Lead Stories

Talarico steps off Texas Senate campaign trail after flu diagnosis

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico has stepped off the campaign trail after being diagnosed with the flu. Talarico disclosed his illness Sept. 30 at a virtual forum sponsored by the United States Hispanic Business Council. He had been scheduled to attend the Rio Grande Valley event in person but said he was diagnosed the night before at a Dallas urgent care facility. His last public appearance was Sept. 28 in New York, where he attended a fundraiser hosted by actor Robert De Niro. Talarico, a state representative from Austin, faces Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

“I guess I’ve been shaking too many hands on the campaign trail, and so I want to keep everybody safe,” Talarico said at the Hispanic Business Council event. “The best thing to do was to put safety first and put everyone’s health first.” Talarico’s campaign on Tuesday acknowledged the break in events. It comes less than two weeks before early voting starts Oct. 19, in advance of the Nov. 3 election. “After holding more than 100 public events and meeting with tens of thousands of supporters, James came down with the flu but will be back on the trail soon,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. At least two events have been scrapped, an Austin fundraiser Tuesday and a Monday event aimed at turning out Black voters in Central Texas. Ennis said Talarico has kept a busier schedule than Paxton, who drew attention this summer for taking a European vacation around the July Fourth holiday. “Ken Paxton has spent this campaign hiding from everyone — running away from reporters and ducking repeated offers to debate James Talarico, even on FOX News,” Ennis said.

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

PUC sues Paxton’s office over release of data center records

The Public Utility Commission of Texas is asking a Travis County judge to block the release of information showing where data centers and virtual currency mines operate, saying those details could aid terrorists. The lawsuit filed Monday pits the state agency responsible for regulating utilities against Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office over the scope of Texas’ public-records law and the state’s protections for critical infrastructure. At the center of the dispute are two seemingly basic geographic details: the county where a facility is located and the regional water planning area in which it sits. The PUC argues that those details are “privileged information” and become sensitive when combined with other information collected through its survey of the industry, including electricity demand, actual electricity consumption, projected peak demand, water consumption, water sources, cooling technology and the utilities and infrastructure serving a facility.

The commission is not asking the court to declare the entire survey confidential. Instead, it wants the court to rule that the two geographic fields are exempt from disclosure under the Texas Homeland Security Act, which is meant to “protect against homeland security threats and hazards . . . and prevent significant criminal and terrorist attacks.” The lawsuit does not represent a final ruling on whether the information ultimately must be released. But it does come as Texas officials are seeking more information about the state’s data center industry. Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies to conduct additional reviews of data centers seeking to connect to the state’s electric grid, including reviews of electricity and water use, cooling systems and other information. He has also directed the Texas Water Development Board to take enforcement action against data centers that fail to comply with required water use reporting. In 2025, Texas lawmakers directed the PUC to collect information about water and energy consumption at data centers and virtual-currency-mining facilities to better understand the growth of the industry. The effort reflects a growing concern among state officials and Texans about the resources required by large computing facilities. Data centers can consume enormous amounts of electricity because of the thousands of servers operating inside them. Depending on their cooling systems, they can also require substantial quantities of water to help keep their servers cool during operation.

Read this article at Texas Tribune - Subscribers Only

Gov. Greg Abbott spent $141 million only to be neck-and-neck with Democrat Gina Hinojosa

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s reelection campaign has churned through $141 million this year to end up running neck-and-neck in the polls with Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat who’s largely run on a shoestring budget, the latest campaign filings show. Abbott, a Republican seeking a historic fourth term in office, had only $17 million in cash on hand at the end of the most recent reporting period. That’s a far cry from the $106 million war chest he had at the start of the current election cycle. Of his total spending this year, $74.1 million came during the latest reporting period, which ran July 1 to Sept. 24, documents show. Despite his hefty spending, polls released this month, including a New York Times-Siena College survey, show Hinojosa, an Austin state representative, with a narrow lead. Others show the pair nearly tied.

That comes even though Hinojosa’s campaign spent a meager $17 million in her bid for the governorship, according to the Washington Post. The closeness of the race isn’t lost on Abbott, who told backers at a fundraiser over the weekend that he’s “having trouble sleeping at night knowing what’s at stake in this election.” Abbott told reporters this week that he also won’t be able to attend President Donald Trump’s rally Wednesday in San Antonio because of a scheduling conflict. Some political observers speculate Abbott is trying to save face by not campaigning with Trump, whose approval rating is hanging around 37%. That ties George W. Bush in 2006 for the worst presidential approval rating heading into a midterm election. ? Texas Democratic Party Spokesman Jacob Long said Abbott’s in ability to pull ahead of Hinojosa even though he’s massively outspent her shows Texans are ready for change. “They know that four more years of Greg Abbott means more data centers, fewer public schools, and higher property taxes,” Long said in a statement. “He can duck debates, flood the airwaves, and turn his back on Trump all he wants, but no amount of money can change his record of selling out Texas to his billionaire donors.”

Read this article at San Antonio Current - Subscribers Only

The S&P 500 hits a new record high, powered by tech—and not much else

The AI trade is propelling stocks to new heights—and it is dragging the rest of the market along for the ride. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite blew past new closing records on Tuesday, the latest leg of a rally that has powered through everything in its path, from the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise rates for the first time in three years to a monthslong war that lifted oil prices to $100 a barrel. Increasingly, the market is running on one engine: a familiar cast of tech companies that are building out (and benefiting from) the AI revolution. Nvidia, whose grip as the dominant supplier of chips that power AI has made it the world’s most-valuable company, has jumped 4.5% in the past week to a new all-time high. Meta Platforms is up 24% since Aug. 13, when the S&P 500 had its previous high.

Just about everything else is going down. Shares of healthcare firms, banks and consumer staple companies are declining. So are small-cap stocks. And blue chips, like the Dow industrials. The yawning gap between the market’s biggest winners and other stocks is growing larger. Less than half of the stocks in the S&P 500 closed above their 200-day moving average on Tuesday, Dow Jones Market Data shows, a figure that has steadily declined since August. The AI powerhouses have grown so vast, and the momentum behind AI’s build-out so relentless, that many investors now see these stocks as immune to the effects of higher interest rates, analysts said. The hope is that eye-watering earnings forecasts will keep propelling tech names forward, even with higher rates and a cooling economy bearing down on the rest of the market. “People look around and say ‘Which areas of the market can weather this?’” said Keith Lerner, chief investment adviser for Truist Advisory Services. “Tech is almost seen as defensive in some ways.” Big tech companies—particularly AI “hyperscalers” including Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta—have been traditionally known as cash-rich and relatively debt-free companies that can keep growing even when borrowing costs rise.

Read this article at Wall Street Journal - Subscribers Only

State Stories

Federal judge strikes Texas AG’s effort to end Harris County’s misdemeanor bail reform decree

A federal judge has denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s effort to shutter Harris County’s misdemeanor bail reform decree, which stemmed from a lawsuit that argued Houston-area defendants charged with low-level crimes were penalized for being unable to afford cash bail. In a 40-page opinion Monday, United States District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled that the attorney general’s office exceeded the amount of time it has to make certain arguments in the case, therefore making its legal challenge to vacate the consent decree moot. "The court's decision today ensures the Consent Decree will continue to protect the physical liberty of tens of thousands of people every year,” Travis Fife, an attorney who represented Harris County in the case, said in a statement. “Vacating the Consent Decree would have been disastrous for taxpayers, public safety, and presumptively innocent people accused of crimes.”

Since 2019, the bail reform decree, referred to as the ODonnell Consent Decree, has given most misdemeanor defendants the opportunity to be released from jail before trial without first paying cash bail. The decree was created after Maranda Lynn ODonnell filed a lawsuit in 2016 arguing she had been penalized for being unable to afford cash bail. ODonnell had been arrested for driving without a valid license that year and was held in the Harris County Jail for several days because she was unable to post bail. In August 2025, one day after President Donald Trump issued a federal executive order seeking to end cashless bail for people who are accused of violent offenses or pose threats to public safety, Paxton filed a motion to intervene in the ODonnell case and vacate the consent decree. During arguments held last month, attorneys who represented the AG’s office argued that the case should be moved from federal court to state court, urging Rosenthal to abstain from overseeing the case. In his opinion this week, Rosenthal ruled that the office failed to make those arguments in a reasonable time frame.

Read this article at Houston Public Media - Subscribers Only

Austin’s ACL mudfest becomes a political fight over Zilker Park

After weekend downpours turned Austin City Limits Music Festival into a swampy “mudfest,” it seemed like just about everyone had something to say. Drone photos showed Zilker Park’s green grass giving way to brown mud — stark before-and-after images quickly spread across social media and fueled the backlash. Soon, the muddy music festival had become a political flashpoint. Progressives focused on the strain on the environment and the park. Conservatives pointed to the mud as evidence of what they saw as mismanagement in Texas’ liberal capital. Austin music critic Andy Langer said the muddy aftermath reignited long-running tensions with environmentalists, who have criticized ACL’s environmental impacts on Zilker Park and the park’s closure during festival’s setup and breakdown.

While those concerns mainly came from the left, Langer said, the right also seized the moment to argue more broadly that Austin’s government is incompetent. “It's almost the same argument, but they're using it for different purposes,” Langer said. Environmental advocate Robin Rather, who works with Rewild Zilker and often critiques the city, said she supported moving the festival to another location to protect the park from long-term damage. She called the issue “the heart of the whole problem,” and said she worried about the park’s soil health and water protection. Matt Mackowiak, who previously led the Travis County Republican Party, said he thought the organizers had no plan for the heavy rain and that Austinites were right to want changes before next year. “Zilker Park belongs to all of us,” he said in a statement. “Anything that materially harms it should be of concern to all of us.” Under the city’s current agreement, C3 Presents, which organizes the festival, is responsible for repairing damage the festival causes to Zilker Park, including damage to plant life. The city’s parks director determines whether damage occurred, how much repairs will cost and whether the festival is responsible for paying.

Read this article at Austin American-Statesman - Subscribers Only

Trump visits San Antonio for rally with Paxton, De La Cruz

President Donald Trump will stop in San Antonio Wednesday afternoon to drum up support for two Texas congressional candidates as the Republican Party works to hold its majority in both chambers. Carlos De La Cruz, the Republican nominee for the redrawn 35th Congressional District, will speak at the rally at the Freeman Coliseum on the East Side. So will Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running in a close race against Democrat James Talarico for Republican John Cornyn’s U.S. Senate seat.

That Trump would need to stump for the party nominee for the 35th District wasn’t part of the thinking when Texas lawmakers redrew the Democratically-held seat in 2025 to favor a Republican candidate. Under the new lines, Trump would have won the district by 10 points in 2024. But a lot has changed since then as Trump’s war on Iran has pushed up gasoline prices and his tariffs on imported goods have driven up costs at the grocery store. The president’s approval rating is at a record low, and he has fallen out of favor with many Hispanic voters who helped him win back the White House in 2024. About 54% of the 35th District’s voting-age population is Hispanic, up slightly from 51% under the previous boundaries. The district is now anchored on San Antonio’s Southeast Side and includes 26% of Bexar County, and all of the reliably red Guadalupe, Karnes and Wilson counties. De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran, faces Bexar County sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia in the Nov. 3 election. Both are first-time candidates who are relatively unknown to voters. Trump is expected to speak at 6 p.m., with programing to start at 4:30 p.m. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. and tickets are required to enter the Freeman Coliseum. Deputy Joshua Hamby, spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said there will be a significant law enforcement presence around the coliseum and advised drivers to avoid the area due to congestion and expected delays. “Road closures will occur intermittently as needed,” Hamby said.

Read this article at San Antonio Express-News - Subscribers Only

Advocates call out Monica De La Cruz for refusing to back DACA bill

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz recently launched a campaign ad featuring the wife of an immigrant protected by an Obama-era policy, thanking the South Texas congresswoman for assistance as the family navigated “a broken immigration system.” “We reached out to Monica De La Cruz. She helped with my husband’s immigration case,” Stephanie Villarreal says to the camera. De La Cruz has made a point of spotlighting her work on behalf of families swept up by the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown. But in Washington, she is among the Republican holdouts on a bill with some bipartisan support aimed at protecting families like the one in the ad. Immigrant rights groups and Democrats said De La Cruz has so far refused to be the final signature they need to force a vote in the GOP-led House.

The legislation would codify safeguards for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants immigrants brought to the U.S. as children an opportunity to legally work and remain in the country. Villarreal’s husband, Juan Chavez Velasco, is a DACA recipient who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as he tried to visit their daughter in the neonatal intensive care unit earlier this year. “If it is true that DACA is an issue that she deeply cares about, as we were told by her legislative team, and if it is true that she wants to be a champion for people with DACA, the Dream and Promise Act should have been a very simple sign-on for her,” said Dani Marrero Hi, deputy director of LUPE Votes, which is a political advocacy group encouraging people to contact De La Cruz and ask her to sign the discharge petition. De La Cruz’s office said she doesn’t sign on to efforts to force floor votes as a general policy, and is cosponsoring a different bill giving some protections to DACA recipients.

Read this article at San Antonio Express-News - Subscribers Only

Bo French uproar exposes a Texas GOP fight over who belongs in the party’s ‘stables’

Republican strategist Karl Rove called for the GOP’s “stables” to be cleaned after Railroad Commission candidate Bo French disparaged the racial makeup of students celebrating a University of Texas football victory. French’s supporters agree the party needs cleaning. They just think Rove has identified the wrong people to throw out. That dispute frames the uproar over French and what kind of conservatism defines the Texas GOP. Does his provocative rhetoric fall outside the party or reflect the America First movement that displaced its old guard? That divide was already on display this year when Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated longtime Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary with support from hard-right conservatives.

In Dallas, conservative talk radio host Mark Davis put it bluntly: “The stables in Texas were cleaned on May 26,” the day Paxton defeated Cornyn. To insurgents seeking a wholesale party takeover, Cornyn was precisely the kind of Republican who needed to go. Now French, who narrowly defeated GOP incumbent Jim Wright for a seat on the oil and gas regulatory agency, is at the center of that fight, with some Republicans concerned his inflammatory views could drag down the party’s ticket in November. Several prominent Republicans condemned French after he posted a photo Sept. 13 of students celebrating a Longhorns victory and suggested, without evidence, that they were in the country illegally. “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” French wrote. The citizenship status of all the students is unknown, but at least two pictured have said they are U.S. citizens. French did not respond to a text message. Last month, however, he told Davis that his post was not racist and that “most people in the America First movement think we ought to be prioritizing Americans.” French said he had nothing against the students personally but asked, “Are we going to have policies to prioritize Americans … or are we going to have policies that prioritize foreigners?”

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

Two key groups launch Latino voter turnout operation in South Texas

Latino voters are upset about the cost of living and immigration enforcement operations, according to polls and interviews. Whether they actually show up to vote in November — and in what numbers — is another question. Getting Latinos to the polls next month is a central push of two of the largest Latino advocacy organizations in the country, the Voto Latino Foundation and the Hispanic Federation, according to plans first shared with NBC News. This week, the groups are launching a six-figure get-out-the-vote operation that specifically targets Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where they estimate that nearly 316,000 Latinos who could vote did not participate in the 2024 election. In 2024, Latino voters in the Valley made history when a majority backed Donald Trump. Since then, many key figures have come out opposing Trump’s policies, including his economic plans and how the administration is carrying out deportations.

In addition to those who sat out in 2024, the advocacy groups say nearly 500,000 Texas Latinos have turned 18 in the last two years and are now eligible to vote. On Saturday, the groups will host a community town hall in Edinburg called “Juntos en el 956,” where organizers will assist residents with making plans to vote and answer questions. Claudia Lopez, a social media personality in the Rio Grande Valley who focuses on South Texas politics, will moderate the town hall. Another televised town hall will follow in cooperation with Telemundo, and an end-of-the-month rally to promote voter turnout is in the works. Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, said he believes educating Latinos about their voting rights and hearing their concerns is central to improving turnout. “When we do this right, we are going to see a correlation in the participation of Latinos on Election Day,” Miranda said. Talking to voters, he said, the group will encourage people to vote early and, for those already registered to vote, to check ahead of time that nothing happened with their registrations.

Read this article at NBC News - Subscribers Only

Texas ordered dangerous gas pipes removed 25 years ago. One was linked to a recent Lake Dallas home explosion.

Texas ordered gas companies to remove a dangerous type of natural gas pipe more than 25 years ago. Yet earlier this year, the same type of pipe was linked to a home explosion in Lake Dallas that left a woman severely injured. The discovery raised a troubling question: Did the Texas Railroad Commission ever ensure utilities complied with its order to remove the plastic pipe, known as Poly-1? For months, CBS News Texas has sought answers from the state's three elected Railroad Commissioners, who oversee pipeline safety in Texas. The commissioners declined multiple interview requests. When a reporter approached them after a recent public meeting in Austin, they left without answering questions. Records reviewed by the CBS News Texas I-Team indicate that Poly-1 pipes were still being found in the system years after the state-imposed deadline.

The commission's only response came in an email from an agency spokesperson. Asked what actions the agency took to verify the pipe had been removed, the spokesperson wrote: "Because this is part of an ongoing investigation, we are unable to comment at this time." Efforts to replace Poly-1 pipe accelerated after an explosion in Garland on Jan. 28, 2000. The blast destroyed a home and killed 80-year-old Albert Holbert, his wife, Lillian Holbert, and her 83-year-old sister, Callie Hickerson. Investigators traced the explosion to a Poly-1 pipe. By then, the early-generation plastic natural gas pipe, installed in the 1970s, had developed a history of cracking and leaking. In some cases, those failures led to explosions. After the Garland disaster, the Railroad Commission ordered the utility TXU Gas to identify and remove all remaining Poly-1 pipe from its system. When TXU missed an initial deadline, the commission assessed a penalty, imposed new deadlines and ordered the company to provide progress updates. But nearly three years after those deadlines passed, officials reviewing the case for the Railroad Commission reported the work was "not yet completed." TXU later sold the system to Atmos Energy in 2004.

Read this article at CBS News - Subscribers Only

Republican incumbent fundraising keeps outpacing Democrats ahead of Tarrant County midterms

As the November midterm elections near, Republican candidates for Tarrant County office continue to outperform many of their Democratic opponents’ campaign fundraising, with County Judge Tim O’Hare leading the way in cash raised and spent. Among the candidates for county government, Republican incumbents far outraised and outspent their Democratic challengers in the races for county judge, county commissioner and district attorney. Further down the ballot, Democratic fundraising outpaced the Republicans in the races for district clerk and county clerk. Campaign finance reports published Oct. 5 detail candidates’ financial activity from July 1 to Sept. 24. Candidates for the county commissioners court, district attorney, district clerk and county raked in more than $1 million, cumulatively, from a range of contributors that includes political action committees, investors, real estate developers, local elected officials and other candidates on the ballot.

O’Hare, who is seeking his second term, has more than $836,000 in available campaign cash as of Sept. 24. He reported raising about $415,000 over the tracking period and spent about $290,000, primarily on consulting services and canvassing. Alisa Simmons, the Precinct 2 county commissioner challenging O’Hare for the countywide judge seat, maintains a campaign war chest of about $247,000. Over the reporting period, she raised about $286,000 and spent nearly $75,000, largely on consulting, phone-banking and campaign signage. The latest campaign finance reports detail an uptick in fundraising over the last two months for both Simmons and O’Hare. In the first six months of the year, O’Hare raised about $314,000 and Simmons raised about $111,000. From July to late September, O’Hare’s largest cash donation, $100,000, came from Texans United for a Conservative Majority, a political action committee led by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. Other PAC contributions include $10,000 from the National Cutting Horse Association’s Texas Events PAC, $1,500 from the Frederick Douglass Republicans of Tarrant County and $750 from Responsible Government.

Read this article at Fort Worth Report - Subscribers Only

Former TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M football coach Dennis Franchione dies at 75

Dennis Franchione's head coaching career lasted from 1985 to 2015, he won the Iron Bowl and the Lone Star Showdown, but it was his three years at TCU that were his greatest contribution to the sport. The coach whose tenure gave birth to a new era of growth and prosperity for TCU, and the city of Fort Worth, died on Tuesday at the age of 75 in Austin after a decade with cancer. Family members confirmed the news this morning. He was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his kidney in 2016, and cleared that. In 2021, he was given a more dire cancer diagnosis, but after treatment was in full remission. According to family friends, the cancer returned earlier this year, and he was moved to hospice care in October.

He most recently returned to TCU as a guest of coach Sonny Dykes to attend a spring football game in 2022, which unofficially ended any remaining bad feelings from members of the community toward Fran. For a long time, some members of TCU’s fanbase could not get over how he handled his exit from the school after the end of the 2000 regular season. Franchione said later in life that his greatest coaching years were those spent at TCU. Before he was hired by TCU after the 1997 season, Fran had successful runs at Pittsburg State, Southwest Texas State (now Texas State) and New Mexico. He arrived at TCU to replace coach Pat Sullivan, who in his final season with the school finished 1-10. The football team was bad, morale in the athletic department was terrible, and the school was in the first phase of a massive effort to catch up to the rest of higher education, and NCAA athletics.

Read this article at Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Subscribers Only

El Paso ISD among four Texas school districts selected for state spending review

The Texas Comptroller’s Office has included El Paso Independent School District among four institutions picked for “a detailed review” to examine if they spend state funds in compliance with state law. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested a review process in August to ensure that districts spend state funds on students, classrooms and teachers and not on more administration or what he called “non-instructional bureaucracy.” Comptroller Don Huffines said in an Oct. 5 news release that his office was committed to providing a clear assessment of how the state’s education dollars are used. The office also will review the Austin, Prosper (north of Dallas) and Barbers Hill (east of Houston) school districts. “This review is an important step to ensure transparency, accountability, and the responsible use of public funds,” Huffines said.

EPISD officials in an emailed response late Tuesday pointed to the recent academic gains in TEA accountability ratings and how it reflects on the district’s commitment to student success and directing resources to the classroom. The district’s email mentioned its combined efforts to reduce expenses such as 326 central-office and non-campus positions, eliminated vacancies, reassessed contracts, streamlined operating expenses and stronger financial controls. Additionally, the spokesperson pointed to the Financial Budget Dashboard and the district’s Financial Stability Plan as the district’s latest efforts to be transparent and improve efficiency. It is unknown when EPISD was informed about the upcoming review and which departments might be involved in the comptroller’s review. EPISD last school year spent just about 11% of its budget on leadership and general administration, according to Texas Education Agency data. The Ysleta Independent School District also spent about 11% on leadership and administration, while the Socorro Independent School District was at about 10%.

Read this article at El Paso Matters - Subscribers Only

Houston Chronicle Editorial: Carla Wyatt convinced us: Eliminate the Harris County treasurer

In the state of Texas, the county treasurer is a bit like a governmental appendix. It’s a vestigial office that doesn’t do much and you only think about it when something goes wrong. Four years with the scandal-plagued Democratic incumbent, Carla Wyatt, 56, has made one thing clear: Harris County needs a treasurer-ectomy. It is time to get rid of the office. Harris County commissioners agree. They unanimously voted in February to pursue dissolving her office, which is meant to oversee county payments but has no real power. That bipartisan coalition also voted to strip Wyatt of most of her authority and transfer staff from the treasurer’s office over to the county’s Office of Management and Budget following recommendations by County Auditor Michael Post. Here’s the thing, county treasurers have astray far too often, and from both major parties in different parts of Texas. They have undermined taxpayers’ trust in government instead of safeguarding it.

Now we have to wait for the Legislature to approve a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Harris County treasurer, like lawmakers did for Galveston County in 2023, and for voters statewide to approve the amendment. Until then, Harris County voters should support Republican challenger Marc Cowart, 59. He’s a longtime Republican operative who didn’t have much in the way of specifics for improving the office. We’re wary of his time working for politicians with their own troubling records, including former Fort Bend County Judge KP George, who was convicted of money laundering, and Bob Wolfe, a justice of the peace who essentially leverages his court as a lucrative wedding chapel. Cowart also doesn’t agree with plans to eliminate the treasurer position. Nevertheless, he did tell us he wants to restore “dignity” and “competence” to the office. The incumbent has set a low bar. Since she first took office in 2023, Wyatt has been twice arrested for drunken driving, twice violated bond conditions, and was charged with burglary of a vehicle, though a grand jury declined to indict her. Most recently she was cited after causing a four-vehicle crash on Interstate 45. Dash camera video of the incident makes it look like she’s an automotive pinball bouncing against cars. In meeting with the editorial board, she seemed to have no concern about how she was threatening the safety of other drivers on the road or putting herself at risk. “Car accidents happen every day,” Wyatt said. She seemed oblivious to all of these criminal charges. When we asked about the car crash, Wyatt told us: “I haven’t seen what you’re describing.” It felt reminiscent of reports that she once told an officer that she thought she was “in heaven” before being arrested on DWI charges. Wyatt also told us that, in spite of all of this, she is still getting behind the wheel of her car. That makes us worry for her wellbeing — and everyone else’s. Overall, she demonstrated an uncanny calm and, admittedly, professional demeanor when talking about her time as treasurer with the editorial board, which felt discordant with her record.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

Harris County leaders gave elected officials raises before a tax hike. Will it matter in November?

Political analysts are projecting an abysmal election cycle for Republicans, but the elected Democrats who run Harris County appear to be doing everything in their power to erode their advantage. Commissioners recently voted to raise most county elected officials' salaries to $305,000, then approved the highest county property tax rate in decades at a time when polls show affordability is a key concern for voters. Republican challengers for county office also have finished within single digits of Democratic incumbents in each of the last two election cycles. It’s a recipe that should spell trouble for local Democrats in November. But experts said the backlash to President Donald Trump’s policies and GOP U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s lack of popularity likely will overshadow local issues, protecting county Democrats.

“Salary increases that are in principle funded by tax increases is like the kiss of death for most candidates,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. But, he added, “In the current cycle, with the Democratic wave likely coming, I don’t think these issues are going to knock anyone out.” Harris County has seen this dynamic before — the 2018 Blue Wave that swept Democrats into power throughout county government coincided with Trump’s first midterm election. That election saw a 27-year-old Lina Hidalgo unseat then-County Judge Ed Emmett, a moderate Republican who enjoyed crossover support from some Democrats. That 2018 Democratic sweep reversed a long-running trend in Harris County that saw Republicans post gains in midterm elections. Democrats have since expanded their advantage through a 2021 redistricting effort that saw their 3-2 Commissioners Court majority grow into a 4-1 supermajority following Democratic Commissioner Lesley Briones’ 2022 election. Yet that governing position has given the Democrats a record to defend. Hidalgo is not seeking reelection, but the three Democratic commissioners — Briones, Adrian Garcia and Rodney Ellis — all voted to pass the county’s highest property tax rate in decades last month. The same three Democrats voted alongside Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the court’s lone Republican, to raise most county elected officials’ salaries to $305,000.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

County Stories

Fired Dallas County chief arrested on theft, official oppression

Former Dallas County Fire Marshal Assistant Chief Zack Masri turned himself in to police Tuesday after being accused of theft and official oppression by the Texas Rangers, his legal counsel said. Masri bonded out of the Wylie jail on Tuesday after posting a $15,000 bond, according to his lawyer Mark Lassiter. The arrest comes four months after Masri was fired from his county job following a series of alleged infractions that include: pointing a gun at a colleague in a “joking” manner, calling female co-workers “bitches” and ghost-writing an email defending his office before having a county commissioner send it, according to personnel records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

Wylie Police Sgt. Donald English confirmed Masri’s arrest, but the arrest warrant issued by the Dallas County Sheriff's Office that provides details of the alleged incidents was not immediately available Tuesday evening. Lassiter told The News that Texas Rangers from the Texas Department of Public Safety were leading the investigation into Masri and that his client is not guilty of the accusations. “While we understand the process, we look forward to proving Zack's innocence,” Lassiter said, declining to comment further. It is unclear if Masri's charges are tied to his June 8 termination, but they are related to his time as a county employee. English said Masri was charged with three counts of misdemeanor abuse of official capacity, which relates to a public servant violating a law relating to their office, according to the Texas penal code. Masri was also charged with misdemeanor theft of property of $100 to $750 and felony theft of property between $2,500 and $30,000, according to English. Masri, 40, worked for the Dallas County Fire Marshal's Office for nearly six years and was responsible for overseeing its building security division, which has come under scrutiny for testing the limits of its power.

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

National Stories

In first Maine Senate debate, Sen. Collins seeks to distance herself from President Trump

Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins distanced herself from President Donald Trump during her first Maine Senate debate with Democrat Troy Jackson, arguing she has maintained her political independence by repeatedly voting against Trump’s agenda and saying that she’s “not exactly his favorite senator.” Democrats are trying to flip the Maine Senate seat as they work to win control of the Senate. President Trump lost the state in 2024, giving Democrats hope of defeating the five-term moderate Republican, who has been targeted by Democrats in previous elections and survived. During the hourlong debate, Jackson focused largely on attempting to connect Collins to Trump. He kicked off the night by pointing out she cast a critical vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee who eventually helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

Collins supports abortion rights and said Kavanaugh assured her it was settled law, but she has said recently that she does not regret her vote to confirm him. “Would you trust her to pick the next Supreme Court justice?” asked Jackson, a former state lawmaker and logger. He also repeatedly brought up her procedural vote to advance the president’s 2025 tax and spending bill — though Collins ultimately broke with her party to vote against it. Collins countered that she has voted against Trump more than she did Joe Biden when the Democrat was president, and has pushed back against Trump on tariffs, immigration enforcement and the war in Iran. “I voted against my party more than another other senator on either side of the aisle,” Collins said. The attention on Trump comes as only 31% of U.S. adults approved of how the Republican is handling the presidency, according to a September AP-NORC poll. That’s well below where his approval stood when he took office last year.

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Congress killed the penny — now it's coming for the 13-cent nickel

It's common sense that common cents are getting less use in Americans' daily lives. Congress already took action to eliminate the lowest rung — the penny — and now another coin collecting dust in people's wallets could be on the chopping block next. The House and Senate both passed bills earlier this year aimed at eliminating the penny once and for all. The bipartisan Common Cents Act was unanimously approved in each chamber, but has yet to get President Donald Trump's signature to become law. It followed the Treasury Department announcing last December that the U.S. Mint would no longer produce pennies, which at the time cost more than three times their value to make.

Now, lawmakers want the administration to act on another portion of their bill, which would direct the Treasury to study the potential of making the nickel with cheaper materials than are currently used. "If it costs 13 cents to make a five-cent coin, Washington should fix the problem instead of wasting more taxpayer money," House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich., told Fox News Digital. "My bill gives Treasury a path to make nickels at a lower cost without disrupting how Americans use them. It is a simple reform that saves money and brings a little more common sense to government. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who led the bill in the Senate, told Fox News Digital, "More and more Americans are paying with credit cards, debit cards, and stablecoins for everyday purchases that once would have been made with cash or coins." "The half-cent coin was retired when it was no longer needed, and the penny has now reached that same point. It’s my hope that we can find a cheaper way to produce the nickel so that it remains economically viable for years to come," Lummis said. Nickels are produced at a loss to taxpayers of roughly eight cents per coin, according to the latest data. They are currently made of a mixture comprised of 25% nickel and 75% copper.

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Justice Dept. turns to partisans and conspiracists to fill depleted ranks

A former prosecutor forced off a high-profile murder case for peeking at the defense team’s strategy documents. A onetime gambling executive who promoted conspiracy theories about the Las Vegas massacre in 2017. A Florida activist who once served 20 days in jail for hacking a local elections system. They are among the 130 lawyers who have recently joined the Justice Department’s short-staffed civil rights division as the Trump administration has struggled to fill the depleted ranks of a unit that was once a magnet for legal talent. Since early 2025, upward of 300 nonpolitical career employees, representing decades of experience, have left the division after its leader, Harmeet Dhillon, repurposed it to pursue President Trump’s agenda.

As a consequence, the division has opened its doors to recruits, many of them conservatives, some with education and work histories that might have disqualified them from being hired in the past, former officials said. Some have left a trail of hyperpartisan, conspiratorial and, in some instances, bizarre statements, according to an examination of about a dozen recent hires based on court records, social media posts and interviews. Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said they have rejected nearly as many applicants as they have hired, 126. Any ideological tilt in the career ranks, they added, reflected the Trump-era applicant pool, which includes conservative activists and recent law school graduates. Ms. Dhillon praised the quality of the new lawyers, and said she was revamping a division that had been dominated by liberals for far too long. “For years, the civil rights division recruited from a narrow pipeline of progressive activists and called it excellence,” she said in a statement.

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Nobel chemistry prize goes to pair who solved mystery of 'mirror image' molecules

Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won ?the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a long-standing riddle of asymmetric "mirror image" molecules, a discovery hugely important for pharmaceutical manufacturing, the award-giving body said ?on Wednesday. Soai, 76, is Japanese, and Kagan, 95, is French, and their work built on a discovery by the 19th century French chemist Louis Pasteur. "This is the most exciting day in my life, I am very glad to share this prize with professor Henri Kagan," Soai said, speaking by phone to the Nobel Prize press conference, adding he had been out shopping when receiving the news. The Nobel committee was still trying to ?contact Kagan to inform him of the award. The chemistry Nobel, always the third prize to be awarded during Nobel week, followed those for medicine and physics announced on Monday and ?Tuesday.

Many of the molecules essential to life exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and ?right hands. Yet living organisms almost exclusively use only one version, a phenomenon known as "homochirality" – from the Greek word for hand – that has puzzled chemists for more than a century. This ?year's prize was awarded for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can be driven to favour a single molecular mirror image, work that has been key for chemists who design reactions for ?the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. "The left-handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right-handed version can have another effect, and then we need methods for selectively preparing them," Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said. "In developing such methods the findings of this year's laureates are important. They provided powerful tools for that," he said. The first link in the chain in ?solving the problem was work by Pasteur, who died before the Nobel Prizes were first awarded. He was looking at tartaric acid, important in the production of wine, and noticed that ?bacteria only ferment one of the two forms of tartaric acid – that which is naturally found in grapes. With the other there is no fermentation. That proved that some substances occur in two forms and that ?they have ?different properties, sometimes very damaging to health.

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Israelis mourn on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 as Palestinians grapple with war it sparked

Israelis gathered Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 251 taken hostage and sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has left much of the territory in ruins and its 2 million people living in dire conditions. In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters and the site of a music festival that the militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack in the country's history. It is the first anniversary since all the hostages, living and dead, were returned, marking a new stage of grief. For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day of misery after an Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Most Gaza residents live in vast, squalid tent camps, with large parts of the strip's cities reduced to rubble. More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military. Despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily. For the region, the day highlights a startling transformation over the past three years. Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with the Hezbollah militant group, which began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas. Iran and the United States are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across Gulf Arab countries and has shaken the global economy — a conflict that Israel helped launch and that the Gaza war paved the way for, even if they weren't directly connected. Near the town of Reim, where the music festival was underway when militants attacked, families gathered around photos of their killed relatives. Hundreds of people paid their respects to the more than 350 people killed in and around the festival site. Videos from that day showed militants gunning down fleeing revelers, shooting the wounded at point-blank range and ambushing those seeking refuge in nearby bomb shelters. On Wednesday, survivors' relatives hugged at 6:29 a.m. — the exact time the first rockets were launched three years ago — as explosions boomed in nearby Gaza.

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The inescapable Hasan Piker

By 8:30 p.m. on day one of the Socialism 2026 conference, Hasan Piker was tired and hungry and ready to leave. He had flown to Chicago from L.A. that morning, moderated a panel, interviewed an academic about her forthcoming book Confronting Zionism, broadcast everything live per usual, and now wanted to go to Au Cheval, a restaurant in the West Loop with a famous hamburger. “Let’s see if we can get in,” he said, looking down at his phone. It was a Friday night in September. While he tried to find a table, Piker commented that the organizers of the conference had not given him a tote bag. “Which is the craziest thing because everybody has totes here. This is tote central.” He had been presented with other gifts, including a Democratic Socialists of America hat designed to look like a White Sox hat, another one that said SATAN’S SCHOOL OF GAY COMMUNISM, and a vintage tie clip in the form of a USSR locomotive. People at the conference, which was taking place at a Hyatt, were treating him like a visiting dignitary. Piker, 35, who is six-foot-four, was wearing a royal-blue suit and tasseled brown loafers.

He used to dress in streetwear, but as his profile exploded this year, he started wearing jackets and ties. “It’s respectability politics to a certain degree,” he explained. “I’m not going to change my commentary or my worldview, but maybe I can change the immediate way you receive it.” The last time I’d seen Piker, in August, the socialist livestreamer was filming in the VIP section of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s election party on the night of the Michigan Senate primary. Now he was speaking at a literal socialism convention, an event I had imagined would channel the energy of the ascendant American left. That turned out not to be the case. It was late summer in Chicago, but there would be no rerun of the ’68 DNC, no latter-day yippies disturbing the peace and parading livestock around town and getting bludgeoned by the cops on Michigan Avenue. The conference, put on by the book publisher Haymarket, was niche and dryly academic. Organizers required attendees to wear a KN95 or N95 mask, an anachronistic rule that literalized the conference’s airless aspect. The whole event was unnervingly quiet as people trudged silently to panels or carried on muffled conversations. Piker was conflicted about the masks. “lmao. woke 1.0,” he wrote when I first texted him about the rule.

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How does Susan Collins keep winning?

National Democrats, who’d effectively let Collins walk to victory in 2014, wanted her seat in the worst way this time. The Democratic candidate, state House Speaker Sara Gideon, and her outside affiliates raised more money than could even be spent on a political campaign in Maine. Democrats’ heavy-handed assault seemed to be working: Collins did not lead in a single public poll for the entirety of 2020. While not celebrating prematurely, Democrats had reason to be cautiously optimistic that they might finally catch their white whale. “Sara was leading every private poll that she had,” too, former Rep. Tom Allen, who lost to Collins in 2008 and is a friend of Gideon’s, told me. Collins’ team didn’t know what was coming, either. “I don’t think anybody had a firm bead on what the result was going to be,” Lance Dutson, a Maine Republican strategist who worked on Collins’ 2008, 2014, and 2020 campaigns, told me. “There was definitely some concern.”

Six years later, Collins again is in a competitive election—albeit against a very different kind of opponent—in a bad political environment for Republicans. National Democrats, again, have their sights trained on flipping her seat. Collins has led in only a few polls this year. Here we go again. How, then, does Susan Collins do it? How, in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, has she been able to survive the ever-closing-in walls of nationalized politics and polarization, where the quality of individual senators matters less to voters than which party controls the Senate? And, despite it being perhaps the worst political environment for Republicans that she’s ever run in, can she do it again? If you’ve tried to watch a YouTube video in Maine over the past few months, you have probably been asked to thank Susan Collins. The millions of dollars in ads run by a dark money group tied to Senate Republican leaders follow a similar structure. You like water? Collins secured millions to protect Maine’s water. Hospitals? Millions to expand them. You hate diabetes? She has a long and thorough career securing money for diabetes research. The ads, for a while, encouraged viewers to “call and thank Senator Collins” and “tell her you appreciate all she is doing for Maine.” Perhaps recognizing that it was a bit tin-eared to encourage voters to call and thank their public servants for doing their jobs, the more recent ads now encourage viewers to “call and tell” Collins to keep fighting for these interests.

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Lead Stories

Ken Paxton Texas Senate campaign sees fundraising surge

Ken Paxton’s campaign announced Monday that it raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026, about double what it raised in the previous three months. It was a flex by the attorney general, who had faced a significant fundraising disadvantage against Democrat James Talarico since Paxton won the Republican Party’s nomination in May. But as the Nov. 3 election nears, Paxton has seen campaign donations swell. Monday is the last day to register to vote, and early voting begins Oct. 19. Campaign spokesman Nick Maddux said in a statement more than 160,000 donors have given to Paxton. “Republicans from all corners of Texas have given to the campaign because they know what’s at stake,” Maddux said. While a new high for Paxton’s campaign, it was still less than the $30 million Talarico’s campaign raised in the second quarter of 2026.

Talarico’s campaign had not released its latest fundraising numbers Monday and had no comment on Paxton’s third-quarter total. But the campaign pointed to leaked audio from a lunch hosted by lobbyists in Washington in which Paxton said he had “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” according to Politico. “Ken Paxton is a puppet,” Talarico said on X. Paxton’s campaign told Politico that he was referring to laws that prohibit campaigns and candidates from coordinating with PACs, preventing Paxton from controlling their messaging. Paxton recently announced a $20 million ad buy leading up to the election. It’s his campaign’s largest ad buy this election cycle. However, it remains dwarfed by the money spent by PACs supporting Paxton, which have spent nearly $200 million flooding the zone.

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Election officials work to clear voter registration backlog say Texas TEAM system makes that harder

At 6 p.m. a few days after the state sent Randall County election administrator Shannon Lackey a backlog of 3,388 of voter registration records, she was still at her desk, processing them after a full day of work. She planned to stay late and get as much done as she could, then keep working from home. Lackey, whose department has five employees, isn’t expecting overtime pay or compensatory time off to make up for the extra work caused by the state error. The most frustrating part, she said, was that the state’s voter registration and management system, known as TEAM, was making it harder to get through the backlog. “I just got a message saying ‘an error occurred’,” Lackey said while on the phone with a Votebeat reporter. “I cannot tell you how many times I get that message, ‘an error occurred,’ so I’m just clicking. Nothing’s happening. I can’t work right now.”

She said her only choice is to push through. “I have to get this done” she said, but “how are we going to fix it? And if it’s not fixable, where do we go from here? Because this is unacceptable.” Local election officials across the state have raised concerns about TEAM since the state rolled out a long-awaited upgrade more than a year ago. Now they must use the system to resolve a backlog of hundreds of thousands of voter registration records and updates state officials sent them due to a software error with the Texas Department of Public Safety web portal. Many say the issues with TEAM are making the backlog harder to resolve at a critical time. State officials discovered the error just weeks before today’s deadline for Texans to register to vote in time for the critical midterm elections. Election officials are already contending with the typical high volume of voter registration applications delivered in person and by mail at the last minute in the coming days. Some better-resourced and larger county election departments have been able to quickly resolve their backlogs with help from outside vendors, but they’re also still reporting problems interacting with TEAM.

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Republicans fight red-state midterm chaos with hundreds of millions in late money

Republicans are swamping House and Senate races with an unprecedented flood of late ad spending as the party tests whether hundreds of millions of dollars can buy it some reprieve from the eroding political environment that’s threatening longtime Republican states and districts. Since the start of September, Republicans have made more than $700 million worth of new advertising bookings in congressional races alone, according to an NBC News analysis of data from AdImpact, a political ad-tracking firm. That’s new money on top of what had already been committed to those races in ad reservations made over the summer. By comparison, Democrats booked more than $430 million in new ad reservations across those races last month.

The disparity is greatest in the battle for the Senate majority, where almost 7 of every 10 newly booked advertising dollars are coming from Republicans. That’s led by a massive, late investment in the Senate race in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico is threatening a longtime Republican seat and the GOP has poured in almost $150 million in new ad dollars to back up its nominee, Ken Paxton. The gap is smaller in the House, where a bit less than 6 in 10 of those new ad dollars are coming from the GOP. Democrats still have a number of advantages in their corner, including President Donald Trump and his party’s eroding standing among voters, Democrats’ own well-funded candidates, and help from outside groups. Candidates can take advantage of a rule that allows them to buy television ads at cheaper rates than outside groups, too. But the color of the outside money flood shows how Republicans, increasingly on defense in both the House and the Senate, are able to lean on their financial advantage in hope of defying political gravity, as party bastions like Texas and even Kansas look more competitive than usual.

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They’re the most hated thing in America. A strange new industry has cropped up to change your mind.

One sweltering morning in early August, data center executives gathered in a Northern Virginia conference center to talk about why nobody likes them. The panel, convened by the trade publication Data Center Frontier, featured industry leaders who sat onstage and shook their heads in bewilderment at the anti–data center movement presently engulfing communities across the country. As recently as a year or two ago, they said, a new data center could be quietly constructed without so much as a peep from concerned residents. Now, entire states were passing bans to keep them out. The panelists tossed out possible reasons for the American public’s disdain: Data center developers have been too secretive and seem shady to the average townsperson. Anti–data center Facebook groups are rife with misinformation about water usage, an issue that’s more complicated than detractors suggest. Companies have made a habit of waltzing into town and executing their plans without listening to community concerns. “God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason,” chided one energy-industry executive.

During the first three months of 2026, U.S. data center opponents stopped or delayed 75 projects worth almost $130 billion, roughly equal to those blocked in the entirety of 2025. The 840-plus anti–data center groups across the country represent a new, surprisingly bipartisan national consensus: A Gallup survey conducted in March found that 71 percent of Americans would oppose a new A.I. data center in their area. This is sobering news for tech executives, but it has opened a new avenue of business in another industry: public relations. A growing number of PR consultants are styling themselves as experts in getting data centers built without provoking opponents. They advertise strategic counsel on responding to community resistance, recruiting landowners to sell their lots for development, and trying to win over residents before opposition groups even have a chance to form. Often, they attempt to intervene quietly, behind the scenes, hoping that once-resistant communities will start to soften, maybe without realizing why. Until the last year or two, there was no need for this specialty. For decades, data centers were the small, unobtrusive, unlabeled buildings on the outskirts of town, doing the invisible work of keeping the internet afloat without straining the power grid or bearing the weight of our anxieties about technological change. But the advent of A.I. has made the buildings exponentially bigger, louder, and closer to places where people live.

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State Stories

Whitmire administration will pull bid for $150M federal grant as council questioned its ICE implications

Mayor John Whitmire’s administration will withdraw a $150 million grant application to a controversial federal program after the Houston Chronicle reported Monday that the city had submitted the paperwork last month, unbeknownst to city council. Houston’s bid for the Model Cities Initiative, run by the U.S. Department of Justice, was pulled twice from the council agenda last month as Whitmire said his office was pressing the DOJ to clarify the program’s guidelines, while council members and residents raised concerns that the funding might force the city to more closely cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The council has spent months this year debating the role Houston police play in ICE actions. But the grant application had been submitted weeks before in order to meet the program’s Sept. 1 deadline, the mayor’s office said.

Council Member Amy Peck, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said Friday that the mayor’s staff told her the council would be asked to approve the funding if it came through. At least three other council members said they were unaware of the city’s submission. Two said they thought the Whitmire administration had decided not to apply, especially after his office told Houston Public Media last week that the city was “not taking any action… at this time” on the grant. Whitmire said late Monday afternoon he would withdraw the application in part because his staff erred in not securing council approval before submitting it. “In the effort to ensure the application was submitted on time, staff prematurely submitted it before the required council approval was secured,” Whitmire said in a statement. “Due to that error and current lack of clarification on the program’s guidelines, the city of Houston is withdrawing its application.” In an earlier Monday statement, Whitmire said the city had applied with the goal of supporting its efforts to combat homelessness, violent crime and domestic violence.

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‘Fishing expedition’: Eastland family responds to search warrants in Camp Mystic criminal investigation

The Eastland family is responding to the criminal probe into their role in the deaths of 25 campers and two counselors following deadly floods at Camp Mystic in July 2025. The Texas Department of Public Safety executed 14 search warrants last month, mostly against the Eastland family, who owns the Kerr County summer camp. Those court documents show the lead criminal investigator requested access from Apple, Inc. to their electronic data, including browser history, call logs, emails, GPS, and photos. Texas Ranger Brant Johnston is looking at five criminal charges, including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, injury to a child, abandoning or endangering a child, and deadly conduct.

Six members of the Eastland family filed motions in Kerr County District Court, asking for a hearing on multiple issues, calling the search warrants a “fishing expedition.” The family wrote, “We can only assume this is a fishing expedition by Ranger Johnston regarding speculation as to admissions he believes to exist in the aftermath of the flood event itself, and to attempt and prove something by the non-existence of information, which is to prove a negative, which should not be an acceptable form of credible evidence in a criminal investigation.” KXAN reached out to DPS for a comment but has not yet heard back. In their filings, the Eastlands claim the time frame in which the investigator is asking for their data — July 3 through July 4, 2025 — is “overbroad” and they point out it could include information that’s protected by attorney-client privilege. “The warrant’s date range encompasses not only the July 4, 2025, flood but also potential post-incident communications generated while Movant and Camp Mystic, LLC potentially faced related civil claims, regulatory inquiries, and other investigations,” the document said. The family, therefore, is asking the court to stop investigators from reviewing the returned electronic data and to, instead, appoint an independent person or team who will take a look at and filter the evidence for investigators. According to the response, the Eastland family is requesting information on who has already seen the returned electronic data and what they have seen.

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These energy companies put Oklahoma City on the map. Now they’re moving to Texas.

An NBA basketball team. An Olympic rowing facility. The state’s tallest skyscraper. All were lavished on this mid-American city by two oil-and-gas companies and their leaders over decades of investment to lure top talent. Now, the partnership has run into a Texas-shaped wall. Devon Energy and Expand Energy —the successor of Chesapeake Energy—said in back-to-back announcements this year that they were moving headquarters to a more desirable location: Houston. Just like that, Oklahoma City is losing its two largest public oil-and-gas companies, with market values of about $52 billion and $20 billion, respectively. The abrupt exits have frazzled some of the city’s elder statesmen, chagrined politicians—and prompted some chief executives to make not-so-subtle digs at their former neighbors.

The companies have said they would maintain a large presence in Oklahoma City, but some officials fear that will dwindle over time. “We should be asking why Oklahoma keeps building energy companies only to watch so many of them eventually move south,” said state Sen. Dusty Deevers. The corporate migration carries extra sting because the companies were by far the top corporate boosters in Oklahoma City. They erected sprawling campuses and upscale strip malls—and even helped turn a moribund river into an Olympic water-sports venue. The drive from the airport to the city center is studded with signs celebrating the Oklahoma City Thunder, which won its first NBA championship two seasons ago. The departures are the latest sign that a frenzy of oil-and-gas mergers is consolidating the energy industry in Houston. Devon announced its departure after inking a deal to merge with Houston-based Coterra Energy. Chesapeake merged with Southwestern Energy, which was based in north Houston, two years ago and changed its name to Expand. Oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron both based in the Houston region, have acquired rivals once based in New York, Denver and Irving, Texas and centralized corporate functions in Houston. “People don’t understand that locating in Houston is like moving a film company to Hollywood,” said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.

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San Antonio Express-News Editorial: Dorazio still the right choice in Texas House District 122

We recommend incumbent state Rep. Mark Dorazio in his bid for a third term representing Texas House District 122. While we don’t agree with Dorazio, a Republican, on a number of issues, our recommendation is broader than tallying issues on a score sheet. It’s notable that in a majority-Republican district, Dorazio outperformed President Donald Trump during the 2024 general election, garnering 58.1% of the vote in his election versus Trump’s 54.9% in the presidential race. Given the open race in House District 118 and the tough challenge that Republican state Rep. Marc LaHood faces from Zach Dunn in District 121, Dorazio could be one of two Republicans in San Antonio's statehouse delegation, along with state Sen. Donna Campbell, whose district includes northern Bexar County.

We give credit to Dorazio for his opposition to the controversial Guajolote Ranch development, the proposed 2,900-home project with plans for a sewage plant that would discharge up to 1 million gallons per day of treated wastewater into Helotes Creek. Dorazio reached his position after he took the time to understand the characteristics of the karst formations that comprise the area under Helotes Creek. “I’m not against development,” he said. “But I’m for good, commonsense development.” The administrative rules by which the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality operates favor permit applicants such as Municipal Operations LLC, the company that developer Lennar Corp. has engaged to operate the proposed wastewater treatment plant. Nevertheless, Dorazio’s support was more than symbolic. When his constituents reached out with concerns, he invested time and energy to understand them, and we’re confident he will continue to listen, even to those who disagree. While we recommend Dorazio, we also are impressed by his Democratic opponent, Dr. Shelly Nickels. Given that’s she’s a physician and medical director with Methodist Hospital, it’s unsurprising that she’s well-versed on healthcare. We agree with her call for expanding Medicare in Texas and blocking the Texas Republican Party’s goal to ban IVF treatment.

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San Antonio Express-News Editorial: Zack Dunn our choice to represent Texas House District 121

In a race that includes a one-term incumbent, we recommend political newcomer Zack Dunn for state representative in Texas House District 121. Dunn, the Democratic candidate, rose above state Rep. Marc Lahood in our meeting with two candidates. While Dunn was sharp on policies and district issues, LaHood was unfocused and often came across as either unaware or unengaged. Should he win, LaHood needs to sharpen up ASAP.

In our meeting, Dunn called for better funding for public schools and referred to the state’s new private school voucher system as a “terrible waste of taxpayer dollars.” He supports removing tax breaks as part of a measured approach to dealing with data centers, and he opposes Gov. Greg Abbott’s call to undo CPS Energy’s status as the sole provider of electricity in San Antonio. Devastating fatal flooding rocked this district on June 12, 202 Meanwhile, LaHood was underwhelming and scattered. He was remarkably disengaged regarding Abbott's proposal for CPS, and he occasionally rambled well off topic. When the subject was border security, he started talking about the war in Iran and threats from Russia and China. He expressed no urgency to address the infrastructure needs in this district, which was rocked by fatal flooding on June 12, 2025. While Dunn is the Democrat, he was far more aligned with this district's former Republican state Reps. Joe Straus and Steve Allison. He’s best suited to represent District 121.

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AIM Media Texas Editorial Board: Deportations in Valley have taken a major toll; policy changes needed

The recent crackdown on immigration has affected our entire country, but probably the areas most affected are those along the border such as the Rio Grande Valley, where immigrants comprise a larger percentage of the population. Local officials, advocates and observers note that the effects are widespread, and affect virtually everyone in our communities directly. Recent data detail how the removal of thousands of Valley immigrants — many of them longtime residents and even business owners — affects us all. They also show the need that new policies are needed, or existing policies should be changed, to deal with them. Information from the Deportation Data Project and the Caminos Institute indicate that since 2022, immigration officers have detained more than 13,000 Valley residents, and more than 86% of them have been deported. They include both illegal and legal residents.

Nearly 70% of those removals have been men and the median age is 36. In simple terms, most of the people our community has lost have been part of our workforce. The effects have been obvious in several elements of our economy, particularly in housing, construction and agriculture. This means fewer homes and other buildings are being constructed and renovated, driving up local home prices and making it more difficult for home and business owners to make repairs and upgrades that can improve living conditions, lower utility costs or recover from storm damage. Valley farmers report they can’t hire enough workers for their fields, and some produce hasn’t been harvested because of the worker shortage. Local shrimpers for years have reported difficulty finding enough capable workers work their trawlers; some have even stayed in port because they can’t operate. Reduced harvests mean less produce in the stores, which drives food prices up.

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Texas pediatricians face Paxton investigations for vaccinating children

It was a bustling Monday morning at a little pediatrician’s office in central Texas. Children with rashes, fevers and runny noses cycled through exam rooms decorated with butterflies, planets and colorful maps. The doctor, who had been treating kids in the community for 20 years, was delighted when a woman she had cared for as a child came in with her newborn. Until recently, she had planned to continue her practice for years to come. But this year, she has begun to reconsider amid the stress and legal costs of defending herself in a statewide investigation by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, who has accused doctors, drug companies and insurers of conspiring to push parents into vaccinating children. She agreed to be interviewed and allowed a reporter to visit her practice but asked to be identified by her middle name, Rachel, to protect her from retaliation.

In December, Dr. Rachel received a letter from the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division demanding her vaccine purchase records over the past 10 years. “The division believes that you are in possession, custody or control” of material, “involving potential misleading or deceptive acts regarding incentives associated with the administration of childhood vaccines,” it said, adding that such acts could be in violation of the state’s deceptive trade practices law. The letter also requested her practice’s vaccine policy, and said that it would not be sufficient to cite the childhood vaccine schedule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Paxton has also implicated the nation’s largest organization of pediatricians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in the alleged conspiracy over the workaday task of protecting children from polio, measles, meningitis and more than a dozen other dangerous and sometimes life-threatening diseases. “I will ensure that Big Pharma and Big Insurance don’t bribe medical providers to pressure parents to jab their kids with vaccines they feel aren’t safe or necessary,” he said when announcing the investigation in January, describing his efforts as working “alongside President Trump” and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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Why Taylor Sheridan signed on with NBCUniversal after years at Paramount

While he's best known for his work on TV now, Taylor Sheridan got his big break as a screenwriter for the big screen. Working on movies reportedly played a big role in the Fort Worth-based creative signing a lucrative film and TV deal with NBCUniversal. NBCU Entertainment chair Donna Langley said at a recent event that she opened talks on a deal with Sheridan by talking about films first. "That’s how it started, and then we just got to talking and one thing led to another," Langley said at Bloomberg’s Screentime event in Los Angeles, according to multiple reports.

His move will follow a long and successful stint with Paramount that included popular TV shows like Landman, Lioness and Tulsa King, among others. The film part of Sheridan's NBCU deal is expected to take effect this year while the TV component will start once his Paramount deal runs out in 2028, per Variety. Additionally, Langley hinted at the ongoing merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. as playing a role in her studio's ability to pull Sheridan away from his longtime home. "There’s just a moment to kind of look around the marketplace and see if there’s a competitive advantage," she said. Sheridan is set to return to the big screen in May with F.A.S.T. starring Brandon Sklenar, who played Spencer Dutton in the Yellowstone prequel 1923. Sheridan is also reportedly co-writing a script for a movie based on the popular Call of Duty video game.

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Lawmakers hear from women’s health experts on hormone health and menopause

The Texas House of Representatives subcommittee on Maternal Health, Menopause and Access to Evidence-Based Medicine had their second interim hearing Monday where they focused on issues regarding hormone health and menopause. The subcommittee was established in August to extend discussion of women’s health concerns beyond childbearing years into midlife. A panel of OB/GYNs and menopause specialists delivered testimonies at the hearing and shared their concerns with the subcommittee. A common concern was that physicians often fail to treat root causes of menopause symptoms and instead opt to treat the symptoms themselves. Many menopausal and perimenopausal women seek medical care from multiple providers before being directed to a menopause specialist.

“A recent study found that 60% of women say their clinician dismissed their symptoms, also found that 40% got no guidance on treatment. The treatments exist, but the training is lagging,” said Dr. Mary Claire Haver, a board certified OB/GYN and certified menopause specialist. “Women arrive with a sleeping pill from one doctor, an antidepressant from another, and a referral to a cardiologist for heart palpitation, and nobody asks them about their periods. They treated each symptom on its own, and the cause never really gets named.” Haver also discussed the lack of comprehensive menopausal training in medical schools. “I got almost no menopause training in my residency. I got six one-hour lectures in my second year of training and no clinics, no clinical experience whatsoever,” Haver said. Dr. Jennifer Friedman, an OB/GYN and clinical associate professor at Texas A&M University Family Medicine Residency Program, emphasized the need for menopause education in Texas during the hearing. Friedman created a formal menopause gynecology elective and curriculum at the Texas A&M Family Medicine Residency in 2022 and believes that more physicians need to be trained in menopausal care to adequately address the needs of the population.

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Trump orders firing squad for gunman who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas

President Donald Trump has ordered the use of ?a firing squad to execute the former US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in ?a 2009 shooting spree the gunman later described as retaliation for US wars in the Muslim world, the Pentagon said on Monday. Putting former US Army Major Nidal Hasan to death by Army firing squad was approved by Trump at the recommendation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on ?X. Parnell noted that Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is greatest in Arabic — during the attack, which killed 12 unarmed active-duty soldiers ?and a retired serviceman, and wounded 32 others.

The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place ?of the execution, Parnell said, adding, "Judgment day for Hasan has finally come." Death by firing squad was one of several forms of capital ?punishment the Trump administration recently added to permissible forms of execution for the gravest of federal crimes, along with electrocution and gas asphyxiation. The ?number of federal execution options was expanded in part because of increasing difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections, which have also proved challenging to carry out for other reasons at times. Plans by the state of Tennessee to execute a woman for the first time in more than 200 years went awry ?last week when prison personnel botched an attempt to administer a lethal injection, leaving the death-row inmate, Christa Pike, alive but unconscious and ?hospitalized on life support. Pike's lawyers had previously urged that the Tennessee Department of Correction to consider an alternative to lethal injection, such as hanging or ?firing squad, ?in anticipation of the trouble executioners faced in establishing a sound intravenous line.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Blame this Democrat for the HISD takeover, but still reelect him.

Here’s how octogenarian Harold Dutton thinks about retirement and passing the torch to the next generation: “Why don’t you get a torch and light it on mine?” Dutton once wanted to retire from the Texas House. He had a successor, a staffer he’d trained up over the course of a decade. But she died tragically in 2023. Other candidates challenged him, even fellow Democrats, but voters just kept picking him. This year, yet again, he made it through a contentious primary — even though opponents attacked him for having written the bill amendment that launched the controversial state takeover of Houston ISD. We’ve been critical of the takeover, too, but even we think he remains the best candidate to represent this north Houston district.

How could anyone defend the HISD takeover, you ask? Even now, as enrollment craters and funding challenges have even well-performing campuses facing painful cuts? Dutton always reminds us that HISD failed children in his district for years. He wrote the provision that enabled the takeover with the intention of forcing the district to pay attention to its most troubled schools. And he doesn’t regret it. “For the most part it’s all been positive,” he insisted. When he visits schools, Dutton said, he hears good reviews. “Mr. Dutton, we don’t have nearly as many fights as we used to have,” he said he heard on his recent stop at Wheatley High School, his alma mater and the chronically failing campus that triggered the state takeover. But perhaps some of the criticism and concerns — the “noise,” as state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles dubs it — has finally broken through to Dutton. “Is it perfect?” he asked rhetorically. “ Is it where I’d like for it to be? Well, probably not.” A better answer would be, definitely not. Even three years in, Wheatley’s much-lauded A rating came with a big asterisk. As was the case for many high schools across the district, Chronicle reporting revealed, Wheatley’s score was boosted by questionable online college prep courses that even the state education agency is wary of and is mostly phasing out. Still, Dutton said, “I arrive at the conclusion that says we’re far better off than we were at the time this began.”

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Voters should back this 'all gas, no brakes' Democratic staffer

If you want to feel excited about Houston, talk to Odus Evbagharu. His view of our city and our future is so buoyant that you can’t help but feel a little lighter after hearing it. “My parents came to this country on a penny and a promise,” Evbagharu told the editorial board. And the country welcomed them. His family found a home in Houston. He attended Cy-Fair ISD schools and then the University of Houston. No matter what side of town he was on, he said, he felt the openness that made this region great. “There’s really a lot more that unites us,” Evbagharu said. “I’ve seen it firsthand: People would come to our house eating fufu, jollof rice — white people.” His friends from college would ask him to bring back food from home. “People can barely say my last name and they’re like, ‘Hey go run for office.’”

Though Evbagharu, 34, is a first-time candidate, he’s also a behind-the-scenes politico. He was chief of staff for Jon Rosenthal, the outgoing state representative for House District 135, which includes northwest Houston, Cypress and Jersey Village. (Rosenthal is leaving this seat to run for a spot on the Texas Railroad Commission.) Evbagharu also runs his own political communications business. And after extreme right-wing candidates took over the school board at Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, cutting chapters out of state-approved text books, he helped moderates win back the majority. With all that experience, it’s not surprising that, when you ask how he’d accomplish political goals in Austin, he doesn’t just talk abstractly about his pro-smart growth platform or talk convincingly about on-the-ground issues.. He says that he’s already been meeting with representatives from both parties. “I’m all gas, no brakes,” he said in his self-assured way. “I’ll be effective come January.” Evbagharu wants to partner with County Commissioner Lesley Briones, for example, to boost her sidewalks initiative — a critical issue in an area that saw school bus routes cut. He thinks a strategic approach to adding new, regulated data centers could help lower local property taxes. He welcomes AI into classrooms with guardrails so students don’t miss out on learning important skills.

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A Ken Paxton campaign rally at a Houston music hall sparked a fight over what venues stand for

When White Oak Music Hall hosted a campaign rally for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, the backlash was swift. The August event faced extensive criticism from indie, punk and underground music scenes — communities built on diversity and inclusion. Punk in particular has a history built on LGBTQ+ intersectionality and anti-establishment ethos. Hosting a politician whose career is defined by anti-trans legislation, aggressive border crackdowns and far-right ideology was seen as a direct betrayal of the safe-haven ethics that keep the local scene alive. White Oak management posted, then quickly deleted, a statement defending the decision, calling itself a “neutral forum” and pointing out that it previously hosted Democrats Beto O’Rourke, former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, and judges Ravi K. Sandill and Manpreet “Monica” Singh.

Online reaction was so negative that the venue turned off comments on social media. White Oak management did not respond to a request for comment. The fallout from August’s Paxton rally has shown surprisingly long legs. Hermanos Gutiérrez, an instrumental duo with almost 4 million monthly Spotify listeners, announced in mid-September that they were moving their Oct. 21 show to 713 Music Hall “due to issues with the venue and concern from our fans.” Viral singer Novulent canceled his Aug. 8 show day-of after learning of the Aug. 5 Paxton rally, stating the band “does not support his hatred and bigotry at all.” After failing to secure another venue, Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday opted to keep a Nov. 12 date on White Oak’s outdoor stage but said the venue will donate its facilities fee to the Montrose Center and Houston Immigrant Legal Services Collaborative and drop its merch cuts.

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Johnson County Commissioner Bailey pushes back on Abbott tax message

Commissioner Rick Bailey pushed back this week against Gov. Greg Abbott’s criticism of local government spending, arguing that state mandates, population growth and rising costs are driving much of Johnson County’s increased property tax burden. His comments followed the Johnson County Commissioners Court’s recent adoption of a property tax rate of 41.7 cents per $100 of valuation for the new fiscal year, up from 38.9 cents the previous year. County Judge Chris Boedeker said inflation and current economic conditions contributed to the increase. “Other banner items that led to the [increase] came about because our health insurance coverage costs are going to increase by about $2 million per year,” Boedeker said. “We’re also anticipating decreases in our jail lease revenue numbers of about $3 million in the coming year.”

Historically, the county has generated revenue by leasing jail space for inmates from other jurisdictions. As Johnson County’s own inmate population has increased, however, fewer beds have been available to lease. Bailey added that the new tax rate, like last year’s, includes a 1-cent increase related to $60 million in transportation bonds approved by voters two years ago. Bailey, who has frequently criticized what he views as attempts by state leaders to erode local control, then turned his attention to Abbott’s recent property tax proposals and messaging. “The vicious attack that our governor is putting out needs to be addressed,” Bailey said. “It’s basically smoke and mirrors, if you will. “There’s so many things in Abbott’s messaging that are really deceiving to the state of Texas, and I’ll call him out on it, and I plan to do so.”

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National Stories

Oil is flowing from Hormuz again—just not diesel

Ships are ferrying almost as much crude oil out of the Strait of Hormuz as they were before the Iran war. But they are barely moving any barrels of the fuel the world needs most: diesel. For now, the distinction is paramount in American politics. President Trump’s team has explored a long list of options to arrest the skyrocketing price of diesel fuel, which factors into the cost of groceries, gadgets and just about everything else moved on semitruck beds. The national average for a gallon of diesel hit a record $6.53 late last month. In California, where supplies are increasingly tight and fuel taxes are higher, diesel reached a historic high of $8.44 a gallon. “Consumers don’t buy crude oil. They buy gasoline, jet fuel and diesel,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston. “As a result of missile and drone strikes in the Middle East, several large refineries have been damaged. The world finds itself short of refined products.”

The recovery in oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz won’t fix the problem anytime soon. As of Saturday, the seven-day average for crude-oil cargoes clearing the critical waterway between Iran and Oman reached 10.3 million barrels a day, or 76% of the prewar baseline, according to the latest available data from market intelligence firm Kpler. But cargoes of oil products like gasoline and diesel came to 1.3 million barrels a day, accounting for only 11% of the overall flows—the rest was unrefined crude oil. Before the war, refined products typically represented more than 20% of the oil cargo passing through the strait. Trump on Monday unveiled an executive order aimed at bringing fuel prices lower. The U.S. will temporarily permit highway use of dyed diesel, a tax-exempt fuel typically used for farming. That move will defer a federal tax of 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel through the end of the year. The administration is putting pressure on its allies abroad. The Group of Seven major economies on Friday agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude oil and fuel from their emergency stocks.

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Why Trump is so ticked off sbout Daylight Saving Time

Changing daylight saving time has obvious appeal for Donald Trump. Many Americans hate switching their clocks twice a year, so ending that practice could win the president rare bipartisan praise and boost his dismal job-approval ratings ahead of the midterms. Despite growing momentum around the issue, legislation to make daylight saving time permanent keeps stalling in Congress. This gives Trump an opportunity to show off his dealmaking skills and taunt political foes like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for failing to get the bill over the finish line. Plus altering the way millions of Americans experience time has the sort of kinglike vibe Trump enjoys. So will President Trump finally end this biannual ritual? Can he even do that? And why did he post a GOP senator’s phone number? Here’s an explainer, which we’ll keep updated, on Trump’s clock-switching stance. Perplexed? You’re in good company.

Under the current system, in addition to changing our clocks, making up for lost sleep, and adjusting kids’ nap schedules, we’re expected to waste precious time remembering the difference between two not very obvious terms. Basically, standard time is the one most people in the United States use in the winter months. Each year, we “fall back” to standard time on the first Sunday in November. Then we “spring forward” to daylight saving time on the second Sunday in March. This is pretty confusing, as “standard” only lasts about four months. During the other eight months, we’re on daylight saving time. Even more confusingly, a lot of people refer to it as “daylight savings time,” plural, though that is grammatically incorrect. Oh, and two states, Arizona and Hawaii, don’t observe daylight saving time at all. It’s a mess! As with any bill passed by Congress, the president must sign the changes into law. And obviously, Trump has a tremendous amount of sway over the Republicans, who currently control both the House and Senate. For many years, he seemed to be confused, just like the rest of us. In 2019, he tweeted, “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!” But weeks after winning reelection in 2024, he announced on Truth Social that he’d be working to do the opposite:

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Trump says his Super PAC will pay for pro-Trump ads instead of taxpayers

President Trump said he plans to pay for controversial pro-Trump television ads using funds from his MAGA Inc. super PAC rather than the federal government, following lawmaker criticism that the spots might violate federal law and were an improper use of taxpayer money. The advertisements, which predominantly feature the president and promote the administration’s policies, started airing on national television last month and were paid for by federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats and some Republicans questioned the use of federal dollars for the ad campaign, which the White House has defended as public service announcements. “The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday evening.

This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.” The White House said MAGA Inc. would pay for the ads moving forward. MAGA Inc. didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It was unclear if the PAC would repay the U.S. government for the money already spent or just pay for ads going forward. Trump personally pushed for the ads and has been involved in their creation, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The ads have drawn public scrutiny because they include the unusual disclaimer “paid for by the U.S. government.” Critics say the ads might violate laws including the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive-branch employees from using their jobs to promote political causes. One of the ads begins with Trump saying a frequent line he uses on the campaign trail: “Together we will defeat communism, Marxism in America once and for all.” The ad follows with dozens of images of the president at White House events. Playing in the background is a choir singing “Love Me.” Trump ends by saying “America will never be a communist country” and in small letters at the bottom of the screen it reads, “Paid for by the U.S. government.”

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Meet the Fox News correspondent leading the fight for press freedom at the White House

Even Fox News, one of President Trump’s preferred media outlets, isn’t exempt from his go-to term for any woman he dislikes. “She can be so nasty,” was how Trump recently described the conservative-leaning network’s senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich. Never one to hold back, the president has also had harsh words for her spouse, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a moderate Republican congressman. “Her husband votes against me all the time,” Trump once said. “Can you imagine?” The double-barreled attacks don’t bother Heinrich, who as president of the White House Correspondents Assn. is leading the fight against Trump’s ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico. When Trump delivered his insult at the WHCA’s dinner in July, Heinrich just shrugged and smiled. “You don’t get into journalism to be well liked by the subject that you’re covering,” Heinrich said in a recent phone interview.

“As long as I’m doing my job, which is to get the story and tell it fairly and fully, the rest of it is not really my business to care about. It’s probably not the last time I’ll upset him. The president still takes my calls.” Heinrich’s durability is being put to the test as she delivers the public and private messaging on the latest battle with the White House over press freedom. Trump banned the three outlets from the White House grounds due to what he believes is their constant negative coverage. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to block the move, calling it viewpoint discrimination and a violation of the outlets’ 1st Amendment rights. But the administration continues to prevent CNN from serving in the press pool that follows the president at all times. More court hearings are ahead. Over the last 10 days, Heinrich has issued public statements condemning the ban, monitored the legal proceedings and held back channel conversations with the White House in an effort to get Trump’s decision reversed. It’s a second job on top of covering the president and co-hosting a weekend program “The Sunday Briefing.”

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Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Francis Halzen for work on neutrinos

Francis Halzen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for his work on a project at the South Pole that has helped discover high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Who is the winner? Mr. Halzen is a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was born in 1944 in Tienen, Belgium. Why did the committee say he received the prize? The Nobel Committee praised Mr. Halzen's “vision and scientific leadership” at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a research project at the South Pole that he directs. The project — which the committee said involves “a cubic kilometer of ice that is equipped with light sensors” — was designed to capture neutrinos, bountiful but elusive subatomic particles that could give astronomers a new look at the universe.

Mr. Halzen first presented his vision for capturing neutrinos at the South Pole in 1988, the committee said in a statement, and IceCube was finished in 2011. “Researchers soon discovered the first high-energy neutrinos and, a few years later, could publish their discovery of neutrinos that must originate far outside our solar system,” the statement said. Mark Pearce, the chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in the statement that Mr. Halzen had “provided us with a fantastic instrument” and that his “tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.” What did he say about winning? Mr. Halzen called the award “a great surprise.” Addressing the news conference in Stockholm by phone from Italy, he emphasized that his work was the result of a “large collaboration” with other researchers.

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The mighty American consumer is crashing through inflation and driving growth

Happy hour at Chicago’s Bar Roma was buzzing this past week as locals poured in for $10 cocktails and $11 bruschetta. Kathleen Harper and her husband would normally share a few appetizers, but tonight they were splurging on the $50 tasting menu. “After a long day—I work from home—I like to just get out of the house,” said Harper, who sells fraud-protection services. “Business has been good,” she added, “because fraud, unfortunately, is up.” Harper said she worries about the health of the economy and rising prices for gas and groceries, but feels secure enough to enjoy a good happy-hour deal. Decisions like that across the economy show America’s appetite for consumption is expanding. Americans are spending more on food, travel, couches, Halloween decor and most anything else they want or need—pushing through inflation and their own gloomy feelings about the economy.

The dollar amount spent by U.S. households rose by 6.1% in the 12 months through August, up from annual growth of 4.3% at the end of last year, the Commerce Department reported. Economic growth for the second quarter of 2026, the most recent data available, was revised upward this past week, fueled by consumer spending and business investment. “For all the talk about AI data centers, the main engine of growth for GDP in the United States has been broad-based consumer-spending growth, which I think is tied to a broad-based, stable labor market,” Austan Goolsbee, head of the Chicago Fed, told journalists after an economic forum this past week. Hiring slowed last month, though the unemployment rate remains low. Spending is rising because prices are climbing and Americans are buying more stuff. Just over half the spending increase in the year through August owes to the persistent inflation that has frustrated many shoppers: Consumer prices were up by about 3.4% over that period. But inflation-adjusted spending climbed by 2.6%, too, extending a streak of steady growth over the past five years.

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Dennis Hastert, longtime House speaker who served time in prison, dies at age 84

Dennis Hastert, whose congressional legacy as the longest-serving Republican House speaker was later fouled by allegations that he had molested high school athletes during his prior career as a teacher and wrestling coach, has died, a coroner said Monday. He was 84. Hastert, who was speaker from 1999 until 2007 and spent more than a year in prison later in life, died Saturday of natural causes at his home while receiving hospice care, according to Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell. When he was sentenced in 2016 to more than a year behind bars, the former history teacher became one of the highest-ranking American politicians ever ordered to prison. In the late 1990s, Hastert was a little-known Illinois lawmaker with a reputation for congeniality that had helped him ascend the ranks of congressional leaders.

When Newt Gingrich lost support because of ethics violations and the GOP’s poor showing in an election, Republicans elected Hastert to succeed him. In his first weeks on the job in 1999, he presided over the House while the Senate conducted then-President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. After the GOP reclaimed the White House, Hastert helped pass then-President George W. Bush’s legislative agenda. In 2015 he was accused of evading banking regulations as part of a plan to pay hush money to conceal unspecified “prior misconduct.” Nearly a year later, prosecutors said Hastert’s alleged misconduct involved the sexual abuse of teenage boys on his wrestling team in Yorkville, a small town west of Chicago. Prosecutors said Hastert sexually abused at least four team members during his coaching career, which lasted from 1965 to 1981. The person Hastert was paying, identified in court papers only as Individual A, said the abuse occurred in a motel room when he was 14 on the way home from wrestling camp. Hastert allegedly touched other wrestlers in a locker room after saying he would give them massages. Two wrestlers said Hastert performed sexual acts on them. Prosecutors also described a recliner where Hastert often sat in the locker room with a direct view of the stalls where the boys showered.

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Democratic mayors in red states launch new group to counter MAGA and far-left extremes

A group of 15 Democratic mayors governing in Republican-dominated states are building a new political operation that aims to influence national politics as a center-left alternative to both the MAGA movement and what they describe as "far-left dysfunction" from groups like the Democratic Socialists of America. The organization -- Blue Cities/Red States -- is led by Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and will launch next week in Miami with a kickoff event hosted by its mayor, Eileen Higgins. The founding mayors lead cities including Atlanta, Jacksonville, Boise, Tulsa and Memphis -- governing more than 7 million Americans across 11 red and purple states, according to a memo for the new coalition.

In an interview with ABC News, Bibb said he hopes these mayors will emerge as a kind of testing ground for a post-2024 Democratic message. He suggested that the party can rebuild trust among voters by zeroing in on things such as public safety, affordability, economic growth -- things that these mayors often govern on, up against Republicans at times, Bibb said. "As Democrats talk about closing the credibility gap, these 15 mayors have been closing that gap in their cities -- without the cover of a Democratic governor or a Democratic-led legislature," Bibb said. Higgins, who was elected as Miami's mayor in December as the first Democrat to serve in 28 years, also emphasized the group's focus on working against the political extremes. "Working for a more united states is a core theme of Blue Cities/Red States, and we do this by pushing back against extremism and promoting a more practical brand of leadership that focuses on results over rhetoric," Higgins said. "This includes balancing the need to stand up for your community against harmful policies but also finding compromise solutions that deliver results."

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Lead Stories

Campaign ‘all coming from DC,’ Paxton says

Ken Paxton is less than a month out from the conclusion of a D.C.-outsider campaign for a Texas U.S. Senate seat that he privately admitted is being run by Washington. “I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming — you know — from D.C.,” Paxton said during a small fundraising event last month, according to an audio recording obtained by POLITICO from a person in the room who does not support Paxton, and verified by another attendee. “I don’t control message or what we’re doing.” The lunch, hosted Sept. 24 in Washington by Chris Brinson and Susan Hirschmann of the D.C.-based lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, was attended by about a dozen people including Scott Kopple, VP of government relations at defense contractor BWXT.

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Democrats lead governor races deep in Republican territory, polls show

One month until Election Day, voter dissatisfaction with the economy, concerns about political extremism and frustration with President Trump have Democrats within reach of flipping four Republican-held governorships, opening a wide lead in Iowa and an expanding advantage in Ohio among likely voters, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena University. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican fixture in the state for decades, is now narrowly behind his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa. The Democratic candidate also has an advantage in the race for governor of Alaska. The only place surveyed where the Republican is ahead in the campaign for the governor’s office in Kansas, now held by a retiring Democrat. The polls also show Democrats with an advantage in the Senate in these states, with Democrats ahead in Texas and Alaska, and with the edge in Ohio, while the races in Kansas and Iowa are neck-and-neck.

While national attention has fixated on the fight for control of Congress, governorships will be important heading into a wide open presidential election in 2028. Not only will governors influence the electoral process, they will help shape the redistricting wars that are likely to spill into 2027 and beyond. The polling results underscore how Democrats have been able to push into states that have traditionally favored Republicans, as voters have soured on Mr. Trump amid frustration over the economy, rising gas prices and a deeply unpopular war in Iran. Still, the polls show that even as many of the Republican candidates for governor are at a disadvantage, they are outrunning the difficult political environment. Mr. Trump’s approval rating stands at just 40 percent across the five states. In four of five states surveyed, the Republican candidates for governor are doing better than the president’s approval ratings. Democrats, meantime, are boosted by broadly well-liked candidates who are, for the most part, seen as more politically moderate than their Republican opponents. In Texas, for example, just 28 percent of voters worried that Ms. Hinojosa was too far to the left, compared to 45 percent who were concerned Mr. Abbott was too far to the right. Gov. Abbott was expected to have an easy path toward re-election in a state that hasn’t put a Democrat in the governor’s office since Ann Richards, who served one term before losing to George W. Bush in 1994.

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What to expect from the Supreme Court this term

The nine justices of the Supreme Court open a new term Monday with a wide range of tough cases—and few friends. President Trump has renewed his periodic attacks on the justices’ integrity. Leading Democrats, eyeing the 2028 election, are embracing proposals to blunt the court’s conservative bent by adding more members. Among the public, the court’s approval rating is underwater. And there are signs of friction between the high court and the lower courts it supervises. Amid these tensions, the justices are venturing into cases at the front lines of politics and culture. In the coming months, they will take up climate change, gun control, the role of religion in public life and the rights of parents whose children are transgender. They also will resolve the legality of two core pieces of Trump’s deportation agenda.

The high court’s previous term revolved around Trump-related fights. The justices struck down the president’s global tariffs and his bid to end birthright citizenship, drawing ire from Trump even as the court used temporary emergency rulings to greenlight many of his other policies. So far, this term centers more on the sorts of traditional culture-war schisms that have defined the court’s shift to the right over the past two decades. Opening day starts with a bang. On Monday, the justices—minus Samuel Alito, who has recused—will consider whether local governments can sue oil companies for damages to their communities allegedly caused by climate change. Dozens of such lawsuits are percolating around the country, threatening the energy industry with billions of dollars in potential liability. The court in November and December will hear arguments on guns, religion and transgender minors. One case tests whether states and localities can ban AR-15s and similar semiautomatic guns—or whether the Second Amendment gives people the right to own a weapon that the challengers describe as “the paradigmatic American rifle.” Another case asks whether Colorado can withhold public money from religious preschools that don’t agree to accept children from LGBTQ households. A third case is about when parents have legal standing to challenge a state law that protects the ability of transgender children to access gender-affirming care.

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Republicans and Democrats find a unifying target: Pharmacy benefit managers

Amye Joseph says America's political polarization has made it an "interesting time" in her Tennessee household. She and her husband, Charlie, have been married for 35 years. She's a Republican. He's a Democrat. But their shared disenchantment with profit-driven healthcare has provided a unifying target: pharmacy benefit managers, known as PBMs. The Josephs' frustration is focused on CVS Health. The conglomerate, which reported $400 billion in revenue last year, includes a major health insurer (Aetna), one of the country's dominant PBMs (CVS Caremark), and America's largest retail pharmacy chain (CVS Pharmacy). "We hate CVS. I'm going to be straight-up," Amye Joseph said. She laments the lack of face-to-face interaction with pharmacists, prices that seem to rise without explanation, and pressure from the couple's CVS Caremark drug plan to use CVS stores instead of their local pharmacy.

"They're not even a middleman," she said. "They're a money grab for CVS." PBMs were conceived as a way to manage prescriptions and hold down costs. But these middlemen have become bipartisan punching bags, accused of sucking up profits at the expense of employers, governments, and patients. And while healthcare debates still divide Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., taking on PBMs has become a unifying cause in an era of widespread frustration over rising healthcare costs. In recent years, every state has imposed restrictions on PBMs. The Josephs' home state of Tennessee, where the GOP has a lock on state government, is among a growing number looking to outlaw companies that own PBMs from also owning brick-and-mortar pharmacies, as CVS does. That's aligned conservative, business-friendly Republicans with Democrats, who are traditionally more open to government regulation. This legislative push reflects a feeling even in the GOP that the market for prescription drugs is being gamed, said Antonio Ciaccia, CEO of 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit think tank that tracks drug pricing. "Republicans are looking at this issue, saying, We know what competition is supposed to do, and it isn't happening," said Ciaccia, a critic of the PBM industry. "This is not a free market."

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State Stories

Data centers promise big financial returns. Should that outweigh other determining factors?

To Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, the debate over data centers starts with the boom in capital investment and property tax revenue the developments promise to the state. Creating regulatory guardrails on issues such as water usage and power are necessary but shouldn’t risk the potential return, Christian told the Fort Worth Report after appearing on a data centers panel Sept. 26 at the Texas Tribune’s annual TribFest conference in Austin. “I think you can learn from previous problems from data centers that have shown problems in the past,” said Christian, who doesn’t regulate data centers but has increasingly spoken on related questions about natural resources. “And what you do as an educated public is you fix the problems, you regulate to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But you don’t stop and turn down billions, billions of free market dollars.”

Data centers — and their massive potential economic return — have careened into the intersection of the free market and community concerns about their environmental impact. The Texas Legislature is set to take up the debate over regulation in the 2027 session. The accompanying statistics highlight the choices and problems data center developers and operators face. Demand nationally for development of data centers — the buildings that house the digital infrastructure necessary for processing daily transactions worldwide for everything from paying water bills to buying airline tickets — is surging, according to research by the JLL commercial real estate firm. Seventy-nine percent of Americans support U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence, but only 14 percent support “data centers in our community,” according to research by JLL, Gallup and Reuters published by JLL in August. JLL declined a request by the Report for an interview for this story. Communities are experiencing the conundrum. In Fort Worth, property tax revenue makes up about 60% of the city’s general fund budget, which pays for most basic city services. But residential revenue — 63% of the tax base, compared to commercial — has turned soft in recent years because of protests and litigation, plus the Tarrant Appraisal District’s policy of reappraising every two years. Fort Worth struggled to close a $94 million budget shortfall for 2027 as a result.

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As prediction markets spread in Texas, therapists warn about gambling addictions

Jessica Steinman fell hard for a gambling addict. They met when the Austin woman had just moved to Los Angeles in June 2011. She passed him her phone number while dining at a 24-hour restaurant where he had worked as a host. He called her the next day. Their relationship progressed quickly. He moved in. She covered the rent, his daughter’s preschool, vacations, dinners and other expenses. He spent his money on sports betting and at the local casino — entire paychecks. After three years of trying to “fix him,” she finally ended it. He had borrowed roughly $85,000 from her, she said, money that he never paid back.

Today, Steinman is an addiction therapist who moved to Austin in August to help serve the growing Texas population of people — like her ex-partner — harmed by gambling. Texas has become a target of sorts for those who see the state as woefully unprepared to handle the explosion of online betting. “I would argue that we have the most demand in Texas,’’ said Sam DeMello, a recovering gambling addict and Boston tech entrepreneur. DeMello launched a digital gambling support platform that has doubled its number of users over the last six months. Hundreds live in Texas — and primarily North Texas. Problem gambling has been traditionally dismissed as an issue that can be fixed by willpower and moral conviction. A growing number of clinicians such as Steinman are raising concerns that excessive gambling can be more lethal and difficult to overcome than more well-researched addictions such as substance abuse or alcoholism. In young people, gambling disorders can create a dangerous rewiring of the brain, experts say, that is impossible to reverse without targeted support. And no matter the age, the disorder reports the highest rate of suicide attempts resulting in death among all addictions, experts say. What’s most troubling is that Texas, unlike more than a dozen other states, contributes no state money for prevention or addiction services, addiction experts say. The federal government spends billions annually on substance use. It dedicates no money to addressing gambling addiction.

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East Texas Water Institute launched

The future of East Texas’ water resources is promising with the Sept. 24 launch of the East Texas Water Institute (ETWI), a new regional initiative designed to expand the information, expertise and partnerships available to communities as they plan for generations to come. The initiative is a joint effort of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, Stephen F. Austin State University and Angelina College. “Water is our greatest resource. It’s a throughline connecting nearly every part of East Texas’ future – our health, economy, land and communities,” Charlie Glover, president and CEO of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, said. “A thriving East Texas for all will depend on how well we work together to steward this resource, strengthen regional capacity and ensure communities have the tools and partnerships needed to plan for the future.

“This won’t be an ivory tower on a hill, but a base camp in the pines, a resource now and for the future,” Glover said. The T.L.L. Temple Foundation is endowing the institute’s executive director position, making a long-term investment in the leadership and capacity needed to sustain the Institute’s work across East Texas. Dr. Drew Gholson was appointed as associate vice president and executive director of the Institute. He most recently served as an associate professor and director of the National Center for Alluvial Aquifer Research at Mississippi State University. Gholson brings a wealth of credentials and experience to the table. He holds a bachelor of science degree in rangeland ecology and management, a master of science degree in water management and hydrological science, and a doctorate in soil science. Having been raised on a cow/calf operation in Iowa Park, Texas, Gholson said he grew up knowing the importance of water.

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East Texas town hall meeting held to prepare for legislative session

A little over a hundred people attended a Sept. 25 town hall meeting to discuss subdivision and industrial high-load development in rural Polk County and throughout East Texas. State legislators, legislative candidates, real estate professionals, property owners’ association leaders, volunteer fire chiefs, first responders and other community stakeholders were invited to the town hall meeting because each group sees a different part of the issue. The purpose of the meeting was to bring those perspectives together, explain plainly what current Texas law allows and does not allow counties to do, discuss how those limitations affect rural communities, and identify practical changes that will support responsible growth while protecting property owners and taxpayers.

“Many roads across the county were built before state law granted counties the authority to enforce minimum engineering standards. When Tropical Storm Edouard brought heavy flooding, these older roads, never constructed to withstand such conditions, were severely damaged or destroyed outright. Because they are privately owned and not part of the county-maintained road system, the county cannot lawfully use taxpayer funds to repair them,” County Judge Sydney Murphy said. “The result is that residents can be left without dependable access to their homes, and school buses, emergency medical services, fire departments, and other first responders may have difficulty reaching them. Recent legislative changes have further eroded the authority counties rely on to oversee new subdivisions. Stripping away local enforcement will only invite more substandard development, repeating the very mistakes that created this problem in the first place,” Murphy said. “We cannot use taxpayer funds on private roads. It creates an access problem because when the roads aren’t built to specs, the access gets worse. In Polk County, the problem that is created is people cannot get in and out during emergency management situations,” she said, as she recounted a situation in which first responders had to haul a patient on a stretcher between to four-wheelers because the ambulance could not get down the road.

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David French: The ‘God Gap’ is narrowing in Texas

Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, a 16,000-member congregation, stepped to the microphone at the Republican Party’s midterm convention last month and issued what sounded like a declaration of a religious cold war: “The beliefs of James Talarico are certainly wrong. But they’re more than wrong. The beliefs of James Talarico are blasphemous. They are evil, and they are not beliefs that any true Christian could support. Ever.” Talarico is running for Senate in Texas, and he has a chance to be the first Democrat to win a Senate election in the state since Lloyd Bentsen defeated a Republican congressman named Beau Boulter in 1988. Republicans are worried, and as a consequence their rhetoric is getting wilder and wilder. According to Talarico’s critics, he’s a heretic. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing who will lead God’s people astray. President Trump calls him “Talafreako,” and he’s apparently so dangerous to Republicans that, as The Wall Street Journal reported last month, right-wing podcasts are mentioning Trump less and less while attacking Talarico more and more.

He’s young, he’s polished and he is, heaven forbid, a seminarian (on leave from his studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary). Talarico is running one of the most faith-forward campaigns in the country, along with other Democratic candidates like Adam Hamilton in Kansas (a pastor running for senator) and Rob Sand in Iowa (running for governor). Democrats have run a version of this playbook before. The Rev. Raphael Warnock has prevailed in two Senate elections in Georgia, winning a partial term in a 2021 runoff against Kelly Loeffler and then a full term in 2022, against a MAGA favorite, Herschel Walker. Democrats nationwide are trying to close the “God gap” that has been the Republican Party’s not-so-secret weapon since the 1970s and the advent of Ronald Reagan. Talarico’s Christian faith, though, is more liberal than the Christian faith of many Republicans. It’s more liberal than mine (which isn’t hard). But for many fundamentalists, Talarico’s theology makes him the wrong kind of Christian. And to some, no Christian at all. His opponent is Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, whose wife is divorcing him for infidelity and who was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House of Representatives for misconduct that included bribery, obstruction of justice and disregard of official duties. (The Texas Senate acquitted him.) Trump calls him “the greatest attorney general in the United States of America.”

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Amazon clears first water hurdle for $10B data center near Houston. Bigger obstacles remain.

Amazon’s plans to build a nearly 3,000-acre data center campus in Wharton County cleared a key hurdle recently when regulators approved groundwater permits needed for parts of the $10 billion project outside of Houston. The permits, which were hotly contested by Wharton County residents, would allow Amazon to tap into millions of gallons of groundwater a year for its office buildings and fire protection at the data center campus. The Coastal Bend Groundwater Conservation District issued the permits Sept. 8. The permits don’t include the millions of gallons in surface water Amazon is expected to need to cool the campus’ data center buildings, which could span more than 1.9 million square feet. Water is a central flashpoint in the national debate over the new wave of data centers powering artificial intelligence.

Heat-generating computer equipment in the facilities often require an enormous amount of water, electricity, or both, for cooling. As public criticism of data centers mounts, Gov. Greg Abbott has said that the facilities must reuse their own water and that companies could face criminal penalties for failing to disclose their water use. On Sept. 21, Abbott told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to pause issuing permits for data centers until state agencies complete ongoing audits of the facilities. Amazon has said it would comply with Abbott’s water requests, disclose how much water it uses and avoid using groundwater to cool the data centers. The tech giant has also pledged to use technology to minimize its water use and fund regional water replenishment programs. Facing public pressure, the company has launched efforts to reach out to residents in the Boling area, which is located about an hour from downtown Houston. It has doubled the number of full-time positions the project is expected to create to 300 and established a Wharton County Community Fund with an initial donation of $200,000 that could support STEM education, veteran programs, housing and other local initiatives. It has held public events for Boling-area residents to answer questions about the campus.

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Ryan Alter’s Prop Q push, governing approach shape District 5 race

Last fall, Council Member Ryan Alter made an urgent case for Proposition Q. The former Capitol staffer and Harvard Law graduate argued the city needed the measure’s money to sustain services and help vulnerable residents. Prop Q would have raised Austin’s property tax rate by more than 20%, adding about $300 a year to the average homeowner’s city tax bill, to generate roughly $110 million for homelessness programs, parks, public health, public safety and other city expenses as Austin faced a historic budget shortfall. Voters resoundingly rejected the measure, with about two-thirds voting against it. Afterward, Alter said he had fought for Prop Q because it “wasn’t just a policy debate; it was a lifeline for many in our community,” warning that residents could fall behind or into homelessness without resources to help them.

Nearly a year later, Alter is asking District 5 voters to reelect him to a second term. He faces three challengers: David Weinberg, an environmental and voting-rights advocate who led the Texas League of Conservation Voters for six years; Liz Brink, a union electrician; and former reality TV star Farrah Abraham. Brian Smith, a political science professor at St. Edward’s University, said Weinberg is Alter’s most serious challenger and that they share similar progressive ideologies. One of their biggest differences appears to be over the best way to approach policies like Prop Q. Weinberg says polling and regular outreach should guide major decisions, and while Alter acknowledges that he misread residents’ financial strain and says he is not looking to raise taxes again, he also contends that elected officials must sometimes take unpopular steps to make progress. Brink, a fiscal conservative, said she wouldn’t have supported Prop Q. “The taxpayers of Austin should not be thought of as ATMs,” she said.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Morgan Meyer in the race for Texas House District 108

State House District 108 contains some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Texas, including the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, Bluffview and parts of Uptown and East Dallas. Southern Methodist University sits inside it, as does NorthPark Center and the urban oasis of Turtle Creek. Morgan Meyer has represented the district since 2015. He has been an effective lawmaker, able to parse the intricacies of property tax proposals and public education funding — and to listen sympathetically as parents testified about losing their young daughters during last year’s flash flood tragedy at Camp Mystic. He has earned another term in office. Meyer, a Republican, has lived in the district for almost three decades. He received his undergraduate degree from SMU and his law degree from Washington and Lee University. He leads the House Ways and Means Committee, a powerful committee that has jurisdiction over bills concerning local and state taxes and property tax appraisals.

Texas homeowners may not know his name, but Meyer is one of the legislators they should thank for significantly cutting their property tax bills. While the House and Senate have often taken different approaches to lowering homeowners’ taxes, members of both chambers have agreed to raise the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $140,000 since early 2023. Lawmakers boosted the exemption for disabled homeowners and those age 65 and older to $60,000. The state increased its share of public school funding to help offset the revenue lost by local school districts. Meyer also led the successful effort to significantly increase the exemption for business personal property tax, which is a tax paid on the value of a company’s inventory and equipment. His challenger is Democrat Allison Mitchell, an entrepreneur who grew up in the district. As the mother of a child with developmental disabilities, she said her priority is ensuring that the state adequately funds public schools. She strongly opposes the new educational voucher program. Mitchell is smart and clearly capable of leadership, but she does not match Meyer in this race. Here are some other reasons we recommend Meyer: He strongly denounced the overtly racist rhetoric of Bo French, the GOP candidate for Texas Railroad Commission. His campaigns are positive and focus on relevant issues. He is not given to grandstanding. He rejects the idea that every bill must reflect a partisan viewpoint. That’s worth cheering in this day and age.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Angie Chen Button in the race for Texas House District 112

House District 112 voters have a choice between two thoughtful candidates who clearly care about serving their communities. We were impressed by Democratic challenger Zach Herbert, a Marine Corps veteran and attorney who is qualified for the job, but ultimately Republican incumbent Angie Chen Button has earned another term. Button, 72, has represented the district that includes northern Dallas, Richardson, Garland, Sachse and other cities since 2009. She brings valuable leadership experience and has long been one of the Legislature’s most pragmatic Republicans. An immigrant who arrived in the United States from Taiwan, she attended the University of Texas at Dallas and served on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board before assuming her seat in the Legislature.

Button’s story represents the best of an immigrant achieving the American dream — the kind of story GOP leaders used to celebrate before the party began embracing rhetoric against immigration, even the legal kind. Article continues below this ad Button chairs the House Trade, Workforce and Economic Development Committee and is a senior member of the Ways & Means Committee. She has focused on affordability, backing tax relief for individuals and businesses while also ensuring Texas remains economically competitive. We wish Button would be more willing to take firmer positions. Some of our questions were met with assurances that the Legislature was “looking into” an issue or that there was a process underway, rather than a clear statement of what she would suggest moving forward. Voters deserve direct answers, particularly from experienced incumbents. But Button deserves credit for demonstrating some degree of independence that is increasingly uncommon within today’s Republican Party. She voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2023 and drew three primary challengers this year, all running to her right. And at the end of our interview, she said she would not vote for her party’s nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, Bo French. French made comments on social media last month attacking the racial diversity of University of Texas football fans celebrating after the team’s win against Ohio State.

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San Antonio Express-News Editorial: No Recommendation for agriculture commissioner, but at least Sid Miller is done

Weeks before early voting begins, the closing argument for the two major party candidates for agricultural commissioner is that the other one fails to meet the literal qualifications for the job. Democrat Clayton Tucker, a rancher, progressive activist and secretary of the Texas Farmers Union, is asking state GOP leadership to declare Republican Nate Sheets ineligible for the election because he lacks the qualifications outlined in the Texas Agricultural Code. The campaign for Sheets, founder of Nature Nate’s Honey, the bestselling branded honey in the nation, countered by alleging that it’s Tucker who is all hat and no cattle. Still, when it comes to important issues such as ensuring food safety by removing pesticides and chemical products, seeing that children have access to nutritious and filling meals, and opposing farm monopolies, the candidates are fairly similar.

In our interviews, both approached the office with seriousness. Either would be an upgrade to the incumbent, Sid Miller. We were impressed with Sheets' knowledge of how to eradicate the new world screwworm fly, his ideas for addressing concerns about data centers through dividends and water recycling, and his passion for limiting pesticides in the food chain. We would have recommended him, but we were disappointed with his answer to our question about a racist social media post by Bo French, the Republican candidate for railroad commissioner. The infamous post targeted minority University of Texas students celebrating at a football game. “I think he chose a poor way to express a sentiment that a lot of people have and are frustrated with the results of our H-1B immigration policy here in Texas,” Sheets said, before adding he didn’t agree with French and conveyed that to him in a private text message We believe him, but we wish that answer had been stronger. We also think it’s weak and naive for Tucker to ask the opposition party to disqualify its nominee. Beyond this, Tucker's policy ideas are mushy. His call for a two-year moratorium on data centers is unrealistic. His support of a toxic bait system to combat screwworm is antiquated. After multiple discussions, our opinion team remains split on this race and can offer no recommendation. At least both candidates are better than Miller.

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Save Dallas City Hall group launches 60-day petition process for charter amendment election

The Save Dallas City Hall Coalition officially has filed notice to launch a citywide petition drive that, if successful, would add a proposed charter amendment to the May 2027 ballot. That charter amendment would designate the I.M Pei-designed building as the seat of city government, unless otherwise decided by the voters. The notice was filed Friday morning That started the clock to get around 20,000 signatures from registered Dallas voters within 60 days. “People are tired of backroom deals and misplaced priorities,” Chris Bowers, Save Dallas City Hall Coalition attorney, said in a statement. “They want City Hall focused on the things that truly matter to their families and neighborhoods, like stronger police and fire services, safer parks, better roads, and a prosperous economy that creates opportunity across our city.”

Bowers added that the petition gives Dallas residents a way to “stand up, get involved and make their voices heard.” The coalition said in a press release that petition-signing events will begin immediately, with volunteers collecting signatures throughout Dallas starting Friday. The petition drive launched a year after the city council was first told that the building had millions of dollars in deferred maintenance and staff proposed relocating City Hall elsewhere in downtown. That briefing sparked strong debate in later months on whether the city should stay and repair the building or move elsewhere and use the land at 1500 Marilla Street for economic development opportunities. That debate sparked the creation of the Save Dallas City Hall Coalition, which has grown from a grassroots effort to an organized 501(c)(4) nonprofit that issued a number of legal notices to the city prior to filing a lawsuit last month. The group is made up of residents, neighborhood and business leaders, preservation advocates, architects, current and former elected officials, and other community stakeholders. The group has attracted support from community leaders like former Dallas mayor Laura Miller, Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia, attorney Ben Abbott, and Pei’s daughter Liane Pei. Liane Pei spoke during the coalition’s press conference outside of City Hall last week. “My father loved Dallas,” she said at the press conference. “He designed the City Hall and its plaza not for private interests, but for you, the people of Dallas, to conduct business, gather, celebrate, mourn, raise your collective voice in civic protest, and simply be together. It is your house.”

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As anti-Hindu rhetoric grows, Texas Hindus rethink public celebrations

For close to 15 years, Seema Ashar has hosted a celebration for Ganesh Chaturthi, a Hindu festival celebrating its namesake deity, inviting about 100 friends into her Irving, Texas, home. “It’s a very good thing to bring Lord Ganesh to your house, it gives you a lot of positive, strong vibes,” said Ashar, who has lived in Texas since 2003. Hindus around the world celebrate the god known for removing obstacles in their homes, neighborhoods and temples every August or September. But for some in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, this year’s celebrations felt different. In recent months, a wave of anti-Hindu and anti-Indian sentiment has swept across Texas. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, home to the second-largest Indian American community in the United States, has emerged as one of the major flashpoints, with much of the backlash targeting immigrants. The climate caused some local Indian Americans to call on others to celebrate Ganesh more discreetly out of fear of attracting unwanted attention.

Others said that as celebrations have become increasingly large and loud amid the influx of immigrants, concerns about disturbing neighbors were valid. Ashar grew up in Coimbatore in southern India, where she saw a statue of Ganesh on “every street corner” for holidays. At her celebration last week, visitors gently swayed, chanting shlokas, or devotional hymns, while the rhythmic thudding of the tabla, or drums, enveloped her home. Along the walls, handmade lotus flowers made of purple and pink construction paper decorated a shrine for an idol of Ganesh. However, Ashar said as some celebrations have become more public, with some Hindu immigrants having parties in the streets, she was concerned about noise. “I enjoy all these events,” Ashar said. “I enjoy celebrating your culture, religion, whatever your faith is, but everything has a limit. You cannot disturb other people, and it’s getting wilder and wilder every year. You have to respect everybody around you.” The area has experienced a surge in immigration from India in recent years, attributed to the state’s booming technology and health care sectors. Today, about 270,000 Indian Americans live in the area, according to Pew Research Center. The majority of the community’s growth is concentrated in Frisco, Allen and Plano, which has sparked fierce debate in local city councils over the increasing number of temples, supermarkets and salons catering to the immigrant community.

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National Stories

The US said China was priming a trade superweapon. Then it vanished.

Four years ago, the United States warned that China was poised to unleash a trade superweapon: a state-backed digital dragnet that would rapidly expand across the globe and give Beijing unprecedented insight into the flow of international cargo. The LOGINK platform promised to streamline global shipping by providing a digital system to exchange logistics data from customs authorities, ports and third-party transport services, replacing paper processes. Instead, the venture suffered a stunning reversal, reported here ?for the first time. Its flagship global partnerships have stalled, it dropped out of an international maritime association, and it has become mired in domestic lawsuits over unpaid bills, according to interviews with more than 20 shipping industry insiders and officials, as well as a Reuters review of legal ?filings.

When a reporter visited LOGINK’s operations hub in the coastal city of Wenzhou in September, the offices appeared abandoned: lights off, reception bare, computer cabling stripped out. Calls and emails to LOGINK went unanswered. China’s transport ministry declined to answer questions. The ministry in June, however, issued a policy document calling for the system to be connected to more domestic data streams. LOGINK's international retreat is a setback for Beijing, which has been engaged in a battle with Washington to control the physical infrastructure and technologies underpinning global shipping, a sector that carries 80% of world trade. The platform's decline will be welcomed by the US, which contributed to LOGINK's reversal in fortunes by "naming and shaming" those who used the system, said Randall Schriver, chair of a US Congress commission that issued a report on LOGINK in 2022. Reuters could not establish ?why the platform championed by China’s cabinet as a “key project” abruptly went dark and spiraled into financial and legal troubles. The timing of its retreat, however, coincided with US efforts to pressure allies and organizations that had made tentative steps to collaborate with LOGINK as it pushed for global expansion.

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AI is supercharging political ad wars. But viral doesn’t mean victorious

Artificial intelligence is dramatically lowering the cost of political advertising, allowing campaigns to churn out attack ads, memes and other targeted messages at a pace that would have been prohibitively expensive just a few years ago. In the political ad wars, campaign operatives can now use generative AI to produce in minutes or hours what once required days by a team of writers, voice talent, video shoots and production teams. The shift is turning political creative from an expensive campaign asset into something much more affordable and closer to disposable content, potentially giving candidates and outside groups the ability to flood voters with more messages.

While the exact number is difficult to identify, the ad-tracking firm AdImpact had identified 29 campaign ads in federal and gubernatorial contests that disclosed using AI content, as of two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Wesleyan Media Project, which also counted ads that did not make AI disclosures, has identified at least 164 AI-influenced ads this cycle. But the jury is still out on whether the use of AI for campaign messaging can help produce the ultimate objective: an election victory. "It certainly allows you to produce more content in varying styles and more cost effective," veteran Republican consultant Jesse Hunt told Fox News Digital, as he pointed to the creative and economic appeals of using AI in political advertising. Democratic strategist Chris Moyer said that "AI gives campaigns more tools for less cost. So there is a democratizing of the tools that campaigns used to have to spend valuable resources on....You can get access to things with a smaller budget." Will Ritter, a longtime Republican ad maker and media and political strategist, told Fox News Digital that the creative advertising and political strategy agency he co-founded, Poolhouse, "went from last cycle doing basically doing nothing with AI to most of our ads now have some AI component."

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Soldiers and families press Army leaders after deadly Iranian drone strike

On a sunny, cloudless morning on March 1, the day after President Donald Trump started the war against Iran, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan was coordinating critical Army supplies out of Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. In an instant, a drone crashed through the ceiling and exploded, killing Marzan, who had served in the military for 36 years. The force flung soldiers into the air, fragments of sheet metal and glass shards impaling them. The tin roof was peeled back “like opening up a sardine can,” one soldier recalled. Six soldiers were killed and dozens were injured in the deadliest known strike on U.S. troops since Operation Epic Fury commenced on Feb. 28. For many, the attack at Port Shuaiba has receded into memory as the war nears its eighth month. But to those there that day and their families, it showed the cost of a hastily drawn conflict. The planning had apparent flaws, and commanders did not take intelligence reports of the Iranian threat seriously enough, leaving wounded soldiers questioning Army leadership and the military medical system.

That warning went unheeded, the soldiers say. Some also said higher-ranking officers pushed for an all-clear to be called, but it’s not certain from their accounts who ultimately made the decision to move soldiers out of a safer space in nearby bunkers. The wounded also would later say their serious injuries were not treated promptly or adequately in the weeks following the attack. “We have the right to know what really happened,” Marzan’s widow, Tina Marzan, told the AP. “If somebody messed up, those people need to be held responsible.” Battlefield conditions are inherently chaotic and assessments drawn by those involved are often in tension. The AP’s account of the attack is based on interviews with 13 soldiers, primarily officers, serving in key positions of responsibility there or familiar with high-level briefings leading up to the strike. Along with several Gold Star families — the military’s designation for relatives of a soldier killed while on active duty — many are raising their concerns publicly for the first time and calling for the Army to reconcile what they say are failures of preparedness.

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Family of Epstein victim appears in ad targeting Republican

A Democrat running for Congress in a competitive Colorado district released an ad on Monday that features the family of Virginia Giuffre, one of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victims. The ad is squarely pointed at Representative Jeff Crank, criticizing him for blocking the release of federal files related to Mr. Epstein and accusing him of refusing to meet with Ms. Giuffre’s relatives. “Jeff Crank covered up Epstein’s crimes to protect Donald Trump,” says Sky Roberts, the brother of Ms. Giuffre, who died by suicide last year. “He has no business being in Congress.” Mr. Roberts and his wife, Amanda, who is also featured in the spot, are constituents of Mr. Crank, a Republican who is facing a tough re-election race against Jessica Killin, an Army veteran and former congressional aide to Democratic lawmakers.

Mr. Epstein and his crimes have emerged as a major issue in this year’s midterm races, as candidates across the country hammer their opponents over their positions on releasing the files and their ties to donors and supporters associated with him. A New York Times analysis identified at least 35 congressional races with TV or digital ads that mentioned “Epstein” since January 2026. Many featured candidates running against what they called the “Epstein class.” But the ad in Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District is unique because it features testimony from family members of one of Mr. Epstein’s most well-known victims. Speaking directly to the camera, the couple say they have repeatedly asked to see Mr. Crank but were refused. The spot concludes with an image of their meeting with Ms. Killin. “When he had the chance to expose the truth and release the Epstein files, he repeatedly voted to cover them up,” Ms. Roberts says in the ad. Mr. Crank did not sign onto the bipartisan discharge petition that helped forced a vote on the release of the files, and he voted to block consideration of the Epstein Files Transparency Act on the House floor. In the final vote, however, Mr. Crank joined nearly every member of the House to approve the legislation.

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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded for discoveries in neuroscience

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries in neuroscience. The three scientists researched light-gated ion channels, a type of proteins, to establish the field of optogenetics, a pioneering technique that uses tiny lights to activate discrete groups of neurons in the brain, said Abdel El Manira, a member of the Nobel Committee that awarded the prize. The discovery has illuminated how specific circuits function in the brain and provides clues for the treatment of conditions such as blindness, depression, addiction and dementia.

Dr. Karl Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. He and a team developed tiny optical fibers that activated neurons in the brain and elicited specific behaviors for the first time, Professor El Manira said. Dr. Peter Hegemann is a professor of experimental biophysics at Humboldt University in Berlin. He discovered a protein that converts light into an electrical signal, Professor El Manira said. Dr. Georg Nagel is a professor of plant physiology at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. Alongside Dr. Hegemann, he discovered that the proteins contained a light-gated ion channel, which generates an electrical signal when exposed to light. Professor El Manira described it as “the switch” that allows neuroscientists to activate the protein. The discovery has enabled neuroscientists to link nerve cells in the brain to specific behaviors, said Anna Wedell a professor of clinical genetics at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and an adjunct member of the Nobel awarding committee. “Before, we had an anatomical map of the brain,” Professor Wedell said. “Now we can generate functional maps, and we can also understand how different cells speak to each other across the brain.” She described the discovery as heralding “a completely new dimension of understanding of the function of the brain.”

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21 states sue EPA to reinstate climate pollution rules for power plants

More than 20 states, including North Carolina, New York, California and Pennsylvania, as well as several cities, are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its repeal of most greenhouse gas emissions standards for coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. The agency’s proposal would also thwart future administrations from reinstating the rule. The state attorneys general, all of them Democrats, filed the lawsuit Oct. 1 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs are asking the court to review the proposed rescission. In a press release, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the coalition is arguing that the administration’s actions are “clearing the way for millions of additional tons of greenhouse gas emissions that will worsen extreme heat, deadly storms, flooding, and wildfires.” The coalition includes Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver and New York City.

The EPA told Inside Climate News it does not comment on pending litigation. “We applaud Attorney General Jackson’s leadership in protecting our air quality and safeguarding public health,” said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of the nonprofit CleanAIRE North Carolina, of North Carolina’s Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “Joining this lawsuit sends a clear message: North Carolina will not stand by while federal rollbacks force our families to pay higher costs at the pump for dirtier air. Our health should not be secondary to fossil fuel industry profits.” Duke Energy operates five coal-fired power plants in North Carolina and 17 fueled by natural gas. In announcing the proposed rule, the agency argued that it lacks the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the largest stationary sources of the pollutants. That’s not true, said John Broderick, an assistant attorney general in the New York Environmental Protection Bureau, during an Oct. 1 EPA public hearing on the proposed rule. The agency not only has the authority, Broderick said, it has a “statutory duty to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants.” He called the EPA’s move “a blatantly unlawful attempt to undermine the Clean Air Act.”

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Democrats are struggling to beat Susan Collins. You can (still) blame one man.

Democrats hoping to retake the U.S. Senate have been enjoying a run of good luck. With Election Day barely four weeks away, polls show the party’s candidates leading in North Carolina, Georgia, and even Texas. Michigan, which looked iffy after a divisive primary that pitted centrists against progressives, seems increasingly winnable. Political forecasters have shifted races in deep-red Kansas and South Carolina toward Democrats, too, even though both remain long shots. And Donald Trump’s approval ratings continue to sink, creating formidable headwinds for any candidate with an R next to their name. But then there’s Maine. In the Pine Tree State, Democratic former state Sen. Troy Jackson appears to be struggling in his bid to unseat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. A gold-standard poll last month found Collins leading Jackson by 3 points, triggering a mini-freakout among Democrats. Conducted by the New York Times and Siena University in partnership with the local Portland Press Herald newspaper, the survey was notably worse for Jackson than others taken before and since.

But polls generally show a close race, a major letdown in a state that went for Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024 and where the Democrat running for governor this year remains comfortably ahead. Collins is the only Republican senator up for reelection in a state that Harris won. That means a Jackson loss would hugely complicate Democrats’ path to reclaiming the Senate, forcing the party to bank on winning far more conservative states. So what’s going on? Some blame Jackson’s lack of charisma and mealymouthed speaking style. Others say consultants have transformed his campaign into a Washington-run effort ill-suited to a political moment that favors outsiders. Still others point out that Collins has repeatedly managed to get reelected, Maine’s blue-state status be damned. And some think the Times/Siena/Press Herald poll may be off, making things look more dire for Jackson than they really are. Yet if Jackson really is losing, it could also be because there’s a specter haunting his candidacy like something out of Stephen King. That specter is Graham Platner, Democrats’ original Senate nominee in Maine, whose gravel-voiced populist rhetoric caused national donors, progressive pundits, and 156,000 primary voters to swoon. Despite weathering a series of scandals—including revelations that he’d spouted offensive views on Reddit, gotten a Nazi tattoo as a drunken Marine, received significant financial support from his well-heeled father, and cheated on his wife shortly into their marriage—Platner was forced to drop out in July after an ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual assault. (He denies the allegations.) Those scandals left Maine Democrats with little choice but to replace Platner on the ballot. After holding meetings around the state at which voters nominated delegates, the party overwhelmingly picked Jackson at a statewide convention in late July.

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Lead Stories

Governor’s race: Hinojosa demands stations pull Abbott attack ad over tax votes

Gina Hinojosa is trying to knock one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s attack ads off Texas television, accusing his campaign of falsely claiming she voted 40 times to raise taxes. The Democratic candidate for governor sent cease-and-desist letters this week to stations airing the spot, demanding they stop running it and retract or correct its claims. Hinojosa’s attorneys said in the letter that the ad damages her reputation by falsely telling voters she repeatedly voted to raise taxes and that Abbott’s campaign is liable for defamation. It was unclear which stations received the letter. Abbott’s campaign has spent $12 million to air the ad across the state. Hinojosa campaign spokesman Tommy Kubitschek said Abbott should defend his record and the ad on a debate stage. “Instead, he’s lying to Texans, plain and simple.”

Abbott campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said Hinojosa’s actions were a “desperate use of lawfare to pull ads that expose her horrendous voting record on property taxes.” “Texas voters need to understand – Gina wants to raise your taxes. Period,” Frazier said. Abbott's legal team also sent letters to TV stations stating that Hinojosa mischaracterized the law and that the ad was based on her legislative record. The political spot accused Hinojosa of voting 40 times to increase taxes in the Legislature. But many of the votes were against bills designed to limit how quickly local property tax revenue could grow. For instance, 11 were procedural votes against a 2019 bill that reduced the pace that property tax rates increase by limiting how much local governments can collect in revenue. None of the votes directly raised property taxes. The Legislature does not levy property taxes – cities, counties, school districts and other local taxing entities do. Abbott has said that himself in a different ad he ran last month. “The state of Texas does not impose the property tax. Only local governments impose property taxes,” he said.

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The price tag on the Ken Paxton rescue mission has Republicans panicking

Republicans know they have to spend big to save Ken Paxton. They’re increasingly worried MAGA Inc. won’t throw down in time. In private conversations over recent weeks, senior Hill Republicans and GOP officials have nudged President Donald Trump’s team to start spending more on the Texas Senate race before it’s too late, according to three people with direct knowledge of those conversations, who were granted anonymity to discuss them. Those fears escalated after audio leaked of Paxton privately trashing Trump’s midterm convention, with some worrying it could impact whether MAGA Inc. continues spending after a current wave of GOP ad bookings run out Oct. 12. A Trump operative told POLITICO that MAGA Inc. and its affiliates are expected to spend near $45 million on direct mail, TV, and digital advertising in Texas through Oct. 12, an increase from its previous $20 million to boost Paxton. But they said the team is still assessing how much more money to send in the final weeks, in consultation with Senate Republicans and their top super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund.

The Trump operative, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly, would not commit to any plans when asked by POLITICO. With national Democrats starting to finally spend for their Senate nominee, James Talarico, after months of holding off, and as polling of the race tightens, Republicans expect the cost of salvaging Paxton’s campaign will only skyrocket. And, they’ve started to panic. “It’s a five-alarm fire, no doubt,” one GOP senator said. “Can we put it out? I hope so.” “This is a slow-moving car crash that we’re witnessing right now,” a Republican strategist in the state said. “And there’s a 75% chance that the ultimate result here will be catastrophic from a GOP Senate majority standpoint.” A fourth Republican, a national operative, spoke to the urgency factor: “While it’s money we shouldn’t have needed to spend, it needs to be spent now,” said a national GOP operative, describing the state as more winnable than North Carolina, Georgia and potentially Ohio. Even with a massive war chest, Texas is turning into a huge money sink for the GOP that senators worry could hurt them in other tight races as they work to defend deep-red states and try to flip blue seats in Michigan and New Hampshire.

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Judge temporarily blocks border wall construction in Texas’ Big Bend region

A federal court in Texas on Friday issued a ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from building a border wall and other infrastructure across the state's Big Bend region, in a victory for opponents who have pushed back against what has long been a key campaign promise by President Donald Trump. Landowners, businesses and environmentalists in the region have united to oppose the planned infrastructure projects, which are part of a $46 billion effort by the Trump administration to line the southern border with a mix of 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers, roads and surveillance technology. The judge's ruling includes Big Bend National Park, which sits on a bend of the Rio Grande River, but also extends across the entire, roughly 500-mile-long Big Bend sector, which accounts for about a quarter of the roughly 2,000-mile-long southern border with Mexico.

Judge Kathleen Cardone said in her ruling that the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits of at least one of the claims in suit, that there is a likelihood that they will suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in their favor.” Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Opponents of the border wall project have argued that the Big Bend region of Texas is so remote and the landscape so rugged that it serves as its own deterrent to illegal immigration and that the administration violated the law when it issued a swath of waivers allowing it to bypass numerous regulations in order to speed up border wall infrastructure projects. The lawsuit brought by an environmental organization, advocates for a historic church in Ruidosa and a river guide argued that the Department of Homeland Security was wrong to bypass regulations meant to protect the environment, culture, and archeology of regions like the Big Bend area. Laiken Jordahl, with the Center of Biological Diversity that brought the suit, called Cardone’s ruling a “total victory.”

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How the shooting death of a Houston father is igniting Latino politics in Texas

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo woke before dawn on a hot Houston morning on July 7, as he did most days. He had lived in the U.S. for decades without legal status but was in the process of getting a work permit. He had no criminal record. He picked up workers in his white van and was driving to a jobsite when he was pursued by immigration agents in unmarked vehicles. An officer shot him, according to authorities, after they say he used his vehicle to ram them. It’s a story contradicted by witnesses in the van, but it’s one immigration authorities have told before in explaining how a traffic pursuit turned deadly. This time, though, the family wasn’t having it. Salgado Araujo’s eldest son stood before cameras and delivered an emotional testimonial to his father that went viral. “He was a hardworking family man who never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family,” Ronaldo Salgado said at a news conference days after his father’s shooting, as his brother held up a photo of their father.

Ronaldo Salgado stressed that the story of his dad ramming government vehicles could not be true. Their father had always taught his kids that if law enforcement attempted to pull them over, they were to pull off the road, hand over their license and registration and act respectfully. In the end, authorities admitted Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of the operation. In an interview with NBC News, Ronaldo Salgado said as immigration arrests became more prevalent in 2025, they talked to their father about the procedure if he had an encounter, including calling his family, and that they’d contact their attorneys. “Just remember, don’t sign anything. Call us,” Ronaldo Salgado said he told his father. Sitting at Las Perras Cafe in Houston, where a makeshift altar to his father sits in the corner, Ronaldo Salgado recited the names of those who had been killed by immigration officers, including Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Ruben Ray Martinez, saying the country is not now safe because of their deaths. “These are lives that are lost, and they need to be investigated, just like any other life lost. It needs to be investigated with the full cooperation of the agents involved and the agencies involved,” the son said.

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Federal judge rules warrantless Flock camera searches may violate 4th Amendment

An Oklahoma federal judge ruled Friday that warrantless searches using AI-powered surveillance camera data, such as what Flock Safety’s hallmark technology collects, may violate the Fourth Amendment without adequate probable cause. “Freedom from persistent, dragnet-style surveillance while in public is not a foreign concept in our society, and it is a reasonable expectation that society already accepts,” U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill wrote in her ruling. Hill, a former President Biden appointee, continued, “But it becomes constitutionally problematic when law enforcement can indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time and then use that information for any purpose whenever convenient.“ Flock offers a system of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which use recording devices to log plate numbers and identify what the company calls a “vehicle signature” — including a car’s make, model and other identifying features. The cameras do not collect the biometric data of a vehicle’s occupants.

The ruling concerned ALPRs’ role in a Tulsa County deputy sheriff’s traffic stop that resulted in a drug arrest. In this case, the deputy began following a driver after noticing she had an out-of-state license plate and ran her vehicle through an AI-powered camera database — allegedly before the officer had identified any traffic violation or other criminal activity The officer had access to both Flock and VehicleManager systems, according to the judge’s ruling, and his search turned up over 50 sightings of the woman’s vehicle across several states. The deputy sheriff eventually observed an infraction and pulled over the driver. The judge’s ruling does not label the use of Flock data to aid in arrests as illegal, rather, it clarifies that the officer in this case did not have probable cause to “intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy” with the technology — setting stricter precedent for when law enforcement may employ extensive ALPR databases during investigations. A spokesperson for Flock told The Hill, “The ruling goes against the overwhelming weight of authority in similar cases across the country, including multiple recent decisions in Oklahoma, and we expect it will be appealed and ultimately overturned.” “This ruling is limited to the specific facts of this case. It does not set controlling precedent and does not affect law enforcement agencies’ continued use of these important public safety technologies,” the spokesperson added. ALPR technology has faced bipartisan pushback. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made moves over the past two months to limit the technology’s use in their respective states. A growing number of municipalities have also ended contracts with Flock. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), similarly unveiled legislation that would both prohibit federal agencies from using the AI-powered surveillance technology and pause government grant funding toward local law enforcement agencies looking to contract with ALPR manufacturers. VehicleManager’s parent company, Motorola Solutions, did not respond immediately to The Hill’s request for comment.

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State Stories

Bob Stallman: Texas Farm Bureau endorsed Ken Paxton. Big mistake.

(Bob Stallman is a former president of both American Farm Bureau and Texas Farm Bureau.) In 2016, I finished a 16-year term as president of the American Farm Bureau — after six years as president of the Texas Farm Bureau and several more in other Farm Bureau roles. I also helped establish AGFUND, the bureau’s campaign arm. It endorses qualified candidates who will fight for farmers and ranchers. Ten years later, the Texas Farm Bureau endorsed Ken Paxton — someone who is neither qualified for the U.S. Senate nor a proven fighter for the agriculture industry. This shouldn’t have happened. There was a lot of discussion about endorsement criteria when AGFUND was created. We wanted to ensure that the final endorsement decision was left up to the AGFUND board of directors for a situation such as this one, potentially involving the organization’s reputation and integrity. The reputation of any organization with a PAC is closely tied to the individuals receiving the endorsement and financial support. In this case, Texas Farm Bureau’s reputation has been greatly diminished.

Ken Paxton has the morals of a lizard, and that is probably being unkind to lizards. He has proven to be corrupt. He has lied, cheated openly on his ex-wife and stolen. He should have been removed from office when the Texas House impeached him. Instead, a purely political play with no connection to the substance of his offenses allowed his actions to go unpunished. I have worked with members of Congress for many years. I’ve worked with plenty of Republicans who truly care about the agriculture industry. In my opinion, Paxton is not one of them, and he does not have the moral fitness to serve as a U.S. senator. When the Farm Bureau endorsed Paxton, they referenced the actions he supposedly took on behalf of Texas agriculture. The Bureau neglected to mention that Paxton has failed to publicly oppose a variety of policies that are actively harming farmers and ranchers, including the war in Iran and the import of foreign, unregulated beef into our state. If Ken Paxton really wanted to support Texas ranchers, then he should have told the president of the United States to stop his plan of importing 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef to be sold at a 25% discount. I know why Paxton didn’t: It’s because the president is bailing out Paxton’s Senate campaign. Trump’s PAC, MAGA Inc., is putting more than $10 million into the effort because Paxton can’t raise his own money.

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Voters sue Tarrant County, allege poll site cut discriminates against minorities

Four Tarrant County voters of color allege the decision to cut 92 polling sites for the Nov. 3 midterm election disenfranchises voters, violates election code and “intentionally treats Black and Hispanic voters unequally.” Plaintiffs Deborah Peoples, outside of her capacity as a Fort Worth council member, Maryellen Hicks, Kathleen Hicks and Camille Rodriguez are suing Tarrant County, the elections administrator and the Republican members of the commissioners court. On Sept. 1, county commissioners approved a 29% cut to the Election Day polling location list from the 2022 election to the 2026 election. The three Republican members — County Judge Tim O’Hare and Commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez — were in favor of the cut. Democrat Commissioners Roderick Miles and Alisa Simmons opposed it.

Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig told the commissioners court that his office reached out to the 479 locations that held voting in 2022 and 2024. Only 269 sites were able and willing to host voting again this election, but the list was unequal across the county precincts, criteria created by a 2019 citizen advisory committee. Ludwig also said he adjusted the list to ensure there were not any two locations too close together, which was requested by O’Hare and Krause. There were about 105 public commenters who agreed with Miles and Simmons’ objections to the cuts. Ten public commenters agreed with the Republicans on the dais. The lawsuit, filed Friday morning in the Tarrant County District Court, requests an expedited hearing, a temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction. It also demands that 92 polling locations be restored. Nick Maddux, O’Hare’s campaign strategist, pointed out that the commissioners court a month earlier had unilaterally rejected a larger proposed cut to the polling locations list saying it was too drastic. They requested more voting sites be added to give voters “ample ability” to cast a ballot, which Maddux said was achieved with the approved list. “This is a clear political stunt by failing far left Democrats who want to sow chaos and baseless lies into our community,” he said of the lawsuit. There are 32 days until Election Day. Early voting begins Oct. 19 and ends Oct. 30.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Mary Ann Perez for Texas House 144. She’s not a drunk idiot.

Last year, at a barbecue restaurant in Cypress, Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to turn Harris “dark red” in the 2026 midterm elections. Pretty much every Joe Schmo running got an Abbott endorsement. David Flores, the Republican running for Texas House District 144, managed to clear that low bar — even though he’s such an unserious candidate that in October, his campaign website still says “Coming Soon.” But apparently, Abbott does have some standards: On October 1, the governor actually pulled his endorsement after dashcam footage of Flores’ arrest for drunk driving made its way online. The DUI itself wasn’t news — it had happened in February, and Flores had pled guilty to the misdemeanor.

The news was what the video showed about his character. Between mumbling expletives, calling an officer the n-word and just generally being an idiot, Flores can be seen and heard bragging about his powerful “good buddy,” fellow Republican Briscoe Cain.Maybe what really hacked off Abbott was that Flores dragged him, too, into the mess: "The governor just freaking endorsed me," Flores told the cops. That wasn’t even true at the time: Abbot wouldn’t endorse Flores until months later. And now, of course, Abbott has un-endorsed him. Luckily, District 144 voters already have a competent representative running for reelection. Mary Ann Perez, 64, isn’t a flashy legislator. She described herself as “a workhorse, not a show horse.” Instead, as a minority party member, she’s chosen a few lanes and stuck to them with great success.

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Fast start for Texas Business Court fuels calls for statewide growth

Two years into its existence, the Texas Business Court has proven it can resolve complex business disputes quickly. But so far, the Texas Legislature has only funded five of the 11 divisions it created, leaving West, East and South Texas without access to the business court. The five funded divisions cover the state’s most populous cities — Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin. According to the court’s midyear report looking at September 2024 through April 2026, 53% of cases have been corporate-governance claims, 37% qualified transactions, 6% intellectual property and 4% statutory or regulatory claims.

But in large swaths of the state, attorneys handling complex oil and gas disputes remain subject to local district court dockets packed with criminal, family and civil cases, meaning it can take months for rulings on motions. Yetter Coleman partner Tim McConn said that while judges in West Texas are sophisticated and capable of handling complex oil and gas dockets, they lack the resources — such as law clerks — that judges in major metro areas have. He pointed to the 143rd District Court, where Judge Alan Nicholas presides over rural Reeves, Ward and Loving counties. While Nicholas is doing a commendable job of mastering oil and gas litigation, McConn said there should be a business court there. “I think a business court would be very helpful out there. If you’ve got a lot of high-profile, high-dollar, complicated oil and gas civil cases that the judges out there sometimes struggle to get to just because they have so much on their docket,” McConn said, “and it would be helpful to have a business court that could sort of take those cases and specialize in those cases.”

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Trump tomato tariffs could spell the end of free chips, salsa at restaurants

Free chips and salsa at Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants could soon be a casualty of President Donald Trump's trade war with Mexico. The administration's tariffs on Mexican tomato exports are making the traditional appetizer too costly for restaurants to just give away. The Trump administration imposed a 17% tariff on Mexican tomatoes in July 2025, ostensibly with the aim of protecting U.S. farmers from foreign competition and boosting domestic production. Mexico accounts for roughly 90% of the tomatoes the U.S. has imported since 2015, worth more than $3 billion, according to a study by Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension Service.

Grocery stores and restaurants were initially able to absorb the higher costs rather than passing them on to consumers. But then, bad weather in Mexico and Florida reduced supplies, and tomato prices jumped to their highest level in two decades. "As a result, we saw the fresh tomato market jumped to about $80 a box," said Dante Galeazzi, president of the Texas International Produce Association. "We saw, as American consumers, that there was a point in late April and almost the entire month of May, where grocery stores were not carrying tomatoes. So that’s a clear reflection of price elasticity where the buyers just say, ‘You know what? We’re not going to participate.'" Restaurants have held out a few months longer, in large part because customers have become accustomed to free chips and salsa. But food costs overall have spiked roughly 35% over the past two years, in part due to the tariffs. Kelsey Erickson Streufert, chief public affairs officer for the Texas Restaurant Association, said her members are now dealing with a raft of other escalating expenses.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Gov. Abbott gave us some good Republican judges. Voters should keep them.

It’s a tough year to be a Republican judge appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor appears as vulnerable as he’s ever been in his bid for a fourth term in office, and midterm elections heavily favor the party out of power in the White House. Conventional political wisdom and history would suggest that even if Abbott survives re-election, a blue wave could wipe out Republicans in down-ballot, local races. That would be a significant loss for the Harris County court system. Since 2025, Abbott has appointed six judges to the felony courts. Some of them are presiding over new courtrooms created by the Legislature. Others are filling out terms of judges who resigned from the bench or died. There’s a baseline of experience and qualifications that are necessary to take over a felony bench. This is the top rung of the ladder for the legal profession, and all six of these jurists take that responsibility seriously. Many of them are longtime prosecutors, though several have extensive experience in criminal defense as well.

What they all have in common is a commitment to fairness and efficiency. They ably balance defendants’ rights and concerns about public safety. They are mostly well-liked by their peers in the legal community — including prosecutors and the defense bar. That doesn’t mean they always get it right. Each felony court judge wishes they had a crystal ball, particularly when it comes to setting bail, but changes to state law have also made it easier for judges to hold defendants accused of violent offenses at no bond. We met with candidates in-person, talked to lawyers who practice in these courts and reviewed whatever publicly available information we could find for these nonpartisan endorsements. If the worst thing you can say about these judges is that a team of Abbott’s in-house lawyers vetted them and found them fit to serve the public, then voters in both parties should rest easy. While we have real concerns about how extensively Abbott has used his broad executive power to reshape the judiciary — notably appointing seven of the nine current state Supreme Court justices, some from his in-house team of partisan warriors — his felony court appointments in Harris County are focused on justice and worthy of a full term.

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Mico Rodriguez, Dallas Tex-Mex pioneer, dies from heart attack

Word comes that the man who transformed Tex-Mex into something much more stylish and profitable in Dallas has died. Michael “Mico” Rodriguez died last night from a heart attack. In 2009, D Magazine chronicled Mico’s personal struggles with a cover story titled “Mico’s Ruin.” The man was a giant on the Dallas dining scene. Ray Washburne, who co-founded M Crowd with Rodriguez and launched the first Mi Cocina, texts the following: “In 1991 when Mi Cocina opened in Preston Forest, Michael Rodriguez took the traditional way of preparing and presenting Tex-Mex food in a new direction. His brilliance in design and food helped to lift the entire restaurant scene in Dallas to a much higher level. Watching him as his partner as the evolution continued over the years was amazing. The culinary scene in Dallas will miss him.” Mico’s life and legacy are complicated. Washburne wound up suing Rodriguez, as did other business partners. We’ll return to Rodriguez’s story in a bit. For now, everyone raise a Mambo Taxi.

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ICE is checking 'random' license plates in Austin and other takeaways from Garces Perez hearing

Security guards pushed Wilber Garces Perez in a wheelchair into a federal courtroom in Austin on Wednesday. Garces Perez is the Venezuelan delivery driver who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Sept. 20 in North Austin. ICE is now saying he struck the agent who shot him with his car’s side mirror while fleeing an immigration stop minutes before the shooting. The court hearing concerned whether the charge against him for assaulting and resisting a federal officer will proceed. The judge said it will. But the hours of evidence, witness testimony and lawyers' arguments also revealed more details than have previously been made public about what happened that day and about ICE activity in Austin.

The one witness who spoke at the hearing was Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Rick Bazan. Bazan is the investigator who was tasked with looking into the initial interaction between Garces Perez and the two ICE officers who pulled him over. He was not at the scene, but he described the “everyday” workload of ICE enforcement officers as driving around and running people's license plates to see if they have immigration enforcement orders against them. Bazan said that’s what the two agents involved in the incident were doing when they spotted Garces Perez picking up a food delivery order from a restaurant in his blue Toyota Corolla. “They were doing immigration enforcement, random checks on random places,” Bazan said. “They’re out there everywhere running license plates.” The federal charges against Garces Perez are based on a criminal complaint Bazan wrote after interviewing Garces Perez and one of the officers who initially pulled him over. The officer Bazan spoke with, named “D.F.” in the complaint, is not the officer who shot Garces Perez after pursuing him to the corner of U.S. Highway 183 and Anderson Square. That officer is referred to as “L.G.” in the complaint. During his testimony, Bazan said there is a separate investigation into the shooting. He did not comment on the status of that investigation, but said “my team has not talked to L.G. at all.”

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Taylor has struck a deal on a nearby data center, allowing it to annex the site and set conditions

The city of Taylor is considering an agreement with Big Watt Digital and PowerHouse Data Centers to annex their planned 664-acre development, Taylor Technology Campus, located just outside city limits. Council members are set to vote on the deal on Oct. 8. Developers withdrew their annexation and zoning application with Taylor last month. However, in a press release on Oct. 2, the city said it continued to "negotiate with the developers regarding annexation to ensure that Taylor Technology Campus would be required to meet regulatory standards on noise, water use, setbacks and community benefits." According to the city's website, the Taylor Technology Campus (formerly known as Project Mustang) will include data center facilities and on-site power generation equipment that will be used to meet the facility's electricity needs.

If the Taylor City Council votes to approve the proposed agreement, the site of the development will be annexed into city limits. That means the project will be required to meet certain regulatory standards laid out by the city. Those standards include requiring the developers to use a closed loop system and reclaimed water for cooling its facilities, as well as paying for the infrastructure needed to connect their site to city utilities. If the council votes not to approve the deal, the development will remain in an unincorporated area of Williamson County. The city said it would have no authority over the project. "I'm incredibly pleased that the City was able to reach a proposed agreement with the developers for Taylor Technology Campus," Jim Buzan, Taylor's mayor, said in the press release. "I believe the terms before Council represent the best path forward for Taylor and the surrounding area, and the regulations that Big Watt and PowerHouse have agreed to for the project will work to ensure that the community's concerns about noise, water use and setbacks are being addressed and enforced by the City and Council."

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Eagles legend Don Henley puts big money into turning Texas blue

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Don Henley really wants to see his native Texas turn blue for the first time in more than 30 years. Henley, who grew up in Cass County near Texarkana, has become the number one donor to Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor, agriculture commissioner and the Railroad Commission, and is a major force behind Lone Star Rising, a super PAC supporting James Talarico’s bid for the U.S. Senate. Railroad Commission candidate Jon Rosenthal said he was already a huge Henley fan – his song “Dirty Laundry” is one of his all-time favorites. Henley sent him a $25,000 donation in April, Rosenthal’s biggest contribution during the first half of the year.

“Imagine how excited I was to get a contribution from a literal rock 'n' roll legend like Don Henley,” Rosenthal said. “This election cycle presents a unique and historic opportunity to work for positive change, and I hope Mr. Henley agrees.” In all, the Eagles icon had poured out $300,000 in Texas campaigns during the first six months of this year. That includes more than $109,000 to Vikki Goodwin, the Austin Democrat trying to defeat Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in November. He also gave $50,000 in February to Clayton Tucker, the Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner against Republican Nate Sheets. But Henley, who attended what was then called North Texas State University, has spent another nearly $2 million on federal campaigns in Texas and around the nation. He’s sent individual donations to Talarico and South Texas congressional candidate and fellow musician Bobby Pulido. He’s also sent much bigger donations to several left-leaning super PACs that are supporting Democratic candidates in Texas, most notably $250,000 to Lone Star Rising, the group trying to help Talarico on the airwaves in Texas. That group has funded more than $6 million in digital ads in Texas since late August in support of Talarico, who is being vastly outspent by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton and his allies over the last five weeks. Paxton and his allies have spent $193 million on the airwaves, compared to $45 million from Talarico and his allies like Lone Star Rising. Henley, who lists his address in Virginia, could not be reached for comment. He doesn’t often talk about his politics in interviews, but has made clear he’s a Democrat and supported President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Besides his music, Henley spends a lot of time and money on environmental and land conservation programs. He founded the Walden Woods Project and is the cofounder of the nonprofit Caddo Lake Institute, which works to protect the body of water just south of Cass County, the title of his last solo album released in 2015.

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TJJD issues persist at Evins Regional Juvenile Center, report says

A recent report by a nonprofit public interest law and policy center states that the United States Department of Justice’s 2024 findings of unconstitutional conditions found in all of Texas’ juvenile centers, including Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg, continue to persist. According to Texas Appleseed, many of the problems found by the DOJ within the Texas Juvenile Justice Department include failing to protect youth from unconstitutional harm by excessive force, abuse, isolation and inadequate mental health care. In addition, the TJJD failed to meet the federal requirements for special education and have discriminated against kids with disabilities by denying them necessary accommodations, limiting their access to education and extending their confinement, according to the report.

Texas Appleseed said its report is based on publicly available data, original research and firsthand accounts. The organization also submitted multiple public information requests in order to gather the information used in the report. Additionally, Texas Appleseed conducted interviews with children who were formally confined in these facilities, parents, guardians and former staff members which were conducted between late summer of 2025 to spring 2026. Another persisting issue, which according to Texas Appleseed, is a major contributing factor to many of the problems with the juvenile centers, is the high turnover rate of staff. “The number of juvenile correction officers with more than three years experience has declined significantly,” the report said. “The lack of veteran staff impacts the quality and delivery of services as well as the safety of staff and youth.” According to the report, Evins Regional Juvenile Center had a 62% turnover rate and a vacancy rate of 7% for the 2025 fiscal year.

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American Rust: The $1.1 billion border wall built with salvaged materials and few answers

In March, Tucson, Arizona–based Spencer Construction LLC received a $1.1 billion contract from the Department of Homeland Security to build 34 miles of border wall in the counties of Hidalgo and Starr in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. The contract amounts to more than $32 million a mile, twice the cost of wall construction during Trump’s first term, when the price tag was $16 million a mile. Even though the cost has doubled, Spencer Construction is building the wall using old steel bollards—bars filled with concrete and rebar—that have sat in various staging areas near the border for several years. Many of the bollards, it appears, have been sanded to remove rust, and in some places, the caps on the newly constructed 30-foot wall have already fallen off. It’s unclear whether Spencer billed for new steel bollards in its contract with the government or how it arrived at the price of $32 million per mile. In August, The Border Chronicle submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the contract, but Customs and Border Protection has yet to respond with documents. The federal agency and Spencer Construction did not reply to questions via telephone or email about the contract, which is not publicly available.

The Border Chronicle also requested comment from Royal Concrete LLC, which did not respond. Not only is the wall expensive but it also targets the Rio Grande Valley’s most treasured wildlife and heritage sites, including the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, the historic La Lomita Chapel, the National Butterfly Center, Bentsen State Park, and the Salineño Wildlife Preserve in Starr County, among other sites. South Texas residents have battled for years to protect these places, and over the last decade, congressional leaders from the border, including Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, added exemptions to federal appropriation bills to prevent federal funds from being spent on border wall construction in these sensitive areas. All this changed in 2025, however. President Trump and Republicans circumvented the normal congressional appropriations process to pass the “Big Beautiful Bill,” designating at least $46.5 billion for wall construction and bypassing the long-standing amendments in previous appropriation bills that protected Santa Ana and other sites in South Texas. Additionally, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem used authority provided by the REAL ID Act to waive dozens of federal contracting oversight rules for border wall construction. Six preapproved private contractors, including Spencer, were chosen for the border wall contracts—exempting them from a public bidding process and the requirement to make details about their scope of work publicly available. For the 34 miles of wall, DHS also waived at least 31 federal laws, including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, which would have provided additional oversight and input from local residents. The speed at which contractors have moved and the lack of communication about their work have left many border residents stunned. At least 93 percent of wall construction funding over the last decade was disbursed in 2025 and 2026, according to The Washington Post, and 52 contracts were issued in 2025 alone—a fivefold increase from previous years. Thanks to the rapid pace and lack of transparency, protests and lawsuits have multiplied across the southern border, including against the $1.1 billion Spencer Construction contract in South Texas.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Democrat Amy Taylor over Mindy Bumgarner in SBOE race

The State Board of Education doesn’t set tax rates or approve attendance zones as a local school board does. But the 15-member group has important powers. It sets standards for public school curricula and reviews and adopts instructional materials. It also oversees the state’s Permanent School Fund, which is basically a $60 billion endowment for public education. It can also reject a recommendation to allow a new charter applicant to open a school. Two candidates are competing to represent District 14 on the state education board. The C-shaped district includes parts of 19 counties, stretching from the Oklahoma border to Waco to Waxahachie. (Most of the Dallas-Fort Worth area is in other districts.)

Amy Taylor, the Democratic candidate for District 14, includes a primer about the state board on her campaign website. That fits: She’s a classroom teacher in Denton and sees part of her job as a candidate as educating voters about the board’s official duties. While we disagree with Taylor on several issues, her experience, pragmatic attitude and thoughtful comments about how students learn and curriculum standards go awry make her the best candidate in this race. Her opponent, Republican Mindy Bumgarner, is something of a mystery to us. Her online presence is remarkably thin. If she is speaking out, it’s only to her base constituency as far as we can tell. She did not respond to multiple invitations to fill out our questionnaire or participate in an interview. Bumgarner’s campaign website displays generic statements about parent rights and school choice. She has been endorsed by Republican leaders and is married to state Rep. Ben Bumgarner. Taylor, meanwhile, said she decided to run for the seat because, “I want to make a case for public education.” Political rhetoric increasingly demonizes educators and public schools, and that is making difficult work harder, she said. Taylor critiqued the SBOE’s recently adopted social studies standards and literature list, arguing that they force particular religious and political viewpoints on students. The literature list also ignores classroom realities, she argued. We think she should give students more credit for being able to take on longer works rather than relying on shorter texts. She is correct that the state continues to add items to essential knowledge and skills lists and that it’s getting difficult to cover all matters in the classroom. Taylor was adamant that public schools are best for most families; this Editorial Board believes families with limited means should have more options. But because the SBOE has no direct power over the voucher program, we’re comfortable recommending Taylor as the better candidate for District 14.

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National Stories

Americans of all ages want more federal help with childcare costs. Gen Z most of all.

Most Americans think the federal government should increase spending on childcare, and one group of voters more than any other is in favor of that change: Gen Z. Data from a new The 19th/YouGov poll found that 52 percent of U.S. adults overall think federal childcare spending needs a boost, including 73 percent of Democrats, 38 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Independents. Among Gen Z voters, support was more robust than other age groups. Nearly 60 percent of Gen Z voters favor increasing federal spending on childcare — more, even, than the 49 percent of millennials who said the same. Currently, the United States spends about $12.4 billion on childcare annually, most of it to subsidize care for very low-income families. That shuts the vast majority of American families out of those benefits, leaving them with an average childcare price tag of $13,000 a year, and much more in certain states.

Center-based childcare for two children is more expensive than the median annual rent payment in 47 states, and the median annual mortgage payment in 39 states, according to an analysis by the childcare advocacy group Child Care Aware. In a midterm cycle that is undoubtedly defined by affordability, the high cost of childcare makes it one of the key policies Americans would like to see change on. Numerous Democratic campaigns are running with childcare solutions in their platforms this election cycle, and some Republicans in Congress are also embracing the issue. The 19th’s poll revealed that 38 percent of voters think Democrats are doing a better job at handling the cost of childcare; only 19 percent said the same about Republicans. Last year, the issue played a role in the victories of candidates who championed childcare, most notably Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York but also New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, all Democrats.

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Cornell president says alleged gang rape 'deeply disturbing,' pledges transparency

Cornell’s president called the alleged gang rape of a student at a fraternity house in 2024 “deeply disturbing” Saturday, said it would weigh on the university for years to come and pledged greater transparency amid mounting outrage over the school’s handling of the case. In an eight-minute video message to the Cornell community, Michael Kotlikoff described the past week as one of the most difficult in the university’s history and acknowledged troubling questions about the investigations that followed the allegations. “My heart aches when I think of what she experienced,” Kotlikoff said. “It raises heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization and aspects of party culture, alcohol and drug use.” Kotlikoff reaffirmed his commitment to supporting an independent review of Cornell’s handling of the case called for by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and said the school’s Board of Trustees would announce details next week.

He also expressed support for Hochul’s decision to turn the criminal investigation over to the state attorney general. “I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say,” Kotlikoff said. “We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to investigating and finding the answers our community deserves.” Scrutiny has mounted in recent days over Cornell’s response to allegations that the woman was sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members in 2024. The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, has sued the university and seven former students. During a student assembly hearing Thursday that gave students an opportunity to voice concerns and discuss proposals to improve Cornell’s response to sexual assault, several speakers called for Kotlikoff’s resignation. Hochul, asked at a news conference Friday whether she believed Kotlikoff should resign over the university’s handling of the case, declined to take a position, saying she did not yet have enough information. Kotlikoff acknowledged frustration that Cornell has not communicated enough, saying that has led to distrust. While citing “real legal and privacy limits” on what the university can disclose, he pledged greater transparency and more opportunities for students, parents and others to engage with university leaders.

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Voters say Congress is too old. But older candidates keep winning.

In the lead-up to the midterm elections, calls for generational change have echoed through districts across the country, as younger candidates have pushed to replace the old guard. In Massachusetts, Senator Ed Markey, 80, was diagnosed with “chronic re-election disorder” by allies of his younger primary opponent. “Doctors agree: Democracy suffers when politicians won’t pass the torch,” said an actor dressed as a doctor in an attack ad. In Northern California, a spot denouncing Representative Mike Thompson, 75, compared the Capitol to a refrigerator, full of “career politicians” who “sit there year after year behind the pickles.” Thompson, the ad said, was “past his expiration date.” And in Mississippi, an ad featured a woman identified as a retired public-school teacher wondering about the effectiveness of Representative Bennie Thompson, 78, who has been in Congress for over three decades. “Has he made things better here?” she asked. “Absolutely not.”

And yet, the gerontocracy remains alive and well in American politics. In primary after primary, voters rejected those calls for younger leadership, voting for incumbent politicians who were notably older than their challengers, according to an analysis by The New York Times. The New York Times analyzed 143 partisan primary races with an incumbent and a challenger. Nearly half of these races featured an incumbent aged 65 or older. Only seven retirement-age incumbents — five Democrats and two Republicans — lost their primaries, all to younger candidates. Nine out of 10 of these older incumbents won their primaries. Their wins didn’t stem from a failure by younger candidates to press the case: Campaign ads pushing for new, younger leadership ran in at least 77 House and Senate primary races, according to a Times analysis of data from AdImpact, a media tracking firm. Instead, the results point to an unshakable reality of American politics: Incumbency remains a near-invincible force in congressional elections. With stronger name recognition and a fund-raising advantage, members of Congress typically hold onto their seats as long as they like. Over the past four decades, the re-election rate for incumbents has rarely dipped below 80 percent. The incumbent has lost in only 78 primary races out of several thousand over the past two decades, according to a New York Times analysis of data from Ballotpedia.

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Byron Donalds walks a tightrope of Trump loyalty in Florida’s race for governor

Rep. Byron Donalds had a problem. President Trump had learned that the campaign of the man he had endorsed to become Florida’s next governor had scrubbed prominent mentions of him from Donalds’s website. To calm Trump down, aides showed him a tweet where Donalds minimized the change and appeared beaming alongside the president inside the Oval Office, according to people familiar with the events. That satisfied Trump, who went on to warn that Donalds risked losing if he dropped him. The incident last month shows the conundrum facing Republicans who owe their political careers to Trump. A worsening environment for the GOP is tightening midterm races across the country and prompting a number of Republicans to distance themselves from the president. Yet doing so risks alienating the most powerful person in the party and the voters who remain loyal to him.

That is partly why Donalds, after gingerly tiptoeing away from his kingmaker in recent weeks, made plans to appear in Florida with Trump in the final stretch of a race that is become uncomfortably competitive for the GOP. In Florida, a 1.67 million-person population surge since the pandemic has helped drive inflation above the national average in some places. The threat of job losses due to artificial intelligence, the inaccessibility of the housing market and the high price of gas, groceries and healthcare have some voters wanting a new party to take control of the state Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis transformed into the epicenter of American conservatism. In South Florida, Trump’s immigration crackdown has triggered backlash from Hispanics. Those shifts had Donalds’s top donors feeling nervous when they gathered at a private retreat at the oceanfront Fontainebleau hotel here last month. Donalds was once expected to win comfortably over Democrat David Jolly. Now Donalds was telling donors over a steak dinner that the contest was a battle, according to several attendees, and his pollster Tony Fabrizio later disavowed the group of any notion that this would be a big win. Trump, after all, was a double-edged sword for Republicans, Fabrizio said, in that he was the biggest motivator of turnout on both sides. With Trump’s approval rating dipping, it is a risky dynamic for Donalds.

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Ohio truck plant closes, jolting 1,400 workers days before Trump rally

Sipping tea from beer mugs with his co-workers, Kyle Bos listed the ways his life is changing. Bos has two daughters, with a third due in January. At the grocery store, five items cost as much as a full cart once did. And on Wednesday, Bos and nearly 1,400 other people were laid off from their jobs at what had been the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio. The layoffs — occurring just three days before President Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at a nearby high school — were large enough to basically erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio, area. And they are one reason why Bos, 30, plans to spend the final weeks before the November election canvassing votes for Democrats. Asked how many times he had voted for Trump, Bos held up three tattooed fingers. But he said he’s done with the president.

“Something has to change politically in this country,” said Bos, a member of the United Auto Workers who identifies as a centrist. “Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.” This year’s election is a test for the working-class coalition that lifted Trump into the White House and gave majorities to Republicans in the House and Senate. The outcome will be decided in places like Dayton, which once sprouted factories because it led America in patents per capita. The Wright brothers’ airplane, the cash register, the stepladder and the electric car starter were all invented in this city of 137,000. Trump’s blunt talk and status as a celebrity businessman initially helped him around Dayton, where voters sensed that politics as usual had failed them. Republicans secured wins in the larger metro area, but this year, the party is vulnerable with voters who are disgruntled about inflation, the Iran war and a president who seems unsympathetic to their struggles. An Ohio race could help determine control of the Senate. Republican Sen. Jon Husted is facing a challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to harness that disenchantment as he attempts a comeback two years after losing his seat.

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Seniors on Medicare to receive $90 payments for premium costs, Trump says

President Donald Trump is promising more payments to voters just ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections — this time, to more than 20 million seniors, giving them $90 each to help pay for Medicare premiums. The announcement, made late Friday night by Trump on social media, comes after the president last month said about 1 million people would get rebate checks of $500 for Affordable Care Act premiums. He has also promised on the campaign trail to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. That pledge — which would require approval from Congress — would likely cost more than $1 trillion, adding to the deficit and worsening inflation. Trump highlighted his $5,000 promise at a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday night, and told supporters that 70,000 families in the state would receive the ACA rebates “within the next couple of days.”

He also reminded voters about the $1,776 payments to military members, announced in December — though he mused that they should have been timed better. “Maybe I should have waited a year,” he said. “To be honest, I said that. Should I wait for before the election?” Polls show Americans increasingly blame Trump for the high cost of gasoline and groceries with just 17% approving of his handling of inflation. Trump has sought to shrug off concerns about affordability, saying the economy is booming. The White House said the $90 payments for seniors will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, established by Congress in 2008 as flexible funding to improve program operations and payments to health care providers. Medicare Part B enrollees can expect to receive a one-time payment in October, either through direct deposit or by check, the White House said. Total monthly costs for the program — which covers costs like doctor’s visits, ambulance services and lab tests — start around $200 and vary with income.

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Here’s Senator Cotton’s cell number, Trump Says, in dispute over Daylight Saving bill

President Trump wants to make daylight saving time permanent. Senator Tom Cotton does not. On Saturday, that disagreement led the president to share what he said was the Arkansas Republican’s cellphone number on social media, urging the state’s residents to take the issue up with Mr. Cotton personally. Mr. Trump, championing the Sunshine Protection Act, which has been stalled in the Senate since July, accused Mr. Cotton of holding up the bill in a lengthy Truth Social post. Then Mr. Trump shared 10 digits. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate,” Mr. Trump said. “Call Tom on his cellphone.”

Two officials confirmed that the number Mr. Trump gave out belonged to Mr. Cotton, whose office did not respond to a request for a comment. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Calls went to an automated voice mail greeting saying an unnamed recipient was “temporarily unavailable.” The bill, which would cement daylight saving time and stop Americans from having to change their clocks twice a year, has been stuck in the Senate after sailing through the House in July with a 308-to-117 vote. Year-round daylight-saving time was last tried in 1974, but public sentiment quickly soured as Americans complained of dark winter mornings, particularly for parents taking children to school. It was repealed in less than a year. But Mr. Trump has described moving clocks an hour forward in the spring and an hour back in the fall as “ridiculous.” On Saturday, he told reporters that the practice “discombobulates everybody.” His post directed at Mr. Cotton included a letter from Brian Rolapp, the chief executive of the PGA Tour, endorsing the bill, which would add an extra hour of daylight in the evening. Mr. Rolapp claimed that would allow golfers to squeeze in 23 million more rounds a year.

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Lead Stories

Abbott pulls endorsement of the GOP challenger to Rep. Mary Ann Perez after video shows DWI arrest, racial slur

David Flores, the Republican running to represent Pasadena in the Texas House of Representatives, has lost Gov. Greg Abbott's endorsement after video circulated Wednesday showing Flores use a racial slur during his arrest for drunk driving earlier this year. Flores was pulled over by Deer Park police for speeding early in the morning on Feb. 14 and found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.11%, according to a spokesman for the Deer Park Police Department. Court records show he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated in June and was sentenced to probation. Dashcam footage obtained and released Wednesday by the Lone Star Project, a Democratic strategy group, appears to show Flores trying to talk his way out of the arrest by flexing his political connections. He tells officers he has just received an endorsement from Abbott and name-drops state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, whom he describes as a "good buddy."

"The governor just freaking endorsed me," Flores can be heard saying, though the governor did not officially announce his endorsement until May. Flores then can be heard mumbling expletives under his breath, using a racial slur for Black people, the video shows. Neither of the arresting officers appeared to be Black. Flores, through a campaign spokesperson, did not immediately comment Thursday. He is running to unseat Rep. Mary Ann Perez, D-Pasadena, in House District 144. Abbott campaign spokesman Eduardo Leal said Thursday that the governor was withdrawing his endorsement in light of Flores's arrest and comments. "There is no place for this kind of behavior or language," Leal said. "Our brave law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day to keep our communities safe, and Governor Abbott will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement." Cain said he hadn't seen the video and declined to comment. Flores previously was convicted of five misdemeanors between 2001 and 2004 for offenses including theft, assault and evading arrest, and was open about his earlier run-ins with the law during a 2018 campaign for Pasadena mayor. Court records show Flores had not been charged with a crime in Harris County since 2004 until his February arrest. Flores' arrest could be a blow to one of the GOP's best chances to flip a Democratic state house seat in November, as Abbott attempts to "turn Harris County deep red" by investing heavily in races up and down the ballot. Perez has held HD 144 for nearly 10 years, but the district voted for President Donald Trump in 2024. Perez said Flores' arrest raised questions about her opponent's judgement. "Public service should never be viewed as a shield from accountability, before or after someone is elected," Perez said. "Those who seek the public's trust must accept responsibility for their actions and hold themselves to the same standards they expect of everyone else."

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Democrats regain ground on voter registration in key states after steep post-2024 drops

After having suffered massive voter registration losses in the wake of the last presidential election, Democrats have stemmed the bleeding in several key states heading into this year’s midterms, according to an NBC News Decision Desk analysis. NBC News’ Decision Desk analyzed voter file data from TargetSmart, a progressive data firm, for seven of the states that were the closest in the 2024 election and that registered voters by party: Arizona, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. From late 2024 through late 2025, Republicans significantly improved their voter registration margin over Democrats in all seven states, including by a net of roughly 100,000 in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. But from late 2025 through the middle of this year, Democrats managed to reverse, though not completely erase, those losses in five of them, adding more registrants on net than Republicans in Arizona, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And in New Hampshire and North Carolina, Democrats have slowed the decline.

While party registration is not 100% predictive of vote choice, the recent movement toward Democrats on this front provides another reason for optimism for the party this fall. Arizona, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Pennsylvania are all holding critical races for the Senate or governor (if not both), while New Jersey, which has become more competitive in recent years, is hosting a battleground House contest. The trend comes not only amid a backlash to President Donald Trump that has grown over the course of the year, but also as Democrats campaigned in consequential primaries that often centered on what direction the party would take after its 2024 defeat. Meanwhile, the pool of unaffiliated voters continued to expand in many of those states, reflecting a growing distrust of both major parties. There are three primary ways the party registration margin can change: new voters signing up; registrants switching parties; or registrants being removed from the rolls after having moved out of state, routine maintenance or dying. A total of 30 states and Washington, D.C., register voters by party, while the rest — including battlegrounds like Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin — do not.

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Records show DPS knew of problems with Texas’ online voter registration portal as early as March

Six months before the Texas Department of Public Safety and Secretary of State’s Office were forced to send hundreds of thousands of backlogged voter registration records to local county officials, both agencies were warned that records were getting lost in DPS’s web portal. A state lawmaker flagged an issue with voter registration records in March, public records show. The agencies said that problem was resolved. But complaints about the portal continued. And in August the agencies realized they had a big issue — at least 500,000 backlogged voter registration records sent to county election officials last week. Now, county election administrators are scrambling with little time to sort through those records before the critical Nov. 3 midterm election.

State officials said the most recent backlog of records was due to an October 2025 software update by a DPS vendor. Software engineering and election administration experts say the state agencies should have tested updates to their respective systems, including how they worked together, and developed ways to immediately alert state officials of errors. “To me, it just looks like they did not have the people with the depth of knowledge and maybe experience to make sure that they were testing everything that they needed to test,” said Trevor Timmons, the former chief information technology officer for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The Texas Secretary of State’s Office confirmed it had tested how a new version of its voter registration management system, known as TEAM, worked with DPS’s portal before launching its system overhaul in July 2025. The Texas Secretary of State’s Office and DPS did not respond to questions about whether they had again tested the systems before the October 2025 DPS update. DPS acknowledged in March that a “programming change” had prevented the processing of nearly 1,000 voter registration applications and updates Texans submitted through its web portal between December and February, public records show.

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Trump rallies support for Ken Paxton in Texas campaign stop

President Donald Trump urged Texas voters to support state Attorney General Ken Paxton in his Senate battle against Democrat James Talarico, as polls show the race is a toss-up for either political party, during a campaign swing through the state Thursday. “We need Ken so badly, and that’s why I’m here. I wanted to stop here,” Trump said while speaking at the Peterbilt Motors in Denton. “Texas represents so much. It would be such a horror to the system to put a guy, a freak like that in there, would be such a horror to … your state and such a horror to the country.” Republicans will have spent more than $300 million boosting Paxton as Democrats are hoping to flip the Senate seat. Texas PAC, which is affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), has spent $131 million to aid the attorney general, federal filings show.

The Cook Political Report rates the race as a toss-up, and Democrats are counting on voter frustration over the economy and high gas prices to help them capture a seat that has long been held by the GOP. Lloyd Bentsen was the last Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas, in 1988. The president also suggested that Talarico is far too radical for the Lone Star State. “We’re all for Ken, how the hell could you be for the other guy anyway?” he asked. “Even if they had a good opponent, I’d be for Ken because he proved himself.” Trump, however, pushed back against complaints that his administration has not done enough for the nation or that the scandal-plagued Paxton could lose the race. “We need the votes, and I’m here for that, and I think we’re going to win,” said Trump. “Every place I’ve gone, we win.” But numerous polls show that voters blame Trump for the Iran war, leading to high gas and diesel prices. The concern has even led several Republican lawmakers to call for an immediate end to the war or to distance themselves from Trump, whose approval numbers have reached record lows. Paxton continues to tout Trump’s support and appeared with him in Denton.

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State Stories

‘So you’re saying there’s a chance?’ Texas lawmakers talk annexing parts of New Mexico

Texas lawmakers jested late Wednesday about a proposal to annex parts of New Mexico where officials in the state’s neighbor to the west have considered joining the Lone Star State. “As somebody who is from the Permian Basin, and who is neighbors with a lot of the disaffected New Mexicans, who I think, in at least some cases, would greet us as liberators,” said Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa. “If not, we could arm the moderate New Mexicans,” Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, replied. “Like some old CIA psy-ops, right?” Landgraf said.

“If the president can talk about Greenland, we can talk about New Mexico,” Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D-Laredo, added. The debate over whether Texas should annex parts of New Mexico began in New Mexico, where two state representatives authored legislation that would allow three counties along the New Mexico-Texas border to swap states. The proposal was left dead in the water in New Mexico, and the lawmakers who brought the idea said they created it to highlight the political differences between Republican-led Texas and Democrat-dominated New Mexico. That didn’t stop House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock representative, from running with the idea. Burrows said in February that “Texas would gladly welcome Lea County back to Texas, where it rightfully belongs,” naming one of the border counties floated for annexation. Burrows went on to say in March that studying the annexation of parts of New Mexico is a conversation “ultimately about culture, opportunity, and the right to choose a path that reflects the shared values of the Permian and Delaware basins.”

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El Paso, Rio Grande Valley residents say ICE tactics have gone too far, poll finds

Residents of El Paso County and the Rio Grande Valley feel that increased immigration enforcement is making their life harder without improving their safety, according to polling results released Thursday by the ACLU of Texas. The results also indicate that residents in Texas’ most populous areas on the U.S.-Mexico border overwhelmingly disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance, which could point to a difficult environment for other Republican political candidates in the Nov. 3 election. “If there is one thing to take away from today and from our report, it is that enforcement has simply gone too far,” Nick Hudson, senior manager of policy and advocacy for ACLU of Texas, said during a news conference. Sixty-three percent of the more than 1,000 people surveyed felt that tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have gone too far, with 21% believing the tactics have been about right.

Concerns about immigration enforcement are impacting how people go about their day-to-day lives in El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, the poll found. “A significant percentage of border residents reported rethinking even traveling to school at 19%, to church and community events at 24%, and even visiting the doctor at 18%,” said Osvaldo Grimaldo, a policy and advocacy strategist for border and immigrants’ rights at ACLU of Texas. “As a result of the massive enforcement efforts along the Texas border, local officials should take steps to allow everyone living in border communities the basic decency of access to medical care and religious community.” The number of ICE apprehensions have surged the El Paso region in recent months, according to the Deportation Data Project, with more than 1,800 people being taken into custody in El Paso County and adjacent areas in southern New Mexico in June and July alone. When asked for comment about the poll findings, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said: “Our agents are focused on protecting the American people – not entertaining performative outrage.”

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Wilber Garces Perez has undergone surgery 11 days after ICE shooting in Austin, lawyer says

Wilber Garces Perez, the man who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in North Austin last month, underwent surgery on Thursday. His lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said he is now recovering and has spoken to his family. According to a press release sent out on behalf of Lincoln-Goldfinch and Daniel Woodward of the Texas Civil Rights Project, ICE would not grant Garces Perez's wife access to the operating room. He was shot on Sept. 20, after fleeing from a traffic stop, court documents show. As of Thursday, he had a bullet lodged in his back for about 11 days.

“This is a public safety issue,” the lawyers' statement said. “Federal agents cannot act as judge, jury, and executioner on our streets. We’re seeing agents run plates, make high-risk stops of people with no criminal record, and fail to wear or activate the cameras meant to hold them accountable.” The officer who shot Garces Perez, who is a Venezuelan national, was not wearing a body camera, according to Rick Bazan, a Department of Homeland Security special agent who testified in court on Wednesday. The other officer involved had turned off his body camera prior to arriving at the scene. Garces Perez is facing up to 20 years in prison for allegedly assaulting, resisting, interfering and impeding a federal officer. He is being held by the U.S. Marshals Service, according to his lawyer, following a judge's ruling that he is a flight risk and will remain in custody.

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Can small-group tours of data centers change hearts and minds? CyrusOne tries a new approach to influence public opinion.

Texas has become the epicenter of the nation’s data center growth with the conspicuous buildings popping up next to neighborhoods and on farmland throughout the state. Though the sight of them has drawn considerable public backlash, few people can say they’ve physically walked through the doors of a data center and into the cloud. Only a handful of staff work there. The gates are locked to all but construction crews and those with security clearances. The doors to the massive, windowless warehouse-style structures with their own power grids are tightly guarded. Media requests for a look behind the curtain had gone unfulfilled — until now. In the Texas Research Park on the far Northwest Side of San Antonio, several large industrial buildings in various stages of completion have been built along what’s become a data center corridor.

On Omicron Drive, a high-security palisade fence, its sharp black teeth curved outward, wraps around 22 acres of land acquired by data center developer CyrusOne. Through a swing gate with crossing arms on either side, the San Antonio Report and other members of the press entered the premises recently for a first-ever media tour of the facility. Invited to the site by the company and its political affairs representatives, the tour began in the lobby of a gray and white building that houses the data center and offices. Uniformed security officers sitting behind glass checked IDs and handed out red visitor badges only after electronic confidentiality forms were signed. During introductions, a spokeswoman told reporters and a podcaster that all conversations during the media tour should be considered “off the record” and only exterior photos of the center were permitted. Data centers are critical infrastructure — storing and processing a growing amount of digital data on behalf of clients, from government entities, financial services firms and health care systems to streaming services and social media.

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Airbnb launches nationwide affordable housing investment in Austin

Airbnb announced a $6.4 million investment in northeast Austin to fund affordable housing in the city earlier this month. The investment, part of Airbnb’s Housing Accelerator program, will support the creation of 201 units of affordable housing at 800 E. St. John Ave., a lot that has sat vacant for nearly 20 years. Working with Austin, the project will also support a companion project with an additional 325 units of mixed-income housing. The city has owned the St. John site since 2013 but has struggled to make progress on any projects. In 2017, former City Council member Greg Casar, now a U.S. congressman representing Austin, passed a resolution directing the city to reimagine the plot of land. Although City Council approved the project in 2020, it stalled for five years because of a lack of funding, despite community support.

Airbnb’s investment will cover the remaining funding needed to move the project forward. A spokesperson for Airbnb said dozens of housing investment proposals have been submitted to Airbnb across 13 states and Washington, D.C., since the Housing Accelerator program went public. Research by the Center for Public Enterprise estimates about 750,000 housing units are currently stalled in the United States. “The U.S. is short (of) more than 5 million homes — more than all the housing units in New York City and Los Angeles combined,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “We launched the Airbnb Housing Accelerator to help make building housing easier, faster, and cheaper by tackling several construction barriers simultaneously: financing, data, policy reform, and innovation.” Airbnb is also funding local organizations in Austin supporting pro-housing reforms. Zach Faddis, president of Austinites for Urban Rail Action, an urbanist advocacy nonprofit in Austin, said Airbnb gave the group a $75,000 grant, which Faddis said will help AURA expand past exclusively volunteer work and hire an additional part-time employee. AURA engages with Austin residents and city hall to change affordable housing and zoning laws. Faddis said the organization has helped remove city parking minimums, increase the number of homes allowed on family lots and push other reforms citywide. Faddis said he is hopeful the project will further expand affordable housing opportunities in Austin. “(The U.S. has) made it very hard to build enough housing and (has) outlawed many of the kinds of housing that would allow people to live more (and) work comfortably, more affordably and would result in less homelessness and need for affordable housing in America,” Faddis said.

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Amber Guyger granted parole after serving seven years in prison in shooting death of Botham Jean

Seven years to the day Amber Guyger was convicted of murder in the shooting of Botham Jean, she has been granted parole, WFAA has confirmed. Guyger, a Dallas police officer at the time of the shooting, was found guilty of murdering Jean in 2018. She said she mistook Jean's apartment for her own, assumed he was an intruder and shot him. DPD fired Guyger days after the shooting on Sept. 24, 2018. Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison during her 2019 trial. In 2021 and early 2022, Guyger appealed multiple times to have her conviction overturned but was denied by the courts. The news of Guyger's granted parole comes days after what would have been Jean's 35th birthday. It also happened just shy of three years before she was set to be released: Sept. 29, 2029, which would have been his 38th birthday.

During the trial, Guyger said she had just ended a 13-hour shift when she mistook Botham Jean's apartment as her own. She told investigators that she parked on the fourth floor instead of the third at the South Side Flats apartments, arrest records show. But prosecutors said the fourth floor of the garage is open-air, while the third floor, where Guyger normally parked, is not. Prosecutor Jason Hermus said Guyger, who was still in uniform, also missed several visual clues during her walk down two long hallways. She also failed to notice Jean’s red doormat, the only one with such a noticeable doormat on the third or fourth floor, and the smell of marijuana in his home — all indicators she had gone to the wrong door. During the trial, it was revealed that Jean's apartment was more cluttered than Guyger's, which was sparsely furnished. Guyger's apartment had a half-circle entry table with a vase of flowers in the living room of her apartment.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Alisa Simmons in the race for Tarrant County judge

Tim O’Hare has had a problematic tenure as Tarrant County judge. The hostile handling of meetings — including ordering speakers removed — and undemocratic decisions, such as reducing the number of polling places ahead of a midterm election, are troubling. The way Tarrant County is managing its finances is also concerning. Running against O’Hare, a Republican, is Commissioner Alisa Simmons. We recommend the Democratic candidate with reservations. Simmons, 63, has had frequent clashes with O’Hare. It is true that the incumbent county judge sometimes cuts her off while she is speaking, but Simmons has not always reacted well, including an instance in which she made an obscene gesture. Simmons told us she gets along well with the other commissioners, and she’s tired of the constant fighting in the court, but we are not confident she would lead toward more civility. Simmons has been critical of the finances of the county government, and while she was supportive of tax cuts early in her tenure, she has voted against lower tax rates in the last two budget cycles. She told us she wants to right-size the budget and supports a no-new-revenue rate.

Simmons was also critical of the county’s use of more than $7.7 million in reserves to cover unbudgeted costs, including overtime at the sheriff’s office in 2025, which suggests poor planning. Simmons told us she supports fully funded public safety infrastructure as well as investments in community programs. In her view, outsourcing of some services, such as rental assistance for low-income residents, was not fully thought through. The nonprofit in charge of this assistance was projected to run out of funding before its contract ended. O’Hare did not answer our Voter Guide questionnaire and didn't attend a candidate interview. On his website, he cites lowering taxes and “cutting wasteful spending” as his accomplishments. O’Hare has used his platform for hyperpartisanship, including his unfounded ideas about election integrity. In 2023, the elections administrator Heider Garcia resigned over disagreements with the county judge. O’Hare has also pushed for removing early voting sites and led a mid-decade redistricting effort. The court also cut funding for bus rides to the polls for low-income residents. In 2025, this Editorial Board said O’Hare does not treat voting as a sacred right to be protected and encouraged, but as a source of suspicion. Under O’Hare’s leadership, speakers at commissioners court have been removed or criminally charged for cursing, clapping or insulting commissioners or for going past their allotted time to speak during the public-comment period. Some of these removals were justified, but others raise concerns. One man was expelled for speaking eight seconds over his allotted time, and then he faced a yearlong ban from the building, KERA News reported. We believed Republicans should have elected someone like former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price to this seat. She would have done the job well and treated those who serve or appear before the court with respect. O’Hare has failed at that. Simmons was not the best candidate for Democrats in their primary either; U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey dropped out of the race early on. But between Simmons and O’Hare, she is the better choice.

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Ted Brown: Want less spending, more guns and no war? Forget Paxton. Vote Libertarian!

(Longtime Libertarian Ted Brown is running for U.S. Senate against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic Rep. James Talarico.) With early voting quickly approaching, Texas Republicans find themselves in a bind. Consider state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Collin County Republican who led the 2023 impeachment effort against Attorney General Ken Paxton. Now Leach says that even he has to support Paxton for the U.S. Senate. “I’m a Republican,” he said at the Texas Tribune Festival last week. “It’s a binary choice.” That’s not true. Republicans dissatisfied with Paxton’s criminal behavior and lack of character aren’t stuck voting for Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. There’s an alternative. They can vote for a candidate who actually cares about fiscal responsibility and limited, constitutional government. They can vote for me. I’m Ted Brown, and I’m Texas’ Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate. I am seeking support from all voters with my platform of personal freedom, economic freedom, digital privacy and a peaceful, anti-war foreign policy.

A lot of Texas Republicans know that Paxton has been indicted, impeached and accused of various forms of official misconduct. They know taxpayers are on the hook for his $6.6 million whistleblower settlement. Corrupt politicians may be nothing new, but usually it takes a while for a senator to give in to the swamp. If Paxton wins, he would enter the Senate already corrupt. Who knows what other trouble he’s ready to get into on day one? A few Republicans seem willing to cast their ballots for Talarico as a protest vote. I imagine many more are tempted but understandably can’t bring themselves to vote for a lifelong Democrat who regularly defies conservative values around fiscal responsibility and protecting the right to bear arms. That’s why I’m here. Not only do I want to cut spending and taxes, but I’m also a strong pro-gun advocate for the Second Amendment. Meanwhile, Paxton is running on a platform of big government giveaways, like free money for home down payments. Republicans used to campaign as a small-government party that wanted balanced budgets. They haven’t delivered, and there’s no reason to think someone like Paxton will do anything to tackle our gargantuan federal deficits and the unsustainable $40 trillion national debt. For those Republicans who truly believe in less government, voting Libertarian is the logical choice.

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Texas youth prison lockdown prompts calls for reform ahead of new facility builds

A Texas legal advocacy nonprofit is calling for the state’s juvenile justice agency to halt groundbreakings on two new youth prisons in the wake of restrictive lockdown conditions at the agency’s five correctional facilities across the state. In the Texas Civil Rights Project’s letter to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department’s executive director Shandra Carter, the group condemned the statewide lockdown that confined hundreds of kids to their closet-sized cells for several days, sometimes with only minutes of release each day. “The agency has continuously proven an inability to safely staff and operate its existing youth prisons and deliver the rehabilitative services and care it is tasked to provide,” the letter reads. “It would be negligent for TJJD to continue the process of opening more facilities while systemwide operational challenges and staffing issues persist.”

TJJD currently oversees five youth prisons housing about 750 kids total who have committed serious or chronic offenses. The department is set to break ground on two new youth prisons in the coming days: a facility south of Houston Thursday afternoon and a facility in Waxahachie on Wednesday. The Waxahachie facility will focus on kids with the highest mental and behavioral needs, according to TJJD’s web site. The Houston-area facility will serve youth with “high-risk and violent behavioral profiles.” “Celebrating new construction while children in existing facilities are harming themselves during statewide lockdowns is indefensible,” Sarah Beebe, the supervising staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a press release Wednesday. “TJJD should cancel the groundbreakings, ensure all youth in their custody are safe, and return as many to the community as possible.” A representative from Finish the 5, a campaign under Texas Civil Rights Project’s pursuing the closure of the state’s five youth prisons, also signed onto the letter.

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RFK Jr. announces partnership with Dell Medical School to boost clinical trials in the US

UT Austin's Dell Medical School will have a key role in new projects aimed at improving and expanding clinical trials in the United States, federal officials announced Wednesday. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was joined by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz and other top health officials to unveil the new SURPASS initiative — an acronym for "Simulation-augmented, Real-time Platform Adaptive Seamless Trials." Kennedy said the goal was to modernize American clinical trial infrastructure to be able to compete with countries that are amping up medical innovation, including China and Australia. "The system we have today takes far too long, it costs too much and it asks too much of the patients," Kennedy said.

SURPASS is funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within HHS created under the Biden administration that invests in innovative research and “breakthrough technologies.” With this initiative, the agency hopes to speed up the development of new disease treatments. “Today’s clinical trial system often requires too many stops, too much duplicated infrastructure, and too much time before researchers can understand whether a trial is on the right track,” said Daria Fedyukina, program manager for SURPASS, in a news release. Dell Medical School will be the "key academic partner" for two major projects announced as part of the SURPASS initiative. The first, known as STACK, intends to equip more research sites to take on clinical trials and make them more accessible to patients where they live, including in rural areas. The second, the COMMONS project, will develop a “national research data resource” which institutions across the country can access and contribute to. In addition to sharing data useful for future clinical trials, it aims to help institutions identify patients who might be a good fit for a project. Dell Medical School will be the first institution to contribute to and test COMMONS. Dell Medical School will dedicate resources from across UT to the efforts, including contributions from experts in computing, engineering and data science. Claudia Lucchinetti, the dean of Dell Medical School, said the projects align with the university’s goals in opening the forthcoming Dell Medical Center — “bringing research closer to patients and making learning part of everyday care.” “These projects will help build a lasting foundation for that work by connecting patients with appropriate trials, bringing participation closer to home and using real-world and digital data to better understand what works and for whom,” Lucchinetti said in a news release.

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What Texas families should know about new student restraint rules

New Texas Education Agency rules published last week explicitly prohibit educators and other campus staff from restraining or disciplining students in any way that intentionally causes pain. The rules also reaffirm that restraint is only allowed in emergency situations — not as discipline or to make students listen or behave. Restraint includes using physical force or devices, like handcuffs, to restrict a student’s ability to move their body. Across the state, thousands of students are restrained every year, and 90% of restraints involve students with disabilities, according to research from advocacy groups Texas Appleseed and Disability Rights Texas. In San Antonio, a group of Schertz-Cibolo Universal City Independent School District parents sued the district after three educators allegedly abused special education students in 2024 and 2025, including through unlawful restraint.

Starting Monday, Texas public schools will be required to train school employees and volunteers on crisis prevention and intervention techniques. Staff who are at a “high risk” of crisis involvement must receive annual training on non-violent intervention, verbal deescalation and safe ways to intervene. Schools need to train all other campus-based staff every two years. TEA released the updated rules after the Texas Legislature passed new laws related to student restraint and special education funding. Senate Bill 133, also known as the “No Kids in Cuffs” law, was passed in 2023 and bans school security staff from handcuffing, physically restraining or tasing students ages 10 and younger. The new rules take effect on Monday. In the updated rules, TEA added definitions for terms including “crisis,” “seclusion” and “taser.” The agency also clarified the meanings of “emergency” and “restraint.” The agency will now define “crisis” as when a student experiences dysregulation that overwhelms their coping mechanisms. In a crisis, a student may involuntarily move their body, making it difficult to function or think logically. This can put the student or others at risk of serious physical harm.

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AAA: Texas records most expensive September ever for gasoline

Texas drivers just weathered the most expensive September at the pump in state history, as elevated crude oil prices and instability near the Strait of Hormuz kept fuel costs soaring throughout the month. According to AAA Texas, the statewide average for regular unleaded gasoline reached $3.94 per gallon last month, shattering the previous September record of $3.63 set back in 2012. While prices have edged down two cents over the past week, Lone Star State motorists are still paying $1.20 more per gallon than they did at this time last year.

“September was a record-setting month at the pump for Texas drivers, with the statewide average for regular unleaded reaching its highest September level on record,” said Daniel Armbruster, spokesperson for AAA Texas. “While crude oil prices have recently eased back into the $90-per-barrel range, gasoline prices remain unusually high for this time of year.” The pain at the pump varies significantly depending on the metro area. Drivers in El Paso are taking the hardest hit, paying a state-high average of $4.34 per gallon. Meanwhile, motorists in the McAllen metro area are seeing the lowest prices in Texas at $3.74 per gallon. Nationally, Americans are paying an average of $4.41 per gallon—down seven cents from last week, but up $1.25 compared to a year ago. While crude oil dropping back into the $90-per-barrel range could offer drivers some relief heading into autumn, AAA officials noted that the record spike remains seasonal.

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National Stories

5 wildest bombshell moments from Trump’s rollercoaster TIME interview

President Donald Trump doubled down on his media attacks, talked up his “highest of IQs,” floating pardoning his own administration officials and much more in a lengthy and fiery interview with TIME. Trump sat down for an interview with senior political correspondent Eric Cortellessa and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs this week, and Trump wasted little time, jumping into numerous topics, lashing out at his own nominees to the Supreme Court, dismissing his falling approval ratings as “fake news,” and even lashing out at the reporters directly at one point.

The president has lashed out at the Supreme Court over decisions against him, but made it clear in the TIME interview that he regrets nominating Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump said: Yeah. What can I do? I put them in. They voted against me too often. I was very—I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often. They vote for me too. The Democrats stick like glue—those three, they virtually never vary. You can come up with the worst thing in the world and they’ll vote as a group. And while I don’t like it, there’s something I admire about it: there’s loyalty. So they have loyalty to [former President] Barack Hussein Obama. They have loyalty to [former President Joe] Biden, even though Biden doesn’t even know who the hell they are. He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t even know what the Supreme Court is. And me, I gave them the chance of a lifetime, and it’s unfortunate what they did. He took issue with the court’s rulings on birthright citizenship and tariffs. Trump had plenty to say about the media during his interview. He defended banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds recently, accusing the outlets of publishing “fake” and negative stories about him, while ignoring more positive or “fair” stories. A judge has since temporarily reversed the ban against the outlets covering the White House. While complaining about the media attention he gets, Trump targeted Kaitlan Collins, a frequent media target. He called the CNN White House correspondent and TV anchor an “average person” and the “most unhappy young person” he’s ever seen. He even asked, “What’s the purpose of Kaitlan Collins?”

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White House officials told the DOJ to delay action on abortion ahead of the midterms

The White House has instructed the Justice Department to move slowly on any abortion-related actions ahead of the midterm elections, The Washington Sun has learned. In a series of discussions, senior White House officials, led by White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, directly delivered the message to Attorney General Todd Blanche, according to a senior administration official not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Wiles suggested that an aggressive approach on abortion would generate unwanted attention, something the officials worried could alienate voters ahead of the November elections. “No one wants us taking any real action before the midterms,” the senior administration official said, emphasizing the push came directly from top White House staff.

The White House denied that meetings took place: “This is completely false. These conversations never occurred between White House officials and DOJ officials.” But administration officials have also informed anti-abortion leaders, who have aggressively pressed the administration to move quickly to restrict abortion access, that any action on abortion would take place after the midterm elections, multiple sources told The Sun. “Once the midterms are over and it’s truly lame-duck time, we’ve heard the gloves will be off,” one conservative in touch with the administration, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, said. “We have heard we have friends, and there are definitely people who are staunch pro-lifers.” The DOJ has consistently asked federal judges to pause ongoing lawsuits that seek to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone until the Food and Drug Administration completes a review of the drug’s safety and effectiveness. A departure from that strategy would create unfavorable headlines just before voters head to the polls, the White House officials made clear to Blanche.

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ICE guidance bans high-speed car chases and sets tighter rules for traffic stops, a memo shows

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been ordered not to engage in high-speed car chases and to make vehicle stops only if they have completed specific training, under new internal guidance issued after several drivers were shot in encounters with ICE. A memo sent to officers in ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division and obtained by The Associated Press warned they are not authorized to chase vehicles that fail to pull over under any circumstances. Instead, officers should take down the vehicles’ information for further investigation, according to the memo signed by ICE’s executive associate director Marcos D. Charles and dated Wednesday. The new guidance comes after ICE-initiated vehicle stops have repeatedly escalated when drivers have refused to cooperate or tried to flee. ICE agents have fired their guns during more than a dozen such encounters since last year, killing at least four people and wounding several others.

President Donald Trump’s administration has faced internal tension over how to handle traffic stops, which are seen as particularly high-risk encounters. After fatal shootings of drivers in Maine and Texas in July, ICE officers were directed to temporarily pause most vehicle stops. But the next day, Trump went on social media to direct the agency to continue traffic stops, calling them “one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools.” ICE has faced intense pressure from the White House to deport more people who are in the country illegally, and its arrests have reached record numbers. At the same time, the agency’s rapid hiring spree last year resulted in some poorly vetted and trained officers hitting the streets. In a statement, ICE downplayed the significance of the memo, which said the new guidance was intended to replace and amend prior directives issued earlier this year, last year and in 2018.

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OpenAI fires researchers for allegedly sharing information with AI safety group

OpenAI has fired three researchers for alleged misconduct, including sharing confidential company information with a third-party AI-safety organization, according to people familiar with the matter. The company recently told some employees that it had terminated three researchers who worked on its safety team, one of the people said. The affected employees are Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni, the people familiar with the matter said. The researchers didn’t immediately comment. “We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information,” an OpenAI spokesperson said. “Our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work.”

AI giants are under growing pressure to submit their technology for independent safety testing. Last month, the CEO of OpenAI rival Anthropic said his company would allow outside evaluators like METR, an AI safety nonprofit, to verify its adherence to safety measures and assess model alignment. OpenAI has recently faced a spate of security incidents in which its AI agents escaped containment, hacking some company websites and aggressively probing a wide range of websites. After its model hacked the AI company Hugging Face, OpenAI allowed staff members from METR and a Redwood Research staff member contracting with that group to work in its offices for six days to investigate how its models behaved. METR later released a report based on the information to which the company provided access. One of the fired OpenAI employees, Korbak, was a member of OpenAI’s safety team, and has said he served as the company’s technical contact for Redwood Research and METR in their investigation of the Hugging Face incident. The other terminated employees, Wang and Balesni, worked on alignment, which is ensuring that the company’s models behave as humans intend them to.

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Hochul names Letitia James as special prosecutor in Cornell case

Gov. Kathy Hochul has named Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, to serve as special prosecutor to investigate a woman’s allegation that she was raped in a fraternity house near Cornell University’s campus in October 2024. In a post on X on Thursday night, Ms. Hochul said that she would be assigning Ms. James, who had already begun a review of the way law enforcement handled the matter, to oversee the investigation in Tompkins County. “New information has raised serious questions about how this case was handled, and I’ve lost faith in the Tompkins County D.A.’s ability to fairly oversee it,” Ms. Hochul said. She added, “The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued.” The announcement marked a dramatic development in a case that has horrified many Americans and renewed a long-running national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses.

The authorities in Ithaca, N.Y., have faced intense backlash over how they investigated the Oct. 19, 2024, encounter between a woman known as Jane Doe and a number of men at the Chi Phi fraternity house. Facing a public outcry, Matthew Van Houten, the Tompkins County district attorney, said on Monday that his office would reopen the investigation into Jane Doe’s allegations. In a lawsuit filed last month, the woman said that when she was a 20-year-old sophomore, she was plied with alcohol and drugs and then raped by several men at the fraternity house. She reported the incident to the Cornell University Police Department several weeks later, but no criminal charges were filed. At the heart of the criticism has been the revelation that the woman, in her statements to the police, said that she could say “with 100 percent confidence I was raped.” Mr. Van Houten has said that his office primarily reviewed a six-page report provided by Cornell police, which omitted the definitive language detailed in a transcription of her interview with investigators. Lawyers for at least three of the seven men named in Jane Doe’s lawsuit have issued statements denying criminal wrongdoing. In hours of interviews during a university investigation in the winter of 2024, the seven men denied wrongdoing. Four said they had consensual sexual interactions with Jane Doe; three denied participating in sexual encounters altogether.

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Europe weighs new diesel stocks release after US pressure, sources say

European Union countries discussed a French proposal on Friday to release diesel stocks in response to US pressure to help cool surging fuel prices, two sources familiar with details of the discussion told Reuters. The proposal, ?discussed on a call involving EU governments, calls for European countries to release 50 million barrels of diesel and International Energy Agency members to release 50 ?million barrels of crude oil, the sources said. The discussions underscore growing pressure on Europe as U.S. ?President Donald Trump considers a potential ban on US diesel exports to help lower domestic fuel prices ahead of November ?3 midterm elections.

In weighing its response, the EU needs to balance the need to ease soaring fuel costs against preserving ?emergency reserves to safeguard against uncertain supply from Gulf producers due to disruptions caused by the Iran war. France's finance and energy ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters reported on Thursday that the Trump administration had told Germany and France to draw down emergency ?diesel inventories or face a potential US diesel export ban, according to three people close to the discussions. The US had ?demanded large European countries including France and Germany release 100 million barrels of diesel within a 20-day window, one of the sources ?told Reuters ?on Friday. Global diesel supply has been hit by the US war with Iran and a Russian ban on exports after Ukraine damaged many of its refineries. Chinese refiners have also suspended October fuel exports to bolster domestic stocks, sources said.

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‘I am haunted’: Tennessee grapples with questions after another botched execution

For months before the state of Tennessee planned to execute Christa Pike, she and her attorneys worried that the lethal injection could go wrong. In court filings and in multiday hearings, they challenged the state’s existing protocols, raising fears that she could endure undue suffering and that a blood disorder and her small veins might cause complications. They cited another botched execution in the state in May. They suggested an alternative form of execution, such as firing squad or hanging. Each time, the requests were rejected. But those fears appeared to play out inside the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday night, when Tennessee officials tried to inject Pike with deadly drugs that ultimately did not kill her.

She “was very concerned that this execution would go exactly the way it ended up coming out,” one of Pike’s attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, told reporters Thursday. “Tennessee should not be torturing its citizens in the name of justice.” As he spoke, Pike lay in a hospital bed, still alive more than a day after she was to have been executed for the brutal murder of Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when they were teenagers. Randy Spivey, another one of Pike’s attorneys, said she remained in critical condition and was “receiving lifesaving medical care,” but added that the full ramifications for her health were still not clear. It was hardly the only question that loomed Thursday, as Tennessee officials confronted intense scrutiny over what went wrong and how the state had botched two executions this year. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) on Thursday halted executions in the state and ordered an investigation into the incident, saying he was “highly disappointed” by what happened.

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Maine Dem Sen candidate's 'working class' cred shredded by both parties when internet sees latest 'cringey' ad

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who has touted his working-class bonafides on the campaign trail, is facing backlash from both sides of the aisle over a viral ad that critics are labeling as tone-deaf pandering. "If Republicans spend $46 million on these TV ads, who’s gunna be convinced by that?" Jackson is asked in the ad as he sips a boba tea. Jackson then looks around and smiles before saying "the 1%ers" as a photo of his opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are shown on the screen. The ad’s caption reads "sips boba tea" alongside a boba and wide-eyed emoji.

The ad’s post on X was widely mocked by Democrats and Republicans and has been viewed over 2 million times. "Maine is the oldest median age electorate in the nation," Democratic strategist Steve Schale posted on X. "I know I’m not a DC strategist but I really, really don’t get it." "Troy Jackson needs to win but videos like this are unhelpful and cringey," liberal influencer Harry Sisson posted on X. "Please change it up! No boba tea!" "The same people that ran Mallory McMorrow's campaign into the ground are telling you to do this goofy s---," left-wing podcaster Kyle Kulinski posted on X. "Just get out there and tell the truth and speak from the heart for economic justice and against war and stop with all this bulls---. C'mon man. You're smarter than this." "It's a little bit funny to be desperately trying to position as working class masculine male and have gen-z women run your socials like they would run their own personals," Republican communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X. "... ," National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Southern regional press secretary Reilly Richardson posted on X. " Weird," GOP communicator Steve Guest posted on X. "Looks like the first time that Troy Jackson has ever had boba." "Boba tea! Just like regular people! " journalist Chris Cillizza posted on X. "Want to remind you that Democrats were openly proud of how masculine their Maine campaign was going to be and then they ran this ad," former Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh posted on X. Fox News Digital reached out to Jackson's campaign for comment.

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Lead Stories

Suspect arrested in ‘credible’ plot to attack Texas Capitol on Thursday, DPS says

The Texas Department of Public Safety found a “credible” threat to attack the Capitol on Thursday, the agency confirmed in an email. DPS said the threat was initiated by Benny Caldera Jr., 40, and several co-conspirators who had planned to carry out a "violent attack" on Oct. 1. DPS said they worked with the FBI and local law enforcement to arrest Caldera at his residence in Converse, a city just outside San Antonio, around 3 a.m. Wednesday.

Caldera was transported to the Bexar County Jail and charged with felony terroristic threat against a public servant, DPS said. A $75,000 bond has been set for Caldera, according to county documents. Caldera has been charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon in Bexar County in 2023 and 2024, according to county documents. The news was first shared in a memo to members of the Texas Senate. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt said there is "speculation that there are other conspirators," but no one else has been charged. “They don't know anything about motive, who, what, when, where, yet,” Bettencourt said. “Literally, just within a few hours of the tip they had the potential perpetrator in custody.” DPS said its investigation into the threat is ongoing and that it will continue to have an increased presence at the Capitol.

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Senate reaches bipartisan deal on permitting bill for energy projects

Senators from both parties said Wednesday they have reached a deal on legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects that now face yearslong delays, as lawmakers seek to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy. The bill, proponents argue, would cut down the arduous timeline for getting big energy projects off the ground at a time when demand is rising because of mushrooming data centers for artificial intelligence. The bill would ensure AI data centers are forced to pay for the increased electricity they use and would mark a significant change to a landmark environmental law that critics say slows the process of building energy projects. Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the bill “a major step toward making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects” of all types while maintaining important environmental protections.

“The American people sent us here to do big things. This is a big thing. It’s monumental and it’s legacy-setting,” Capito said at a news conference at the Capitol where she was joined by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The four senators lead the chamber’s energy and environment panels. Heinrich said the bill “will mean more energy on the grid, more good-paying jobs, and lower electricity costs for families and businesses. And as data centers drive demand for more power, it will ensure they pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require — not leave that bill to American families.” A vote on the bill won’t happen until after the midterm elections — reflecting the fraught political reality as elections loom that could change partisan control of both chambers. But the bill represents a rare instance of bipartisanship over the country’s energy policy as lawmakers from both parties agree on the need to build new energy projects of all types. Lee, who chairs the energy committee, said he is confident the bill will be approved in a lame-duck session in November, noting its bipartisan support and encouragement from business and environmental groups.

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Another day of pounding rain raises flooding fears in Texas

At a news conference this week, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said officials had positioned crews and equipment across the state ahead of moisture sent into the region from Hurricane Polo, which made landfall twice this week on Mexico’s western coast — about 500 miles from the parts of Texas expected to be hit by storms. Governor Abbott cautioned that heavy rain could lead to flooding and rising rivers. “We’ll do everything possible so that we can make it through this very heavy rain event with no loss of life,” he said. At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, where official weather records are taken, no rain fell from July 16 to Sept. 20, a 67-day stretch that tied for the second-longest period without measurable precipitation, according to the National Weather Service. More than 43 percent of Dallas County is experiencing an exceptional drought, the highest category of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The weather on Wednesday is a classic collision of colliding air masses colliding across the Central Plains, setting off storms and outbursts of rain in the afternoons and evenings. Those outbursts can also bring tornadoes, hail and damaging winds, a pattern that also occurs in late spring but occurs again as summer transitions to fall. What makes this system more potent is an influx of moisture from the remnants of Polo, which will drift into Texas on Wednesday. Over the next two days, the heaviest rainfall is expected in a band stretching across Central Texas from the Mexican border and into Oklahoma. The storms will begin in the west and slowly shift east. Downpours could drop up to five inches of rain in a short period, creating a severe risk of flash flooding. When water hits the dry soil, it will run off as if the ground were concrete rather than soaking in, heightening the threat of floods. Emergency managers were also concerned about the lingering rainfall over southeastern Colorado, where the ground was saturated from days of rain and could fuel more flooding.

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Texas public schools could lose $227M from voucher exodus, estimate shows

Rural Texas school districts are poised to lose millions of dollars in funding this year after thousands of students reported using vouchers to leave for private or home schools, according to a new analysis of state data. Across the state, at least 28,200 public school students took a voucher, an estimated loss of at least $227 million in state funding for their public districts. Large urban-area school districts have seen the most students leave. But the effect could be felt more acutely among hundreds of smaller school districts, where losing a handful of students can have a dramatic effect on the budget. The analysis by the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency and Every Texan, two advocacy groups that oppose vouchers, provides the first glimpse into the program’s effect on public schools. About 70% of the state’s more than 1,000 school districts lost at least one student to a voucher as of Aug. 10, according to the organizations, which received the data from the Comptroller through a public information request. The districts range from Marathon ISD, which educates just 46 students at a single school in a remote patch of southwest Texas, to Houston ISD, with nearly 170,000 students and 270 schools.

Because schools are funded based on student attendance, each student who leaves is a financial hit. The organizations conservatively estimated the average loss at $8,200 each, but that figure will vary depending on the student and where they live. Miles ISD, with about 500 students 20 minutes outside of San Angelo, estimates each departure costs the district about $15,000 in funding. “If you lose four kids to it, you lose a teacher’s salary,” Superintendent Ty Stevens said. But most districts still have no idea how many students have left. That’s because the Texas Comptroller won’t release exact numbers for any district with fewer than 30 students participating in the voucher program, citing privacy concerns. More than 540 districts fall into that category. “I have a feeling that we probably have fewer than 10 students receiving it,” said Brandon Enos, superintendent of Gunter ISD, with about 1,250 students 30 minutes north of Plano. “I have no way of knowing it.” Concerns about vouchers’ impact in rural Texas, where public schools are often the largest employer, were a big reason why 21 GOP lawmakers banded with Democrats to block Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher plan in 2023.

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State Stories

Texas oil, gas production increases slightly in third quarter as Iran War uncertainty remains

Texas oil and gas companies reported increased activity in the third quarter but remain uncertain about the impacts of the Iran War, according to the latest Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Energy Survey. The survey included responses from 83 exploration and production firms, as well as 42 oilfield services firms across Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico. Oil prices have skyrocketed during the United States' and Israel's war with Iran, due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to infrastructure. On average, survey respondents said they expect the West Texas Intermediate crude oil price to be about $88 per barrel at the end of the year. However, Federal Reserve senior business economist Kunal Patel said many executives remain uncertain about the outlook for oil and gas firms next year.

"I think a lot of that has to do with the price volatility. It's kind of unclear where prices will be," he said during a press briefing Wednesday. In survey comments, oil and gas executives echoed this uncertainty. "The Iranian conflict continues to be the wild card in the industry," a survey respondent from an exploration and production firm wrote. "Its movement correlates with commodity prices." "My oil price crystal ball broke when the administration first hit Iran," wrote a respondent from an oil and gas support services firm. The Federal Reserve Bank also asked oil and gas leaders when they expect Persian Gulf crude oil exports to return to normal. The highest share of respondents said they expect a return to normalcy in the second quarter of 2026. The survey saw modest increases in indexes measuring employment and hours worked. However, costs also remained elevated. "There is some limitation unless firms are willing to pay an incredibly higher price, whether it's goods or for services," Patel said. "That's kind of capping that increase in activity." The survey also asked companies about oilfield theft. Nearly half of firms in the Permian Basin said they had experienced oilfield theft. Most exploration and production executives whose companies were impacted by theft said that theft levels remained about the same over the past 12 months. The majority of these companies said the financial impacts of this theft were low.

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Talarico and Paxton go toe-to-toe on data centers

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico said Wednesday that data center construction in Texas should not be allowed to contribute to the state's ongoing affordability crisis. State Rep. Talarico, who is running against Republican Ken Paxton to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate, discussed data centers while participating in a Q&A dialogue with the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). USHBC President Javier Palomarez moderated the discussion and asked Talarico how he would approach data center construction if elected. Talarico said he believes data centers are "exacerbating the affordability crisis."

"If a data center company can't meet the demands of the community where they seek to operate, if they can't pay for their own energy, if they can't pay for their own water and recycle their water, if they can't get the consent and the input of the police who live in these communities, then they shouldn't be built," Talarico said. Paxton participated in his own Q&A session with the USHBC earlier this week. In his own discussion, Paxton called for balancing border security with immigration reform to help labor-starved business sectors. Over the past year, artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to power them have become increasingly hot-button issues, particularly as the November midterm election approaches. Talarico argued data centers should not be strong-arming communities and should instead be working with the communities in which they hope to become a part of. "I'm someone who believes in local control, and I've fought for it in the state legislature, and I don't want to make economic development decisions for our communities," he said. "What I want to ensure is that it is a two-way street, because right now a lot of these giant data center companies are running over local communities, and these giant data centers are popping up in people's backyards and there's no input." During the discussion on data centers, Talarico criticized Paxton, Texas’ current attorney general, for allegedly taking campaign donations from some of the companies behind data centers. "I'll just say, I haven't taken a dime from data center companies," he said. "My opponent in this race has taken nearly half a million dollars from data center companies, and so what we need is a senator who's going to be independent, who is going to fight for Texans in these negotiations and ensure that these negotiations are fair."

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TSMC mulls multibillion-dollar Texas campus for more AI chips

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is weighing a new campus in Texas that would add tens of billions of dollars in new investment to the company’s multiyear expansion into chipmaking in the US. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. is looking into further overseas facilities to help handle unrelenting demand for artificial intelligence hardware, according to people familiar with its plans. TSMC has already committed to spending $265 billion at an expansive site in Arizona, where it’s developing several fabrication plants, and the envisioned Texas investment would also involve multiple fabs, one of the people said. Business from North America accounts for more than 75% of the chipmaker’s wafer revenue so far this year, and AI silicon designers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. bring in huge orders for some of its most advanced technology. The AI boom has strained TSMC’s existing capacity and the company’s had to roughly double its planned equipment purchases over the past year in order to keep up with demand, Deputy Co-Chief Operating Officer Cliff Hou said last month.

If TSMC ultimately decides to invest in Texas, the project would encompass multiple chipmaking plants, each of which would cost at least $20 billion, according to one of the people. The plans remain at an early stage, the people cautioned, asking not to be identified as the details aren’t public. The potential Texas investment is contingent on US legislators extending an advanced-manufacturing tax credit that is set to expire at the end of this year, one of the people said. That tax credit was a cornerstone of former president Joe Biden’s 2022 Chips Act, and it was increased to 35% and extended last year. While an extension has yet to find a viable path to passage this year, Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, and Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, have said they are committed to it. Texas already has a significant semiconductor foundation, including an extensive chip production complex that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. has established. Elon Musk is also developing his Terafab project, which will supply chips for his massive business empire, in the Lone Star state. TSMC executives including Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei have consistently said their international expansion will be in service of customer demand and dependent on cooperation and support from local governments. Beside its Arizona campus, Taiwan’s most valuable company is also building plants in Japan’s Kumamoto, in partnership with Sony Group Corp., as well as a nascent project in Saxony, Germany.

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GOP redistricting in Texas and Florida may not turn out as Trump hoped

Eric Flores, a former federal prosecutor and Army National Guard infantry captain, was one of the Republican Party’s prized recruits in this year’s midterm elections. With help from a redrawn congressional map in Texas, he seemed primed to dislodge longtime Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in a region that swung toward Donald Trump in the last presidential election. Now Flores is one of several candidates in tougher races than originally envisioned as Republican-run states heeded Trump’s call to begin an unusual round of redistricting to help retain control of the U.S. House. Republicans hoped to pick up as many as nine seats combined in Texas and Florida. But even though the districts were redrawn to make them easier to win for Republicans, the party is weighed down by the public’s dissatisfaction with Trump, the economy, the war with Iran that has raised gas prices, and the president’s deportation agenda.

Republicans won 25 of Texas’ 38 seats in the U.S. House as Trump returned to the White House two years ago. Partially using that election as a baseline, the redrawn map was intended to help Republicans win up to 30 seats. Key to this plan was the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily Latino region on the southern tip of Texas that had shifted toward Trump. Republicans in Washington acknowledge that inflation, Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran have made their path harder. Latino voters’ discontent with Trump’s immigration agenda further scrambles their efforts. Republicans are also facing the potential loss of an incumbent who represents a redrawn district. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who is running for a third term, has a strong challenge from musician Bobby Pulido. A Latin Grammy winner whose top song on Spotify has 619 million streams, Pulido does not face the usual first-time candidates’ challenge of establishing name ID. Republicans already had 20 out of Florida’s 28 House seats, and they wanted to boost that to 24 with their new congressional map. But much like in Texas, their plan was based on 2024 results, when voters, including many Latinos, were dissatisfied with Biden on the economy and immigration. Republicans went after Rep. Kathy Castor in metro Tampa and Rep. Darren Soto in the Orlando area, while putting South Florida Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz into the same district.

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Exxon, others defeat consumer lawsuit over plastic recycling claims

Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other major chemical producers persuaded a US judge on Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit accusing them of misleading ?the public for years about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and ?driving up costs for consumers. Here are the details: US District Judge Toby Crouse, in a ruling on Tuesday, said the plaintiffs — eight individuals and the board of a local county commission — failed to ?show that they have so-called standing to sue in the first place Crouse ?said the lawsuit, despite its length, “is light on facts connecting the ?defendants’ conduct and plaintiffs’ injuries.” The judge said the complaint “fails to allege that ?any specific plaintiff saw any specific ad or marketing material produced by any specific ?defendant”

In their 2024 lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that Exxon, Chevron and other companies duped consumers into believing that plastic is recyclable, leading them to buy more plastic products. The plaintiffs proposed ?a class of millions of purchasers of plastic products nationwide In court papers, the ?plaintiffs said the companies “engaged in a coordinated, fraudulent marketing scheme to portray plastics as broadly and ?readily ?recyclable, knowing that the vast majority of consumer plastics cannot be and are not recycled” Crouse said other manufacturers and retailers that are not parties to the case are responsible for setting prices. He also found the “breadth” of some of the plaintiffs’ ?claims undermined their viability “The ?plaintiffs argue that ?the price of every single plastic product that they have ever purchased was artificially inflated because of the defendants’ conduct,” ?the judge wrote. “That bald conclusion fails to account for the ?obvious intervening ?events and market conditions” Exxon, Chevron and a lead attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment The companies in their bid for dismissal said the ?plaintiffs were ?seeking to impose liability on them “based on an ?innocuous and socially beneficial activity: the promotion of recycling”

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Austin ICE shooting: Bond denied for man shot by ICE agent; he's now in federal criminal custody

The man who was shot by an ICE agent in North Austin appeared in federal court on Wednesday. 28-year-old Wilber Garces Perez was charged with assaulting, resisting, interfering with, and impeding a federal officer. On Wednesday, his bond was denied, meaning he'll now be in federal criminal custody, instead of federal immigration custody. The hearing on Wednesday focused on his alleged assault on an officer before shots rang out.

At the United States Courthouse in Downtown Austin, he attended a federal criminal bail hearing. For several hours, the court reviewed evidence from the moments leading up to the shooting, as well as questioning a Department of Homeland Security investigator, with a heavy focus on the initial traffic stop conducted by ICE agents. Federal prosecutors allege that on Sept. 20, federal agents stopped Perez after confirming he had a final order of removal. The officers said that Perez gave them his driver's license but ignored repeated requests to put his vehicle in park and step out. The federal complaint says the officers gave him additional instructions in Spanish before he abruptly closed his windows and drove away. It was during this time that prosecutors claim the driver's side mirror struck one of the officers in the torso. Much of Wednesday afternoon was spent reviewing the body camera footage of one of the ICE agents who conducted the traffic stop. The angle was from the agent assisting in the stop, not the federal officer who was allegedly struck by the vehicle. It was announced in court that footage of the incident would not be made available to the public.

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Inside downballot Dems’ effort to flip Texas’ key county battleground

On an August day in Fort Worth, when the temperature will reach the high 90s before noon, Tiffany Burks is counting door hangers. Volunteers have gathered at Portico Coffee in the Northside neighborhood, and Burks, the Democratic candidate for Tarrant County district attorney, is reviewing logistics before a block walk. Her choice of venue was strategic: In the 1930s, banks, insurance companies, and housing authorities “redlined” Fort Worth, denying loans to people in neighborhoods like Northside based on race. The practice helped entrench racial and economic segregation in Fort Worth, with effects that continue to shape where people live and if they can accumulate wealth. As Burks sees it, the redlining also helped create long-term “disillusionment” in government. “I go and I talk to people and I ask them, ‘Who is your DA?’ And they have no idea,” said Burks. That’s why she and her volunteers are “going into areas where people don’t normally go, to try to let them know that we really do care about Northside.”

While 40 percent of Tarrant County’s population is white, 92 percent of the death sentences sought by prosecutors since 2012 have been against people of color. The decision on which charges to file and when to pursue the death penalty lies with the DA’s office. Burks, who worked in that office as a prosecutor from 1999 to 2021, previously ran for the top job in 2022 against Republican candidate Phil Sorrells, who beat her by about 6 points. She says Sorrells is part of an “old boys network” that doesn’t work for the people they’re elected to represent. Burks wants to create a new diversion unit within the office that connects people struggling with addiction and homelessness to services rather than repeatedly jailing them. The DA hopeful frequently campaigns with fellow Democrats Nydia Cárdenas and Alisa Simmons, who are both running for spots on the commissioners court. Similar to Burks, Cárdenas meets many people who don’t know that the governing body handles county finances, elections, budgets, and taxes. Voters will ask her, “Oh, is that the one where the guy kicks everybody out and he’s rude?’” She tells them, “Yes, that’s the one.” County Judge Tim O’Hare—the Republican leader of the court and the guy who “kicks everybody out”—has spent years making it more difficult for people to vote.

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Downtown Dallas Inc.’s plan to save downtown

Downtown Dallas has had an eventful year. In January, the largest tenant, AT&T, announced its move to Plano. Months later, Comerica pulled all employees out of its eponymous tower. Today, the flagship, 100-plus-year-old Neiman Marcus will close its doors for good. And, of course, the debate over City Hall‘s future rages on. That’s why Downtown Dallas Inc. CEO Jennifer Scripps said it’s “no accident that we are releasing [a new] plan as we are going into the fourth quarter of what has been a consequential 2026.” The morning of Sept. 30, Scripps alongside Chris Beynon of urban design firm MIG addressed hundreds of leaders and stakeholders to unveil downtown’s plan to prioritize mixed-use development with a goal of doubling downtown’s resident population in the next decade—downtown’s current population is about 16,000.

The plan has five pillars: rejuvenating the economy, boosting residential growth, cultivating distinct districts, increasing mobility through trails and transit-oriented development, and investing in the ground-level experience for pedestrians. “We believe all of those flat parking lots are not fully contributing need to be turned into other assets,” Scripps told D CEO. “Once you have more people, … you think about all the things you like to do in your neighborhood. … By having a mixed-use development, we are a healthier downtown.” Scripps also noted that although downtown is less than 1.5 percent of Dallas’ geographical area, it’s nearly 5 percent of the city’s tax base. Beynon said that the key to boosting the economy downtown is converting vacant offices—as Chicago and Philadelphia have done—and creating experiences for pedestrian like “streateries.” Repurposing the AT&T Discovery District is also top of mind. “We have to make sure that we safeguard this great jewel in downtown and reinvent its next stage,” Beynon said. Given the district’s prime geography, the priority will be bringing new tenants, maintaining management and operations, and ensuring it remains the heart of the city.

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$430M data center planned for this North Texas tech hub, as Abbott halts permits

A $430 million data center is planned for Fort Worth’s AllianceTexas development. In late September, state regulatory paperwork was filed for a data center at 14700 Heritage Parkway — on the west side of Interstate 35W in Denton County. The paperwork describes a data center building with 156,500 square feet of administrative area and four data halls with a 42,000 square foot screened-in equipment yard. The owner of the land is AIL Investment LP. The company Colovore is listed on the paperwork. California-based Colovore has data centers in several states, including one in Austin and two in Dallas-Fort Worth. According to its website, Colovore “designs and operates dedicated AI infrastructure in strategic metro markets” and describes its Texas data centers as “part of a growing Texas footprint.” The website also shows that the company is pre-leasing space at the Fort Worth site. Colovore did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesperson for the city of Fort Worth said in September that the company was not under consideration for economic incentives. Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing permits to data centers until an audit of the state’s electric grid is complete.

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Sarah Stogner: Oil theft steals billions.Texas leaders must listen to locals

(Sarah Stogner is the Republican district attorney of Texas’ 143rd Judicial District, which includes the town of Pecos and a swath of West Texas.) It was easy to miss amid all the electioneering across the state, but the Legislature recently held a hearing on a crucial, timely issue: oilfield theft. It’s a scourge eating away at Texans’ livelihoods. Unfortunately, many of us leading the fight were not heard from. Earlier this year, a Bloomberg headline read, “Oil Theft Is Burning a Billion-Dollar Hole in the West Texas Economy.” Such theft includes the illegal extraction and resale of crude oil, as well as the stealing of valuable oilfield equipment, tools and materials from production sites. Bloomberg cited a report that the losses could amount to $2 billion a year. Now, the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers says the annual impact could be even bigger, at $4.3 billion.

In West Texas, where I serve as district attorney of the 143rd Judicial District, my office has announced two large-scale, successful crackdowns in recent months. In each case, we coordinated with the Department of Public Safety’s Organized Oilfield Theft Prevention Unit and other state, local and federal agencies. Alleged perpetrators were arrested and face charges. At a news conference, I explained that for far too long, many people in the know have looked the other way. Some have called oilfield theft a “cost of doing business.” But they’re wrong. Oil thieves leave a trail of victims. When they steal energy supplies for sale on the black market, undercutting legal rates, energy companies lose money. The vast majority are small businesses. Employees lose jobs. Local governments lose tax revenue, which creates budget shortfalls for schools, hospitals and other vital services. Meanwhile, criminal syndicates grow. There's nothing partisan about fighting this. It should be something Democrats and Republicans work together on. But many just jump on the bandwagon and make promises during election seasons in hopes of appealing to those of us who follow this issue. It’s a lot of talk, and not enough follow-through.

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Houston area man wins Fourth Amendment case against Bexar sheriff

A Houston area man, who won his Fourth Amendment case against the Bexar County sheriff's office, spoke to reporters on Tuesday at the federal courthouse, urging others to use his court victory to battle for their constitutional rights too. Alek Schott, who was traveling for his oil industry job as president of RMS Controls, said there was no probable cause for his I-35 stop in March 2022 by local sheriff's deputy Joel Babb or the search or interrogation that followed. He and his attorneys, Christie Hebert and Jeff Rowes of the Texas Office of the Institute for Justice, said roadside federal surveillance cameras, Schott's ordinary trip in a black Ford 250 pickup to near the border and back, an anonymous tip, a K-9 alert from a manipulated dog, and an invented traffic violation all set the scene for the unlawful stop.

The attorney's said Babb told Schott he was stopped because he allowed his pickup to drift across a fog line on the road, but evidence at the trial showed he never did so. The local jury, who heard the case in Federal Judge Orlando Garcia's court this week, agreed the stop was unconstitutional. "I was returning from a work trip. Just driving back, not realizing there was an entire surveillance network for license plate readers, just marking people to be targeted on their journeys home," he said. "So, I was just traveling back home, trying to get back to my family and my kids and spent 76 minutes detained by the side of the road for doing nothing wrong." Nothing unlawful was found in Schott's truck either, his attorneys said. He said he sued for only $76, one dollar for each minute he was detained, because he wanted his case to be about justice and not monetary reward. Hebert said the case was not about tough law enforcement using high tech to fight crime, but rather unconstitutional "dragnet" style tactics.

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Robert Wilonsky: Sad shrug of a farewell for downtown Dallas’ Neiman Marcus

They wanted to be interviewed for this piece, the current employees of the downtown Neiman Marcus who will become former employees of the downtown Neiman Marcus once it closes forever this very Wednesday. Lifers, veterans and relative newcomers alike, each with warm memories of lives spent toiling with pride, satisfaction and joy at what was once, and for a long time, known only as The Store. But on Monday, during my of-late daily wanderings through the store built for Dallas by Herbert Marcus Sr., his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband Al Neiman and sold to the rest of the world by Stanley Marcus, I was told time and again that I was to pocket my notepad and put away my pen. Employees, no matter how glowing their reminiscences, were instructed by corporate — New York-based Exemplar Luxury Group — not to offer their fond-farewells to media. Nor is there a scheduled valediction — no last toasts nor send-off speeches to the family that brought Dallas to the world and the world to Dallas. Just the clicking of locks and lights.

Another reminder, as though one were needed, that Neiman Marcus — “The Proud Dallas Store,” as this newspaper’s great columnist Frank X. Tolbert once called it — is no longer a Dallas store. Nor a store come Wednesday. Nor, it would seem, very proud, either. “Personally, I am very sad,” said photographer Allison V. Smith, granddaughter of Stanley Marcus and co-editor and co-publisher, with her mother Jerrie, of Reflection of a Man: The Photographs of Stanley Marcus. “It’s a loss to the history of our lives. I am very grateful that my mom, Uncle Dick and Aunt Wendy are not here to witness this.” In recent weeks I’ve watched The Store, spared the executioner’s dispatch in May 2025, slowly fill with the grieving lined up over the still-open casket. One employee I’ve come to know told me the sadness has become overwhelming, that there would be tears enough come Wednesday. The worker had hoped for a wake — a joyful celebration of what had been, not the ceaseless lamentations for what would no longer be. “I just can’t make myself go,” said the woman tasked with overseeing 300 boxes overfilled with Marcus’ documents and correspondence and a room filled with his library. “People say it’s really depressing.” Yes, I said. Mourners at a funeral. “That’s what I’ve heard,” Peterson said. “I am just afraid for the building.” The structure, at least its exterior, isn’t imperiled: At the beginning of August, the Landmark Commission initiated the long-overdue process of rendering the downtown flagship a local monument worthy of legal protections. (It’s already on the National Register of Historic Places.) The commission did so with the blessings of Andrew Woodworth, Exemplar’s chief legal counsel, and local zoning and land use attorney Tommy Mann. Mann mentioned that Saks Global — by which Exemplar was known before emerging at July’s end from Chapter 11 bankruptcy — had previously gone to City Hall to ask for tax increment financing funds, worked with historic architects and presented designs for a reimagined Neiman’s to city officials. But Saks’ bankruptcy sidelined those plans.

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National Stories

Flock's CEO claims its tech "solved" 1 million crimes last year. The company's own methodology undercuts that claim

Faced with recent questions about the privacy costs of its technology, the surveillance camera startup Flock Safety and its CEO have deployed a tidy statistic to tout its benefits. "Last year we helped clear just over a million crimes in America," Flock CEO Garrett Langley said in a March 2026 podcast interview. "Over a million cases were solved last year with this technology," Langley told the auto industry publication The Drive, "and the level of abuse is incredibly low relative to that." "Today, Flock technology assists your officers in more than one million crimes solved annually," Langley said in a blog post last month announcing new privacy updates. But a CBS News review finds the claim that Flock helped solve a million crimes in 2025 is not supported by the available evidence.

In a statement for this report, Flock spokesman Paris Lewbel cast the statistic in a different framing. In addition to case clearances, he said, it includes "investigative leads, cross-jurisdictional assistance, searches conducted during active investigations, and other Flock deployments." "The most precise way to describe our 2025 national estimate is that Flock technology supported approximately 1 million investigations and incidents," Lewbel said. The company did not answer whether Langley had been imprecise in claiming Flock solved one million crimes in 2025, and did not provide CBS News with underlying data supporting that claim. Flock first explained the source of its claims of one million crimes solved in a May 2026 blog post announcing the results of its 2025 Impact Census, in which about 700 law enforcement agencies that use Flock's system participated. Flock says agencies that formally tracked outcomes supplied raw counts, while others provided percentage estimates. The blog post also said the study found 20% of cleared cases in customer jurisdictions in 2025 were assisted by Flock technology.

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Rural hospital administrators: The Rural Health Transformation Program isn’t helping, yet

The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) was supposed to help rural hospitals deal with cuts to federal funding as a result of H.R. 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” but so far, those in rural health care say they’re not seeing any results. While some said it’s too early to see results, others said the program isn’t helping what really needs to be helped — rural hospitals. Kevin Stansbury, the CEO of Lincoln Health Community Hospital in Hugo, Colorado, said the negative impact of H.R. 1 has been real. Hugo, he said, is a town of about 800 people, but the hospital serves an area roughly the size of the state of Connecticut. “We operate on a negative margin typically, and we’re able to stay open because of tax support, and because of other income streams like the 340B program, and the supplemental payments that we get through the Medicaid program that are being targeted by H.R. 1,” Stansbury said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.

“It worries us a lot. The projections we have from the Colorado Hospital Association say that when the cuts are complete, we could lose about $1.5 million in revenue to our already non-existent bottom line, which will really stress us tremendously. We’re trying to figure out ways to mitigate that the best we can.” The Rural Health Transformation Program was one of the compromises out of that legislation designed to offset budget cuts to Medicaid. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law will cut federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years and will increase the number of uninsured people by 10 million in 2034. To offset those cuts, Congress created the RTHP, which would invest $50 billion into rural health over the next five years. Administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the program allocates money to states to use on rural health initiatives. In December of last year, CMS determined how much each state would receive. Awards ranged from $147 million to $281 million, with the average being $200 million. States then began the process of allocating that money to different programs and initiatives within their borders. The money was intended to “expand access to care in rural communities, strengthen the rural health workforce, modernize rural facilities and technology, and support innovative models that bring high-quality, dependable care closer to home,” according to the CMS. “More than 60 million Americans living in rural areas have the right to equal access to quality care,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said last year. “This historic investment puts local hospitals, clinics, and health workers in control of their communities’ healthcare.” The one thing it didn’t do, however, was allocate money directly to rural hospitals.

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OpenAI’s Greg Brockman backs out of second $25 million donation to A.I. Super PAC

The OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, pulled out of a $25 million donation that they had planned to give to a leading artificial intelligence advocacy group, a sign of how sensitive the company has become to the growing backlash to A.I. The group, a super PAC called Leading the Future, said last summer and repeated in later comments that the Brockmans planned to donate a total of $50 million, with the first $25 million in 2025 and a second $25 million this year. That second commitment has since wilted away. Mr. Brockman’s retrenchment was never announced publicly. But inside OpenAI, the 38-year-old executive shared in June that he had no plans to make additional donations beyond the first $25 million.

“I also want to say that I feel terrible about the fact that LTF keeps reflecting on the company and become so much of a distraction for people here,” Mr. Brockman wrote that month in a Slack message obtained by The New York Times. “I’ve been thinking hard about how to turn the ship on it. We’ve donated $25m so far, and have no plans to donate more at this time.” OpenAI has drawn fire for a host of safety concerns, and the A.I. industry’s lobbying effort has attracted scrutiny in recent months. Some in the industry view Leading the Future as too dismissive of calls for A.I. safety, just as OpenAI tries to stake out a middle ground of sorts. Several ideological allies of the super PAC have also had issues with the group’s at-times aggressive tactics against opponents, including a high-profile effort against a New York congressional candidate. In June, 10 days before Mr. Brockman’s internal message, OpenAI published an unusual blog post distancing itself from the super PAC. “OpenAI does not direct the activities of LTF, or have visibility into their operations,” the San Francisco company wrote. It added in bold, “We want to be explicit: No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company’s views.”

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Hegseth cutting generals and admirals by 20%, including top officers who "clung to the woke department"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a speech on Wednesday that the Pentagon is eliminating roughly 1 in 5 generals and admirals during the second Trump administration through firing or position cuts, following through on Hegseth's pledge to fundamentally change how the Pentagon operates. Hegseth said he's aimed for the department to be "unrelenting, unapologetic, and uncompromising" in its mission to win. Generals who "clung to the woke department or seem to think civilian control of the military is simply a suggestion, well, they no longer work here," Hegseth said. "The number crunchers say we fired 10% of the generals and admirals across the force, and that number sounds about right," Hegseth said. "And I know because I directed it that we've also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10%. So yes, 20% reduction across the board. Now the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability, and long overdue."

Hegseth gave that update in a speech dubbed the "State of the Force Address," a rare military address to military officers and enlisted service members at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. It marks the latest move by Hegseth to change the structure of the military, especially at its top levels. Fox News was first to report the planned reductions on Tuesday. In May 2025, Hegseth ordered that a minimum of 10% of all flag and general officers be cut, along with 20% of general officers in the National Guard. In a one-page memo posted on the Defense Department's website, Hegseth said at the time that the cuts were necessary to "drive innovation and operational excellence." He argued that the military must be "unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness," and the key to achieving this would be "removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions." As of July, there were 851 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, according to a Defense Department tally. A year earlier, there were 848 general and flag officers. Federal law caps the number at 857.

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The gap between the rich and the very, very rich is getting wider

The ultrawealthy aren’t just pulling away from average Americans. Buoyed by a stock-market boom that has added trillions of dollars to their net worth, the extremely rich are even pulling away from other rich Americans. The top 0.1% wealthiest Americans have seen their total wealth more than double since the end of 2019, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. The year the pandemic started was when the ultrawealthy began to pull away from other rich groups, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Fed data. In dollar terms, the very richest Americans have gained a total of $14.5 trillion in wealth over that period, with most of that—about $10 trillion—coming from gains in stocks and mutual funds, according to the Fed data, which runs through the end of June. The 0.1% now control about $28 trillion, or about 15% of the nation’s total wealth, which amounts to nearly $186 trillion. The average wealth for a household in this group is more than $200 million.

As of 2022, the minimum for the top 0.1% was $45.8 million, according to the most detailed data available from the Fed. With wealth among the group up by roughly 50% since then, that threshold is much higher now. The people who fall into this group aren’t usually traditional salaried workers. Rather, they are much more likely to be the owner of a bunch of car dealerships or an heir living off investment income. The ultrawealthy’s recent gains from the stock market dwarf the total wealth of the bottom 50% of all Americans, which is about $4 trillion. That bottom group has actually seen their wealth rise more than any other group on a percentage basis, thanks to a combination of rising home values and pandemic-era government relief that swelled bank accounts and helped pay down debt. Nevertheless, the bottom half’s share of total wealth, at an average of about $63,000 a household, comes to just 2.3% of the nation’s total wealth. The average household in the top 0.1% holds over 3,000 times as much wealth as a bottom-half household does. In the top 0.1% by wealth, 37% earn most of their income from businesses, and 26% derive it from capital gains, according to an analysis of Fed data from economics professors Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick for their recent book “The Everywhere Millionaire.” Only 10% derived most of their income from wages and salaries.

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Trump buys ads on CNN, MS NOW as he fights to bar them from the White House

The Trump administration bought advertising space on both CNN and MS NOW, running taxpayer-funded ads promoting President Donald Trump, even as the president barred both cable networks from the White House grounds — bans that have been paused by a federal judge. The White House in recent days began running three advertisements that it calls “public service announcements,” which Democrats and former ethics officials have claimed could violate government ethics laws because of their political nature. For two of the three advertisements in the campaign, the administration has bought ad space on CNN and MS NOW in local markets, according to data from AdImpact. “The Country He Loves,” a 30-second ad, in which Trump promises to “defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America,” has aired on MS NOW for viewers in Los Angeles. It has also aired on CNN in Los Angeles and Albany, New York.

“Final Battle,” a 30-second ad with a similar tone, shows Trump railing against the “deep state,” “warmongers” and “globalists.” The ad has aired for viewers of MS NOW in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington. It also aired once on CNN in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has spent at least $2.87 million running the three ads, according to a modeled estimate from AdImpact. The company said that because the ad is classified as a PSA rather than traditional political advertising, it could not release administration’s exact spending; the company also could not isolate how much was spent specifically on CNN and MS NOW. The Trump administration made the bulk of its ad spend on CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC and Fox News — where it has bought thousands of ad placements in the past week. But the inclusion of MS NOW, on which it bought 38 ads, and CNN, where it bought 10 ads, according to AdImpact, are notable because of Trump’s ongoing battle to bar the networks from the White House. The White House bans, which also include Politico, were temporarily halted by a federal judge who found that the news outlets were likely to succeed in a case filed last week against the White House. The three outlets have since returned to the White House grounds to cover the president.

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Eric Schmitt was warned about the Jack Smith texts. He used them anyway.

As they prepared for the testimony of former special counsel Jack Smith, Republican staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee gave Sen. Eric Schmitt a warning: The texts they had obtained from the Justice Department — which Schmitt suggested was proof Smith had colluded with a Georgia state prosecutor — were “unvetted,” according to a source with direct knowledge of the conversation. Schmitt used the texts anyway. What followed was a congressional spectacle that unraveled almost as quickly as it began. Schmitt insisted Smith attended an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February 2024, suggesting he may have conspired in some way with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, only to watch the allegation implode within minutes as C-SPAN cameras broadcast the exchange to the world.

According to a source familiar with the committee process and two sources familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice shared materials with GOP staff on the Judiciary Committee ahead of Smith’s hearing. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s team assembled a memo about key information for the hearing, according to one source. But Grassley’s staff did not include the texts in the memo, that source added. Grassley also did not share the texts with Democratic senators before the hearing, according to a Democratic staffer and another source briefed by committee staff. That omission deepened Democratic suspicion that congressional Republicans and the Trump administration were working together to undermine or trap Smith, one of the people said. Schmitt’s staff came to the Republican staff asking for material showing a connection between Smith’s investigation — which probed efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election through bogus claims of fraud — and Willis’ probe into whether Trump sought to manipulate the Georgia election results, according to a source with direct knowledge. The source said such back-and-forths over potential material is common practice ahead of congressional hearings.

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Lead Stories

Ken Paxton, G.O.P. nominee in Texas, privately said Trump’s convention hurt him

Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas, told a group of conservative donors and lobbyists last week that President Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas had hurt Mr. Paxton politically, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times. The recording, which is muffled at times, captures Mr. Paxton being asked, “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” It is not clear from the audio whom the questioner is referring to. Mr. Paxton responds: “So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.” The audio of Mr. Paxton was shared with The Times by an attendee who recorded him speaking at a private fund-raiser in Washington attended by roughly a dozen people.

The person, who opposes Mr. Paxton’s campaign and provided the recording to The Times, was granted anonymity because Mr. Paxton’s remarks were private. Three other people with knowledge of the event confirmed Mr. Paxton’s attendance. Two of these people recalled that Mr. Paxton had been posed this question, and one recalled his response about the negative consequences of Mr. Trump’s convention. Asked about the remarks, Nick Maddux, a senior Paxton adviser, said that “this is more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist.” “Our latest poll from the last week has Ken Paxton leading by three points, and every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September,” Mr. Maddux said. “Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump including when he comes to Texas this week.” The event was hosted last Thursday by two Republican lobbyists, Susan Hirschmann and Chris Brinson, in a conference room near Capitol Hill. They did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Paxton’s comments about the convention are notable because of how closely he has aligned himself in public with Mr. Trump, who pushed for the unusual midterm gathering and ensured that much of it would serve as a celebration of his presidency. A longtime Trump loyalist, Mr. Paxton won a costly and bitter primary this year over Senator John Cornyn thanks to the president’s support.

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Supreme Court allows Trump’s quick third-country deportations to continue

The Supreme Court on Tuesday let President Donald Trump’s administration continue swiftly deporting people to countries other than their own for now, while the justices consider whether the policy is legal. The apparent 6-3 order temporarily lifts lower court requirements for migrants to get a chance to object before being sent to countries to which they have no ties. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have kept the lower court order in place. The Trump administration said last week the lower court order forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people bound for three countries. The conservative majority has sided with the administration before on the core Trump administration policy, allowing deportation flights to temporarily continue last year.

The court said it will consider several questions: whether the policy is lawful, whether lower courts had the authority to consider the case and issue a sweeping block, as well as other questions the government deems appropriate. The order “has now allowed the administration to resume sending people to third countries where they may face persecution, torture, imprisonment, or other grave danger,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and one of the lawyers representing immigrants in the case. “But today’s order does not decide that the government’s policy is lawful,” she said in a statement. “The Court will hear that question on an expedited schedule.” Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported some 25,000 people to more than two dozen countries, from Liberia to Guyana. The vast majority have been sent to Mexico.

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Venezuelan man shot and wounded by ICE agent in Texas is charged with assaulting an officer

Federal prosecutors in Texas announced charges Tuesday against Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a Venezuelan delivery driver shot and seriously wounded by an ICE officer in Austin this month. The charges came a day before he was set to appear in court to challenge the legality of his immigration detention. Garcés Pérez, 28, was charged with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. Garcés Pérez was wounded by an ICE officer in the upper part of his back on Sept. 20 while he was in his car making DoorDash deliveries. His attorneys say the bullet is still lodged near his spine, causing “grave danger.” A Democratic congressman who visited Garcés Perez last week said he was in a wheelchair, in pain and in need of surgery.

“We are all laser-focused on making sure that Wilber doesn’t die in custody,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the legal nonprofit Texas Civil Rights Project, who is part of Garcés Perez’s legal team. Garcés Pérez had his initial appearance in federal court Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said in a statement. The criminal complaint accuses Garcés Pérez of striking an ICE officer’s torso with his car’s side mirror while trying to drive away. This officer was not wearing a body camera at the time of the encounter, as the Department of Homeland Security has stated previously, but the complaint includes images appearing to capture this moment from the body camera of a second ICE officer who was also there. After this, “a high-speed chase through a commercial and residential area” ensued, the complaint states. Tuesday’s court appearance following the criminal complaint took Garcés Pérez’s legal team “as a surprise,” they said in a statement. “His attorneys only learned of this appearance due to a pre-scheduled meeting they had with him this morning, in which he did not appear,” their statement said. “This morning, when his attorneys were finally able to see him, he was in considerable pain, dizzy, and needed pain medication, which had not been provided. Rather than provide the life saving medical care he needs, DHS and the government are playing games with his life.”

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Tarrant candidates make plea for cash after mystery poll shows Dems ahead

A mystery poll showing the historically-red Senate District 9 voting blue in key races this November has become campaign fundraising fodder in the Tarrant County judge race. The candidates are warning against — or promoting — what could be a competitive election cycle in the red county that occasionally tips blue, and using the poll of unknown origins as a basis for their arguments as they urge voters to open their pocketbooks. The poll was published by Quorum Report, a respected outlet for Texas politics, without saying who exactly conducted the poll — beyond “a reputable Republican pollster” — or what the methodology was. It shows 600 likely Senate District 9 voters preferring Democrats by a noteworthy margin in races for state Senate District 9, U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor and Tarrant County judge.

That district elected President Donald Trump in 2024 by a 17-point margin, then it flipped blue to choose Democrat Taylor Rehmet over Republican Leigh Wambsganss in a February special election for a partial term in the Texas Legislature. The Democratic’s 14-point win shocked the country because of the Senate district’s deep-red roots. Now, this poll shows Rehmet winning a full term in the Texas Senate. It also has Democratic nominees James Talarico, Gina Hinojosa, Vikki Goodwin and Alisa Simmons joining him in flipping seats that have been ruby red for over three decades. Texas last elected a Democrat statewide in 1994; Tarrant County hasn’t had a Democrat in the county judge seat since 1986. Simmons and Republican incumbent Tim O’Hare have both seen the polling for their Tarrant County judge race and spread the news to their supporters with a plea for more dollars. O’Hare, who recently sounded the alarm at a True Texas Project meeting, said in a campaign email that if Republicans are behind in his race, “every corner of Tarrant County is in play.” The email said if Simmons wins the race as the poll says, she will raise taxes and wipe away support for the sheriff and law enforcement. Simmons’ post on X said the polling shows Tarrant voters refuse to keep supporting Republicans, who she says are “taking away our rights, starting culture wars and tanking the economy without consequence.” Both candidates said in their messages that the only way to ensure their preferred outcome is for supporters to pour money into the campaign.

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State Stories

President Trump prepares to tour Peterbilt plant in Denton on Thursday

President Donald Trump plans to tour Denton’s Peterbilt Motors plant Thursday to tout his pro-growth economic agenda, which the White House claims has sparked trillions in investment, lowered taxes and brought key manufacturing back to the U.S., according to a statement from the White House. “The President’s American First trade agenda is driving a manufacturing renaissance that will continue to pay dividends for the great state of Texas and Americans across the country,” Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said in the statement. Trump is expected to address Peterbilt workers during his visit. Denton Mayor Chris Watts said he plans to attend Thursday’s event at the invitation of Peterbilt, the city’s largest private employer, and he praised the truck manufacturer’s investment in Denton.

“Peterbilt has long been a shining example of what it means to be a strong corporate partner, providing high-quality jobs for our residents while also supporting nonprofit organizations that serve our neighbors who need a helping hand,” Watts said in a statement Tuesday, through a spokesperson. “Their continued growth also holds the potential for additional job opportunities that benefit our community. “With more than half of Denton households struggling each month to make ends meet, the work being done at Peterbilt represents more than employment. It represents opportunity, an opportunity for families to strengthen their financial security and improve their quality of life.” The president’s visit comes as Americans’ negative views about the economy have lingered. Gallup last week announced its Economic Confidence Index has stayed steady at -20. “This reflects relatively few Americans rating current economic conditions as excellent or good (28%) while the majority continue to say the economy is getting worse (63%),” Gallup reported.

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Brisket is missing from Texas menus. A Democrat blames Republicans.

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) is blaming Republicans for the missing brisket. The congressman running in a competitive race for reelection released a new ad Tuesday accusing Republicans of spiking beef prices with President Donald Trump’s tariff policy. “Have you seen the price of beef lately?” Gonzalez, a moderate Democrat, says to the camera before serving guests at a barbecue minuscule portions of meat. “Puras migajas” — pure crumbs — a man in the ad says after receiving a single bite of beef. Beef prices have steadily increased since 2025 because of numerous factors, including a volatile market for cattle ranchers that has led to a historically low herd. The rise in prices has caused some restaurants to pull brisket from their menus. Gonzalez is up against Republican Eric Flores in his majority-Latino district. Trump won the district by more than four percentage points in 2024, but Republicans redrew its boundaries last year to favor Trump by more than 10 percentage points. Still, Democrats are optimistic about holding the seat, betting that Latino voters who went for Trump in 2024 will swing back toward Democrats this year because of high prices and the president’s immigration agenda.

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Conservative moms are fed up over Texas schools. For Gina Hinojosa, it’s an opening.

Vanessa Ovalle has a “frontline view” of Texas schools as a single mom and a speech pathologist at a local school in McAllen, a city in the Rio Grande Valley bordering Mexico. Ovalle described the state’s education system as “completely disappointing.” In nearby Welasco, Catalina Ozuna said her daughter is working in an understaffed kindergarten classroom for little pay while being weighed down by the cost of daycare for her own child. Meredith Keller, who for over a decade presided over a local school board south of Austin, calls a new voucher program that allows parents to use public dollars for private school “a slap in the face to everyone who went to public school.”

These Texas voters all have two things in common: They have backed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in the past and are now throwing their support behind Democrat Gina Hinojosa in the November election, driven by concerns about the state of public education. In this Republican bastion, angst over the state’s public education system has helped fuel Hinojosa’s campaign, giving voters here one of the most competitive governor’s races they’ve seen in decades. That a Democrat has a chance is a welcome surprise for voters like Maria Colmenero, 32, who stood at the back of an Hinojosa rally this month in Brownsville, a town along the Mexican border, holding one of the campaign’s school-bus-yellow “Save Our Schools” placards. Colmenero said the main issue driving her support for Hinojosa is the state of public schools in Texas. She said she’s homeschooling her three daughters because the local public school options just “weren’t up to par.”

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Judges back Meta $552M power plant if EP Electric customers don't pay

El Paso Electric is close to getting state regulators’ approval for a $551.8 million, 366-megawatt power plant to be built for the Meta Platforms data center complex in far Northeast El Paso. The city of El Paso and others are opposing the McCloud power plant. Two Texas administrative law judges issued a report Wednesday, Sept. 23, recommending that the Public Utility Commission of Texas approve construction of the plant, but on the condition that EPE ratepayers be protected from paying the facility's construction and operating costs. EPE officials have proposed a so-called “bridge period” of up to five years, in which Meta will be responsible for all construction and operating costs for the power plant until it's tied to EPE’s grid.

“EPE has left open the possibility that other customers may pay a portion of the costs in the future,” judges Cassandra Quinn and Arthur D’Andrea noted in their decision. For EPE to include the McCloud power plant costs in future electric rates, it would need to show that the power plant’s capacity is needed for its grid, is cost-effective, and increases EPE's grid reliability, the judges wrote. The judges issued their recommendation after hearing arguments from EPE and opponents during a July 8 videoconference, and receiving post-hearing briefs before closing the proceeding Aug. 6. The PUCT's five commissioners are expected to make a decision on EPE's application by December. Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is leasing the $14 billion data center campus on 1,000 acres at Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue and U.S. Highway 54, near the New Mexico state line. It's under construction and is expected to open in 2028. The McCloud plant cost had initially been projected at $500 million by EPE. But in the hearing judges’ report, the cost was put at $551.8 million. EPE’s “lack of analysis regarding options (to the McCloud plant) is concerning,” the judges wrote.

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San Antonio Express-News Editorial: Philip Cortez deserves another term in the Legislature

We recommend incumbent state Rep. Philip Cortez for a seventh term representing Texas House District 117. This district takes in parts of the South, Southwest and far West Sides of San Antonio. Cortez, born and raised on the South Side, has his district's pulse, and knows the issues and community's priorities. Cortez also has a long history of public service. In his early 20s, he served as chief of staff to Mayor Ed Garza. He was then elected to two terms on the San Antonio City Council, representing District 4. He’s also a former U.S. Air Force officer, retiring as a captain in 2019. Cortez was first elected to the Texas House in 2012, but he lost to Republican Rick Galindo in 2014.

In a 2016 rematch, Cortez regained his seat and has held it since then through hard work, constituent services and building meaningful connections with other lawmakers. For example, at the beginning of the 89th session, House Speaker Dustin Burrows appointed Cortez as chairman of the Permanent Standing Subcommittee on Defense & Veterans' Affairs. Supporting veterans, seniors, public education (he opposes vouchers for private schools) and creating better-paying jobs are Cortez’s priorities. During the 2025 session, Cortez pushed through a $50 million appropriation as an incentive for the U.S. Air Force to build a military cyber campus at Port San Antonio, but in a sudden and inexplicable reversal, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed it, claiming it to be duplicative of other state initiatives. It wasn't. Cortez, who has a doctorate in education administration, has said oversight of school vouchers and improving public education funding remain top priorities. He faces Republican Ben Mostyn, a San Antonio-area Realtor and U.S. Army veteran, in a rematch from two years ago. We met with Mostyn at that time and found no need to meet again.

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Judge denies DA’s request to revoke bond for Vision Oil CEO Josh Cohen

A West Texas state judge denied prosecutors’ requests to revoke the bond of Josh Cohen on Tuesday, allowing the former head of Vision Oil and Gas to remain free while facing charges for an oilfield fraud scheme targeting Permian Basin companies. Cohen, who lives in New York but owns and operates wells across Texas, was arrested June 5 for failing to pay more than $1.2 million he allegedly owed to oilfield services companies in Ward, Reeves and Midland counties. He was charged with one count of felony theft of services and one count of engaging in organized crime.

After being released on a $400,000 bond in July, prosecutors alleged Cohen violated conditions of his parole when he solicited work from Texas companies, according to court documents. Cohen also ignored a court-mandated order to wear an ankle monitor and failed to provide proof of doing so, prosecutors said. Judge Alan Nicholas in Monahans disagreed, saying he couldn’t take away Cohen’s right to work and that the state hadn’t proved Cohen wasn’t going to pay for services he solicited, even though seeking new contracts violated the initial conditions of his bail. Ward County District Attorney Sarah Stogner, who brought charges against Cohen, said she was looking forward to letting the case play out in court. Cohen’s attorney, Lane Haygood, did not respond to requests for comment. During his June arrest Cohen was accused of contracting for services such as oilfield remediation, trucking and equipment rentals “without the intent or ability to pay for them,” pushing some firms to “near financial collapse,” according to law enforcement documents. In a filing requesting the bond revocation in August, prosecutors said Cohen solicited work on more than 270 wells across Midland, Canadian and Amarillo. Cohen called and emailed contractors for the work under his own name, a fake name, and on behalf of an associate while using multiple phone numbers, the filings said.

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How Republicans hijacked Fort Bend County

Depending on how you count, Fort Bend County currently has zero, one, or two chief executives. In March, the elected county judge, a Democrat turned Republican named KP George, was convicted of felony money laundering after spending campaign funds on personal expenses. George’s downfall set off a political crisis that has thrown the suburban county southwest of Houston into chaos. While George appealed his conviction, a separate civil lawsuit sought his suspension from office. Under Texas law, the civil case had to be heard by a visiting judge, one temporarily appointed to hear a case in a court they do not normally preside over. The rule seems reasonable enough. An outside arbiter would presumably be insulated from local political considerations. But that theory proved, well, presumptive. The district judge assigned to the case, Republican Jeth Jones from Galveston County, decided to suspend George and replace him with Republican businessman Daniel Wong. Wong was an unusual choice. The Macau-born owner of a civil engineering firm was a former city council member in Sugar Land, Fort Bend’s largest city, but had no experience in county government.

He had, however, recently won the GOP nomination for county judge and would be running for the position in the November election. His interim appointment meant that he could run as an incumbent—an incalculable advantage for any politician. (Jones declined an interview request for this story.) Fort Bend Democrats saw Wong’s appointment as part of a right-wing conspiracy to take control of the county, which narrowly voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. The elected county attorney, Democrat Bridgette Smith-Lawson, filed a lawsuit claiming that Wong’s appointment was illegal. The two Democrats on the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court, the five-member governing body, refused to acknowledge Wong’s legitimacy and have been boycotting meetings since June. “We have a person who is operating in an office that does not have clear legal title to do so,” Smith-Lawson told me. “The rightful judge is still KP George, whether people like it or not. He’s suspended without pay, but he has not been removed from office.” The three Republican commissioners, led by Wong, have attacked Smith-Lawson as a partisan operative and voted to strip employees and resources from her office. Wong insists that the entire controversy has been ginned up by his political opponents. “People [in Fort Bend County] recognize I’m the county judge,” he told me. “They use different terms—interim county judge, acting county judge, county judge—but they all recognize me as the legal county judge.”

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CAIR Texas responds to “anti-Muslim” rhetoric in public schools

While many public school teachers and parents from diverse faith backgrounds rallied against Ten Commandments posters and state-mandated Bible readings, recently approved curriculum changes that spread anti-Muslim themes also have detrimental impacts on the future of public education, officials with CAIR Texas said this week. The Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations hosted a livestreamed discussion Monday night to talk about changes to the social studies Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills — the official state curriculum standards for public schools — approved for K-8 in June and for high schoolers on September 4 by the State Board of Education. The new standards are set to take effect in 2030.

Sameeha Rizvi, the Richmond-based governmental affairs and legislative manager for CAIR Texas, said the new social studies standards will shape what millions of students learn about history, religion, culture and civic life for years to come. “These standards include significant changes affecting the teaching of Islam, as well as representation of Black, brown, immigrant, Palestinian and other marginalized communities in Texas classrooms,” she said. “As communities continue to review and assess the impact of these changes, it is important that parents, educators, faith leaders, advocates and community members understand what was adopted and what it could mean in practice.” So what exactly changed? For starters, the Board approved a high school lesson requiring students to learn that “radical Islam” prompted the 9/11 terrorist attacks, rather than highlighting extremist groups like al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. Additionally, students will now learn about early Islam based on the Prophet Muhammad’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization and regulation of slavery and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.”

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16 trucking companies, including five in Texas, hit bankruptcy court in less than a month

A new round of trucking bankruptcies has swept across the U.S. in recent weeks, with carriers ranging from small owner-operators to fleets operating dozens of trucks seeking Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 protection. At least 16 trucking, delivery and transportation companies entered bankruptcy proceedings between late August and Sept. 21, according to federal court filings and carrier records reviewed by FreightWaves. The filings include Chapter 11 cases involving Globemaster Incorporated, Xoco Transport, Jett Transport & Materials, CLJ Transporting, Mill Creek Logistics-Illinois, RP Hay Hauling, Truckload LLC and Pacer Transport. Several smaller carriers filed Chapter 7 cases, which typically involve liquidation rather than reorganization. The filings come as trucking companies continue navigating a freight environment marked by rising diesel fuel prices and other elevated operating costs.

Xoco Transport, a Hidalgo, Texas-based carrier, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 16. Bankruptcy court filings indicate the carrier has more than 40 tractors, 65 drivers and 70 trailers. Jett Transport & Materials LLC filed for Chapter 11 protection Sept. 14 in the Western District of Texas. The Somerset, Texas-based company specializes in hauling construction materials and reported assets between $100,000 and $500,000 and liabilities between $500,000 and $1 million. The company operates about 14 trucks and 14 trailers, according to records included with the bankruptcy information. It was listed with 10 drivers and an active motor carrier registration. The recent bankruptcy activity also includes a cluster of smaller fleets entering Chapter 7 proceedings. A&B Transportation Inc. of Lake Elsinore, California, filed Sept. 11. The carrier is listed with six trucks and six drivers. Russ Exp Co., an Arlington Heights, Illinois-based interstate carrier with five trucks and five drivers, also recently entered Chapter 7 proceedings. Texas-based carriers entering bankruptcy include T Yorkman Trucking LLC of Midland, which specialized in oil field water transportation, vacuum truck operations and hazardous-material hauling; Blue Star Transports LLC of Garland, listed with two trucks and two drivers; and Jackdollars Transport LLC of McKinney, a one-truck carrier.

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Houston-area Trump voters caught in immigration crackdown

A Honduran woman’s potential departure from Texas is forcing her conservative Bellaire family to confront a hard truth: President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown isn’t confined to Latino neighborhoods or work site raids. Instead, it casts a wide net that ensnares even people who “do it the right way.” In a few weeks, Anyi Hernandez-Escobar, her husband Patrick Keating and their 16-month-old toddler Emma could find themselves nearly 2,000 miles from their Houston home and extended family. Hernandez-Escobar, who came to the U.S. in 2018, could be forced back to her native Honduras because of an agreement between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Department of Justice. The agreement dissolved a Biden-era policy that allowed immigration judges to close certain cases, like Hernandez-Escobar’s, if an immigrant was applying for legal status.

This sudden turn of events has left her in-laws and her husband torn about their political choices. They voted for Trump, in part because they believed his pledge to focus on deporting criminals. They said they never expected the administration’s policy could impact them so directly. “Anyi, she's always tried to do it the right way. Right from the minute she crossed,” said Ingrid Keating, her mother-in-law. “Immigration has been such a mess for so many years, but of course it's easy not to pay too much attention when it's not your immediate family. Now, all of a sudden, it really brings it home.” Even Hernandez-Escobar, who is not eligible to vote, said she supported the president’s promise to target criminals. “There was a lot of crime in the country. I thought it was good to deport the bad people,” she said. “Now, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a bad person.” Hernandez-Escobar crossed the border into Texas and sought asylum at Eagle Pass during Trump’s first term. She was eight months pregnant and fleeing what she described as a desperate situation in Honduras: She had been abandoned by her parents, had no money and said the biological father of her son was largely out of the picture.

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Houston Mayor John Whitmire funded Montrose pride banners

Rainbows have returned to Montrose with the installation of pride banners along Westheimer Road, nearly a year after the city removed the neighborhood’s iconic crosswalks to comply with threats from Gov. Greg Abbott. City leaders celebrated the ten new banners strung up on light poles at a press event in the heart of the historic heart of Houston’s LGBTQ+ community on Tuesday, voicing defiance against Abbott, who last year directed cities to remove “social, political, or ideological messages" from roadways or lose state transportation funding.

“I want to remind the Republicans in the Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott: You think you can pave over our existence and our history, and you cannot,” said state Rep. Ann Johnson, an openly lesbian Democrat who represents Montrose. Mayor John Whitmire personally paid for the roughly $10,000 installation, which hung banners along Westheimer from Taft Street to Montrose Boulevard. The original crosswalk, at the intersection of Westheimer and Taft, was painted over by Metro in September, then repainted by the city, then finally paved over the next month after a standoff between protestors and police. Four people were arrested. “Someone is driving down Westheimer and wondering whether there is a place for them here… without anyone having to say a single word, these banners tell them and myself, you are here, you are seen, and you belong,” said Kerry-Ann Morrison, the president of Pride Houston who organized the installation alongside longtime community advocate Jack Valinski.

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City Stories

David Persse, ‘pioneer’ of Houston’s EMS system, dies at 67

David Persse — a former director of the Houston Fire Department's (HFD) Emergency Medical Services (EMS) — died on Monday, according to the department. In a statement, Fire Chief Thomas Muñoz hailed the longtime leader as "a pioneer whose impact on the Houston Fire Department cannot be overstated." The department credited Persse, 67, with developing a mobile stroke unit program, which brought early diagnosis and treatment from the hospital to the field, as well as a tele-health program virtually connecting patients with emergency physicians.

Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, said Presse’s innovations "saved countless thousands of lives over the years." "It shows what a pioneer Dr. Persse was, and his legacy is going to continue to live on in all of us," Lancton told Houston Public Media. According to HFD, Persse began his emergency medicine career as a field paramedic and instructor before attending Georgetown University's medical school. After working in leadership roles in Houston and Los Angeles, he returned to Houston for good in 1996 to lead the city's EMS system. His years of public service included time as Houston's Public Health Authority and the city's Chief Medical Officer. He led Houston and Harris County through multiple hurricanes and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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National Stories

Media trust increase driven by Republicans: Gallup

Republicans drove an increase in Americans’ trust in the media, which jumped by 5 percent this year after hitting an all-time low in 2025, according to survey results published Tuesday. In the new Gallup survey, 33 percent of respondents said they trusted mass media — including newspapers, television and radio — a “great deal” or “fair amount” when it comes to their ability to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” These new figures mark a rebound from 2025, where 28 percent of those polled — a new low in Gallup’s more than 50-year trend — expressed confidence in media outlets’ reporting. Republican respondents fueled this increase, with 22 percent expressing trust in the media, an 8 percent increase from the year prior. Republicans’ trust in the media hasn’t passed 20 percent since 2018, and 22 percent is the highest the figure has ticked over the past 10 years.

Democrats’ evaluation moved in the opposite direction, with their trust hitting a historic low of 50 percent. Meanwhile, 31 percent of independents trust the media, a slight increase from 28 percent in 2025. Out of the entire respondent pool, 33 percent of those surveyed stated they have “not very much” confidence in mass media, while an equal 33 percent have “none at all.” Lydia Saad, Gallup’s director of U.S. social research, acknowledged in an analysis of this year’s results the party-line fracture surrounding media trust — but also emphasized that these ratings are historically weak overall. “The partisan trends also reveal a somewhat different political environment toward the media in [President] Trump’s second term than in his first,” Saad wrote. On Sept. 18, Trump banned three media outlets — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — from the White House. In a social media post announcing the ban, the president referred to CNN as “fake news” and called out MS NOW for changing its name from MSNBC, alleging the outlet had to rename itself due to “lack of viewership and credibility.” He also railed against the $8 million government agencies pay for Politico Pro subscriptions, calling it “illegal and ridiculous.” A federal judge swiftly reversed the ban on Sept. 24, mandating that the White House restore the three outlets’ press credentials. But the feud is waging on after the ruling, as the Trump administration barred CNN from traveling with the press pool on Air Force One over the weekend. Gallup surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults between Sept. 1-17. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

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Jack Smith defends Trump charges as senator’s perjury claim falls apart

It was meant to be a dramatic confrontation, a public accusation of perjury against Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump. Instead, Senator Eric Schmitt’s amateur sleuthing into basketball led him to the wrong game, league and state. During a four-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, struck a conspiratorial tone and asked Mr. Smith if he had attended an Atlanta Hawks home game in February 2024. Mr. Schmitt focused on the basketball game in the hopes that he could show Mr. Smith had perjured himself and was involved in a conspiracy with local Atlanta prosecutors to ensnare Mr. Trump. In a hearing where Republicans repeatedly accused Mr. Smith of lying, what Mr. Schmitt first presented as smoking-gun evidence against Mr. Smith turned out to be a misfire.

During his testimony, Mr. Smith appeared deeply confused by Mr. Schmitt’s question. “I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” he said. “I’m sure of that.” Mr. Schmitt seemed confident he had just caught Mr. Smith in a lie. It was part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump’s Republican allies to characterize Mr. Smith as politically partisan, a man with an ax to grind not just against a former president, but also the Republican establishment. Mr. Smith has already defended his work before Congress, and Republicans have claimed that his past testimony included perjury. On Tuesday, Mr. Schmitt argued that Mr. Smith had lied again, this time about a basketball game. If the prosecutor was in Atlanta, Mr. Schmitt suggested, he might have met with the local district attorney, Fani Willis, who also pursued a criminal case against Mr. Trump. Mr. Schmitt’s Republican colleague from Louisiana, John Kennedy, stood next to him helping hold up a poster board showing text messages among members of Mr. Smith’s special counsel team from Feb. 3, 2024, discussing seats at a basketball game. “I don’t think you know we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself,” Mr. Schmitt said, even as the poster board was swiftly taken down, too quickly for most in the room to read it.

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Officials cast doubt on Trump’s plan for drones, snipers at proposed arch

Trump administration officials said Tuesday that they were unaware of specific plans to convert President Donald Trump’s planned triumphal arch into a military complex, more than a week after Trump announced plans to put snipers, drones and ammunition at the site. Senior officials at the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the National Park Service told advocacy groups that they were proceeding with existing plans for the arch’s design and features, including that it will be open to tourists, according to three people with knowledge of the remarks. The officials also told the groups that the administration had received no additional information from the Defense Department about militarizing the project, the people said.

Administration officials met with the advocates as part of a required process to evaluate the planned arch’s harm on nearby historic sites. Trump officials are hoping to build the 250-foot-tall arch in Memorial Circle, a traffic roundabout tucked inside Washington’s boundaries and near Arlington National Cemetery. Spokespeople for ACHP and the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service, did not immediately respond to questions about the meeting. Trump on Sept. 20 said on Truth Social that the arch would be converted into a “military complex” that would “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.” Trump did not explain what security need might be served by adding weaponry to the proposed arch, which would be near existing military installations. Trump has repeatedly invoked military and national security needs to expedite his construction projects and other priorities, including his planned White House ballroom. Administration officials are hoping to begin construction on the arch as soon as November.

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US forces exit Iraq, emboldening Iran's proxies and Islamic State

US forces ended their mission in Iraq on ?Wednesday after more than two decades of war there, raising fears of a security vacuum that would embolden Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and allow Islamic State to regroup. The withdrawal of the final troops, mainly from an airbase in Erbil in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, was celebrated as a victory by Tehran and its allies, although many Iraqis were concerned that their own security forces were unprepared. The pullout was agreed in 2024 under President Joe Biden and carried out by Donald Trump's ?administration even as it wages war against Irannext door. It comes 23 years after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, triggering years of upheaval and chaos. US troops initially left at the ?end of 2011 but came back less than three years later after Islamic State fighters seized a third of Iraq.

More than 4,500 US troops died in America's ?biggest war of this century, around twice as many as in the parallel war in Afghanistan. The Iraq Body Count project says more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. The Pentagon said the ?United States and its coalition partners formally concluded "Operation Inherent Resolve" and that the Pentagon will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to Iraqi partners. The Iraqis are expected to lead the effort ?to secure the country, an ally of both Washington and Tehran, and keep the remnants of Islamic State suppressed. “The end of the international coalition’s mission does not mean the end of our battle against terrorism, but rather Iraq’s transition to a phase in which it assumes full responsibility for its security and stability," said Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi in a statement. Tehran has steadily entrenched itself through proxies in Iraq since the fall of Saddam. While the ?departure of US forces is broadly popular among Iraqis, some worry that security forces trained and funded by the United States still can't protect the country.

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OpenAI ignored employees’ warnings about safely testing A.I. models

Months before OpenAI’s artificial intelligence went rogue, two employees raised an alarm with top executives. They were ignored. In emails, the employees said they worried that OpenAI’s newest artificial intelligence models were not being appropriately monitored during testing to gauge the technology’s sophistication and to secure the models, according to messages viewed by The New York Times. In response, OpenAI executives told the employees that the tests needed to move forward as quickly as possible to release the A.I. models on time. No additional security protocols were instituted, said the workers, who were not authorized to speak publicly on sensitive matters. OpenAI’s models later broke out of their testing environments and attacked the A.I. start-up Hugging Face and other organizations, setting off a global debate about A.I. safety.

The exchanges between OpenAI employees and executives — which have not been previously reported — were part of a pattern where the San Francisco company did not prioritize security, according to employees and independent security researchers. That approach not only was evident with the testing of A.I. models, they said, but also showed up in other areas of the company, which makes the ChatGPT chatbot. Independent security researchers said they found bugs in recent months that allowed them to view the internal communications of OpenAI employees. They also found other vulnerabilities that would enable them to see the company’s internal computer code and view the chat logs of ChatGPT users. When the researchers contacted OpenAI about their findings, they said, the company initially disregarded them. “OpenAI’s security seems to be about what you’d expect from a research lab that scaled at a blistering pace over four years and focused more on beating its competitors than securing its infrastructure,” said Joshua Saxe, the chief technology officer of the A.I. security firm Abundant Security.

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Democrats eye Nebraska as an opportunity to take a Senate seat away from Republicans

Marine Corps veteran Gunner Arellano is a Donald Trump man — he voted for the president three times — but, he said, he won’t be casting a ballot for Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., in November. Dan Osborn, an independent who has the backing of the state’s Democratic Party, is “more for the people” than Ricketts, Arellano, a 35-year-old tobacconist, said in an interview at the S.G. Roi cigar shop in downtown Omaha late last month. While Arellano is familiar with Ricketts, a former two-term governor who ranks high on the list of wealthiest senators, he said that the senator isn’t present enough. “All those politicians, they want to come around when it’s election time, right?” he said. “Come down on a Wednesday in the middle of your term, you know.”

Arellano said he’ll vote for Osborn, and voters like him are the reason that Democrats in Nebraska and at the national level hope they might be able to swipe a Senate seat in this heavily Republican state. They’re even more optimistic about flipping the state’s Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won in 2024 and Republican Rep. Don Bacon is retiring. In that year, Osborn surprised many political observers by running a competitive campaign against Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., who ended up winning by a little more than 6 percentage points while Trump took the state by 20 points. The latter margin is one reason, along with Ricketts’ record of winning statewide races at the gubernatorial and Senate levels, that Republicans are confident they can keep the seat. Omaha was the last in an eight-stop, five-state tour that NBC News reporters took through battleground congressional districts — and states with competitive Senate races — along Interstate 80 in late August. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to take control of the chamber next year, and Nebraska has emerged at the edge of the small list of states that could be in play in November.

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Trump signs executive order rebranding AI as 'Super Intelligence' as tech titans ink separate SI accord

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing the federal government to replace the term "artificial intelligence" with "Super Intelligence" across the executive branch, cementing a rebranding effort he has championed in recent weeks. Signed after a White House summit with leading technology executives, the order directs federal agencies to use the terms "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory materials. The order also directs agencies to "no longer acknowledge" the terms "artificial intelligence" and "AI," according to the White House. The order further instructs the assistant to the president for science and technology to develop a federal definition of SI and recommend any additional executive actions needed to implement the new terminology.

Trump argued in the order that AI no longer reflects the technology's rapidly advancing capabilities, saying SI better captures its promise and potential. "The term 'Super Intelligence' more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies," Trump wrote. He also wrote that modern AI systems are increasingly amplifying human ingenuity and unlocking new forms of creativity, arguing they represent the beginning of a new era of SI. The order follows remarks Trump made at last week's United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where he publicly called for replacing the term "artificial intelligence" with SI. "Whoever wins AI, you have to remember this, and now I say whoever wins SI, whoever wins superintelligence, wins. That's the group that wins," Trump said at the time.

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Why New York City has become an AI mecca

The City Council is set to hold a rare all-Council meeting on Oct. 5 to discuss the “potentially catastrophic risks” of artificial intelligence and debate a package of oversight legislation, including protections for AI whistleblowers and requirements for third-party validators of AI systems. Attorney General Letitia James has also asked New Yorkers to report AI companies who might be violating the law. But while New York politicians are focused on the perils of AI, the city has emerged as a center for AI companies, second only to the Bay Area, showing the industry’s growing importance to the city’s economy — and the risks if the AI boom turns into a bubble. Elise AI, founded five years ago, now employs 600 people, two-thirds of them in New York. This week, it announced it had raised $350 million, which values the company at $4 billion as its tools for property management and healthcare companies gain new clients.

Alex Sambvani’s Slang AI, which two years ago was developing an application to handle phone calls to restaurants, is now selling itself as an AI tools manager for restaurants around the world. In the last two years, Sambvani has raised $48 million, bringing total investment to almost $70 million, while doubling Slang AI’s headcount to 70. Two juggernauts leading the development of AI — OpenAI and Anthropic — have both established major operations here. The same factors that drove the city’s tech boom over the past 10 years are what’s propelling AI’s growth now: New York has both an enormous reservoir of tech talent and is the city best poised to bring tech innovation to the rest of the economy. “There are a wide range of small- to medium-sized AI companies in every sector who are coming here or launching here because of what Willie Sutton said about where the money is, because you have companies in finance, law, medicine, insurance or whatever,” Greg Morrisett, the dean of Cornell Tech said, citing the famous 20th-century bank robber.

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Copyright October 08, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved