing each other after the May 29 runoff. In a week when the party’s deep divide was garishly displayed in Texas — for example, state Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco wrote on X.com that current state party Chairman Abraham George represents the “low-IQ base” after the state party tried to ban some incumbents from the ballot — Munisteri put it bluntly:

“The Democrats are united now. Believe me, nothing unites a losing party more than the hope that they might not be the losing party.” “In 30 of the races [nationally since January 2025] in which a party has flipped a seat from one party to the other, our party is 0-30.” “Is the best way to [win] to be mean to your other Republicans? ... You need their votes. We need everybody’s votes.” “Does anybody this think this state has become more Republican with our population going up about 400,000 [people] a year?” Munisteri advises Gov. Greg Abbott and has worked for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. He served in the White House from 2017 to 2019 as a deputy assistant during President Donald Trump’s first administration. He comes from the libertarian-minded wing of the party and has also advised U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Texan.

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TCU & Baylor aligned on Big 12’s new private equity partner & cash infusion

The Big 12’s future health and stability hinge on its ability to find new partners who believe in the product and want to be affiliated with one of America’s highest-profile college athletic conferences. There is quiet frustration growing among league members that the conference has not landed more lucrative deals to be disbursed among the Big 12 members and adding to their bottom lines. In lieu of those types of potential deals, the league partnered with RedBird Capital to help with cash flow. Yahoo Sports reported on May 1 that the deal provides $12.5 million to the league, and includes a provision where the member schools can receive a credit line of $30 million.

TCU director of athletics Mike Buddie said the university’s athletic department has declined the offer, as has Baylor. “[Baylor is] is supportive of the RedBird partnership and excited about its benefits for the Big 12, but as of now [we] do not have plans to participate in the school-level capital option,” Baylor athletic director Doug McNamee told the Star-Telegram. According to reports from news organizations that cover the schools in local Big 12 markets from Florida to Utah, nearly all of the universities are rejecting this line of credit. They are passing for two reasons. 1. If a member school’s athletic department desperately needs a line of credit, the university can arrange a more favorable one. 2. They don’t want another voice in the room helping to manage the budget in a … cough-cough … “partnership.”

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County Stories

Tarrant faith leaders denounce racial disparity in death penalty cases

Faith leaders and community activists expressed their concerns on Thursday afternoon following a report that said Tarrant County unfairly targets racial and ethnic minorities in death penalty cases while also frequently threatening the death sentence to leverage plea bargains. The report, “An Extreme Outlier: Race and the Death Penalty in Tarrant County, the Third Largest County in Texas,” was published by the Texas Defender Service, which describes itself as “dedicated to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in Texas through direct representation, policy reform, and public education.” At a press conference at the Tarrant County Courthouse, the Rev. Ryon Price, the senior pastor of Broadway Baptist Church, said Tarrant County’s pursuit of the death penalty is “shocking in its frequency and absolutely abhorrent in its effect.”

Price says the death penalty is a cruel, unnecessarily vindictive form of punishment, and it disappoints him that Tarrant County leads the charge in the state. “What is obvious from this report is that Tarrant County is consistently and abusively misusing capital case prosecution as a weapon of persecution against the Black and brown community, this must stop,” Price said. “I and other faith leaders here with me today call upon Tarrant County to end its extreme and unjust pursuit of the death penalty, and commit itself to seeking a more reasonable, ethical and equitable measure of justice.” Pamela Young, executive director of United Fort Worth, compared the report to other Tarrant County issues, such as jail deaths, the Commissioners Court redistricting that likely flipped a Democrat’s seat, and voter suppression efforts, such as when commissioners tried to reduce the number of voting locations in 2024. Young called out registered Tarrant County voters, saying no one will come to save them except themselves, and that the best way to do it is by voting.

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National Stories

Campaign staffers tell NPR they make 'thousands' betting on their own candidates

It was a tight race, so a campaign staffer doubted the results of an unreleased poll showing their candidate up — by a lot. The tip about the outside poll didn't match up with the campaign's internal numbers. But accuracy aside, the staffer knew the poll would shake up the prediction markets. One market had their candidate down by double digits. "Myself and others started placing bets before that poll came out," the staffer, who was working on a statewide campaign in the South, told NPR on the condition of anonymity over fear for their future employment. "And then, sure enough as soon as that poll came out, the stock went up and everybody made money." This is one of the first publicly reported instances of a campaign staffer betting and winning thousands on their own candidate on prediction markets — emerging financial exchanges where billions are bet each week on future events like sports, culture and even elections.

The staffer's bet was verified by prediction market data reviewed by NPR. "Because you have all this information and knowledge that isn't publicly available yet, it's almost foolish not to bet on it before it's made public," the staffer said. The staffer said campaign bets by fellow staffers were commonplace in this particular campaign and the ones that followed. In recent weeks, popular prediction market Kalshi has banned and fined a handful of political candidates for betting on themselves. Bets like these raise questions about how campaign operatives can also turn private information into a quick payday amid an unsettled legal landscape. For this campaign staffer, the method was simple. First, they'd receive a tip on an unreleased poll and compare it with the odds on a prediction market, like PredictIt or Polymarket. If the poll reported their candidate had a better chance of winning than the prediction markets, they'd use this edge to buy low-cost odds on their candidate — known as event contracts — before the poll was released. On prediction markets, the price of an event contract often mirrors the market's estimation of the probability of a given outcome — in this case the chance a candidate will win. So a contract selling for 20 cents means the market is pricing a 20% chance of success. Once the poll went public, the prediction market contracts shot up in value. The staffer would then sell their contracts at a higher price and make money. "The most I've ever made is thousands," the staffer said. This sort of election betting "could potentially be a violation" and be subject to a CFTC investigation, said Jeff Le Riche, who worked at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for 20 years as a trial lawyer focused on insider trading and market manipulation. The agency oversees and regulates prediction markets and allows election betting in some, but not all, cases.

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John Fetterman says he’s not switching parties. Here’s why everyone’s talking about it anyway.

Just as Sen. John Fetterman’s tension with his own party has grown since he began his term in 2023, so have the Pennsylvania Democrat’s unexpected friendships with Republican senators. And as Democrats’ chances of flipping the Senate in November improve, Fetterman’s friends across the aisle have been opening their arms even wider. Pennsylvania GOP Chair Sen. Greg Rothman indicated last month that supporting Fetterman’s reelection wouldn’t be off the table if he switched parties. President Donald Trump asked Sean Hannity to urge Fetterman to become a Republican in exchange for the president’s support, according to the Fox News host. But Fetterman has repeatedly said he doesn’t plan to switch parties, including Thursday in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, following a new round of speculation.

“Being an independent voice that works with the other side to deliver for Pennsylvanians might put me at odds with the party that I have stayed committed to and have no plans to leave — but I will continue to put the commonwealth and the country first,” Fetterman wrote. “Plus, I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats,” he added. So why is everyone talking about Fetterman switching parties if he keeps saying he won’t, and why does it matter? Even though he votes with his party the majority of the time, Fetterman has had public disagreements with party leaders on a host of high-profile issues, including recent shutdowns, the Iran war, immigration enforcement, and even Trump’s desired White House ballroom. He’s consistently voted for Trump’s cabinet nominees and has criticized members of his party for having “Trump derangement syndrome,” a common Republican attack. And while many Democrats support Israel — including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Josh Shapiro — Fetterman has been particularly vocal in criticizing the party’s progressive wing over its embrace of the Palestinian cause. In Pennsylvania, Fetterman has polled much better among Republicans than members of his own party in recent months — an eye-popping 73% of Republicans approved of his job performance in a February poll, compared with only 22% of Democrats. Progressive groups who once supported his election now routinely stage protests outside his office. He’s also had high turnover on his staff, with some former employees openly opposing him or expressing concerns about his health.

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Thomas Massie is really in danger of losing his seat

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s lead in his primary later this month is slipping and he is in genuine danger of losing his Kentucky seat, according to interviews with local GOP officials. Massie — best known for his defiance of President Donald Trump and advocacy for the release of files associated with notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein — is believed to still have a small edge in his race against military veteran Ed Gallrein, they say. But his lead is shrinking under an onslaught of negative ads and steadfast opposition from a bloc of older Republicans who remain fiercely loyal to the president. “I think Ed could win,” said Rich Hidy, chairman of the Campbell County GOP in the commonwealth’s 4th Congressional District, who is neutral in the race. “It’s going to be the closest race that Thomas has faced.”

Republicans in the district broadly share Hidy’s view: Many believed Massie’s lead had already shrunk to the single digits when May began. Massie’s path looks even more complicated this week after primaries in Indiana, where Trump-backed candidates defeated a majority of the Republican incumbents they faced in state Senate elections. Those incumbents had earned Trump’s wrath after voting against his preferred redistricting map. That anger hardly matches the president’s rage at Massie: Trump vowed to defeat Massie last year after the congressman opposed a series of the president’s policy priorities, endorsing Gallrein and dispatching some of his top political lieutenants to ensure the incumbent’s loss. “Hey @RepThomasMassie ….you are next,” former Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted on X on Tuesday, shortly after votes had been tabulated in Indiana.

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Federal and state officials discuss closing Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

Florida is in talks with the Trump administration to shut down a high-profile immigration detention center that opened last summer in the Everglades and has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars to operate, according to a federal official, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, and a person close to the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis. The shutdown talks are preliminary, the people said. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security have concluded that it is too expensive to keep operating the center, known as Alligator Alcatraz. Homeland security officials have also come to consider the center ineffective, the federal official said. All three people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks.

The DeSantis administration has been spending more than $1 million a day to run the center, which is in a swampy, isolated area between Miami and Naples. Some private vendors hired by the state to operate it have been struggling to front costs, according to the person close to the DeSantis administration. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment before this article was published on Thursday morning. Neither did the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which operates the center, nor Mr. DeSantis’s office. In a statement provided after publication, a homeland security spokesperson said the department “continuously evaluates detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements.” What you should know about anonymous sources. The Times makes a careful decision any time it shields the identity of a source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy, credible and give readers genuine insight.

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Costa Rica’s top newspaper says US revoked visas of its executives, prompting press freedom concerns

The United States has revoked the visas of several board executives at La Nación, one of Costa Rica’s leading media outlets, triggering fresh accusations that the U.S. — in conjunction with the allied Costa Rican government — is stripping visas to punish critics and political opponents. In a statement that ran as the newspaper’s front page on Sunday, the board of directors said that the affected members first learned they had been stripped of their visas to enter the U.S. from reports in pro-government media. La Nación has long been a thorn in the side of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump who has agreed to accept up to 100 third-country deportees a month as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.

The newspaper, which Chaves has berated since it published allegations of sexual harassment during his 2022 presidential campaign, said that the U.S. gave no reason for the visa revocations. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment. “We fully recognize that the United States, like any sovereign state, has the power to determine the terms of entry into its territory,” La Nación said. “However, it is unprecedented in Costa Rica’s recent history for visas to be revoked from members of the board of a general-interest and independent newspaper.” The move appeared to mark the latest instance of the Trump administration deploying immigration restrictions to punish its political foes, and prompted sharp criticism from political opposition and press freedom organizations in Costa Rica, which demanded that Costa Rican and U.S. authorities provide an explanation for what happened. “If this decision is based on their critical stance toward this government, it would be yet another troubling signal for our democratic system,” the organizations said in a statement, adding that failing to provide transparent information would “constitute an unacceptable form of complicity.”

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Inside a MAGA influencer’s turn against the right-wing machine

Few MAGA influencers were as committed to the digital cause as Ashley St. Clair. The 27-year-old former brand ambassador for the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA published an anti-transgender children’s book, appeared prime-time on Fox News and posted selfies from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. On X, where St. Clair has more than 1 million followers, she had become a legend: a young conservative woman fighting back against the perceived liberal excesses of “brain rot” feminism and the “‘woke’ agenda” — a reputation that swelled last year, when she revealed that she had secretly had a child with the platform’s multibillionaire owner, Elon Musk. But in the past few months, St. Clair has become one of the right-wing internet’s most scathing and visible critics.

Many of Trump’s top online cheerleaders are actually just mercenaries of the attention economy, she argues, working to turn political outrage and talking points coordinated with administration officials into paid promotional deals. “There is no free thinking here,” she said in a TikTok video last month about the movement she joined when she was 19. “They are waiting to get marching orders and a direct deposit.” St. Clair’s transformation from a self-described “good little foot soldier” to MAGA turncoat has unspooled in near-daily monologues to more than 77,000 followers on her TikTok feed, where she applies makeup from her New York apartment and claims to expose the secrets of her former allies and the hidden machinery that made them social media stars. Her viral criticism has triggered unease across the online right, where some of her ex-compatriots have argued she is a disgruntled attention-seeker moving onto her next grift. Naomi Seibt, a far-right German activist and influencer, said in an X post that St. Clair is “projecting her guilt and bitterness for a decade of selling out onto us.”

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Lead Stories

World in waiting game over Iran peace proposal response

The United States was waiting on Thursday for Iran to convey its response to the latest American proposal to end the war, after public messages from top-ranking officials on both sides suggested a burst of behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity. Business leaders, consumers, politicians, shipping companies, and many others around the world have also been watching closely for signs of a breakthrough. The conflict, which has dragged on into a third month and prompted Iran and the United States to implement rival blockades around the Strait of Hormuz, has choked off a major oil transit route, wreaking havoc on global supply chains and causing energy prices to spike. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said late Wednesday that his government was reviewing an American response to a 14-point Iranian proposal to end the war and would give its response to Pakistan, a key mediator. Neither Tehran nor Washington has said what the U.S. response entails.

“The exchange of messages through the Pakistani intermediary is ongoing, and reviews of the exchanged texts are continuing,” Mr. Baghaei told IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster. Earlier in the day, another Iranian official had dismissed a reported proposal to end the war as a “list of American wishes.” President Trump, after threatening more attacks, said on Wednesday that there had been “very good talks” with Iran, adding: “We’re in good shape, and now we’re doing well, and we have to get what we have to get.” Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had issued a new ultimatum to Iran, threatening to restart attacks “at a much higher level and intensity” if Iran reneged on apparent concessions. He did not elaborate on what those were. The mixed signals came a day after Mr. Trump abruptly paused a new U.S. military effort to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz, citing “great progress” in talks with Tehran. The uncertainty did little to ease concerns about the strait, the key oil and gas shipping route that Iranian forces effectively closed in retaliation after the United States and Israel began the war in late February. The waterway is usually a conduit for around a fifth of the world’s oil supplies, and its closure has sent global energy prices on a roller-coaster ride. There was little change in international oil prices on Thursday as investors struggled to parse the conflicting signals. As the shaky cease-fire between the sides continued to hold, a U.S. Navy plane disabled an Iranian-flagged oil tanker that was trying to cross the American blockade on Iranian ports on Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said. The American F/A-18 Super Hornet fired on the ship’s rudder, and the vessel is “no longer transiting to Iran.”

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BlackRock invests $30M in Texas electrician training amidst data center boom

Custom homebuilder Gene Lantrip has a slight problem. He’s got a backload of about 15 house right now, partially due to a recent boom of data centers in the region. “Oracle came in,” he recalled. “The next thing you know, they put out a call for 500 electricians.” Among those electricians were ones who helped put the finishing touches on the homes Lantrip builds. “Local guys right now in Abilene, starting out and make $15 an hour, the good ones make up for $25 an hour,” Lantrip says. He says the data center companies are willing to pay double — and he can’t compete.

“So our electricians, what they started doing was hiring inexperienced young kids and teaching them the trades — on-the-job training,” he said. “My electrician used to have a team of about 12 guys… Now they have one lead guy and about five young kids… When they had 12 guys, they can knock out three houses, but now it takes them all day to do one house.” This comes at a time where the demand for Lantrip’s services are as high as ever. “There’s like 14,000 temporary workers out there working in right now, and they all need a place to stay,” he said. BlackRock, one of the largest private equity firms in the world, faces similar problems. “As the largest investor in infrastructure, we hear in every project, ‘We don’t have enough workers. We can’t find the workers. We’re challenged. We’re going to have delays,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said. “When you have delays in your projects, that means it costs more money.”

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Grand Prairie cancels Muslim event after Abbott threatens funding

Grand Prairie canceled a private party for Muslims at a city-owned water park after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding. The city announced the cancelation Wednesday evening, about seven hours after Abbott issued the ultimatum on social media: Call off the event by May 11 or lose $530,000 in state funds. “That’s religious discrimination,” Abbott wrote on X. “It’s unconstitutional.” In an emailed statement to The Dallas Morning News, Grand Prairie said it canceled the party "after further review and in the best interest" of the city. Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark had planned to host a June 1 celebration for Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holy day that celebrates devotion and sacrifice. But fliers for the event circulated on social media in recent days, prompting a backlash among conservatives and social media influencers.

Abbott pointed to a law he signed last year that targeted the business structure behind The Meadow, a planned Muslim-centric neighborhood about 40 miles northeast of Dallas, previously called Epic City. It is not clear if the law applies to private events at publicly funded facilities. Fliers initially described the event as for "Muslims only," with a modest dress code and private prayer area. Aminah Knight, a Dallas-area mother of six who is hosting the event, said she did not intend to exclude anyone and later revised the flier to say "All are welcome." "As Muslims, we have a modest dress code. Going to a water park can be a challenge," Knight said. "This is a way to have fun and make sure our children and community feel seen." After learning the event was canceled, Knight said she was disappointed but would not give up. She said she plans to host an interfaith cookout this summer to celebrate July 4.

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How the Trump administration became an activist investor

There is free-market capitalism and state capitalism. Now, there’s Trump capitalism. In recent months, the president has extended his hand into American business in unorthodox and, to some corporate leaders, alarming ways—from progressive-style demands to cap credit-card rates to assertive deals grabbing government shares in private companies. Some executives are so worried Trump will ask for a stake in their company that they have prepared for Oval Office meetings by rehearsing what they would say to fend off the president’s advances, lobbyists involved in the preparations said. Others welcome Trump’s attention. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby appealed to Trump with the idea of creating a “national champion” airline during meetings with Trump and top officials at the White House, people familiar with the discussions said. United asked for regulatory permission to merge with American Airlines, and top Trump aides discussed whether the U.S. should take a stake in what would be one of the biggest airlines in the world, according to people familiar with the meetings.

Trump later said he didn’t support a merger, American Airlines was resistant and United abandoned its bid. The administration talked with Spirit Airlines about providing a loan of up to $500 million in return for warrants that would have given the U.S. a significant stake in the low-cost carrier, The Wall Street Journal reported last month. When the company offered 80% in exchange for the government bailout, Trump suggested 90%, according to people familiar with the matter. But Spirit bondholders didn’t want to subordinate their claims to the federal government, according to a person familiar with the matter. The government pulled out of negotiations, and Spirit shut down Saturday. Administration officials are stoking the president’s instinct to shift more authority over private-sector industries to Trump and his team. The Trump administration has announced direct investment stakes in at least 10 companies, including a 10% equity stake in Intel and a “golden share” of U.S. Steel, which grants the government power to influence company decisions. “We’re seeing the government get more involved in different aspects of the economy, which is a pivot off the more traditional Republican approach of the last century,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, deputy assistant to the president for international economic affairs in Trump’s first term.

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State Stories

KP George trial over alleged fake social media posts pushed back to July

A misdemeanor trial for the suspended Fort Bend County judge has been pushed back, delaying proceedings in a case tied to alleged fake social media posts during an election campaign. The trial for suspended Fort Bend County Judge K.P. George was originally set to begin this morning. However, prosecutors said the case has been reset to July 21 after the state requested the delay and the defense did not oppose it. George is accused of misrepresenting identity as a candidate in a case centered around alleged fake social media posts during his 2022 re-election campaign. The fake Facebook account at the center of the case was under the name “Antonio Scalywag.”

Investigators say that account posted racist comments targeting George during his 2022 re-election campaign — comments his campaign later pointed to publicly as racist attacks against him. According to previous warrant information obtained by KHOU 11, investigators say the “Antonio Scalywag” account was attached to an email account and phone number associated with Taral Patel. Patel worked as a consultant for George’s 2022 re-election campaign. Court documents said George issued a press release claiming he was the target of racist attacks — and investigators say those attacks came from that same fake account. The warrant also pointed to text messages between Patel and a contact saved as K.P. George, including discussions about that press release and screenshots of the racist comments. In one message, Patel allegedly wrote, “I will use fake account to counter them.” Investigators say the contact saved as K.P. George responded, “Thank you.” George has denied wrongdoing. Prosecutors say the case matters because investigators allege the fake posts were part of a broader campaign narrative during George’s 2022 re-election bid.

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Austin boosts public health readiness for FIFA World Cup visitors despite not hosting any official matches

Austin officials are preparing for an increase in visitors because of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, even though Austin will not host matches. The tournament, set for June 11 through July 19, will take place across 16 cities in North America, including Dallas and Houston. In a May 5 memo, Austin Public Health Director Adrienne Sturrup and Austin Emergency Management Director Jim Redick outlined the city’s health and safety preparations. The memo states Austin Emergency Management (AEM) has held three multi-agency coordination meetings to assess how public health could be affected by the additional tourists. Participants included Austin Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment; Austin FC’s Q2 Stadium; the University of Texas at Austin; and public safety partners such as the Austin Police Department, Austin Fire Department, Austin-Travis County EMS, Austin Public Health, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the FBI.

Officials said no specific public safety threats have been identified but they are preparing now for any health issues that could come from increased visitors. Austin Public Health (APH) plans to increase infectious disease surveillance, health care system readiness and environmental health monitoring. The agency also will monitor public health complaints, prepare for visitors who aren't used to extreme heat, and increase communication with doctors and hospitals. While no matches are scheduled in Austin, Q2 Stadium will serve as a base camp for the Saudi Arabia national team. City officials said Saudi Arabia will host events beginning June 1, including an international friendly (an exhibition game) at Q2 Stadium on June 5. Organizers have not yet released which team Saudi Arabia will be playing against. The team previously played at the venue during the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Saudi Arabia is scheduled to play a World Cup group stage match against Cape Verde on June 26 in Houston.

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Recently proposed data centers raise concerns about water, growth in Hays County

As several data centers have been proposed across Hays County in recent years, local leaders, environmental advocates and industry officials are debating what the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure could mean for Central Texas. Right off Francis Harris Lane between San Marcos and New Braunfels, construction is underway on one of the newest data center developments near the Hays County line. Supporters say the facilities are critical to the modern economy, while critics worry about long-term impacts on water resources. “We’re looking at a huge strain on our water resources, both onsite at the data centers as well as at the power production level,” said Virginia Parker, Executive Director of the San Marcos River Foundation.

On Saturday, Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra discussed the topic during a panel at the KUT Festival. “Millions of people’s drinking water is at stake with just a couple of these data centers,” Becerra said. “I support technology, I support AI, but not at the expense of our communities.” Becerra also said county leaders are pushing for more research and planning before additional development moves forward. Industry leaders argue data centers have become a necessary part of everyday life and economic growth. “It’s how we work. It’s how we learn. It’s how we communicate. It’s every telehealth appointment, every electronic health care record, every online purchase, every banking and financial transaction,” said Dan Diorio, Vice President of state policy for the Data Center Coalition. He also argued the U.S. must continue expanding digital infrastructure to remain globally competitive as artificial intelligence technology grows rapidly.

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Sierra Club report: Texas coal plants draining state's shrinking water supply

Texas coal and gas power plants consumed more than 100 billion gallons of water in 2024, according to a new Sierra Club report that calls on state leaders to accelerate the shift to renewable energy amid worsening drought conditions. The report, "Watts Wasting Texas Water," found that coal plants alone used 34 billion gallons of water that year — enough to supply roughly 1 million homes annually, or a city twice the size of Austin. Combined with gas and nuclear plants, total consumption has exceeded 100 billion gallons every year since at least 2015, the report said. Coal and gas plants burn fuel to boil water into steam, which spins turbines to generate electricity. The steam is then cooled and condensed, a process that causes large amounts of water to evaporate. Coal plants in Texas consume up to 672 gallons of water per megawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared with an estimated 6 gallons per megawatt-hour for solar. Wind and solar farms generate electricity without steam or cooling systems, using little to no water.

The Sierra Club found Texas coal plants hold legal rights to consume 116 billion gallons of water annually from the state's rivers, creeks and aquifers. Seven coal plants alone have rights to store 98 billion gallons in private reservoirs. "And even though they got these rights for free, they can sell them for millions of dollars when they're done with them. There is currently nothing in place to require them to return the rights to the state," said Lindsay Mader, report author and Secretary of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. The Fayette Power Plant is one example that affects Central Texas. It’s co-owned by the City of Austin and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) located in Fayette County — which is currently experiencing extreme drought. The two entities hold rights to draw more than 31 billion gallons annually from the Colorado River for that plant alone. “Wealthy utilities and power plants in Texas have long profited from the significant water rights our state government gave to them for free, but it’s past time to stop giving coal and gas everything they want,” said Cyrus Reed, the Legislative Director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

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Maverick County Judge Ramsey Cantú suspended from role, accused of misconduct and incompetency

Maverick County Judge Ramsey Cantú has been “temporarily suspended” from his role as county judge, according to documents obtained by KSAT Investigates. The order was filed on Monday in Maverick County’s 293rd Judicial District Court.

Cantú is accused of “official misconduct” and “incompetency,” as defined in Section 87.011 of Texas’ Local Government Code. In the order, Cantú will not be exercising “any powers, duties or authority of the office and shall not interfere in any manner with the operations of county government.” He may be subject to permanent removal from the role following a jury trial. Cantú’s order does not offer specific examples of the official misconduct or incompetency allegations he faces. In Cantú’s place, Rolando Jasso was tabbed as Maverick County Judge on an interim basis. Cantú is also in the middle of the Democratic primary runoff for Maverick County judge between he and challenger Gerardo “Jerry” Morales. In March, Morales garnered 49.9% of the vote compared to Cantú’s 28%. Election Day for the primary runoff race is scheduled for May 26.

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Grimes County takes no action on SpaceX tax abatement for proposed $119 billion project

Grimes County commissioners took no action Wednesday on a proposed SpaceX development at Gibbons Creek Reservoir, about 20 miles east of Bryan-College Station. County Judge Joe Fauth said SpaceX is the only company that has submitted anything for the county to consider. He said the project is far from a done deal. “Well, there’s a right place for everything in trying to determine what is the right place for what’s being considered. That’s our job,” Fauth said. “At the end of the day, we will only consider what’s going to be a benefit to the county.”

Fauth said he wants to clear up what kind of project this is, pushing back on the data center label that has been circulating online. “We keep saying data center, but if you look at the announcement that SpaceX made, it’s certainly far more manufacturing than it is data center, okay? So I think that’s one clarification that people need to understand,” Fauth said. A public notice filed by Grimes County describes the proposed development as a semiconductor manufacturing and computing facility with an initial investment of about $55 billion. Total estimates show that number could climb as high as $119 billion. The project is described as a vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing and advanced computing fabrication facility. Fauth said it could use up to 5,000 acres of land at the reservoir and around 3,000 acres of surface water, with the potential to expand into surrounding areas.

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Tarrant voters say registration removed, questioned. Elections office offers no clarity

The first time Bobby Robinson got kicked off Tarrant County’s voter roll, he thought it was a glitch. That was in November. By early March, Robinson had been kicked off — and added back on — the county’s registry of voters two more times, he said. Today, his voter registration appears active online, but he’s not confident it’ll stay that way when it comes time to cast a ballot. Robinson, 46, has been an active voter in Tarrant County since moving to the area around 2005, according to his county voting record reviewed by the Fort Worth Report. Although the removals didn’t prevent him from voting in recent elections, he worries the repeated mistake could indicate a breach in election integrity and security. “If we were voting for ‘American Idol’ and my vote didn’t get counted, that’s different — but this is about elections,” Robinson said. It’s unclear whether Robinson’s removal was a symptom of issues with the county or state’s software.

Tarrant is an outlier among Texas counties for hiring a third-party vendor last year to help identify ineligible voters on the voter roll, political science experts told the Report. Since contracting the outside vendor, the Tarrant County Elections Office mistakenly flagged at least one other voter’s registration: Fort Worth resident Andrew Sims-Kirkland, 39, who received a mailed notice from the county elections office asking him to confirm he was not dead. Voters across Texas and the country have been mistakenly purged from voter rolls as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to mass-verify voter citizenship status in an effort to prevent noncitizens from voting illegally. Many states, including Texas, have uploaded their voter rolls to a new federal database that has since been found to incorrectly identify U.S. citizens as noncitizens. Sims-Kirkland said he was able to verify with the elections office that he is alive but worries that other voters could be unknowingly purged from the voter roll, in a year marked by several consequential elections, including the midterms. So far this year, Tarrant County voters have elected a new state senator, flipping the historically GOP Texas Senate District 9 blue in a special election to fill a vacancy; chosen party nominees during the March primaries; and weighed in on local bond propositions and charter amendments in the May 2 local elections.

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Texas Education Agency appoints new leadership to struggling Connally ISD

The Texas Education Agency has appointed a three-member board of managers and new superintendent to oversee Connally Independent School District after two campuses failed to meet state standards for five consecutive years. Commissioner of Education Mike Morath announced the appointments in a letter, effectively suspending the powers of the district's elected board of trustees until further notice. The appointed board members include: Matthew Stufflebeam, recommended as president, Linda Peoples Lindsey, recommended as secretary, and Carla Thomas. All three have ties to the Connally community.

Dr. Josie Gutierrez, former deputy superintendent at Waco ISD with over 30 years in education, was named the new superintendent, replacing Jill Bottelberghe. Gutierrez began working in the position Wednesday under a 21-day interim contract, pending formal approval. The district chose not to appeal the TEA's decision following an informal review in January. A spokesperson told local media that Connally ISD's focus "remains on the diligent implementation of our school improvement initiatives" and providing "a smooth transition for our students, staff, and community." Stufflebeam brings more than 20 years of real estate and business experience. A Texas State University graduate and parent in the district, he previously served as president of the Waco Association of Realtors and taught at McLennan Community College for 11 years. Peoples Lindsey, a 1981 Connally High School graduate, spent 37 years in public education as a teacher, coach and administrator. Her father, Mac Peoples, served as district superintendent beginning in 1974. Thomas, also a Connally ISD alumna, taught in the district for more than a decade and holds degrees from Lamar University. She currently works as a community health coordinator and part-time instructor at McLennan Community College.

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More than $245 million in grant funds jeopardized as Harris County flood projects linger behind schedule

A new Harris County report shows most disaster relief flood bond projects likely won’t meet a fast-approaching funding deadline early next year, jeopardizing more than $245 million. The report was provided to the offices of Harris County commissioners last week after County Judge Lina Hidalgo grilled flood control director Tina Petersen over the status of 28 flood mitigation projects that were delayed after revelations of a multi-million-dollar funding shortfall. The latest hurdle is a time crunch for the flood control district to break ground and complete those projects ahead of the 2027 and 2028 funding deadlines set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Texas General Land Office.

Six of the 11 disaster relief projects outlined in the flood bond won’t meet a Feb. 2027 funding deadline to complete construction, according to the report. The county has only broken ground so far on four of those disaster relief projects that are on track to meet next year’s funding deadline. The six projects that could miss next year’s deadline — totaling $245.8 million — include channel conveyance improvements in precincts 1 and 2 and stormwater detention basin projects in precincts 2, 3 and 4. Emily Woodell, a spokesperson for the flood control district, said the office has had several conversations with the general land office about a potential extension. “There is a grace period between our current deadline and the ultimate grant deadline to HUD,” Woodell said. “The [general land office] has been clear that they want these dollars to stay in Harris County, as do we.” An extension has not yet been granted, and Petersen previously said the office is awaiting environmental clearances from HUD to proceed with several of the flood projects — which were first established through a $2.5 billion flood bond approved by voters in 2018 after Hurricane Harvey.

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Federal judge weighs citizenship of Austin man deported to Mexico after traffic stop

The federal government on Wednesday said it was still investigating whether an Austin man, who was deported to Mexico after a traffic stop last month, is actually a United States citizen. Brian Jose Morales Garcia, 25, was a passenger in a vehicle that Texas Department of Public Safety troopers pulled over in Fredericksburg on April 3 for an alleged tinted window violation. According to DPS, U.S. Immigration and Enforcement agents later identified Garcia and another passenger as immigrants unlawfully in the country and placed a detainer on them. KXAN reached out to ICE, but so far the agency has not responded to our questions.

Garcia is now suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, DPS and the Gillespie County Sheriff’s Office and requesting a federal judge issue a temporary restraining order to allow him to re-enter the U.S. using his birth certificate and prohibit the federal government from deporting him again. In the lawsuit, Garcia’s legal team claims U.S. Border Patrol agents took custody of Garcia despite him repeatedly declaring he was a U.S. citizen born in Denver. The lawsuit claims he was placed on a plane and deported to Mexico four days after the traffic stop, as first reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Garcia’s attorney said in the federal court filing that his birth certificate, U.S. social security card and baptismal papers confirm he was born in the U.S., but those records were at his Austin home at the time of the stop. KXAN reviewed copies of Garcia’s birth certificate provided by his attorney that show he was born in Colorado in 2001.

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Leadership shakeup hits Uhland City Hall after mayor, other officials resign

Residents in the small City of Uhland are facing uncertainty about the future of local leadership after multiple city officials, including Mayor Lacee Duke, resigned in recent days. The departures have sparked questions from community members about who will lead the city moving forward and how those vacancies will be filled. The resignations include Duke, the mayor pro tem, the city attorney and other staff, creating what the city administrator describes as a major transition period for the Hays County community. “I believe it’s a new wind, a new wind of change, and you can feel it right now blow in,” said Yolanda Tobias Romo, who was raised in Uhland.

Romo said she began closely following city developments two years ago because of her family’s ties to the town. “Because I wanted to know what was going on with my community, with my family’s home,” she said. City Administrator Hayden Brodowsky said Texas law lays out how the city can handle multiple vacancies at once. “State law requires that you cannot have two active vacancies at one time,” Brodowsky said. “So the way it works is eight days from the vacancy, the city must either appoint somebody or hold a special election in the future.” The political turmoil follows Duke’s arrest by the Texas Rangers in December. She was charged with allegedly misusing city money connected to the 2024 Uhland Fall Fest. At the time, Duke told KVUE in a statement she is innocent and is “vigorously working” to prove her innocence. Despite the felony charge, Duke remained in office until submitting her resignation on Monday, shortly after Saturday’s local election in which new council members were elected.

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National Stories

Kamala Harris wants the DNC to release its autopsy report of the 2024 campaign

As former Vice President Kamala Harris considers another run for president, she is also signaling that she has no problem with a public airing of what went wrong last time — telling donors she believes the Democratic National Committee should release its buried autopsy of her failed 2024 campaign, according to a person who has heard the conversations. While she indicated to donors that she had no issue with releasing it, Harris has not discussed the postmortem with DNC Chairman Ken Martin and did not know about his decision to keep it under wraps until it happened, this person said. Like most prospective candidates, Harris is staying involved in political affairs. That includes touring the country, giving speeches to state parties, developing the framework for a policy platform and sounding out fellow Democrats about her next chapter.

What’s unique about Harris is that while she tries to orient toward the future, many in her party are actively fighting over whether to keep examining the flaws of her last campaign. Harris has privately sought counsel from allies about her future, and she publicly acknowledged at a National Action Network event in New York last month that she is “thinking about” another bid. Harris lost the electoral vote to Donald Trump in 2024, 312-226, and the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points. The subject of the autopsy’s release has grown into a flash point in the party, and it is dogging Martin, who had promised to conduct a comprehensive review of the defeat and share it with the public. A discussion over the intraparty drama comes as Harris is sounding out friends and party luminaries about what she should do in the run-up to 2028. She recently asked the Rev. Al Sharpton for his advice on her next steps, according to a person familiar with their conversation.

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The RNC’s first big midterms spend is on its ground game

The Republican Party is spending big on its ground game — the party’s first major investment in the run-up to the midterms. The Republican National Committee sent 34 staffers to 17 states last week to run canvassing operations targeting voters who don’t frequently turn out for elections, a voting bloc that helped President Donald Trump win in 2024. The initial spend is “seven figures,” an RNC official told NOTUS. The RNC did not provide its full list of target states, but it will be in battlegrounds including North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as “places that we don’t traditionally play,” such as Alaska and Maine, the official said. The party is planning to send more staffers in mid-May. “We’re not leaving turnout to chance — we’re building the ground game to win, protect our majorities in the House and Senate, and give President Trump a full four years to deliver,” RNC Chair Joe Gruters said in a statement.

For its part, the DNC in January invested seven figures in a voter registration effort and its largest in-person campaign staff training program to date. It also rolled out a pair of programs in December to staff down-ballot campaigns, committed to making monthly investments into its state parties, and unveiled pilot technologies to aid campaigns. “Democrats have momentum and formidable infrastructure on our side — and no amount of corrupt GOP billionaire cash can change the fact that Trump’s toxic agenda will lead to Republicans getting trounced this November,” said Rosemary Boeglin, the DNC’s communications director. The RNC has a significant fundraising advantage over Democrats right now. It raised $172 million in 2025 and has $95 million cash on hand, compared to the Democratic National Committee’s $145 million raised, $14 million on hand and $17 million in debt. “When people start to ask, where’s the money going? What’s happening? This is the first salvo,” said Zach Parkinson, the RNC’s deputy communications and research director. The RNC spent less in 2025 than any cycle since 2014, with the exception of the 2023-2024 cycle when fundraising was low.

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Kash Patel’s personalized bourbon stash

One of J. Edgar Hoover’s greatest reforms at the FBI was his embrace of fingerprinting. During the 1930s, visitors to the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., received souvenir fingerprint cards featuring his name. The men who succeeded him as FBI director were more discreet and judicious, mindful of the cult of personality that had developed around Hoover. They generally avoided giving out branded swag. But then came Kash Patel. President Trump’s FBI director has a great deal of affection for swag. Merchandise for sale on a website he co-founded—still operating, nearly 15 months into his term—includes beanies ($35), T-shirts ($35), orange camo hoodies ($65), trucker caps ($25), “government gangsters” playing cards (on sale for $10), and a Fight With Kash Punisher scarf ($25).

One thing not for sale is liquor, because liquor is something Patel gives away for free. Last month, I reported that FBI personnel were alarmed by what they said was erratic behavior and excessive drinking by Patel. (The FBI director has denied the allegations and filed a defamation suit against The Atlantic and me.) After my story appeared, I heard from people in Patel’s orbit and people he has met at public functions, who told me that it is not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized branded bourbon. The bottles bear the imprint of the Kentucky distillery Woodford Reserve, and are engraved with the words “Kash Patel FBI Director,” as well as a rendering of an FBI shield. Surrounding the shield is a band of text featuring Patel’s director title and his favored spelling of his first name: Ka$h. An eagle holds the shield in its talons, along with the number 9, presumably a reference to Patel’s place in the history of FBI directors. In some cases, the 750-milliliter bottles bear Patel’s signature, with “#9” there as well. One such bottle popped up on an online auction site shortly after my story appeared, and The Atlantic later purchased it. (The person who sold it to us did not want to be named, but said that the bottle was a gift from Patel at an event in Las Vegas.) Patel has given out bottles of his personalized whiskey to FBI staff as well as civilians he encounters in his duties, according to eight people, including current and former FBI and Department of Justice employees and others who are familiar with Patel’s distribution of the bottles. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.

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'A trailblazer, a rabble-rouser, a do-gooder': CNN founder Ted Turner dies at 87

Ted Turner — the bullish founder of CNN and a suite of other cable channels, not to mention a bison steakhouse, a nonprofit designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and an international sports competition — died Wednesday at the age of 87. He had announced just before his 80th birthday that he had Lewy Body Dementia, a degenerative disease that causes dementia and muscle failure. Turner never seemed at a loss for brass or chutzpah. "If Alexander the Great could conquer the known world, why couldn't I start CNN?" Turner once told Oprah Winfrey.

He launched the Cable News Network — the nation's first continuous all-news television station — on June 1, 1980 at a converted Jewish country club in Atlanta. The network broadcast news 24/7 from that point on and indeed built a global array of bureaus. Former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan says Turner took inspiration from 24-hour radio stations that relayed news headlines, and endless sports highlights on ESPN. Turner remained baffled why the broadcast giants — ABC, NBC and CBS — hadn't launched cable stations. "To him it was just the most logical thing in the world and he couldn't understand why nobody else was doing it," Jordan says. "So he was going to do it." Sixteen years later, NBC (in partnership with Microsoft) and Fox would launch sibling cable news channels. Each ultimately found success by embracing strong (though opposing) points of view. Broadcast networks subsequently sought to replicate the original cable ethos with stripped down streaming services.

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Jeffrey Epstein’s purported suicide note is released by federal judge

A federal judge has released a suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein that was sealed for years as part of the criminal case of his cellmate. “They investigated me for month — FOUND NOTHING!!!” the note begins, adding that the result was charges going back many years. “It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continued. “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!” the note reads. “NO FUN," it concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!” Mr. Epstein’s cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, said he discovered the note in July 2019 after Mr. Epstein was found unresponsive with a strip of cloth wrapped around his neck. Mr. Epstein survived that incident, but he was found dead weeks later at age 66 in the now shuttered Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan.

The note was made public on Wednesday by Judge Kenneth M. Karas of Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y., who oversaw the cellmate’s case. The judge acted after The New York Times petitioned the court last Thursday to unseal the document and published an article in which Mr. Tartaglione described the note and how it came into his possession. The Times has not authenticated the note, which was placed on the court docket Wednesday evening. The note repeats a saying — “bust out cryin” — that Mr. Epstein wrote in emails. It included another phrase — “No fun” — that Mr. Epstein also used in emails, as well as in a separate note found in his jail cell at the time of his death. The document unsealed on Wednesday remained hidden from public view even as the Justice Department released millions of pages of documents related to Mr. Epstein in a move required by a new law. The Times searched those records and did not find a copy of the note. (A spokeswoman from the Justice Department said the agency had never seen it.) The search did turn up a cryptic two-page chronology that described how the note became caught up in Mr. Tartaglione’s complicated legal case. The chronology said that Mr. Tartaglione’s lawyers authenticated the note, though it did not explain how.

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Countries scramble to track passengers of virus-hit cruise ship

Countries worldwide scrambled on Thursday to trace people who had left the cruise ship hit by ?a hantavirus outbreak before it got marooned off the coast of Cape Verde, to prevent further spread of the disease. Three people - a Dutch couple and a German national - died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius. Eight people, including a Swiss citizen, are suspected to have contracted the virus, according to the World Health Organization. The Dutch government has said around 40 ?passengers had disembarked the ship in Santa Helena, where the ship made a stop on its way to Cape Verde - before the ?outbreak was reported.

The whereabouts of many of these passengers is as yet unknown. One of those to disembark was ?the wife of the Dutchman who had died aboard the ship on April 11. She fell sick herself and died before she could reach the ?Netherlands. Dutch airline KLM on Wednesday said it had taken the woman off a plane in Johannesburg on April 25 due to her deteriorating medical condition. According to ?broadcaster RTL, a KLM stewardess who had been in contact with her has now been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam after showing possible symptoms of a hantavirus infection. The Dutch health ministry did not mention her job or who she may have been in contact with, but did confirm that a Dutch woman has been admitted to hospital and ?will be tested to determine whether she is infected with the hantavirus. A spokesperson for KLM said the company could not "discuss individual cases" due to ?privacy concerns.

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Trump counterterrorism strategy targets ‘violent left-wing extremists’ with ‘transgender ideology’

The Trump team is also looking at how domestic online activities could incite violence, a focus that follows an increase in political violence, such as the multiple attempted assassinations of Trump and the killing of Charlie Kirk. “We see a threat, we will respond to it, and we will crush it, whether it is the cartels, the jihadists, or violent left-wing extremists like antifa and like the transgender killers, the non-binary, the left-wing radicals who killed my friend Charlie Kirk, we will take them on, head on,” senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka told reporters on a call Wednesday. Gorka stressed that the counterterrorism team is focused on all online groups that are “inciting violence against innocent individuals” on both sides of the aisle.

“It’s also about the ideology, whether it’s against Western Civilization, America, the U.S. Constitution, our friends, our allies, peace in general, you fit under that rubric,” he said. “Our national counterterrorism activities will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist such as antifa, we will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations,” Gorka said of the modes the administration will use to target the left-wing groups. The Trump administration formally designated antifa as a terror group in September., Short for anti-fascists, antifa is an umbrella description for far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events.

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Senate GOP fears $1B for White House ballroom represents political landmine

A Republican proposal to spend $1 billion in taxpayer money on security for the White House ballroom has become a political landmine in the Senate debate over funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for the next three and a half years. Before the Senate Judiciary Committee released its bill, Republican senators warned that using taxpayer money to pay for the ballroom would be a dumb move in an election year where GOP candidates are already facing headwinds over the issue of affordability. While the legislation clearly states that the money is for security enhancements and may not be spent on “non-security elements” of the construction project, that distinction is being lost in the media headlines and broader debate over the sensitive issue.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) says he supports the construction of the White House ballroom, but he wants it paid for by private donations, which President Trump originally pledged when he tore down the historic East Wing. “If the White House and Secret Service believe that they need money for construction beyond these private funds they’ve raised, I’m willing to hear them out. There are plenty of things that we can cut to pay for it, like wasteful earmarks or all the fraud we’re uncovering in states like California and Minnesota,” Scott said in a statement. Scott said he doesn’t question the importance of the construction project but noted it’s “already being funded by private donations.” Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, said Scott and other Republican senators would be wise to pump the brakes on the proposal to spend $1 billion in taxpayer money on the ballroom — even if it’s dedicated to security enhancements. “The fact that it’s linked to the ballroom makes it controversial,” he said. “Congress might give them the money, but it’s an unnecessary controversy because the way it was marketed [as] basically a billion-dollar ballroom.”

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Lead Stories

Trump-backed challengers defeat Indiana senators who blocked redistricting push

Indiana Senate Republicans who opposed congressional redistricting were largely defeated during Tuesday's primary election, with only one race so far called for an incumbent after President Donald Trump's call to oust them. The results come after months of political threats, and an estimated $9 million in spending to back primary challengers against the incumbents. The incumbents' losses show Trump's continued strength in the state. In a statement, U.S. Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind) said the wins should send a message. "Everyone in Indiana politics should have learned an important lesson today: President Trump is the single most popular Republican among Hoosier voters," Banks said in a statement. "Indiana is a conservative state, and we deserve conservatives in our State Senate who have a pulse on Republican voters."

Trump's push to redistrict was part of a nationwide effort to win more seats in Congress by redrawing state maps across the country, part of a move to keep Republican control of the U.S. House. In Indiana, Republicans currently hold seven of the nine U.S. House seats. The proposed redistricted map targeted the two remaining Democratic strongholds to be more favorable to the GOP. In November, Trump vowed that any Republican who voted against redrawing the state's congressional boundaries, "potentially having an impact on America itself, should be PRIMARIED." In spite of Trump's threats, Indiana Senate Republicans rebuffed him, siding with Senate Democrats to kill the redistricting bill 31-19. The reverberation of that Indiana vote was felt for months and played out on primary election day in Indiana. It kicked off a flurry of campaign donations, national endorsements, and door-knocking led by various political groups aligned with the President — attracting national attention and boosting money spent on Indiana races. Trump posted his support on social media for primary candidates opposing incumbent Republicans on Election Day, saying "There are eight Great Patriots running against long seated RINOS - Let's see how those RINOS do tonight!"

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U.S. Ambassador to Italy Fertitta pumped millions into gambling stocks

The United States’ ambassador to Italy just made a massive personal gamble on casinos. Billionaire diplomat Tilman Fertitta, who owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets and dozens of restaurants and hotels, has purchased at least $113 million in Caesars Entertainment since November, new federal financial documents reviewed by NOTUS indicate. Fertitta in February also purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Penn National Gaming stock, according to the documents, which Fertitta signed, certified and submitted to the Office of Government Ethics between November and March. Together, the stock purchases could be worth as much as $420 million; the exact value is unclear because executive branch officials are only required to disclose the broad ranges that their stock trades fall into.

Fertitta’s purchases coincide with reports that his holding company, Fertitta Entertainment, was attempting to buy Caesars Entertainment, which counts numerous casinos, hotels, restaurants and sportsbook operations among its holdings. Fertitta Entertainment already owns Golden Nugget Hotel and Casinos. The gambling industry is under increasing political scrutiny, with Congress actively considering legislation that could affect sports betting, prediction markets and gambling more generally. The State Department acknowledged questions from NOTUS but did not otherwise respond. The U.S. Embassy in Italy did not respond to requests for comment. Steven Scheinthal, Fertitta Entertainment’s vice president, general counsel and board member, told NOTUS in an email that Fertitta “has no day-to-day control over decisions made to run his companies or assets” and that “officers overseeing both his companies and personal assets made the decision to engage in certain stock trades for business reasons, including the belief that certain equities were undervalued.”

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Michael Morris steps back into transportation job after judge’s ruling

Michael Morris will resume his role as North Texas transportation director after a state district judge issued a temporary injunction Tuesday that his firing last week was unconstitutional. Morris returned to his job at the North Central Texas Council of Governments office in Arlington Tuesday afternoon, said Rick Bailey, chair of the Regional Transportation Council. “I’m elated that Michael Morris is going to be joining us as soon as today,” Bailey, a Johnson County commissioner, told the Fort Worth Report Tuesday afternoon. State District Judge John Chupp of Tarrant County’s 141st District Court issued a temporary injunction in favor of Morris’ employment after a lawsuit was filed April 6 in Denton County to stop a job search to replace the director.

Morris, 70, could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. He was fired April 28 by council of governments CEO Todd Little, weeks before the FIFA World Cup games in Arlington start in June. A temporary restraining order protecting Morris’ job was lifted, resulting in his firing. Last week, the Regional Transportation Council decided during an emergency meeting to allocate $5 million for legal expenses as it joined a lawsuit filed by Denton County officials over hiring decisions. The suit was moved to Tarrant County this week. RTC members said the suit’s intention is to clarify the Metropolitan Planning Organization structure in North Texas. The transportation council is an independent policy body composed of 45 elected and appointed officials who would have the ability to hire and fire transportation department staffers, instead of the council of governments as Little maintained. Through a spokesperson, Little declined an interview request. Previously, he told the Fort Worth Report that he required all council of government department heads to file succession plans for the future. In a statement Tuesday, the council of government acknowledged that Morris was “reinstated” to his job in compliance with the temporary injunction.

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Charles Perry: Paxton’s persecution: Texas faithful can’t ignore what’s happening in Senate race

Texans love to say, “As Texas goes, so goes America.” I would argue that what happens in Texas affects the world. In many ways, that has been true in the fight for religious liberty for the last 70 years. A new battle over religious liberty is brewing in the race to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. And so far, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his team are on the wrong side of it. Just a few days ago, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) released a list of five highly respected faith leaders from across Texas who now make up the senator’s Faith Advisory Council. Cornyn’s opponent in the Republican primary, Paxton, and his team have chosen to respond to this announcement by attacking its pastors, including Dr. Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, who used to be Paxton’s own pastor. In what universe did Paxton and his team believe this was the morally or politically correct response?

For a Republican candidate to engage in an all-out assault on conservative pastors and faith leaders is repugnant. It is also a sign of a desperate candidate and campaign resorting to desperate measures. Instead of seeking to destroy faith leaders associated with Cornyn, wouldn’t it make more sense for Paxton to simply produce his own list of pastors whom he goes to for advice? We all need wise counselors in our lives. But it is also incumbent on those in positions of leadership to heed the wise counsel they receive. By now, the list of Paxton’s indiscretions is increasingly public and tragically long. If Paxton has not been in recent communication with as many Christian leaders as he once was, now would be the perfect time to renew those relationships. Ronald Reagan once told a gathering of pastors in Dallas in 1984, “Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.” I couldn’t agree more. Texas needs more of God in the public square. Not less. I applaud President Donald Trump for finally setting religious voices on equal footing with the rest of the country via the new IRS ruling lifting restrictions on religious leaders weighing in on political matters. I applaud Cornyn for responding to the new IRS rules by ushering godly voices into the public square. And I especially applaud Dr. Graham of Prestonwood, Max Lucado of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church Dallas, Dr. Gus Reyes, board member of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and Dr. Phil Schubert, President of Abilene Christian University, for showing courage and taking action.

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State Stories

Paxton’s fundraising struggles in Texas underscore deep rift in G.O.P.

Ken Paxton, the firebrand Texas attorney general, said last year that he thought he would need about $20 million to unseat Senator John Cornyn. So far, Mr. Paxton is far short of his mark. Many of the wealthy donors who bankrolled his political career in Texas have decided to watch from the sidelines during the U.S. Senate race, according to an analysis of state and federal campaign finance data by The New York Times. Several businessmen who spent millions on Mr. Paxton’s campaigns for state attorney general have not given to either his Senate campaign or a political action committee backing his run, including a former top donor who gave far more to Mr. Cornyn. Perhaps most strikingly, the billionaire West Texas oilmen and far-right kingmakers who have long supported Mr. Paxton have spent little on his Senate run. Mr. Paxton’s fund-raising struggles underscore the deep rift in the Republican Party between its more business-oriented conservatives, who prefer Mr. Cornyn, and the hard-right base that embraces Mr. Paxton’s pugnacious politics.

His strong position in the race, despite a large fund-raising disadvantage, also reveals the limits of campaign spending in an election where the candidates are so well-known to voters, and where each has used his office to garner headlines for free. The runoff is May 26. Recent polls have shown Mr. Paxton with a lead or neck-and-neck with Mr. Cornyn. But Democrats, who see Mr. Paxton as a weaker candidate in a general election, may find that if he becomes the nominee, conservative campaign money will come rushing his way. One prominent Texas donor, Alex Fairly, said what was most important to him was beating the Democratic nominee, James Talarico — not who wins the primary. “It’s more a matter of saving my bullets for the general,” Mr. Fairly, an Amarillo businessman, said in an interview. “Winning in November is more important.” Mr. Fairly gave $7,000 to Mr. Paxton’s Senate campaign — far less than the $300,000 he has contributed to Mr. Paxton’s state campaigns since 2021. In the race so far, Mr. Cornyn has significantly outspent Mr. Paxton, and still had $11 million in his campaign and committee accounts as of the latest filling — three times as much as Mr. Paxton had on hand. In total, Mr. Paxton has raised only around $13.5 million between his campaign and the committee supporting him. Mr. Paxton’s campaign declined to comment. But on the campaign trail, he has presented his fund-raising gap as a strength.

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Lt. Gov., House Speaker lean on state agency for relief as Texas camps struggle to meet safety requirements

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows support allowing camps to operate during the 2026 season even if they have not installed fiber-optic internet. They released a joint statement Tuesday, as hundreds of camps in Texas remain in limbo with pending license applications in front of the Department of State Health Services. DSHS has issued just nine licenses ahead of the 2026 summer camp season. State lawmakers passed strict new regulations for camps during a special legislative session in 2025, after 27 campers and counselors died at Camp Mystic in Kerr County. The law requires camps to install fiber, which some operators say is not possible in their remote areas. Burrows and Patrick said they recognize means other than fiber can provide reliable, redundant internet access, which would “satisfy the purpose and spirit of the law.”

In the statement, they said they support the Department of State Health Services licensing camps for the 2026 season “if they have submitted a sufficient emergency action plan, meet all other safety requirements, and maintain a reliable communication system capable of operating during an emergency.” It is not the first time for lawmakers to lean on DSHS to consider leniency on the fiber requirement. Two authors of the legislation, state Sen. Charles Perry and state Rep. Drew Darby, sent a letter to the agency in October asking for implementation of that part of the law to be delayed until 2027. But the agency did not offer leniency. WFAA asked DSHS if the statement from Burrows and Patrick will make an impact, but at publication time, the agency had not yet responded. DSHS previously told WFAA youth camps can continue to operate while their application status is pending.

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Houston hospital system sues insurer over unpaid medical bills

Harris County taxpayers could be forced to cover millions of dollars of unpaid medical bills if an insurance company does not reimburse Harris Health for those services, the health system says in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses Wellpoint Texas of underpaying or refusing to pay thousands of medical bills for patients with Medicare Advantage plans offered by the insurer, formerly known as Amerigroup Texas. Harris Health is a public safety-net health system with a large portion of its operations supported by taxes, so the burden of unpaid and underpaid medical claims would ultimately be shifted to Harris County taxpayers, according to the lawsuit. The case was initially filed earlier this year in state district court in Harris County, but a judge recently granted Wellpoint Texas’ request to move the case to federal court.

The lawsuit is playing out at a time when hospitals are facing numerous financial challenges, including rising healthcare costs and Medicaid policy changes included in the sweeping tax breaks and spending cuts bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year. Spokespersons for Harris Health and Wellpoint Texas, a subsidiary of the Indiana-based insurance company Elevance Health, both declined to comment on the lawsuit because the case is ongoing. IntegraNet Health and Van Lang IPA, a pair of entities that Wellpoint tasked with administering its Medicare Advantage plans in Texas, are also named as defendants. The lawsuit also accuses Wellpoint of pocketing federal funds it receives for enrolling Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and shifting costs to Harris Health. Private insurance companies offer Medicare Advantage plans as alternatives to Medicare, and the federal government provides fixed monthly payments to insurers that administer those plans.

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Texas space industry growth driven by private companies, Dallas Fed says

Texas’ commercial space industry is gaining momentum, building on decades of aerospace activity while positioning itself as a growing hub for private-sector space exploration, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The industry, once dominated by government programs, has evolved into a mix of public and private activity, with Texas emerging as a key player. Anchored by NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, the state has long served as the command center for U.S. human spaceflight, directing missions since 1965 and training astronauts for decades. Private enterprise has expanded that legacy. Companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Axiom Space, and Intuitive Machines now operate in Texas, pursuing projects ranging from rocket launches to satellite communications and lunar missions.

The shift toward commercialization began in the early 1980s, when federal policy changes opened the door for private companies to launch spacecraft without exclusive government contracts. Advances in technology — including lightweight materials, improved propulsion systems and 3D manufacturing — have since made private space ventures more financially viable. Texas has benefited from that transition. The state’s aerospace and defense sector employs roughly 170,000 workers and has grown 18% since 1990, even as national employment in the industry declined slightly. The broader ecosystem — including engineering talent from the oil and gas industry, a relatively light regulatory environment and favorable geography — has helped attract and sustain space-related businesses. Geography, in particular, plays a significant role. Launch sites closer to the equator require less fuel to reach orbit, and Texas offers access to the Gulf Coast and wide expanses of sparsely populated land, allowing for safer launch trajectories.

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Pearland's first Democratic mayor in decades: 'People see me for who I am, not for the party'

Pearland's new mayor, Quentin Wiltz, won a close election on Saturday, but his victory has sparked heated debate on social media. Wiltz said he knows there is a divide in Pearland, but added it's a chasm he hopes to bridge when he becomes the city's next mayor. He recognized the historic nature of his win: he will be Pearland's first Black mayor and the first Democrat in decades. "This election was important because the mayor's race is at large. So every person who showed up mattered," Wiltz told ABC13. "My message hasn't changed. It's always, will, and continues to be about the people. The people that I serve, the people that I know, the people that I meet. Because that's what I think public office is about."

Wiltz won the election by 263 votes out of 11,743 cast. He is hopeful about the growing city's future despite its infrastructure and budget challenges, and he wants to hear from residents. "You matter and your input matters," he said. "And you mean something, and you should be included in this process because this is your city. " Among those posting, Precinct 3 Constable Buck Stevens, who wrote: "I will be going through the list of nonvoters to see who really doesn't care how our communities move forward." After backlash, Stevens told ABC13 he posted as a citizen, not as an elected official. He clarified in a follow-up post that he had used the wrong words. The posts have been removed, but in a statement to ABC13, Stevens wrote: "As a citizen, I exercised my First Amendment right with free speech about my opinion related to the lack of engagement of voters. My sincerest intent was to understand if there is a way to get more voters out to the polls, by using public data, nothing more. The post had nothing to do with, and I would never include or jeopardize my office, my official position, or Brazoria County in any way." Wiltz said he is aware of the online comments but has not read them, adding that he wants to move past them and help govern. "People see me for who I am, not for the party," Wiltz said. "And if you expand that across Texas, I think you'll find that Texans believe that everywhere. We are who we are in our communities. We exist outside of parties. The parties are just a platform for us. " Wiltz takes office next week.

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Austin’s “most valuable IHOP” sells at auction after Nate Paul’s long fight to retain it

Natin “Nate” Paul’s battle to keep a valuable piece of property on the edge of the high-rise-strewn Rainey Street has ended, as the lot at 707 E. Cesar Chavez was auctioned off Tuesday on the steps of the Travis County Courthouse. Only three groups competed for the foreclosed property in a slow, low-volume auction that drew more than 100 bids over two hours. Most of the bidding came from Cesar Rainey LLC, which held the defaulted note, and the eventual winner, Austin-based real estate investment firm Travis County Exchange Corp. The largely undeveloped site, which hosts only an IHOP along Interstate 35, was valued at $27 million by the county appraisal district but sold for just over $12.7 million.

Paul’s World Class Holdings initially took out a $2 million loan on the property in 2017. The troubled real estate investment firm defaulted on the loan in 2021. For the past year Paul has struggled to hang on to the site through a series of court room maneuvers, including a bankruptcy that was later dismissed for being filed in “bad faith.” He has accused the lienholder, Cesar Rainey Street LLC, which purchased the loan from the original lender, of stonewalling him by failing to provide a final payoff amount, denying him the opportunity to purchase the note outright. That number was disclosed as more than $5.1 million in court documents. It was also the opening bid Tuesday. The claims were repeated as recently as Monday, when a company called Yarrington Exit — managed by Austin real estate investor Jimmy Nassour — asked a state district court for a temporary restraining order, saying it was trying to purchase the property from Paul but that lienholders were intentionally preventing the sale to “capture the substantial excess equity.” Yarrington Exit alleged in court filings that Cesar Rainey hoped to capture the building at auction as a credit purchase, for the amount of the existing loan. Cesar Rainey LLC increased the amount of sale by more than $5 million over dozens of bids.

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New Braunfels mayoral race headed to runoff after legal review cites state constitution

The mayoral race in New Braunfels will go to a runoff after city officials reversed course and said the city’s charter conflicts with the Texas Constitution, according to a statement from the city. The city initially said Michael French, a former council member, had won the race with a plurality of the vote over incumbent Mayor Neal Linnartz. But officials later determined that state law requires a majority for offices with terms longer than two years. The mayor’s term in New Braunfels is three years. The issue emerged after the May 2 election, when results showed French leading and the city initially declared him the winner. Linnartz publicly conceded. Unofficial results show French received the most votes with 3,667, or about 49%. Linnartz followed with roughly 38%. Two other candidates split the remaining votes.

Because no candidate reached a majority, the top two vote-getters will now advance to a runoff. City officials said the determination followed notice from outside legal counsel about the conflict between local and state law. Under the Texas Constitution, state law supersedes city charter provisions when they are in conflict. City Attorney Valeria Acevedo said the situation required further legal review before moving forward. “This situation stems from a conflict between our City Charter and the Texas Constitution,” Acevedo said in the city’s statement. “The Constitution clearly requires a majority vote for offices with terms longer than two years.” She said once the issue was fully analyzed, it became clear a runoff election was legally required. The city said it understands the confusion and concern this may cause for voters and plans to seek additional review from an outside attorney to confirm the interpretation. New Braunfels officials will now work with county election authorities to schedule the runoff, and details on timing and voting will be announced once finalized, according to the city.

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Dell looks to ditch Delaware, move its incorporation to Texas

Dell Technologies Inc. is looking to move its incorporation to Texas adding to a list of tech companies that have uprooted their legal home from Delaware. According to a press release, the company's governing board recommended that it move its incorporation to the Lone Star state, where the bulk of its workforce and leadership currently reside. The company was founded in Austin, Texas. Stockholders of the company will be asked to approve the redomestication at its June 25 shareholders meeting. The press release announcing the recommendation cites the company's footprint and roots in Texas and not any legal gripes about the First State. Texas has been making a push to recruit companies to reincorporate there through reforms to its corporate laws and its business courts that legal experts say weaken guardrails against company mismanagement and dilute shareholders' rights.

This is happening as criticisms of Delaware's courts by the likes of Elon Musk have continued. In recent years, a few dozen billion-dollar, largely founder-led companies have pulled their legal home from the First State, citing gripes about litigation in Delaware. A company's redomestication is essentially a paperwork move that puts it under another state's corporate law. These companies have little to no actual employment footprint in Delaware, but they contribute to the suite of fees and taxes known as the state's corporate franchise that brings in about $1.8 billion annually, funding about a third of state government operations. The criticisms and concerns about potential flight of corporate charters have led to a series of highly controversial legislative reforms to corporate law in Delaware that state leaders say are necessary to keep businesses, but shareholder groups said erode the role of the courts in policing company mismanagement. And while losing a big, multi-billion-dollar company like Dell may make headlines, its financial impact on state coffers is limited, as the fees and taxes individual companies face are capped at $250,000. Delaware Online/The News Journal has asked Delaware's Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, who oversees the franchise, as well as Gov. Matt Meyer, for comment on Dell's potential relocation.

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‘Classic unfunded mandate’: San Antonio school districts reveal costs of new seat belt requirements

Local school districts say it’s not “financially feasible” to install three-point seat belts on all school buses, even though the state expects them to by the 2029-30 school year. “This is a classic, classic unfunded mandate,” said John Craft, superintendent for Northside Independent School District. “If there is such a thing, this is textbook definition.” Passed last year, Senate Bill 546 builds on school bus safety requirements by requiring that all buses have three-point seat belts, regardless of the year they were made. Before that, only buses made after 2018 were required to have the safety belts. Currently, districts have bus fleets with a patchwork of seat belt types, operating buses with three-point belts, two-point belts and some with no seat belts. Seat belts drew lawmakers’ attention again after a 2024 collision between a concrete truck and a school bus from the Hays Consolidated Independent School District resulted in the death of a 5-year-old student. The school bus didn’t have seat belts.

SB 546 doesn’t provide any state funding, requiring school districts to report what kind of seat belts buses currently have, how much it would cost them to be in compliance and whether they can actually afford it. Districts are expected to turn in those reports to the Texas Education Agency by the end of May, and officials are hoping lawmakers either create a funding source or change the law. “We hope, which isn’t a really good strategy, we hope that the data reveals that the Legislature needs to invest,” said Don Jurek, director of transportation at East Central ISD, when presenting the district’s seat belt report at a board meeting in February. Most San Antonio-area districts have already presented seat belt reports to the public, and none have said it’s feasible to be compliant with SB 546 by 2029 with their current budgets. They are proposing longer phased plans to replace or retrofit buses. Retrofitting carries a heavy price tag, ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars in smaller districts to several million dollars in larger districts.

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Dozens of Central Texas residents file suit against SpaceX alleging ‘terrestrial bombardment’

Almost 80 Central Texas residents who allege their homes have been damaged by SpaceX’s “daily barrage of terrestrial bombardment” are suing Elon Musk’s aerospace company in McGregor. The 77 plaintiffs, residents of McGregor, Moody, Crawford and Oglesby, collectively are seeking more than $1 million in damages in their lawsuit, filed Friday in Waco’s 414th State District Court. The lawsuit alleges gross negligence and trespass and claims that regular rocket testing by SpaceX“ continues to physically, intentionally, and voluntarily cause massive airborne acoustic pressure waves and ground-borne seismic shockwaves to physically enter and invade Plaintiffs’ properties.”

SpaceX did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit, which was filed the same week as a federal lawsuit in the U.S. Southern District of Texas in which 80 South Texas residents claim their homes were damaged by “massive” sonic booms from the SpaceX facility in South Texas. Both lawsuits were filed by the Martinez and Tijerina law firm in Brownsville. “Plaintiffs are innocent bystanders caught in the blast radius of SpaceX’s industrial ambitions,” the lawsuit alleges. “…The continuous shaking and acoustic resonance have caused severe, escalating property damage across these communities.” The plaintiffs’ homes are “literally cracking under the pressure, suffering from fractured foundations, differential settlement and compromised structural integrity” due to the rocket tests, the lawsuit claims.

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Inside the plan to save downtown Dallas

For decades, downtown Dallas measured success in square feet: another tower, another headquarters, another skyline-defining deal. That logic produced Bank of America Plaza, Fountain Place, Renaissance Tower, and more—and created a central business district designed for an office market that no longer exists. Forty years later, many of those towers sit half-empty. The 18 largest buildings hold 8 million square feet of empty space. The overall vacancy rate is approaching 30 percent—among the highest of any major U.S. city center. “Most of those buildings are owned by lenders,” says longtime developer and investor Ray Washburne. “They’re basically zombie buildings.” As business leaders, investors, and developers begin to sketch plans to revive downtown, they won’t start with those skyscrapers. Not even close. Instead, a new consensus is emerging—downtown’s future will be decided at the street level.

The downtown Dallas we studied for this feature is framed by a “loop” of four major roadways that separate the central business district from surrounding neighborhoods. These include I-35E to the west, I-30 to the south, I-345 to the east, and Woodall Rodgers Freeway to the north. Can the city stitch together the myriad districts it already has—including the Arts District, Farmers Market, West End, and East Quarter—with housing, hotels, schools, parks, retail, and safer streets? Can the $3.5 billion convention center become a true anchor rather than an island on the southern edge? Will the city finally decide the future of City Hall—potentially replacing it with a mixed-use district and a new Mavericks arena, as team owner Patrick Dumont has envisioned? Or will Dallas miss a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape its core? For decades, the city’s downtown operated on a simple thesis: recruit corporate headquarters, fill towers with employees, and let restaurants, hotels, and retail follow. And for a while, it worked. “What an extraordinary 20-year run Dallas has had,” says Ross Perot Jr. “If you compare the Dallas of 20 years ago to the Dallas we have today, it really is an economic development miracle.”

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City Stories

New Caney is expanding with thousands of homes, new health district

Two master-planned communities are expanding in New Caney as developers tap into growing demand for housing and healthcare in the area northeast of Houston. The projects are expected to add thousands of single-family homes, along with a 328-acre healthcare district in Valley Ranch. While New Caney had about 37,600 residents in 2024, that represents an 80% increase from a decade earlier, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Expanding housing developments will draw more residents to the area as developers bet on the future of this Montgomery County suburb. Here are two projects driving that momentum.

Valley Ranch, a 1,400-acre master-planned community at the junction of the Grand Parkway and Interstate 69, is already home to about 7,000 residents, but new projects there will accelerate its growth. This week, Valley Ranch’s developer, the Signorelli Company, announced the groundbreaking of Azalea District, a 328-acre mixed-use district planned within Valley Ranch along Azalea Boulevard east of Interstate 69. Elsewhere in Valley Ranch, the Signorelli Company expects to break ground on an 188-acre retail center, called Marketplace, this summer. The East Montgomery County Improvement District is also set to open its new convention center in Valley Ranch this summer, according to Signorelli. East of Valley Ranch near the Grand Parkway and Plum Grove Road, a nature-focused 1,373-acre community called the Trails is opening its second phase with hundreds of homes and additional amenities. Austin-based developer Castle Hill Partners is planning to build 2,000 homes in the Trails, alongside 600 acres of wooded land for trail and outdoor recreation. Tiffany McMillan, vice president at Castle Hill Partners, said the developer was drawn to the area’s proximity to the Grand Parkway and the Lake Houston Wilderness Park. The Trails second phase includes 344 homes priced from the “upper $200,000s” to the “upper $500,000s.” Homes range from 1,400 square feet to 3,900 square feet. Construction is also underway on a 5-acre amenity campus opening later this year with a clubhouse, pools, playground and event spaces.

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National Stories

The antiabortion movement is turning on Trump

The antiabortion lobby expected to be more triumphant by now: A conservative Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and the self-styled “most pro-life president in history” again occupies the Oval Office. But abortions are up in the years after the overturning of Roe, and the antiabortion lobby has a new locus for blame. “Trump is the problem. The president is the problem,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the influential president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The ubiquity of abortion pills during the second Trump administration has led antiabortion advocates to decry the president’s appointees, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, and promise cash and political firepower to politicians who oppose the drugs.

Dannenfelser’s assessment for supporters packed into a glitzy neoclassical auditorium in downtown Washington for the group’s spring gala Wednesday was dire: If Republicans don’t abandon Trump’s strategy of letting states decide abortion law, “then the movement as we know it is finished.” Now, Dannenfelser’s group is preparing to spend $160 million in the coming midterms and the 2028 presidential primary. The hurdle for candidates looking to tap in to that support: They must commit, Dannenfelser said, “to pro-life action at the national level.” Leaders in the antiabortion movement are quick to credit Trump for nominating the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, but their frustration has been building for months. They hoped that the administration would roll back Biden-era rules allowing the abortion pill, mifepristone, to be prescribed online and shipped through the mail. The regulations have allowed clinicians in states with liberal abortion laws, such as New York, to prescribe and send pills to women in states with strict abortion bans, such as Mississippi.

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White House insists Iran war is over, even while missiles fly

When the cease-fire in the war with Iran went into effect a month ago, President Trump was pretty direct that if the Iranians failed to end their nuclear program, or to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the bombers would be back in the air. “If there’s no deal, fighting resumes,” he said, making it very clear this was just a pause. But it turns out, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that the war actually ended at some point after the cease-fire took hold, or so he told reporters at a news conference at the White House on Tuesday. “The Operation Epic Fury is concluded,” he said. “We achieved the objective of that operation.” The effort to reopen the strait, Mr. Rubio said, is entirely a defensive and humanitarian operation that would result in direct military exchanges with the Iranians only if U.S. ships came under fire.

Later on Tuesday, Mr. Trump announced that he was pausing even that effort — which was only one day old, and had succeeded in getting just a few ships freed — “for a short period of time,” citing what he said was “great progress” toward an agreement with Iran. But he kept the American blockade in place, part of a strategy of maximum economic pressure. Still, Mr. Trump’s suspension of the effort to guide ships out of the strait seemed to contradict the administration’s stated position that it was intolerable for Iran to block an international waterway, and that only the United States had the ability to force it open again. For the White House, the insistence that the war was over was the latest rhetorical leap in an effort to put a war that has created the greatest political crisis of Mr. Trump’s presidency in the rearview mirror. But the mere proclamation does not make it true. Missiles were still flying. Both sides insist they control traffic in the waterway.

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Obama, Colbert gush over Zohran Mamdani as they discuss Democratic Party's future

Former President Barack Obama and outgoing "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert took turns singing the praises of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during their interview Tuesday night. During a prerecorded interview that aired Tuesday from the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Colbert spoke with Obama about the direction of the Democratic Party, specifically regarding the ongoing rift between the liberal and the progressive wings of the party. "So you have great leaders. You have people like (Virginia Governor) Abigail Spanberger and (New Jersey Governor) Mikie Sherrill, very centrist. But then you have further left, like AOC and Zohran Mamdani," Colbert said, sparking cheers from his audience after name-dropping the self-described democratic socialists. "What direction do you think would be best for this party, to actually achieve change?" Colbert asked.

Obama shrugged off concerns that there was a true divide between both wings of the Democratic Party. "I'm not so worried about this so-called rift between the left and liberals, as you described it," Obama told Colbert. "Because I think that within the Democratic Party and I would argue a bunch of independents and even some Republicans as well, there's an overarching belief in equality, fairness, if you work then you should be able to make a living wage and support a family and retire with dignity... There are a bunch of things that we agree on. And it's really more of a question of, what are the specific things that we have to do." "You look at somebody like Mamdani, who I think is an extraordinary talent," he continued. "He wants people to be able to afford housing in New York. Well, you know, I would assume liberals in New York want the same thing. And so I don't worry as much about some of these issues within the Democratic Party. I'm more interested in for Democrats is — do you know to just talk to regular people like we're not in a college seminar, right? You know, can you talk plain English to folks about-" "I think that's one of the powers that Mamdani has," Colbert interjected. "That's correct," Obama said. "Not only does he talk like a normal person, but he lives a normal life, but also, he names what is obviously wrong," Colbert continued. "Yes!" Obama exclaimed. "And not have a bunch of gobbledygook around it... Just talk like normal people talk."

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Democrat Chedrick Greene’s win in Michigan state Senate election gives the party another over-performance

Michigan Democrats on Tuesday won a special election for a state Senate seat in another party over-performance after the district was almost evenly divided in the last presidential election. Democratic firefighter Chedrick Greene defeated GOP lawyer Jason Tunney for a seat to determine whether Democrats would retain control of the state Senate. With an estimated 93% of votes in, Greene led Tunney by 19 points. Michigan was one of the hardest-fought states in the presidential election and remains a top battleground in the midterms, home to competitive Senate and governor’s races. Former Vice President Kamala Harris carried the state Senate district by less than 1 percentage point in 2024.

Greene’s victory was the most recent example of Democrats exceeding their 2024 margins in special elections across the country, a trend that has them feeling upbeat about their chances in the midterms. “We delivered this decisive victory by listening and speaking to the things keeping everyday people up at night — worries about affordability, safety, and freedom,” Greene said in his victory speech. Tunney conceded the special election and said in a statement that it was “only the halfway point,” alluding to the fact that he and Greene could meet again in the November election. The candidates in Tuesday’s contest were vying to fill a seat that has been vacant since its former occupant, now-Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, gave it up to enter Congress in January 2025. She campaigned with Greene, as did Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Greene ran on his background as a Marine veteran and fire captain, promising to lower the cost of living. One of his ads depicted him putting out a Dumpster fire tagged with the labels “higher rents,” “job loss” and “price gouging.”

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Ohio set for marquee matchups for US Senate, governor in the fall

Tuesday’s primary in Ohio set up two marquee matchups in November — a U.S. Senate race that will help determine control of the chamber and a governor’s race in which Democrats see their best chance of victory in two decades. Another stunningly expensive Senate race — the state’s third in four years — is expected as Republicans try to hold their majority during a difficult midterm cycle. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown easily defeated a challenger in the Democratic primary and will now attempt to unseat Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Democrats are counting on Brown’s previous popularity with voters to flip the seat, even as the Senate Leadership Fund — a top GOP super PAC — has pledged $79 million to defend Husted. Brown, who served three Senate terms before losing a bitter reelection bid in 2024, pledged at his victory party to fight for working-class Ohioans.

“No one in the Senate is standing up to these corporations who raise your prices and who game the system,” Brown said as attendees booed. He continued, “Ohioans don’t have anyone fighting for you, until November.” Husted, who did not hold an election night party, was unopposed in his primary, a special election to fill the remainder of the six-year Senate term that Vice President JD Vance won in 2022. In a statement earlier in the day, Husted said Brown has no room to talk about failures in Washington. “Over the next six months, Ohioans will hear a lot from Sherrod Brown about his so-called solutions,” Husted said. “The truth is, after 32 years in Washington, he created the very problems he now blames others for. His record is indefensible.” In the governor’s race, biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy clinched the Republican nomination over internet personality Casey Putsch to face Dr. Amy Acton, the COVID-era health director, this fall. Acton was unopposed in the Democratic primary.

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High gas prices wreak havoc on America’s army of supercommuters

Nicole Smith fills the gas tank of her 2021 Jeep Compass three times a week to keep up with her long commute, 50 miles each way, three times a week, from her Fredericksburg, Va., home to a graduate program in the nation’s capital. Smith, 35, and her husband moved there from a town closer to Washington, D.C., in 2023 for more-affordable housing. Now she is being stung by higher gasoline prices, with fill-ups costing about $200 more each month compared with earlier this year. “One of the biggest things that I have been forgoing is just less fun activities, less weekends out, less traveling,” said Smith, who is retired from the D.C. Army National Guard and studying public health. She and her husband live off his Army paycheck and her disability benefits.

“It’s mostly frustrating because you go from one month budgeting for a certain amount, and the next month it’s another amount,” said Smith, who can spend up to two hours fighting traffic in each one-way commute. The ranks of America’s marathon commuters have grown since the pandemic, with many workers moving farther away from city centers for cheaper housing and more space. The work-from-home era, meanwhile, has shifted to more of a full-time and hybrid-schedule mix. These days so-called supercommuters, often defined as people who travel 90 minutes or more each way to work, are paying an especially heavy price if they have to drive. Commuters who drive a new vehicle with average fuel economy 75 miles each way, every weekday, could spend roughly $500 a month to keep their tanks filled just for commutes at today’s prices, if they stay elevated. Add in the extra amount in high-cost states like California and more miles, and expenses balloon from there.

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House Democrats’ primary endorsements divide the party

When Jordan Wood, a progressive running for an open congressional seat in Maine, woke up on Monday morning, his husband looked at him as if someone had just died. No one had. But while he was sleeping, Mr. Wood had missed some jarring news: An official from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had left a voice mail message with the heads-up that the group would be announcing within hours that it was endorsing Joe Baldacci, a state senator and one of his primary opponents, in the race for Maine’s Second Congressional District. “I’m in total shock,” Mr. Wood, who has raised more money than Mr. Baldacci but is trailing in some public polls, said in an interview. “They were pretty clear with me that they had no plans to weigh in on this primary.”

Mr. Wood’s was one of eight primaries in critical and competitive districts across the country where House Democrats’ campaign arm announced this week that it was getting involved to boost a candidate as part of its “red to blue” program, a sign of the party’s growing confidence that it is on track to win control of the House in November. Four of them were contested primaries, in which the D.C.C.C. chose one Democratic candidate over others. Such endorsements, which typically translate into major fund-raising boosts, are not atypical. But this year, they have bitterly divided Democrats, who are feuding openly over the choices in a sign of deeper rifts about the party’s tactics and future. Some Democrats, including prominent members of Congress, are accusing the campaign committee of being undemocratic in trying to influence the selection of candidates in contested primaries before voters have had their say. The intervention is drawing unfavorable comparisons to the 2024 election cycle, when some Democrats felt the party had anointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee instead of allowing a competitive process to play out following President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s abrupt and late exit from the race.

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Lead Stories

Trump’s retribution? What to watch in Tuesday’s elections in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan

President Donald Trump’s campaign to politically punish Republicans who stand in his way moves through Indiana on Tuesday, when seven state senators face Trump-backed primary challengers. An effort pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump last November to redraw Indiana’s congressional map failed. With the recent Supreme Court decision limiting the Voting Rights Act, some fear it could happen again. (AP video: Obed Lamy) In neighboring Ohio, primaries for U.S. Senate and governor will lock in the candidates for two major races with national implications. And in Michigan, voters in a bellwether district will fill a vacancy in the state Senate, a race with implications for the balance of power in a battleground state. Here’s what to watch for.

Trump is taking aim at seven Republican state senators in Indiana who opposed his plan to redraw congressional district boundaries to help the party gain seats in the U.S. House. Groups allied with the president have spent millions on advertising, an extraordinary flood of cash and attention into races that are typically low profile. The races are a test of Trump’s enduring grip over his party as Republicans grow increasingly anxious about the midterm elections in November. The results will signal to Republicans everywhere about how big a price they’ll pay with their voters if they distance themselves from Trump even as his popularity fades. And it will show the president whether he can still credibly threaten consequences for Republicans who cross him. The Trump-targeted state senators all represent districts he carried in 2024, mostly by 20 percentage points or more. The key races to watch are districts 1, 11, 19, 21, 23, 38 and 41.

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Morris ouster signals battle for transportation policy in North Texas

Visions of the future of North Texas -- and how to engineer it from wishful thinking into reality -- are hatched in a large conference room about 100 yards from Six Flags over Texas in Arlington. It is where bureaucrats make decisions that impact the everyday lives of more than 8.3 million North Texans, who are mostly unaware of the proceedings. Article continues below this ad And it is where the region’s power brokers take high-stakes positions over how to spend billions of the public’s money. And where one man — for 36 years — led so many deals that they have become impossible to count. Michael Morris, as transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, has been the ultimate persuader.

How do you put a tolled highway in north Dallas without enraging the owners of high-rises in the way? Bore underground tunnels. How do you find cash to finish the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge when money is strangled by red tape? You depend on your local allies — the city of Dallas and private donors — to help foot the bill. But at the April 30 regularly scheduled meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, a 45-member group of elected officials from all over North Texas in charge of setting policy for the Council of Governments, Morris was not there. He was not seated in his swivel chair at the head of the meeting. Two days prior, Morris had been shown the door by the Council of Government’s Executive Director Todd Little in what past and current members of the Regional Transportation Council say was a strategic and unlawful coup to take control of the heart and soul of transportation policy in North Texas. Up until now, Morris was its heart and soul. But now, without Morris, the future direction of the transportation arm of the Council of Governments is up in the air. Morris may have left an indelible mark on North Texas’ highways, bus routes, commuter rail and air travel, but he also took positions that made him a polarizing figure and drew a fair share of criticism.

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DeSantis signs Florida redistricting map, drawing quick legal challenge

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law the congressional map his office created. Within hours, opponents filed a lawsuit. DeSantis’ plan could add four more seats for the Republican Party. It also threatens to dismantle Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, a voter-approved part of the constitution adopted in 2010. “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered,” DeSantis said on social media, attaching a photo of the new districts. The governor’s signature comes one week after his office first unveiled its proposal. Fox News received an exclusive, red-and-blue party-coded map before lawmakers did. Lawmakers approved the governor’s proposal after two days of a redistricting-focused special session. Democrats decried what they said was a violation of Florida’s constitution and a ploy to appease President Donald Trump, who has pushed red states to redraw their maps to keep GOP control of Congress.

Florida now joins the about half-dozen states that have redrawn their maps after Trump’s push, either in favor of Republicans or in favor of Democrats. No Republicans other than the bill sponsors in the House and Senate spoke out in support of DeSantis’ proposal during the special session. Five Republicans voted against the plan. DeSantis’ signature puts the new districts in place for the 2026 midterms. But a lawsuit filed Monday by the Equal Ground Education Fund and a group of 18 Florida voters asks the court to strike the map down. Six plaintiffs are from Tampa Bay, two are from Central Florida and 10 are from South Florida. The plaintiffs, who filed in Leon County court, are represented by the Elias Law Group, a Democrat-aligned firm that focuses on election law. The group’s lawsuit focuses on Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, which prohibits lawmakers from creating a map that favors a certain political party. The group is accusing Florida of drawing an explicitly partisan map in violation of the state constitution. “When the time came to present his proposed map ... the Governor left no room for doubt as to its purpose,” the lawsuit said, pointing to the plan’s release on Fox News.

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Inside the quiet Republican effort to flip Fetterman

It’s a few days after the election this November, and the results have become clear: Democrats have netted the four seats they need to claim a Senate majority. But then there’s a disturbance in the force: Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump persuade Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) to switch parties or at least become an independent to ensure Republicans retain power in the chamber. It’s a scenario that’s becoming less fantastical by the day. The political environment is curdling for Republicans, and the quiet campaign to lure Fetterman across the aisle is underway. Trump has made the sell, offering his patented total and complete endorsement plus a financial windfall to the Pennsylvanian. A handful of Senate Republicans are also gently feeling out Fetterman and responding to his concerns over the prospect of defecting from the Democratic Party, multiple high-level GOP officials tell me.

If Fetterman does flip, according to officials who were given anonymity to talk about sensitive matters, it will be thanks in large part to his deepening friendship with a pair of senators and their high-profile spouses: Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), and his wife Dina, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and her husband, Wesley. But the first-term Democrat — who’s infuriated his party with his harder line on immigration and staunch support for Israel, Trump nominees, government funding bills and most recently the president’s ballroom — isn’t yet persuaded. “I’m not changing,” Fetterman told me in an interview Friday when I asked if he was ruling out both becoming a Republican or turning independent. “I’m a Democrat, and I’m staying one. “ Yet, at least in private, he’s not totally rejecting dropping his “D.” When one senior Republican recently brought up the idea of becoming an independent to Fetterman, he absorbed the suggestion and didn’t embrace or reject the overture, according to a GOP official familiar with the conversation. In our interview, Fetterman said bluntly: “I’d be a shitty Republican.”

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State Stories

Houston Texans, Rodeo commit to Harris County for stadium plans

Team owner Cal McNair said the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo have decided to make things work in Harris County. Team president Mike Tomon said the Texans have not ruled out building a new stadium within the park but are focusing on renovating Reliant Stadium, which is said to be significantly behind on needed maintenance. “What we’ve talked to the Rodeo (about) is we’re going to make it work, and so we’ll figure out a way to make it work and have everybody a winner in this thing,” McNair said Monday at the team's annual charity golf event, which raised more than $565,000.

In February 2025, the Texans began negotiating a new lease with Harris County and the Rodeo. The current lease expires in 2032. At the time, the Texans said they wanted to remain in the greater Houston area but not necessarily in Harris County. But McNair’s latest comments represent a significant shift in their line of thinking. Whereas other nearby counties were thought to be viable candidates to potentially house a new stadium for the Texans and Rodeo, if it came to that, Harris County is now the sole focus. “The reason we feel that way is if you take a step back and you look at Reliant Park, the attributes of it, you have 350 continuous acres on major arteries with (Interstate) 610, and soon to be the third-largest city in the United States,” Tomon said. “That is pretty special. So when we think about our partnership with the Rodeo, we’re both aligned on we’ll do everything we can to make it work on that specific site because we really think that can be transformative for the city of Houston.” The facilities the Rodeo uses are also in need of renovations. Reliant Park is owned by the county, which leases the facilities to the Texans and the Rodeo. As part of the current lease agreement, the county is responsible for the facilities within the park and their upkeep. But the county is behind on those maintenance needs.

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The long, bitter fight to get ICE out of Dallas

Last November, Azael Alvarez was driving around a neighborhood in southeastern Dallas when he noticed what appeared to be a group of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers surrounding a car at a gas station. Alvarez, an organizer with the group El Movimiento DFW (Dallas–Fort Worth), had been heavily involved in the fight against ICE in the city since the start of the second Trump administration. As soon as he saw the masked agents, Alvarez pulled into the station and began recording the interaction. He noticed that a group of Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers was also present. When Alvarez asked the officers if they could verify that the masked men were from ICE, they said, “We don’t know [who they are] either.” As the suspected ICE agents detained at least one person, Alvarez asked the agents if they had a warrant, while DPD officers stood by watching. As police were driving off, an officer shouted, “Get a job!” in his direction. The incident came in the midst of an ongoing debate about the relationship between local Dallas law enforcement and ICE.

For the better part of a year, organizers, residents, and elected officials have called on the city’s leadership for accountability, transparency, and action in the face of the Trump administration’s pervasive mass-deportation drive. The debate reached a fever pitch less than three weeks before the gas station incident, when Eric Johnson, the Republican mayor of Dallas, ordered a special meeting of two city hall committees to discuss whether the DPD should enter into an official agreement with ICE, under a federal program known as 287(g). (Johnson, whose lax approach to his job led the The Dallas Morning News to dub him “the mayor of Somewhere Else,” didn’t show up to the meeting.) Across the country, local governments are increasingly leveraging their autonomy to curb ICE’s reach. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson issued a directive ordering city officials to investigate and potentially prosecute federal agents. Los Angeles’s mayor barred the use of city-owned properties as “a staging area, processing location, or operations base for immigration enforcement.” But in Texas, where the state legislature is dominated by right-wing politicians who threaten lawfare against cities that decrease their police budgets or adopt “sanctuary” statutes, local governments face challenges to establish policies protecting their immigrant communities against ICE, even if they are largely symbolic. Texas’s 2017 anti-sanctuary law prevents local governments from creating policy that “prohibits or discourages the enforcement of immigration laws” and requires them to honor ICE detainers placed on immigrants in local jails.

Read this article at The Nation - Subscribers Only

Alex Jones' Infowars site has finally shut down — for now

"There's a war on for your mind." That's what Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told his listeners, readers and acolytes for decades. Now, it seems that war is over. Jones' Infowars platform shut down quietly over the weekend after a court-appointed receiver refused to continue paying for the outlet's operating expenses. The same weekend, The Onion launched its Infowars-branded satirical takedown of Jones as his bankruptcy case lingers in state court. Families of the Sandy Hook school shooting successfully sued Jones for defamation in Texas and Connecticut courts, forcing him to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages. But, so far, plaintiffs' attorneys say Jones has managed to dodge paying anything to Sandy Hook families.

The Onion tried in 2023 to take over the site, only for a court to block it. Last month, the satirical publication announced it had a plan to acquire Infowars again, only for a court to side with Jones and stall that takeover. Last week, Mark Bankston, an attorney for plaintiffs, said the yearslong slog in courts has been frustrating for Sandy Hook families. "Everything should be done," Bankston said. "It's a frustrating element in this country that the legal system in general is much too friendly to individuals with wealth who want to seek to avoid paying that wealth to people that they've injured. That's a big problem in this country, and it's not isolated to Alex Jones." Over the weekend, Jones launched a new endeavor, the Alex Jones Network, continuing his controversial brand of broadcasting under that banner. Jones said he did not own the network, but that he was news director, telling his legal foes to "piss up a rope." "The Onion failed to get Infowars for the second time in a year and a half, but the receiver told us to get out of the building by midnight on the 30th," Jones said. "So they're turning the place off."

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As DART loses Highland Park, leaders say future lies in growth

After walking away from a suburban mutiny with one less member city, Dallas Area Rapid Transit leaders laid out goals not just for working with remaining cities on improvements, but for expanding service. On Saturday, Highland Park became the first DART member city in almost 40 years to vote to leave the agency. The town’s voters overwhelmingly chose to cut ties with DART, after its leaders criticized the high cost of a one-cent sales tax they said does not match the value of services in its borders. Still, DART emerged victorious on election day in Addison and University Park, where residents voted to continue their membership. Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch had dropped their election plans months before.

At a news conference Monday, DART Board Chair Randall Bryant said governance and funding challenges “drove our 40-plus year partnership to its near breaking point” this year, despite the agency surviving rounds of withdrawal elections throughout its history. The agency’s focus is now on following through on proposed changes to overcome those challenges, plans that convinced three cities to cancel elections. Ultimately, the board chair said his goal is to see DART expand to meet growing transportation needs that roads alone cannot fulfill. “Even in the midst of ending transit services in our second smallest city in the days to come, we must continue to look beyond our current boundaries,” Bryant said, including north to McKinney, and in the southern sector. “That’s where the future of DART lies.” Member cities will have the opportunity to call an election on DART next in 2032. Over the next six years, the agency will seek to change its governance structure and funding model in the state Legislature.

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AT&T's multibillion-dollar HQ with 'mini Reunion Tower' moves forward

Plans for AT&T’s new multibillion-dollar headquarters in Plano — complete with a 280-foot structure that one official called a “mini Reunion Tower” — got key approval from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday night. Commissioners unanimously recommended approval for four items tied to the telecom giant’s new 54-acre campus at 5400 Legacy Drive and adjacent sites. The Plano City Council will get the final say. Preliminary site plans show there will be 2.3 million square feet of building space. The office campus will also include a daycare center, a pedestrian bridge, ¾ of an acre of public green space, and the tower. The southern half of the site will include parking garages. The tower may not exceed 280 feet.

The tallest building, excluding the tower, will be 8 stories. The 280-foot tower will feature AT&T’s logo and include an enclosed communications antenna. City codes prevent the tower from flashing, strobing or displaying other related light effects between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The structure must still be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, city planners said. The tower will be set back 320 feet from nearby residential structures, and any major changes would require the approval of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Plano planning commissioner Ban Alali said the structure resembles a miniature version of Dallas’ 561-foot Reunion Tower. The company announced earlier this year it planned to move its global headquarters out of downtown Dallas. AT&T’s lease at the 37-story Whitacre Tower at 208 S. Akard St. runs through Dec. 31, 2031. Two of the requests were filed by Dallas-based investment firm NexPoint. The group owns the 54-acre site. The firm requested to rezone 1.4 acres of the site as a planned development — which was required because the tower will also function as a communications antenna.

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TEA finds HISD did not violate parental rights at Bellaire HS

The Texas Education Agency did not find any wrongdoing at the district level in an investigation ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott into whether Houston ISD employees at Bellaire High School violated parents’ rights, records show. In March 2025, Abbott said he asked the TEA to investigate whether employees at Bellaire High School had engaged in misconduct or whether the school had violated any state policies after a local Moms for Liberty chapter alleged that teachers had been “socially transitioning” a student.

In a viral video, Denise Bell, the chair of the Harris County chapter of Moms for Liberty, said during an HISD school board meeting last year that an anonymous HISD mother was “shocked” to learn that teachers at Bellaire had been calling their child by a different name and pronouns. The TEA investigated whether the district had violated parents’ rights under the Texas Education Code, which states that parents are entitled to full information about the school activities of their child. It also notes that any attempt by an employee to encourage a child to withhold information from their parents is grounds for discipline. In a March letter to state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles and board president Ric Campo, the TEA said the investigation had closed in October and there would be no further investigative actions. “Based on the available evidence, the investigation did not result in a finding of district-level wrongdoing or identify violations of provisions of the Texas Education Code in effect during the period under review,” Richard Segovia, the TEA’s Division Director of Special Investigations, wrote. The TEA released the letter to Miles and Campo this week after the Chronicle requested it through public records. The TEA and HISD did not respond to requests for comment.

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Christian Menefee and Al Green, rivals in TX-18, align on aim of strengthening voting rights

U.S. Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green are vying for the same seat in the Democratic primary runoff election for Texas’ 18th Congressional District. But the two Houston-based lawmakers are on the same page when it comes to backing new voting rights legislation, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision last week to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court ruled last Wednesday, in Louisiana v. Callais, that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — the provision that allowed enforcement of the act — didn’t bar states from using non-racial factors when drawing maps, including to achieve partisan advantage. The immediate effect was to strike down a congressional district Louisiana had created as an African American opportunity seat. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court's conservative majority, called the district an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander."

Menefee, speaking with Houston Public Media, called for Congress to pass a national ban on partisan gerrymandering. "Because of the court decision," Menefee said, "that can be used as subterfuge as an excuse where you can take a racist map, put some lipstick on it and call it a partisan gerrymandering instead of racial gerrymandering. And so we have to ban partisan gerrymandering as quickly as possible." Menefee said there was effectively no chance that Congress would pass new voting rights legislation as long as Republicans are in charge. He said that made it even more important for Democrats to prioritize strengthening voting rights the next time they return to power. "I think it is a stain on the Democratic Party that we weren’t able to pass voting rights legislation when Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (I-WV) held it up the last time that we had a majority in the Senate," Menefee said. "But it is going to be incumbent upon us that next time we get the majority that we do whatever is necessary — I don’t care if it means suspending the filibuster — do whatever we can to make sure that we have fair access to the ballot box so that we can continue this pursuit of a true multiracial multicultural democracy."

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Magnolia mayor faces third federal lawsuit related to assault, retaliation allegations

A third federal lawsuit has now been filed against the mayor of Magnolia, further intensifying a growing legal and political crisis that has unfolded over the past several weeks. The newest lawsuit comes from the city’s former administrator, who alleges he was fired in retaliation for speaking out about claims that Mayor Matthew Dantzer assaulted and sexually harassed City Secretary Christian Gable during a work trip. The filing accuses city leadership of punishing him for raising concerns tied to the same allegations that are now at the center of both criminal charges and multiple civil cases.

With three federal lawsuits now filed, a criminal case underway, and a new mayor preparing to take office, Magnolia faces a complex and uncertain path forward. This latest case marks the third federal lawsuit connected to Dantzer in just over a month. Gable and former Human Resources Director Kristy Powell previously filed federal lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, retaliation, and failures by the city to properly investigate claims. Both women say they faced consequences after reporting alleged misconduct. Gable has publicly described what she says was a pattern of inappropriate and escalating behavior that began after she started working at City Hall. She alleges repeated sexualized comments, including being referred to as the mayor’s “sexitary,” and claims the situation escalated during an October work conference in Fort Worth. According to Gable, the mayor allegedly attempted to pull down her pants in public and later grabbed her by the throat, pinning her against a structure outside a hotel while she was five months pregnant. She says surveillance video reviewed later by investigators captured the incident. The allegations prompted an investigation by the Texas Rangers, which ultimately led to Dantzer’s indictment on charges including aggravated assault of a pregnant person and official oppression. He was arrested on a Tarrant County warrant and later released on bond. Dantzer has denied all allegations through his attorney, stating he maintains his innocence and intends to defend himself through the legal process.

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Austin police response times lag amid chronic staffing shortage

Last month, Austinites and officials alike heaped praise on the Austin Police Department after officers responded to a mass shooting on West Sixth Street in 57 seconds and took down the gunman minutes later. The praise for the speedy response was rare for the Austin Police Department, which has struggled for years with slow response times and regularly faces online criticism and complaints. The rapid intervention also raised a question: Is the Police Department getting faster? An American-Statesman analysis of median response times over the past decade shows that the swift reaction to the Buford’s Bar shooting was an outlier. Since 2017, response times – while seeing some improvement in the last year under Police Chief Lisa Davis – have lagged even as 911 call volumes have decreased.

The findings are reflected in public complaints. Since the city’s police oversight agency began categorizing grievances in 2022, the most common type has been “no assistance,” which includes slow responses and alleged no-shows. “It’s a large problem for APD,” Nelly Ramirez, a member of the city’s Public Safety Commission, said in an interview. “We’ve all been in a situation where we see a group of officers sitting around in their cars and we think: What are they doing? Why aren’t they responding to calls?” The Police Department also faces constant criticism on sites like Reddit, where users on the Austin forum regularly accuse police of being "useless" and “quiet quitting.” “I for one am grateful for APDs quiet quitting bc my vehicle tags are 3 years expired,” one user quipped in a post that racked up more than 400 comments. In a recent interview, Davis flatly denied such accusations while also acknowledging slow response times as a problem and emphasizing her department’s chronic, yearslong struggle with understaffing. She also pointed to response time improvements during her 18-month tenure. “No one is quiet-quitting here,” Davis told the Statesman. “It is just the opposite.”

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‘All hat and no cattle’: Dallas City Council pushes back on mayor’s criticism of city spending

A day after Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson slammed the City Council for approving “bloated” budgets amid escalating costs and a $33 million financial shortfall halfway through the year, three council members said the mayor hasn’t backed up his words with proposed solutions. Council member Laura Cadena said everyone agrees the city needs to live within its means. But the mayor’s email did not offer any cuts of his own in the “already bare bone budget.” “It’s easy to write a bunch of fiscal statements with zero plan to back it up,” Cadena said. “Here in Texas, we call that ‘all hat and no cattle.’ ”

Last month, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert imposed hiring freezes, halted overtime and banned unnecessary spending. Johnson criticized the council, saying the belt-tightening should be a “wake-up call” for the council’s resistance to aggressive cuts. “Council members will pay lip service to fiscal responsibility, but when it comes time to vote, few are willing to follow through. Each has favored projects and programs to which they will tolerate no reductions,” Johnson said in his weekly newsletter. Johnson urged council members to identify programs to cut alongside those they want to preserve. He said resistance to cuts makes it difficult to follow through, pointing to the library system. The council recently approved four branch closures but later decided to keep all of them open. Council members say their projects are often bundled with other tiers of work and disrupting one could have a ripple effect on others. Cadena said she’s meeting with residents and community groups to learn their priorities. Council member Adam Bazaldua said he hoped the mayor “is just as enthusiastic on cuts being made to the unnecessary amount of security detail, he has ballooned his budget to include.”

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How Johnny Garcia rose from sheriff’s deputy to a high-profile congressional candidate

TX35 hopeful Johnny Garcia hasn’t even secured his party’s nomination yet, but national Democrats are already listing him among their top candidates to take back seats in the U.S. House this year. The 39-year-old Westside native has spent nearly his entire career at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, rising from jail guard to the SWAT team and later serving as the sheriff’s communications director. Though his campaign launch in the new 35th Congressional District surprised some local political watchers, national Democratic Party leaders say he’s exactly what they needed to put a tough seat in play. This week Garcia was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) red-to-blue program, an elite group of 20 candidates believed to have the best chance of flipping seats either currently held by a Republican or — in light of many redrawn congressional maps — drawn to favor one.

The designation means he’ll get additional strategic guidance, staff resources, candidate trainings and fundraising support for a race that Democratic super PACs are already reserving ads for this fall. That’s after he was already a personal guest of the Democratic National Committee chair at a national fundraiser earlier this year, and benefitted from hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ads boosting him through a four-way primary. “Johnny Garcia has dedicated his career to investing in San Antonio, and is ready to answer the call to serve his community in Congress,” U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington), who chairs the DCCC, said in a statement Monday. “Texans are eager to elect a leader that will put the needs of hardworking families first, and Garcia is ready to step up to the plate.” First, Garcia must still get through a May 26 Democratic primary runoff — which is not a given. In a district that was dramatically redrawn for the 2026 midterm, both parties wound up with crowded fields full of little-known candidates. And despite spending less than $5,000 on her campaign, housing activist Maureen Galindo finished first in Democrats’ race, taking 29% in the first round, to Garcia’s 27%.

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Matthew J. DeSarno: John Cornyn faces the ultimate test

(Matthew J. DeSarno is a retired FBI special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Office, with a career spanning the Army, the private sector and more than two decades in federal law enforcement.) Ken Paxton is unfit for the United States Senate. The Texas attorney general is ethically compromised, legally entangled and openly opportunistic. His rise is not about leadership. It is about loyalty — to power, not principle. With Texas Republicans now facing a choice between accommodation, scandal and integrity, this Senate race has become a test of political character. But the harder truth is this: Sen. John Cornyn is not being challenged because he stood up to President Donald Trump. He is being challenged because he didn’t. For years, Cornyn’s brand has been competence and restraint — the adult in the room, a steady hand when others chased headlines. That image carried weight because people believed that when it mattered, Cornyn would act. When it mattered, he didn’t.

When the Constitution was tested, Cornyn stayed quiet. When the party drifted toward grievance and personal loyalty, Cornyn adjusted instead of confronting it. When nominees appeared before the committees he serves, who were plainly unqualified or openly partisan, Cornyn allowed the process to move forward as if norms still applied. They don’t. I raised concerns with Cornyn's staff about Kash Patel — not casually, but repeatedly and with specificity. Cornyn’s staff acknowledged those concerns. In my view, those concerns should have raised serious questions about his qualifications, his independence and his approach to the FBI — treating it not as an institution to protect, but as a tool to use. And yet, when Patel sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which Cornyn is a member, there was no meaningful challenge. No sustained questioning. No effort to force clarity on the record. The hearing proceeded as if this were routine. It wasn’t. It was a turning point.

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Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney and top staff dismissed

Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza and top staff members were dismissed in court on Monday. Travis County Judge Karen Sage threw out two motions that alleged misconduct and violations of due process in connection with a 2020 police use-of-force case. Doug O’Connell is the attorney representing APD Officer Chance Bretches. O'Connell alleges that the DA’s Office withheld favorable evidence in the case against the officer.

O’Connell claimed that Garza and his staff hid evidence and held secret meetings with city leaders about the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations. He alleged they discussed whether the City of Austin, rather than an individual officer such as Bretches, was liable for injuries to protesters during the demonstrations. In this scenario, the city itself would be an “alternate suspect” in the case. “The court is not convinced by the 'alternative suspect' theory. That theory would say it was not your client; it was the city. I think in this case it cannot really just be the city without your client, so I am not really interested in that theory,” said Judge Karen Sage, Travis County 299th Criminal District Court. Sage says that she is interested in seeing an exact timeline of who knew what and when. This is relevant to accusations that Bretches used expired bean bag rounds during the protest that did not work as intended.

Read this article at CBS Austin - Subscribers Only

City Stories

City of Frisco launches on-demand rideshare service

The city of Frisco is launching a new pilot rideshare service in partnership with the Denton County Transportation Authority aimed at helping residents and visitors get around the central part of the city during the work week. Starting May 5, the new program, GoZone, is available to help people get to work, school, or run errands. This pilot promotes ridesharing at a very reasonable cost,” Frisco Director of Engineering Services Jason Brodigan said in a statement. “But what makes microtransit so successful is the fact it gets people from where they are to where they want to go.” GoZone will operate between 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Friday with rides at a distance-dependent cost between $3 and $5 per person. Rides can be secured through the DCTA GoZone app, which will show "Frisco's service" starting at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

“When people think about public transit, often times they think about a bus or train,” DCTA CEO Paul Cristina said in a statement. “But what makes microtransit so successful is the fact it gets people from where they are to where they want to go.” The 'Zone' for transportation through the service borders Eldorado Parkway to the north, as well as Hillcrest Road on the east, FM 423 on the west and Main Street and SH 121 on its southernmost boundary. The city says the service also connects to the Northwest Plano Park and Ride. “Once you call for the ride on the app, the ride will show up within 20 – 30 minutes,” Cristina said. “Other people may already be in the van, and you may stop at those riders’ destinations. But your ride will take no more than 30 minutes.” According to the city, riders may have to walk short distances to pre-set pickup points, which are placed to make rides more available and optimize routing. “DCTA has been a great partner,” Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney said in a statement. “This is a program we hope to learn from and expand in the future. It’s going to be an incredible transportation resource for our residents and visitors.”

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National Stories

Data centers used to be a prize. States are having second thoughts.

Politicians used to compete to lure data centers to their states. They’re starting to reconsider. Tempted by promises of more jobs, tax revenue and the chance to be on the cutting edge of technology, more than three dozen states rolled out the red carpet for data centers in the form of tax breaks and other financial incentives. But now a growing number of states are tempering their enthusiasm. Of the 38 states that currently offer incentives to the data center industry, at least 28 of them have weighed legislation this year to end or shrink those benefits, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research group.

The turnabout speaks to the rapidly shifting politics surrounding data centers, as well as the real-world impacts of their construction. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (D) has pointed out that sales tax exemptions for data centers — which include exemptions for electricity costs — cost the state up to $57 million every year. “Do we really want to subsidize data center’s consumption of energy and electricity when they make everyone else’s power bills go up?” Stein said in remarks early last month. “It doesn’t make much sense to me.” Last week, Democratic lawmakers in the North Carolina Legislature introduced a bill that would regulate data centers and repeal some tax credits. Officials in other states have pursued similar ideas. Washington state this year nixed a policy that let data center operators avoid sales taxes for replacement equipment. Minnesota last year scrapped tax exemptions for electricity costs. Nationwide, lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills that would rein in the data center industry. Some would force companies to pay more for electricity. Others would impose energy requirements or set other strict regulations.

Read this article at Politico - Subscribers Only

The secret team blowing up Ford’s assembly line to make a $30,000 electric truck

A crew of engineers slipped past the empty security gate at a Ford Motor truck plant outside Detroit just after 3 a.m. The factory lines were still at that hour—but that was the point. The crew was there to test a section of a new pickup that few at the company knew even existed. Ford’s secret project had an ambitious goal: to figure out how to make electric vehicles in the U.S. that could compete with the Chinese models clobbering competitors globally. The secret is now out as Ford races toward building its first model, a new truck it says will be nearly as fast as a Mustang, travel around 300 miles on a single charge and feature in-car technology to compete with Tesla and China. It’s aiming for a 2027 launch and a price tag of around $30,000, the cost of a Toyota Camry.

Getting there means tearing up a century of manufacturing practices in a notoriously hidebound industry. At stake for Ford is securing a future beyond the gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs that have long defined its bottom line. The project had been kept quiet from its 2022 start, led by veterans from Tesla and Apple who worked on designs out of a California office. Ford eventually brought in some of its own employees to help execute the vision. The process was filled with misunderstandings and distrust as the techie outsiders worked to win over the risk-averse industry veterans. To build these new EVs, the company must use fewer people and simpler parts, and dismantle decades of engineering inertia. Chief Executive Jim Farley is calling it Ford’s new “Model T moment.” Rival automakers say overcoming China on EVs can’t be done, given their advantages: extensive government backing, low-cost labor and a massive head start. Whether Ford’s bet big will work may come down to how well Detroit and Silicon Valley can work together. Traditional automakers have sometimes tried to infuse outsider know-how into their operations, with often bleak results, from abandoned robotaxi projects to costly, unpopular EVs.

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Secret Service says suspect opened fire on them and was shot in exchange near Washington Monument

A man spotted carrying a gun in the vicinity of the White House by plainclothes officers and agents was shot by law enforcement Monday after he opened fire on them near the Washington Monument, the Secret Service said. Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said plainclothes agents spotted the man around 3:30 p.m. in the area near the White House complex and saw the imprint of the weapon on him. The agents followed him briefly and contacted the uniformed officers. The unidentified man attempted to flee when uniformed officers with the Secret Service approached him. Quinn said the man fired at the officers, who returned fire. The alleged gunman was transported to a local hospital. Quinn said he had no information on the suspect’s condition.

Quinn said emergency personnel also transported a minor who was shot but not seriously injured. Quinn said he could not say definitively that the bystander, who also was taken to a hospital, was struck by shots from the suspect’s gun. “We’ll let the doctors figure that out,” he said, though he noted that “investigators believe he was struck by the suspect.” Quinn said the Washington, D.C., police would investigate the officer-involved shooting. The Secret Service encouraged people to avoid the area as emergency crews responded to the shooting not far from the White House, where President Donald Trump was holding a small business event. The White House was briefly locked down as authorities investigated the incident. The Secret Service ushered journalists who were outside into the briefing room, and Trump continued his event without interruption. The incident drew a large police presence, coming just over a week after a gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with guns and knives. Cole Tomas Allen has been charged in that incident, in which a Secret Service officer was shot, although he was wearing body armor and was not seriously injured. Quinn said it was not known yet whether the Monday incident was related to Trump. “I’m not going to guess on that,” Quinn said. “Whether or not it was directed to the president or not, I don’t know, but we will find out.”

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Rubio expects 'frank' meeting with pope as Trump takes fresh potshots at Leo

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expects a "frank" meeting with Pope Leo during a visit to the Vatican this week, the U.S. ambassador said ?on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump took a fresh pot-shot at the pope for criticising the ?U.S. war in Iran. "Nations have disagreements, and I think one of the ways that you work through those is ... through fraternity and ?authentic dialogue," said Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. "I think the Secretary is coming here in that spirit," Burch told journalists. "To have a frank conversation about U.S. policy, to engage in dialogue." Trump has repeatedly disparaged the first U.S.-born pope in recent weeks, drawing a backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.

In his latest comments, ?Trump told right-wing radio talk show ?host Hugh Hewitt that "the Pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good. "I think ?he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people. But I guess if it’s up to the Pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. Leo has never said Iran should have ?nuclear ?weapons, but has opposed the war which Trump says is ?aimed at ending Iran's nuclear programme. Rubio is ?a Catholic, as is Vice President JD Vance. The two met Leo a year ago after attending his inaugural mass, the Trump administration's only previous known cabinet-level meetings with the pope. Burch was asked after an event hosted by his embassy at Rome's Gregorian University on Tuesday if Rubio was hoping to repair the relationship between Trump and Leo. "I don't accept the idea that somehow there's some deep rift," the ambassador responded. Rubio is coming, ?Burch said, so that the U.S. and the Vatican can "better ?understand each other, and to work through, if there are differences, ?certainly to talk through that." Rubio is also set ?to meet in Rome on Friday with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who defended ?the Pope. Her defense minister has said the ?war in Iran puts U.S. ?leadership at risk. Leo, who marks his first year as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church on Friday, maintained a relatively low profile on the global stage in the first months of his papacy but has ?emerged in recent weeks as a ?firm critic of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The pope has also sharply criticised the Trump ?administration's hard-line anti-immigration policies and called for dialogue between the U.S. and Catholic-majority Cuba to prevent violence.

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Supreme Court voting rights ruling set to reshape local power from statehouses to school boards

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new decision gutting a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act clears the way for state officials to drastically reshape not only Congress but also state legislatures, county commissions, city councils and even local school boards. The ruling, released last week in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, dismantled some of the final guardrails protecting the electoral power of Black, Hispanic and other racial minority voters that had been enshrined in the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal civil rights law that bars racial discrimination in voting access. The 6-3 decision all but nullifies a provision called Section 2 that required states to draw electoral maps to give racial minority voters the opportunity to elect their chosen candidates.

And while intense national attention on the case’s fallout has focused on the U.S. House as the 2026 midterm congressional elections loom, the new ruling also applies to state legislative districts and maps for county or municipal elections. Those localized changes are just hovering further down the road. “While everyone has been focusing on what this means for the power in Congress, there’s a whole other sector of power that it changes,” said Davante Lewis, an elected member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission and one of the litigants in a case that pushed Louisiana to create the congressional maps that were eventually struck down in the Callais ruling. “This is a decision on who gets to serve on a school board, who gets to serve on a city council, who gets representation in the judiciary,” Lewis said. Electoral maps are typically redrawn every 10 years after a census, but the Trump administration has encouraged Republican-led states to redraw districts to favor the GOP, a controversial move that has prompted some Democratic-led states to retaliate with gerrymandering of their own.

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AP, Washington Post, Reuters and Minnesota Star Tribune among Pulitzer winners for 2025 work

The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for scrutinizing the Trump administration’s sweeping, choppy overhaul of federal agencies, and The Associated Press won the award Monday for international reporting about surveillance. In a year when several prize-winning projects zoomed in on the Trump presidency, the Post’s coverage illuminated the administration’s fast-moving, sometimes opaque drive to reshape the national government and what the cuts and changes meant for individual Americans. The Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown was given a special citation for her reporting, nearly a decade ago, that drew attention to Jeffrey Epstein ’s abuses. The New York Times won three of the coveted prizes, the Post and Reuters each won two, and less widely known outlets ranging from The Connecticut Mirror to the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” also were recognized in a challenging year for American journalism.

“This is always a day of celebration in our communities, but perhaps never more so than today as we face tremendous political and economic pressures,” prize administrator Marjorie Miller said in a livestream announcement. In the last few months, the Post cut a third of its staff, CBS News announced it would shutter its nearly century-old radio service, The AP offered buyouts to over 120 journalists and some regional newspapers also publicly struggled. CBS parent Paramount’s acquisition of CNN has raised questions about what’s next for those networks. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continued to bash, and sometimes sue, outlets whose coverage he finds objectionable. Spanning three years, thousands of pages of documents and numerous interviews, the AP project found that American companies help lay the foundations of the Chinese government’s system for monitoring and policing its citizens. “This was sweeping and deeply impactful reporting, the kind of work that highlights the unique strengths of AP’s global, multiformat newsroom,” executive editor Julie Pace said in an email to staffers. She is among the Pulitzer Board’s new members.

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Senate Republicans seek $1 billion for White House ballroom security

Senate Republicans want to provide U.S. Secret Service $1 billion for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the construction of President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom. The use of public funds would be limited to building “above-ground and below-ground security elements” only, according to the text of a reconciliation package released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It also includes $30.7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $3.5 billion for Customs and Border Protection. “Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda,” Grassley said in a statement Monday. “The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families. We will work to ensure this critical funding gets signed into law without unnecessary delay.”

The committee is expected to mark up the bill next week before sending it to the full chamber, where it will likely pass via a simple-majority vote. The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that construction of a new 90,000 square foot White House ballroom, which is to occupy the space of the former East Wing building that was demolished by Trump last year, would be financed by private donations and not cost taxpayers money. It is estimated to cost $400 million. “It’s not going to cost taxpayers a dime,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last year. The plans for the new “East Wing Modernization Project” include offices, a theater and military infrastructure, including a new underground bunker. A federal appeals court has allowed construction to proceed while legal challenges continue. “The military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed,” Trump told reporters in March, adding that the ballroom “essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built under.” The text of the reconciliation bill does include a limitation on the use of the $1 billion: “None of the funds made available under this section may be used for non-security elements of the East Wing Modernization Project.”

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Lead Stories

Why almost everyone loses—except a few sharks—on prediction markets

John Pederson, 33, couldn’t work. The former Outback Steakhouse line cook was recovering from a car crash and running out of money. Kalshi, the prediction market, promised a quick way to fix that. He took out a variable-interest loan and started betting. At first, it worked. Pederson turned about $2,000 into close to $8,000 by betting on daily snowfall totals in Detroit, where he lives. He parlayed that into $41,000 by trading on sports, using a strategy he developed with the help of AI, according to a Wall Street Journal review of his account records. Then he placed his most audacious bet yet: All $41,000 that a celebrity would say a particular word on TV. He lost it all. Pederson isn’t alone in walking away empty-handed from the bet-on-anything markets, which cover sports, celebrities, news and more.

Kalshi and its competitor Polymarket advertise themselves as life-changing tools for regular people—implying everyone has a fair chance to score. “I was about to be unable to pay my rent, but I got two years of rent through Kalshi’s predictions,” gushed one woman in a Kalshi ad on TikTok. But for most users the reality is nothing like that. Instead, casual traders are bleeding cash while a small number of sophisticated pros—including trading firms with access to vast streams of data—eat their lunch, according to a Journal analysis of platform data and interviews with traders. On Polymarket, the Journal found, 67% of profits go to just 0.1% of accounts. That means less than 2,000 accounts netted a total of nearly half a billion dollars. The Journal analyzed 1.6 million Polymarket accounts that have traded since November 2022. There are at least 2.3 million total accounts on the site. On Kalshi, too, losers vastly outnumber winners. Spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana said there are 2.9 unprofitable users for each profitable one based on data from the past month. She said the number is subject to change as the exchange grows. The company doesn’t make public comprehensive data on users’ profits and doesn’t share its total number of users. Total trading volume on both platforms has rocketed to $24.2 billion in April, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier, according to analytics firm The Block. Proponents say the markets don’t count as gambling, and that they harness the wisdom of crowds to accurately predict future events. Federal Reserve research shows Kalshi is an effective tool to forecast economic trends.

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Corpus Christi Water officials detail long-term water supply plan, conservation progress

City of Corpus Christi officials outlined the latest updates on the city’s long-range water supply planning during a public briefing on Friday, emphasizing ongoing projects, conservation efforts, and future diversification of the water supply. Nick Winkleman, Chief Operating Officer of Corpus Christi Water, said residential customers have significantly reduced water use and are already performing projected allocation levels below. Winkleman emphasized that reports of water blackouts or evacuations are false. “I’m here to emphatically state that that information isn’t true,” Winkleman said. “We want to ensure everyone has the most accurate information.” According to the latest data, Choke Canyon Reservoir sits at 7.3% and Lake Corpus Christi at 8.7%, bringing the combined capacity to about 7.7%, while Lake Texana remains higher at 66% following recent rainfall.

Despite the low levels, officials say residents are already doing their part, using less water than projected targets. “Our residential customers…have made tremendous efforts to reduce their water usage,” Winkleman said. “They are already below what a potential allocation might be. Winkleman also highlighted continued progress on major supply projects, including groundwater development in Nueces County, seawater desalination planning, reclaimed water reuse initiatives, and pipeline construction tied to new treatment systems. Winkleman noted that construction and design work are advancing across multiple projects, including brackish groundwater treatment, which is expected to begin initial deliveries in 2027. Officials also reiterated its goal of diversifying water sources to include surface water, groundwater, seawater, and reclaimed effluent to ensure long-term supply stability. Officials said no level one water emergency but stress that no restrictions are currently in effect. “Allocations and baselines…are not in effect until we go into a level one water emergency,” Winkleman said. If that happens, Texas law requires water reductions to be applied evenly across all users, including residential, commercial and industrial customers. At the same time, officials highlighted ongoing efforts to expand supply, including groundwater projects, wastewater reuse and desalination planning. “Our strategy is to diversify the water supply…to make it sustainable for future generations,” Winkleman said.

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Inside Democratic fundraiser ActBlue’s big spending and internal drama

Following Democrats’ bruising losses in the 2024 election, the chief executive of ActBlue, the platform that had helped Democrats raise $4 billion for that year’s contests, gathered staff for a four-day retreat. One of the first topics of the CEO’s remarks, according to people familiar with the matter: the outfit she had delivered to San Francisco for the occasion. Employees, still dazed after layoffs and election results, found the comments jarring, the people said. The platform that is integral to the Democratic Party’s infrastructure is now enmeshed in controversy, in part fueled by the management of its CEO, Regina Wallace-Jones, whose spending and legal decisions have raised concerns among Democrats and employees, according to people familiar with ActBlue’s operations.

Wallace-Jones, a former tech executive, has tried to run the group not like the political nonprofit that it is, but like a Silicon Valley firm that is acquiring startups to stay relevant and offering executives some perks, the people said. She played down risks over some fundraising practices flagged by the group’s lawyers in 2024, the people said, while dramatically increasing spending on travel and security. During the retreat last February, ActBlue booked hundreds of rooms at the Intercontinental San Francisco, and Wallace-Jones was comped a stay in a two-story presidential suite while security guards swarmed the hotel at her direction, the people said. The organization spent roughly $700,000 on the retreat, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. Wallace-Jones said in a statement that she was recruited to grow ActBlue. “We have been able to steer the organization from a single-service startup into a diversified technology platform supporting campaign operations well beyond fundraising,” she said. “Change on this scale isn’t easy, but neither is protecting the integrity of small-dollar democracy.”

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Warsh's take on Fed independence is met with confusion and some concern

Most people don’t know and don’t have much reason to care what a currency swap line is, except that the financial instrument could soon help markets understand what Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Warsh’s unique ideas about Fed independence really mean. Warsh has said categorically the Fed should be “strictly independent” in the making of monetary policy. But he adds that he’s willing to work with Congress and the Trump administration on “non-monetary matters.” In answers to senators’ questions following his April 21 confirmation hearing, he elaborated: “Fed officials are not entitled to the same special deference in areas affecting international finance, among other matters.”

Warsh has also talked often about a new “Fed/Treasury accord” that he’s suggested could govern the Fed’s balance sheet, though in ways he has yet to detail. To six former Fed officials interviewed for this article, those comments were unclear or confusing at best. When it comes to Fed independence, they found his analysis worrisome at worst. The outcomes could be benign, tinkering around the edges of existing conventions, or more concerning limitations to the Fed’s ability to use its balance sheet in a crisis. Because of the lack of clarity in Warsh’s comments, none of the former officials who spoke with CNBC were ready yet to draw conclusions either way. Former Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, long a hawk on interest rate and balance sheet policy, said he could welcome a new accord between the Fed and Treasury Department if it led to the Fed focusing on monetary policy, leaving credit policy up to Treasury. Under such an accord, for example, the Fed could be limited to just buying treasurys, not mortgages or other financial instruments.

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State Stories

Grapevine-based GameStop makes $55.5 billion offer to buy eBay

GameStop has announced it has made a $55.5 billion offer to buy eBay at $125.00 per share in cash and stock. CEO Ryan Cohen, who would become CEO of the combined company should the deal go through, told The Wall Street Journal he wants to make eBay a “legit competitor to Amazon,” as he bids to grow his business beyond games and merchandise and hit a $35 billion payout in the process. GameStop said the cash part of the offer is expected to be funded from a combination of cash and liquid investments on GameStop’s balance sheet, which totaled $9.4 billion as of January 31, 2026, and “third-party acquisition financing,” with up to $20 billion in debt financing from TD Securities. GameStop did not say exactly where this third-party acquisition financing would come from.

In its announcement, GameStop said eBay isn’t making enough money for what it’s spending, and that it would deliver $2 billion of annualized cost reductions within 12 months of closing the deal, suggesting plans for significant cuts. GameStop added that its 1,600 U.S. retail locations “give eBay a national network for authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live commerce,” confirming plans to bring the eBay business into its stores. GameStop posted a letter sent from Cohen to eBay president Paul Pressler in which the GameStop CEO said he would receive “no salary, no cash bonuses, and no golden parachute — I will be compensated solely based on the performance of the combined company.” In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cohen said that if eBay turns the offer down, he will go directly to shareholders. “There is nobody who is more qualified, based on my experience, to run the eBay business,” Cohen insisted. As for where he’ll get the money needed for the deal, The Wall Street Journal said Cohen may turn to Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds.

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After 43 years in DART, why did Highland Park voters choose to leave?

In 1983, when Dallas Area Rapid Transit was born at the ballot box, Highland Park embraced it by a higher margin than any city in the region. On Saturday, it said goodbye. Highland Park voters chose to abandon DART in a dramatic shift of priorities — from supporting a regional transit vision to questioning whether it delivers enough value. In doing so, it became the first city in nearly 40 years to break away. Nearly 70% of Highland Park voters Saturday chose to exit the system, a striking twist from the 77% who favored joining DART in 1983. That's when Dallas and more than a dozen suburbs agreed in an election to fund the transit agency through a one-cent sales tax. Coppell and Flower Mound were the last two cities to leave DART, back in 1989.

Walt Humann, known as the father of DART for his push in the 1980s to create the transit system, remembers Highland Park voting overwhelmingly to join the agency. Article continues below this ad “No one ever asked, ‘Tell me what’s in it for me,’” he said Sunday. “It was always how can we help the region and how can we help our own citizens … Today in Highland Park, it’s more transactional. How much are we getting and how much are we paying?” Although DART lost a member city for the first time in nearly four decades Saturday, the agency has emerged from more than six months of threatening uncertainty relatively unscathed. Since November, nearly half of DART’s member cities considered leaving the agency, and of the three withdrawal elections that moved forward, only Highland Park chose to leave. Buses, trains and other service will continue in Addison and University Park, where voters backed DART.

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Mariachi brothers detained by ICE invited to open for Kacey Musgraves after release

The crowd went wild when the three Gámez-Cuéllar brothers and their father took the stage on Sunday night. It was no ordinary concert. Two months ago, the brothers and their father, all musicians, were being held in federal immigration detention centers. Now, dressed in black mariachi suits, they were opening for the country music star Kacey Musgraves in New Braunfels, Texas. Just before they went on, the family uttered a prayer of thanks. “Thank you, Father, for giving us this great opportunity,” Antonio Yesayahu Gámez-Cuéllar, 18, addressed God, as he stood next to his 15-year-old brother, Caleb Gámez-Cuéllar; their 12-year-old brother, Joshua Gámez-Cuéllar; and their father, Luis Antonio Gámez. “We ask you, Father, to protect us and bathe us in your light.” In early March, the Gámez-Cuéllar family became snarled in President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Their detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents drew widespread and bipartisan outcries that led to the family’s release from an immigration facility in Dilley, Texas. The oldest sibling, Antonio, was released from a separate detention center near the border. Shortly after the family was released, Ms. Musgraves extended an invitation to the brothers on Instagram: “great so come on the road with me.” Antonio and Caleb, along with their younger brother, Joshua, all renowned mariachi players from McAllen, Texas, jumped at the opportunity to open three shows for Ms. Musgraves with their father. The performances on her Middle of Nowhere tour began Sunday and will continue for two more days at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, northeast of San Antonio. The venue is a whitewashed building that resembles a small church and considers itself the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas. “We were honored to be invited,” their mother, Emma Guadalupe Cuéllar López, said. At the concert, Antonio belted out a Spanish-language rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to applause and cheers.

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Proposed Fort Bliss data center could use more power than all of El Paso

The U.S. Army is proposing developing a gargantuan, 3-gigawatt data center complex on Fort Bliss property that within a few years would consume more electricity than all of El Paso Electric’s 460,000 customers combined – even as questions about its development, water usage and air pollution remain unanswered. If built, it would be the third major data center project in the El Paso region, along with Meta Platform’s $10 billion facility in Northeast and the $165 billion Project Jupiter campus that Oracle and OpenAI are building in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The combined scale and size of the three facilities could quickly transform the Borderland into one of the nation’s core hubs of power generation and AI infrastructure. The publicly-traded investment firm Carlyle Group would pay to build and operate the Fort Bliss data center – one of several planned in a national rollout under President Donald Trump’s administration to rapidly increase artificial intelligence technology for the Department of Defense.

At Fort Bliss, the Army is “targeting an initial operating capacity of about 100 megawatts on the compute side” by next year, David Fitzgerald, deputy undersecretary of the Army, said during a meeting with reporters April 22. An official estimated cost for the project has yet to be released. By 2029, the complex on military land in far East El Paso would require 3 gigawatts of electricity, Fitzgerald said. By comparison, El Paso Electric currently maintains about 2.9 gigawatts of generation capacity across its entire system that spans from Hatch, New Mexico, to Van Horn, Texas. The highest customer demand the power company has ever seen was just over 2.3 gigawatts during the summer of 2023. And whether most El Pasoans are on board with the rapid buildout of another data center here is not a question that Army leadership is asking at this point. “What we’re trying to do is find where are the common interests, common ground that we can solve for?” Fitzgerald said, referring to coordinating with El Paso city leaders on the data center project. “The state of modern warfare and future warfare is largely going to depend on the ability to capture, process and utilize massive amounts of data,” he said. “So, the reality is, this is a strategic priority, not just for the Army, but for the entire Department of War. So, we need these capabilities, and we need to put them somewhere.”

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Tesla Semi production ramps up with first vehicle off high-volume line

The first Tesla Semi to roll off the company's high-volume line has arrived, the Austin automaker announced on Wednesday. The milestone at Tesla Inc.'s Nevada plant arrives shortly after a recent production win at Gigafactory Texas. Last week, the company announced that the Cybercab, its purpose-built robotaxi, was officially rolling off the assembly line. First unveiled in 2017, CEO Elon Musk had originally promised the tractor-trailer would be delivered to customers in 2019. Since then, other companies have been working up electric and autonomous options. For example, Einride is partnering with SH 130 Concession Co. to position SH 130 toll road, which connects Austin and San Antonio, as a corridor for autonomous freight operations.

Tesla's long-awaited vehicle will also be watched for whether it can deliver on key features. Tesla's Semi specs boast a range of about 500 miles and the ability to reach up to 60% of range after 30 minutes of charging. That long-range model will reportedly sell for $300,000 while a 300-mile range Tesla Semi could sell for approximately $260,000. Now, Tesla's tractor-trailer will soon be put to the test on last-mile container moves. On Wednesday, California drayage operator MDB Transportation, which hauls cargo short distances between ports and nearby warehouses, announced the start of a three-week operational pilot using a Tesla Semi on active drayage lanes serving port freight. MDB says it will track performance across energy efficiency, cycle time, and driver experience, but is reporting positive early impressions. “We’re proud to be operating the Tesla Semi, the future of freight isn’t a concept — it’s in motion,” said Haig Melkonyan, MDB director of operations. Musk has also talked up the vehicle’s smooth ride. In an X post earlier this month, Musk said the truck “feels like a sports car to drive.” Meanwhile, dozens of Tesla Semi electric trucks also are expected to operate in Texas by next year, and infrastructure is following.

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Austin train derailment prompts renewed push to relocate freight rail

A freight train derailment in downtown Austin last month is prompting Travis County Judge Andy Brown to renew calls to move a major rail line out of the city’s urban core — a long-debated idea that has yet to gain traction. Seven Union Pacific cars derailed early on April 23 as a 230-car train rounded a sharp curve near West Third and Bowie streets in the Seaholm District. No one was injured, but the incident snarled traffic for hours and delayed school bus routes in West Austin as crews worked to clear the scene.

The train was transporting “mixed commodities” rather than hazardous chemicals, but Brown — a longtime passenger rail advocate who oversees emergency management in his role as county judge — said the cars could just as easily have been carrying something far more dangerous, like chlorine. “Chlorine can cause a cloud of chlorine gas, and that would be a horrible thing,” Brown said. “Just the fact that you’re potentially carrying hazardous chemicals right through this huge metro area with condos literally feet away from where this curve was is not great.” Brown has pushed for expanded passenger rail in Central Texas for years, including a proposed line between Austin and San Antonio. In October, the Travis County Commissioners Court — which Brown presides over — commissioned a feasibility study of a new passenger rail line between the two cities. The study examines the cost and technical feasibility of building the line within existing highway rights-of-way. The results have not yet been released.

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As the state targets cities over ICE policies, Austin considers next steps

In some ways, Texas has provided a crystal ball for the rest of the country when it comes to immigration policy. Before the Trump administration poured billions into immigration enforcement and built partnerships between local police and state and federal immigration agents, Texas was already doing it. So, for those opposed to the deportation surge, Texas is worth paying attention to. That was one of the takeaways from a panel Saturday at the KUT Festival. “Here in Texas, we have kind of a four- to five-year head start when it comes to the rest of the country,” said Kristin Etter, the director of policy and legal services at the Texas Immigration Law Council. “We have operated a program called Operation Lone Star that has used state resources. So we have a model here in Texas for this police/ICE collaboration."

Another takeaway from the panel: In a state where much of the voting public and all state political leaders support aggressive immigration enforcement, opposition becomes local. In liberal Austin, local leaders have tried to craft policies that would limit police partnering with ICE, but the governor took notice and the Austin Police Department had to soften one policy under threat of funding cuts. City Council Member Zo Qadri said Austin still has tools at its disposal “to make sure that folks are protected and are safe.” City Council Member José Velásquez pointed to millions in city funding for local immigration advocacy groups and the council’s support for Austin’s “safe to call” initiative as examples. That policy orders the city management to find ways people might call 911 without inadvertently opening themselves up to ICE detention. But regardless of those efforts, immigrant advocate Carmen Zuvieta said anyone who at risk of being targeted by immigration enforcement should think twice before interacting with the police. “In Texas, all the police are immigration,” she said. “So when you see one police stop one person, don't assume it's a ticket.” Kristin Etter concurred. Though, she said, some current state law may ultimately be struck down. “We believe that the Constitution is supreme,” Etter said. “Constitutional rights cannot be taken away from state laws.”

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Texas leads nation in utility shutoffs as electric bills rise, federal report finds

Texas had more residential electricity shutoffs than any other state in 2024, according to a new federal report that offers one of the clearest national pictures yet of how often households are left in the dark because they cannot pay their bills. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that utilities disconnected residential electricity service 13.4 million times nationwide in 2024. Texas accounted for more than 3 million of those disconnections, the highest total in the country. The report also found Texas had 206,372 residential natural gas disconnections, again the largest state total. Margo Weisz, executive director of the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute, said the numbers show that Texas is an outlier. She said Texas residents make up about 9% of the nation’s electricity customers but accounted for 22.5% of all electricity disconnections.

“So we’re seeing a real challenge specifically in Texas where we purport to have very low electricity bills,” Weisz told Texas Public Radio. Weisz said the problem is especially acute for low- and moderate-income Texans. TEPRI survey data found that half of those households report struggling every month to pay energy bills. Many cut back on basic needs, including food, medicine or school supplies, to keep the lights on. The pressure is rising as electricity bills climb. A TEPRI affordability outlook found residential electricity prices in the ERCOT competitive retail market rose by roughly 30% between 2021 and 2025, adding about $35 to $40 a month to a typical low- or moderate-income household’s bill. The group projects another 29% increase from 2025 to 2030, driven largely by transmission and distribution investments. Those investments are tied in part to Texas’ rapid growth, extreme weather demands, grid hardening after the 2021 winter blackout, and new large electricity users, including data centers, crypto mining and industrial operations.

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Texas Killing Fields suspect faces two new felony charges following search of Bacliff property

A man already accused of committing multiple crimes connected to the decades-old Texas Killing Fields case was charged with two additional felonies after authorities served search warrants on his Bacliff property. James Elmore, 61, was charged with possession of child pornography and possession of visual material depicting sexual assault on Thursday, according to Galveston County court documents. Elmore was previously arrested in March on charges of manslaughter and tampering with evidence in two of the Texas Killing Fields cases. The new charges come in the midst of a renewed investigation into the deaths of around 30 women, whose bodies were found in the late 1980s and early 1990s in an area referred to as the Texas Killing Fields — near the intersection of Calder Road and Ervin Street in League City, which is located between Houston and Galveston.

According to a search warrant served on April 16, Elmore’s phone — which was taken when he was indicted in March — allegedly contained multiple images of child pornography. The search warrant called for the forensic examination of any computer or computer-related media found at Elmore's home to look for potential evidence of criminal activity, specifically possession or promotion of child pornography, as well as the possible identification of other child victims of sexual exploitation. Another search warrant served on April 16 called for the search for possible human remains on Elmore’s property. Authorities confirmed that the search for human remains ended early this week. Authorities did not find human remains at the property of 61-year-old James Elmore, according to KPRC reporting. Elmore remains jailed on combined bonds totaling $4.5 million. A trial date for Elmore has been set for Aug. 31.

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Richardson is latest city pumping the breaks on short term rentals

The city of Richardson is the latest North Texas city to question whether short-term rentals are more of a nuisance than not. Last month, residents spoke of the noise, trash, parking and safety issues they have seen caused by short-term rentals in their neighborhoods. Short-term rentals are stays lasting no more than 30 days, and are commonly listed on websites such as Airbnb and VRBO. The complaints heard in Richardson are similar to those reported in Dallas, Arlington, Plano and a host of other cities that have passed ordinances regulating such properties or imposing outright bans on listings in residential neighborhoods. Following community complaints, the Richardson City Council approved a 90-day prohibition on new STR listings. The pause will run from the end of May through August, meaning homeowners will not be able to capitalize on last-minute demand driven by the FIFA World Cup’s presence in North Texas this summer.

During the pause, the city will begin collecting data on short-term rentals, including registered and unregistered properties, whether some neighborhoods have developed STR clusters, and the impact that vacation rentals have on residents’ quality of life. “This isn’t against STRs or the many responsible, involved owners,” said council member Joe Corcoran during an April 20 work session. “I think that adopting this prohibition allows us to be robust. It allows us to look forward and adopt responsible regulations that respect property rights, while also being responsive to all the residents that have come to us with concerns.” Corcoran added that he’d like to see city staff cross-reference the collected STR data with police and code compliance data to identify nuisance properties. Dallas attempted to pull similar data in its own short-term rental fight and, in 2024, found that code inspectors received 160 complaints in a year (not accounting for repeat complaints). At the time, more than 3,000 known STRs were registered within the city. Council member Jennifer Justice added that she supports the moratorium because complaints about STRs are the “number one issue” that she hears about from residents. The council will have the option to extend the pause after August if more time is needed for the study.

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Dallas mayor slams City Council for ‘lip service’ amid budget woes

Mayor Eric Johnson on Sunday backed the city’s new cost-cutting measures, slamming City Council members who talk about restraint but approve “bloated” budgets and resist meaningful cuts. "Council members will pay lip service to fiscal responsibility, but when it comes time to vote, few are willing to follow through. Each has favored projects and programs to which they will tolerate no reductions," Johnson said in his weekly newsletter. The newsletter marks Johnson’s first public comments on the budget, likely to stir tension from some council members who support the cuts and have called for a closer look at spending and how the burden is shared. Dallas officials are navigating a more than $30 million shortfall six months into the current fiscal year, driven in part by rising health care expenses and overtime costs. Last month, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert told department leaders to limit costs immediately.

She also imposed a hiring freeze for most city jobs, halted nearly all overtime and banned unnecessary spending and travel. Departments must now spend money only on essential needs and delay or cancel anything else. Since then, council members have weighed in, some pushing to grow revenue and others calling for a review of payroll and a “top-heavy” workforce. Johnson said he hoped Tolbert’s cost-saving directive will serve as “a wake-up call” for the council to hone in on aggressive measures to rein in spending. He said resistance to cuts makes it difficult to follow through, pointing to the library system in which the council approved branch closures but later resisted implementing them. In his newsletter, Johnson highlighted his budget record, voting against three budgets, calling to “defund the bureaucracy” and issuing a tax-cut challenge last year. He again urged council members to identify programs to cut alongside those they want to preserve. Protecting their own projects makes “meaningful spending restraint…impossible,” he said. Johnson is one vote on the council and does not control the budget, which is crafted by the city manager and approved by a majority of council members, including the mayor. The city is scheduled to meet this week for its first public discussion on next year’s budget.

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National Stories

European leaders see Trump’s troop drawdown from Germany as new proof they must go it alone

European leaders on Monday said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s snap decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany came as a surprise but is a fresh sign that Europe must take care of its own security. The Pentagon announced last week that it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters on Saturday that “we’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” He offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO, but his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the U.S-Israeli war on Iran, and Trump’s anger that European allies have been reluctant to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East.

Asked about the decision to pull out 5,000 troops from Germany, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said: “I wouldn’t exaggerate that because I think we are expecting that Europe is taking more charge of its own security. “I do not see those figures as dramatic, but I think they should be handled in a harmonious way inside the framework of NATO,” he told reporters in Yerevan, Armenia, where European leaders are holding a summit. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said “there has been a talk about withdrawal of U.S. troops for a long time from Europe. But of course, the timing of this announcement comes as a surprise.” “I think it shows that we have to really strengthen the European pillar in NATO,” she said. Asked whether she believes that Trump is trying to punish Merz, who said that the U.S. has been humiliated by Iran in talks to end the war, Kallas said: “I don’t see into the head of President Trump, so he has to explain it himself.”

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Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani hospitalized in critical condition, spokesman says

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is hospitalized in critical condition, his spokesman said on Sunday. Spokesman Ted Goodman didn't say what sent the 81-year-old to the hospital or how long he's been there. "Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he's fighting with that same level of strength as we speak. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America's Mayor-Rudy Giuliani," Goodman said. Giuliani hosted his online show, "America's Mayor Live," Friday night from Palm Beach, Florida. As he opened the show, he coughed and his voice sounded more raspy than usual. He remarked: "My voice is a little under the weather, so I won't be able to speak as loudly as I usually do, but I'll get closer to the microphone."

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He nearly joined Trump’s administration. Now he’s running for Congress as a Democrat.

George Conway has heard all the names Donald Trump called him during the president’s political rise, fall and comeback over the past decade. “Deranged loser.” “Whack job.” “Husband from hell.” (This in reference to Conway’s long marriage to Trump first-term adviser Kellyanne Conway.) “Stone-cold loser.” (Conway’s favorite.) “Moon face.” “That was the racist one,” Conway said with a half-smile during a recent two-mile walk with his corgi, Clyde, on Manhattan’s East Side. Arguably the country’s preeminent critic of the 45th and 47th president, Conway has a name of his own for Trump: “the lowest form of life on Earth.”

In the greatest hits of their forever feud, Conway is quick to recall his most cherished interaction with his favorite foe: When Trump learned that Conway was getting divorced from Kellyanne in 2023, he posted on Truth Social: “Free at last, she has finally gotten rid of the disgusting albatross around her neck.” In response, Conway, who revels in trolling Trump, reminded him of the sexual abuse and defamation allegations made by writer E. Jean Carroll and how Conway, who encouraged Carroll to take legal action, couldn’t wait to see him in court: “Hugs and kisses ????.” (Carroll was awarded more than $88 million in damages in these cases, but the rulings remain under appeal, and Trump has denied wrongdoing.) “I will tell you this,” Conway said, “I want a picture of the judgment in the E. Jean Carroll case on my gravestone.” At 62, George Conway has been a recurring character in the Washington soap opera spanning the Trump era of American politics. His well-documented arc is the stuff of an HBO series: Conway was once celebrated by conservatives as the operative who brought Bill Clinton’s affairs to light, and one of the most successful civil litigators in the country, living the good life as a behind-the-scenes power player with his wife and four children. In 2017, Trump was ready to tap him to become one of the administration’s top lawyers — either as solicitor general or as head of the Justice Department’s civil division. But Conway took himself out of consideration — and then guaranteed he would never get such an offer again a year later when he called the Trump administration “a s---show in a dumpster fire.”

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‘This is the new Ohio’: Why everyone’s watching the Nevada governor’s race

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is trying to run a reelection campaign befitting the neon-drenched, sagebrush-pocked desert he has for five decades called home. President Donald Trump is making that hard. The Republican governor started the year with a sevenfold fundraising advantage, double-digit net favorability ratings and the tailwinds of a swing state the GOP presidential candidate carried for the first time in two decades. Five months later, he finds himself in a neck-and-neck race with Democrat Aaron Ford, the state’s attorney general, yoked to a highly unpopular president, a wobbling economy and a Middle Eastern war that has sent gas prices in the state soaring from $3.50 to $5 a gallon, among the highest in the nation.

“Yes, I am concerned,” the governor told POLITICO in a recent sit-down interview at Starbucks in Las Vegas. “Not only because of my re-elect but because of Nevada, right? What’s the proverbial line — all politics are local? It’s no longer that way. What’s happening worldwide, nationally, either we embrace it or we don’t.” Lombardo’s race, while reflective of the idiosyncrasies of Nevada’s economy and politics, offers one of the earliest and most instructive tests of whether Republicans in battleground states can separate themselves from Trump’s political fortunes without alienating his coalition — a question with implications not just for 2026 but for the party’s path in 2028. And the gravitational pull of Washington politics looms large over the race: Nevada Democrats are all too keen to blame any discouraging headline on the “Lombardo-Trump economy.” Stung by tariffs that have chilled travel from Canada and Mexico and an immigration crackdown that has made international visitors wary of coming to the United States, Las Vegas saw 7.5 percent fewer guests last year — the worst non-pandemic decline since the city started tracking in 1970 — a heavy blow to a state economy still so reliant on tourism. Nevada’s unemployment rate remains among the highest in the nation, and the hospitality workers who form the backbone of the Las Vegas economy are seeing reduced hours, smaller tips and layoffs.

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Alabama and Tennessee seek new congressional districts

Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee have summoned lawmakers into special sessions this week seeking new congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes that the Supreme Court will allow the state to switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. It’s a move that Republicans legislative leaders said would “give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress.” The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats. In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state’s one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.

The Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana said the drawing of the district map relied too much on race. The ruling began reverberating through statehouses across the South as Republicans eyed the possibility of getting new lines in place for the 2026 midterm elections, or at least 2028. President Donald Trump encouraged the latest round of redistricting in a post on social media on Sunday, saying his party could gain 20 seats in the House. “We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said. “That is more important than administrative convenience.” Florida approved new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and Louisiana moved quickly to postpone its May 16 congressional primary, drawing lawsuits from Democrats and civil rights groups. The state’s Republican leadership started planning for a redraw that could eliminate one or both of its congressional districts now represented by a Black lawmaker. South Carolina’s governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, described the court decision and the redistricting scramble as an attempt to roll back the Civil Rights Movement.

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What to know about hantavirus

The virus that is believed to be responsible for the deaths of three people and the illnesses of three others aboard a cruise ship over the weekend is a relatively rare but devastating threat without a vaccine, treatment or cure. Hantaviruses, a family of pathogens, are spread by rodents, mostly mice, and excreted in the animals’ saliva, droppings and urine. On Sunday, the World Health Organization said hantavirus was confirmed in one case on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean and suspected in five others. Three people died, one passenger was in intensive care in South Africa, and two ailing crew members remained on board and were in need of urgent medical care, the cruise line Oceanwide Expeditions said.

Last year the virus killed Betsy Arakawa, the wife of Gene Hackman. Arakawa, 65, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and Hackman, 95, died a week later of hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, officials have said. Alzheimer’s disease was a significant contributory factor in Hackman’s death. In New Mexico, where Arakawa and Hackman lived, the most common carrier of hantavirus is the deer mouse, a small creature with a white underbelly, large eyes and oversize ears. “It’s a horrible disease,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, a retired public health officer in Seattle who helped characterize the first known outbreak of the disease in the U.S. in 1993. “It’s not uniformly fatal and it’s not always severe, but the fatality rate is still thought to be up to 40%, which is really high.”

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Inside Spirit Airlines’ failed ‘Hail Mary’ to the Trump administration

Winding down a major US airline is a complicated business. Doing so when the president of the United States hints it could be saved adds another layer of complexity. Wracked with financial trouble, Spirit Airlines had filed for bankruptcy for the second time in August 2025. Months later, the conflict with Iran had driven up fuel prices and made its financial position even more untenable, putting it on the brink of closure. For weeks, Trump administration officials were in talks with the bargain airline on the possibility of a $500 million bailout package. The proposal would effectively give the government control of the overwhelming majority of Spirit’s shares. President Donald Trump publicly suggested that he would be on board “if we can get it at the right price.” “They have some good aircrafts, some good assets, and when the price of oil goes down, we’d sell it for a profit,” he told reporters in the Oval Office last month.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Trump to lay out the options, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, which prompted some internal division among the president’s team. Lutnick, one source familiar with the deliberations told CNN, “was pushing” for a deal, with a second source familiar suggesting that he argued it would be a political win for the administration. But there were reservations about the possibility of a bailout from officials including Duffy, Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and members of the White House counsel’s office, a third source familiar with deliberations told CNN. Those included concerns about pumping money into a company with a bad financial record, two of the sources said. The?idea of a bailout for a single airline also sparked backlash from both the airline industry and among Republicans in Congress. Previous bailouts have been in support of all US airlines, not a single carrier or group of airlines. And those rescue packages were in response to a paralyzed industry, like when passengers were afraid to fly in the wake of terrorist attacks or a pandemic, not because of increased costs and losses.

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At least 12 hospitalized as gunfire rings out at Oklahoma campground party

At least 12 people were hospitalized after gunfire broke out during a party at a campground in Oklahoma on Sunday night, local officials said. The shooting at Arcadia Lake in Edmond happened just after 9 p.m., the Edmond Police Department said on X. The extent of the injuries and their exact nature were not immediately clear. "Edmond Police, along with Oklahoma City Police and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, responded to the scene and located numerous victims. Emergency personnel transported 10 victims to various metro-area hospitals," police said.

No one was in custody as of early Monday, and it was unclear what preceded the gunfire. As of early Monday, nine shooting victims were being treated at the Integris Health Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City while three were being treated at victims at Integris Health Edmond Hospital, a spokesperson for the hospitals told NBC News. "These are all victims of the shooting in Edmond this evening. No other patients that Integris is aware of at their hospitals involved in the shooting," the spokesperson said. The campground is about 20 miles north of Oklahoma City. The lake, popular for watersports, was created in 1987 in a joint operation between the City of Edmond and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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Lead Stories

Texas Supreme Court greenlights ban on Delta-8 THC in new ruling

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that state regulators may criminalize Delta-8 THC, the intoxicating compound found in some hemp products — a significant blow to an industry fighting for its survival. The ruling, which reverses a lower court decision, says the Department of State Health Services can enforce rules it set in 2021 that classified Delta-8 as an illegal substance. The change primarily affects products containing Delta-8, a milder form of THC found in many gummy, candy and vape products, including at gas stations and hemp-focused retailers. But the court’s finding that the Department of State Health Services has broad authority to regulate controlled substances could have wider implications for the industry. DSHS said it was reviewing the ruling and didn't have an immediate comment.

In a separate, smaller win for hemp businesses on Friday, a Travis County judge granted a temporary injunction against newer restrictions from DSHS that would hike fees on retail stores and limit the sale of THC-A, which would effectively ban smokeable hemp. But the decision is likely to be appealed and could be complicated by the Supreme Court’s ruling. The 2021 rules on Delta-8, meanwhile, had long been on hold after a group of hemp business owners, led by Austin-based Hometown Hero, sued to block them. The plaintiffs argued that officials overstepped their authority by banning a substance that had not been explicitly outlawed by legislators and said the decision would make it difficult for retailers to operate. A lower state court sided with the business groups and put the rules on hold as the case played out. But the state Supreme Court overturned the decision, finding that a state law known as the Texas Controlled Substances Act gives the DSHS commissioner “primary responsibility for overseeing the civil schedules of controlled substances.”

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Texas rejected Corpus Christi water project amid looming crisis

Months after Gov. Greg Abbott blasted local leaders for backing out of a plan to build a desalination plant on the Corpus Christi ship channel, the state declined to help finance another, larger desalination facility that could similarly ease the region’s growing water crisis. Early this year, the Nueces River Authority applied for a $140 million low-interest loan from the Texas Water Development Board to jumpstart planning and design for the larger project, which would be located on Harbor Island but intake water and discharge brine via a pipeline extending two miles offshore. That distance would help minimize the project’s impact on marine life and ecology, according to research.

The water board, whose members are appointed by Abbott, said the project was one of several it was unable to fund this year because its main lending program reached capacity and it had to prioritize other, higher-scoring projects. John Chisholm, the deputy executive director of the Nueces River Authority, said the decision was “very surprising.” “Our project is going to bring much-needed water to an area that is really suffering right now,” Chisholm said. The river authority is now working to find other funding sources to move the project forward. The move comes as Corpus Christi is experiencing historic water shortages amid rising demand from industry and a record drought. The city is likely to begin forcing residents and businesses to curtail their water use by 25% starting in September. Neither of the two proposed plants would help the immediate crisis, but seawater desalination has been pitched as essential to the region’s longterm future, including its ability to continue serving and attracting petrochemical plants.

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As Clarence Thomas hits a milestone, his conservative stamp on US Supreme Court endures

Clarence Thomas this week will reach a major milestone on the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the second-longest-serving justice in American history. Along the way, the stalwart conservative has played an important role in guiding the court on a rightward course, even if he has not gotten everything he has advocated. Thomas, who is 77, has served since October 1991, having been appointed at age 43 by Republican ?President George H.W. Bush to replace liberal luminary and civil-rights pioneer Thurgood Marshall on the top U.S. judicial body. Marshall was the first Black member of the court. Thomas, after a contentious Senate confirmation battle, became the second. Thomas on Monday will overtake Justice Stephen J. ?Field, who served from 1863 to 1897, for the court's third-longest tenure, according to the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Thomas on Thursday will leapfrog his late former colleague Justice John Paul Stevens, who served from 1975 to 2010, for the second-longest tenure, the society said. If Thomas remains until May 20, 2028, he would set the court's longevity record, passing Justice William O. Douglas, who served from 1939 to 1975, the society said. Thomas has left his mark on the Supreme Court, even as his role has evolved over the years. "He began his time on the court often in dissent, and he stood his ground," said Haley Proctor, a University of Notre Dame law professor who previously served as a clerk for Thomas. "The justice's influence on the law has been profound," ?Proctor said. "And that is a consequence, not only of his many years on the court, but also of his persistence." Thomas has helped the court's 6-3 conservative majority, in place since 2020, to act assertively. On back-to-back days in June 2022, he was the author of a landmark ruling expanding ?gun rights protected by the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment and joined other conservative justices in overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide. Thomas also has championed an expansive view of religious liberty, opposed gay marriage, fought ?affirmative action preferences for minorities in university admissions and hiring, supported the death penalty and broad presidential powers, and curbed campaign-finance restrictions.

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'Godspeed my friend': Inside the final hours of Spirit Airlines

Spirit Airlines was hours away from its final flights Friday afternoon. Jeremiah Burton was hours away from his first. “It’s my first time flying,” Burton, a 45-year-old air conditioning and heating technician, told CNBC at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Friday, shortly before he was scheduled to depart for New Orleans to visit his daughter and her newborn twins. “To tell you the truth, I just went online and Googled the cheapest airline ticket,” he said, adding that he paid about $500 for the trip late last month. He was scheduled to return on May 6. While Burton waited for his flight, Spirit was making final preparations to shut down overnight, ending a three-decade run that brought discount air travel to millions across the United States and as far away as Peru.

Spirit canceled international flights on Thursday, to start, so travelers, planes, and flight crews wouldn’t be stranded. The airline said it flew more than 50,000 people the day leading up to its collapse. Spirit bondholders rejected an 11th-hour bailout proposal from the Trump administration that could have included up to $500 million to keep the ailing airline afloat. The deal would have put the government ahead of other bondholders’ claims and given it an up to 90% stake in the airline. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called Spirit CEO Dave Davis to tell him there was no deal and that bondholders and the government were far from an agreement, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bondholders sent a letter to Spirit’s board, confirming that the end was near. Before dawn on Saturday, Spirit’s website and app were papered over with the message that operations had ended. “To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available,” it read. By noon, LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal, an Art Deco facility that opened in 1940 and was home to Pan Am’s Clippers — and, most recently, home to Spirit at the New York airport — was nearly silent.

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Supreme Court asked to restore access to abortion pill by mail

Two manufacturers of the abortion pill mifepristone asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to immediately restore full access to the medication, putting the contentious issue of abortion back before the justices in a midterm election year. The requests came after a lower court on Friday temporarily restricted abortion providers nationwide from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and sending them to patients by mail. That process is one of the main ways women seeking abortions have obtained the medication in recent years. If the order on Friday by a federal appeals court is upheld, it could sow confusion and upend a major avenue for abortion access across the country — not just in states with abortion bans. About one-fourth of abortions in the United States are now provided through telemedicine.

Louisiana officials had sued the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to mifepristone, saying the availability of the medication by mail had allowed abortions to continue in the state despite its near-total ban on abortion. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday sided with Louisiana and essentially reimposed an F.D.A. requirement that health care providers prescribe mifepristone only after seeing patients in person. That rule was first lifted in 2021. The Fifth Circuit ordered that in-person dispensing of mifepristone be reinstated until the Louisiana lawsuit made its way through the courts. The manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, are also defendants in the Louisiana lawsuit. On Saturday afternoon, Danco filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to lift the lower court’s order, which applied to patients across the country. GenBioPro filed a similar request Saturday evening.

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State Stories

He was one of the Texas GOP’s biggest donors. Where did he go?

These were once the months of Farris Wilks, the time when the far-right billionaire’s fortune would shape Texas GOP primaries. Since 2015, when Wilks, his brother, and their wives made a record-breaking $15 million donation to a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, the fracking tycoon has injected a mountain of cash into Republican groups and primary candidates, working with Midland oil billionaire Tim Dunn to steadily pull the state and national GOP toward their hard-line religious and political views. But this cycle, Wilks has been all but missing. The longtime Republican kingmaker appears to have given just one large donation. And while it is possible that he has continued to cut checks to untraceable, dark-money groups, numerous sources have said that Wilks has largely pulled back from politics following a private break with Dunn. Why might one of the state’s most prolific donors have stepped away from his movement at the ostensible height of its power? Neither Dunn nor Wilks have responded to interview requests or publicly discussed the status of their relationship. But those close to them point to fallout from a white supremacist–related scandal from 2024 that they say frayed the billionaires’ already distant relationship, and may have added to mounting familial pressure on Wilks to curtail his political activity. Regardless of the cause, the result is a seismic shift for a state that he once bent to his will.

Even among Texas’s eccentric billionaire class, Wilks is a singular figure. He has eleven children, is one of the largest private landowners in the country, and has said that when he was growing up, his family was so poor that he sometimes slept in a goat shed at their ranch in Cisco, a roughly 3,800-person town in Eastland County where he is now a major public benefactor. Most of what’s known about the intensely private 74-year-old has come from a handful of brief interviews he’s done over the years or from audio recordings of sermons he’s delivered at the Assembly of Yahweh, a county-road church just outside Cisco that was founded by his father and mixes elements of Judaism, biblical literalism, and Seventh-Day Adventism. (The church, for instance, celebrates Sabbath on Saturday and eschews “religious holidays of the Gentiles,” including Christmas and Easter.) Beginning around 2014, the Wilks brothers also increasingly focused on the Texas Legislature, joining Dunn and a small group of other megadonors in their yearslong campaign to oust then–House Speaker Joe Straus and other GOP lawmakers who they claimed had betrayed conservative voters and values. Through a well-funded network of political groups, media websites, and nonprofits—namely, Empower Texans, an influential advocacy group founded by Dunn—the billionaires threatened incumbents with expensive, bruising primary challenges. Though lawmakers usually retained their seats, the Dunn-Wilks strategy forced them to campaign and legislate further to the right, which steadily pulled the whole statehouse with them.

Read this article at Texas Monthly - Subscribers Only

Newly-elected Robstown water board director: “The city of Corpus Christi does not care about our community”

Voters in Robstown made their voices heard Saturday in a closely watched election tied to ongoing water concerns, selecting three members to serve on the board of Nueces County Water Conservation and Improvement District #3. Twelve candidates appeared on the ballot, with the top three vote-getters — Myra Alaniz, current director Ramiro Alejandro Jr. and Belinda “Shorty” Valadez — earning seats on the board. Alaniz, who received the most votes, will serve as the district’s new director.

The race drew heightened attention as drought conditions continue to strain water resources across the Coastal Bend. Alaniz, who has been outspoken about water management in the area, said she believes the community has been overlooked. “The city of Corpus Christi does not care about our community,” Alaniz said. The district covers areas north of Robstown toward the banks of the Nueces River, near several of Corpus Christi’s groundwater wells — a key point of concern for residents. Alaniz criticized how untreated groundwater has been handled, saying it has impacted water quality. “If they cared about our community, they wouldn’t be dumping that untreated well water into the river that we pull,” she said. “Now we can’t pull that water because it has high TDS, arsenic and whatever else is in there. So now the water is compromised.” Which is why Alaniz says the district had to turn to the interconnection deal with Corpus Christi Water.

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Republican Brett Ligon, former Montgomery County DA, wins special election for open Texas Senate seat

Texas Republicans have held onto the State Senate District 4 seat with candidate Brett Ligon, unofficial election night results show. Texas held a special election Saturday, May 2, to fill a vacant seat in the Texas Senate whose term would expire in January 2027. The seat became vacant in October 2025 when the former holder, former Republican State Sen. Brandon Creighton, resigned to become the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. On the ballot were only two candidates: Ligon and Democratic candidate Ron Angeletti. Once the results are made official, Ligon will represent Texans from Montgomery, Harris, Chambers, Jefferson and Galveston counties in the Texas Senate.

“The voters of SD4 have delivered a clear message tonight. Conservative values and Republican dominance in Texas are alive and well,” he said in a statement declaring victory 25 minutes after polls closed. “Democrats from Texas and all over the country threw everything they had at us. Democrat politicians were here today in full force, campaigning hard for my opponent. As if we had been flying the ‘Come and Take It’ flag – they tried – and they failed.” Senate District 4 — which spans across Chambers, Harris, Jefferson and Montgomery counties — voted for President Donald Trump by a 34-point margin in 2024, making it one of the reddest seats in the upper chamber. It is considered a virtual lock for Republicans in November, even with midterm political headwinds that have left Democrats optimistic about flipping GOP legislative seats. Although the district has not had representation since Creighton’s departure in October, the Legislature has not been in session during that period and is not scheduled to reconvene until January for the next regular session.

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Amtrak will discontinue Texas-Oklahoma route this summer

The Heartland Flyer, a 206-mile route connecting Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, is set to be discontinued in 90 days after Texas and Oklahoma lawmakers failed to include the route in their respective budgets. The Texas Legislature did not include funding for the 206-mile train route in the 2026 and 2027 budget, according to the notice sent to Amtrak, which operates the train. Texas' portion of the route's budget was $3.5 million. The current agreement expires on Aug. 31. The train is only still running this year due emergency funding from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, according to Texas Rail Advocates. The council, which is currently undergoing a leadership change, also had to help out the route in 2024 with $100,000 in assistance, according to TRA.

But TxDOT said in its notice this month: "At this time, another suitable funding source has not been identified." Peter LeCody, president of TRA, said in a statement 80,000 people take the route and could be back on the highway if the train shuts down. "You can't say that nobody rides this train," LeCody said. As Oklahoma’s sole Amtrak connection, the train has provided daily service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth since June 1999, though it has faced a series of funding challenges. The Oklahoma Legislature is currently in session until May 29th, but shut down a proposal earlier this month to add funding to the route. While Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt noted the state was considering its options, the project has ultimately come up short. The Kansas Department of Transportation’s plans to extend the route to Newton now face instability caused by the lack of funding and shifting federal priorities under the Trump administration. TxDOT's letter ended on a farewell, signaling it may not expect new funding. "We appreciate the partnership of the State of Texas has had with the National Railroad Passenger Corporation over the years and thank Amtrak for its dedication to improving and supporting passenger rail in the region," the notice read.

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What a new Supreme Court decision means for Spring Branch voters

A federal court ruled last year that Spring Branch ISD violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the Hispanic vote — but that decision could be reversed after a recent Supreme Court decision. In the past few years, the district's at-large trustee system has come under scrutiny after a lawsuit claimed it racially discriminated against the area's Hispanic community by diluting minority voting power. The district has nearly twice as many Hispanic students as white students. The district appealed the initial ruling that sided with the plaintiff. The case was put on hold to see how the Supreme Court would handle a similar case, Louisiana v. Callais, a lawsuit over possible discrimination in how the state draws its voting districts.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority issued a ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. Under the court's updated view, states no longer need to draw districts based on racial considerations. If a state dismantles districts that favor Black or Hispanic candidates, challengers would have to provide evidence showing states “intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.” The new ruling from the country's highest court frustrates some community members in the Spring Branch area who had pinned their hopes on the voting-rights lawsuit against the school district. "We have seen (the Supreme Court) continuously over the past decade, really erode the rights of minorities and groups of people that have historically needed actions in the law," said David Lopez, executive director of civic nonprofit Somos Spring Branch. "It is deeply frustrating, and it should be for everyone, no matter what community you identify with. I think voting rights protections protect every single person in this country." SBISD relies on an at-large system of voting where residents in the entire school district cast ballots for every candidate and ballot measure. Critics say the practice can weaken the voice of people of color who are drowned out by white voters. They say school board candidates should be elected by voters in distinct districts.

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KENS 5 honored with Governor’s Volunteer Award for decade of mentorship and community service

KENS 5 has been named as a Corporate Champion Award recipient in the 42nd Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards, the highest recognition for volunteerism in Texas, according to the OneStar Foundation, which administers the awards. The station was recognized during National Volunteer Month at a ceremony held Wednesday evening at the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin. First Lady Cecilia Abbott, honorary chair of the Governor’s Volunteer Awards, announced the recipients in a statement released by her office, praising Texans whose service is “making a lasting difference” across the state.

“I am honored to recognize this year’s Governor’s Volunteer Awards recipients as Texans whose commitment to service is making a lasting difference,” she said in the release. “Their dedication reminds us that service has the power to unite communities, uplift neighbors, and inspire others to step forward.” KENS 5 was selected for its sustained commitment to mentorship and community service in San Antonio. For more than a decade, station employees have partnered with Communities In Schools of San Antonio to mentor high school students through the InspireU Workplace Mentors program, helping students build confidence and communication skills and identify career goals. The station also was recognized for its role in the annual Stuff The Bus School Supply Drive, which uses KENS 5’s broadcast and digital platforms to encourage community donations. In 2024, coverage of the drive generated more than 5.9 million impressions and helped provide school supplies to students in 140 schools. KENS 5 News Director Jack Acosta said the recognition reflects the station’s long-standing focus on service to South Texas. “On behalf of everyone at KENS 5, we’re proud to shine a light on the people and students building a better future,” Acosta said. “We’re grateful for our partnership with Communities In Schools and the opportunity to give back to South Texas.” The Governor’s Volunteer Awards recognize individuals, families, organizations and corporations whose service over the past year has strengthened communities and inspired others across Texas.

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5 from Amarillo dead following Thursday plane crash in Hays County

The five who were killed in the plane crash Thursday night have been identified: Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, Glen Appling, and Hayden Dillard.

Locally, the Amarillo Pickleball Club released the following statement: Today, the Club has received terrible news that we all must mourn in the loss of five members of our Amarillo pickleball family: Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, Glen Appling, and Hayden Dillard. Please keep their precious families in your thoughts and prayers. All five were killed last night in a private airplane crash near Austin, TX, while en route to a pickleball tournament. Although many were friends to players, the loss is most horrible to their close family. And those families may need our help in these times.

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KUT relocates festival as UT points fingers

The surprise decision to relocate this weekend’s inaugural KUT Festival out of its long-planned home on the University of Texas campus and to two venues in East Austin has left the Austin NPR affiliate struggling on two fronts: first, in trying to rebuild their entire event with almost no notice, and secondly, in a war of words with the UT administration. The event, combining music, community, and conversations with public figures about issues facing Central Texas, was first announced last November. The initial plan was for two days of events at both indoor and outdoor venues around the college campus. Instead, the schedule has been largely reduced to one full day, May 2, at the Eastside Ballroom and Central Machine Works.

So what happened? On April 28, Anita L. Vangelisti, interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, wrote to festival speakers that “our analysis has identified key areas where KUT provided insufficient planning for safety measures, including security, health, fire, and emergency services.” She added that, with the agreement of KUT and the UT administration, the community elements were being moved off-campus. KUT Director and General Manager Debbie Hiott sent her own follow-up email that stressed that the station had worked closely with UT on all issues since the beginning of planning, and had only been told of the university’s concerns on April 22. Moreover, they said they had not been provided the list of supposed deficiencies, nor been allowed to meet with the relevant administrators to discuss if the issue was fixable. Instead, Hiott wrote that UT “ordered KUT to cancel the outdoor portions of the events” on April 24, before agreeing to the relocation.

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Caldwell County residents holding Data Center talk

Data centers continue to be a hot topic for many people across the nation. According to Pew Research more than 1,500 new data centers are in various stages of development nationwide. Some of those data centers are right here in Central Texas. In Caldwell County, people will be gathering to discuss the topic on Sunday.

“The temperatures are really high so we want people to be able to, let’s not yell and blame who didn’t have any part in it, but let’s figure out what is the next step we can do to empower people to make a call to their legislators,” said Pat Stroka who is helping put on the event. Stroka says he hopes to educate people who are stopping by about data centers. Multiple speakers will be addressing the topic including Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden. A Caldwell County Spokesperson says the judge was invited to speak as a special guest, but the county was not putting on the event. “At this time, county commissioners have approved development agreements for two data center campuses in Caldwell County. The agreements were approved at the April 9 and April 23 meetings,” said a Caldwell County spokesperson.

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JR Trevino: Texas future depends on career pathways and civic trust

(JR Trevino is the mayor of Castle Hills, chief operating officer of Treco Enterprises Inc. and president of the 2026 Texas Lyceum.) Texas has long been regarded as a place of opportunity, with a strong economy and a thriving career market. Here, everything is bigger and anything is possible. But according to a 2026 Texas Lyceum poll, only a quarter of Texans believe they are in a long-term career, and some are losing faith in democracy. Texans are questioning the very systems that are designed to support and represent our best interests. And this disconnect should serve as a warning, not just for today but for the future of our state and the generations that come after us. As president of the Texas Lyceum, I have the privilege of hearing directly from residents. Each year, the Lyceum conducts a comprehensive poll to gauge Texans’ perspectives on issues shaping our state. Our purpose is not to advocate for specific positions but to raise awareness and foster informed dialogue so leaders are better equipped to serve their communities.

This year’s poll reveals a troubling reality: 75% of Texans believe they have a job, not a career. In a state with the eighth-largest economy in the world, this should raise serious concern. Texas is an economic powerhouse, but that success must translate into meaningful, long-term opportunities for its workforce. If Texans see only a paycheck and not a pathway to careers, something fundamental is missing. Equally worrisome, only 27% of Texans believe their children will have a more prosperous future than their own current economic situation. Addressing that gap starts with education. Career pathways are shaped early, through the combined influence of families, educators and public systems. Preparing students not just for employment but for long-term success — through skills training, career exposure and real-world learning — should be a central priority. State and local leaders play a critical role in ensuring those opportunities exist. That sense of uncertainty extends beyond the workplace. The poll also found that 1 in 4 Texans are unsure whether democracy is the best form of government, pointing to a deeper disconnect from civic life and a lack of confidence in public institutions. A healthy democracy depends on informed, engaged citizens who believe their participation matters.

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Ross clinches final term in Arlington mayor’s office, narrowly avoiding runoff

Incumbent Mayor Jim Ross has been reelected to a third and final term with 50.04% of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff election, according to unofficial results. Steve Cavender trailed with 39.4% of the vote, roughly 2,800 fewer votes than Ross. Cavender and his campaign team did not respond to multiple requests for a comment Saturday night. As soon as election data from Tarrant County showed 100% of votes counted, Ross took the stage to cheers and applause that shook the dishes on tables at J. Gilligan’s Bar and Grill, where he was hosting a watch party to which he invited every other candidate running for any office in Arlington.

His message after inviting other winners to the stage was of grace in victory. “Going forward, as much as some of us really want to get in somebody’s face and say, ‘We told you we won’t put up with this [expletive],’ we’re not gonna do it,” Ross told his supporters. “We’re gonna move forward, we’re gonna be better than the other side was.” Shaun Mallory and Hunter Crow, who are also running for the office, saw 4.9% and 5.5% ballots cast in their favor, respectively. The contest for Arlington mayor has been contentious, with many voters describing it as divisive and messy. Ross focused his campaigning, and especially on social media, on sharing his achievements, the reasons he’s proud of his city and the endorsements he’s received. Cavender’s strategy relied heavily on criticizing Ross, with special attention on his personal taxes, travel expenses and a video from a panel discussion on housing policy. He’s also placed the blame for increased property taxes, approved by council in a 7-2 vote last year, squarely on Ross’ shoulders.

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How Texas Republicans turned on George W. Bush

In their primary runoff for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, John Cornyn can say that Ken Paxton is divorcing his wife, that he’s alleged to have had multiple mistresses, that his own senior staff has accused him of corruption. All that is damning and true. But Paxton can make one charge that is more powerful than anything Cornyn can pin on Ken, and which may well push the attorney general over the line on May 26: John Cornyn was in office twenty years ago. There’s really no getting around that. It’s on his Wikipedia page. To put a finer point on it, Cornyn has the stink of George W. Bush about him. The problem with the senior senator, as one representative online poster put it this week, is that he’s “a corporate hack who was an instrumental member of the Bush/Rove machine” and “the last vestige of those hacks other than [Greg] Abbott.” The problem for Cornyn is that the sentiment above wasn’t shared by a bleeding-heart Austin liberal with a long memory of the Bush years and a Coexist bumper-sticker, but by someone who identifies as a Texas conservative.

The expectation might be that the Texas GOP has golden statues to Bush in every place it meets. It does not. A substantial portion of Republicans in the state are out to seek and destroy any last trace of the party left over from the Bush era—between 1994 and 2004 or so. When it was reported on April 15 that Bush had donated $5,000 to Cornyn’s campaign, the signal fires went up through the right-wing movement. (Even though it was a minor sum from a private citizen in a very expensive race—pro-Cornyn organizations, along with his campaign, spent $17 million in the first quarter of 2026.) “[The] old guard is all over Texas trying to claw back control and push out America First candidates,” wrote Kambree Nelson, a pro-Paxton influencer. “Bring it.” Another MAGA influencer posted a picture of an aged Bush and wrote that “voting for this RINO twice and defending him for 10 years after he left office was the worst political decision I’ve ever made.” That this is now the mood in a large faction of the GOP is a bit strange, because Bush’s party was one of the most savagely dominant political forces the state had ever seen. This is not properly appreciated today in part because Bush was the “compassionate conservative.” But the Bush-era GOP consumed the once-dominant Texas Democratic Party like locusts eat a field of wheat and made possible everything that came after.

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As license plate readers expand in Texas, privacy advocates are fighting back

Last week the City of Kyle, a fast-growing Austin suburb, interrupted a string of recent victories won by local activists to thwart the further expansion of police surveillance technology across Central Texas. On April 21, council members overwhelmingly voted 6-1 to authorize the Kyle Police Department to apply for another state grant—worth up to $381,200—to continue funding at least 38 preexisting Flock Safety automated license plate readers (ALPRs). Most of the local residents in attendance who spoke on the issue opposed the city’s move to obtain further funding for the artificial intelligence-powered network of surveillance cameras. “There’s one cell-phone tower within a mile of my house, and there’s four Flock cameras. You need a warrant to check my cell site records, but you have more granular data from the cameras than you do from [the cell tower],” David Moss, a Kyle resident, told the city council at the meeting.

Flock has sold nearly 92,000 such cameras to local police departments across the nation—including more than 10,000 in Texas, according to an open source map of the cameras compiled by DeFlock. The City of Kyle has had them since 2024. The cameras record the license plate numbers of trafficking motorists going about their daily routines and store immense logs of surveillance data that can be queried by participating law enforcement agencies across the nation. The records are stored for at least 30 days before being deleted, except in cases in which the data is pulled from the system for investigative purposes. Flock has come under fire from privacy advocates as well as local activists concerned about surveillance technology for allowing law enforcement agencies to conduct unrestricted searches of its data—including for the purposes of immigration enforcement and, in at least one instance, an abortion investigation. Flock Media Relations Manager Evan White told the Texas Observer that while the company doesn’t work directly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), “Agencies choose with whom to share data and can change or revoke their sharing settings at any point.”

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National Stories

Golden Tempo takes Kentucky Derby as Cherie DeVaux becomes 1st woman to train winner

After being asked all week about the possibility of becoming the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner, Cherie DeVaux was nearly speechless when Golden Tempo charged from the back of the pack Saturday to make history for her. “I’m just glad I don’t have to answer that question anymore,” DeVaux said to a rousing round of applause. DeVaux joined Jena Antonucci, with Arcangelo in the 2023 Belmont, as the only women to train the winner of a Triple Crown race. She was just the 18th woman to saddle a horse in the Derby in its 152-year history, and the gravity of the situation came into focus for her days earlier when she saw a young girl on the backstretch and realized the impact she is making.

“It really is an honor to be able to be that person for other women or other little girls to look up to,” DeVaux said. “You can dream big, and you can pivot. You can come from one place and make yourself a part of history.” DeVaux credits growing up with seven brothers and two sisters for her toughness. After winning the Derby on her first try eight years after starting her own stable, she thanked her husband for inspiring her to give it a chance. “I didn’t believe,” DeVaux said. “I started my career here 22 years ago as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed exercise rider. And I would not believe that I would be sitting up here today. Never in my life did I think I would.” It came with a lot of hard work. DeVaux fielded questions this week about Golden Tempo’s cracked heels, and she downplayed concerns. She put a lot of time into getting the colt into form, trying blinkers and other things to get the son of Curlin to focus.

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Trump’s new conditions on DEI, immigration could cut off states’ wildfire funding

A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands. Some liberal states can’t sign the documents because the policies clash with state law, forestry experts say. Already, at least one state is reporting that the new rules have stalled work to reduce wildfire risk and assist with projects on national forest lands. Other states say the requirements are so vague that they don’t know how to follow them. And some timber industry leaders believe the standoff could cut into their revenues.

“We’re kind of at an impasse,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “It’s already starting to slow down or shut down work.” The update to the requirements governing federal partnerships comes even as many Western states brace for a brutal wildfire season, following a winter that brought record high temperatures and a paltry snowpack. On Dec. 31, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins with little fanfare issued new general terms and conditions governing partnerships for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Spelled out in dozens of pages of fine print are new restrictions that require partner organizations to pledge compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders. The new conditions apply to all USDA agencies, but the department hasn’t yet said whether it will enforce them for food assistance programs.

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Alabama is latest state to try to halt its election to pass new gerrymander

Alabama may suspend its May 19 congressional primary elections to pass a new gerrymandered map in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA) — even though absentee mail ballots have already been sent to voters and some ballots have already been cast. It would follow Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s (R) unprecedented decision Thursday to halt his state’s May 16 congressional primary in order to gerrymander the map, a move that has already drawn legal challenges. Mail voting in that election is also already underway. On Thursday, Alabama asked the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to expedite a case* brought by Black voters challenging the state’s congressional map under Section 2 of the VRA. Alabama also asked SCOTUS to vacate an order requiring it to draw a map with two majority Black electoral districts.

Black voters challenging the Alabama maps quickly filed responses Friday morning asking the court to deny Alabama’s motion, arguing some absentee votes had already been cast in the May 19 primary. They are asking SCOTUS to either resolve the lawsuit through its normal review process or to order the parties to fully brief and argue the merits of the case. The Black voters also referenced the Supreme Court majority’s findings just a few months earlier in Texas’ redistricting case, when the majority wrote that the Texas district court had “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion.” In that case, no mail ballots had even been sent out at the time. Alabama has already entered into an agreement to use its current map until 2030 — but the state has repeatedly ignored court orders demanding it implement legally compliant maps in the past. While Alabama’s leadership has not openly declared its intention to ram through a gerrymander, Black voters have reason to worry.

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Minnesota passes the nation’s first ban on ‘nudification’ apps

The Minnesota Senate on Wednesday passed the country’s first ban on “nudification” apps 65-0, addressing one of the main sources of nonconsensual deepfakes. The bill was passed by the state House last week and now just needs the governor’s signature to become law. Advocates are optimistic Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, will sign legislation soon. This bill was the first attempt in the country to ban websites or apps that promote digital undressing, where photographs of fully clothed people can be uploaded and manipulated with generative AI to appear nude. These services power nonconsensual intimate imagery and don’t require any technical expertise to use. Google and Apple ban nudification apps from their respective web stores, but research by the Tech Transparency Project showed they remain easily accessible.

Investigations from multiple news organizations have found that Meta continues to allow these apps to advertise on their social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. This blend means the tools are easy for kids to use; the independent media organization Indicator has tracked 23 cases of deepfake abuse targeting school communities in the United States since 2023. Federal attempts to create a civil right of action for survivors of nonconsensual deepfakes have stalled in Congress. The DEFIANCE Act has yet to make it to the House floor, though it has been passed by the Senate twice. Last year’s Take It Down Act made it a federal crime to disseminate nonconsensual intimate images, regardless of provenance, but does not allow survivors to sue for damages. Minnesota House File 1606 would allow survivors to sue the owners of nudification apps for damages and empower the state attorney general to collect fines of $500,000 per violation. The number of nonconsensual deepfakes has risen over the past few years. A mass episode of digital sexual violence kicked off in December when the social media platform X enabled its integrated chatbot Grok to generate images for free. Reporting from The New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate estimates Grok created and posted over 1.8 million sexualized images of women over nine days.

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60 Minutes journalist decries ‘spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear’ at CBS News

The veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi expressed concern about “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at CBS News and her uncertainty about whether she will keep her job after she pushed back on a directive to change her December segment on Venezuelans who were sent to the Cecot prison in El Salvador. Alfonsi spoke about the incident for the first time on Thursday evening after receiving the Ridenhour prize for courage at the National Press Club in Washington. Her comments come as the Trump administration has piled pressure on US media and follow CBS News editor Bari Weiss’s decision to shelve the segment on the flagship news program. Alfonsi had alleged at the time that Weiss had “spiked” the story for political purposes, a significant accusation of journalistic impropriety. Weiss argued that the segment was delayed because it did not sufficiently include the perspective of the Trump administration.

The segment was originally supposed to air on the 21 December edition of the show. It ultimately aired about a month later, on the 18 January edition, but was not meaningfully different from the original report and lacked an on-air interview with a Trump administration official. “I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our Cecot story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents,” she said on Thursday. “It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear. It’s hard to watch.” She joked that her view was “for the attorneys”. CBS has been approached for comment. Alfonsi’s future at the network is said to be in jeopardy; it is unclear whether she will return for the show’s 59th season, which begins in September. She acknowledged that uncertainty in her remarks. “Thank you for this award. I didn’t know that the theme was hope. My hope recently has been that I still have a job,” she said. “And every morning I wake up to another headline that says I’ve been fired.” But, recalling an early job as a waitress that she lost, she said: “If I am fired, it will not be the first time.”

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A California dream? Some Democrats fear Harris picked the wrong race.

The current political math in California goes like this: There are eight candidates running for governor. Only four of them are breaking double digits in polling. And there’s a chance that Democrats could be shut out of the general election entirely in November. To many Democrats in the reliably liberal state, the calculus seems rather grim. Some can’t help but wonder about a never-was-but-what-if variable: Kamala Harris. Maybe, they say, she should have run for governor instead of publicly pondering a third run for president. Sunny Hostin, a co-host of “The View,” recently urged Ms. Harris, the former vice president, to reconsider. “California, it’s like running a country,” she said on the morning show. “I know that she’s talked about being president — I don’t know if that’s the right position for her — but my goodness, she certainly knows California.”

After Ms. Harris lost her bid for president in 2024, many believed that she would try to become the next governor of California. The state has a tradition of larger-than-life governors — Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gavin Newsom — who have happily used the statewide office as a megaphone to speak to a worldwide audience. But after months of speculation, Ms. Harris ruled out the possibility last July. Instead, she has been roaming the country on a book tour, saying recently that she “might” run for president again in 2028. It’s enough to give some party loyalists heartburn. The governor’s race, they say, would have been a better bet. “She would have been good at it, and it would have been a good job for her,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank based in Washington. “It would have been good for Democrats everywhere.” On the other hand, Mr. Bennett said, she would enter the presidential race “with a real burden” of defending the past.

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Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern refile rail-merger application

The proposed $71.5 billion merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to form a coast-to-coast railroad run by a single operator will have a projected 39% of the market share of rail freight in the U.S., the two railroads said. The companies on Thursday resubmitted their merger application to U.S. regulators, this time including a description of conditions that would compel Union Pacific to walk away from the merger. Such conditions typically include requirements that the buyers cede control of certain parts of the combined railroad and concessions that allow other rail carriers access to its rail lines and facilities. In January, the Surface Transportation Board rejected the railroads’ initial application, saying that it was incomplete, and invited the railroads to revise their application.

Market-share projections and a list of conditions that would cause Union Pacific to walk away were among the items that the regulator had asked for when it asked the two companies to reapply. Some of the information is confidential and redacted in the public filing. The Surface Transportation Board is overseeing the lengthy merger-review process and will decide to approve or reject the merger. If the board accepts the latest application, it will review public comment and rebuttals in the coming months before making a decision sometime in 2027. The proposed deal already has drawn skepticism from several lawmakers, state attorneys general and rail customers. They have asked the regulator to scrutinize the transaction, asserting that the combined company could concentrate too much market power, stifle competition and lead to higher prices and poorer service. Other railroads have lined up against it, saying that the rail industry is consolidated enough.

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Lead Stories

U.S. debt tops 100% of GDP

The U.S. national debt now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, crossing a once-unthinkable threshold, on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II. As of March 31, the country’s publicly held debt was $31.265 trillion, while GDP over the preceding year was $31.216 trillion, according to data released Thursday. That puts the ratio at 100.2%, compared with 99.5% when the last fiscal year ended Sept. 30. That figure will likely climb for the foreseeable future because the federal government is running historically large annual deficits of nearly 6% of GDP, which add to the debt. The government is spending $1.33 for every dollar it collects in revenue, and the budget deficit this year is projected at $1.9 trillion. That is little changed from 2025 as Republicans’ tax cuts kick in before their spending cuts take effect. The final tally will depend on Iran war spending, tariff refunds and the strength of the economy.

By itself, the milestone doesn’t mean much. There isn’t a special level where debt goes from problematic to catastrophic. And the ratio might bounce around in coming quarters as tax receipts come in, tariff refunds go out and GDP fluctuates in response to inflation and revisions. Still, the triple-digit mark is a potent symbol of the fiscal stresses on the U.S. that have been building for decades. Lawmakers in both parties have expressed alarm but given priority to tax cuts and spending increases with clearer short-term political benefits. “We’re headed toward uncharted territory,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “There’s no magic of 100% vs. 99%, but it’s a scary place to be.” The debt-to-GDP ratio is economists’ preferred metric for how much the country’s borrowing weighs on the economy. As it rises, debt consumes resources that could be used more productively elsewhere. The government also becomes more sensitive to interest rates as debt grows. One in seven dollars of federal spending now goes to interest. A 0.1 percentage-point interest-rate increase would cost $379 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

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Camp Mystic withdraws 2026 license application, will not operate this summer

Camp Mystic announced Wednesday it is withdrawing its application for a 2026 summer camp license, effectively ending the possibility of the camp operating this summer under any circumstances. The announcement came one day after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called publicly on the Eastland family to withdraw the application and cancel the season, and two days after 13 hours of testimony before the joint General Investigating Committee on the July 4, 2025, flood produced overwhelming legislative and public pressure to close the camp. “No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” the camp said in a statement released Wednesday.

The withdrawal resolves — at least for this summer — the regulatory standoff that dominated Tuesday’s hearing, in which the Texas Department of State Health Services disclosed a potential loophole under the Administrative Procedure Act that could have allowed Camp Mystic to continue operating even if its license was denied or revoked. By withdrawing the application, the camp removes that legal pathway entirely. The statement acknowledged the pressure of the past two days directly. “This decision is intended to remove any doubt that Camp Mystic has heard the concerns expressed by grieving families, members of the Texas House and Senate investigating committees and citizens across our state. Respect for those voices requires that we step back now.” The camp also acknowledged the more than 800 girls who had signed up to attend the Cypress Lake campus this summer. “Our special bond with our Camp Mystic families does not change or end with this announcement. We love each of you.”

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These oil giants had written off Venezuela. Now they are taking a second look.

Rising above the din of voices in the lobby of the J.W. Marriott in Caracas is an unusual sound: Spanish spoken with a Texas twang. Engineers, lawyers and other emissaries of the U.S. oil industry have flocked to the heavily guarded hotel to pitch their Venezuelan counterparts on plans to revive the country’s rundown oil fields. Dozens have met with a receptive Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s acting president. One small Texas operator was recently heard boasting that his company is nimble enough to get oil flowing faster than the oil giants. Even Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and other oil companies that just months ago deemed Venezuela too risky for business have come back to town for a second look. “It was unmistakable, the sense of impending opportunity,” said Jon Hughes, the chief executive of boutique energy investment bank Petrie Partners, who visited the bustling hotel last week.

“There were so many Americans meeting with so many Venezuelans. Both sides are engaged in a constructive way, with a shared vision of making things function better and getting production up.” The U.S. Embassy has even set up camp at the J.W. Marriott—to escape the black mold that overran its building after years of disrepair. More visitors are likely on the way: American Airlines on Thursday offered the first direct U.S. commercial flight to Venezuela’s capital city in seven years, out of Miami. In recent weeks, both Exxon and Conoco have met with Venezuelan officials and sent technical teams to the Latin American country. Exxon’s team inspected the Cerro Negro heavy-oil project that it operated before 2007 when Hugo Chávez’s government nationalized much of the country’s energy infrastructure. Conoco is also trying to assess oil-and-gas opportunities. Neither company has committed capital to projects in the country—but the fact that they appear more open to the idea is a far cry from their position just three months ago. A sharp rise in oil prices and the government’s moves to change laws in favor of foreign investors have softened their opposition, according to people close to the companies.

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Jeffries lays out more targets for gerrymanders in response to GOP’s renewed push

The Supreme Court decision has given Republicans a big opportunity to gerrymander more seats as they look to keep House control. But Jeffries insisted Republicans’ options for redraws before the midterms are limited given the calendar. And he stressed that Democrats would be aggressive in their counterefforts. “Republicans have concluded that they need to cheat to win, and the Supreme Court conservatives have decided to aid and abet their scheme. Democrats are going to fight back with every tool available,” Jeffries said. Some Democrats in the immediate aftermath of the Callais ruling raised the possibility of diluting majority-minority districts to help draw more seats favoring Democrats — even in states like California, where the party already stands to gain up to five seats after voters approved a new congressional map last fall.

Jeffries didn’t give a direct answer when asked whether blue states should look to split up those seats to draw more Democratic-leaning seats overall. “We’re looking at every opportunity to ensure that communities of color will continue to have the chance to elect the candidate of their choice in districts that have traditionally been covered by the Voting Rights Act,” he said, “while at the same time doing what is necessary, as occurred in California, to decisively respond to efforts by Republicans to gerrymander congressional maps.” Democratic governors in several of the states Jeffries highlighted for potential new maps slammed the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights act on Wednesday. Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed to plow ahead with efforts to redraw New York’s maps ahead of 2028. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, whose effort to draw out the sole Republican representing his state in the 2026 election flamed out this year, said in a statement that “until we have national redistricting reform, every state should stay part of the conversation.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called the ruling “voter suppression that will silence Black and brown voters,” adding that “the magnitude of this decision cannot be understated.”

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State Stories

Texas radio personality Chad Hasty dies at 43.

Texas lost a beloved voice on Thursday morning. Chad Hasty, a West Texas institution and Lubbock radio personality, died at age 43, according to longtime employer KFYO. The Grand Prairie native and Texas Tech alumnus was a fixture in Lubbock radio for decades, joining KFYO in 2003. "We are stunned and heartbroken by the sudden passing of our beloved KFYO family member, Chad Hasty," Townsquare Media Lubbock Market President Dan Endom said. "Chad was not only a brilliant on-air host, but an even better friend. Our deepest condolences go out to Jennifer and his baby girl, Ava. It's hard to imagine not seeing his welcoming presence roaming the halls of Townsquare Media Lubbock."

It didn't take long after the news broke for condolences to begin pouring in from multiple influential Texans. Quorum Report Editor Scott Braddock on X remembered Hasty's "heart as big as Texas," with multiple responders noting what a substantial loss this is for the state. State Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) noted Hasty's ability to keep leaders accountable and conversations grounded in reality, making the region a better place. State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), also speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, shared a photo and lengthy post remembering Hasty. "Chad wasn't just a broadcaster, he was one of the very best to ever cover the people, policy, and politics shaping the Texas Legislature and our state," he said in the X post. "He asked the right questions, gave fair room for debate, and, most importantly, he made sure Texans stayed informed." According to Hasty's biography on the KFYO website, he launched his first show in 2006 and incorporated in his career a variety of topics including politics, sports, "cigars and anything else that's on the listeners' minds." In his honor, KYFO will air a special edition of The Chad Hasty Show at 5 p.m. Thursday.

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Regional Transportation Council joins lawsuit in hope to rehire fired director, protect staffing decisions

Members of the Regional Transportation Council are looking to rehire longtime transportation director Michael Morris who was fired Tuesday. To do that, the group decided Thursday to allocate $5 million for legal expenses as it joins a lawsuit filed by Denton County officials over hiring decisions. The choice to sue the North Central Texas Council of Governments came during an emergency meeting in Arlington. RTC members said the suit is intended to change the Metropolitan Planning Organization structure in North Texas. The group would have the ability to hire and fire transportation department staffers, instead of the council of governments as its CEO Todd Little maintains. A proposed agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation still under negotiation would be similar to those used in other Texas metro areas, officials said.

Morris was fired by Little — weeks before the FIFA World Cup games in Arlington start in June. “We just voted today that the Regional Transportation Council is going to intervene in the lawsuit … to ensure that our regional (decisions) here in transportation, our interests, are protected and taken care of,” Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said. “The RTC is the policy-making entity for transportation here in North Texas and for someone to come in and unilaterally make a decision to get rid of an individual that has over four decades of institutional knowledge — we’re owed at least an explanation,” Ross said. Denton County Judge Andy Eads said he was encouraged by the transportation council’s strong show of support to address “the overreach” of the council of governments board of directors. Eads said the RTC’s actions “reinforces what we have maintained from the beginning.”

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Greater Edwards Aquifer Authority report sounds the alarm over proposed data centers in Texas

A new report from the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance is sounding the alarm about the proliferation of proposed AI data centers in the state. The report summarizes data center operations, growth, and impacts, along with a review of national and international efforts to respond to data center challenges and a summary of recommendations. Rachel Hanes is policy director for the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance. She says Texas could be in dire straits if action is not taken soon. “It's going to have very large impacts on our water supplies, on our energy supplies and public health, our coffers, our local government regulations and authorities and budgets,” she told TPR. More than 20 sprawling data centers that house and cool a massive collection of computer equipment are in the San Antonio area, and more are on the drawing board.

Among the recommendations in the report for local governments, regional entities, and utilities is to adopt policies that could serve as guardrails against the adverse impacts of data center development. These include policies to improve data gathering and state and local planning; allocate costs fairly; improve and expand local regulatory tools; limit incompatible land uses; improve transparency; limit detrimental energy and water use; and limit increases in pollution and public health impacts. The report also recommends data center operators adopt measures to limit potable water use; reduce demand on local water supplies; limit fossil-fuel energy generation and its public health impacts. “We really encourage people to take a holistic view of the industry and use it as an opportunity to better prepare the state for generations to come, whatever the next high growth and high impact," Hanes said. Pacifico Energy and other energy companies are rushing to build private power plants across the Lone Star State. Hanes says at present state agencies are not adequately prepared to deal with the influx of AI data centers and that could lead to major consequences for natural resources and communities.

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Republic National laying off 1,903 Texas workers amid sale talks

Republic National Distributing Co. is planning mass layoffs in Texas ahead of a potential sale. The struggling alcohol distributor notified the Texas Workforce Commission that it expects to lay off 1,903 employees throughout Texas, including 372 workers at its Schertz office, 164 at its Austin office and 689 at its Grand Prairie headquarters. Republic National has said it employs about 10,000 people across operations in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Elsewhere, reports indicate that the company plans to lay off 925 employees in Florida, 428 in Virginia, 451 in South Carolina, 320 in Colorado, 211 in Arizona and 318 in Maryland.

Amid a recent string of troubles, the nation’s second-largest wine and spirits distributor is in talks to sell 11 of its markets, including Texas, to Chicago-based Reyes Beverage Group, the nation’s largest beer distributor. In addition to Texas, Reyes has proposed buying Republic National’s Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C., markets, according to a spokesperson for the Texas-based distributor. Talks for six of those markets have been going on since at least January. “The Company understands that Reyes or its affiliate intends to extend offers of employment to many of the Company’s employees at or reporting to the facilities included in the transaction,” the WARN letter reads. “In addition, certain corporate and other employees may continue to be employed by the Company, including to provide transition services. However, we are providing this notice to you at this time since there is no guarantee that Reyes will provide employees with an offer of employment, as discussions remain ongoing, and it is not yet known who will be needed to continue employment with the Company.”

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First lawsuit filed against San Antonio’s CPS Energy after recent home explosions

The first lawsuit has been filed against city-owned utility CPS Energy following the explosions of two homes last week in Northwest San Antonio, KSAT reports. The joint lawsuit against CPS Energy was filed by Monday by Jose Ochoa and Mayte Terrie Reeves in Bexar County District Court. The couple, whose home was the second to blow up in the 1500 Block of Preston Hollow on April 21, allege that a natural gas leak from a CPS Energy line created a “gas cloud” inside their home, causing the blast, the station reports. Ochoa and Reeves both sustained permanent physical injuries due to the explosion and are seeking $1 million each in damages, according to KSAT.

The lawsuit also alleges CPS Energy failed to maintain its system, equip and train its employees and inspect the work performed near the residences. A CPS Energy spokeswoman told KSAT its officials don’t comment on active litigation. Five people, including a child, were injured during the string of explosions last week. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the cause. The federal agency’s preliminary report is expected within the next 30 days.

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TEA appoints 7-member board of managers, names Sandi Massey superintendent of Beaumont ISD

The Texas Education Agency appointed a seven-member Board of Managers and named a new superintendent Wednesday to lead the Beaumont Independent School District, marking a major step in the state's takeover of the district. Commissioner Mike Morath named Sandi Massey as the district's new superintendent. Massey, who previously served as Chief of Schools in Houston, brings more than three decades of experience across Texas public school systems, according to a news release from the TEA. She began work Wednesday under a 21-day interim contract, pending formal approval from the newly appointed Board of Managers. "For more than a decade, persistent academic struggles have held students back from reaching their full potential," Morath said in a statement. "Today's actions reaffirm our commitment to the children of Beaumont, by putting them first."

Morath appointed the following seven community members to the Board of Managers: Desmond Bridges Sr., a Beaumont native and West Brook High School graduate with more than 22 years in education and administration, and the parent of a current BISD student. Darrian Graves, a youth pastor and former Beaumont journalist who volunteers with multiple community organizations and is a BISD parent. Elias Ibarra, a Central High School honor graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, educator and local business owner with three children in the district. Laurie Leister, a BISD graduate whose professional background spans real estate, city planning and county government, and a mother of five BISD graduates. Arthur Louis Jr., an educator and community leader with degrees in education and educational administration who has spent decades coaching, teaching and mentoring students. Daniel Parker, a parent of BISD graduates and commercial lender with 30 years of experience in financial services. Jeff Wheeler, a West Brook High School graduate and business leader with more than 14 years in marketing and corporate relations.

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Can Texas A&M’s new president ease the political pressure?

Texas A&M regents are expected to vote next week on the flagship's third permanent president in five years — a high rate of turnover that may have led them to favor a sole finalist with insider and political know-how over a more traditional academic candidate, according to experts on college leadership. Longtime administrator Susan Ballabina could be named Texas A&M University's next president during a special board meeting Wednesday. While some faculty hoped for a former professor to shield them from what they call attacks on academic freedom, experts say the regents chose Ballabina to bring stability to the office after political pressures toppled the prior presidents. "To have a president that can build trust among the faculty is just simply not a priority," said Jorge Burmicky, assistant professor of higher education leadership and policy studies at Howard University. "A president that can deal with the politics, the system-wide expectations, is far more important."

With over 30 years in administrative positions, Ballabina's resume does not include any classroom teaching, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle. She is the second recent pick to arrive at a high-profile Texas presidency without going through the ranks as professor: Last year, the University of Texas chose James E. Davis, a lawyer, to lead the flagship. Texas A&M University System officials did not respond to a request for comment. System leaders previously cited Ballabina's leadership style and "unparalleled knowledge" as reasons for her selection. They also issued a press release boasting an "unprecedented level of support" for Ballabina, including a joint letter signed by the leaders of five of A&M's most influential cultural and alumni groups, including the Texas A&M Foundation, 12th Man Foundation, the Texas Aggie Corps of Cadets Foundation and the Association of Former Students. "As Texas A&M approaches its 150th year, this is a moment that calls for experienced, principled and steady leadership," the joint letter said. "We are confident Dr. Ballabina has the experience, character and commitment needed to lead Texas A&M into its next chapter while preserving the traditions, values and sense of purpose that have long defined this institution."

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'Texas got it wrong': At James Broadnax execution, a mixture of agony and closure

At 19 years old, James Broadnax participated in a merciless, arbitrary crime that took the lives of two loved and innocent men. In taped interviews that would trail his life like a shadow, he boasted about it from jail. He asked the state to kill him; not because he was remorseful, but because his past had been so agonizing, he had no desire to find out if the future would hold more or less of the same. At 37 years old, Broadnax believed he’d transformed on death row, where he taught classes on peacekeeping and mentored youth to keep them off the path to incarceration. He found God, got married and asked for forgiveness. He wanted to do so much with his life, that a friend in his unit said if it came down to it, and only one of them could get clemency, he’d pick Broadnax every time.

For years, county, state and federal courts ruled that neither Broadnax’s evolution nor his claims of an unfair trial were grounds for absolution. On Thursday evening, Broadnax was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, home of the prison system’s death chamber. He was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. His wife, Tiana Broadnax, wailed from the other side of the glass. Seeing him on the gurney and covered in a white sheet, she screamed repeatedly, “I love you” and “I’m sorry.” Broadnax used his final statement to tell his wife he loved her, and to ask, one last time, for the families to forgive him. “No matter what you think of me, Texas got it wrong,” he said of his case. “Let this be the moment that sparks the revolution.” Much of Broadnax’s family believes his death was a grave injustice, while those closest to the victims — with one unforeseen exception — hoped to see a long delayed sentence finally carried out.

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$20M state grant to fuel semiconductor expansion in Sugar Land, create 500 jobs

Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $20.8 million grant from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund to Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. to expand its manufacturing operations in Sugar Land. The project represents more than $279 million in total capital investment and is expected to create 500 jobs. Abbott said the expansion strengthens Texas’ role in advanced manufacturing and semiconductor production. “Texas is leading America’s resurgence in advanced manufacturing,” Abbott said in a statement. “This investment … will create hundreds of high-skilled jobs and advance our state’s leadership in innovation and semiconductor manufacturing.”

AOI, founded in Houston in 1997, designs and manufactures fiber-optic networking products. The Sugar Land expansion will increase production of semiconductor chips and optical transceivers used in high-speed data infrastructure. Company leaders say the investment will help meet growing demand tied to artificial intelligence and data centers. “We are proud to partner with the State of Texas to expand our homegrown manufacturing,” said Stefan Murry, AOI’s chief financial and strategy officer. “This investment helps us increase production, create high-quality jobs, and help define the future of AI data center infrastructure.” State Sen. Joan Huffman, who sponsored the Texas CHIPS Act, said the funding supports continued semiconductor growth across the state and strengthens the Houston region as a manufacturing hub. State Rep. Suleman Lalani added the investment highlights Sugar Land’s growing role in next-generation technology and economic development. The Texas CHIPS Act, signed into law in 2023, created the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, which provides grants to boost semiconductor research, design and manufacturing across the state. The program is administered through the governor’s office to encourage industry expansion and support workforce development.

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Texas uncertified teacher hires fall as veterans return to classroom

Last year, state lawmakers passed new rules clamping down on the number of uncertified teachers working in Texas schools and created programs designed to help districts put more well-prepared educators in classrooms. A year later, new data suggests those efforts are beginning to pay off. The state saw more experienced teachers returning to the classroom after leaving the profession years before and a small but substantial decline in the number of uncertified teachers hired for the current school year, according to data released by the Texas Education Agency. Nearly half of the roughly 44,000 teachers hired to teach in Texas public schools this year were experienced educators, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said at a State Board of Education meeting in March. About 42% of those teachers were coming back to the classroom after leaving earlier in their careers, and another 6% were teachers who came to Texas from out of state.

The number of teachers returning to the classroom is a good sign for Texas schools, Morath said. Those teachers aren’t untrained new hires, he said, but skilled veteran educators who are “maybe a little rusty.” They may be teachers who spent years in the classroom when they were in their 20s, then switched careers or dropped out of the workforce to raise a family, and then decided to return to teaching years later, he said. In 2015, state lawmakers loosened teacher certification requirements to help school districts deal with teacher shortages in career and technical education programs. A post-pandemic teacher shortage led more school leaders turned to uncertified teachers to fill the gap. In two years, the number of new uncertified teachers hired in Texas schools more than tripled, climbing from 4,285 in the 2020-21 school year to 14,170 in the 2022-23 school year. By the 2023-24 school year, about a third of all newly hired teachers in the state lacked certification, according to TEA data. Last year, Texas lawmakers re-tightened those rules and provided funding to help. By the beginning of the 2027-28 school year, districts must have no uncertified teachers working in math, science, social studies or reading, although districts may apply for a two-year extension.

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FCC orders ABC stations, including Houston’s KTRK, to re-apply for broadcast license amid political squabble

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered several television stations owned by Disney to re-file for their broadcasting licenses within 30 days, amidst a squabble over ABC content. That includes Houston-based KTRK. On Tuesday, the FCC issued an order saying Disney may have violated the Communications Act of 1934 and FCC rules, "including the agency's prohibition on unlawful discrimination." As part of the order, eight television stations, including KTRK, must file for their license renewal by May 28. The order comes amid a political fight over a joke made by Jimmy Kimmel, a late-night comedian whose show airs on ABC, which is owned by Disney. Kimmel referred to First Lady Melania Trump as looking like an "expectant widow.” President Donald Trump called for Kimmel to be fired for the joke.

A representative for KTRK, which is also referred to as ABC 13, declined to comment for the station. A spokesperson for Disney, speaking on behalf of all eight stations, said the company stood by its content. "We are confident that the record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels," the spokesperson said in a statement. "Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate." The broadcast licenses for each of the stations were originally scheduled for renewal between 2028 and 2031. The FCC and its chair, Brendan Carr, had previously been at odds with Disney after Kimmel made a joke about the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk in September. Kimmel was briefly suspended from his role by Disney, after Carr called for reining in broadcasters while speaking on a podcast. The FCC also made headlines in Texas when Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was set to appear on CBS's late-night program hosted by Stephen Colbert. Carr had called for ending an exception for talk shows to provide equal time commitments to candidates in a political race. Citing that guideline, which was not official policy, CBS allegedly blocked Colbert from airing the interview on the network.

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Bud Kennedy: Will James Talarico turn Texas blue? Not so fast — poll trend favors GOP

The news is good for Texas Democrats. Unless you actually read it. Austin Democrat James Talarico has a thin lead in polls over U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his Senate seat and a wider lead if Attorney General Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee. Democratic candidates Gina Hinojosa and runoff favorite Vikki Goodwin are already closer to Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick than Democrats Lupe Valdez and Michael Collier were back in 2018. That was the year when bottle-rocket Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz lifted Democrats within range of a statewide victory for the first time since 1994. Another bad sign for Republicans: Voters are now more intensely worried about money than they were in 2018.

Three times as many voters in the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll now say their family is worse off. Inflation and the economy combined are now the No. 1 issue for 24% of voters. And Texas voters have even lost our bravado. By 47%-42%, voters now say the state is on the wrong track. That should all add up to a close election in November. But when you read on, there is one big problem for Texas Democrats: They’re Democrats. Even though Texas voters are completely unhappy with their leaders, the state and their family situation, they are also more conservative now than in the 2018 poll. Back then, those voters polled mostly said they were Republicans, 46%-43%. That 3-point margin was what U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Paxton won by that fall in the closest races on the ticket. Now, based on the poll, Texas is 50% Republican and 40% Democrat. The baked-in winning margin for Republicans is now 10%. Not 3%. In the new poll, 43% of Texas voters have a favorable view of the Republican Party. Back in 2018, that number was 35%. Meanwhile, 50% of Texas voters now have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party.

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‘I know how to win’: Former Texas Democrats executive running to be party leader

Last year, Monique Alcala was fired as executive director of the Texas Democratic Party after Kendall Scudder became the party’s new leader. Now, Alcala is running against him in an election that will be settled at the party’s state convention in June. Alcala, a 15-year veteran of political campaigns at the local, state and national level, said she’s running to make sure Democrats capitalize on a crucial election year. “We have a huge opportunity for us here in 2026,” Alcala told Capital Tonight. “We have a real opportunity to flip the state and win statewide.” Earlier this month, three dozen Texas Democrats wrote an open letter calling on Scudder not to seek reelection this year, accusing him of a “hostile work environment” and operational failures.

Days later, more than 800 Texas Democrats wrote a dueling letter that backed Scudder and said the party needed more time to assess his leadership. Scudder brushed off the criticisms and filed for re-election, saying he was focused on helping the party win in November — noting a $30 million commitment he secured to target key races and a full slate of candidates for every congressional and state house race in Texas. Alcala filed her candidacy on Friday, the deadline to jump into the race, promising “real change, not more empty promises or missed opportunities.” Alcala said she would return to the work she had been doing as the party’s executive director. That includes building infrastructure to aid local parties and strategic partners, like the campaign arm of Texas House Democrats, in winning legislative races. She also criticized the party’s current leadership, saying they had lackluster fundraising. “It’s a far cry from the millions of dollars that it’s going to take to defeat Greg Abbott, John Cornyn or Ken Paxton,” she said. Alcala said she would focus on lessons she learned during her career in battleground states to help Democrats win in Texas, including running coordinated campaigns that would help the party’s candidates from the top of the ballot to the bottom. She also said she would focus on keeping employees on staff who had experience in organizing and running elections — a criticism that has been lobbed at Scudder by his opponents. “This is about building infrastructure on the ground when it comes to the TDP,” Alcala said. “We need people that are working at TDP that are leading TDP that know how to build coalitions but also know how to have hard conversations about how to move the organization forward.”

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Corpus Christi Harbor Island water project faces setback after $140M loan denial

The Nueces River Authority says its Harbor Island desalination loan ranked 13th, missing funding as only top 9–10 projects were approved. Corpus Christi’s water development plans hit a major setback after a $140 million low-interest loan for the Harbor Island desalination plant was denied. The Nueces River Authority applied for the loan earlier this year through the Texas Water Development Board. John Chisholm, deputy executive director of the Nueces River Authority, said the denial caught him by surprise. "This was the first year that they're telling me they had more projects, more value of projects than they have money available," he said. Chisholm said state officials received applications totaling about $4.2 billion, with demand outpacing available funding. "They were only able to fund like the first nine or ten, and we scored 13th. So we were out of the money," he said.

Chisholm said the denial comes as communities across Texas compete for limited water resources. "We're not alone," he said. "You know, our fellow Texans all over are in the same spot. Um, I think there's a great water, you know, North Texas, Central Texas, uh, West Texas as well. So I think that says a lot that there's a lot of projects and a lot of need in Texas right now." Corpus Christi At-Large councilman Roland Barrera, who opposed the Harbor Island project, said there was still to many unanswered questions. "Without even understanding the cost of facility is. The cost to convey is upward of a million dollars. The resources they'll have to provide to get electricity out there," he said. Political analyst Dr. Bill Chriss said with more regions across Texas drawing from the same well, Corpus Christi could have a harder time landing major water projects. "Because this is an emergency that requires immediate response not building something that could produce water for us in five to 10 years," he said. Chisholm said the project is too important to abandon. He said the Nueces River Authority is now looking to private investors and potential federal support.

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National Stories

Congress votes to reopen key parts of DHS without ICE funding

Congress voted to reopen key parts of the Department of Homeland Security — including the Transportation Security Administration — Thursday after weeks of GOP infighting that prolonged a record shutdown of the critical agency. President Donald Trump promptly signed the bill to fund the department, which went unfunded for 75 days, into law. In the end, House GOP leaders conceded in a weeks-long DHS funding fight in a major retreat by Speaker Mike Johnson as he faced a growing revolt from centrists in his party, multiple sources told CNN. The House abruptly passed the package — which includes no money for federal immigration enforcement, in a major win for Democrats — by a voice vote Thursday afternoon.

The move brings an end to a historic shutdown that led to long lines at airports across the country and comes just before paychecks were about to stall out once again for DHS employees. Johnson decided to move forward after a private leadership meeting earlier Thursday where the team agreed they had little choice but to move the bill — with their own members warning the situation was untenable. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former House member, had also repeatedly warned that he was almost out of money. And GOP leaders knew that the deteriorating DHS situation would only further underscore their party’s diminishing ability to govern in a House rife with divisions and infighting. Conservative hardliners — who had contributed to holding up the bill for weeks — eventually admitted they had no leverage left in the fight. GOP Rep. Andy Harris, who leads the House’s ultraconservative bloc, told reporters that “you really can’t stop anything from passing” if dozens of Democrats are also going to help.

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Louisiana governor postpones House primaries after Supreme Court ruling

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Thursday postponed his state’s May 16 primaries for the House, one day after the Supreme Court struck down the state’s congressional map as an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” “Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters,” the Republican governor said in a news release accompanying an executive order he signed prohibiting the state from conducting House elections under its current map. “This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map.” Primaries for other offices in Louisiana will go ahead on May 16, state officials said.

President Donald Trump lauded Landry for “moving so quickly to fix the Unconstitutionality of Louisiana’s Congressional Maps.’’ The Supreme Court decision invalidating Louisiana’s congressional map limits the use of race in drawing congressional districts and could lead to further redistricting nationwide, especially in Southern states. In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority found that Louisiana should not have been forced to draw a congressional map with a second Black-majority district to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Democrats denounced the decision to postpone the House primaries, saying changing the rules this close to the election – early voting was set to start Saturday – would create chaos and disenfranchise voters. “Louisianans have already cast absentee ballots, early voting was set to begin this weekend, and now those votes won’t count. That is unacceptable,” Rep. Cleo Fields, whose Black-majority district was at the heart of the Supreme Court case, said on social media.

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Immigrants file suit over Trump’s Catch-22 biometric data policy

A group of detained immigrants have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration over a catch-22 biometric data policy that they allege has blocked them from obtaining legal status. A 19-year-old from Venezuela detained for over a year is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security. At issue is a December policy change barring immigrants in detention from getting their fingerprints and photos taken for visa and other deportation-protection applications. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, denies applications of people who don’t attend their biometric screenings, which the lawsuit claims puts the immigrants in an impossible situation.

Other plaintiffs, such as a 22-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman from Mexico, are seeking visas they say they qualify for as victims of crime. The man applied for a visa meant to protect victims of human trafficking because he said his father abused him after bringing him to the U.S. as a minor. The woman claims to be a victim of domestic violence and stalking from the father of her children. She has spent nearly a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in Kentucky, according to the complaint. Attorneys from Democracy Forward, the National Immigration Project and the National Immigrant Justice Center are representing the immigrants in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint argues the policy violates the detainees’ due process. “In its zeal to block paths for lawful immigration, the Trump-Vance administration has yet again set up an unlawful trap for noncitizens, creating a system where people are required to meet a condition for relief and then blocking them from ever meeting it,” Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement. Another lawsuit against this policy led to DHS agreeing in March to transport the mother of a U.S. citizen who had been in detention for more than eight months to her biometrics-collection appointment as part of her application for a green card. USCIS is facing a mounting number of lawsuits over its processing freeze on applications from immigrant nationals of countries on President Donald Trump’s travel ban list.

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House votes to renew foreign spy program and creates pathway to end DHS shutdown

The Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to renew a powerful foreign surveillance program and passed a Senate-approved measure that would jump-start the process to fund ICE and the Border Patrol for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term. The House voted 235-191 to extend the critical spy program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires this week. Lawmakers later voted 215-211 along party lines to pass the GOP budget resolution previously approved by the Senate after a revolt by House Republicans over an unrelated farm bill delayed final passage by more than five hours. Asked to describe the chaotic day in one word, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., replied: “S---show.”

The successful budget vote could unlock the GOP support needed to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for a record 74 days because of Democrats’ demands for reforms to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. Wednesday was one of the more tumultuous days in the House in recent memory. Earlier, a handful of conservative hard-liners blocked a key procedural vote, preventing several of Trump’s legislative priorities from coming to the floor. The difficulty in passing even routine motions highlighted, again, the challenges of the GOP's narrow 217-212 majority as the 2026 midterm elections approach. In that vote series, Johnson and his team could be seen on the floor desperately trying to persuade the rabble-rousers — including Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo. — to flip their no votes to yes. After two hours of arm-twisting and cajoling in public view, Johnson's efforts proved successful, and the House passed the rule 216-210. In addition to the Republican budget and the renewal of FISA, the rule also advanced the farm bill, which sets agriculture policy for the next five years, on its way to a final vote.

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Trump taps Nicole Saphier for surgeon general after pulling Casey Means nomination

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Dr. Nicole Saphier as the next U.S. surgeon general after pulling his previous pick, Dr. Casey Means, whose confirmation process in the Senate stalled for months. Saphier is a breast radiologist and was previously a Fox News contributor. She is listed as the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center-Monmouth and the author of several books. That includes one book that critiques the U.S.’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that political agendas often overshadowed scientific guidance. “Nicole is a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday.

“She is also an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans,” Trump continued. Means was nominated at the recommendation of her close ally Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Her nomination had stalled in the Senate for more than two months over concerns about her controversial stances on vaccines, birth control, pesticides and psychedelics. Her brother, Calley Means, is a senior White House adviser. Trump on Thursday also blasted Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., accusing him of standing in the way of Means’ nomination “I nominated Casey, a strong MAHA Warrior, at the recommendation of Secretary Kennedy, who understands the MAHA Movement better than anyone, with perhaps the possible exception of ME!” Trump wrote, adding: “Casey, thank you for your service to our Nation!”

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Republicans want Tennessee’s last Democratic House District

The Supreme Court’s blow to the Voting Rights Act had barely landed on Wednesday when Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, called on lawmakers to eliminate the last Democratic-held House seat in the state. Taking to social media shortly after the Wednesday morning ruling, Ms. Blackburn, the favorite to become the state’s next governor, urged the legislature to hastily adopt a new congressional map that would put Memphis, a majority Black city, in Republican hands. The chorus quickly grew. Her opponent in the gubernatorial primary, Representative John Rose, declared that the Democratic-led city “deserves Republican representation in Congress.” State Senator Brent Taylor, of nearby Shelby County, asked on X, “Got any ideas on who would make a great Republican congressman from West TN?”

By Thursday morning, President Trump said on Truth Social that Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had assured him in a call that he would “work hard” to get Republicans “one extra seat” in Tennessee, “and help save our country.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Lee did not respond to questions about the conversation, and it remains unclear whether a new map will be approved before the midterm elections. But for some Democrats, the eager chatter was the realization of fears that have percolated since 2022, when Republicans carved a Nashville-area seat long held by Democrats into three Republican districts. “Memphis could be like Nashville,” said Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat who has held the Memphis seat since 2007. “Thrown off the political map.” Mr. Cohen said he had been in touch with voting rights lawyers and would try to stop any redistricting effort. The Supreme Court ruling, which raises the bar for finding congressional maps racially discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act, was not unexpected. But it still set off a scramble across the South, as conservatives saw a new opportunity to break up districts with large numbers of Black voters who remain loyal to Democrats. Tennessee was not always as reliably ruby red. As recently as 2008, it had a Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, and five Democrats in its congressional delegation. But as the state’s electorate became increasingly disillusioned with the Democratic Party during the Obama years, the number of Democrats it sent to Congress dwindled.

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After Janet Mills' departure, more Democrats begin to rally around Graham Platner's Senate campaign

Gov. Janet Mills' decision to end her U.S. Senate campaign on Thursday dramatically changed the dynamics of a race with major national implications. Within hours, many prominent Democrats in Maine as well as national party leaders rallied behind Graham Platner, the Hancock County oysterman and populist who is now the presumptive nominee. But Platner said the governor's decision doesn't change how he's running his populist and anti-establishment campaign to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins this fall. "The race has never been about me or really about one person," Platner said. "It's about a movement of working Mainers who are fed up with being robbed by billionaires and the politicians who own them. We are now taking back our power. That is what this campaign is."

Platner was speaking a little more than two hours after Mills announced she was suspending her campaign. He was joined by nearly two dozen elected officials — most them Democratic members of the Legislature — for what had been planned as a fairly routine endorsement event. But the landscape had changed. So Platner started by thanking Mills for her lengthy career in public service — as prosecutor, attorney general and now two terms as governor — and by saying that her decision reflects their shared commitment to a singular goal: unseating Collins this November. "I look forward to working closely with her between now and November to do just that, to defeat Susan Collins and turn this seat blue again," Platner said. A Marine Corps veteran who farms oysters near his home in Sullivan, Platner has been leading in almost every poll for months over Mills and the third Democratic contender, David Costello of Brunswick. And there were plenty of other signs that the Mills campaign was struggling to find traction in a race that's a top priority for the national parties.

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Trump’s border wall expansion just bulldozed an ancient tribal site

President Donald Trump’s expansion of the wall along the southern border with Mexico has damaged a rare Native American archaeological site in the Arizona desert, area residents said Thursday, as the administration moves to rapidly build hundreds of miles of additional barriers in a $46.5 billion project. The aggressive expansion project — funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill — is erecting three miles of wall a week, introducing barriers in parts of Texas that did not previously have them, as well as a second wall in much of California, Arizona and New Mexico. The construction is not abiding by environmental laws and other protections, alarming advocates, national park staff and Native Americans.

In Arizona, construction crews ran heavy machinery through and destroyed a roughly 60-to-70-foot swath of an intaglio, a more than 200-foot-long ground etching that looks like a fish and is thought to be at least 1,000 years old, said Richard Martynec, a retired archaeologist who now volunteers his time surveying the area. Satellite imagery from Friday shows a disturbance crossing the intaglio area. Lorraine Marquez Eiler, an elder of the Hia-ced O’odham Indigenous people, said the damage happened last week. “If someone came to Washington and started destroying all the different sites that people in the United States revere, it’s the same thing for us,” Marquez Eiler said. “Those things were made by our ancestors, and it’s hitting home. … For me, it’s an emotional subject,” she added.

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Sheinbaum defies US demand to extradite Mexican officials on drug charges

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounced the U.S. prosecution of a sitting Mexican governor and other officials on drug trafficking charges as "political," and said Thursday that Mexico would not comply with Washington's demands that the accused be arrested and extradited to the United States. "We are not permitting a foreign government to say what is the future of Mexico," said a defiant Sheinbaum, who repeatedly assailed U.S. "meddling" in the incendiary case. U.S. authorities have not submitted "compelling proof" to justify the arrests and detentions of anyone in Mexico, Sheinbaum said. Sheinbaum's stance puts Mexico on a likely collision course with Trump, who says Sheinbaum's government hasn't done enough to crack down on cartels.

Sheinbaum's comments came a day after the unsealing of a bombshell indictment in federal court in New York accusing 10 current and former Mexican officials of drug trafficking, arms offenses and links to the notorious Sinaloa cartel co-founded by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Topping the list of accused is Rubén Rocha Moya, governor of the northwestern Sinaloa state. Rocha Moya and others named have denied the charges, calling them an attempt to subvert Mexico's sovereignty. The indictment presents Sheinbaum with one of her biggest challenges yet. In standing firm against the U.S. action, she risks being seen as shielding drug traffickers and their political allies. Sheinbaum faced "a terrifying Hamlet-like dilemma: to yield or not, with disastrous consequences in either case," Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, wrote in El Proceso magazine. Sheinbaum's response risks "sounding like a defense of corrupt governments," said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a professor of international relations at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics. Pérez said he agreed with Sheinbaum's plan to have Mexican authorities evaluate the evidence against the Sinaloa officials, which he said appeared "strong." Still, he said, she was correct to view the U.S. indictment in political terms. "There's no doubt the United States is weaponizing its prosecutorial powers to serve a political agenda," he said.

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Copyright May 09, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved