Lead Stories

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo attends Europe trade mission amid calls for her resignation over rodeo dustup

In the aftermath of her dustup at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which has prompted some to call for her resignation, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo is on a trade mission to Europe with the Greater Houston Partnership, according to the economic development organization. The trip is meant to promote business opportunities in Harris County ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup as Houston is hosting seven matches in June and July. The trade mission has stops in the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal — which are among the countries whose soccer teams will compete in Houston — according to Brina Morales, a spokesperson for the Greater Houston Partnership. She said The Netherlands is Houston’s closest trading partner. Morales and a spokesperson for Hidalgo on Monday confirmed her attendance on the trade mission along with the partnership.

“The Greater Houston Partnership organized the trip in collaboration with other organizations in our region, company leaders, and other representatives of state and local government entities,” Morales said in a statement. “These leaders will work to showcase Houston internationally, with Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo participating in the mission.” The trip comes as Hidalgo is facing calls for her resignation after a dispute with security officials during a sold-out Megan Moroney concert at the rodeo last Tuesday. Hidalgo and her guests attempted to access the chute — a premium area in NRG Stadium closest to the concert stage — without proper credentials. Hidalgo claimed she was threatened with arrest, shoved by security personnel and escorted out of a rodeo concert, subsequently posting several videos and an audio clip to her social media account detailing the incident. The board of directors for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo revoked Hidalgo's leadership role on the board after disputing her claims that she was “manhandled” during the encounter. In a social media post on Monday, Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey called for Hidalgo’s resignation in response to the rodeo incident.

Read this article at Houston Public Media - Subscribers Only

NRCC chair to show new Hispanic voter data

NRCC Chair Richard Hudson will present the results of a new internal poll of Hispanic voters this morning, one of the largest research projects House Republicans has ever undertaken. The NRCC conducted regional polls and focus groups among Hispanic voters in 15 battleground seats across the country. The project cost “well into the six figures,” according to a party official, and was aimed at figuring out what messages resonated with Hispanic voters in 2024 and what could bring the group to the ballot box in 2026. This is a major challenge for the GOP this year.

After months of ICE raids and restrictive immigration policies, President Donald Trump is firmly under water with Hispanic voters, a far cry from 2024. Hill Republicans have publicly backed Trump amid expansive nationwide ICE raids and a wave of deportations. So you have to use that backdrop in any analysis of the GOP’s 2026 prospects. But toplines that were notable to us: Republicans believe the best messages for Hispanic voters include economic opportunity, public safety and “standing up for working families.” The GOP believes they have an “education gap” on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its tax cuts. This is problematic for Republicans since they have banked their entire majority on the tax bill bringing voters of all stripes to the ballot box for their party. And Hudson will urge Republicans to communicate “consistently” with constituents in English and Spanish.

Read this article at Punchbowl News - Subscribers Only

Australian gambler The Joker confirms he bankrolled 2023 Texas Lottery operation

In the first public acknowledgement of his role in the 2023 scheme in which professional gamblers engineered a guaranteed Lotto Texas jackpot win, an enigmatic Australian gambler known as “The Joker” –— said to wager billions of dollars a year –— confirmed he was the main investor in the enterprise, which netted an estimated $20 million payday. “I was involved in the funding of the Texas lottery play,” Zeljko Ranogajec told the Sydney Morning Herald in a lengthy article published recently describing the operation. He stressed that the big buy had the full support of the Texas Lottery Commission, the agency charged with regulating the games. “It would not have been possible to operate at this scale without full cooperation,“ Ranogajec said.

The article also provided more granular details about the colorful team of high-stakes gamblers behind the lottery play, which was the subject of an ongoing Houston Chronicle series that last year resulted in two pending investigations and the dissolution of the Texas Lottery Commission. With the Lotto jackpot at $95 million, on April 22, 2023, a single buyer purchased virtually all of the possible 25.8 million number combinations, guaranteeing that one of its tickets would be the winner. No other player guessed the correct six numbers, and two months later the State of Texas handed an entity called Rook TX a $57.8 million check. The operation was carried out at four licensed retailers –— in Round Rock; Spicewood, outside of Austin; Waco and Colleyville –— which processed millions of tickets over the 72 hours between Lotto draws. Yet it also was abetted by state lottery officials. Not only did the lottery agency provide dozens of extra official terminals and pallets of paper to process the tickets with no questions asked – including to three retailers that had sold barely any tickets in the months prior. Lottery officials also turned a blind eye to several apparent rules violations that made the scheme possible.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

Flying in America is about to get more expensive and less fun

Major airlines and millions of travelers across the United States face a rare convergence of challenges this spring that together are making it both costlier and less convenient to fly. The Department of Homeland Security’s partial shutdown has created staffing shortages at domestic airport security checkpoints. Meanwhile, the Iran war has driven up jet fuel costs and forced many global carriers to reroute or suspend flights over the Middle East. In America, the busiest spring break week of the year kicked off Sunday, just days after tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration workers who conduct airport screenings missed their first full paychecks of the DHS shutdown — with no end in sight for the funding lapse. Federal airport security workers are considered “essential employees” during government shutdowns, so they are required to report to work even if they’re not being paid.

More than 300 TSA workers have quit since the partial government shutdown began Feb. 14, the agency announced. At the same time, the number of employees calling out sick has more than doubled at several major airports, a senior TSA official confirmed. As a result, travelers are experiencing hourslong security lines at airports nationwide, and social media is flooded with videos of TSA screening lines that fill up entire terminals. Meanwhile, the Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran are driving up the price of oil worldwide and causing a surge in the cost of jet fuel. On Friday, the spot price of a gallon of jet fuel was $3.99, roughly double the price at this time last year, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index. A Boeing 747 burns about 60 gallons of fuel per minute, or roughly 10,000 gallons for a three-hour flight, according to the aviation news site Simple Flying. The fuel price spike is testing the ability of airlines around the world to absorb financial shock and respond quickly to rapidly evolving situations.

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State Stories

Court ruling settles Texas-Oklahoma border fight over Red River property rights

Texas has secured a court order to protect Texas land after an Oklahoma property owner attempted to claim a portion of Texas’s Red River property. The Oklahoman argued that the Texas-Oklahoma border had shifted. In August 2025, an Oklahoma property owner filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma state court seeking to "quiet title" and obtain a ruling declaring that the owner’s property included land belonging to Texas based on "alleged changes" to the lower bank of the Red River. The lawsuit named several Texas landowners, including the State of Texas. The Motion to Dismiss was granted on March 8, 2026, and the State of Texas was removed from the lawsuit.

The case was dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds, arguing that the Oklahoma property owner could not sue Texas in Oklahoma state court, or anywhere else, without Texas’s consent. Dig deeper: The lawsuit relied on a 1923 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that identified the Texas-Oklahoma border as the lower bank of the Red River. However, the Texas Attorney General's Office states that the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma was determined by the 1999 Red River Boundary Compact between Texas and Oklahoma, which was approved by Congress in 2000. In a news release made by the Attorney General’s Office, Ken Paxton worked alongside the Texas Department of Transportation, which also utilized outside counsel to assist in filing out-of-state pleadings. "The full force of the law will come crashing down on anyone trying to seize Texas land. I will always defend our state’s sovereignty and will not allow erroneous theories to undermine Texas’s land ownership," said Attorney General Paxton. "The Red River Rivalry may be famous on the football field, but I won’t allow that term to extend to Oklahoma property owners unlawfully seizing Texas land in the courtroom."

Read this article at Fox 7 Austin - Subscribers Only

Gooden is transferring $100,000 to the NRCC

Texas GOP Rep. Lance Gooden is transferring $100,000 to the NRCC. Gooden will announce the transfer at the closed House Republican political meeting this morning.

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'A legal legend': Roy Barrera Sr., first Hispanic man to serve as Texas Secretary of State, dies at 99

Roy Barrera Sr., a former Texas secretary of state, the first Hispanic president of the San Antonio Bar Association and the beloved patriarch of a family of noted San Antonio attorneys, has died. He was 99. Barrera practiced law for nearly seven decades and remained active in the courtroom until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when he was in his early 90s. Lawyers and judges across San Antonio remembered him as a formidable trial lawyer, mentor and public servant whose influence shaped generations of attorneys. He died peacefully in his sleep Saturday, his family said.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said Barrera's influence spanned generations of lawyers. “Truly a legendary and heroic life. I had the pleasure of knowing and admiring him from my early childhood, when my father would take me to the courthouse,” said Biery, 79. “In adulthood, for the last 48 years, it was always a pleasure and learning experience to have him appear before me, though somewhat surreal to have him call me ‘Your Honor,’ remembering that in his eyes and mine I was still that little kid," Biery recalled. "We will do our best to carry on his traditions at the Bar and for the rule of law and the Constitution.” Charles A. Gonzalez, a San Antonio attorney, former Democratic congressman and former state district court judge, said Barrera was a towering figure in the legal community. In 1968, Gov. John Connally appointed Barrera Texas secretary of state. He was the first Hispanic man to hold the position. Henry Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor who went on to serve as U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, said Barrera was part of the first generation of Mexican American leaders to gain prominence in the city. “In San Antonio of the 1950s and ’60s, when the Hispanic community was just coming into its own politically and publicly, Roy Barrera was one of the very first,” Cisneros said.

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

As North Texas school districts turn to virtual options, some hope it will bring back students

School districts across North Texas are rolling out full-time virtual and hybrid learning programs for high school students this fall. Frisco, Granbury, Denton and Argyle ISDs are among districts that have announced plans to offer new virtual options after a 2025 state law expanded pathways for students to attend school. Senate Bill 569 “gives us a little bit more freedom and how we meet the needs of our students,” said Frisco ISD Associate Deputy Superintendent Wes Cunningham. The district will start its Frisco Flex program this fall. After the pandemic, Frisco ISD was allowed by the state to teach through a modified online instruction for certain students in 2022. Now, the program is available for all high school students, including those outside the district, who apply.

Frisco ISD is working with teachers to build courses from the ground up to align with the curriculum, Cunningham said. “We're trying to build in week to two-week chunks of learning has to be done within this timeline,” Cunningham said. “And the teachers will have check-ins with students on a fairly regular basis.” Cunningham said the program could help keep students within the district and bring back students who have left to go to other districts. Frisco ISD, once the fastest-growing district in the state, has lost hundreds of students in recent years as enrollment shifts across the region. “We’re trying to bring them back home; come back to the family,” Cunningham said. We want to increase those numbers over time, but these things take a little bit of time.” Like Frisco, Granbury ISD leaders hope their BridgeED virtual-hybrid program for high schoolers will keep student enrollment rates up. Superintendent Courtney Morawski told school board members earlier this year there’s a “sense of urgency” as enrollment dips. “We're down a hundred students and so I don't think this board, it would be smart for us to create a system where we are giving an opportunity for other students to leave our district,” Morawski said. “We need to be creating systems where students are staying or even being attracted into our school.”

Read this article at KERA - Subscribers Only

Caldwell County feels overwhelmed by data center developers

The Austin metro's most rural yet fastest-growing county is also one of the most targeted for data center development. That's prompted leadership there to join a growing chorus calling on the state to give them more regulatory authority to handle them. The Caldwell County Commissioners Court on March 12 held an 80-minute workshop to discuss the scope of their regulatory authority with residents expressing concern about the boom in data center development and its impact on water and power, the environment and ultimately their way of life. Caldwell County, southeast of Austin with a population of 52,400 people, is the most rural county in its five-county MSA. Yet it is home to proposed large-scale data center campuses from Tract, Prime Data Centers LLC and Edged Energy.

Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden gave a presentation to the small crowd about their limited regulatory authority. Counties in Texas don't have the same control as cities, and in some ways are the Wild West for development with no zoning. They also don't operate water and wastewater or electric utilities or even environmental standards. Like Hays County, which floated a temporary moratorium on large water users like data centers, he said that any sort of development moratorium would result in a lawsuit "15 minutes later," he said, adding that they have to issue development permits within 30 days if they check off all the boxes. “They appear on our doorstep and we have to deal with them," Haden said. He ultimately encouraged neighbors to lobby their state legislators and to start now ahead of the 2027 legislature to allow for more regulation on these types of developments. But he did simultaneously lay out some creative steps that the county is taking to ensure sensible development and said that the county can recoup much of the tax generation.

Read this article at Austin Business Journal - Subscribers Only

Texas based ICON announces its Titan 3D-printing construction system for builders

Texas-based 3D-printed construction and architecture pioneer ICON announced the commercial rollout of new machines, described as a “multi-story robotic construction system.” The Titan is designed to build at “lower cost and with greater speed and quality.” Builders and construction companies can reserve a machine with a deposit of $5,000 and purchase one for a lean $899,000.

Since ICON’s 2018 debut, the novel printing technology has seen major contracts with US Army and Martian application development with NASA. However, their aspirations with Titan seem to be much more far-reaching, and its deployment democratized. CEO Jason Ballard said in a statement on the release of the machine, “After nearly a decade of research, development, and field operations, we believe it’s time to put these technologies directly into the hands of other builders.” Titan precedes ICON’s previous 3D construction machine, the Vulcan. As previously reported by AN, the Vulcan printer was used to build 3D-printed homes in Austin and an expansive single-story barracks structure in Bastrop, Texas. The Titan, however, marks a jump in speed and efficiency: at 27 feet tall, it requires only two operators to maintain a single 2,500-square-foot printing area. Using ICON’s proprietary printing material, Reinforced Formcrete, the machine can print a home in under seven days. In 2022, the Vulcan I took three weeks to print something of a similar size, utilizing lavacrete as its material.

Read this article at Architect's Newspaper - Subscribers Only

Residents join together to question data center proposal in west Fort Worth

A meeting room at the Benbrook United Methodist Church was filled with dozens of both Benbrook and Fort Worth residents on March 16 as they discussed a data center development aimed at the far southwest edge of Fort Worth. Across town, residents in southeast Fort Worth and the nearby city of Forest Hill have been protesting the development of another $10 billion data center that has raised questions about how nearby cities benefit when a data center comes to town, and about the potential health and environmental risks associated with data centers.

Many of those same questions were asked Monday night as the group of Benbrook and Fort Worth residents — an autonomous group, loosely organized until something more formal is decided — discussed how to voice their concerns about a proposed $1.1 billion data center. In June 2025, the Fort Worth City Council approved the rezoning of 186 acres owned by PMB Capital Investments in the Veale Ranch development, near the intersection of Interstate 20 and Chapin School Road. Fort Worth is now considering a tax break for Edged Data Centers, a subsidiary of sustainable infrastructure company Endeavor, for a data center to be developed on that land. Council members discussed the proposal at the March 3 work session, and it is expected to be on the agenda at the council’s March 31 meeting. The data center would be in the city of Fort Worth, in District 3, near Benbrook’s southern edge.

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

How 2 judges’ exit from an ages-old Bexar County court system is sowing discord

It’s been somewhat of a bumpy transition for two judges who pulled out of Bexar County’s more than six-decades-old Presiding Court system this month. Ahead of their March 1 exits, civil district Judges Christine Hortick and Nadine Nieto issued orders to District Clerk Gloria Martinez directing her to send certain cases to their courts. Hortick ordered the clerk to send her Department of Family and Protective cases that seek to remove a child from a home, while Nieto sought civil cases other than “family law cases and other matters.” Angelica Jimenez, the local administrative judge, though, challenged the orders. She argued they conflict with the Texas Government Code — the state’s rule book on how major areas of government, including the judicial branch, operate.

Jimenez asked Sid Harle, the senior district judge who presides over the multicounty 4th Judicial Administrative Judicial Region, to rule on the dispute. On Thursday, Harle held a noon hearing in Jimenez’s courtroom before deciding that the orders should be held in “abeyance.” Harle ruled that “implementation of those standing orders would be unfair and unduly burdensome.” But he didn’t like the idea of leaving it up to the clerk’s office to decide what cases should be assigned to a judge. “I frankly am very concerned about the district clerk making these determinations,” Harle said at the conclusion of the hearing that lasted over an hour. “They’re not lawyers. When something is on the cusp of civil versus family, for instance, I don’t want them to be forced to make that decision. It puts them in a very bad position.”

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

Casar, Cornyn debate Homeland Security funding outside Austin’s airport

The debate over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security spilled into the passenger drop-off area of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) when Democratic Congressman Greg Casar and Republican Senator John Cornyn publicly argued over different proposals. Cornyn was scheduled to speak with reporters Monday morning after he delivered Whataburger to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at Austin’s airport. TSA agents have been working without pay for a month because the federal government partially shutdown after Congress failed to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the TSA.

As reporters waited for Cornyn to pull up to the airport in the passenger drop-off area, Congressman Greg Casar, D-Texas, walked up to the cameras and began delivering remarks about the partial shutdown. “I’m confused as to why Senator Cornyn would be here having a press conference at the airport about funding TSA, when it is him that has blocked the funding,” Casar said. As Cornyn’s truck pulled up to the impromptu press conference, Casar said, “Senator Cornyn should put his money where his mouth is.” Cornyn got out of the passenger side of the car and walked straight to Casar. “Why don’t you tell your Democrats to vote to pay these poor people,” Conryn asked Casar. “Let’s do it,” Casar responded. “No, you do it,” Cornyn said back.

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Closure of UNT art show points to larger climate of fear on college campuses

The University of North Texas recently made national headlines for closing an art exhibition on campus days after it opened. But it’s not an isolated incident. It’s just one example of a growing climate of fear and censorship, and it’s happening at colleges across the country. “We're in a really chilling atmosphere at this very moment,” said Chloe Kempf, a lawyer for the ACLU of Texas. “But I would say, in general, over the course of our history, this is a very uncommon action.” The recent action isn’t the first art-related controversy on campus. Last year, five North Texas lawmakers sent a letter to UNT asking for the removal of an exhibit where “The murder of a people = genocide” was written in Hebrew. The lawmakers described the pro-Palestinian artwork as antisemitic and warned that the work might run afoul of a federal antidiscrimination law and an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott. In that instance, two students — not the university — removed one piece of their exhibition early. The gallery in that incident is managed by the student union instead of the art school.

Victor Quiñonez, also known as Marka27, is the artist whose show was abruptly shut down by UNT in February. Quiñonez was born in Mexico and raised in Dallas. His exhibition, “Ni de Aquí Ni de Allá (Not From Here, Not From There), explored the tension of living at the intersection of two cultures. The show included work from his I.C.E. Scream series. In it, a reworked seal for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement instead reads as “U.S. Inhumane and Cruelty Enforcement.” The seal appears on a pushcart for frozen treats - and the words are repeated on the popsicle sticks that poke out from colorful paleta sculptures. Some of the paletas also have handcuffs, guns and laser-etched images of border crossings inside. “I've always had experience with positive and negative feedback. But never in my 30-plus year career have I had an exhibition canceled or a large work of art censored,” Quiñonez said in a conversation with KERA News. Spokespeople for UNT did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Read this article at KERA and Denton Record-Chronicle - Subscribers Only

Texas rare-earth project aims to curb US reliance on China, strengthen national security

Efforts to develop domestic rare-earth resources are gaining momentum in Texas as policymakers and industry leaders push to reduce U.S. reliance on China for minerals critical to defense and advanced-technology supply chains. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham joined FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria," Monday to discuss how development of the Round Top rare-earth deposit could help strengthen U.S. national security while generating billions of dollars in revenue for Texas public schools.

Round Top, located in West Texas, is considered one of the richest known deposits of heavy rare-earth minerals in North America. These materials are essential for defense systems, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing. The project has drawn increasing attention as the U.S. looks to challenge China’s long-standing dominance of the global rare-earth supply chain. Buckingham said the state's mineral resources could play a key role in reshaping that balance while delivering economic benefits in Texas. "There are 17 rare-earth minerals. We have 15... We're heavy in the heavies. Those are the really important ones," Buckingham said, "It's going to be billions of dollars into public education... We're breaking China's stronghold on this market. We are making Texas safer." As exploration expands across the region, officials are also focusing on the infrastructure needed to process the minerals domestically. "We have lots of rare-earth minerals all over the region. We are looking at those deposits right now," Buckingham said, "It's going to be billions of dollars to the schoolchildren of Texas, and it's going to make the United States and the whole world safer."

Read this article at Fox Business - Subscribers Only

Historic Congress Avenue building approved for demolition near Texas Capitol

809 Congress Avenue, a slender two-story building a stone’s throw away from the Texas Capitol, could soon be demolished to clear the way for future redevelopment. While a demolition plan for the building that is 3,082 square feet and was built in 1925, according to Travis Central Appraisal District, it is still awaiting approval from the city of Austin, Austin’s Historic Landmark Commission approved the demolition on March 4 meeting. Property owner Haidar 1919 LLC’s hasn't publicized plans for the property post-demo, but an approved redevelopment site plan from 2022 could hold clues as to what redevelopment could look like. The identity of Haidar 1919, which purchased the property from Wukasch Properties Ltd. LLP late last year, could not be verified through property records.

Nelsen Partners, an architecture firm and the applicant listed on the demolition request, did not respond to a request for comment. 809 Congress has been a beauty shop, saloon, millinery, cafeteria and Subway fast food restaurant during its existence, and its most notable tenant was Stelfox Jewelers, according to the landmark commission meeting agenda. Wukasch Properties and other entities bearing the Wukasch name owned the property since 1994, and Haidar purchased it in December. While under Wukasch Properties’ ownership, a site plan application for redevelopment of 809 Congress was submitted in 2021 and approved in 2022. Those plans would have seen the property redeveloped into a four-story office and restaurant building totaling about 13,000 square feet. It is not clear if the new owner would follow the previously approved redevelopment plans, but the plans do serve as an example of what could be redeveloped at the slender site, with the first floor being a 3,195-square-foot restaurant, and the upper three floors being 3,264-square-foot offices. A few blocks south, another Congress Avenue property is facing a demolition and rebuild. Karlin Real Estate's 422 Congress Ave., the site of Shiner's Saloon, is working its way toward approval for demolition and redevelopment as well. That property is now under contract to be sold, per the website of JLL, the broker.

Read this article at Austin Business Journal - Subscribers Only

National Stories

Fed officials huddle under pressure from Iran war, Trump’s rage

The Federal Reserve will hold its March policy meeting under intense political pressure from President Trump and the economic blowback of the war with Iran. After keeping borrowing costs steady in January, members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee are set to meet Tuesday and Wednesday while facing a far more tumultuous economy and political climate. Prices for crude oil, gasoline, natural gas and fertilizer have skyrocketed since the U.S. and Israel began their bombardment of Iran more than two weeks ago, which could both slow the economy and push inflation higher. “The most important developments since the last FOMC meeting are the start of the war in Iran and the spike in oil prices,” wrote David Mericle, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs global investment research, in an analysis.

“For the Fed, the war increases both the risk that earlier rate cuts will be needed to address labor market softening and the risk that a higher inflation path will delay cuts.” At the same time, the Trump administration is ramping up its criminal investigation into the Fed — and its rage against Chair Jerome Powell — after suffering a key defeat last week. The swirling political and economic storms are unlikely to influence the Fed’s upcoming interest rate decision. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was expected to keep rates steady again this month, and the odds of a cut dropped sharply as oil prices rose, according to futures markets. But those dual threats are raising tough questions for the Fed as it navigates the road ahead, along with growing uncertainty about who will be behind the wheel: Powell, or Trump’s nominee to replace him, former Fed board member Kevin Warsh.

Read this article at The Hill - Subscribers Only

A $50 million push hopes to make child care a top issue in the midterm elections

An advocacy group hoping to expand support for child and elder care plans to spend $50 million to back Democrats in congressional races, tying the costs of caregiving to the nation’s affordability debate. The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, created a decade ago, aims to make caregiver issues more salient in elections. The announcement comes as the cost of child care continues to rise and as waiting lists for federal child care subsidies, which support working families in poverty, continue to grow. Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the campaign and its political action committee, said child care and elder care are important to the affordability conversation, especially as child care costs exceed what families pay for housing.

Then there is the pressure on the “sandwich generation,” composed of middle-aged people who are caring simultaneously for their own children and parents. “When child care can cost more than your rent or a mortgage, or you have to sacrifice a paycheck in order to be able to take care of a loved one,” that can motivate how people vote, said Goldschein. “Each election cycle, we see candidates recognizing that more and more.” She hopes the message will resonate as families face a slew of rising costs, including climbing gas prices driven by a war in the Middle East that is unpopular with many voters. The campaign plans to pour support for Democrats into Senate races in North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Maine and Ohio and into House races in Iowa and Pennsylvania. It is also slated to dispatch volunteers to talk with voters about caregiving. The National Republican Congressional Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Republicans have begun to back child care as an issue crucial to growing the workforce, but their proposals tend to be less dramatic than those offered by Democrats. Last year, through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans made an estimated 4 million more families eligible for a child care tax credit. The law also increased child care aid for military families and tax credits for employers who provide child care to their workers.

Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only

SEC prepares proposal to eliminate quarterly reporting requirement

The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a proposal to eliminate the requirement to report earnings quarterly and instead give companies the option to share results twice a year, according to people familiar with the matter. The regulator could publish the proposal as soon as next month, the people said. In preparation for the proposal, regulators have been talking to officials at the major exchanges to discuss how they may need to adjust their rules. Once the proposal is published, it will be subject to a public comment period. After that period, which typically lasts at least 30 days, the SEC will vote on it. There are no guarantees it will ultimately happen. The rule is expected to make quarterly reporting optional, not eliminate quarterly reports altogether.

The push for semiannual reporting gained steam late last year. The Long-Term Stock Exchange petitioned the SEC to eliminate the quarterly earnings report requirement, The Wall Street Journal reported in September. Within days, President Trump and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins both said they supported the idea. Publicly traded companies in the U.S. have reported results every three months for the past 50-plus years. Trump briefly explored the idea of moving to semiannual earnings reports during his first term, but the effort went nowhere. Those in favor of less-frequent reporting requirements believe a switch could help boost the shrinking number of public companies in the U.S. Among the reasons companies cite as to why they remain private is the time-consuming and costly clerical work required to list and maintain publicly traded shares. Any change is likely to face opposition from investors who rely on the transparency of regular disclosures. Publicly listed European companies are no longer required to report quarterly financial results after a 2013 rule change. The U.K. also ended quarterly reporting requirements about a decade ago, though many companies still report quarterly.

Read this article at Wall Street Journal - Subscribers Only

CEOs want to be like Warren Buffett, right down to his shareholder letter

Warren Buffett’s advice on investing and business reached tens of millions of people during his long run at Berkshire Hathaway. But it is Buffett’s success in making shareholder letters sing that might have left the biggest mark on a particular cohort of his fans: fellow CEOs. Buffett retired as Berkshire’s CEO in December, handing off his role as top executive (and shareholder-letter writer) to Greg Abel. Executives say Buffett, who infused his letters with his wit and personal anecdotes that often veered from the requisite review of Berkshire’s operations, elevated a dreary convention of corporate America and set a new standard. For those willing to step up their own letter-writing game, it can mean a lot more work. “It’s hard,” said Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase and the writer of more than 20 shareholder letters. “I’m happy when it’s birthed.”

Dimon read investors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s book “Security Analysis” as a young man, which featured a foreword written by Buffett. Later, he discovered the letters Buffett wrote annually to shareholders of Berkshire and the investing partnership he ran before he took over the company. What always struck him about Buffett’s writing, Dimon said, was his talent for explaining complex financial concepts in plain English. “I write it for people like my sisters,” Buffett told the Journal in 2016. “They’re smart, they read a lot, they have a lot invested in the company. They don’t know all the financial jargon, but they don’t want to be treated like 5-year-olds.” “I’ve always tried to emulate that,” Dimon said. Buffett’s letters could continue for more than a dozen pages, and their readership extended beyond Berkshire shareholders. Indeed, many of the Oracle of Omaha’s oft-quoted aphorisms found in past annual letters are applicable to investors in just about anything. His wise words included, “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful,” and “never bet against America,” among others.

Read this article at Wall Street Journal - Subscribers Only

Man charged with planting bombs near the Capitol claims he’s covered by Trump pardon

The man charged with planting pipe bombs at Democratic and Republican party headquarters on the eve of Jan. 6, 2021, says he’s protected from prosecution by the sweeping clemency President Donald Trump decreed for participants in the attack on the Capitol. Lawyers for Brian Cole Jr. filed the provocative motion Monday arguing that the felony charges he faces of transporting and maliciously using explosives should be dismissed because Trump granted clemency to anyone convicted of or charged with crimes “related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

“Applying governing law to the plain, unambiguous language of the President Trump’s Pardon demonstrates that the Pardon applies to Mr. Cole because his alleged conduct is inextricably tethered to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Cole’s attorneys, Mario Williams and John Shoreman, wrote. While the wording of the proclamation Trump issued on his first day in office last year is extremely broad, it refers to cases that are pending and to people already convicted. It’s not clear from its face if it fends off future charges. Trump has said he intended his pardon to apply to people he says were treated unfairly when charged with committing crimes on Jan. 6 ranging from trespassing to committing grievous assaults on police officers. But Cole’s attorneys say the pardon “unequivocally” covers their client, as well.

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Kennedy Center board approves two-year closure for $250 million renovation

The Trump-appointed board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted unanimously Monday to shutter the arts mecca for two years for renovations. “Major renovations are required to keep the facility functional, and that will start right after July 4,” the center's vice president of public relations, Roma Daravi, said in a statement. “This project will transform the Center into a world-class destination worthy of the nation’s legacy and future — a landmark where every American is welcome to experience artistic excellence and premiere entertainment,” Daravi said. The board also voted to name Matt Floca as the center's chief operating officer and executive director, replacing interim head Richard Grenell, who President Donald Trump announced was stepping down last week.

Trump touted the planned renovations on Truth Social ahead of the vote, saying the renovations will transform the center into "the finest performing arts facility" in the world. He said that “the fastest way to bring the Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of success, beauty and grandeur is to cease the entertainment operations for a two-year period of time as we complete high quality, really high quality construction.” Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio board member who sued to ensure she could attend the meeting, confirmed that the vote was unanimous. A judge ruled Saturday that she be allowed to attend but not necessarily permitted to vote. She was not allowed to vote Monday. Trump fired the center's board and named himself chairman in February 2025. Near the end of last year, the board voted to add his name to the center, which led some artists to cancel their performances.

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Native Americans could be among the hardest hit by SAVE America Act

The voting bill that President Donald Trump wants Republicans to pass would make it harder for Native Americans who live on tribal land to vote, advocates and lawmakers say. The SAVE America Act, which is expected to get a vote in the Senate sometime this week, would have sweeping ramifications for many eligible voters if it becomes law. Native Americans, who often live hundreds of miles away from the closest polling place and have lower rates of passport ownership, could be among the hardest hit. “Tribes hate this. But you know, the truth is, everybody hates this. This is not voter ID. This is going to remove tens of millions of people from the voter rolls without even informing them, and without even giving them a chance to remedy it,” Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, the vice chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, told NOTUS. “We’re a hard no, and I don’t think they will succeed.”

Republicans say the SAVE America Act, which does not currently have the votes to pass in the Senate, is necessary to prevent noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections, despite the fact that data shows this rarely happens. In crafting their legislation, Republicans included provisions that would require voters to show proof of citizenship in person to register to vote and to cast mail-in ballots. Advocates are worried that the bill’s in-person requirement would disenfranchise many people who lack easy access to election centers. “All of those things are harder in Indian Country,” said Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, a legal assistance nonprofit. “Election services are too far, sometimes located at county seats that can be hundreds of miles away. On reservation, opportunities are extremely limited if they exist at all.” The bill contains language that says tribal IDs can be used as proof of citizenship, but must show “that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States.”

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Illinois voters pick a new generation of Democrats for House, Senate after near-record retirements

Illinois voters are deciding primaries Tuesday for six open U.S. House and Senate seats that will spur a new generation of leadership in the state’s heavily Democratic congressional delegation. The retirement of longtime Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, has triggered a competitive campaign, drawing as candidates two sitting House members and the lieutenant governor, among others. Sharp elbows and furious fundraising have marked the race, which also is a test of the influence of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire whose name is floated as a 2028 presidential contender. A spate of House retirements has led to open seats with crowded contests across the Chicago area. The stakes are high, with most primary winners in the Democratic stronghold expected to win in November.

Ten Democrats and six Republicans are running after Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, announced his retirement after five terms. Three top Democrats have emerged: Chicago-area U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. Krishnamoorthi has dominated fundraising and the airwaves and was the first on television with ads in July. He started 2026 with over $15 million on hand after spending more than $6 million and raising more than $3.5 million in the final three months of last year, according to campaign finance records. By comparison, Stratton started the year with $1 million after raising about the same amount and spending just under $1 million in the last three months of 2025. But last month Pritzker put $5 million in a super PAC largely aimed at helping get her elected.

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Lead Stories

Senate prepares for marathon SAVE America Act debate

President Trump’s allies are planning to take over the Senate floor this week in a bid to pass the SAVE America Act, setting up a major test for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) who is under pressure from Trump and the MAGA base to extend the debate over voting reform for as long as possible. GOP senators are playing their cards close to the vest ahead of this week’s marathon debate over the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which would require people registering to vote to show documented proof of citizenship. But they’re bracing for long hours and possible late nights in a bid to build momentum for the bill, which already has broad public support. A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll of 1,999 registered voters found that 71 percent support the SAVE America Act.

“They faced a 32-vote cloture deficit at the time it came over from the House in March of 64,” Lee said. “They were able to close a 32-vote cloture deficit. It took them 60 days but they got there.” “Debating a bill that continues to get more popular even as people are trying to slow it down and stop it and obstruct it sometimes sharpens the minds of individual lawmakers and makes them more amenable in the end to negotiation,” Lee added. “That’s what we’re looking at here.” Lee, a close Trump ally, suggested that the president will closely watch this week’s Senate debate. Trump has put intense pressure on Thune to get the bill through the upper chamber and last week said he would not sign any legislation until the SAVE America Act hits his desk. “The extent of his satisfaction with the process will depend on whether in his view we gave it everything we have,” he said. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said Republicans are still “working through” their floor strategy but are preparing for a battle.

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Trump administration turns to migrant workers to help farm labor shortage

For years, the agricultural sector has faced a tight labor market as farmworkers age and fewer new immigrants and younger Americans are willing to toil in the fields. Top Trump administration officials vowed that mass deportations would help, leading to “higher wages with better benefits” and a “100 percent American work force.” But the administration has quietly acknowledged in recent months that its immigration raids and crackdown on the border have aggravated the issue. So it has instead turned to an alternative source, making it cheaper for farmers to hire immigrant farmworkers on temporary visas. Many farmers have celebrated those changes, made to an increasingly popular visa program known as H-2A, noting the difficulty in hiring American workers and tough economic conditions for the industry.

But immigration hawks and labor unions alike are opposed, arguing the move will only increase the share of foreign workers and hurt native workers and suppress their wages. The simmering debate underscores how some of the administration’s top goals of reducing immigration, keeping food prices low and helping American workers may inevitably conflict. The competing interests at play also show the spillover effects of Mr. Trump’s hard-line approach to legal and illegal immigration. Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said in a statement that the administration was enacting “real reforms to ease regulatory burdens and lower labor costs.” “The farm economy is in a difficult situation, and President Trump is utilizing all the tools available to ensure farmers have what they need to be successful,” she said. Only 0.4 percent of farmers in California reported losing workers directly to farm raids, according to a new survey by the California Farm Bureau and Michigan State University. But more than 14 percent said the raids and general anxiety surrounding enhanced immigration enforcement caused worker shortages. Among labor-intensive crops like fruit and vegetables, that number was nearly 20 percent.

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Ted Cruz was ‘blindsided’ by the Pentagon in effort to avoid repeat of DC plane crash

In the months after a U.S. Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet over Washington’s Potomac River last year, killing 67 people, U.S. Sen Ted Cruz set about making sure it would never happen again. The Republican chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee spent months meeting with victims’ families, Democrats, military officials and air safety experts. Cruz has long had a reputation as a partisan firebrand, but in this instance he crafted a bipartisan bill to put into law a longstanding recommendation by federal safety experts that aircraft use digital maps showing the location of nearby aircraft — instead of relying on radio chatter that can be cut off or difficult to follow — when navigating congested airspace like that over Washington.

To Cruz, it seemed like an obvious and easy fix. And it appeared most of Congress was in agreement. The bill easily cleared the Senate, seemingly well on its way to becoming law. But Cruz, as he put it, was soon “blindsided” by opposition from the Pentagon, along with a small but powerful segment of the aviation industry represented by U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, a lifelong pilot who flies old fighter planes in his spare time and chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Cruz — long an opponent of big government — faced pushback for trying to force more red tape on pilots. Fellow Republicans accused him of trying to let federal bureaucrats control military planes. The bill failed in the House and the fix that once seemed like a no-brainer remains in doubt. On the day House Republicans voted down the bill last month, Doug Lane, who lost his wife and 16-year-old son in the crash, was up in the gallery overlooking the House floor with other victims’ families when Cruz walked up. “He just kind of gave us assurances he was going to keep fighting and he said to keep the faith and keep fighting and don’t let this discourage us,” said Lane, a tech consultant in Rhode Island. “The reason we had a vote at all was because of his political capital and ability to convince Speaker (Mike) Johnson to bring it to the floor.” The Rotor Act, led by Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, was built on an almost 20-year-old recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board that planes be required to adopt surveillance technology known as ADS-B In to allow them to better track each other in the air.

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Oil industry warns Trump administration that fuel crunch will likely worsen

American oil executives delivered a bleak message to Trump officials in recent days: The energy crisis the Iran war has unleashed is likely to get worse. In a series of White House meetings Wednesday and recent conversations with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips warned that the disruption to energy flows out of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway would continue to create volatility in global energy markets, according to people familiar with the matter. In response to questions from the officials, Exxon CEO Darren Woods said that oil prices could rise past current elevated levels if speculators unexpectedly bid up prices and that markets could see a supply crunch of refined products.

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance also conveyed their concerns about the scale of the disruption, these people said. President Trump didn’t attend the Wednesday meetings. U.S. oil prices have climbed from $87 a barrel that day to $99 a barrel Friday. The White House has implemented or is considering several measures it hopes will lower oil prices—including further easing sanctions on Russian oil, a massive release of emergency energy reserves and possibly waiving a statute that limits crude flows between U.S. ports. Administration officials have also told oil chief executives that they are hoping to increase the flow of oil between Venezuela and the U.S., a White House official said. Burgum said the administration has been “working around the clock” with energy companies to stabilize global energy markets. Wright and the Trump administration will continue to take action to minimize disruptions to energy supplies, Energy Department spokesman Ben Dietderich said.

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State Stories

Why industry experts are skeptical of $300B Texas refinery touted by Trump

Brownsville may be getting a long-promised crude refinery, the nation’s first new oil refinery in almost 50 years. President Donald Trump announced the $300 billion project, to be funded by Reliance Industries, an Indian refining company owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, on Truth Social this week. But because of the more than decade-long attempt to get a light crude refinery built in Brownsville and the financial risk associated with such a project, the announcement has been met with some skepticism. The refinery, if built, would defy the decline that has affected the U.S. refining industry in recent years as increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles cut into fuel demand. Houston’s own oldest refinery shuttered its doors just last year.

“It doesn’t seem to me that the U.S. Gulf Coast really needs another refinery, especially down in Brownsville,” said Andy Lipow, head of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates. The project is the latest iteration of a nearly decadelong attempt by multiple companies to launch a 160,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Brownsville. Companies have for years failed to get the necessary funding or struggled to obtain and maintain the necessary permits from entities such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Not only does a project of this magnitude require serious financial backing but it would also mean needing to build a pipeline to get crude to the Brownsville site — another hurdle bound by red tape. The project’s price tag would be a steep climb, but “project announcements are cheap,” Lipow said. Compounding economic skepticism is a lack of acknowledgement from Reliance Industries, which is the company footing the massive bill, according to Trump’s announcement. It’s odd, Lipow said. “I just don’t even know what to make of it, because there’s no statement out of Reliance.”

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US energy secretary directs oil company to restore operations off California

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed a Texas-based oil and gas company Friday to restore operations in waters off southern California that were damaged by a 2015 oil spill, invoking the Defense Production Act. Restoring Sable Offshore Corp.’s Santa Ynez unit and pipeline off Santa Barbara aims to address supply disruption risks, according to a department news release. The unit includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility. The facility can produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day and would replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month, officials said. “The Trump Administration remains committed to putting all Americans and their energy security first,” Wright said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, some state leaders have not adhered to those same principles, with potentially disastrous consequences not just for their residents, but also our national security. Today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.” On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse former President Joe Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development. “This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,” Newsom said in a statement. “California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment, and our $51 billion coastal economy. The Trump administration and Sable are defying multiple court orders, and we will see them back in court.” In January, California sued the federal government for approving Houston-based Sable’s plans to restart pipelines along the coast. Democratic state Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the time that the state oversees the pipelines through Santa Barbara and Kern counties and the federal government “has no right to usurp California’s regulatory authority.”

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Afghan father, former U.S. military ally, dies in ICE custody in North Texas

An Afghan father who served with U.S. forces died in ICE custody less than a day after being arrested in North Texas. Mohammed Nazeer Paktiawal's family says he was in the country legally after serving alongside the U.S. military in Afghanistan and evacuating to the U.S. in 2021. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the 41-year-old had a criminal history and his temporary legal status had expired.

Mohammed Nazeer Paktiawal's brother, Naseer Paktiawal, said that on Friday, while dropping off his kids at school, Nazeer Paktiawal was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near his home in Richardson, Texas and taken into custody. "He was arrested in front of these kids while taking them to school at 7 in the morning. Some people surrounded him, put him in the car, and drove him away while they were screaming, asking for help," Naseer Paktiawal said. Less than 24 hours later, Naseer Paktiawal received a call that his brother was dead. When he arrived in the U.S. in 2021, according to ICE, Mohammed Nazeer Paktiawal "was paroled into the U.S. by an immigration officer," or given temporary permission to enter and remain in the U.S. under the Biden administration's Operation Allies Refuge. The agency said he provided no record of his military service. ICE said the duration of his parole expired on Aug. 20, 2025. Naseer Paktiawal said his brother, a husband and father of six, had a pending immigration case. According to his brother, before emigrating, Mohammed Nazeer Paktiawal was hired by the U.S. government as an Afghan special force and worked alongside them for over a decade.

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Gulfton, Houston's 'Ellis Island,' is hurting under ICE fears, residents say

When Elmer Romero walks into his Gulfton office lately, the lobby is mostly empty — a sharp change from the crowds that once waited there for help with immigration cases. When he and his coworkers go to a nearby Salvadoran restaurant for lunch, they’re often the only customers. And when he drives around the neighborhood on weekends, he sees fewer families celebrating birthdays in neighborhood parks. This is life in Gulfton, known as the Ellis Island of Houston, under the second administration of President Donald Trump. More than half of the neighborhood’s residents were born outside the United States, according to Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, making Gulfton the largest immigrant community in Houston.

As the Trump administration continues its mass deportation campaign across Texas and the U.S., the fear of immigration enforcement has indelibly changed day-to-day life in the southwest Houston neighborhood — and not just for immigrants without legal status. Businesses are struggling and the cultural fabric of the neighborhood is beginning to fray, according to some locals, presenting Gulfton with an existential challenge unlike any it has faced in recent memory. “When the pandemic happened, it greatly affected us, but the neighborhood recovered, and little by little life returned here,” said Romero, an organizer at the neighborhood nonprofit CRECEN, in Spanish. “Today, I don’t know if we’ll recover because the political situation is so uncertain.” Gulfton was first developed in the mid-20th century to provide cheap housing for thousands of people who were flocking to Houston for jobs in the booming oil and gas industry, according to University of Houston architecture professor Susan Rogers.

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Kelley Shannon: Want to cut government fraud, waste? Support these transparency laws

(Kelley Shannon is executive director of the Austin-based nonprofit Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.) As we watch over our government, it’s often about the money. Are taxpayer dollars being spent wisely on social programs, road projects and employee pay? Can we view government contracts with outside organizations? What are the details of bond proposals on the election ballot? Long-established state open-government laws — the Texas Public Information Act and the Texas Open Meetings Act — help us answer these questions and root out malfeasance. As we celebrate national Sunshine Week March 15-21, let’s recognize our transparency laws and learn how to keep them strong.

Beyond detecting financial waste and fraud, journalists and vigilant citizens are using these laws to retrieve videos related to suspected crimes against kids, to identify finalists for top jobs in cities and school districts, and to review the emergency response after the tragic Hill Country floods. The Texas Public Information Act and the Open Meetings Act are more than 50 years old and continue to be adapted to modern times and troubles. Open-government advocates worked with legislators last year to establish stricter requirements for public officials responding to records requests. There are now more consequences when a government ignores a request. Another new law requires public meeting notices to be posted at least three business days, rather than 72 hours, before the meeting. That prevents a notice from getting overlooked if it is first posted on a weekend. This common-sense law also specifies that if a budget is to be considered at the meeting, a copy of that proposed budget must be posted for public view in advance.

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He came to Austin for a new chapter. After death in shooting, loved ones mourn his 'bright spirit'

In a city of transplants, Jorge Pederson was one of Austin’s newest arrivals. He came from Minneapolis in mid-February, drawn by a new job, warmer weather and the city’s live comedy scene. On March 1, Pederson was meeting a new coworker at Buford’s on West Sixth Street when a gunman opened fire. He was one of three people in the crowd that were killed. He was 30 years old. Now, friends in Austin and Minneapolis are confronting a terrible loss, and sharing stories of a man they say was always “unapologetically himself.” “[He] loved deeply, and protected the ones around him fiercely,” Kit Ingersoll, his best friend since childhood, told KUT News by phone as he drove Pederson’s belongings back to Minneapolis from Austin. “Jorge and I started a moving company together, so it's kind of fitting that I'm the one to handle the move back."

In business and life, Pederson was the “hardest worker," Ingersoll said. "Very disciplined, determined to do whatever it was that he wanted." It was a decisiveness on full display the day he agreed to quit a previous job to start the moving business with his friend. “He just said, ‘I'd absolutely love to be your partner. I'll put my two weeks in right now,’” Ingersoll said. Minutes later, Pederson sent a follow-up text with a screenshot of him submitting his notice. “That's how committed he was to doing what he wanted to do,” Ingersoll said. Among those mourning Pederson’s death is the mixed martial arts community in Minnesota. Pederson wrestled and studied Muay Thai. But, over the last five years, he had prioritized MMA, often training six days a week. He was planning to participate in his first professional match in May. ”He was very welcoming as a martial artist,” MMA fighter Brody Oothoudt said. “He was the one who invited me to come start training in the first place.” Friends and fellow students said he was attracted to the sport for the skill and discipline it requires. They said he had no patience for fighters who needlessly injure or hurt their opponents. “Jorge was vocally against that, because that is against the spirit of what martial arts is,” said Oothoudt, who helped organize an online fundraiser to pay for his friend's funeral. “He was a good guy, working to make a positive impact.” At 6-foot-4 and 185 pounds, Pederson was a “bigger guy,” who would sometimes spar against smaller partners.

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California billionaire and tech CEO announces move to Texas

Texas is continuing to attract some of the nation's wealthiest business leaders, as another California billionaire and tech CEO announced he recently relocated to the Lone Star State. Travis Kalanick, cofounder and former CEO of Uber, said in an interview with hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays on the tech podcast TBPN he had made the move to the Austin area. "On December 18th, I moved to Texas," Kalanick said. "So, I'm a primary resident of Texas." While his transition is finally official, Kalanick said he has owned a place on Lake Austin for nearly five years now, located just 20 minutes outside of the city. However, Kalanick didn't share details on what inspired his move.

Kalanick was born and raised in Los Angeles and co-founded Uber in San Francisco in 2009. He resigned as CEO in 2017 after mounting pressure from major investors amid allegations of a toxic workplace culture that included claims of gender discrimination and sexual harassment, as reported by the New York Times. Now, Kalanick is CEO of Atoms, a robotics company catered to the food, mining and transportation industries. "There's a lot of room for specialized robots that do things in an efficient sort of industrial-scale kind of way, which is sort of where we play," Kalanick said of the company. As of March, Kalanick has an estimated net worth of roughly $3.6 billion, according to Forbes. The 49-year-old's relocation to Austin comes amid a broader influx of tech billionaires to the Lone Star State, alongside a surge of technology companies expanding operations across Texas. In perhaps one of the most high-profile moves, Elon Musk moved from California to Texas in December 2020. Musk now primarily lives in Starbase near the SpaceX launch site.

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Flying taxis to connect Texas cities under new federal program

Electric flying taxis could start testing routes between Texas’ largest cities within the next three years, state transportation officials say. A state plan to connect San Antonio, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston with “regional test flights” of the futuristic aircraft was recently accepted into a federal program designed to develop the use of the technology across the nation. Collectively known as Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing, or eVTOL, the aircraft resemble giant drones and are designed to be self-flying. Several types are in testing and awaiting certification by the Federal Aviation Administration.

They’re part of a larger discussion over the concept of Advanced Air Mobility which is reimagining the nation’s air network to integrate the new types of aircraft, work out how best to use them and develop the infrastructure needed to operate them safely. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the FAA announced this week they had selected a plan developed by the Texas Department of Transportation into the federal eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, along with seven other projects that span 25 states. “This is a first of its kind effort to safely integrate electric aircraft into U.S. airspace and puts Texas squarely in the center of the next generation of aviation,” Sergio Roman, director of office within TxDOT that works with emerging aviation technologies, said in a statement.

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Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson defends exploring City Hall relocation

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson pushed back Sunday against friction over City Hall’s future as “silly games” meant to “muddy the waters,” saying exploring relocation options is routine due diligence, not a backroom scheme. In his weekly newsletter, Johnson outlined his most detailed case yet for studying whether Dallas should move City Hall, saying speculation and sensational coverage have distorted the debate. “Those who are more interested in muddying the waters than dealing in facts are working overtime, trying to make normal stuff sound nefarious,” Johnson said. The mayor said the core issue is simple: the I.M. Pei-designed City Hall is aging, expensive to maintain and ill-suited for modern government operations.

“Dallas City Hall isn’t in good shape,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t meet the needs of a modern big-city government — or, really, of any modern workplace.” He said the building’s design anchors a government district that leaves a large stretch of downtown inactive after business hours. Broader changes in Dallas’ urban core make it the right moment to reconsider the city’s headquarters, Johnson said, pointing to: Redevelopment of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. The rise of the city’s financial district, dubbed “Y’all Street.” The expected departure of AT&T’s downtown headquarters in the coming years. “This city is at an inflection point,” Johnson wrote. “It’s the right time to ask what kind of urban core Dallas wants to have in the coming decades and then start building it.” He said that’s why he sided with the majority of the City Council in a recent 9-6 vote directing city staff to explore options, including repairing the building or relocating City Hall. Johnson said that is a common step to gather information before any major decision is made. Consultants estimate fully modernizing the current building could cost more than $1 billion over 20 years. Less expensive repairs alone may not produce a more effective workplace, he said. “You can’t consider the viability of any one option in a vacuum without knowing what your other options are,” he said.

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Lawsuit over Bexar County Immigration legal fund now in 3 courts

A lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton challenging Bexar County’s immigration legal services program is now unfolding simultaneously in three courts — a local district court, the Austin-based 15th Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court — as state and county attorneys fight over whether the case will survive long enough for any judge to rule on its constitutionality. The dispute centers on more than $556,000 in county funding for legal representation for immigrants facing deportation hearings through the nonprofit American Gateways. While the lawsuit originally focused on whether the program violates the Texas Constitution’s “Gift Clause,” the immediate legal fight has shifted to a narrower question: whether courts should intervene before the program’s funding expires, potentially making the case moot.

Paxton filed the lawsuit at the beginning of February seeking to temporarily block the release of funding for the county’s Immigration Legal Services Fund, which contracts with the nonprofit American Gateways to provide legal assistance to low-income residents facing federal deportation proceedings. The program had been in operation since 2024 and was set to expire on Feb 28. The state argued the program violates the Texas Constitution’s Gift Clause, which prohibits governments from giving public money to private parties unless the spending serves a clear public purpose and remains under government control. County officials have defended the program as a lawful use of public funds, saying it helps residents navigate complex immigration proceedings and serves a broader public benefit. Officials cited a decision in a November separate lawsuit where the 15th Court of Appeals ruled against Paxton in favor of Harris County over its immigration legal service fund, which had been in operation since 2020. In the ruling, the 15th Court of Appeals declined to block a nearly identical immigrant legal services program in Harris County, writing that Texas courts have long recognized providing legal counsel to indigent people as a public service. The court found the state had not shown evidence that the program harmed residents or violated the Texas Constitution’s Gift Clause.

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Carnival area at RodeoHouston shuts down early Saturday night as a precaution, officials say

The carnival area at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo closed early Saturday night after fights broke out, prompting some guests to run and causing confusion. That's according to a new statement released by rodeo officials Sunday afternoon. They said the situation prompted others nearby to begin running as well. Law enforcement and on-site security responded immediately, according to a statement released Sunday. Out of an abundance of caution, organizers decided to close the carnival area for the rest of the night. Officials said they are not aware of any injuries. “The safety and security of our guests remains the top priority for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo,” the statement said.

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National Stories

Rising prices and high interest rates are making car ownership feel impossible

An $830-a-month car payment. Auto insurance for $280 each month. Thousands more for tire and maintenance repairs. For almost three years, those bills have followed Davine Greene, a nursing student who hasn’t missed or been late on a payment since buying her Kia K5 GT in November 2023. But keeping up with the payments has driven up her debt to more than $80,000, not including student loans. Last week, she filed for bankruptcy to escape the burden, she said. “This car is the bane of my existence,” said Ms. Greene, 24, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Probably the worst decision I’ve ever made, like, financially speaking.” As car prices, auto loan interest rates and insurance and maintenance costs continue to rise, owning or buying a car is becoming harder to afford.

The war in Iran have pushed gas prices up, adding to greater affordability concerns. President Trump said in a recent interview with Reuters that he was willing to tolerate higher prices for strategic priorities. Vehicle prices climbed during the pandemic as supply chain disruptions slowed production and manufacturers focused on building more profitable vehicles. In the years since, rising interest rates have made the situation even tougher on households. The average interest rate on a 60-month new car loan from banks was 7.22 percent in November, according to the Federal Reserve. Higher rates have pushed monthly payments further. The average monthly new-car payment reached $774 in January, up from $588 in January 2021, according to Edmunds, an auto research firm. A growing share of buyers are taking on even larger loans: More than 20 percent of new-car borrowers agreed to pay over $1,000 a month at the end of last year, which was a record, Edmunds reported. But loan payments are only part of the strain. When insurance, gas, repairs and maintenance are included, the total cost of owning a vehicle has risen more than 40 percent since January 2020, according to an index from Navy Federal Credit Union.

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Oscars TV review: Hollywood finally reinvents its big night

“Patience, resilience and that rarest of qualities today, optimism.” That may have been Oscar host Conan O’Brien’s serious wish tonight for the film industry and the world, but it ended up being a pretty good epitaph for Hollywood’s Biggest Night this year. Let’s get it out of the way that patience, resilience and optimism were required for a show that was over 3 hours and 40 minutes long. Sinners star Michael B. Jordan’s Best Actor speech tapped into the same trio of elements in a very different way as he listed off “the people that came before me: Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Will Smith.” Maybe it was the fact that YouTube will be replacing ABC as the home of the Oscars in 2029, but someone somewhere in the Movie Academy and Disney finally dragged the lumbering show deep into the 21st century.

Making the Oscars watchable from start to finish, and reducing the cringe, has been no easy task. Many a producing team, director and AMPAS board had been defeated trying, or at least pretending to try. A changing culture, fractured viewing habits and sliding ratings during the past 15 years only has exacerbated the hardship as the movies’ big night seemed to get smaller and smaller and far less relevant. Sunday night wasn’t perfect, but it sure was something worth watching with some drama, some surprises and a lot of fun. Big and bold-ish, the 98th Academy Awards had eagles, a pope, crowns, Josh Groban and a “hasasmallpenis” Donald Trump dig. The Raj Kapoor/Katy Mullan-produced show also had best use of a Beastie Boys tune in an Oscars opening skit ever, a passable new Leonardo DiCaprio meme. some YouTube pearl clutching, a couple of big wins for Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, and a “Thank you, Canada,” all in its first 30 minutes.

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Appointee wants to replace White House columns with the ones Trump prefers

For nearly two centuries, the White House’s main entrance — framed by a row of graceful Ionic columns — has been a signature image of the seat of American power. Now the Trump-appointed head of a federal arts commission is proposing to replace them with a more ornate style favored by President Donald Trump. Those more decorative columns, a style known as Corinthian, are considered the most luxurious in classical architecture and appear on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court. They have long been deployed on Trump’s properties, and the president has handpicked them for his planned White House ballroom, too. “Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that’s what our other two branches of government have,” Rodney Mims Cook Jr., the Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal panel charged with advising the president on design matters, said in an interview last week.

“Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me.” A White House spokesperson told The Washington Post that while Trump prefers Corinthian columns in new construction, there are no plans to change the existing Ionic columns outside the White House. Cook said he had yet to discuss the idea directly with the president. But Cook’s proposal to overhaul the front entrance to the White House, known as the North Portico, reflects a common dynamic in Trump’s Washington, where the president’s deputies and allies often anticipate and implement his desires — and frequently upend decades of tradition and norms in the process. Some of Cook’s allies have cheered his idea. “Historic buildings, as important as the White House is, nevertheless they change through time,” said Richard Cameron, a longtime colleague who has pushed to redesign New York’s Penn Station. Many other architects and designers say they’re baffled or even horrified by Cook’s proposal.

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Tucker Carlson claims DOJ will charge him for violating foreign agent law: CIA ‘read my texts’ on Iran war

Tucker Carlson on Saturday night said the Justice Department is preparing to charge him for being an unregistered foreign agent, which Carlson said the CIA recommended after reading his text messages leading up to the war on Iran. He suggested “some” CIA workers could be targeting him because of his “views about Israel.” Carlson explained the situation from his view in a 5 minute video posted to X. “The CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice, on the basis of a supposed crime I committed,” Carlson said. “What’s that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts.”

Carlson said he is “apparently” being charged under the “Foreign Agent Act” – likely referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act; the 1938 legislation requires people who are paid by foreign governments for lobbying or political advocacy to register with the Justice Department. The ex-Fox News star said he does not “expect this to go anywhere” for several reasons. “I’m not an agent of a foreign power,” Carlson said was the first reason. “Unlike a lot of people commenting on U.S. politics and global affairs, I have only one loyalty and that’s the United States and have never acted against it.” He said another reason he is not worried is because he has “never taken money” from a foreign power. “Don’t need it, don’t want it,” he said. Carlson also said he is an American and can speak to anyone he wants — which is yet another reason he believes the potential charges are bogus. “Legally, I think, the case is ludicrous, and I doubt it’ll even become a case,” Carlson said.

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The National Park Service race to rewrite history becomes a slog

The Trump administration’s campaign to remove National Park Service exhibits that “inappropriately disparage” historical figures is bogged down more than nine months after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum set it in motion. The sheer volume of park signs, panels and museum exhibits flagged by park rangers because they mentioned topics like slavery, climate change or violence against Native Americans overwhelmed the Trump administration from the beginning, said three people familiar with the process used to evaluate potential changes, granted anonymity because they feared retribution. “They bit off way more than they could chew,” one of those people said.

But even as parks rushed to meet Interior deadlines, NPS last year dissolved in just a few months a team of experts created to decide if the material flagged by parks had violated President Donald Trump’s prohibition on excessively “negative” portrayals of U.S. history, said two of the people familiar with the process. Many park personnel on the ground now are unsure if NPS will soon demand changes at many parks or leave things as they are, said a park superintendent, who was granted anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the media. The effort has reached a “nebulous” phase, the superintendent said, with some parks moving forward with edits and others still waiting for changes to be approved. While some exhibits have been altered or removed — most dramatically when NPS in January abruptly took down an exhibit about former President George Washington’s slaves at a Philadelphia site — the vast majority of parks have blown past several Interior Department deadlines to remove material or put up new content, said the superintendent and one of the people familiar with the internal NPS process.

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UF disbands College Republican chapter, citing antisemitic activity

The University of Florida deactivated its College Republicans chapter after the Florida Federation of College Republicans alerted the university to a photo showing a student leader performing a Nazi salute. UF wrote that the gesture violated its policies in a March 14 statement on X. The photo, circulated on X by North Carolina–based journalist Sloan Rachmuth, was a screenshot showing two students performing a Nazi salute in a Guilded chatroom. The group chat platform was designed for gaming communities and was shut down in December 2025. The Florida Federation of College Republicans requested UF disband the chapter while it looked to reorganize the club after it engaged in "a pattern of conduct that violated [FFCR's] rules and values," but it's unclear what authority the FFCR has over UFCR.

The UF club says it's not affiliated with FFCR and instead is part of the College Republicans of America. Both of those organizations accused the FFCR of lying to UF to get the club disbanded. “They cited the FFCR, an organization that we are not a part of that has no authority over our chapter. We are proud members of a different organization, @uscollegegop,” the club wrote on X. “We look forward to the University reinstating our club and correcting this statement. We have retained counsel and have received information that this is not the first time that FFCR has lied to silence christian conservative groups on campus.” FFCR did not immediately reply to the Sun's request for comment on its relationship with the UF club. UFCR's deactivation comes three days after the club hosted gubernatorial candidate James Fishback on campus. The New York Times reported that Fishback, an America First Republican, has openly criticized the U.S.’s ties to Israel and has been praised for his rhetoric by far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, who is often associated with antisemitic views.

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Lead Stories

Trump says Cornyn and Paxton are both electable as he mulls endorsement in Texas Senate race

President Donald Trump told NBC News on Saturday that he’s still mulling a potential endorsement in the competitive Republican primary for a Senate seat in Texas. Sen. John Cornyn is facing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a May 26 runoff after a close contest on the first ballot. “I’ll let you know that over the next week or so,” Trump said in a phone interview when asked if he’s going to endorse Cornyn. “I like him. I always liked him.” He said he thinks he’ll make a decision in the next week. “A lot has to do with the SAVE America Act. A lot is going to determine — Republicans have to get that passed, because that will secure voting in this country,” Trump said. Both candidates are vying for Trump’s endorsement. Paxton has championed abolition of the legislative filibuster to pass the Trump-backed election bill.

Earlier this week Cornyn abandoned his long-standing support for the Senate filibuster, the 60-vote rule to pass most bills, saying he’ll support “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to pass the SAVE America Act. “I very much appreciate that he is” in favor of nixing the filibuster, Trump said of Cornyn. When asked if Cornyn’s move had won him over, he said, “I don’t know, but we have to get it passed.” Trump also said he’s not convinced Cornyn is the GOP’s best chance to hold the Senate seat. “I’ve heard that. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know that to be a fact,” Trump said. “But I like him. I’ve always liked him. I like both candidates very much.” He said he isn’t worried about Paxton being unelectable. “No, I think they both win,” Trump said, while calling Democratic nominee James Talarico “so weak.”

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The biggest change to voting in Republican election bill could become a burden for many US voters

Joshua Bogdan was born and raised in the United States. The only time the New Hampshire resident has left the country was for a day and a half in seventh grade, when he went to Canada to see Niagara Falls. Even so, that did not mean proving his U.S. citizenship in last fall’s local elections was easy. The 31-year-old arrived at his voting place in Portsmouth and handed the poll worker his driver’s license, just as he had done in other towns when arriving to vote. She said that would no longer do. The poll worker said that under the state’s new proof-of-citizenship law, which took effect for the first time during town elections in 2025, Bogdan would need a passport or his birth certificate because he had moved and needed to reregister at his new address. A scramble ensued, turning the voting process that he had always found fun and invigorating into a nerve-wracking game of beat the clock.

“I didn’t know that anything had officially changed walking in there,” he said. “And then being told that I had to provide a passport that I’ve never had or a birth certificate that’s usually tucked away somewhere safe just to cast my vote — which I’ve done before — it was frustrating.” Bogdan’s experience in New Hampshire is a glimpse into the future for potentially millions of voters across the country. That is if Republican voting legislation being pushed aggressively by President Donald Trump passes Congress and a “show your papers” law is put in place in time for the November elections. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, cleared the U.S. House last month on a mostly party-line basis. Republicans say it would improve election integrity. Trump has called its safeguards common sense. The bill is scheduled to come up in the U.S. Senate next week for voting and debate.

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He was Chevron’s man in Venezuela—and a CIA informant

In the months before President Trump moved to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Central Intelligence Agency turned to an old friend for advice on who should replace the autocratic leftist. Former Chevron executive Ali Moshiri told the agency that if the U.S. government tried to oust the entire Maduro regime and install the democratic opposition led by María Corina Machado it would have another quagmire like Iraq on its hands, according to people familiar with the matter. She didn’t have the support of the country’s security services or control of its oil infrastructure, Moshiri argued. His recommendation: Stick for now with another autocratic leftist, Maduro’s longtime deputy and economic manager Delcy Rodríguez. The option was later presented to Trump in a secret CIA assessment.

Hours after American commandos dragged Maduro out of his fortified compound, Trump echoed the sentiment. It would be “very tough” for Machado to take over, he said. “She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” Moshiri’s hidden hand in Washington spycraft, revealed here for the first time, offers a window into how Trump embraced the energy industry’s unsentimental playbook for dealing with autocratic regimes. And it marks a dramatic turnaround for Chevron’s prospects in Venezuela, where the company’s decision to stay invested during decades of political upheaval now leaves it with a strategic advantage as the oil begins to gush again. In a statement, Chevron said that “between spring of 2025 and the removal of Maduro, Chevron did not authorize anyone working for, or on behalf of, the company to engage with the CIA related to Venezuela’s leadership, including assessments of government officials or opposition leaders.” It added that the company had no advance knowledge of Maduro’s ouster, and didn’t coordinate or advocate for it. Chevron added that it “does not have a business relationship with Ali Moshiri—formal or informal.”

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Trump knew the risk of Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz. He still went to war.

Before the U.S. went to war, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told President Trump that an American attack could prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. Caine said in several briefings that U.S. officials had long believed Iran would deploy mines, drones and missiles to close the world’s most vital shipping lane, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Trump acknowledged the risk, these people said, but moved forward with the most consequential foreign-policy decision of his two presidencies. He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it. Now, two weeks into the war, Iran’s leaders have refused to back down, and the Strait of Hormuz has emerged as Tehran’s most potent leverage point.

Iran has blocked tankers from the strait and struck cargo ships, triggering a surge in oil prices and an energy shock rippling around the world. U.S. forces are targeting Iran’s mine-laying ships and factories, trying to prevent the country from lining the waterway with explosives. The joint U.S.-Israel military operation has killed Iran’s supreme leader, targeted military headquarters and damaged or destroyed more than 90 Iranian vessels. Yet, the price has been steep. At least 13 Americans have been killed, including six in a crash Thursday of an Air Force refueling plane, making the war in Iran the deadliest military operation of Trump’s two terms. At least 140 Americans have been wounded in the conflict. Roughly 175 people, mostly children, were killed in a strike on a girls’ school in Iran, which a preliminary U.S. investigation found was likely launched by U.S. forces.

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Behind plans to save DART: How the transit agency reversed its fate

Randall Bryant had been chair of Dallas Area Rapid Transit for less than a day when suburban cities started calling. They wanted out. The night before, Walt Humann, widely regarded as the father of DART, had sworn in the 38-year-old, who wore his signature custom-made bowtie. Bryant pledged to tackle simmering concerns over governance and funding. He had no idea those disputes were about to boil over. City leaders told him they were considering exit elections that could fracture the region’s transit system. Bryant didn’t even have some of their phone numbers saved yet. Suddenly, the youngest board chair in the agency’s history had roughly 120 days to stop a political revolt before cities locked in ballots asking voters whether to abandon DART altogether. “My biggest goal was to ensure that DART presented something to the cities that was a reasonable offer,” Bryant said.

The stakes were enormous. If multiple cities pulled out, it could gut DART’s funding and threaten rail and bus service across North Texas. For frustrated suburbs, it was leverage in a long-running fight over whether the system is controlled too much by and spends too much in Dallas — and too little back home. What followed was a frantic stretch of negotiations. Bryant and other leaders scrambled to assemble governance changes and financial concessions. By late February, half of the six cities that called exit elections had backed down. The fight exposed how fragile the 40-year-old transit partnership had become and how quickly it could splinter in one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. Todd Little, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, a regional planning group, said Bryant’s efforts helped keep the system intact. “It has not only saved DART, it has saved regional transportation,” Little said. Bryant comes from politics. His grandmother, Kathy Nealy, served in the administration of President Bill Clinton on his advance team and built a long career as a political consultant. Growing up in Hamilton Park, a historically Black neighborhood in North Dallas, Bryant knocked on doors at age 7 on behalf of Ron Kirk’s campaign, helping elect Dallas’ first Black mayor. By 10, he was taking the Red Line from Park Lane to Oak Cliff to visit his grandmother and watch campaigns up close. Today, Bryant runs his own government affairs, public relations and political consulting firm. His appointment to DART marks the fifth board or commission on which he has represented the city of Dallas, beginning in his 20s on the South Dallas/Fair Park Trust Fund Board.

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State Stories

How a San Antonio lawyer helped U.S. House members take down Tony Gonzales

As U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales struggled to survive a scandal over sexting and an affair with a subordinate, members of Congress who wanted him sidelined went looking for additional damaging text messages the Republican congressman may have sent. A San Antonio lawyer named Robert J. "Bobby" Barrera was in a position to help. Barrera represents Adrian Aviles, whose late wife, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, ran Gonzales' regional district office in Uvalde. She and the married congressman had an affair in the spring of 2024. A year and a half later, Santos-Aviles took her own life by setting herself on fire.

For months afterward, rumors circulated about her relationship with Gonzales, who dodged questions about it. Then, on Feb. 17, the San Antonio Express-News reported the first documentary evidence of a liaison: a text in which Santos-Aviles told a then-colleague on Gonzales' staff, "I had (sic) affair with our boss." That and subsequent disclosures rocked the Republican primary campaign in which Gonzales, a Navy veteran and father of six, was seeking a fourth term. Some House Republicans demanded he resign or at least abandon his re-election bid. Gonzales refused. Last week, several members of Congress, intent on breaking the stalemate, reached out to Barrera. He's a respected criminal defense attorney who has expertise in family law and who represents Aviles pro bono. Barrera had been exploring a possible civil action against Gonzales for alleged harassment of Santos-Aviles. He believed there might be an avenue for Aviles to pursue monetary damages on his wife's behalf, and he tried to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with Gonzales. But the House members who contacted Barrera weren't interested in any of that. By his account, they wanted to get ahold of compromising messages between Gonzales and Santos-Aviles, and they thought he might have some. They were after previously undisclosed material that went beyond what had already been published by the Express-News and later by other news organizations.

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Is this the beginning of the end for South by Southwest?

In the days and weeks before the City of Austin pulled the plug on South by Southwest in 2020, the event’s leaders cycled through the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief. Most of that time was devoted to the first: denial. To be fair, most of the country was doing likewise during the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump seemed unconcerned. Severe lockdowns had begun in China and Italy, and some international events had been canceled, but American institutions were mostly still humming along. And SXSW had very much become an important institution, one with a global reputation. Each year it brought together attendees from all corners of the world for conference sessions, concerts, and film screenings.

Hugh Forrest, then SXSW’s chief programming officer, was better aware than many Americans of what was happening overseas, as the novel coronavirus and attendant lockdowns spread. His wife, who is from China, had traveled there to visit family in mid-January and ended up stuck, unable to get a flight out. Yet even he couldn’t fathom the possibility that one of the nation’s premier annual cultural events might be called off. “We had been meeting with Austin Public Health,” he recalls. “They were saying, ‘You’ll be fine. Just have lots of hand sanitizer.’?” Even as the news worsened, with the first confirmed U.S. cases and deaths, Forrest and his colleagues inside SXSW Center, the company’s newly built downtown-Austin office tower, had incentives to remain in denial. If they believed their own economic-impact reports, the event was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Austin each year. If they called it off, would they be responsible for returning the tens of millions of dollars that attendees had paid for badges? And millions more to sponsors? Would their insurance policy cover such costs? Alongside denial came the second stage of grief: anger, expressed through defensiveness. A senior SXSW staffer told me that organizers were receiving daily calls from reporters asking whether it was wise to gather hundreds of thousands of international visitors, and would push back. Forrest remembers being particularly annoyed by a conversation with one author and entrepreneur, who was among the future-facing speakers who had helped build SXSW’s reputation. “He had been talking to his doctor friends, and [they were saying] this was much worse than anything else,” Forrest told me. “On the one hand, I like him a lot. On the other hand, he’s kind of a know-it-all.”

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Prairieland shooter convicted of attempted murder, others on lesser charges in 'antifa' trial

In an unprecedented trial seeking to tie alleged “antifa” members to domestic terrorism, a federal jury returned a mixed verdict for nine people accused in a nonfatal July 4 shooting of a police officer outside the Prairieland immigration detention center — including a conviction on one count of attempted murder for shooter Benjamin Song. Song, Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto and Ines Soto were convicted of rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive — the explosive being fireworks. Daniel Sanchez Estrada was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record. He and his wife, Rueda, were also convicted of conspiracy to conceal documents.

Song was also convicted on three counts of discharging a firearm. Hill, Evetts, Morris and Rueda were acquitted of the attempted murder and discharging a firearm charges, which they faced for allegedly aiding and abetting Song. All nine were accused of playing a role in the nonfatal shooting of Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross outside the ICE facility. Prosecutors argued the group was a "North Texas antifa cell" that shared anti-ICE and anti-government beliefs. The defendants argued the protest was supposed to be a peaceful noise demonstration in support of the immigrants inside the detention center, and that they never intended for things to get violent. At least two jurors were visibly distraught before Judge Mark Pittman read the verdict. Families and friends of the defendants let out muffled sobs as the decision came down.

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On anniversary of ICE detention, Texas judge orders Palestinian woman released on bond

After a year in immigration detention, a Muslim Palestinian woman from New Jersey could be released from ICE custody after an immigration judge ordered her release for a third time. The federal judge on Friday granted Leqaa Kordia a $100,00 bond -- higher than the $20,000 Kordia had previously been granted, prompting the Department of Homeland Security to file an automatic stay to keep her in custody. The $100,000 bond is expected to be paid immediately unless DHS cancels the payment and invokes the automatic stay a third time, according to a statement released by Kordia’s legal team at the Texas Civil Rights Project. In the statement, Kordia said she was “deeply grateful for all the people who attended today’s bond hearing on theone yearmark of my detention.

“All I want is for the government to finally release me now so I can go home to my family,” Kordia said. “Until then, I’ll continue speaking up for the basic rights and freedom of all people, from Texas to Palestine." Judge Tara Naselow-Nahas said the previous $20,000 was more than enough – but said she had “her hands tied.” She said she hoped the government would agree that $100,000 was enough and “not turn around and issue an automatic stay.” She called the government’s arguments “disingenuous” and noted the hundreds of documents submitted by Kordia’s lawyers. DHS attorney Stacy Norcross said during Friday's brief hearing that “no amount of bond” would guarantee Kordia's appearance in court. Kordia was arrested last March for allegedly overstaying her visa. Before that, she had been arrested during a 2024 protest at Columbia University against Israel’s war in Gaza. Kordia, 33, lives in New Jersey. She was born in the West Bank and came to the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2016.

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Corpus Christi cancels César Chávez march amid rumors; Dolores Huerta drops out

The annual César Chávez march in Corpus Christi has been canceled after rumors about the late labor leader’s legacy spread and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta withdrew from the event, the Express-News has learned. The move mirrors a similar cancellation in San Antonio, where organizers earlier this month called off the city’s César E. Chávez March for Justice, citing a “sensitive matter” involving Chávez without providing further details. The César Chávez Foundation and the Dolores Huerta Foundation have not responded to requests for comment.

The march in Corpus Christi would have marked the 25th anniversary of the event in the Coastal Bend city, honoring Chávez, the civil rights leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Huerta and became one of the most influential labor organizers in the United States. Founded in 1997, San Antonio’s César E. Chávez March for Justice has drawn thousands each year and would have marked its 30th anniversary this spring. In both San Antonio and Corpus Christi, march organizers said they acted after hearing rumors circulating within labor and activist networks that damaging information about Chávez could soon surface. A memo sent to San Antonio City Council members and obtained by the Express-News said the cancellation involved a “sensitive matter,” but did not elaborate. A source with firsthand knowledge of the discussions told the Express-News that leaders of the California-based César Chávez Foundation warned city officials that negative information about Chávez’s past could soon be reported in a national news outlet.

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SNAP beneficiaries sue USDA over food restrictions like those in Texas

Recipients of federal food assistance sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week to stop the agency from restricting the types of SNAP purchases that will soon be outlawed in Texas. Residents in five states alleged in a federal lawsuit Wednesday that new restrictions for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries deprive some recipients of food they need “to maintain their health and employment,” the lawsuit states. The USDA issued a series of waivers for 22 states that prevent the purchase of junk food, sodas, candy and other food items. The USDA issued Texas a waiver last year. It takes effect in April and continues for two years and specifically restricts the purchase of sweetened drinks and candy. The lawsuit was filed by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income families.

The plaintiffs are SNAP recipients who live in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia. It names the USDA and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins as defendants. It's not clear if the lawsuit would have any effect on the Texas restrictions. The Chronicle was unable to reach the National Center for Law and Economic Justice on Saturday. The lawsuit alleges the USDA redefined food “haphazardly” and did so without authority and without seeking input from the public, specifically from “people or businesses directly affected.” The restrictions are part of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement championed by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and Rollins, a native Texan and Trump loyalist who previously led the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. Rollins wrote in an opinion piece published in December that reform is overdue and that the restrictions ensure “taxpayer dollars provide nutritious options to Americans in need.”? “The chronic disease epidemic does not respect partisan boundaries, and never before has it presented such an enormous threat to our national welfare,” Rollins wrote. “The urgency of the crisis is abundantly clear.”

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'Just mean': New Texas rule requiring proof of legal status threatens workers

Iris Yanez spent 12 months and $13,000 working toward a Texas hairdresser’s license. By the time she finished the requirements in early February, a quiet policy change by the state had already made her ineligible. “I’m going to have two credentials that I’m not going to be able to use,” Yanez, who also has a state license for eyelash extensions, told the American-Statesman in Spanish. The 45-year-old was caught in a sudden shift by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation that now requires applicants to provide proof of legal authorization to be in the United States.

Yanez is one of potentially thousands of hairdressers, barbers, electricians and HVAC professionals across Texas who are ineligible to obtain or renew professional licenses after the state agency added the requirement in late January. The department’s commissioners could vote to make the policy final as early as March 24. The agency says the change is meant to comply with a 1996 federal law signed by President Bill Clinton that bars states from providing public benefits to people without legal status unless a state legislature explicitly authorizes it — a law Texas largely did not enforce for decades. Approximately 18,000 licenses — about 2% — are not attached to a Social Security number, according to TDLR data provided to the Statesman by state Sen. Judith Zaffirini’s office. Agency spokeswoman Caroline Espinosa told the Statesman the change was an attempt “to combat fraud, human trafficking and labor exploitation.” She declined to offer further explanation.

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PFLAG must turn over records in Texas probe tied to transgender youth care ban, court rules

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Texas Attorney General’s Office can require LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG to turn over documents related to an investigation into medical care for transgender minors. The court overturned a previous district court decision that had largely blocked the AG’s office from seeking certain records. The dispute stems from a civil investigative demand issued in 2024 by Texas AG Ken Paxton. His office is investigating whether medical providers may have violated state law by misleading insurers about treatments provided to transgender minors.

The Attorney General’s office began seeking records after PFLAG submitted an affidavit in an ill-fated lawsuit challenging the state’s 2023 law banning certain gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. In that filing, the group’s executive director said families with transgender adolescents were discussing “contingency plans” and “alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas.” State investigators argued those comments suggested the group might have information about doctors continuing to provide treatments banned under Texas law and requested related records from PFLAG. PFLAG sued to block the request in February 2024. A Travis County judge initially sided with the group and limited what records PFLAG had to provide. The attorney general’s office appealed directly to the state’s highest civil court. In Friday’s ruling, the Texas Supreme Court said the lower court improperly interfered with the state’s investigation, emphasizing that under state law, the AG doesn’t have to prove someone has relevant documents before requesting them.

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Southwest Airlines to end flights at Chicago O'Hare and Washington Dulles

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is discontinuing flights at two major airports in what it calls ongoing efforts to "refine its network." The airline said in a written statement to KERA that service to Chicago O'Hare (ORD) and Washington Dulles (IAD) will end effective June 4. Southwest's spokesperson said the airline will continue to serve both cities at other airports. "These changes do not represent any significant changes in flight availability for these cities, as we will continue our robust service at Chicago Midway (MDW), Baltimore Washington International (BWI), and Washington Reagan National (DCA)," said a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines.

The airline's website says flights booked before June 3 to the two airports will still be valid. Customers holding reservations for travel to ORD or IAD on or after June 4, 2026, can rebook or get on a travel standby list. They are also eligible for a refund. The Southwest spokesperson noted operating at O'Hare has been "challenging." The Federal Aviation Administration last month proposed capping flights at the airport this summer after its two main carriers — United and American — announced additional flights. "We are confident we can serve Chicagoland from our long-standing base at Midway where we will continue to offer service to more than 80 destinations, including the 15 markets we serve from O’Hare," the spokesperson said. "We will offer up to a combined 271 departures to 79 nonstop destinations from DCA and BWI." They added that all affected frontline employees will have the opportunity to bid for open positions across the network, including at BWI, DCA and MDW.

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San Antonio district is creating a virtual school. What we know

For years, public schools pointed to private school vouchers and the charter school boom, saying they siphon students and state funding – drivers of sweeping school closures in San Antonio. A new Texas law allows districts to open virtual learning academies. San Antonio’s largest school district is moving forward. In speaking with experts, it’s clear that any launching virtual learning program will take some adjusting. As Northside Independent School District, which educates nearly 100,000 students, begins its first effort, it’s limiting virtual enrollment to students living in the NISD boundaries. Though, district decision makers have already brought up the concept of expanding those parameters.

“What’s required to run a virtual school with high academic expectations, there’s a lot of infrastructure that has to be there,” Digital Academy of Texas Executive Director Erica Kouros told MySA. She’s a leader at DATX, which operates with K12 and educates 2,700 students across Texas, including San Antonio. Kouros noted her company consists of multiple teams ensuring students are swept into classes, properly enrolled, that courses are available and keeping the whole operation running. “If you think about what we do … everything that happens in a brick-and-mortar school … and classroom happens virtually.” Senate Bill 569 allowed public schools to create virtual learning programs, letting kids who need more flexibility in their schedule to work from the comfort of their home. This could give public schools, like NISD, the chance to retain students who can’t operate within the confines of a traditional in-person school day – a serious leg up amid dwindling enrollment numbers.

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Carl R. Trueman: James Talarico represents Christianity’s past, not its future

(Carl R. Trueman is the Busch Family Visiting Fellow at the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame and the author of “The Desecration of Man.”) James Talarico’s ability to quote the Bible in support of progressive causes has helped propel him to fame as a fresh young face of the Democratic Party. The Presbyterian seminarian has the strait-laced appearance of a small-town preacher. But as a member of the Texas House of Representatives he has argued in favor of biological males competing in women’s sports by saying, “God is nonbinary.” However novel this may seem, it reflects one of the oldest habits of the liberal Protestant tradition to which Talarico belongs: championing progressive social causes just as they are losing favor with the public. Talarico is not a sign of where America is heading but where it has been.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Talarico’s views on transgenderism. In 2024, Britain’s only youth gender clinic was closed. A government report published that year found “remarkably weak” evidence for using treatments such as puberty blockers on children. In the United States, Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election while campaigning against men competing in women’s sports and has threatened to remove federal funding for schools that allow them to do so. Talarico, however, is unmoved. He stands by a record of statements that includes a 2021 claim that “there are many more than two biological sexes, in fact there are six.” This is a misreading of the great works of gender theory that stand behind progressive understandings of sexuality. Worse, it damages the Christian, specifically Presbyterian, religious tradition to which Talarico and I both belong. Christianity makes certain claims about what it means to be human. We are created in God’s image and made as man and woman, distinguished by the sexual characteristics and complementarity of our bodies. Our bodies are, in a deep sense, who we are. I am not a soul that dwells in a body as an astronaut exists in a spacesuit. I am a body-soul unity.

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Dallas ISD looks to roll out free pre-K for all students

Officials in the Dallas Independent School District are floating a plan to offer tuition-free pre-K to all 3- and 4-year-olds. Dallas ISD currently offers free pre-K to students who qualify under certain federal, state and district guidelines, and provides tuition-based classes to all other students. At a meeting Thursday, district officials brought school board members a proposal to drop its tuition to $0. Researchers and education advocates say high-quality pre-K can help close gaps between disadvantaged students and their peers. New research in Dallas ISD and other Texas districts suggests that students are seeing the benefits of the investments in early learning that the state has made over the last several years.

School districts in Texas offer tuition-free pre-K to students who fall into any of several categories, including students who are homeless, those who can’t speak or understand English and children who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Under Dallas ISD’s new plan, those students would still be first in line for seats, as required by state law. But Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde told board members that the district’s projections indicate there will be enough seats for every student who applies. For students who don’t qualify for free tuition, the district’s current pre-K tuition rate is $5,000 a year for full-day classes for 3- and 4-year-old, and $2,500 a year for half-day classes for 3-year-olds. About 267 families are paying tuition for pre-K classes this year. Elizalde told The Dallas Morning News that the tuition those families pay doesn’t cover the full cost of their child’s pre-K education, meaning the district already subsidizes all its pre-K students at some level. District leaders expect the move to have a minimal financial impact on the district, she said. It costs the district more to manage tuition payments than those payments bring in, she said, and the district has enough open seats in its pre-K classes each year that officials don’t expect to need more teachers. School districts across Texas stand to lose large numbers of pre-K students in coming years. According to numbers released Monday by the Texas Comptroller’s Office, pre-K students made up the biggest share of applicants for Texas Education Freedom Accounts, the state’s new education savings account program. Across all grades, 5,267 students who are zoned for Dallas ISD schools applied for education savings accounts by March 8.

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GOP says James Talarico’s faith-heavy Senate campaign is too liberal

State Rep. James Talarico quotes Scripture while advocating for public policies like welcoming immigrants, protecting abortion access and respecting transgender rights. Republicans say that mix of progressive politics and biblical rhetoric shows the Austin lawmaker is out of step with the more conservative religious views of many Texans and unfit to represent them in the Senate. As the race moves ahead, Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has made his faith central to his campaign, and Republicans have seized on it as a line of attack. It began shortly after Talarico defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas in the March 3 Democratic Senate primary. Republicans flooded social media with clips of his past remarks, focusing on moments in which he invokes Bible passages to deliver political messages.

That’s included an abortion-related discussion in which he referenced the story of an angel talking to Mary about carrying the son of God. “That is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent,” Talarico said. “You cannot force someone to create.” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Flower Mound, replied to that clip by comparing Talarico to a demon prince of hell. “If Beelzebub were a politician, he would talk like this,” Gill said. Talarico said the Republican attacks are to distract people from the Iran war and high cost of living. “They’re hoping Americans care more about culture wars than actual wars. More about pronouns than prices,” Talarico said on X. “We’re not falling for it.” The GOP assault comes as the Republican Senate contest is still unresolved. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn faces a May 26 runoff against Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton has sharply criticized Cornyn as a Republican in name only who has been disloyal to President Donald Trump. Cornyn has rejected that and recently announced a faith advisory council of prominent evangelical pastors. He has stepped up character jabs against Paxton, including a new TV ad accusing his rival of violating some of the Ten Commandments.

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National Stories

Hegseth gutted offices that would have probed Iran school strike

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades. The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of “lethality,” including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Around 200 employees who worked on the issue, including at that office, have been reduced by about 90 percent, according to two current and former officials and a person familiar with the effort. The team that handles civilian casualties at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has dropped from 10 to one. Hegseth can’t close the offices because they are approved by Congress.

But he has managed to make them nearly inoperable, according to the people, as the Pentagon investigates its responsibility in what could be the worst U.S.-led killing of civilians since 2003. Iranian state media said the strike killed about 170 children and 14 teachers. “The fact that our secretary of Defense, that our Central Command commander, cannot actually tell us whether or not they dropped a bomb in this location, that is so unbelievably unacceptable,” said Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments until last year. “It just points even more to recklessness in this, in the entire planning and execution of this campaign, the fact that they don’t have any idea.” Hegseth has said no other country takes as many precautions to ensure the U.S. is not targeting civilians. But the Pentagon chief, who has long derided the use of laws in war, this week called military rules of engagement “stupid.” “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country,” he said at a Tuesday press conference on the U.S.-Israeli military operation. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

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Pentagon names 6 military members killed in Iraq tanker crash

The Pentagon on Saturday identified the six United States service members who died this week when a refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq. The service members were Maj. John A. Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Ala.; Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31, of Covington, Wash.; Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Ky.; Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Ind.; Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio. U.S. Central Command had stated that the aircraft crashed after an incident involving another plane, which landed safely. The crash, which happened Thursday in western Iraq, was not a result of hostile or friendly fire, the Central Command said. The plane that went down was a KC-135, which is used by the Air Force to refuel a wide range of aircraft while in flight. A U.S. official previously said that the other plane involved was also a KC-135.

Three of the service members — Major Klinner, Captain Savino and Sergeant Pruitt — were assigned to the Sixth Air Refueling Wing at the MacDill Air Force Base. Major Klinner was a husband and father to 7 month-old-twins, a boy and a girl, and a 2-year-old son, according to Mr. Klinner’s brother-in-law, James Harrill. Mr. Harrill said Mr. Klinner had been deployed to the Middle East for less than a week before his death and was nearing the end of his military career. “You could just hear the excitement in his voice about the possibilities of what was next,” Mr. Harrill said on Saturday night. In a statement, Col. Ed Szczepanik, the Sixth Air Refueling Wing Commander, mourned the loss of the squadron’s members. “To lose a member of the Air Force family is excruciatingly painful, especially to those who know them as son, daughter, brother, sister, spouse, mom, or dad,” the colonel said. “To lose them at the same time is unimaginable.” All three had been stationed in Alabama before deployment. The other three — Captain Koval, Captain Angst and Sergeant Simmons — were assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Ohio, the Pentagon said. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine offered his condolences on Saturday and had earlier ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in their honor. The six deaths brought the total number of American service members killed in the war with Iran to at least 13 as it stretched into its third week.

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Richard Grenell’s scorched-earth term at Trump’s Kennedy Center

It didn’t take Richard Grenell long to transform the Kennedy Center. The fiery former ambassador took the institution’s top post in February 2025 with a clear mandate from his boss. President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the country’s center for arts and culture, home of the National Symphony and Washington National Opera, was “not going to be woke.” And within days of Grenell’s arrival, he set in motion the changes that would recast a nonprofit known for presenting classical music, opera and ballet as a key player in the administration’s culture wars.

The Kennedy Center that Grenell leaves (Trump named his replacement on Friday) is vastly different from the one he entered. Not only has it split with the Washington National Opera, the center has experienced reams of cancellations from artists and been abandoned by audience members disturbed by its direction. Those performances that still take place often play to semi-empty houses. And last month, Trump abruptly announced the center will close in July for a two-year renovation project. “This has been hard to watch, how quickly he’s run it into the ground,” said one former high-ranking employee who was fired during the first week of Grenell’s tenure and, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. Sharp-elbowed and sharp-tongued, Grenell has often carried himself as Trump’s attack dog — lambasting media members, Democrats and anyone else he perceived as insufficiently aligned with the president’s agenda. In response to a Saturday post criticizing his tenure from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Grenell shot back, “Your buffoonery knows no limits. You sat silent while the place went into total disrepair.”

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FCC chief threatens broadcasters as Trump criticizes coverage of Iran war

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr issued a stern warning to broadcasters Saturday, threatening to revoke government-issued licenses if they run what the federal agency deems “fake news.” The warning, alongside which Carr included a screenshot of a post by President Donald Trump inveighing against legacy media coverage of the Iran war, was just the latest salvo from an official who since becoming FCC chairman at the outset of Trump’s second term has relished the role of media enforcer. “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote in a post on X. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

Carr said “changing course” would be a savvy business decision for broadcasters — though he did not mention any by name — given “trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters.” It’s unclear what trust metrics Carr is citing, but Gallup found in 2020 that 9 percent of Americans have “a great deal” of trust in mass media, though another 31 percent said they had “a fair amount” of trust. “When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong,” Carr said, presumably talking about President Donald Trump, who received 312 electoral votes and 49.9 percent of the national vote in the 2024 presidential election. “It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen. Time for change!” Carr’s post elicited backlash from Democratic politicians and press freedom advocates, who have long criticized the administration’s frequent insistence that adversarial or unflattering coverage is “fake.” “If Trump doesn’t like your coverage of the war, his FCC will pull your broadcast license. That is flagrantly unconstitutional,” Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, responded on X.

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In South Carolina, measles shows how far apart neighbors can be on vaccines

When Kate Morrow gave birth to twins eight years ago, they were very premature, with compromised immune systems. "We counted on the community to keep our children safe," Morrow says. She trusted that her neighbors were vaccinating their children to protect other vulnerable people in her community — including her twins. But that's no longer the case. Morrow and her family moved to Spartanburg County, S.C., in 2019. The area is the epicenter of the biggest measles outbreak in the U.S. in more than three decades, with nearly 1,000 confirmed cases. Measles — one of the world's most contagious diseases — was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, thanks to widespread vaccination and school vaccine requirements. But with the current resurgence of measles, the country is at risk of losing that elimination status.

In Spartanburg County, school vaccination rates have fallen to just under 89% — well below the 95% threshold needed to prevent community outbreaks. And it's not just Spartanburg. There are places around the country where vaccination rates have sunk to levels low enough to allow outbreaks to flare, says Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. "There are a lot more South Carolinas waiting to happen," he says. Morrow says it's hard for her to understand why so many parents in her community are turning against vaccines. "How did we get here?" she asks. "How did we get to a place where we don't trust our doctors to do the very best thing for our children? How did we get to a place where vaccinations have become political?" The answer is a mix of widespread misinformation, lingering resentment over COVID mandates, and politicians at the local and national level who are sowing mistrust of vaccines.

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House GOP leadership silent as more members post anti-Muslim statements

Several Republican lawmakers are ramping up anti-Muslim comments and facing little to no response from their leadership. "Muslims don't belong in American society," Rep. Andy Ogles posted on Monday. "Pluralism is a lie." The Tennessee Republican, whose seat is in a safe red district, has previously expressed support for banning immigration from Muslim-majority countries and said in a speech last year that "America is and must always be a Christian nation." The United States was not established as a Christian nation. "He didn't start this this week," said Sabina Mohyuddin, executive director of the American Muslim Advisory Council in Tennessee. "This has been building up." Mohyuddin estimates Ogles has tens of thousands of Muslim constituents in his district.

"We know this kind of rhetoric leads to more bullying in school, discrimination in the workplace, hate crimes and vandalism against mosques," Mohyuddin said. "But it is an election year and these politicians believe if they spew this hateful rhetoric, they are going to get more votes." House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was asked about Ogles' rhetoric during a press conference at the House GOP's annual retreat this week. "Look, there's a lot of energy in the country and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem — that's what animates this," Johnson said Tuesday, adding, "It is not about people as Muslims." Johnson's comments echo a growing chorus among Republican lawmakers, who've been increasingly vocal about denouncing Sharia law and raising questions about Muslims immigrating to the U.S. and those already in the country. There are now 50 Republicans in the "Sharia-Free America" caucus. Republicans have also spent more than $10 million on political TV ads that mention "Sharia" or "Islam" in a negative way, most of it in Texas ahead of its primaries, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. That's about 10 times what had been spent in each of the last four election cycles. Sharia law — a religious framework — does not have standing over the U.S. Constitution. "Because people don't really know or have any idea what Sharia law is, it's the boogeyman. You just throw the word out there and people get scared," Mohyuddin said. "This is how we practice our religion. And last I heard, the Constitution still protects the freedom of religion." A handful of Congressional Republicans have denounced Ogles' comments. "I have many Muslim constituents, neighbors and friends who have contributed greatly to our community and country. Freedom of religion is a pillar of our nation and broad brush statements like this are offensive and completely inappropriate," Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said in a statement to NPR.

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Lead Stories

Oil prices rise despite Trump’s decision to lift Russia sanctions

The worldwide price of oil rose slightly on Friday, continuing to trade at around $100 a barrel on heightened fears about the economic impact of a sustained blockage of Middle East energy. The latest move by President Trump to signal relief to markets slowed but did not reverse the increase in prices. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Thursday night that the U.S. government had temporarily removed sanctions on Russian oil currently at sea to add oil to global markets. Stock markets in Asia fell again on Friday, a day after the S&P 500, the U.S. stock benchmark, slumped to its worst single-day performance since the war began.

The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was trading at about $100 a barrel on Friday in London. It settled at $100.46 a barrel on Thursday, up 10.1 percent, the highest settlement level since August 2022. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, was around $95 a barrel. It settled at $96.40 a barrel, up 10.5 percent, on Thursday. Oil markets have been on a convulsive path since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. The price of Brent spiked to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday as traders feared long-lasting cuts in supplies. Prices have pulled back since then, but remain sharply higher than before the war. Investors and analysts across the world are focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas, which normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Shipping traffic exiting the Persian Gulf through the strait has been effectively halted and tankers are stranded because of the risk that vessels could be attacked.

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Houston rodeo revokes Lina Hidalgo's ex officio title after show access dispute

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo was told ahead of time she would not be allowed to enter the sold-out premium viewing area during Tuesday’s concert at NRG Stadium, rodeo leadership said in a Thursday statement. The county judge was escorted from the rodeo grounds Tuesday evening after being denied entry to the premium area with her guests. The judge said in a since-deleted Facebook post after the incident that she was "manhandled" by security. Hidalgo said the rodeo also informed her Thursday that its executive committee has voted to revoke her status as an ex-officio director of the event.

The rodeo's Thursday statement was signed by rodeo board Chairwoman Pat Mann Phillips and President and CEO Chris Boleman. The pair said Hidalgo was the only Houston or Harris County elected official to request "tickets at any level" this year, let alone the premium $425 "chute" tickets that allow access to the dirt floor of the arena near the concert stage. Hidalgo and her guests were given 21 chute tickets across three earlier performances, the rodeo statement said -- a combined value of roughly $9,000-- but not to Tuesday's sold-out show. The judge acknowledged her office was not given the wristbands typically distributed to holders of chute tickets on Tuesday, but said she had not been asked to wear one at previous performances and said no one told her she was not allowed to enter the dirt area that night. Phillips and Boleman also calledHidalgo's implication that her treatment Tuesday was motivated by her race or gender "false and insulting."

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ERCOT takes aim at ‘doom loop’ for big power users seeking to join Texas’ grid

When the Electric Reliability Council of Texas designed its process for connecting big industrial users to the statewide grid, it envisioned receiving from eight to 15 such requests every three months. Now, with the state at ground zeroof the data center boom, it’s getting as many as 100 requests in that same time period. So, for the past 18 months, the grid operator has been discussing how to handle the rapid influx of demand. It’s looking for a way to keep data centers and other big requests from getting stuck in what’s been nicknamed the “doom loop.” “We quickly came to the conclusion with the market participants that something had to change,” President and CEO Pablo Vegas said.

The solution? A new process — called batch study — that allows for requests to be evaluated as a group based on the amount of electricity that can be reliably served over a six-year period instead of looking at each request individually. ERCOT presented the framework for the batch study to the Public Utility Commission on Feb. 20 but still needs to determine who will be included in the “batch zero” group — the first to be evaluated using transitional guidelines. The goal is to have that criteria worked out by June, then the grid operator can start working on evaluating the group’s power requests. The new evaluation process is a result of Senate Bill 6, legislation requiring new rules for interconnection, operation and cost of service for large load customers. Large loads — like data centers for artificial intelligence and oil and gas electrification — are flooding into Texas, drawn by the state’s booming business landscape, plentiful land and affordable utilities. ERCOT now has projects seeking about 230 gigawatts of electricity at various stages of the existing process. Soon, they will need to be transitioned into the new batch study process.

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Austin City Council changes lobbying rules for reporting interactions

Austin City Council approved changes to the city's lobbying rules, shifting the reporting of lobbyists' interactions with city officials away from departments to the lobbyists themselves — a move some council members warn could make it harder for the public to track influence at City Hall. The updated rules now require lobbyists to report all interactions with city officials rather than only scheduled meetings. The changes also eliminate a requirement that city departments provide a reporting method, shifting that responsibility to the lobbyists. They also cut a requirement for lobbyists to disclose their meetings — and whether they receive or expect to receive compensation — in writing to the department. Council members Vanessa Fuentes and Ryan Alter voted against the changes, raising concerns about transparency.

“Austin has long held itself to a higher standard of transparency than the State of Texas, but this ordinance would only move us closer to the state's weaker lobbying requirements,” Fuentes said in a statement. “At a time when trust in government is already fragile, scaling back transparency is the wrong choice. Our focus should be on strengthening public trust, not eroding it.” Alter said in a statement: "The public should know how lobbyists are interacting with their representatives. I'm concerned this change could reduce that transparency." Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, however, said that shifting reporting responsibility from council offices to lobbyists would free up time and cut down on inefficiency. “I'm happy to see any item that comes forward that helps us be more efficient with the use of the time and spend more of it working on constituent issues,” she said during the council meeting. The changes come after the Austin city auditor noted issues with transparency and accessibility in lobbyist compliance and recommended changes to the city's lobbying rules in September. The office noted that "current city code lobbying provisions limit reporting and make transparency hard to achieve.” The auditor’s office noted in September that Austin’s peer cities such as Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio and Houston define who in city government is subject to lobbying more narrowly than Austin does. The updated Austin lobbyist rules now include a narrower definition of “city official” that focuses on decision-makers.

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State Stories

ICE family detentions put Texas Republicans on defensive with Latino voters

In 2024, a historic number of South Texans turned out to vote for President Donald Trump, driven in part by his promise to reverse President Joe Biden’s “disastrous open-border” policies. But now, ahead of the 2026 midterms, the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation crackdown is proving deeply unpopular with those same Latino voters, and threatening to turn what was once the party’s strongest issue into one of its biggest liabilities. Nowhere was that shift on clearer display than in McAllen this week, where the administration detained a pair of nationally acclaimed mariachi-playing teens, then released them amid intense public backlash.

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, one of South Texas’ few Republican members of Congress who won on a border security platform, called the brothers’ detention “troubling” and took pains to highlight her role in securing their release. “We can have safe communities, and we can also have common-sense enforcement policies,” she said. Democrats were quick to criticize her for her prior positions on border security, and for not intervening sooner. State Rep. Terry Canales, an Edinburg Democrat whose district overlaps with De La Cruz’s, compared the move to “setting your house on fire, calling the fire department and pretending your not the arsonist (sic)” in a social media post. Republicans in South Texas worry the immigration issue could erode the gains they’ve made in what has historically been a Democratic stronghold. The implications in November could be huge because the state’s Republicans redrew the area’s congressional districts last year to favor the GOP under the assumption Latino voters who backed Trump would stick with the party.

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Paxton’s pastor joins faith team for Cornyn

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s pastor has joined the Faith Advisory Council of his opponent, Sen. John Cornyn. After a tough primary campaign that will be settled by a runoff election in May, the Cornyn campaign announced formation of the faith team, which includes Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. Paxton says he is a member of that megachurch. While Paxton has his supporters among the hard right of Texas Republicans, Cornyn is portrayed as the more moral of the candidates. Paxton has faced numerous ethics accusations, including a long-running lawsuit about securities fraud.

He also was impeached by the Republican-led House of Representatives last year but not convicted by the Senate after intervention by President Donald Trump. The longtime executive pastor at Prestonwood was among those allegedly swindled in the securities fraud. Last year, Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” Graham is a former Southern Baptist Convention president who has close ties to Trump, who has yet to endorse either Cornyn or Paxton. Graham is one of five men named to the council. The others are author and pastor Max Lucado of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio; Phil Schubert, president of Abilene Christian University; Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Dallas; and Gus Reyes, a board member with National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. That’s three Southern Baptists on Cornyn’s faith team: Graham, Jeffress and Reyes. Cornyn attends a Churches of Christ congregation. Although lesser known nationally, Reyes has a long history with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, where he twice worked with its Christian Life Commission. He also is the brother of Albert Reyes, president of Buckner International, a Dallas-based nonprofit with historical ties to the BGCT. Gus Reyes also works as director of Hispanic Partnerships with Dallas Baptist University, a BGCT-affiliated school. “As our state and nation are in turbulent times, we need leaders who serve with principle, wisdom and integrity,” the Cornyn campaign said in a statement announcing the group. “A key element to principled leadership is who a leader consults when confronting complex problems.”

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Karl Rove: Don’t bank on a Texas blue wave

Count on Democrats to be all over any political happening in Texas that casts them in a positive light. Such is the case after last week’s Lone Star State balloting, in which 2.3 million Texans voted in the Democratic primary and 2.2 million in the Republican primary. The “higher turnout on the Democratic side,” the Texas Tribune wrote, “has helped fuel Democrats’ hopes that backlash to President Donald Trump’s policies could propel them to their first statewide win since 1994.” A Southern Methodist University political science professor suggested that while Democrats weren’t “generally” thought to have that “great of a chance to win statewide office,” that may not be true “this time.”

An NBC News analyst argued “Democrats have matched their hype with real numbers at the polls.” Turning out more of them in the primary than Republicans did “left no doubt that Democrats have the will to win Texas.” Hold your horses. Primary turnout isn’t a reliable predictor of general-election outcomes. In 2020, more Texas Democrats voted than Republicans in the presidential primary, 2.1 million to two million. That fall, Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in the state 52% to 47%, while Republican Sen. John Cornyn was re-elected with 54% of the vote. The rest of the GOP statewide ticket received between 53% and 55% of the vote. In 2008, 2.9 million Texans voted in the Democratic primary, more than double the Republican 1.4 million. Yet that November, Sen. John McCain carried Texas with 56% of the vote compared with Barack Obama’s 44%. Mr. Cornyn won his first re-election, 55% to 43%. In 2004, more than 800,000 Texans participated in the Democratic primary. Fewer than 700,000 came out for the Republican primary. Still, President George W. Bush carried the state, 61% to 38%. The rest of the GOP statewide ticket against Democratic opponents received between 55% and 59%.

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Lithium was found deep underground in northeast Texas. Now, there’s a race for who gets it

Inside his office just off Mt. Vernon’s town square, attorney B.F. Hicks lays a map out on his desk. At speed, he points at different tracts of land, reciting who lives there, what size their property is and which companies he’s heard have sent landmen to knock on their door to negotiate lithium leases. What happens in northeast Texas could shape America's energy future. The region has emerged as a key player in the domestic race for lithium — the mineral essential to the batteries in electric vehicles, cellphones, and renewable energy storage — as the U.S. scrambles to secure its own supply. For a few years now, the infiltration of companies into this rural region of Texas searching for lithium – a critical ingredient for storing solar energy and powering electric vehicle batteries – has become a topic of conversation over dinner at the local chophouse or in catching up at the historical society meeting.

Sometimes, it’s behind closed doors as friends, family and neighbors gossip about who’s getting the best offers for their mineral rights. Being an energy frontier for other parts of Texas isn’t new to residents in Franklin and surrounding counties, as some of their backyards have started to fill with solar panel farms and battery energy storage systems, all fuel powering the “green economy.” But now, they’re learning that deep beneath their feet is salty water that could become a key resource in the United States’ global fight for full energy independence. The Smackover Formation, which broadly sweeps from East Texas to Florida and once gushed with oil, is now being hailed as containing some of the purest lithium brine in the world. Hicks, one of the most vocal local leaders with opposition to industrial-scale solar projects, actually welcomes the potential lithium can bring to the community. The historian and longtime attorney has signed a lithium lease for a portion of his pristine Daphne Prairie; he’s now helping others do the same. He’s hoping to get the best deal for his clients – and perhaps most important, make sure the surface land is as protected and preserved as possible. “I want to call myself an environmentalist,” Hicks said, bringing his freckled hands to his face as he looked down at the map. “But this is going to bring a lot of money into our community.”

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Dallas officials feared WFAA-TV might leave downtown

Dallas officials feared WFAA-TV (Channel 8) might leave downtown after the city sought to take the station’s parking lot for the expansion of the nearby convention center, according to internal city emails. Messages from last fall and this year reviewed by The Dallas Morning News show officials worried that losing the parking lot could cause the longtime broadcaster to relocate from its Young Street newsroom, and potentially out of the city. A spokesperson for WFAA did not respond to a phone call or emailed questions this week about the station’s parking plans and whether it will remain at its Young Street location. WFAA general manager Carolyn Mungo could not be immediately reached for comment. The Young Street studios house one of the last major television newsrooms still in downtown Dallas, a presence the city has long viewed as important to the area’s civic and business core.

In September, city attorneys sued Charter DMN Holdings, owned by developer Ray Washburne, as they aimed to use eminent domain to seize his roughly 36,000 square feet of land around Young and Houston streets for the overhaul of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. The parcel included Channel 8’s parking lot. The station was also named as a defendant in the case. The city wrote in its lawsuit that its previous offers to buy the land had been rejected. Washburne had indicated he’d be open to a sale, but told The News the property was tied to an existing ground lease with Channel 8. Amid the legal wrangling, city officials were scrambling to keep the station downtown, according to the emails reviewed by The News. Linda McMahon, CEO of the city-affiliated Economic Development Corp., wrote city officials Sept. 12, saying the eminent domain case “could effectively push WFAA out of the city.” The message was sent to City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert; Tolbert’s chief of staff, Ahmad Goree; and assistant city manager Robin Bentley.

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Ballots cast by Dallas County Democrats during extended voting hours March 3 won’t count

Nearly 2,000 ballots cast by Dallas County Democrats who got in line after voting hours were extended on March 3 due to mass confusion at the polls will not be counted in final primary results after the county party dropped its litigation of the matter. District Judge Staci Williams granted the party’s request on election day to extend voting by two hours — to 9 p.m. — after hundreds of voters were rerouted amid the precinct-based system forced by the Republican Party. The Texas Supreme Court blocked the extension that evening after the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition challenging the decision.

This week the county Dallas County Democratic Party declined to challenge the matter further, stating “the Texas Supreme Court is no longer a viable forum for seeking a fair and independent application of the law regarding this issue.” There were 1,756 provisional ballots cast by Democrats who got in line after 7 p.m. that will not be included in final results, according to elections department spokesperson Nic Solorzano. No race appears to have a margin small enough to be affected, according to unofficial results. Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman said in a statement the group will continue organizing and supporting voter protection efforts to overcome roadblocks he said were placed by the GOP. “The Texas GOP has held a thirty year stranglehold on this state — and in that time they have weaponized Texas law to disenfranchise millions of Texans — because they know if every eligible voter has access to the polls, they lose,” Coleman said. “Continuing to pursue this case in a hostile forum would incur massive legal costs, resources that are better spent on the ground protecting our voters.” Last year, the Dallas County Republican Party decided to hold a separate March 3 primary from Democrats and revert to precinct-based voting on election day. It was a change from the countywide voting system in place since 2019 that allowed residents to cast a ballot at any vote center regardless of their address. Because county officials control early voting in Texas, the universal system remained in place for that 10-day period.

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How a culture warrior forced a runoff in the race for Texas oil regulator

Last summer, Republicans across Texas were trying to force Bo French out of a party leadership position after he made disparaging online comments about Muslims and Jews. Now he’s vying to become one of the most important U.S. energy regulators. The longtime GOP activist made it into a primary runoff for a spot on the Railroad Commission of Texas. In May, he will face incumbent Commissioner Jim Wright, who was endorsed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The winner will have a high-profile pulpit to discuss energy policy in an important state — and real authority to oversee polices that affect oil and gas production, emissions and development. The Railroad Commission isn’t focused on cultural issues, but French spent the primary playing up his opposition to Islam and to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. He also vowed to end what he described as Chinese Communist influence in the oil industry and said the commission should create a “pro-family credentialing program for Texas oil and gas producers.”

“This is a very powerful statewide position, so obviously I’m going to continue talking about the things that our voters care about to help drive the narrative in Texas on these issues,” French said this week in an interview. The Railroad Commission no longer oversees railroads, though efforts to change its name have failed over the years. Instead, it regulates the oil, gas, pipeline and mining industries in Texas, which gives it sway over roughly 40 percent of U.S. oil production and 29 percent of gas production. The three commissioners are elected statewide — often with campaign funding from the companies they oversee — and the job is frequently viewed as a stepping stone to other political offices in Texas. Each seat has a six-year term, with elections staggered. “French’s profile as a candidate aligns with the more militant wing of the MAGA wing of the Texas GOP, and he benefits from the publicity around his more controversial comments,” Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an email. Henson said French was “helped by the fact that, despite the importance of the Railroad Commission in governance and the economy, most voters typically don’t pay much attention to the race and tend to know very little about the candidates.”

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Manchin rips Cornyn over filibuster shift: ‘Deeply disappointing’

Former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) on Thursday criticized Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for backing a change to the filibuster rules to pass a GOP-backed voting reform bill. In a lengthy post on the social platform X, Manchin said “there was not another person more committed to keeping the filibuster” than Cornyn during his time in the upper chamber from 2010 until last year. “It’s deeply disappointing to see that Senator Cornyn is now willing to scrap the very rule he once praised and personally thanked me for defending,” the retired lawmaker added. “These extreme election-year politics that put party power over everything else are why Americans are sick and tired of the duopoly of the two-party system of Democrats and Republicans.”

Cornyn, who is in the middle of a heated GOP runoff race against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, said Wednesday he supports changing the Senate filibuster rule to advance the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act. Last week, Paxton said he would consider exiting the race if Senate leadership bypassed the filibuster to pass the bill, which proposes requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. “After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature,” Cornyn wrote in an op-ed published by the New York Post. Cornyn noted that the GOP could force Democrats to use a talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, a strategy that would allow the majority to push the legislation through via a simple 51-person majority once the Democrats finish speaking on the floor.

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Elon Musk's Boring Company names Dallas development finalist for mile-long tunnel project

A major development in Southern Dallas has been named one of 16 finalists in a nationwide competition hosted by Elon Musk's Boring Company in which the winner will have a mile-long tunnel built within its infrastructure for free. University Hills, a 280-acre, $1 billion mixed-use project by developer Hoque Global, was named on of the contest's finalists after being one of 487 entities to submit a proposal for the tunnel. According to a statement released by the City of Dallas, the proposed tunnel would connect the neighborhood to the University of North Texas Dallas DART Station nearby.

The competition, known as the “Tunnel Vision Challenge,” was announced in January by The Boring Company, the tunneling enterprise founded by Elon Musk. It encouraged companies to pitch tunnel concepts up to one mile long and 12 feet in diameter that would demonstrate innovative transportation or infrastructure solutions. The Boring Company is expected to announce the winning proposal on Monday, March 23. The selected winner will see its project constructed at no cost to the host city, per the contest's rules. University Hills is being designed as a walkable, urban neighborhood featuring 580 homes, phased mixed-use construction and a town center. Homebuilding is expected to begin in early 2027. The project has drawn both momentum and scrutiny in recent months. Dallas officials gathered in May for a ceremonial groundbreaking after the city committed nearly $35 million in economic incentives to its construction. City Manager Kimberly Tolbert has indicated that additional support could follow, saying “so much more is needed.” Still, some city council members have raised concerns about the project’s execution and past delays in meeting city deadlines. Council Member Adam Bazaldua questioned whether the city should continue incentivizing developers who fail to meet progress benchmarks, while Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins, whose district includes the site, defended the project as key to Southern Dallas’ long-term growth. Hoque Global is also behind Newpark, a separate mixed-use development planned for downtown Dallas near City Hall, which is backed by roughly $100 million in pledged city subsidies.

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Sen. John Cornyn ad invokes Ten Commandments to blast AG Ken Paxton

Sen. John Cornyn is turning the Ten Commandments into a campaign weapon. In his first TV ad in the GOP runoff against Attorney General Ken Paxton, Cornyn’s campaign invokes scripture and church imagery to accuse his rival of violating the core moral rules of Christianity. The ad, released Wednesday, opens with a narrator asking what a burner phone, an expensive pen and a cash machine have in common. “They are symbols of Ken Paxton’s depravity,” the narrator says. “Paxton used the burner phone and an alias to hide his affair from the mother of his children. Now his wife’s divorcing him on biblical grounds.”

As images of church pews and a cross appear on screen, a separate, deep voice intones a commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The narrator then cites an incident from more than a decade ago in which Paxton picked up a $1,000 pen left at a security checkpoint by another lawyer. Paxton returned the pen after law enforcement identified him through security footage. At the time, a Paxton aide described the incident as a misunderstanding. But the ad’s narrator calls it theft. The church scene returns and the same deep voice declares: “Thou shalt not steal.” The narrator also says Paxton’s net worth has shot up while in office and cites allegations he listed multiple properties as his principal residence to secure lower mortgage rates. “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” the deep voice says. The TV spot marks a further escalation in an already bruising runoff that has become the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history. The Paxton campaign did not respond to an email requesting comment on the ad. He previously has denied allegations of wrongdoing in his personal life and public career. Paxton was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House before the state Senate acquitted him. The Cornyn ad closes with the narrator warning “Judgment Day” comes for everyone eventually and that Paxton now faces Texas voters. The deep voice chimes in with a final commandment: “Defeat the crook.”

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Fort Bend County Judge KP George maintains innocence as money laundering trial begins

Attorneys for Fort Bend County Judge KP George argued during opening statements on Thursday that the criminal case against him is politically motivated. Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued why the embattled public official should be convicted on felony charges of money laundering. "Why are you going through all of his campaign records looking for a crime?" George's attorney, Jared Woodfill, told the jury seated in the 458th District Court in Richmond. The Fort Bend County judge was arrested on two counts of money laundering last year. Prosecutors allege he used more than $46,000 in campaign funds to make a down payment on a house and to pay his property taxes.

If convicted of the third-degree felony, George would be removed from office and could face up to 10 years in prison, with fines up to $10,000. George is already on his way out as the top elected official for a diverse, fast-growing county southwest of Houston. The county judge was first elected as a Democrat in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Following his indictment, George switched parties and joined the GOP this summer, but failed to secure the Republican nomination for his seat in last week’s primary election. George received 8.4% of the vote to place last in a five-candidate race. George's attorneys characterized their client as a "gentleman" from "a small, little village" in southeast India who eventually sought the American dream and went on to serve as a public official in his community.

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Dallas leaders urge passage of 'transformative' school bond package

Dallas school and city leaders say a historic bond on the May 2 ballot can be “transformative” for the district. The $6.2 billion package is the largest bond proposal in Texas history. It would go toward nearly two dozen new buildings, tech and safety upgrades and hundreds of permanent classroom spaces to replace portable classrooms. Speaking at a news conference Thursday, former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who served from 2011 to 2019, praised improvements he’s seen in Dallas ISD since he was mayor, including a B rating for the district and more than 70% of campuses earning A or B grades. He urged voters to approve this package — to maintain the progress.

“This world is moving fast in technology, in capital, in how things are done,” Rawlings said. “And we know if you're not getting better faster than the next guy, you're getting worse. It's a competitive world out there. Dallas has got to come to the polls and say ‘this is the easiest vote we've ever made.’" Rawlings was joined by some school board trustees as well as Senior Pastor Richie Butler, with St. Luke Community United Methodist Church and Commit Partnership president Miguel Solis to tout the benefits of the bond package. The May bond election is broken into four propositions. The largest, Prop A, accounts for nearly $6 billion of the $6.2 billion total. It would fund new buildings and renovations, including 26 replacement campuses as well as enough new classroom capacity to eliminate portables districtwide. Officials say the average age of Dallas ISD schools fell to about 43 years, from 52 years, thanks to the 2020 bond approval. If passed, proposition A would further reduce the age of Dallas ISD’s facilities to around 33 years. The national average is 49. Proposition B would fund $145 million for technology upgrades. Proposition C would enable the district to refinance debt at a cost of $143 million. And Proposition D would service swimming pools and natatoriums across Dallas ISD for $26 million. Dallas

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New legal network aims to help families navigate CPS investigates

Across Texas, fewer than 1 in 4 child abuse and neglect investigations conducted in fiscal year 2025 by Child Protective Services result in findings of abuse or neglect, according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees CPS. With more than 136,000 cases reported statewide in FY 2025, legal advocates say thousands of Texas families face intrusive DFPS investigations each year — often triggered by conditions tied to poverty rather than abuse. But even when investigations ultimately find no abuse or neglect, families can still face high-stakes decisions during the investigation period when CPS first knocks on their door. The average CPS investigation lasts 45 days, according to DFPS. During that time, parents may be asked to remove children from their homes, allow investigators inside or share private records — often without fully understanding their legal rights or speaking with a lawyer.

A new statewide legal initiative launched earlier this month aims to change that. The Family Early Defense Network, funded through a $14 million grant from the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, is designed to connect low-income families with attorneys at the earliest stages of a child welfare investigation — often before a case ever reaches court. Under Texas Family Code, courts must appoint an attorney for parents when the state files a case seeking to terminate parental rights or obtain custody — known legally as conservatorship of a child. But because most investigations never reach that point, Leila Blatt, an attorney and special project director for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid — the lead partner in the network — said many families must make decisions with long-term consequences early in the process, often without legal guidance. “CPS often uniformly uses safety plans and so folks are agreeing to have their kids away from them for a month, and perhaps having to renew that safety plan for several months without ever speaking to a lawyer,” Blatt said. “ Some of those decisions can have lasting effects for who ultimately cares for those kids and have consequences on who has the ability to get support to get a court order for a child when a parent otherwise is going about their life wanting to do the caretaking. “

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National Stories

4 killed in crash of U.S. refueling plane in Iraq, military says

Four of six crew members died after a U.S. military KC-135 refueling aircraft that was part of the American war against Iran crashed in neighboring Iraq, United States Central Command said on Friday. In a statement, it said that rescue efforts were continuing and that the circumstances of the crash were under investigation, but added that “the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.” The deaths brought the number of U.S. service members killed in operations related to the Iran conflict to at least 11. Central Command did not immediately identify the four crew members who were killed, pending notification to their families. It said on Thursday that an incident involving two aircraft had “occurred in friendly airspace,” and one aircraft went down, while the other landed safely.

The last American tanker crash occurred in 2013. In that incident, a K-135, taking part in refueling missions over Afghanistan, crashed soon after departure from the Manas airport in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan. Three airmen died in the incident. The KC-135s are among the most heavily used aircraft in the Air Force’s arsenal, and among its oldest airframes. The planes are used to refuel all kinds of aircraft to include fighter jets, surveillance planes and cargo aircraft. A U.S. official said that the other plane involved in the collision was also a KC-135, which landed safely. Air-to-air refueling missions are performed regularly by Air Force pilots and mishaps are rare. But the maneuver is still challenging, especially in bad weather or high winds. Investigators suspect a midair collision may have caused the crash, but details are still murky, Air Force officials said. The inquiry is still going on along with a search and rescue effort to locate the downed crew.

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Violent attacks at Michigan synagogue and Virginia university rattle sense of safety in American communities

A pair of attacks over 700 miles apart on Thursday struck at the heart of community safe havens, leaving shocked Americans with an uneasy sense of security. First, a deadly shooting being investigated as terrorism devastated a Virginia university in a military town. Hours later, a targeted vehicle-ramming attack on a Michigan synagogue left congregants shaken to their core. The shooting at Virginia’s Old Dominion University was committed by a veteran who was a convicted ISIS supporter. The attacker was able to kill one person and injure two others before a classroom of ROTC students subdued and killed him, the FBI said.

Then, a vehicle rammed into the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township in an attack the FBI said targeted the Jewish community, carried out by a US citizen who was born in Lebanon, the Department of Homeland Security said. The synagogue had been on high alert for potential violence in the weeks before the building became engulfed in flames after the suspect drove through it with a rifle and a large number of explosives, officials said. Though the motive in the attack is still unknown, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said there is a clear “nexus” between the Iran war and the attack, adding it’s no coincidence the suspect targeted a synagogue named Temple Israel. The attacks are among four acts of violence that have rattled Americans’ collective consciousness in recent weeks. The two attacks on Thursday came just days after two terror suspects were accused of tossing makeshift bombs at a protest outside the New York City mayor’s home Saturday in what authorities have described as an ISIS-inspired attack Less than two weeks earlier in Austin, Texas, a shooter wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the Iranian flag killed three people and injured over a dozen others in the city’s bustling entertainment district. Though the motive is still under investigation, authorities are investigating whether the shooter was inspired in part by US and Israeli strikes on Iran that weekend, multiple law enforcement officials briefed on the case said.

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The most popular MAGA influencer you've never heard of is an AI foot fetish model

Do you know who Jessica Foster is? Neither did I until last week, which is surprising because (1) she has amassed 1 million followers on Instagram after starting her account just a few months ago, (2) she is a U.S. Army soldier with a look as wholesome and American as apple pie, and (3) she is a huge Trump supporter. With that trifecta, you could assume she would be a star on Fox News, Newsmax, or The Joe Rogan Experience. But no, she is nowhere to be found on those platforms—or any major U.S. media outlet, for that matter. And that’s because she is a computer-generated mirage designed by an anonymous operator to funnel conservative men toward an OnlyFans page where “she” sells foot fetish pics.

I came across Foster while reading the Spanish sports media, which covered the AI character after her account posted fake images of her attending a White House reception for the MLS championship-winning Inter Miami soccer team, alongside Donald Trump and Lionel Messi. (She also has appeared in the Oval Office alongside Cristiano Ronaldo.) The stunt triggered a massive wave of coverage across sports outlets in “fútbol”-obsessed Spain and Latin America, which then expanded to TV, other online publications, and national newspapers with huge readerships like 20 Minutos. The Instagram profile @jessicaa.foster went live on December 14, 2025. In just three months, the account has more than a million followers. The recipe for this success was fairly simple: The puppet master behind the screen pumped out a constant stream of content around this fictitious, Trump-loving female soldier and built an entire digital lore by letting followers peek into her daily life. We see Jessica posing in army bunks, frolicking with female soldiers, shoeless at the office, and behind an F-22 Raptor fighter jet. The feed is packed with high-resolution, completely forged photos of her posing with Trump and politicians like Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy; in one, she’s speaking at the Board of Peace Conference—Donald Trump’s international body created to mediate the Gaza conflict. She even invaded Greenland, because of course, all it takes to conquer a country is a Colgate smile.

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Much of the government’s technology isn’t accessible, internal report finds

Nearly 30 years after Congress put accessibility requirements for government technology into law, much of the federal government’s technology still isn’t fully meeting accessibility standards. Less than 40% of the government’s most-viewed public webpages are fully accessible, according to a new report by the General Services Administration. Overall, the federal government’s technology, including internal webpages, hardware, software, videos and electronic documents, scores only a 1.96 average across a 5-point scale, although accessibility varies widely across agencies. The congressionally-mandated report is focused on how agencies are doing in their implementation of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires government tech to be accessible for people with disabilities — over 70 million Americans.

Fewer than half of the government’s most-viewed technologies are fully accessible. Inside the government, funding constraints, staffing shortages and workforce turnover are all decreasing the capacity to improve accessibility, the GSA report states. Over 386,800 federal employees left the federal government last year, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. The report is based on responses from 60 agencies, although not all submitted data for each section of the report. Forty-three agencies didn’t respond to GSA’s ask at all, and more than half of responding agencies cited resource limitations, according to GSA. Approximately half of agencies reported that they do not routinely test their technology for accessibility. Usability testing with people who have disabilities is “rare,” the report says, as is mandatory digital accessibility training for relevant employees. Despite overall low ratings, some agencies scored very well on their technology’s accessibility. The Social Security Administration, for example, reported that 100% of its top-viewed tech conforms with accessibility guidance.

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The Republican who wants to banish his own constituents

The Islamic Center of Columbia, Tennessee—a small city about 45 miles south of Nashville—had been around for only a few years when white supremacists burned it down. On a Saturday in early 2008, three young men went to the mosque armed with spray paint and Molotov cocktails. According to a federal indictment, they first defaced the exterior walls with swastikas and phrases including White Power. Then they broke into the building and set it aflame. “Everything on the inside was charred,” a former member of the Islamic Center told me. “The roof had come down, and they had to demolish the building afterwards.” The mosque, which had a few dozen members, had been the first in Columbia and was, for a time, the only Muslim house of worship between Nashville and Huntsville, Alabama. After the fire, its leaders bought an empty church building nearby and converted it into a new mosque, though they initially kept their plans for the space a secret to avoid a community backlash.

The former member who related this to me asked that I not publish his name, because nearly two decades later, the Muslim community in middle Tennessee is again on edge. The membership of the rebuilt Islamic Center of Columbia is smaller but still active. Its mosque sits less than a mile from the district office of the area’s U.S. House member, Andy Ogles. But Representative Ogles, a Republican in his second term, doesn’t seem to want Muslims to reside in his district. And he doesn’t want them anywhere else in the country, for that matter. “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” Ogles posted on X on Monday. “Pluralism is a lie.” Ogles is a Trump loyalist who has proposed amending the Constitution to allow the president a third term. Ogles has long denigrated Muslims; he’s pushed for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (who was born in Uganda and with whom Trump has lately been chummy) to be denaturalized and deported, and just last week, he called for a ban on immigration from several majority-Muslim countries. His comments on Monday were more sweeping, and a more direct attack on America’s constitutional values. They also imply an outright rejection of thousands of Ogles’s own constituents. Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District includes parts of Nashville and several counties to the south. For 20 years, its House representative was a centrist Democrat, Jim Cooper, who had welcomed a Muslim community in Nashville that grew over the years to more than 40,000 people. It comprises significant Kurdish and Somali populations that arrived as a result of refugee-resettlement programs, as well as a sizable number of Palestinians. In Columbia, as in other parts of the region, Muslim physicians who had been recruited to the area because of a need for more doctors brought along their families.

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Senate passes bipartisan housing bill targeting large investors and easing regulations

The Senate has passed the largest housing bill in decades — bipartisan legislation designed to improve housing affordability and availability through deregulation, expanding old programs and banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes, with few exceptions. The bill passed 89 to 10. "It's Democrats. It's Republicans. It's pieces they built out together," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a co-sponsor of the bill, in an interview with NPR. "That is the strength of this bill." "It's not a Republican issue or a Democrat Issue," said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the bill's other sponsor, speaking in advance of the vote on the Senate floor. "It's an issue about helping moms like the one who raised me, the amazing woman that she was, become homeowners."

Many of the bill's provisions are meant to boost the United States' housing supply. The typical home sold in the U.S. — priced around $400,000 — is well above what the median family can afford. The housing shortage is responsible for much of that cost, since limited supply increases prices. One estimate from Realtor.com puts the shortfall between available units and demand at 4 million. "If we want to bring down the cost of housing, we've got to build a lot more," said Warren. "And what I love about this bill is that it has more than 40 different provisions in it, all of which aim in the same direction, which is to give a push toward building more housing." Much of the bill mirrors one passed by the House last month, with 84% of the provisions from the latter making their way into the Senate version. The major difference between the two bills is the Senate's introduction of a ban that would prevent any investor that owns at least 350 homes from buying more.

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How The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found itself in the battle over Big Tech

On Nov. 5, in a harshly lit conference room at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ main administrative hub in Salt Lake City, Elder Gerrit Gong delivered an impassioned speech about the future of AI. “Man can create AI, but AI cannot create God,” he told the assembled audience. Gong was speaking at a conference put together by Organized Intelligence, an initiative not directly associated with the church but one that advances Latter-day Saint perspectives on AI, namely that these tools are safe, properly regulated and don’t impede or replace users’ relationship with morality or God. Gong, who is one of the 12 Apostles of the church, has spent much of the last year thinking and speaking about this rapidly evolving technology.

A former State Department official and Oxford-trained Rhodes Scholar, he is able to discuss AI at a technical level or a more abstracted one. And he is the public face of a concerted Latter-day Saint effort to begin to take seriously the risks associated with AI development. Over the course of two days at the Organized Intelligence conference, Latter-day Saint leaders weren’t the only ones taking the stage. The speakers included officials from the Future of Life Institute, which works to reduce existential risk from advanced AI, historians from around the country and the executive director of Utah’s Department of Commerce. As quickly became apparent, there is a fast-growing collection of people and interests in Utah who are deeply focused on the future of AI. Top officials in the state have also shown no hesitation when it comes to going up against the agenda of Big Tech — or the industry’s allies in the Trump administration.

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Lead Stories

Iran's unrelenting attacks on Mideast shipping and energy infrastructure send oil prices up again

Iran’s unrelenting attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf pushed oil back above $100 a barrel on Thursday, as American and Israeli strikes pounded the Islamic Republic with no sign of an end to the war in sight. Iran is trying to inflict enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to halt their bombardment, which started the war on Feb. 28. Iran’s president said its attacks would continue until Iran gets security guarantees against another assault, indicating that even a ceasefire or U.S. declaration of victory might not halt the conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking at a Wednesday event in Kentucky, promised to “finish the job,” even though he claimed Iran is “virtually destroyed.”

Iran hit a container ship off the coast of Dubai, caused a blaze near Bahrain’s international airport, targeted a major Saudi oil field with a drone and forced Iraq to halt operations at all of its oil terminals after attacking its port of Basra on the Persian Gulf. With the latest attacks, Iran flouted a U.N. Security Council resolution from the previous day demanding that it halt strikes on its Gulf neighbors, with new attacks also reported in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Sirens wailed after midnight in Jerusalem as Israel intercepted incoming Iranian missiles, and loud booms were heard later in the day in another attack on the city, while Iran-backed Hezbollah militants launched some 200 rockets from Lebanon at the country’s north. Israel responded with what the military described as a “wide-scale wave of strikes” on Tehran and in Lebanon, where 11 people were killed in two early morning strikes. The U.N. refugee agency meanwhile sais up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war. It said most have fled from Tehran and other major cities toward the north of the country or rural areas.

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How Trump and his advisers miscalculated Iran’s response to war

On Feb. 18, as President Trump weighed whether to launch military attacks on Iran, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, told an interviewer he was not concerned that the looming war might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in energy markets. Even during the Israeli and U.S. strikes against Iran last June, Mr. Wright said, there had been little disruption in the markets. “Oil prices blipped up and then went back down,” he said. Some of Mr. Trump’s other advisers shared similar views in private, dismissing warnings that — the second time around — Iran might wage economic warfare by closing shipping lanes carrying roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. The extent of that miscalculation was laid bare in recent days, as Iran threatened to fire at commercial oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point through which all ships must pass on their way out of the Persian Gulf.

In response to the Iranian threats, commercial shipping has come to a standstill in the Gulf, oil prices have spiked, and the Trump administration has scrambled to find ways to tamp down an economic crisis that has triggered higher gasoline prices for Americans. The episode is emblematic of how much Mr. Trump and his advisers misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that the government in Tehran sees as an existential threat. Iran has responded far more aggressively than it did during last June’s 12-day war, firing barrages of missiles and drones at U.S. military bases, cities in Arab nations across the Middle East, and on Israeli population centers. U.S. officials have had to adjust plans on the fly, from hastily ordering the evacuation of embassies to developing policy proposals to reduce gas prices. After Trump administration officials gave a closed-door briefing to lawmakers on Tuesday, Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said on social media that the administration had no plan for the Strait of Hormuz and did “not know how to get it safely back open.”

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Texas-born alcohol distributor may sell its home state market

In 1939, Ed Block Sr. founded Block Distributing Co. in San Antonio. The company later became a cornerstone of the modern Grand Prairie-based Republic National Distributing Co., the nation’s second-largest wine and spirits distributor. Now, Republic National is considering cutting ties with its state of origin altogether. Amid a recent string of troubles for the distributor, Republic National is in talks to sell 11 of its markets, including Texas, where it’s headquartered, to Chicago-based Reyes Beverage Group, the nation’s largest beer distributor.

In addition to Texas, Reyes has sent a proposal to purchase Republic National’s Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C., markets, according to a spokesperson for the Texas-based distributor. Talks for six of those markets have been going on since at least January. “We are working closely with Reyes, with a shared priority of ensuring a smooth and successful transition throughout this process,” said Marc Sachs, president and CEO of Republic National. “For now, all of our markets are still part of RNDC, and we continue to operate as we have been, with a strong focus on serving our customers and suppliers.” The company spokesperson said Republic National is “targeting a closing by the end of May, and for each of those markets that are not part of the Reyes transaction, it is business as usual.” After the potential sale, Republic National would have 28 remaining markets, including Georgia, Illinois, New York and Oregon.

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Tilman Fertitta in talks to buy Caesars for $7 billion after topping bid from Icahn

Billionaire Tilman Fertitta has been in exclusive talks to buy Caesars Entertainment for roughly $7 billion after he topped a competing offer from billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s firm, according to people familiar with the matter. Fertitta’s company, Fertitta Entertainment, has been discussing paying around $34 a share for the betting company, the people said. Caesars shares closed Tuesday at $26.01, giving the company a market value of over $5 billion. Caesars shares closed up nearly 12% Wednesday at $29.07 after The Wall Street Journal reported on the talks. An announcement between the two sides isn’t imminent, and it is possible the talks won’t result in any deal, some of the people cautioned.

Caesars had also received an all-cash offer of around $33 a share from Icahn Enterprises the publicly traded company that houses the investment of Icahn, a Caesars shareholder, some of the people said. Icahn Enterprises’ offer hasn’t officially been rejected by Caesars, they added. Fertitta’s business is behind the Golden Nugget casino chain, the restaurant giant Landry’s and other hospitality and gaming monikers as well as the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Caesars runs more than 50 resorts, including under its namesake Caesars brand, Harrah’s, Eldorado and Circus Circus. Shares in Caesars and its betting peers have sagged in recent months as investors digest the potential threat to their businesses prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi pose. Vici Properties, the real-estate investment trust that was spun off in Caesars’ bankruptcy proceedings in 2017 and counts Caesars as a major tenant, had been viewed as a potential roadblock to a deal. Some potential buyers who aimed to split off the company’s digital gaming business had assumed that any deal would require Vici’s signoff, some of the people said.

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State Stories

Talarico plans to win over Black voters after winning primary tinged with racial tension

State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, claimed the Democratic nomination after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas. Talarico had strong support from Latinos in the primary, but he’s missing support from a key bloc of voters. Their race was tinged with racial tension after a social media influencer alleged Talarico called former U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred a “mediocre Black man.” Talarico’s response was that he was referring to Allred’s campaign. And Crockett called an attack ad that used a filter, which darkened her skin, racist. Talarico said he had no control over the ad, which came from a pro-Talarico PAC, which the campaign can’t legally coordinate with. “To the congresswoman’s supporters, I know I wasn’t your first choice. But I hope to earn your trust and earn your support,” said Talarico the day after he won the primary election. But two field organizers who worked on Crocket’s campaign say there are still hurt feelings from the campaign trail.

“We should be focusing more on the quality of what someone can bring rather than if someone can appeal with a softer or aggressive tone,” said D’Angela Colter, a Crockett field organizer. During the primary, Talarico met with Black community leaders, clergy and voters and visited a neighborhood in Democratic state Rep. Aicha Davis’ district in Dallas, which has been facing water shortages. Davis says she supported Talarico over Crockett. “He made time to go to Sand Branch without a lot of media to deliver water and to talk to them and to get to know the organizing nonprofit and to figure out how he can help them regardless of what would have happened in that primary,” said Davis. But a New York Times analysis found Talarico did worse in predominantly Black counties, getting 37% of Black votes while Crockett received 61%. Crockett said when she conceded that “Texas is primed to turn blue, and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person.” In the days following the election, Talarico attended the funeral of Civil Rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackon. He also secured an endorsement from Vice President Kamala Harris, who endorsed Crockett in the primary, and got a call from President Barack Obama, who says Talarico brought “energy” and “enthusiasm” into the party, which may carry weight.

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Inside the battle to legalize sports betting in Texas -

In a private dining room at Al Biernat’s in Dallas, just weeks before the 2023 legislative session, owners and executive brass from nine professional sports teams in Texas gathered for dinner. Their guest of honor: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Patrick—arguably the most powerful figure in Texas politics and the single biggest obstacle to legalized online sports betting—had come to hear their pitch. Seated around the table were owners representing teams ranging from the Cowboys to the Astros. Team presidents sat at an adjacent table. The coalition wanted him to support a narrow legalization framework or, at a minimum, allow Texans to vote on whether to pass online sports betting. Patrick, who has been lieutenant governor since 2015, had dismissed the idea for years. Ahead of the 2021 session, he told KFYO radio in Lubbock, “It’s not even an issue that’s going to see the light of day this session.” He was right: no sports-betting or casino bill made it to the floor of either chamber.

But there he was, ahead of the 2023 session at Al Biernat’s, breaking bread with some of the most influential sports figures in Texas, appearing to signal a shift. For a moment, it seemed possible—even probable. According to multiple sources, Patrick told the group that if they managed to pass a bill out of the House, he would not stand in the way of it receiving a vote in the Senate. The Texas Sports Betting Alliance—a union of 11 Texas pro sports teams, major betting platforms, racetracks, and motorsports organizations—took him at his word and confidently walked out of that dinner. Lobbyists went to work on behalf of the alliance to cobble together the votes needed to advance House Joint Resolution 102. They succeeded, securing 101 out of 143 votes. Next step: the Senate. Alliance members believed they had the necessary 21 votes in the Senate lined up—enough to meet the two-thirds threshold required for constitutional amendments. But momentum stalled overnight following the House’s vote.

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Lina Hidalgo says she was 'manhandled,' 'kicked out' of Houston rodeo

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo was asked to leave the Houston Rodeo Tuesday evening after she was denied entry to a concert at NRG Stadium, according to a since-deleted post she made to Facebook. Hidalgo said she was "manhandled" after she and a group of guests, including two children, were prohibited from attending the sold-out Megan Moroney concert at NRG Stadium. A representative for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, in a prepared statement, said the area Hidalgo attempted to access was limited to "chute seat ticket holders only," premium seating priced at $425. The rodeo spokesperson said Hidalgo and her group were "directed back to their ticketed seating," after they were denied access to the "dirt area."

Hidalgo, however, said she was "kicked out" of the stadium in the lengthy Facebook post. "Before I could talk to the director, the men physically shoved me and threatened me with arrest," the county judge wrote. "They asked me to leave the county’s stadium, which I did, leaving my guests to watch the concert elsewhere." Hidalgo's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon. Harris County, which owns NRG Stadium, leases it each year to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. High-ranking county officials and their guests enjoy regular free access to performances held at NRG via a county-owned suite in the stadium. Hidalgo was among those who received free access to a Beyoncé concert held in late June, for instance. Hidalgo said Tuesday's incident happened because she is a woman, and said it may have been politically motivated. "Look, in such a divided country, perhaps those guys just disagree with my politics. They had the chance to change that twice at the ballot box and lost," Hidalgo wrote. "If it had been a different county executive, a man, I’m willing to bet nobody would’ve been shoved, the director of the rodeo and the head of security of the rodeo wouldn’t have been deployed to keep the county leader out, and things would’ve just been fine." She ended her post with a call for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to provide information on how much it had charged previous county judges for concert access.

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Fort Worth $10b data center developers hold tense meeting with nearby residents

The developers behind a $10 billion data center coming to southeast Fort Worth held a meeting on March 11 to show residents in nearby Forest Hill — which shares a border with some of the land that the city of Fort Worth has rezoned for the project — a site plan for a portion of the campus that was approved by the Fort Worth City Council in 2025. The site plan is for a 187-acre portion of the future campus for a data center that was initially approved by the Fort Worth City Council in 2025, located at the corner Lon Stephenson Road and Forest Hill Drive. The data center is being developed by the Fort Worth-based energy consortium Black Mountain. Presenting a site plan is a requirement for the developer to get a final stamp of approval from the Zoning Commission and the City Council.

Black Mountain has successfully petitioned the city of Fort Worth to rezone more than 430 acres of land for its AI data center, with another roughly 80 acres’ worth of land headed to Zoning Commission and the City Council later this year after council members pumped the brakes. The data center will be in the city of Fort Worth, but it is directly next to the boundary with the nearby city of Forest Hill. Leaders there, and in nearby Kennedale, have said they want more transparency from Black Mountain on how their cities will benefit from the development. Wednesday’s meeting was intended to be focused on that site plan, said Black Mountain CEO Rhett Bennett. Bennett was accompanied by Bob Riley, a consultant with Richardson-based Halff, who is working on behalf of Black Mountain. Videos were not allowed at the meeting, but photos were. “This is our opportunity to present what the site plan looks like, to socialize with the community,” Bennett told the dozens of people sitting in a meeting room at a Best Western hotel. “Feel free to ask me questions.”

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Bobby Pulido accepting quinceañera invites after dig from congressional opponent

Bobby Pulido has received about 1,000 invites from families after his opponent said the race for Texas' 15th Congressional District "isn't about who you want performing at your niece's quinceañera." The Tejano singer opened an application form Tuesday where families can request his attendance at upcoming quinceañeras, milestone celebrations held for girls' 15th birthdays. Less than 24 hours later, nearly 1,000 requests have flooded in, according to a news release from his campaign. The initiative comes in response to a comment from Rep. Monica De La Cruz, the Republican incumbent who will face Pulido in the general election. After Pulido won the Democratic primary on March 4, De La Cruz posted a video on social media telling constituents that "South Texas isn't just a stop on a comeback tour," but her home.

"This election isn't about who you want performing at your niece's quinceañera," she said. "It's about who you trust with your family's future." Pulido fired back with a social media post where he said he was honored by the notion that he "only belongs at quinceañeras." His campaign said in Wednesday's news release that he will attend as many quinceañeras in the district as possible. “Quinceañeras are about family, tradition, and community — and that’s exactly what this campaign is about,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “South Texas is built on family, and if families want me to celebrate these special moments with them, I’d be honored.” Applicants are directed to fill out a form with basic information on birthday girl and her party, in addition to a section where they are invited to tell her family's story. "What makes this quince special?" the application asks. "Why would it mean something for Bobby to stop by?"

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Why Texas is threatening to shut down a struggling San Antonio restaurant chain

The state of Texas is threatening to shut down struggling Sushi Zushi for failing to pay taxes, jeopardizing its efforts to find a buyer for its three San Antonio restaurant locations. Sushi Zushi of Texas LLC and its restaurant businesses emerged from bankruptcy a year ago, but the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts says the businesses are in default for not paying state taxes since confirmation of their reorganization plan. Almost $273,000 in taxes — including sales and mixed beverage receipt taxes — have not been paid since last summer, the comptroller said in a court filing this week. As a result, the comptroller “has threatened to shut down the Operating Entities,” Sushi Zushi said. The restaurants owe more than $500,000 combined on unpaid taxes for before and after the bankruptcy filings in 2024, according to the comptroller’s office.

“If the comptroller shuts down any of the Operating Entities or they are locked out, the restaurant operations will cease, employees will be terminated, and the value of the businesses will be destroyed,” Sushi Zushi added in a recent filing. During a bankruptcy court hearing Tuesday afternoon, Sushi Zushi asked Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta to reinstate an “automatic stay” that would prevent creditors from pursuing collection efforts while it tries to find a buyer for the restaurants. The comptroller objected to the automatic stay. Sushi Zushi’s “attempt to reimpose the stay should be denied and the Debtors’ attempts to conduct a sale is not feasible,” the comptroller said in its filing. “The Debtors are unable to afford day-to-day operations and daily and monthly financial obligations.” Gargotta denied Sushi Zushi’s request at the end of the hearing that lasted an hour and 45 minutes, expressing skepticism that Sushi Zushi could quickly find a buyer while the restaurants are not paying taxes, rents, and principal and interest on loans. He recalled the “sage words” of now-retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald B. King while working as a law clerk for him.

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Texas barbecue under pressure as beef prices rise and competition grows

The business of barbecue in Texas is getting tougher. Rising costs, thinner profit margins and increasing competition are putting pressure on pitmasters across the state. Some barbecue restaurants are expanding, but others are shutting their doors. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says record-high beef prices are one of the biggest threats to the industry. “Consumers are going to start backing off the amount of beef they eat at these prices,” Miller said. That shift could have major implications for one of Texas’ most iconic food traditions. For pitmaster Grant Pinkerton, barbecue has been a lifelong passion. “I’ve had a passion for meat my entire life,” Pinkerton said.

Pinkerton started smoking meats at just 12 years old. In 2016, that passion turned into his first brick-and-mortar restaurant in Houston. But the barbecue world today looks very different than when he first started. “It’s drastically different now,” Pinkerton said. “Craft barbecue is everywhere.” The popularity of Texas barbecue has fueled a surge of new restaurants across the state. But with that boom comes fierce competition. “Now you can throw a rock and hit a pretty decent barbecue joint,” Pinkerton said. That competition can be brutal. “If you put two barbecue spots next to each other, they’ll get better, but one will probably close too,” he said. Despite the challenges, Pinkerton’s business continues to grow. This year, he opened his third restaurant. But he acknowledges that the restaurant business especially barbecue is notoriously difficult. “It’s not an easy business,” Pinkerton said. “Things can get away from you extremely quickly in this business, especially in barbecue. It’s a razor-thin game.” Across Texas, more than a dozen barbecue restaurants have closed in recent months, according to industry reports.

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Defense, prosecutors spar during final remarks in Prairieland ICE shooting trial

The attorneys for nine defendants on trial in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth sparred with prosecutors Wednesday during emotional closing arguments over the defendants’ roles in a July 4 shooting that wounded an Alvarado police lieutenant outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith, the case’s lead prosecutor, opened up the final remarks by talking to the jury for nearly 50 minutes, arguing one last time that the nine defendants each showed up at the North Texas detention center with the intention to kill and to cause havoc. The defendants are facing a mix of charges, which include attempted murder, rioting, conspiracy to use explosives, using explosives, and providing material support to terrorists. The prosecution and defense attorneys have argued all week over the extent of the involvement of each individual on July 4.

Smith says eight of the nine defendants were at the ICE facility in Alvarado with fireworks, rifles and explosives, dressed in all black to organize an “ambush” and to destroy government property. Attorneys for the defendants say it was supposed to be a peaceful noise demonstration turned wrong when an officer was shot during an altercation with a protester. Smith told the jury Wednesday that the defendants orchestrated an “attack” in an attempt to liberate immigrants who were awaiting deportation. He said they shot fireworks at the building, slashed tires of government vehicles, trespassed on private property and brought first-aid kits and body armor — all which show intent more severe than just peaceful protesting, he argued. “Did you know fireworks burn at 1,500 degrees?” Smith asked the jury. “That is not a peaceful protest — to fire something that burns at 1,500 degrees at a building holding prisoners.”

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Political fundraiser turned Christian evangelist Bunni Pounds line up to read Bible aloud to wake up 'apathetic church'

Bunni Pounds, a political fundraiser-turned-activist who lost a 2018 bid for U.S. Congress from Texas, was visiting the Museum of the Bible in Washington when she says God spoke to her. At the time, Pounds told attendees at a recent National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, she’d been thinking about Ezra, the biblical prophet who read the law of Moses aloud to the Israelites as they returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and began rebuilding the city’s walls. “I had an encounter with the Lord about Ezra, and it has never left me,” she said. What’s more, Pounds said, the United States needs the same kind of spiritual rebuilding as the ancient Israelites. That idea led her to organize a week of public Bible reading in the nation’s capital.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if our national leaders from all spheres of influence, demographics and denominations would humble themselves in front of the American people and tell them that their dependence is in the Bible,” she said. “And then call the American people back to discipleship and Bible reading.” This spring, from April 18-25, a group of pastors, politicians, authors and other Christian leaders — nearly 500 in all — will read the Bible aloud from cover to cover. Fittingly, the Museum of the Bible will host the readings from 9 in the morning till 9 at night, all of which will be livestreamed. Each reader will recite Scripture for about 10 minutes. Pounds said it took about a year to recruit readers and assign them Bible passages. Organizers tried to match readers to passages that fit their ministry goals, she said. The project cost about $2.5 million to pull off. Franklin Graham, head of Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian group, will read the story of the Good Samaritan. Leaders from Prison Fellowship will read from the Book of Exodus. Mike Huckabee, ambassador to Israel, will read from the 12th chapter of the Book of Genesis, which includes a passage about Israel often cited by Christian Zionists: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are also scheduled to read.

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Texas Comptroller sued again over blocking Islamic schools from vouchers

A group of Islamic schools and Muslim parents sued the Texas Comptroller's office Wednesday, accusing state leaders of religious discrimination for blocking Islamic schools from Texas' $1 billion private school voucher program. The case marks the second lawsuit this month against the voucher program that GOP lawmakers pitched last year as a way to help families afford private education, including at religious schools. The latest lawsuit challenges the comptroller's decision to pause accepting or inviting Islamic schools to the program while state leaders review whether the schools have ties with the Council of American-Islamic Relations or other organizations Gov. Greg Abbott has labeled foreign terrorist organizations — a claim that the Muslim advocacy group disputes.

The lawsuit — filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas — calls the exclusion unlawful. One key plaintiff is Bayaan Academy, an Islamic virtual school with a business location in Galveston County. It was previously the only Islamic school approved for state-funded vouchers, according to previous Chronicle reporting. However, the lawsuit states that after the Chronicle named Bayaan as the only Islamic school admitted to the program, it was immediately removed from the state's website. The school never received an explanation why from the comptroller's office. "There is no secular, non-discriminatory criterion that would explain the blanket exclusion of every eligible Islamic school generally, or the School Plaintiffs particularly, while schools of other religious affiliations have been approved through the same process, under the same statutory criteria," the filing read. Texas families have until March 17 to apply for the state-funded vouchers, called Texas Education Freedom Accounts. They provide anywhere from $2,000 for homeschool parents to $30,000 for families of children with disabilities. Many families expect to receive about $10,400 for private school tuition. A lottery will prioritize students with disabilities and low- to middle- income families before the state distributes the funds.

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Flying cars are coming to Texas

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Monday that it has selected eight proposals for a new pilot program that will test new electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) aircraft in 26 states — including Texas. These modes of transportation could include implications for emergency medical response, cargo delivery and air taxis. Speaking with the Economic Security Advisory Group, Port San Antonio President and CEO Jim Perschbach praised the potential for air taxis. “If you can fly in that low altitude airspace, which requires the incorporation of signals, technology, artificial intelligence, high powered computing, then you can do some amazing things," said Perschbach. "One thing you can do is start to relieve traffic congestion.”

Perschbach also supports the plan for its capabilities in public safety and security. "Imagine a drone that could be used to carry fuel supplies, not just to combat situations, but to natural disasters, or they can bring vital health care services," he said. This week, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced the eight proposals as part of the new eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP). The proposals involve test programs from leading aircraft manufacturers, operators, and state partners. These projects will create one of the largest testing environments for next-generation aircraft in the world. Data from the pilot projects will be used by the FAA to develop new safety regulations to enable use of the technology.

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Jerry Jones-backed esports company at risk of falling off Nasdaq

GameSquare Holdings Inc. is in danger of losing its Nasdaq listing. The stock price of the Frisco-based esports company remains stuck below the stock exchange's minimum price requirement of $1 per share. However, the company announced March 11 that it has been granted a second 180-day period to try to regain compliance, meaning it has until Sept. 7. In a statement, GameSquare (Nasdaq: GAME) said it "plans to take all necessary actions within the prescribed period to regain compliance." If the company’s stock closes at or above the $1 minimum for 10 straight days, the company will be back in the good graces of the Nasdaq. A couple of well-known local billionaires — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Fort Worth-based investor John Goff — are the company’s largest backers. GameSquare is headquartered at the home of the Cowboys, The Star in Frisco. Nasdaq granted the extension based on GameSquare meeting other listing requirements, including for the market value of publicly held shares, according to the announcement.

Shares of GameSquare were trading for around 30 cents apiece as of early afternoon March 11, up 2.3% from the prior day. Over the last 12 months, GameSquare's stock price has fallen almost 60%. Blue & Silver Ventures Ltd. an entity tied to Jones and Goff is GameSquare's largest shareholder with a 6.6% stake, or 6.57 million shares. As of March 11, stake's value was at about $1.97 million. Entities affiliated with Goff own about 6.3 million shares, or a 6.4% stake in GameSquare. That stake is valued at about $1.9 million. The company was initially informed by the Nasdaq in September that it was out of compliance because its stock had closed below the $1 minimum share price for 30 consecutive business days. The original ruling gave the company until March 9 to comply. It's been a tumultuous few months for GameSquare, an entertainment and technology company that connects online influencers with esports teams. It went public through a merger with Engine Gaming in 2023. In addition to the possible delisting, GameSquare has seen turnover among its executive ranks and racked up financial losses. GameSquare announced in early February the appointment of Amaree Tanawong, the former vice president of strategic finance and operations for Meow Wolf Inc., as its new chief operating officer. That move followed an announcement in December that Lou Schwartz would step down at the end of that month as president and chairman of the board. Justin Kenna, the GameSquare's CEO since 2021, became the new board chairman. For the third quarter of 2025, the company reported revenue of $11.3 million, an increase from the prior year’s $9.3 million. That helped boost net income, although the company still was not profitable. It reported a net loss of $800,000 for the three-month period, compared with a net loss of $5.5 million in the same quarter a year prior. The quarterly loss brought GameSquare's net loss through the first nine months of 2025 to about $11 million.

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Legal dispute over some votes cast in Dallas County on primary election day may be over

The Dallas County Democratic Party on Tuesday dropped its initial request for a local judge to order polls to stay open after 7 p.m. on primary election day. That appears to mean that votes cast after 7 p.m. on March 3 are unlikely to be included in the final results. Dallas attorney Chad Baruch filed with the Texas Supreme Court saying Democrats "nonsuited" their original petition requesting Judge Staci Williams to keep polls open until 9 p.m. "We thus believe this original proceeding is moot," the filing reads. Williams had ordered them to stay open because of confusion over new precinct-based voting rules. Nearly 2,000 Democratic Party ballots cast between 7 and 9 p.m. on Election Day were separated from ballots cast earlier in the day.

By Wednesday, the same day of the nonsuit filing, Dallas County's ballot board had finished reviewing by hand each ballot to determine its eligibility. That is required by state law, but would also have helped the county comply if the Texas Supreme Court had ordered those votes to be included in final race results. Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman had said previously that it's important for voters choices to be included. "I'm not sure that there are enough provisional ballots to reverse the outcomes of any race, but I do believe that those voices should be heard and those ballots should be counted." The number of voters turned away in the confusion who then didn't cast a ballot may never be known, Elections Administrator Paul Adams had said. "There's maybe some ways we can get some possible information, but we won't really ever know for sure," he said. The Democratic Party is electronically surveying voters about whether they were able to vote amid precinct-assignment confusion.

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National Stories

First 6 days of Iran war cost $11.3 billion, Pentagon tells Congress

Defense Department officials told senators in a closed-door briefing Tuesday that they estimate the first six days of the war in Iran cost more than $11.3 billion, according to three sources familiar with the briefing. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., told reporters Wednesday that he believes the amount is even higher, as the current figure does not include every aspect of the war. “I expect that the current total operating number is significantly above that,” Coons said. “If all you’re looking at is the replacement cost for the munitions used, it’s already well beyond $10 billion.” Reached for comment, a Pentagon spokesperson said: "We do not comment on closed-door discussions or matters. Regarding the cost of Operation Epic Fury, we won't know the cost until the mission is complete."

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FBI warns Iran aspired to attack California with drones in retaliation for war

The FBI warned police departments in California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News. "We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran," according to the alert distributed at the end of February. "We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack."

The warning came just as the Trump administration launched its ongoing assault against the Islamic Republic. Iran has been retaliating with drone strikes against targets throughout the Mideast. The information about Iran’s aspirations for a surprise drone attack on the West Coast came before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran, and a senior law enforcement official said it's believed the 12-day bombardment has severely degraded Iran's capabilities to carry out such an attack. A spokeswoman for the FBI office in LA declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. intelligence officials have also grown concerned in recent months about the expanding use of drones by Mexican drug cartels and the chance the technology could be used to attack American forces and personnel near the Mexican border. "An uncorroborated report suggested that unidentified Mexican cartel leaders had authorized attacks using UAS (drones) carrying explosives against US law enforcement and US military personnel along the US-Mexico border," according to a September 2025 bulletin reviewed by ABC News. "This type of attack against US personnel or interests inside the United States would be unprecedented but exemplifies a plausible scenario, although (cartels) typically avoid actions that would result in unwanted attention or responses from US authorities." California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office told ABC News: "The Governor's Office of Emergency Services is actively working with state, local and federal security officials to protect our communities."

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White House takes first step toward permanent fix for illegal tariffs

The Trump administration took a major step toward replacing the global tariffs that the Supreme Court recently invalidated, announcing new investigations of unfair trading practices that will almost certainly result later this summer in permanent new taxes on U.S. imports. Jamieson Greer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, said Wednesday that he is launching an investigation of “structural excess capacity and production in the manufacturing sectors” of China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Cambodia. The investigation, which the administration previewed last month, will be conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. President Donald Trump relied on the same provision in his first term to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese products, which largely remain in effect.

Greer’s announcement came less than three weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that many of the tariffs Trump imposed last year, relying on a 1977 economic emergency powers law, were unconstitutional. At the time, the president vowed to continue his campaign to reshape global trade using other legal authorities. “The policy remains the same. The tools may change depending upon the vagaries of courts,” Greer told reporters. Within hours of his Supreme Court defeat, the president turned to another trade tool, Section 122 of the 1974 act, to impose a global 10 percent tariff. Under the law, that measure — which Trump said he would increase to 15 percent — expires after 150 days. Earlier this week, the Liberty Justice Center, the nonprofit legal group that successfully challenged Trump’s emergency tariffs, sued the president over the new temporary levies, saying the financial conditions required by the law had not been met. The administration intends to conduct the new Section 301 investigation, and a second probe of U.S. trading partners’ use of forced labor, on an “accelerated time frame.” The aim is to have new tariffs ready to replace the Section 122 measures when they lapse.

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Iran's soccer team cannot participate in the FIFA World Cup, Iranian minister says

Iran cannot participate in this summer's FIFA World Cup tournament, which is being co-hosted by the United States, the Iranian sports minister said Wednesday. "Given that this corrupt government has assassinated our leader and created extreme insecurity, we cannot participate in the World Cup," said Ahmad Donyamali in remarks broadcast on Iranian state television. "The players have no safety, and the conditions for participation simply don't exist."

The military campaign waged by the U.S., along with its ally Israel, began in late February. An Israeli strike on Feb. 28, partly enabled by American intelligence, killed the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking officials. At least 1,300 Iranian civilians have been killed, according to Amir Saeid Iravani, the country's ambassador to the United Nations. The new campaign follows last year's 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran. That led to the deaths of more than 1,000 Iranians, according to the Iranian government. "In just eight or nine months, they have dragged us into two wars, killed thousands of our people, and committed grave atrocities," Donyamali said. "Under these circumstances, attending the tournament is impossible." The World Cup is set to run from June 11 through July 19, with the U.S. as one of three co-hosts for the tournament alongside Canada and Mexico. Most games will take place in the U.S., including all three of Iran's group stage matches, which are scheduled to take place in Los Angeles and Seattle. It was not immediately clear whether Iran had formally withdrawn from the tournament. FIFA and the Iranian Football Federation did not immediately respond to NPR's inquiries. After FIFA president Gianni Infantino met with President Trump on Tuesday, Infantino said in a statement that Trump had "reiterated that the Iranian team is, of course, welcome to compete in the tournament in the United States." A team withdrawing from the World Cup so soon before it begins is without precedent in the modern era. Under FIFA regulations, a team that withdraws from a tournament could face a fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a potential ban from future competition. FIFA would have broad discretion to replace Iran in the tournament with another team, such as an alternate from the Asian Football Confederation, like Iraq or the United Arab Emirates.

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Iranian school was on U.S. target list, may have been mistaken as military site

The Iranian elementary school building where scores of children were killed as the U.S. and Israel began their massive aerial campaign was on a U.S. target list andmay have been mistaken for a military site, multiple peoplefamiliar with the strike told The Washington Post. The deadly attack occurred in the first few hours of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran — just as parents were hurrying to the two-story schoolhouse to take their kids home to safety — and killed at least 175 people, many of them children, according to Iranian state media. It is still not clear why the building was hit, but one person familiar with the school strike said the building had been identified as a factory and had been an approved strike target. A second person familiar said there was an arms depot target located in the same area and did not know if the United States hit the school by mistake, or if U.S. officials had the wrong intelligence and thought the building was the arms depot.

“Initially there was some confusion on why it was on the target list,” said a third person familiar with the strike. The individual would not go into further detail, citing the military’s ongoing investigation into the strike. Israel has said it did not have a role in the strike — and two Israeli officials told The Washington Post that this specific targeting was not cross-checked or discussed with the Israel Defense Forces before it took place. The Post spoke to more than a dozen people to report this story in the United States and Israel, including those familiar with the incident and AI’s role in the Iran operations, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that a preliminary Pentagon investigation into the strike found that the United States was at fault and that the incident may have been the result of using outdated targeting data. A U.S. official and a person familiar with the targeting confirmed to The Post that the initial investigation appeared to indicate that the school strike was conducted by the U.S. military. The mistaken strike was probably due to an intelligence error on the target location, the official said.

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Joe Rogan keeps highlighting Trump’s biggest liabilities

If there’s one figure who epitomized President Donald Trump’s ability to cobble together a winning coalition in 2024, it might have been Joe Rogan — the influential podcaster who made big news by endorsing Trump on the eve of the election after interviewing him. (On the flipside, much ink has been spilled about the Kamala Harris campaign not booking a date with Rogan’s podcast and the detrimental effect that might have had on her bid to become president.) Sixteen months later, Rogan epitomizes Trump’s problems in holding that coalition together. Rogan has broken with Trump on several major issues since mid-2025. And polling shows the issues he’s picked happen to be some of Trump’s biggest political liabilities – including the war with Iran, the Jeffrey Epstein files and immigration enforcement.

The big, new one is the war with Iran. Rogan said Tuesday that Trump’s ongoing assault on the country broke his promises to his voters. “But it just seems so insane based on what he ran on,” Rogan said. “I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid senseless wars, and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.” Rogan had also been skeptical of Trump’s plans to target Venezuela before the ouster of Nicolas Maduro back in January. But he said that operation was at least “clean.” The military engagement to bring in Maduro lasted only a few hours, as opposed to the war with Iran, which is nearly two weeks old with no clear end in sight. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me – unless we’re acting on someone else’s interests, like particularly Israel’s interests,” Rogan added. “It just didn’t make any sense to me.”

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The Trump administration's crackdown on immigrant truckers shifts into higher gear

Jorge Rivera has been commercial trucker in the U.S. for more than a decade. So he was surprised when he went to renew his commercial driver's license last year in Utah, where he lives, and found out that he couldn't. "It was like a slap in the face, because I've done everything the right way," Rivera said. "I've stayed out of trouble. I've been a law-abiding non-citizen, is what I like to say." Rivera was brought to the U.S. illegally from Mexico when he was two years old. He's enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA, that granted him permission to legally work in the U.S., among other benefits, and allowed him to get a commercial driver's license in 2014 and start his own trucking company.

"At this point, I'm just pretty much bracing for the worst," he said. Rivera is part of a lawsuit seeking to block proposed regulations from the Department of Transportation. The changes were sought by the Trump administration, which wants to make it harder for immigrants with temporary legal status to get commercial driver's licenses after several high-profile crashes involving foreign-born drivers. But the administration's critics say that would do little to make the nation's roads safer. By the DOT's own estimate, the proposed regulations would force about 200,000 immigrants out of the trucking industry. That includes asylum-seekers, as well as immigrants with Temporary Protected Status or DACA. "I don't know what I would do, to be honest with you," Rivera said of the possibility of losing his trucking license."I even have my company name tattooed on my body," he said during a video interview. With his truck safely pulled off the road, Rivera showed off a tattoo on his arm with his company name and a freeway. "Can you see the freeway, the mountains? The road is I-15. It's Utah, Colorado and Vegas," Rivera explained. "That's my route. That's what I do all year. You could tell me right now, a mile marker on I-15 or I-70 — you could tell me any mile marker in any state, and I could tell you what's there." But even experienced drivers like Rivera could lose their licenses as the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrant truckers shifts into higher gear.

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David Zaslav gets the last laugh

On March 5, a week after inking a $111 billion deal, Paramount CEO David Ellison and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav conspicuously lunched in the executive dining room on the Warner Bros. Studio lot, breaking bread over their megamerger that will reshape Hollywood. Unlike December’s visit from Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters to the WB lot, no glamour photos were taken, but the public appearance of Ellison on his property-to-be underscores the new world order that is about to engulf the industry. The rich and powerful are poised to get richer and more powerful, and much of the rest of the industry is wondering what comes next. The Paramount-Warners marriage is perhaps the quintessential example. A year ago, Ellison was the CEO of Skydance, a studio with a valuation of $4.75 billion.

When this deal closes, he will control two of Hollywood’s legacy studios, an empire valued at north of $120 billion. Zaslav is running a company that had a share price of $10 a year ago. Now he is the toast of Wall Street, more than tripling the company’s value as Paramount, Netflix and NBCUniversal circled the prize. Zaslav himself is poised to exit with shares worth just shy of $800 million, according to Equilar, including the $114 million or so in stock he sold March?3, just days after the Paramount deal was announced. The executive, of course, now oversees a studio set to dominate the Oscars, and a resurgent HBO. “Give Zaslav credit, he’s my hero,” investment manager Mario Gabelli, who is also a large WBD shareholder, told The Hollywood Reporter when Paramount and Netflix were still engaged in a battle for the prize.

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Lead Stories

Gov. Abbott critical of city leadership in Corpus Christi's leadership in water crisis, threatens takeover

Governor Greg Abbott was critical of the city of Corpus Christi’s handling of its water supply Tuesday and warned the state could intervene if local leaders fail to make decisions. Speaking Tuesday at an event hosted by Americans for Prosperity during the Texas legislative session, Abbott said the state has already provided hundreds of millions of dollars to help the city address its water challenges. “We provided them with $750 million --three-quarters of a billion dollars -- in funding for them to address their water problem,” Abbott said. “You know what they did? They squandered it and then they changed their plan and then they were indecisive about what to do.”

Abbott argued the issue facing Corpus Christi is not a lack of water but a failure to act. “Corpus Christi is a victim -- not because of lack of water,” he said. “They’re a victim because of a lack of ability to make a decision.” The governor warned the state could eventually step in if the situation is not resolved. “We can only give them a little time more before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that city and run that city to make sure that every resident who goes to the water tap and turns it on, they’re going to be getting water out of their faucet,” Abbott said. “We're fully committed to making sure the Corpus Christi residents are going to have the water they need to live their lives like the rest of the people in the state of Texas.”

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Sen. John Cornyn: Why the SAVE Act matters more than the filibuster

If a man takes a swing at you and barely misses, that doesn’t make him a pacifist — it just means he has bad aim. Standing still and giving him a second free swing wouldn’t be wise or honorable; it would be foolish. In 2022, Chuck Schumer and 47 other Senate Democrats tried to change the rules of the US Senate and “nuke” the filibuster to ram through a left-wing takeover of election laws. They were just barely stopped by two holdout Democrats who were promptly driven out of their party and into retirement. In 2024, Schumer confirmed to reporters that Democrats mean to finish the job and kill the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold the next time they take the majority. For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain.

My fellow conservatives and I have proudly used the 60-vote threshold to protect the country from all sorts of bad ideas and dangerous policies. But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt. Today, Democrats are weaponizing the Senate’s rules to block the SAVE America Act, defund the Department of Homeland Security and hurt the American people — all to spite President Donald Trump. But they say openly that if these same rules ever get in Democrats’ way, they won’t hesitate to rip them up. A rule is only a rule if both sides follow it. I believe that Democrats, with their votes and statements, have already dealt the filibuster a fatal blow: The Senate rules will change eventually, whether Republicans like it or not. This leaves conservatives with two options. We can either unilaterally disarm, or we can stand and fight. We can let the Democrats keep obstructing today and then smash the rules the first chance they get, or we can act now and use the mandate the American people gave this president and this Congress to secure our elections, protect our homeland and bring back common sense.

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IEA proposes largest ever oil release from strategic reserves

The International Energy Agency has proposed the largest release of oil reserves in its history to bring down crude prices that have soared during the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, officials familiar with the matter said. The release of 400 million barrels of oil would more than double the agency’s biggest prior release, when IEA member countries in 2022 put 182 million barrels on the market after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the officials said. The proposal was circulated at an emergency meeting of energy officials from the IEA’s 32 member countries on Tuesday. Countries are expected to decide on the proposal Wednesday. It would be adopted if none objects, but even one country’s protests could delay the plan, officials said. French President Emmanuel Macron will host a video conference call at 10 a.m. ET with leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies to discuss ways to mitigate the energy situation, France’s Elysee Palace said.

The IEA proposal is intended to counter the massive disruption caused by the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to global markets. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply moves through the strait every day and the threat of attacks on tankers by Iran have brought shipments to a near standstill. Iranian attacks on oil tankers traveling through the strait are the kind of scenario that led Western nations and their allies to create the IEA in 1974 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo. The agency, a club of Western nations and their allies, sets guidelines for how much crude member countries must keep in their reserves and coordinates releases to protect economies from oil market turmoil. Since Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel first began their strikes on Iran, the price of oil has soared as much as 40%, breaching $100 before falling this week as traders closely track statements from President Trump on how long the war will last. Oil ended Tuesday under $84, but the price of fuels such as diesel has continued to skyrocket. Economists have warned that a sustained run-up in oil prices risks creating inflation and a stock market correction, in addition to pain at the pump for drivers.

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Trump says $300 billion oil refinery opening at Port of Brownsville. Not much is known about it.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the opening of a $300 billion oil refinery at the Port of Brownsville, crediting what he characterized as an investment from and a partnership with India. Trump made the announcement via Truth Social on Tuesday, saying a company named America First Refining is opening the refinery, and highlighted what he described as a victory for American energy workers and for the Rio Grande Valley. “THIS IS A HISTORIC $300 BILLION DOLLAR DEAL — THE BIGGEST IN U.S. HISTORY, A MASSIVE WIN for American Workers, Energy, and the GREAT People of South Texas!” the president said in his social media posting.

White House Assistant Press Secretary Elizabeth A. Huston also flagged the news in an email to MyRGV.com. Little is known about America First Refining other than literature found on its website, which states that it’s building “a cutting-edge refinery in Brownsville, Texas, leveraging commercially proven technologies in a uniquely integrated design to produce high-octane, cleaner fuels.” The website for America First Refining, of which its domain was registered July 17, 2025, went on to detail that a “world-class team of industry veterans” is leading the project. In addition to thanking India for its investment — the amount and details of which were not disclosed by Trump or the White House — the president’s announcement was peppered with all that’s become common in his announcements via the Truth Social platform, penning in all caps a celebratory message asserting America “returning to REAL ENERGY DOMINANCE” and said the new refinery at the Port of Brownsville will be “THE CLEANEST REFINERY IN THE WORLD.”

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State Stories

ICE to lift detainer on Carmen Mejia following exoneration, can stay in U.S.

Carmen Mejia, who was exonerated Monday by a Travis County judge after nearly two decades in prison, will be released from local custody and is legally allowed to remain in the United States, officials said Tuesday. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is lifting the detainer issued in 2009 following Mejia’s conviction for murder in Austin, Texas. “In light of her conviction being overturned, she will be released from local custody,” the spokesperson said. “Due to her exoneration, she is legally allowed to remain in the U.S. until her Temporary Protected Status expires.” Mejia’s exoneration came after the Texas Court of Appeals in January supported her claim of innocence, citing “newly available scientific evidence.” She was originally convicted in 2005 on three counts, including felony murder and injury to a child, in the death of a 10-month-old in her care.

New evidence presented during her appeal included testimony from an expert on burn injuries and from Mejia’s own children, indicating that the infant’s death was accidental. The medical examiner who initially ruled the death a homicide later revised the finding. “Throughout these 20 years, I kept my faith and my hope that God was going to do justice, and I would ask God, please let justice be done,” Mejia said in court through an interpreter. “And my prayers were heard, and my people's prayers were heard.” Mejia’s exoneration also allowed her to reunite with her daughters, whom she had not hugged in more than two decades. Before her exoneration, Travis County District Court Judge David Wahlberg noted that Mejia faced an immigration detainer and possible federal detention. ICE had 48 hours to decide whether to take her into custody, prompting concern from local officials and advocates. Travis County District Attorney José Garza, who filed a motion to dismiss the charges, called the exoneration a measure of justice for both Mejia and the family of the infant. Austin Congressman Greg Casar criticized federal immigration policy, saying the system should not detain innocent immigrants. “Now, after being wrongfully imprisoned for two decades, Carmen must be allowed to rebuild her life here. Carmen Mejia is innocent. That is what the judge ruled today,” Casar said.

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Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson reignite feud over Iran war

Sen. Ted Cruz and conservative pundit Tucker Carlson are again trading barbs over Israel and antisemitism, as they renew their feud over the war in Iran. “I believe Tucker Carlson is the single most dangerous demagogue in this country,” the Texas Republican senator said Tuesday during an antisemitism symposium in Washington hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition and National Review, before promising to directly take on the popular conservative podcast host. “I have seen more antisemitism in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime,” Cruz continued. “It is being spread by loud voices, the most consequential of whom is Tucker Carlson.”

Cruz’s remarks come after Carlson belittled Cruz and other Americans who trust Israeli military intelligence during his podcast last week. “No offense to Ted Cruz or all the other dumbos who are always saying, ‘we get all this actionable intelligence, it’s so important, we need [Israel] so desperately,’” Carlson said in the March 2 episode. “Really? Let’s evaluate the quality of that intelligence.” The ongoing feud between the two leading conservative figures — both podcast hosts and potential 2028 presidential candidates — represents the latest flare-up in a major schism within the party and a likely proxy battle ahead of the next Republican presidential primary, when discussions over the U.S.’ alliance with Israel and combating antisemitism domestically could be defining issues.

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Cornyn creates faith advisory group while ramping up character attacks on Paxton

Several North Texas evangelical leaders are publicly vouching for Sen. John Cornyn’s morality and conservative credentials as the longtime incumbent faces a fierce Republican runoff with Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn’s campaign announced Tuesday a new faith advisory council, sharing a letter signed by five pastors who say Cornyn delivers “tangible results” at a time when politics too often favors rhetoric over substance. The council includes three pastors from the Dallas-Fort Worth area: Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano and Gus Reyes of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in Arlington.

“Scripture teaches that those who aspire to lead should be held to a higher moral standard,” they said in the letter. The council will support “Cornyn as he operates as a statesman, comporting himself with grace and dignity worthy of the office he holds.” The other council members are Phil Schubert of Abilene Christian University and Max Lucado of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. Cornyn has sought to make personal conduct a central theme of the race, recently releasing a digital ad that lays out a timeline of allegations against Paxton, including accusations of infidelity and his impeachment by the Texas House. Paxton, who was acquitted by the state Senate, has painted Cornyn as an establishment figure, offering little more than lip service to President Donald Trump and his “America First” agenda. Paxton’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Cornyn’s faith council. The runoff winner will face the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico of Austin, a Presbyterian seminarian whose campaign blends progressive policy ideas with his religious beliefs.

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This Texas Democrat won a race he thought he dropped out of. Now what?

Kelly Hall and his co-worker were playing the video game“Call of Duty” in the office of their Austin towing company, waiting for customers, when his friend turned his attention to another television. The election results were up on the screen, and Hall was winning a race he didn't even know he was still a part of. "I laughed," Hall, 36, said. "I was like, 'Bro, stop playing.' And he's like, 'No, bro, look.’" Sure enough, he was ahead of his Democratic opponent, Javi Andrade, by a decisive amount. Hall barely remembers the number of the solidly red Central Texas district he ran in or the name of his would-be Republican opponent, state Rep. Ellen Troxclair. He paid a total of $750 on the campaign, enough to cover the filing fee, then never touched a single yard sign or dirtied a sneaker blockwalking.

Hall said he thought he had dropped out of the race back in January, when he said Democratic Party precinct chairs urged him to “do the right thing” and allow the party-backed Andrade to run unopposed. He decided to run for Round Rock mayor instead. But on Tuesday, Hall beat Andrade by almost 3,000 votes after missing a December deadline to drop out in time for his name to be removed from ballots. The bizarre outcome has thrown what would have been a low-profile race into chaos, with some of the state's top election lawyers clashing over whose name will be on the ballot in November. The Texas Democratic Party is moving to replace Hall, who it says is ineligible for the nomination because he is running in the Round Rock mayor’s race. But the Republican-controlled secretary of state’s office says the party cannot pick a substitute, potentially setting the stage for what could be a drawn-out legal battle.

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Chair of House committee on China requests pause of $17M in funding to Texas A&M for alleged security failures

The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee on China sent a letter to the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Tuesday, requesting the federal agency pause its funding to Texas A&M University for alleged security failures regarding its research with China. In the letter written by Rep. John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican outlined several accusations against Texas A&M and the University of Washington. Moolenaar listed five publications by Texas A&M faculty and Chinese researchers, claiming the joint research efforts were being exploited by the Chinese government.

"These research partnerships span critical fields such as quantum chemistry, AI explainability, hyperspectral imaging and tensegrity robotics, technologies with dual-use implications that are routinely targeted and exploited by the Chinese military and outlined in the PRC government's industrial policies," Moolenaar wrote in the letter. Moolenaar is specifically asking the NSF to pause its $17 million in funding to Texas A&M. The university northwest of Houston was awarded the funds in 2024 as part of the NFS's five-year, $67 million investment to support research security through an initiative called Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE). The University of Washington was also included in the initiative and received $50 million. In a statement to Houston Public Media on Tuesday, an NSF spokesperson said the agency "will respond directly to the committee's letter," and did not provide any further comment. Moolenaar said NSF should pause its SECURE funding and conduct a comprehensive review of Texas A&M and other universities participating in the initiative. A Texas A&M spokesperson said via a statement to Houston Public Media that the university had begun reviewing the publications cited in the letter.

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Dems turn to Padilla Stout in Texas' 23rd Congressional District

When rumors of U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales’ affair first started circulating last fall, Democrats sought out a candidate they hoped could help put a long-shot district in play. This week their dream scenario came true, when a wounded Gonzales finished second to 30-year-old YouTube creator Brandon Herrera in the GOP primary, and later dropped his reelection bid at the urging of Republican leaders in D.C. The massive 23rd Congressional District hasn’t been competitive for Democrats since it was redrawn after the 2020 census. Under its new boundaries, it would have supported President Donald Trump by roughly 14.8% in 2024, according to a Texas Tribune analysis.

Yet Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder was once again pointing to it as a “real opportunity” after the party flipped a deep-red Texas Senate seat that swung 31 points in a Jan. 30 special election — and even some Republicans believe Gonzales’ moderate politics have been key to keeping the district red. “All of a sudden, for Democrats, that seat has moved from low third-tier to top second-tier [race]. They’re on the hunt for marginal seats that they can take back,” said San Antonio political strategist Kelton Morgan. After spending big on losing races in both 2018 and 2020, Democrats struggled to field strong candidates in more recent years. They’ll now be turning to Katy Padilla Stout, a 40-year-old attorney who grew up in San Antonio, taught primary school at Northside ISD, and current works at a family legal practice representing children in the foster care system.

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Dallas-Fort Worth Urban League returns with renewed focus

A decade after shutting down, the Urban League is back in the Dallas area with a new name, stronger alliances and renewed fight for economic and social justice. More than 500 organizers, politicians and business leaders gathered at Gilley’s Dallas to launch the reborn Dallas-Fort Worth Urban League Monday, which will serve 13 North Texas counties. “Texas is ground zero for the assault of civil rights and economic opportunity,” said National Urban League President Marc Morial, who headlined Monday’s local affiliate launch. “What we are building here is an institution that’s going to be an additive to the fight already underway.” A core of North Texas young professionals partnered with their older counterparts to revive the venerable civil rights group and restore the services it provides for underserved communities.

The Dallas area was the nation’s largest Black population without an Urban League affiliate. Morial said the booming North Texas economy and new frontiers like artificial intelligence made it essential for the Urban League to operate in Dallas. “What we’re building is an institution that is going to prepare, train and develop the next generation of people who are going to work in this rising economy,” he said. “It would be a tragedy if this economic growth left Black Dallas and Fort Worth behind.” Former State Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, agreed the fast-growing Dallas area needed an Urban League chapter to help underserved communities deal with modern economic and social issues. “Tonight is more than a launch, it’s a renewal,” she said. Marnese Barksdale Elder, the interim CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Urban League, said the group’s work has begun. “We’re already deeply involved in building public and private sector relationships,” she said. “We’re developing a pipeline to help people stay employed.”

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Both sides rest in Prairieland trial after prosecution's final witnesses and no defense witnesses

Both sides rested their cases Tuesday in the Prairieland ICE detention center shooting trial after prosecutors put forward their final witnesses and evidence — and the defendants put forward none. The government has sought to prove in two weeks of trial the nine defendants share an anti-fascist, anti-ICE and anti-government ideology also known as “antifa” that motivated them to play a role in the nonfatal shooting of a police officer outside an ICE detention facility in Alvarado July 4.

The evidence to that effect has included literature the defendants owned described as insurrectionary and anarchist, the defendants’ group messages on encrypted messaging app Signal that allegedly detailed planning before and after the protest, and the testimony of defendants who took plea deals with the government. Defendants on trial allege the event was meant to be a noise demonstration with fireworks in support of those inside Prairieland, and violence was never the intention. They’ve asserted throughout trial that antifa is an ideology, not an organization of which they were a part. But they chose not to put forth any evidence or witnesses to make their point. Attorney Ben Florey — whose client pleaded guilty in the case and is not on trial — said that’s not surprising. The defense attorneys made their arguments through cross-examination of the government’s witnesses, Florey said, and they made some progress.

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As Tarrant jail deaths decline, commissioner presses sheriff on accountability

During a briefing Tuesday about the decline of jail deaths in Tarrant County, Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons pressed Republican Sheriff Bill Waybourn on why she has to continuously intervene to help constituents concerned about the safety of their loved ones. Waybourn said there has been a 64.7% reduction in jail deaths, from 17 in 2020 to 6 in 2025. In the four years between, the total annual jail deaths declined or stayed the same. Due to COVID-19, 2020 saw the most deaths in the county jail between 2017 and 2025. Last year, the Tarrant County jail — in the third-most populous county in the state — ranked fifth in custodial deaths among the state’s largest county jails.

In 2017, the county jail had zero in-custody deaths. There have been 73 since, the most recent in December. Ahead of the briefing, 10 people spoke out during public comment, alleging inhumane conditions. Christy Bridgman, one of the speakers, is the mother of a 26-year-old man who has been jailed since December 2024 on a charge of domestic assault against his mother. Bridgman has asked the district attorney’s office not to prosecute her son, Shawn Fraraccio, who has the intellectual ability of a 7-year-old. He needs care, not a cage, Bridgman told commissioners. “I am so afraid my Shawn will die in this cell like many others,” Bridgman said while holding back tears. “He does not have the ability to care for himself. He has lost a tremendous amount of weight, walks around barefoot … and keeps hitting his head against the wall. He needs to be transferred to a state supported living center immediately.” Fraraccio is one of three inmates Simmons brought up to the sheriff because of conversations she had with their families in the days ahead of Waybourn’s briefing. Waybourn said he would happily look into the cases Simmons spoke about if she sends him the names. Simmons said she shouldn’t have to be the go-between for families. “I’m not interested in getting deep into the jail business, doing your job, but our constituents need you to be accessible,” Simmons said.

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Cost unknown as Tarrant officials question budget for Texas Senate runoff election audit

Tarrant County’s elections administrator maintains the hand-counted audit of the Texas Senate District 9 runoff election stayed within his office’s budget, although he doesn’t yet know how much it cost. Clint Ludwig, who requested the audit, did not provide cost information during his March 10 briefing to county commissioners about the hand-count’s “process and procedures.” “It’s difficult post-elections, as we start getting the invoices, and with as many elections back to back. They’re behind,” Ludwig told commissioners. “So I can’t tell you exactly when that’s going to happen.” Although he could not provide a timeline for when the Tarrant County Elections Office would have the final cost, he promised to share that information with commissioners as soon as possible.

Commissioner Alisa Simmons questioned who authorized the cost of auditing the election, as the issue never came before the commissioners court for a vote. Simmons is seeking the commissioners court’s countywide judge seat in the November election. County departments have annual budgets but typically must request approval from commissioners to pay for specific projects that weren’t preapproved during the budget’s adoption. Ludwig said his office over-budgets the cost of conducting the state-mandated partial audit of each election, noting the Senate District 9 audit “just increased the scope of an audit that we have to do.” He added that he isn’t aware of a requirement to request budget approval from the commissioners court for such an audit. “When I buy asphalt, I’m still within my budget, but I have to come to court to get it approved,” Simmons said. “Everybody has to get everything — whatever they want — approved by the court even if we budgeted for it, so quit playing.”

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Irving, Prosper, Lake Worth superintendents leaving their ISDs

Leaders in three North Texas school districts announced their departures Monday. Irving ISD Superintendent Magda Hernández and Prosper ISD Superintendent Holly Ferguson announced plans to retire from their districts’ top jobs. Hernández’s last day as superintendent will be in December. Ferguson will remain on board as Prosper ISD’s leader until May, then transition into a superintendent emeritus role. Lake Worth ISD Superintendent Mark Ramirez also announced plans to step down amid a state takeover of the district.

Hernández began her 34-year career in education as a bilingual teacher’s aide in Irving ISD before moving on to serve as a bilingual gifted and talented teacher, assistant principal and district administrator before being named superintendent in December 2018. Hernández oversaw Irving ISD through the passage of its 2023 bond issue, which funded the rebuilding of three campuses and renovations at 32 other schools, among other projects. She also led the district through the process of closing Britain and Elliott elementary schools, two campuses that had been left half-empty due to enrollment declines. In a news release, Hernández said her time as superintendent was “one of the greatest honors of my life.” “This district is deeply personal to me,” she said. “Every decision made has been centered on what our students deserve: opportunity, excellence and a future filled with possibility. I am proud of the strong foundation we have built together and confident that Irving ISD is well positioned for continued success.” Ferguson spent all but five of her 28-year career in education in Prosper ISD. She came to the district in 1998 as a third grade teacher at Prosper Elementary School and later served as a principal, assistant superintendent and associate superintendent before being hired as superintendent in July 2020. Also on Monday, board members in Lake Worth ISD voted to accept Ramirez’s resignation as the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of the Tarrant County district moves forward, the Fort Worth Report reported. Ramirez’s last day with the district is Friday. TEA officials announced the takeover in December after Marilyn Miller Language Academy received five consecutive F ratings. The district’s problems go beyond a single campus: five of Lake Worth ISD’s six schools received F ratings last year.

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Texas food leaders urge work permits to curb labor shortages, rising food costs

Top leaders in the Texas food industry say the sector has reached a critical point. Citing rising costs and immigration policies they say are straining the economy from farm to table, they are calling on President Donald Trump and lawmakers to support work permits for long-term immigrant workers. A family-owned Mexican restaurant in North Texas has been serving customers for more than 25 years. But the lunch rush at Dona Lencha in North Texas is not as busy as in years past.

“Everything has been going up, especially on the prices of food,” said general manager Sandra Cruz. The Texas Restaurant Association announced Tuesday it is backing a national coalition supporting work permits for long-term, vetted immigrant workers. “We’re at a critical point right now,” said Emily Williams Knight, CEO and president of the Texas Restaurant Association. “We need this in Texas. We’ve got to have food prices come down.” Association data shows 42% of restaurants nationwide were not profitable last year. In Texas, that number rises to 50%. Polling also found 66% of Texas restaurant operators reported negative impacts from immigration enforcement, including declining sales, difficulty hiring and employees not showing up for work.

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National Stories

Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department blew $22M on steak and lobster in a single month, watchdog claims

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s Defense Department allegedly blew through $22 million on lobsters and ribeye steak as part of a wild September 2025 end-of-year spree. According to an analysis by nonprofit watchdog Open the Books, Hegseth’s DoD spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in Sept. 2025 alone — nearly 50 percent of which was expended in the last five business days of the month. Open the Books, run by the American Transparency charity founded in 2011, collects and publishes government spending data, including expenditures down to the lobster tail. Per the analysis by Open the Books, in September, the Pentagon spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tail, $15.1 million on ribeye steak, and $1 million on salmon. Dessert included 272 orders of doughnuts for $139,224 and ice cream machines for $124,000.

While the Pentagon does not technically have to spend all its congressionally allocated funds, “use-it-or-lose-it” policies often push it to do so. Any leftover funds could be removed from the budget the following year. So, extravagant sprees are not unusual at the end of a fiscal year. For example, the group noted in its report, “Furniture is near the top of the military’s wish list at the end of every fiscal year. Since 2008, the DoD has spent an average of $257.6 million on furniture every September — a 564% increase above the norm. In months besides September, furniture costs the military only $38.8 million on average.” Speaking to Open the Books, the CEO of Govly, an AI company that assists government contractors, compared Sept. 30 to “Amazon Prime Day” for the federal government. Extravagant spending sprees are also not unusual for Hegseth’s DoD. The report noted that the department also spent more than $7.4 million on lobster throughout four months in 2025: March, May, June, and October.

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Trump administration to restart Global Entry program

The Trump administration plans to restart the Global Entry program on Wednesday, just weeks after it paused the program because of a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Global Entry allows for American citizens and legal permanent residents traveling internationally to receive expedited processing upon their return to the United States. Travelers who sign up for the program must pay a fee, are vetted and retain the privilege for up to five years. In a statement, the department said it was restoring the program after evaluating the implications of the shutdown, for which it blamed Democrats. In recent days, reports of extensive delays at airports have been highlighted by the agency as they seek to blame Democratic opposition to funding the department.

Democratic lawmakers have said they are seeking changes to the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency under the Homeland Security Department, has been conducting immigration enforcement. The decision to pause the program was surprising because the department has previously encouraged Americans to enroll. “Your time is valuable,” read one agency site urging people to sign up. “As a prescreened Global Entry member, you arrive in the United States, check-in at the Global Entry kiosk and you’re on your way. So what are you waiting for?” The Homeland Security Department had said in late February that it would pause its T.S.A. PreCheck and Global Entry programs to “refocus department personnel on the majority of travelers.” It quickly reversed course on PreCheck, an expedited security-screening program operated by the Transportation Security Administration, which is affected by the shutdown. The moves are among several measures the department is taking after its funding lapsed on Feb. 14. Lawmakers have been deadlocked over a proposal to restore funding. Democrats have refused to approve the department’s budget unless Republicans accept a range of new restrictions on immigration agents. Those include requiring agents to obtain warrants from judges to make arrests in homes, mandating that they show visible identification and prohibiting face coverings for agents. Republicans have objected to many of the demands, which they consider overly burdensome. Although homeland security funding has lapsed, most of its operations are still being carried out, and department leaders have said that essential functions will continue. ICE and Customs and Border Protection are not expected to be affected unless the shutdown is prolonged.

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RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisers drop proposal to revisit covid-19 shot

A key federal vaccine advisory panel has abandoned an attack on the covid-19 mRNA vaccines — a shift that comes as some Republicans warn that any more changes to vaccine policy could damage the party in the midterms. Some of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine advisers had been seeking to potentially stop recommending mRNA shots. That plan is no longer moving forward, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. In recent months, some members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) have publicly questioned the safety and manufacturing of the shots, including raising a debunked theory that DNA contaminants in the vaccines were harmful.

One option under consideration was a potential vote to withdraw the federal recommendation for covid-19 mRNA vaccines altogether because of those objections, according to multiple people familiar with deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. Such a change could throw into doubt how longinsurers would continue tocover the shots for free and whether pharmacies would continue to carry them. The advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are slated to meet next week after postponing a late February meeting. The panelmakes recommendations on which vaccines Americans should receive and when. In September, they had narrowed earlier guidance recommendingthat everyone 6 months and older get a coronavirus shot to advising Americans instead consult a health-care provider on whether to get the shot. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech produce the two mRNA vaccines, which make up the vast majority of overall vaccinations for covid-19. The Food and Drug Administration is charged with approving vaccines, and agency officials could interpret a move to no longer recommend a vaccine as seeking the removal of the shots from the market. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary opposed any such actions, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Earlier, the FDA had narrowed new approvals for updated covid shots to those who are considered high risk.

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Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job

The Social Security Administration’s internal watchdog isinvestigating a complaint that alleges a former U.S. DOGE Service employee claimed he had access to two highly sensitive agency databases and planned to share the information with his private employer — a claim that, if true, would constitute an unprecedented breach of security protocols at an agency that serves more than 70 million Americans. The agency’s inspector general is investigating the disclosure and has alerted members of Congress of its existence, according to a letter by the acting inspector general to top members of four congressional committees reviewed by The Washington Post andtwo people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations. The inspector general’s office has also shared the disclosure with the Government Accountability Office, which has been conducting its own audit of DOGE’s access to data, according to one of the people.The Post has reviewed the complaint and spoken with the whistleblower, who issued the complaint anonymouslyfor fear of retaliation.

According to the disclosure, the former DOGE software engineer, who worked at the Social Security Administration last year before starting a job at a government contractor in October, allegedly told several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information, and had at least one on a thumb drive. The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names. The complaint does not include specific dates of when he is said to have told colleagues this information, but at least one of the alleged events unfolded around early January, according to the complaint. While working at DOGE, the engineer had approved access to Social Security data. According to the complaint, he allegedly told the whistleblower that he needed help transferring data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company.]” The engineer told colleagues that once he had removed personal details from the data, he wanted to upload it into the company’s systems. He told another colleague, who refused to help him upload the data because of legal concerns, that he expected to receive a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed to be illegal, according to the complaint. The complaint does not allege thatthe engineer was successful in uploading the data to the company’s system.

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NH Dems score big upset win in House special election

Democrat Bobbi Boudman flipped a Republican seat in New Hampshire on Tuesday. She defeated Republican Dale Fincher 51 percent to 47 percent in the special election for Carroll County District 7, according to the New Hampshire Journal. Just 16 months ago, in the 2024 election, Boudman was defeated by Republican Glenn Cordelli who won with 56.8 percent over her 43.1 percent, New Hampshire Elections Database records show. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee celebrated the win in a post on X, saying: “Rep.-elect Bobbi Boudman just FLIPPED a New Hampshire House seat in a district that Trump won in both 2020 and 2024! Tonight’s victory is the latest proof point of our momentum as we prepare to flip both chambers in the New Hampshire legislature this November.”

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Lobbyist quietly pleads guilty after embezzling $1 million from Venture Capital PAC

A $9,180 shopping spree at a Manhattan clothing boutique. A $67,000 automotive country club membership in New York. And more than $5,000 in cash withdrawn from ATMs in Washington, D.C. These are just a few of the ways prosecutors alleged Jonas Murphy, the now-former director of government affairs at the National Venture Capital Association, spent the more than $1 million he embezzled from his trade association’s political action committee, VenturePAC. Murphy quietly pleaded guilty just before Christmas to felony interstate transportation of stolen property, according to the previously unreported plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

The crime carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Prosecutors estimated a sentence of 24 to 37 months and a potential fine of $10,000 to $100,000, according to the plea deal. His sentencing is scheduled for June 30. The National Venture Capital Association said in a statement to NOTUS that it was “disheartened to learn that a former employee exploited his institutional knowledge and our trust during a period of high staff turnover at our small organization.” “As soon as the fraud was discovered, NVCA voluntarily disclosed the issue to the FEC and referred the matter to law enforcement. The PAC was quickly and fully restituted, suffered no financial loss, and all political commitments were fulfilled,” the National Venture Capital Association wrote. On June 17, 2025, the Federal Election Commission sent a letter to VenturePAC flagging “itemized disbursements” in April 2025 “for which you have failed to include the purpose.”

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Trump-endorsed Clay Fuller heads to runoff in race to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene

Georgia district attorney Clay Fuller is heading into a runoff against Democrat Shawn Harris in a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene. Out of the 12 Republicans that appeared on the ballot on Tuesday, Fuller was the candidate who received President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Fuller raised nearly $800,000 and had more than $200,000 on hand as of Feb. 18. Fuller raised the third most of the candidates in his race, only behind Harris and Republican Brian Stover. With 75% of the ballots counted, Harris had received 38% of the votes compared to Fuller’s 34.7%. The runoff election is set to take place on April 7. Prior to election night, Fuller told NOTUS that he felt Trump’s endorsement would be the difference.

“He’s a very popular president, and he has created a movement,” Fuller said in a February interview. “The voters were looking to see where president Trump was. So it’s kind of like rocket fuel for our campaign.” Harris’ campaign platform included protecting Medicaid and SNAP benefits. He ran against Greene in 2024 but came up short with only 35.6% of the vote. Greene, who was long one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, represented the state’s heavily-red 14th Congressional District from 2021 until January. The district covers Atlanta’s northwest suburbs and angles upward into Fort Oglethorpe. She announced her resignation from Congress in November following disputes with Trump and Congressional Republicans over several issues, including the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein and health care. Republicans rushed into the race to replace her, bringing varied career experiences and platforms to the field. Several candidates told NOTUS last month that they were making a point of distinguishing themselves from Greene, who had a large national following, by promising to be lower profile. Fuller, an Air Force veteran, was a White House fellow during the first Trump administration, working in the office of the vice president and the Department of Defense.

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Hezbollah, Iran unleash coordinated cluster bomb strikes on Israel in major escalation

Hezbollah and Iran launched a coordinated strike strategy Tuesday, a national security expert claimed, as reports emerged that deadly cluster munitions were hitting Israel in synchronized attacks. The developments unfolded on day 11 of Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign targeting Iran, marking a potential escalation in the widening regional conflict. "Hezbollah has fully joined the war, and it looks like they are now very well coordinated with Iran," Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, told Fox News Digital while speaking from his bomb shelter near Tel Aviv. "Most of Hezbollah's rockets and drones are launched simultaneously with the Iranian missiles," he said.

Israel confirmed Tuesday that Iran had been firing cluster munitions — adding a complicated and deadly challenge to Israel’s stretched air defenses, The Associated Press reported. The warheads burst open at high altitudes, scattering dozens of smaller bomblets across a wide area. The smaller bombs, which at night can resemble orange fireballs, are difficult to intercept and have proven lethal. Fox News correspondent Nate Foy also said despite Israel's strong air defense, half of the missiles are hard to defend against because half of the missiles are cluster munitions. "The Iranian use of cluster missiles and the idea that they deliberately target civilians and civil facilities must be considered as a use of non-conventional weapons, and the American-Israeli response must be appropriate," Michael urged. Banned by more than 120 nations under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, the weapons are widely condemned for their broad-area, indiscriminate effects that often result in catastrophic civilian harm.

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Lead Stories

Trump is delaying Texas Senate endorsement to pressure GOP senators on SAVE America Act

President Donald Trump is delaying his endorsement in the Texas Senate GOP primary to ramp up pressure on Republican senators to pass his high-priority voting restrictions bill, according to two people close to the White House granted anonymity to speak candidly. Trump had been prepared to quickly endorse John Cornyn after the Texas senator outperformed expectations and finished ahead of Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, in last week’s primary, the people said. But Paxton managed to at least forestall that outcome when he announced Friday that if the Senate passes the bill he would drop his campaign. Paxton’s last-ditch gamble highlighted an area where he agrees with Trump while poking at a sore spot between the president and Senate Republican leaders who have been begging Trump for months to back Cornyn.

And it changed the dynamics inside the White House, according to the two people, an operative close to the White House and an administration ally. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. “I think that was a very smart strategy because it bought time. Because now, if you’re the White House or Trump, why would you now weigh in?’’ said the Republican operative. “Trump has remained very steadfast that he wants this done, and that is a huge priority, and he’s getting pissed off at these members and at [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune.” Trump posted last Wednesday, the day after the primary, that he would endorse “soon” in the race — and wanted to see whoever he didn’t back drop out of the runoff. He told House Republicans Monday in a speech at their annual legislative retreat in Florida that SAVE America is his “No. 1 priority” on the congressional agenda this year. Paxton, a favorite of the far right with strong MAGA grassroots backing, initially said he would not end his campaign even if Trump backed Cornyn. Trump responded in an interview with POLITICO last week that the comment was “bad for him to say,” and reiterated he would announce his pick soon.

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Most Texas voucher applicants have not attended public school before, data show

Nearly three in four applicants to Texas’ new voucher program are likely already enrolled in private or home school, new data shows, meaning the state subsidies could help offset costs families are already paying. Critics who released the new statistics say it undercuts Republicans’ pitch that the $1 billion program is meant to help low-income Texas families who are unsatisfied with public school afford alternative options. “Texas public schools are the backbone of our communities,” said Dee Carney, director of the recently formed Texas Center for Voucher Transparency, which obtained the figures through a public records request. “Early voucher application data suggests that the overwhelming majority of families continue to choose and trust their local public schools to educate their children.”

The data shows only 36,000 applicants, out of more than 150,000 to date, indicated that they were enrolled in a public school during the 2024-2025 school year. The remaining 117,000, or 76%, reported they hadn’t attended public school that year. Travis Pillow, a spokesman for the Comptroller’s office, which oversees the program, said the number may be skewed because many applicants are in pre-K or kindergarten and were too young to qualify for school that year. The records, however, break out the number of students in grades 1-12, and 71% of that applicant group reported they had not been enrolled in a public school during the 2024-25 year. The comptroller’s office did not provide any additional data or a breakdown of how many students reported attending private and homeschool. The voucher program, which offers students roughly $10,500 a year to cover private education costs or $2,000 for homeschool, has proven popular. Already, more families have applied than there are spaces available.

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City of Sinton denies proposed water meeting with Corpus Christi citing transparency issues

The City of Sinton announced on Monday it will not attend a proposed meeting with Corpus Christi city leaders regarding the Evangeline/Laguna Water Project citing concerns with transparency. The meeting proposed for Tuesday, was set to be hosted by Sen. Adam Hinojosa, District 27, and was meant to bring city leaders from Sinton and Corpus Christi together to find a solution both parties could agree upon. “Sinton and Corpus Christi are both vital parts of the Coastal Bend Region. Our goal is to provide a venue and facilitate discussion so that both Sinton and Corpus Christi may both benefit,” Hinojosa wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

owever, the City of Sinton responded to the Senator's request saying no discussions will be had until, "the City of Corpus Christi (“CCC”) provides essential information and responds to a previously submitted proposal intended to resolve ongoing groundwater permit matters." The press release continued, "Sinton expressed appreciation for the Senator’s willingness to assist in facilitating discussions. However, the City emphasized that meaningful dialogue cannot occur without basic transparency and engagement from CCC." The City of Sinton announced today that it will not attend a proposed March 10 meeting regarding the Evangeline/Laguna Water Project until the City of Corpus Christi (“CCC”) provides essential information and responds to a previously submitted proposal intended to resolve ongoing groundwater permit matters. Sinton, represented by legal counsel who also serves St. Paul Water Supply Corporation (“SPWSC”), is currently participating in proceedings before the San Patricio County Groundwater Conservation District (“SPCGCD”) concerning permit applications filed by CCC and Evangeline/Laguna LP. These applications relate to the proposed Evangeline/Laguna Water Project, which Sinton and SPWSC believe may significantly and unreasonably impact their groundwater wells, including potential declines in water levels and degradation of water quality. Sen. Hinojosa learned of Sinton's response from KRIS 6 News. "Well, this is just the first time we've heard it right now," Hinojosa said. "This was an effort to bring everybody to the table face to face, get whatever they can laid out on the table and discussed and hopefully come to resolution, but that certainly wasn't a guarantee." The senator continued, 'So the whole purpose of the meeting was to bring them together to provide information that was asked for in front of others like our office to make sure that, hey, everybody is negotiating fairly and equally and that all sides are getting the information that they have asked for. That was the hope and the goal was to bring them together to start talking about that correspondences can get construed in different ways and you know there's been different things said about that." "I'm disappointed if Sinton's already decided that they don't want to come to the table, but we have given every opportunity that we can to try to bring the parties together too because Sinton has some very legitimate concerns, and it's very important to address those concerns, and Corpus Christi has some potential solutions that they're offering that may be able to answer those concerns and it may not be enough, but that's what the discussion is all about, is to try to get them to the table to work it out." In February, the San Patricio County Groundwater Conservation District voted to send formal protests filed against the proposed Evangeline groundwater project to a preliminary hearing process.

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Exxon Mobil plans to move its legal home to Texas from New Jersey

Exxon Mobil plans to move its legal home to Texas from New Jersey, joining other companies that have flocked to the Lone Star state in search of a more business-friendly environment. Exxon, which has been incorporated in New Jersey since 1882, plans to ask its shareholders to vote on a proposal to redomicile in Texas. If successful, Exxon will follow Tesla, Coinbase Global COIN 1.30%increase; green up pointing triangle and others that have reincorporated in Texas. Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the move is about protecting the company from shareholder “abuse,” a reference to what companies see as a proliferation of frivolous shareholder lawsuits in certain venues.

“Texas is already our operating home, and we think it makes sense to make it our legal home,” Woods said. Exxon, which has a market value north of $630 billion, relocated its headquarters to Texas from New York City in 1989. Exxon hasn’t had any issues with New Jersey, Woods said, but believes Texas better understands the oil-and-gas industry and is more invested in its success. Woods said the more companies domiciled in Texas, and across different industries, the better. Texas has been a beneficiary as more executives voice frustrations with traditional corporate havens such as Delaware and New Jersey. Most large public companies remain incorporated in Delaware, which has specialized courts that handle business matters and ample legal precedents. Texas is also seeking to attract more stock listings, with the planned launch of Texas Stock Exchange, which aims to take on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. Musk, Tesla’s CEO, decided in 2024 to reincorporate Tesla in Texas, upset about a court ruling against his multibillion-dollar 2018 pay package. He also moved the legal home of his rocket company SpaceX to Texas, and that of his brain-implant company, Neuralink, to Nevada. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said late last year that it would leave Delaware for Texas, and Facebook parent Meta has been considering leaving Delaware for Texas or another state. Exxon rival Chevron moved its headquarters from San Ramon, Calif., to Houston at the start of last year, though it remains incorporated in Delaware.

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State Stories

Two teen brothers in Texas mariachi band are released from ICE custody amid bipartisan criticism

A family whose two teen boys are in a nationally recognized mariachi band in South Texas was reunited Monday afternoon after bipartisan criticism that the Trump administration’s campaign for mass deportation overreached by detaining the family. Brothers Antonio Gámez-Cuéllar, 18, and Joshua, 14, were detained along with their 12-year-old brother and their parents Feb. 25. The teenage boys were prominent members of the McAllen High School Mariachi Oro band, which has visited the White House, performed at Carnegie Hall and won eight state championships. The two younger boys and their parents were released Monday from a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who visited them, marking his third visit to the detention center.

Antonio was released on Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from a detention center in Raymondville, Texas. “They were ecstatic. They were crying. They were excited to be reunited with their son and brother, Antonio, who was being held separately in Raymondville,” Castro said at a news conference in San Antonio. “But their mom kept asking, ‘What did we do wrong? We followed all the rules. We went to court, we haven’t done anything wrong.’” The family had been checking in regularly with immigration authorities, as instructed, when they were detained, according to a relative and a girlfriend who organized a GoFundMe account for the family. The Department of Homeland Security said the parents, Emma Guadalupe Cuellar Lopez and Luis Antonio Gamez Martinez, were arrested by immigration authorities and “chose” to bring their three children with them. The department said they entered the U.S. illegally in 2023 near Brownsville, Texas. Efrén C. Olivares, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center representing the eldest son, Antonio, clarified that the family entered lawfully through the CBP One app, a legal pathway, in 2023. Olivares said Antonio was released after attorneys filed a parole request with ICE which ICE granted, and attorneys did not need to ask for a judge’s order. Elected officials from across the political spectrum voiced support for the family, who are from Mexico and had sought asylum in the U.S. and were going through their immigration proceedings.

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Texas businesses could wait years for tariff reimbursements — if they come at all — despite court rulings

The Trump administration has yet to signal when — or whether — it intends to repay tariffs implemented by executive order just over a year ago. Many businesses may wait years for reimbursement. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled last Wednesday that the administration must refund the tariffs, which it had been collecting under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), starting in February of last year. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that use of IEEPA was illegal. Weston O'Black, a partner with the Houston office of the law firm Susman Godfrey, which is representing companies seeking refunds, said administration of President Donald Trump may challenge the international trade court's ability to order nationwide tariff refunds.

"I don’t know yet whether that’s going to happen, and we are going to have to see in the coming days, but if that does happen, that’s just going to slow things down even more," O'Black said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said they are working on a system to begin processing refunds in 45 days. Dallas-based attorney Michelle Schulz said she’s skeptical the government will meet that deadline. Further, she said, companies that sue to try to force U.S. Customs to repay the tariffs run the risk of retaliation. "They will have a system whereby they’ll refund your money," Schulz said. "The problem is, Customs is also going to be looking in that same system to see if you made any mistakes, and they can go back five years." According to import and tariff data compiled by Trade Partnership Worldwide, the Trump administration collected more $126 billion dollars in tariffs nationwide from February through December 2025 under IEEPA, including more than $11 billion from Texas businesses.

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New fire burns in Gray County amid critical danger in Texas Panhandle

First responders were battling another grass fire on Monday, March 9 in the Texas Panhandle — this time in Gray County. The Texas A&M Forest Service said the Gray 2299 Fire, now called the Cabin Creek Fire, was an estimated 2,000 acres at 8:54 p.m., and 20% contained. The blaze comes as much of the Panhandle, western Oklahoma and northeastern New Mexico were under a red flag warning through 9 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service in Amarillo. NWS issued a fire warning at 5:35 p.m. at the request of the Gray County Emergency Management for northeastern Gray County, noting the fire was located about five miles east of Lefors, or 14 miles south of Miami, moving rapidly northeast at 3 to 5 mph. The warning noted that smoke and fire would present a threat to life and property near State Highway 152.

The Texas Department of Transportation said at 6:08 p.m. that FM 2857 from FM 1321 to Hwy. 152, and Hwy. 152 from Laketon to Mobeetie, were closed due to the area wildfire. People were asked to avoid the area. FM 2857 opened back up to traffic around 7:08 p.m., but no updates on the other roads had been given as of 9 p.m. NWS Amarillo earlier noted on Facebook that it continues to be warm, dry and windy in the area, making fire danger reach critical levels: "Two new fires in the past 20 minutes. One just east of Lefors, TX, and another east of Stratford, TX. Please continue to travel carefully, and limit outdoor activities that can create sparks." The fire near Stratford was quickly contained. A fire in Oldham and Hartley counties on Sunday, March 8 burned about 745 acres. According to the weather forecast, the region is set to have storms pass through Tuesday, but they could bring wind, thunder, and lightning without measurable rainfall. The region continues to see a very active fire season, with dry vegetation, warmer temperatures and strong winds adding to the risk.

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AT&T CEO questioned 'effective governance' of Dallas

As early as May 2025, AT&T’s exit from downtown Dallas appeared likely as CEO John Stankey questioned the “effective/sustained governance” of Dallas and cited years of up-and-down efforts to make downtown more welcoming, according to emails reviewed by The Dallas Morning News. The firm issued a request for proposals focused on suburban sites around Highway 121 and the North Dallas Tollway with no options in the city of Dallas, according to a briefing document created by the Dallas Economic Development Corp. in September. The emails from Stankey to Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert undermine past statements from Dallas city leaders that the telecom giant left for the suburbs because it primarily wanted a more horizontal campus with significant acreage for development.

AT&T announced its intention to leave Dallas’ Whitacre Tower in January for a 54-acre site at 5400 Legacy Drive in Plano — the culmination of a monthslong search and a failed effort by city leaders to keep the company within city limits. An AT&T representative and a city spokesperson did not respond to questions via phone and email regarding its downtown exit. The emails reviewed by The News were part of nearly 5,000 pages of communications among city leaders, consultants and others regarding key events over the past year, including AT&T’s exit and debate over the future of City Hall. The records show Tolbert and Dallas Economic Development Corp. CEO Linda McMahon emailed with Stankey and members of his staff at AT&T dating back to early 2025. In March 2025, McMahon told Tolbert, assistant city manager Robin Bentley and others on city staff that AT&T was looking for “a potential new HQ for the company” as McMahon and Tolbert worked to meet with CEOs of Dallas companies. Stankey met with Tolbert on May 6. Emails between the parties don’t indicate what was discussed, but Tolbert sent a letter to Stankey later that evening thanking him for engaging in a “crucial conversation about safeguarding the significant investment AT&T has made in Downtown Dallas.” “While the City of Dallas may not match AT&T’s level of investment, we are fully committed to protecting and supporting it — for your people and your facilities,” Tolbert said. “The blueprint I shared with you is not just a city initiative — it is my personal commitment to you and your team. We are steadfast in our efforts to foster a safe and thriving environment that supports AT&T’s continued growth and success. This means creating a workplace that your employees feel confident returning to every day.”

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Will C. Beecherl: Why Highland Park is re-examining DART

As Highland Park approaches the May 2 special election, when residents will decide whether to continue DART membership, it is important to explain how we arrived at this point and why the Town Council placed this decision before the voters. For more than 40 years, the Town of Highland Park has been a member of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). That decision, made in 1983, reflected the realities of its time. The Dallas–Fort Worth region was smaller, municipal finance was more flexible, and DART was envisioned as the transit system to serve the greater region. Before DART was created, state law limited cities to a 1% local sales tax that could not be used for economic development.

In 1983, the Legislature allowed an additional 1% sales tax to fund DART. Fifteen cities, including Highland Park, opted in to establish DART as an area transit system for its members—hence the name Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The expectation was that the system would evolve and deliver long-term value proportional to the cost. The challenge to grow is compounded by DART’s governance and regional imbalance. DART continues to rely on just 13 member cities, even as the region it purports to serve has expanded far beyond those boundaries. North Texas is projected to become the largest metropolitan region in the country by late-century, yet no other city has the economic appetite to join DART. Independent analysis shows significant disparities between what some cities contribute and what they receive. In fiscal year 2023, Dallas received service value from DART that equated to 169% of the sales tax it contributed, a $283 million surplus subsidized by other member cities. which to Highland Park, who received service value that equated to only 30% of the sales tax it contributed, and the disparities between “donor” cities like Highland Park and “recipient” cities like Dallas are crystal clear. Approximately 70% of Highland Park’s contribution to DART is being used to subsidize other cities.

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Texas Democrats Goodwin, Vélez hope to keep voters engaged ahead of lieutenant governor runoff

After busting through turnout expectations for the party primaries, can Texas Democrats keep up that momentum for May’s runoff elections? Beyond that, will voters turn that attention and enthusiasm to races they hadn’t been following before? State Rep. Vikki Goodwin and labor organizer Marcos Vélez, the Democratic candidates vying to challenge incumbent Republican Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, certainly hope so. The pair face off in a May 26 runoff to decide who will be the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor this November. For the primaries, many of the state’s Democrats came to the polls focused on one race: The closely watched U.S. Senate primary between U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico.

“What I found as I was standing at the polls is that a lot of people came knowing about who was in that race, but not necessarily knowing a lot of the other candidates,” said Goodwin, a four-term Texas House member from Travis County. “Including mine." That brings us back to the big question for Texas Democrats looking to May’s runoffs: Will voters show up without a high profile race — and names — on the ballot like Crockett and Talarico? While the party’s statewide runoffs are for important roles, Texas Lieutenant Governor included, there just isn’t the same star-power helping to turn out the vote. For Goodwin’s part, she may have served four terms in the statehouse, but she has little name recognition outside her Travis County Texas House district. Goodwin’s most recent campaign finance report shows she has around $160,000 in cash on hand. That puts her at a significant disadvantage against Patrick in November, but at an advantage over her opponent. Vélez, who's running as the union-friendly candidate, has significantly less in his campaign war chest. Many observers of Texas politics expected Goodwin to win the nomination outright. But the Houston-area candidate snagged the endorsement of the Texas AFL-CIO, something he credits with drawing more votes his way during the Democratic primary.

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Hip hop icons tell justices that Texas turned rap lyrics into a death warrant

As a Texas jury deliberated over whether a Black man deserved the death penalty for two 2008 murders, it twice asked to see what prosecutors had said was a critical piece of evidence: 40 pages of the defendant’s handwritten rap lyrics. After examining the lyrics, which included violent themes, the nearly all-white jury sentenced him to death instead of life without parole. Letting prosecutors introduce that evidence exploited racial stereotypes to turn artistic expression into a death warrant, lawyers for the man, James Broadnax, told the Supreme Court last month. The lawyers asked the court to halt his execution, set for next month, and to hear his case.

There is no particular reason to think the justices know their way around rap music and the culture that surrounds it. On Monday, they received expert assistance from towering figures in the world of hip-hop, including Killer Mike, T.I., Young Thug, Fat Joe and N.O.R.E. in the form of a brief supporting Mr. Broadnax. Travis Scott also filed a brief. The rappers argue that prosecutors mistook the fantasy that is gangster rap for a literal account amounting to a confession. “Tales of violence, sex and criminal behavior sell to a broad swath of Americans — and any would-be gangsta rapper must learn and practice these conventions of the form,” said one of the briefs, filed on behalf of artists, industry professionals, scholars and arts organizations. Killer Mike, the performer and political activist, said in an interview that the jury had been encouraged by prosecutors to confuse creative expression with real life. “No matter how beautiful it sounds, or how horrific it may sound, it’s still just art,” he said of Mr. Broadnax’s lyrics. “It’s an interpretation of the human spirit. It is not an admission of guilt.” Other musical genres, he said, do not get the same treatment. Nobody believes that Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Or that Neil Young shot his baby down by the river — “dead, oh, shot her dead.” Or that Bob Marley shot the sheriff even as he spared the deputy.

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Qilin Li: From science perspective, don't dismiss desalination

(Dr. Qilin Li is the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Co-Director of the NEWT Center, and Resilient Urban Water Infrastructure thrust lead of the WaTER Institute at Rice University.) Access to abundant, clean water is a foundation of modern life. It stands among the greatest public health achievements of the twentieth century and is a central reason why life expectancy in the United States increased significantly over that period. I remind my students often that this progress was not inevitable, and it is not something we should take for granted. South Texas’ historic drought is a cautionary tale for the fragility of our existing water supplies and exposes the limits of systems built for a different time. If left unaddressed, it exemplifies the potential tradeoffs between economic potential and quality of life for generations of South Texans.

As a researcher at Rice University in Houston, I study technologies that can realistically deliver safe, clean, reliable water at scale, including desalination. In places like Corpus Christi, seawater desalination has been the subject of extensive public dialogue and technical review, reflecting the seriousness of the region’s water challenges. Because seawater desalination remains underutilized in Texas as a response to growing water stress, it is sometimes perceived as experimental. In reality, however, seawater desalination is a mature, well-studied technology that has been implemented at both small and large scales in many locations around the world to provide fresh water for both municipal and industrial uses. It can play a meaningful role in addressing water scarcity in the Coastal Bend and meeting the demands of the region’s economic and population growth. From a scientific perspective, desalination should not be dismissed on the basis of feasibility. Energy consumption and the associated overall costs are often major considerations in choosing alternative water supplies. Over the past two decades, advances in membrane materials, energy recovery devices, and engineering system design have greatly reduced the energy intensity of desalination.

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Texas Governor orders cybersecurity audit of Chinese medical devices over data breach risks

Texas Governor Greg Abbot released a letter directing state agencies and state-owned medical facilities in Texas to review cybersecurity policies to potentially address cybersecurity concerns that are linked to medical equipment manufactured in China. In the letter, Abbott directed health agencies and public university systems to review cybersecurity and procurement policies to protect Texans from medical information data breaches. On Jan. 2026, the Trump Administration’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a series of notices describing security vulnerabilities found in Chinese-manufactured patient monitoring devices. One of the risks includes the possibility of unauthorized actors accessing protected health information remotely.

It is the U.S. FDA's duty to regulate medical devices before and after entering the market. Once those devices are deployed, the FDA continues to monitor medical devices through post-market examination. When risks are identified, the FDA issues alerts and recommendations to reduce harm. According to Governor Abbott, these FDA and CISA notices underscore the need for state agencies and state-owned medical facilities to ensure they are continually operating in safe and secure environments. The governor warns that these notices confirm the warnings of experts who have elevated the "proliferation of Chinese-manufactured smart medical devices" across the Texas healthcare system as a serious data privacy concern. More specifically, on January 30, 2025, the FDA issued a notice raising Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities with Certain Patient Monitors from Contec and Epsimed: FDA Safety Communication, in which the FDA warned that certain patient monitors contained vulnerabilities that allow unauthorized access, manipulation of devices, and the exfiltration of sensitive patient data, creating meaningful risks for patients.

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Fort Bend County Judge KP George '11th-hour' petition denied

A prosecutor for the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office is calling on a Texas Appeals Court to reject what he calls an "eleventh-hour" petition from Judge KP George ahead of his money laundering trial. On Monday, it was confirmed Judge KP George's action to disqualify Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office was denied by the appellate court.

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Southwest Airlines relaunches longest nonstop flight from Dallas Love Field

Goodbye Dallas, hello Emerald City. Southwest Airlines is once again offering nonstop flights from Love Field Airport, where it is the dominant carrier, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The route may offer aviation enthusiasts a little trivia nugget: At roughly 1,668 miles (exact distance may vary by a few miles), it is the airline’s longest nonstop flight from Love Field. (Another trivia fact: Southwest’s longest route overall is from Phoenix to Honolulu, which is over 2,900 miles.)

Late last week, The Dallas Morning News was on the first nonstop trip when Southwest flight 173 departed Dallas and landed in SeaTac shortly after 9:30 a.m. local time. Southwest previously operated the route in a seasonal capacity, before it made the decision to make it a mainstay last fall. The airline also began nonstops between Dallas and Portland, Boston and San Francisco this week, stretching its formidable domestic network. The routes were announced in August, just three months after Southwest bolstered its commitment to Love Field until 2040. The airline operates out of 18 of the airport’s 20 gates. Recently, Southwest has been in the throes of major operational changes, including the start of assigned seating, extra legroom options and fees for checked bags. Adam Decaire, Southwest’s senior vice president of network planning and network operations control, told The News in an interview that the new permanent routes are a “continuation of everything that we’re doing as a company.” He added that “we’ve always flown long flights like California to Hawaii and California to the East Coast. We’ve always had that but as we change our product it’s going to make them even more comfortable. And so you can see that going on nationwide to some extent. You see us trading a few of our short haul flights here and there.”

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Epstein’s remote Zorro Ranch owned by Texas political candidate is searched by New Mexico investigators

New Mexico state investigators on Monday descended on the high desert ranch once owned by Jeffrey Epstein, beginning what may be the first thorough search of an overlooked but important part of the convicted sex offender’s empire. The examination of the property is part of a renewed effort by state leaders to scrutinize the deceased financier’s crimes in New Mexico, which they say have never been fully investigated. The state’s Department of Justice, which opened a criminal inquiry into the property last month, is carrying out the search along with a local sheriff’s office. A spokeswoman for New Mexico’s attorney general declined to comment further. It was not clear what parts of the ranch had been searched or how long the operation would last.

Victims of Mr. Epstein have said they were abused and trafficked at the property he named Zorro Ranch. Yet New Mexico officials and recently unsealed documents indicate that the federal authorities may have overlooked the 30,000-square-foot mansion and its sea of surrounding grassland after they took over a state-level inquiry into his actions in 2019. In addition to the state attorney general’s criminal investigation, New Mexico lawmakers voted unanimously last month to impanel a bipartisan four-member “truth commission” in the State Legislature, equipped with subpoena power, to look into what might have happened at Zorro Ranch. “I’m very glad to know the N.M.D.O.J. is doing what should have been done years ago,” said Andrea Romero, a New Mexico state representative from Santa Fe who is leading the commission. “Finally we are able to take a look inside a property that has created a yearslong mystery.” The authorities have worried that the passage of time may complicate their efforts. The property has changed hands since Mr. Epstein’s death, and evidence may have been lost in the transfer. The ranch’s new owner, a Dallas real estate magnate named Don Huffines, has said he will comply with the state investigation. Mr. Huffines, who last week won the Republican primary for Texas comptroller, said in a statement to The New York Times that the search was “a welcome step toward truth and justice.”

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City Stories

Texas City officials defend level of force used on meeting disrupter

The arrest of a man during a contentious Texas City Commission meeting last week is drawing new attention after video of the encounter spread widely on social media, prompting questions about whether officers used excessive force. Juan David Rodriguez was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with disrupting a meeting or procession, according to arrest records. The arrest happened Wednesday during the meeting in which commissioners voted to recognize the Texas City Police Association, a newly formed labor union, as the department’s future bargaining representative.

After Rodriguez repeatedly interrupted the proceedings, Police Chief Landis Cravens left his seat and escorted Rodriguez out of the meeting room, according to video and witnesses. Several police officers surrounded, subdued and handcuffed Rodriguez when he stepped out of the council chambers and into a hallway. Video of the arrest has circulated widely on social media, where some commenters have questioned whether the level of force used by officers was appropriate. Others have defended the officers, saying Rodriguez disrupted a public meeting and ignored instructions to leave. During the meeting, Rodriguez interrupted City Attorney Kyle Dickson while Dickson was presenting the agenda item related to certifying the new police union.

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National Stories

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticizes Supreme Court emergency rulings

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply criticized the Supreme Court on Monday for being quick to issue rulings that have temporarily allowed some of President Donald Trump’s controversial policies to stand while legal challenges against them play out in the courts. The justices have signed off on the administration’s ban on transgender soldiers in the military, the firing of independent agency heads and the gutting of the Education Department, among other rulings that cleared the way for the president’s priorities through the court’s emergency docket. “This uptick in the court’s willingness to get involved with cases on the emergency docket is a real, unfortunate problem,” Jackson told an audience during a talk with conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “I think it is not serving our court or our country well at this point.”

Jackson offered her public critique of the high court as she addressed lawyers and judges gathered for a rare opportunity to see justices from opposite ends of the court’s political spectrum exchange views during an annual lecture in a ceremonial courtroom at the federal courthouse in D.C. Jackson’s comments came in response to Kavanaugh’s assertion that the Supreme Court had treated Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden similarly on the emergency docket. Kavanaugh pointed out that the justices had allowed a number of Biden policies to go forward as well, including access to the abortion drug mifepristone and military vaccine mandates. “This is not a new phenomenon in the Trump administration,” Kavanaugh said. Jackson was quick to disagree, saying the Biden wins on the emergency docket largely upheld the legal status quo. The rulings for the Trump administration were fundamentally different, she contended, because the president was instituting new initiatives thatpotentially shifted the law.

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Anthropic clash with Pentagon fuels government surveillance fears

Anthropic’s clash with the Pentagon is reigniting fears of government surveillance, as experts warn the capabilities of artificial intelligence, paired with the Trump administration’s sweeping data collections, pose new threats to individual privacy. Just over a year after President Trump welcomed AI firms into government, theWhite House’s unprecedented reach for personal data has left some technology leaders at odds with the administration. Anthropic and the Department of Defense (DOD) butted heads over the extent to which the company’s AI tools could be used to conduct surveillance and compile information about U.S. citizens and residents — a redline for the company’s CEO, Dario Amodei. The dispute cost Anthropic its government contract and spurred a legal battle over the company’s designation as a national security threat.

“Froniter AI fundamentally changes the surveillance calculus,” David Bader, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, told The Hill. “Analyzing billions of data points to build profiles on millions of Americans used to be computationally impractical, but now it’s trivia with AI, and the law hasn’t caught up to that reality.” From the start of negotiations, Amodei said AI-driven mass surveillance is “incompatible” with democratic values, warning it presents “serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties.” Anthropic, which worked with the Pentagon as a subcontractor of data analytics firm Palantir since 2024, pressed for specific restrictions on mass domestic surveillance, with the company suggesting some users are “outside the bounds” of what current technology can “safely and reliability.” The DOD insisted on using an “all lawful purposes” standard and leaders alleged Anthropic sought to “personally control” the U.S. military and jeopardize national security. Failing to come to an agreement, President Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic products and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a rare supply chain risk designation for the company.

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Live Nation reaches settlement with DOJ in antitrust fight

Live Nation has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice in its high-stakes antitrust case less than a week after the trial began, according to three people familiar with the matter. The deal — expected to be announced Monday — requires Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, to pay roughly $200 million in damages to participating states. The centerpiece of the agreement is expected to be structural changes to Live Nation’s ticketing business. Under the settlement, Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival ticketing companies, allowing third-party sellers such as SeatGeek or Eventbrite to list tickets directly through Ticketmaster’s technology.

The deal also places new limits on the long-term exclusivity contracts Ticketmaster has historically used to lock venues into its system, cutting those agreements down to four years and allowing venues to allocate a portion of their tickets to competing platforms. “This will revolutionize the ticketing marketplace,” said one of the people who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “These are innovative technological solutions to a very difficult problem with prying open the marketplace.” Live Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department and 40 state attorneys general first sued Live Nation under the Biden administration in May 2024, alleging the concert giant built and maintained an illegal monopoly over live events through its control of ticketing, venues and artist promotion. The government argued the company used that dominance to squeeze competitors and lock venues into exclusive arrangements that harmed artists and fans.

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Republicans target public lands protections in a new way

Over the past year, GOP leaders and the Trump administration have used a law known as the Congressional Review Act to push for coal mining in Montana, oil drilling in Alaska and copper mining in Minnesota, while also attempting to reverse protections for a national monument in Utah. The rarely used act gives Congress a few months to revoke new federal regulations. Only in the past year has it ever been used to overrule land management plans. Conservation advocates say Congress is recklessly throwing out detailed plans, which are created after years of research, public meetings and local collaboration. They fear lawmakers’ intervention could upend the long-standing management system that governs hundreds of millions of acres of public lands — with consequences that could threaten endangered species and coal miners alike.

But the fallout could be much more far-reaching than the rollback of protections for specific areas, some legal experts say. By using their review authority in a way that was never thought to apply to land management plans, lawmakers are calling into question the validity of well over 100 other such plans that were never submitted to Congress for review. If those plans are challenged, it could create legal uncertainty for tens of thousands of leases and permits for oil and gas, mining, cattle grazing, logging, wind and solar farms and outdoor recreation. “Using the Congressional Review Act (to revoke management plans) is really unprecedented and will have unforeseen consequences,” said Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration. “There’s a huge playing field of actions that would be forbidden if none of these management plans are lawfully in place. This could bring things to a screeching halt.” Republicans have argued that congressional action is necessary to unleash President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum frequently refers to public lands as “America’s balance sheet,” and has pledged to increase returns by extracting more resources like oil, minerals and timber. Montana U.S. Rep. Troy Downing, a Republican who sponsored a resolution to revoke a management plan in his home state, argued during debate on the measure that Montana’s economy and energy demands rely on coal production. “When the federal government acts recklessly, it is the responsibility of Congress to step in and course correct. … The war on coal must end,” he said.

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Trump is obsessed with these $145 shoes—and won’t let anyone leave without a pair

The hottest and most exclusive MAGA status symbol is a pair of leather oxfords. Prefer a wingtip, loafer or monk strap? Black or brown? President Trump’s got you. Trump has been gifting footwear to agency heads, lawmakers, White House advisers and VIPs. “Did you get the shoes?” he asks at cabinet meetings. Some people have laced up in the Oval Office. During a lunch meeting in January, Trump suddenly pivoted to his “incredible” new shoes and gave Tucker Carlson a pair of brown wingtips. “All the boys have them,” said a female White House official. Another joked, “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.” The shoe-salesman-in-chief is paying attention.

Trump has fallen in love with Florsheim, the American brand that’s been pairing comfort and style for more than a century. They’re also affordable: many cost $145. The president has taken to guessing people’s shoe size in front of them. He asks an aide to put in an order and, a week later, a brown Florsheim box arrives at the White House. Trump sometimes signs the box or attaches a note of gratitude, according to people familiar with the ritual. The 79-year-old billionaire, known for expensive Brioni suits, long red ties and a penchant for aesthetics, late last year began searching for something that would feel better after a day on the job and settled on Florsheim. Trump liked them so much he started dispensing them. He pays for the shoes, the White House said. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have some. So do Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung, deputy chief of staff James Blair and speechwriter Ross Worthington. Fox News personality Sean Hannity and Sen. Lindsey Graham each have a pair.

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Young kids missed the pandemic's school disruptions. Their reading scores are still behind

When COVID-19 wrought havoc on society in early 2020, today’s youngest schoolchildren were infants or yet to be born. Now in their early school years, researchers are beginning to see how the pandemic years have shaped their education, even though many had yet to set foot in a classroom when it began. First and second graders continue to perform worse than their pre-pandemic counterparts on math and reading tests, according to a report published Tuesday by the education assessment and research group NWEA. But while math scores have inched up every year, reading scores remain stagnant, the report shows. The data suggests the slump in academic performance is not rooted only in instructional disruption. Broader societal shifts might be at play.

In the youngest students’ failure to recover, “there’s something kind of systemic here happening ... within schools and outside of schools,” said Megan Kuhfeld, a researcher at NWEA. “We can’t pinpoint one specific cause.” The pandemic’s effects on older children’s academic achievement are well-documented. COVID-19 forced kids out of classrooms and into online learning. Students lost out on face time with instructors, their mental health suffered in the isolation, and their well-being deteriorated as some families endured hardship. Some schoolchildren stopped showing up to school altogether. The federal government gave billions of dollars to school districts to help students catch up — with mixed results. In 2024, reading scores for fourth- and eighth-graders continued a downward slide, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Math scores, however, trended upward. Testing for younger kids is less common, so the NWEA report offers insights into the depth of the academic disruption. It’s based on assessments given to students in the 2024-25 school year.

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GOP Rep. Andy Ogles sparks backlash after saying Muslims 'don't belong' in America

Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00 A Republican congressman from Tennessee declared on social media Monday that "Muslims don’t belong in American society," prompting backlash largely from Democrats. "Pluralism is a lie," Rep. Andy Ogles continued in the bigoted post on X. Democratic politicians swiftly condemned Ogles and his post, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York calling Ogles a "malignant clown." "Disgusting Islamophobes like you do not belong in Congress or in civilized society," Jeffries wrote on X.

Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., wrote in a separate post: "This disgusting s--- doesn’t belong in American society. And Republicans who support it don’t belong in Congress." Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., responded, as well, writing on X: "I don’t know how many Muslims are in this guy’s district. I know there are tens of thousands in mine. They are parents. Entrepreneurs. Police officers. The firefighter-paramedic giving CPR to save your life. They are us. They are American. This tweet is NOT American." The office of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the post from Ogles, who has a history of making outrageous comments about Muslims. One prominent Republican who criticized Ogles' post was Richard Grenell, a special envoy for President Donald Trump and the interim president of the Kennedy Center. One prominent Republican who criticized Ogles' post was Richard Grenell, a special envoy for President Donald Trump and the interim president of the Kennedy Center. "Stop attacking the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," Grenell wrote on X. A representative for Ogles did not respond to a request for comment. Ogles did not back down online, posting on X about "the high-ranking Democrats flooding X to condemn me" in one post and in another about the dozens of "Islamic countries in the world."

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Copyright March 17, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved