Lead Stories

GOP embraces speculation about China’s role in data center backlash

Republicans are embracing allegations that data center opposition in the U.S. is being fueled by foreign actors, raising questions over how influence operators are contributing to one of the fiercest debates in the tech policy space. Reports, including from OpenAI, recently emerged suggesting China and other countries are carrying out influence campaigns to fan the flames of Americans’ frustration with the data center build-out. Data centers — the server warehouses powering the AI boom — once enjoyed support from politicians on both sides of the aisle. But public opinion has rapidly deteriorated in the face of concerns about the infrastructure’s impact on electricity bills and the environment. Democrats have seized on this backlash, especially around energy costs, while Republicans have struggled to coalesce around a message addressing voters’ worries ahead of the midterms.

“It makes sense for Republicans to point out China’s genuine efforts to influence American politics,” Ryan Fedasiuk, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. “I’m glad we’re doing so. But on some level, it’s cope … it’s not going to make the problem go away.” President Trump largely supports industry development, arguing tech companies need to be able to build without obstacles to effectively compete with China in the so-called AI race. He has sought to speed up the approval of data center projects, curtailing environmental reviews and pushing for faster grid connections. But the White House is also grasping the reality of data centers’ increasing unpopularity. Earlier this year, Trump secured commitments from leading AI firms to cover rising electricity costs from data centers. As the president and his fellow Republicans try to balance a pro-tech agenda with constituents’ concerns, at least one key administration official and several GOP lawmakers are latching onto the reports of foreign influence campaigns. “Any place that’s trying to build data centers is getting bombarded with foreign-directed propaganda to try to block these from being built,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business Network late last month.

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‘The president seems to revel in chaos’: Cornyn goes his own way

A few days after losing his Senate runoff, John Cornyn did something unusual for him: He used his leverage against his own party. The Texas Republican was frustrated by a nearly year-long delay in getting his state reimbursed by the Trump administration for more than $10 billion in border security spending that Congress had already approved. Cornyn had something valuable to withhold as lawmakers prepared to take up President Donald Trump’s $70 billion immigration spending bill. “Basically, I told Senator Barrasso and Senator [John] Thune: ‘There’s a price for my vote, and it is to get the administration to release the money,’” Cornyn told Semafor in a recent interview in his hideaway office on the Capitol’s third floor. “Next thing I got is a call from [White House budget director] Russ Vought, and Russ said, ‘we’ll put a notice of funding.’”

Cornyn added a reminder that, with more than six months left in office and a sophisticated understanding of the Senate, he’s positioned to play more hardball if he has to: “That’s one example I think of what you can do when you have some cards to play.” The four-term incumbent is already setting some conditions on his critical undecided vote for Trump’s attorney general pick, Todd Blanche. Cornyn has returned to the candor he displayed for years in the Senate halls, offering withering assessments of Trump’s Iran deal and legislative strategy — a pattern he might continue on Wednesday, when the president visits GOP senators in person. One thing the two-time campaign arm won’t threaten to withhold is his largesse on the trail. He is organizing a large September fundraiser for his colleagues and favorite Senate candidates: Sens. Jon Husted of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, plus former Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire and former Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan. Cornyn draws the line, however, at sending money to Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who defeated him in the GOP primary with Trump’s endorsement. Working for other candidates in cheaper states makes more sense to Cornyn, who isn’t sure Paxton can win. “The president picked Paxton, and he’s got $350 million dollars. I think he can spend his money,” Cornyn said of Texas and Trump. “I’m going to try to help in other places.”

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Democrat James Talarico shifts focus to rising costs in new ad

Standing in a small market with a bag of groceries in hand, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico uses his latest ad to promise relief for Texans struggling with rising costs. The spot marks a shift in emphasis for Talarico, whose campaign has spent weeks responding to Republican attacks centered on his past comments about religion, gender and other cultural issues. “Too many Texans feel like they’re drowning — the cost of groceries, gas, healthcare,” Talarico says directly to the camera. The 30-second ad features the state representative from Austin walking through the store before touting what he describes as a bipartisan record in the Legislature.

“Capping the cost of insulin, cutting taxes for small businesses, and passing the largest property tax cut in Texas history,” Talarico says in the ad before climbing into his Chevy Colorado pickup. “In the Senate, I'll take on corruption and keep fighting to lower your costs.” The focus on affordability contrasts with much of the race's early messaging, as Republican nominee Ken Paxton and his allies have targeted Talarico over his views on cultural and social issues. Paxton, after defeating Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP runoff last month, released an ad featuring short clips of Talarico asserting there are six biological sexes, calling the American flag a complicated symbol and making other statements. Republicans also have used social media to share snippets of Talarico, from saying God is “nonbinary” to talking up the environmental benefits of reducing meat consumption. Talarico has acknowledged some past statements were intentionally provocative and cringey – and he has chowed down on a pile of barbecue in front of cameras to rebut suggestions he is vegan.

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Fatal Tesla crash into Texas home now under federal safety investigation

U.S. auto-safety regulators have opened an investigation into a fatal wreck involving a Tesla that crashed into a home Friday evening and killed one person inside. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the top auto regulator in the country, said Monday that it would examine a crash involving a Tesla Model 3 near Houston. The driver of the Tesla told police he was operating with an automated driving assistance system, according to a statement by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. The vehicle left the roadway, “entered through the brick residence at a high rate of speed,” and struck a woman who was inside, sheriff’s officials said. The woman, identified as Martha Avila, later died from injuries sustained in the crash, officials said.

Footage from a home camera that was posted on social media and shared with The Wall Street Journal shows the blue Model 3 speeding up to the house in Katy, Texas, crossing over the yard and driveway, and slamming into the front wall of the home. NHTSA said Monday it was launching a special crash investigation into the incident. The regulator’s division that handles such investigations opens more than 100 cases annually to examine incidents involving unique circumstances or outcomes from an engineering perspective, according to NHTSA’s website. Tesla didn’t immediately return a request for comment. In a post on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, Tesla’s vice president of AI and software, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the driver manually pressed the car’s accelerator pedal down and had the pedal pressed even after the crash. The incident marks the latest effort by NHTSA to examine Tesla’s suite of advanced driver-assistance technologies. The agency has been conducting a defect investigation of Tesla’s system, known as Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which controls driving and steering functions but requires drivers to continuously monitor the road. Defect probes can result in automakers conducting a safety recall.

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State Stories

Oak Cliff gas explosion: Judge approves restraining order against Atmos Energy

An attorney representing victims of a deadly Oak Cliff apartment explosion says gas line records show the building had six reported leaks in the weeks before the blast — and that Atmos Energy knew the pipes were dangerous but failed to act. The five-alarm explosion at The Clyde Apartments killed three people, including Sylvia Collins, a community activist and Democratic Party volunteer. Her daughter, Michelle Collins, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Atmos Energy, Barba Drilling, and the building's owners, alleging negligence. Attorney Chris Hamilton, who is also pursuing a separate lawsuit against Atmos Energy, said the pattern of leaks at the property was a clear warning that went unheeded.

"At this particular property there were six leaks reported, six different 811 calls since March 20, so in the seven weeks approximately before," Hamilton said. Hamilton said drilling crews followed proper procedure before the explosion, calling 811 to have gas lines marked before breaking ground. But he said the lines were marked in the wrong location — off by 15 feet or more. "There was no way that this driller could possibly know there was a pipeline here," Hamilton said. "He drilled exactly where he was supposed to." Atmos Energy disputes that account. In a statement, the company said the driller — who was not working for Atmos — struck the pipe, and that Atmos had hired a third party to mark the gas lines. "The safety of our communities and employees is our first priority. Our hearts go out to the people who were lost, their families, and everyone who has been impacted," a spokesperson said in a statement. A Dallas County judge on Monday indicated she would sign a restraining order requiring Atmos Energy to notify Hamilton of any work in the area around the explosion -- needed, he argued, because he plans to argue the pipes in the area were old and leaky and contributed to the blast.

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Chevron plans massive Texas power plant for Microsoft, eyes oilfield wastewater as water source

Chevron announced Monday it plans to develop a massive power plant in West Texas to fuel a Microsoft data center as a boom in artificial intelligence reshapes the state’s oil and gas industry. The power facility, which will be co-located with the data center in Reeves County, is expected to deliver 2.67 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 667,500 homes for one hot summer day in Texas. The Houston oil giant said the project — its first power plant for AI — will benefit the Texas economy while mitigating impacts to water resources and the grid. Large Texas oil companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Diamondback are branching into electricity generation for the first time, cashing in on AI growth as data centers create surging demand for power.

Locating the power facility on the same site as Microsoft’s data center enables Chevron to sidestep grid connections and supply it directly with electricity, which will be made onsite using natural gas produced in the Permian Basin and gas turbines, the company said. Chevron said the project will generate more than $10 billion in state and local tax revenue and will support nearly 2,000 jobs. “Chevron is uniquely positioned to deliver power to customers with certainty, speed and at a competitive cost, leveraging Permian natural gas and our proven execution capabilities,” Jeff Gustavson, Chevron’s president of New Energies, said in a statement. “This project links Chevron’s traditional strengths to emerging demand, creating differentiated value for our shareholders and the communities where we operate.” Chevron plans to use non-potable, brackish groundwater sources for its power generation operation, it said. The company also aims to reuse oilfield wastewater, known as “produced water,” as a water source.

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Gov. Abbott orders Texas agencies to expand trade and workforce training

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday directed four state agencies to immediately expand workforce training programs, apprenticeships and career education opportunities as Texas employees cointnue to seek more skilled workers to fill high-demand jobs. Speaking at a press conference at the Governor's Mansion, Abbott announced a series of directives developed by the Texas Jobs Council, a group created by the Governor in March to identify ways to strengthen the workforce pipeline in Texas through executive action, or actions conducted by an agency. "The demand for a high-skilled workforce has never been greater," Abbott said. "We want to make sure we have the best-trained workforce in the United States."

Texas Jobs Council co-chairs Megan Mauro, interim president of the Texas Association of Business, and Brent Taylor, Southern Region vice president of the Teamsters, joined Abbott at the announcement. The directives affect the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Education Agency, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Under Abbott’s order, the Texas Workforce Commission is directed to do the following: Expand apprenticeship opportunities. Create a centralized online hub for career planning resources and develop career pathways for Texans facing barriers to employment, including veterans, foster youth and people with disabilities. Work to improve connections between employers and jobseekers by launching digital Learning and Employment Records through the Tri-Agency Workforce Initiative.

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City audit petition certified, moves forward to November ballot

Austinites will get a chance to vote on an amendment that would force regular external audits onto the city of Austin in the upcoming November ballot. This follows a petition, backed by Save Austin Now, sent to the city early June regarding a proposed charter amendment related to city spending and accountability. Those signatures were certified by the Austin city clerk on Monday, moving the amendment forward to the November ballot.

Save Austin Now launched the charter petition effort last year. It would require regular external audits of the entire city budget within a year of the contract engagement — with the independent contractor selected within 120 days. It also requires the city of Austin to review its budget every five years, or no less than one year before the city of Austin asks voters for more money in a tax rate election. “The more than 20,000 Austin residents who signed our petition only want transparency, accountability and efficient spending for the high taxes that we pay,” Save Austin Now co-chair Matt Mackowiak said in Monday’s press release. “If Austinites want to see their tax dollars spent wisely and efficiently, then we must pass this outside audit amendment

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Ye concert still on at the Alamodome despite blowback from Mayor Jones, others

The city of San Antonio appears to be keeping a concert by Ye on the city-owned Alamodome’s schedule despite blowback from Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and other elected officials over the rapper’s history of antisemitism. City spokesman Brian Chasnoff didn’t directly say whether the controversial show would go on as planned, but he said it’s expected to draw more than 60,000 people. As of Monday, 50,000 tickets have been sold, including more than 14,000 within Bexar County and thousands of sales from outside Texas.

“Once Alamodome staff books an event, conceptually, the City Council can direct the City Manager to cancel it,” Chasnoff said in a statement late Monday. It’s unclear if Jones or City Council members want to call a vote on the concert. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is slated to perform at the Alamodome on July 4 as part of his international tour promoting his new album, “Bully.” Ye announced June 14 that he was coming to the Alamo City and tickets went on sale June 18. Jones took to social media on Saturday evening to call for the concert to be canceled. Her post drew national attention, appearing in the New York Times, USA Today and Rolling Stone, among other outlets. “Military City USA should not host someone with a record of hate speech and antisemitic comments in a city-funded facility like our Alamodome — not ever, and certainly not on July 4th, our Nation’s 250th birthday,” Jones wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Standing up to antisemitism is exactly what it takes to achieve a more perfect Union.”

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Lackland flu outbreak raises questions about Pentagon vaccine policy

At least 222 trainees have gotten sick during a flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The Air Force says it has been working to contain the virus for the past three weeks. The Air Force says medical personnel are isolating and treating sick trainees, monitoring those who may have been exposed, and administering antiviral medications to help contain the outbreak. The number of reported illnesses has climbed to 222, according to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. Earlier in the week, Castro said nearly 160 members of the 37th Training Wing had gotten sick.

Castro has called for a full accounting of the outbreak and an investigation into the death of trainee Keon McDaniel, who suffered a medical emergency during the outbreak. Military officials say the cause of death remains under investigation and have not said whether influenza played a role. In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended the military's long-standing influenza vaccine requirement, arguing the mandate weakened military readiness. A Pentagon spokesperson said the policy change was intended to "maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations." The spokesperson said the department remains committed to the health and readiness of service members and civilian personnel. San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who previously served as Undersecretary of the Air Force, said the outbreak was preventable.

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Texas board hears heated testimony on social studies standards as final vote nears

Dozens of speakers called on the Texas State Board of Education to move forward with a set of revised social studies standards during testimony that began Monday afternoon and stretched well into the night. Dozens more asked the board to amend the standards to give more attention to certain cultures or chapters in history. Monday’s meeting represented the last opportunity for the public to weigh in on the standards before the board takes them up for a final vote. More than 250 people signed up to give public testimony on the issue. Board members are expected to discuss proposed amendments in the coming days before taking a final vote on Friday. The proposed standards would lay out what students are expected to learn in their social studies classes at each grade level. The standards have drawn controversy, with critics saying they place too much emphasis on Christianity while giving short shrift to other world religions. For example, biblical figures such as Abraham and Moses are included alongside figures from American and Texas history such as George Washington and Sam Houston.

The portrayal of Islam in the standards was a point of debate during the meeting. The mention of Islam in the proposed standards is limited, and mostly centers on conflicts like the Spanish Reconquista and acts of terrorism like those that occurred on Sept. 11. Earlier versions of the proposals included material dealing with the development of Algebra and astronomy in the Muslim world, but those were stripped out in the amendment process. Yusuf Shaikh, a Plano ISD graduate, said accurate portrayal of Muslims in world history classes matters. When Muslim students see Islam portrayed in history textbooks only as a source of conflict and not its contributions to math, science and other disciplines, they can be left with the impression that they don’t belong. He also noted that the seventh grade standards include the 1948 creation of the modern state of Israel, but don’t mention the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that followed. Inshirah Daher, a 15-year social studies teacher and a Palestinian American, took issue not only with the standards’ portrayal of Islam, but also the grade levels at which that material is introduced. She noted that fourth graders would be asked to learn about al-Qaeda before they’re taught foundational skills like how to read a map or how to distinguish a fact from an opinion. “This is not education,” she said. “This is a shortcut that skips the hard work of actually teaching children to be critical thinkers.

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Data breach exposes personal information of over 3 million Texas hunters, fishers

A cybersecurity incident involving the vendor managing the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) license system may have exposed the personal information of more than 3 million hunting and fishing license customers. The Texas Cyber Command “recently detected a cybersecurity incident” in the TPWD license vendor system, according to a press release. Data exposed includes driver license information, passport numbers, email addresses, phone numbers and residential addresses. The data was tied to hunting and fishing license holders. The agency said there is no evidence customers younger than 18 were involved in the breach.

“We recognize the seriousness of this issue and have identified and implemented additional security options to better protect customer information,” said TPWD in its press release. There is no evidence that any specific group was targeted, according to the state agency. “Many of our staff are hunters and anglers and were affected by this incident. We are committed to continuing to work with the license system vendor to implement increased safeguards to prevent future incidents,” TPWD said. No Social Security numbers, dates of birth or financial information, including credit card details, were believed to have been leaked. TPWD said it is working with its license system vendor to improve security and implement additional safeguards. Those impacted by the breach will get a free year of credit monitoring and can call 844-959-7123 if they have questions. The enrollment deadline for free credit monitoring is Sept. 14. License sales still continue on schedule for August and the next license year, according to the release. “We recognize the seriousness of this issue and have identified and implemented additional security options to better protect customer information. Many of our staff are hunters and anglers and were affected by this incident. We are committed to working with the license system vendor to implement increased safeguards,” the department said in a statement.

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Robert Wilonsky: Still no concrete plans for Dallas’ 112-year-old Concrete House, owned by a state senator

State Sen. Royce West was wondering who was taking pictures of the house next to his Oak Cliff law offices Saturday. And: Why? Uh, well, that was me, I told him Monday morning. Because it’s among the entries on Preservation Dallas’ latest Endangered Places List being released this week. “List for what?” he asked. I told him again, then ticked off some of the other places: the 10th Street Historic District, the perennial concern not far from the West & Associates digs on South R.L. Thornton Freeway; the 151-year-old Garvin Cemetery on Northwest Highway, a city landmark yet again being eyed by developers; the former Hotel St. Germain in Uptown, imperiled by a planned high-rise; the crime-ridden Cole Manor Motel on Harry Hines Boulevard, which is more than endangered, as it’s coming down as I type.

And, of course, Dallas City Hall, whose abandonment creeps ever closer with each vote of City Council members who forget they’re but transient occupants. “That house has been there since 1914,” said West, referring to the manse designed and built by Czechoslovakian immigrant Joseph Kovandovitch. It’s made almost entirely of concrete. One of the city’s first poured concrete houses, actually. Which is why city Landmark Commission designation documents refer to it as — wait for it — The Concrete House. “It’s not going anywhere,” West said. Then he laughed. I’ve seen the future of Dallas City Hall. It’s where Eads Street in Oak Cliff dead-ends into vacant land and a thicket of trees, also owned by West, adjacent to the burgeoning Bottom neighborhood. An architectural marvel made entirely of concrete. Indestructible. Meant to last for a few lifetimes. Which it has, despite numerous fires set by the unsheltered and, according to one history, a cult. And boarded up for as long as anyone can remember.

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Supporters raise over $125,000 for woman who made anti-Islam remarks

A viral video of a woman making anti-Islam comments at a grocery store prompted one state lawmaker to condemn hate speech — but also sparked a groundswell of support for the woman from conservative influencers and their followers who raised more than $125,000 for her. The video shows a woman in medical scrubs telling two women, “You need to leave. You’re not welcome here. This is not a Muslim country, this is a Christian country.” The text on the video says it’s an H-E-B in Conroe, but the grocer didn’t reply to the Houston Chronicle’s inquiry. The confrontation drew attention from figures ranging from Democratic state Rep. Suleman Lalani of Sugar Land to online conservative commentator Sara Gonzales.

A white nationalist influencer with the display name Tom Hennessey launched the fundraiser after social media users shared the woman’s personal information, such as an address and phone number they believed to be hers. The fundraiser on GiveSendGo — a Christian platform — says the woman was fired as a result of the viral interaction. The woman did not respond to requests for comment from the Chronicle. “She said the quiet part loud in the grocery aisle while the rest of us are simply trying to shop without a full-blown cultural invasion,” the GiveSendGo description says. Lalani condemned the comments in the video, saying they weren’t an isolated incident. “Perhaps the most disturbing part is the conviction this woman has in believing neighbors shopping at H-E-B are a threat to her and her country,” he wrote on social media. “This ‘hate virus’ is a contagion we must confront with facts, truth, and unity.” Muslims in Texas have been raising concerns regarding their safety as the GOP has spent months campaigning against “Sharia law,” which members of the faith group say is a moral and spiritual framework central to their faith. Muslims say the rhetoric from Republicans is putting them at risk.

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3 killed at Midland trucking company — city's second large shooting in 10 days

Authorities are investigating a deadly shooting in the Midland area that happened Monday morning in East Midland. The shooting happened in the area of North County Road 1140 and East Highway 80, at JAT Partner Logistics, a local trucking company, at approximately 6:58 a.m. Details are limited at this time, but a company spokesperson confirmed that at least three employees are dead following the incident. The Midland County Sheriff's Office confirmed that the deaths are from apparent gunshot wounds.

A witness at the scene claimed that the an employee had arrived at the scene and shot two coworkers before turning the gun on himself. Neither the company nor law enforcement officials have confirmed such details. One victim has been identified so far. The family of 45-year-old Jeff Waugh, has come forward to identify him as an employee of the company who passed away in the incident. Family members described Waugh as a hardworking father who is now survived by his two teenage children. Officials say that the motive for the incident remains unclear. An investigation is underway by the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety. There is no risk to the public at this time.

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Fort Worth-Tarrant County Innovation Partnership names new leader

The economic development and innovation group in charge of creating industry partnerships with Texas A&M-Fort Worth has a new leader. Cameron Cushman, former assistant vice president of innovation ecosystems at UNT Health Fort Worth, replaced Darryl Heath as executive director of the Fort Worth-Tarrant County Innovation Partnership. The partnership’s mission is to develop innovation hubs around the area’s key industries: aerospace, agriculture, media and healthcare. The organization is funded by the city, the county and Texas A&M University. Heath, who retired in 2015 after more than three decades at the consulting firm Accenture, returned to work and launched the program, Cushman said.

“As an A&M graduate and with an extensive background in innovation, Cameron is the perfect person to continue with Darryl Heath’s leadership and carry us to new heights,” said John Goff, CEO of Crescent Real Estate and a driving force behind Texas A&M’s Fort Worth investment. Texas A&M had already brought Cushman in to focus on some of the hubs. Now, with the first Texas A&M building opening in time for fall 2026 classes, it was time for the organization to begin finalizing those partnerships, he said. The $185 million Law and Education Building broke ground in June 2023. The second structure is the $260 million Research and Innovation Building that will be home to collaboration and research in key sectors, including engineering, aerospace, defense and health sciences. That building will also include key Texas A&M research programs, including a transportation institute, engineering experiment station, AgriLife and the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

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National Stories

Why Democrats are running against the ‘Epstein class’

After Graham Platner secured the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine, his first ad of the general election didn’t mention his opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, or the Republican Party. It focused on the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and who he called the “Epstein class” of elites in both parties. “Some of the most powerful Democrats and Republicans in the country were on Epstein island,” Platner said in the ad, referring to Epstein’s former residence in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Platner, whose economic-populist campaign combined with controversial online statements and a since-removed tattoo of a Nazi symbol have drawn national attention, framed himself in opposition to this elite class. “It seems the only thing the party establishments can agree on is a love of Jeffrey Epstein, and a hatred of me,” he said. “I’m Graham Platner, and I approve this message because together, we will take back our government from the Epstein class.”

It’s not just Platner: In midterm races from Texas to Maine, Democrats and at least one Republican are running against Epstein and “the Epstein class,” a term Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California first used last year to describe the men among the economic and cultural elite who traveled in Epstein’s social circles and helped rehabilitate his reputation after the multimillionaire ex-financier became a convicted sex offender in 2008 for soliciting prostitution of a minor. “I’ll give the survivors credit, but I did coin the phrase ‘Epstein class’ because they’re a group of rich and powerful people who are not playing by the rules, and it offends the sense that we have one tier of justice,” Khanna told The 19th. The number of candidates highlighting Epstein in their campaign messaging, Khanna argued, “shows what a powerful issue this is to win the midterms and win back the trust of the American public.” In two of the most competitive races to determine control of the U.S. Senate, Platner and Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who is running for reelection, have castigated the “Epstein class” and what they say is elite corruption in their ads and messaging.

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What to watch Tuesday: Mamdani, AI industry flex political power in New York

Two opposing factions in the artificial intelligence industry square off in a Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tests his political clout by backing fellow democratic socialists. And President Donald Trump, after two of his chosen candidates for governor lost Republican primaries this month, ensured it won’t happen again — by endorsing both candidates in a South Carolina runoff. Those are a few of the races to watch on Tuesday as voters head to the polls for primaries in Maryland, New York, South Carolina and Utah. The crowded Democratic primary became a proxy battle between two powerful camps of the artificial intelligence industry because of one candidate: New York Assemblyman Alex Bores.

Bores, a former Palantir employee who cited ethical concerns in leaving the company, pushed one of the more sweeping state-level AI regulation bills in the country. Now, Bores points to that legislation — which faced some industry pushback — as a framework for how he’d approach regulation in Congress. So when he stepped into the race for the New York congressional district being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, a political group underwritten by investors in OpenAI spent more than $7 million on ads against Bores. Then an opposing wing of the industry, one more in favor of regulation, rode to Bores’ aid. Political groups partly funded by Anthropic, which makes the chatbot Claude, spent more $10 million to boost Bores’ candidacy. Anthropic was co-founded by former OpenAI employee, Dario Amodei, who left the company partly over concerns about AI safety. The election will offer some measure of the political might of the two AI industry factions. The New York City mayor endorsed Democratic primary candidates hailing from his own political camp — a progressive and two democratic socialists — who are challenging more established candidates, some backed by party leadership.

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As Vance leads Iran negotiations, Trump creates disruptions in his path

As Vice President JD Vance entered the fifth hour of negotiations with Iranian leaders over the weekend, President Trump weighed in with an ill-timed threat to start bombing again. If the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz, Mr. Trump told a Fox News reporter, the negotiators talking to Mr. Vance would never make it back to their country — in fact, they would have no country to return to at all. For Mr. Vance, this was the latest example of his increasingly tricky role as the frontman in the U.S. negotiations with Iran, as Mr. Trump repeatedly creates disruptions in his path. On Monday, Mr. Vance said the first round of talks had laid “a successful foundation” for peace. But now, Mr. Vance will have to find a way to end a war that he opposed at the start, while navigating his boss’s whims and an adversary that has proved itself, at least in part, immune to Mr. Trump’s threats.

“What we told the Iranians yesterday is when you guys engage in what us millennials might call trash talk, you can’t expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record,” he said on Monday at a news conference. “So when they say things that aren’t true, the president is going to respond to it.” Both sides have signed a memorandum of understanding to end hostilities and are now trying to strike a lasting nuclear deal in 60 days. But for Mr. Vance, the presumptive favorite for the 2028 Republican nomination, the situation remains politically precarious. “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit,” Mr. Trump said of the peace deal last week. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.” Mr. Vance has said the president was joking, but Mr. Trump has never shied away from deflecting blame onto others — and how Mr. Vance handles the future of the negotiations will factor into Republicans’ performance in the midterm elections and his future as a potential successor to Mr. Trump.

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America’s intractable air traffic problem

Hours after a fatal collision at New York’s LaGuardia airport last March, America’s accident investigation agency dispatched one of its top air traffic control specialists to the scene. She barely made her flight. At the time, a partial government shutdown meant security agents at US airports were not being paid and often did not show up for work. Travellers across the US were forced to wait hours to be screened. Aides had to “beg” officials in Houston to get the investigator out of the queue she’d been stuck in for three hours and on to her flight to New York, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board. “It’s been a really, a really big challenge to get the entire team here, and they’re still arriving as we speak,” she told reporters the day after the crash.

America’s air transport system is under strain as never before. Insiders speak of near misses in the air and of staffing shortages in critical sectors that have heightened concern about passenger safety. With traveller numbers at near-record levels, congestion is rising around major hubs while occasional federal government shutdowns are wreaking havoc on operations. Frequent flight delays and cancellations caused by technology outages have prompted federal auditors to warn of the danger posed to air safety by ageing infrastructure. The World Cup, which is bringing millions of football fans to venues across the US, will only ratchet up the pressure — just as the summer travel season peaks. “The US system moves a lot of traffic very efficiently and has for years, but it’s super-strained by a lack of funding and understaffing,” says Brian Vogelsinger, a former Chicago-based air traffic controller. Vogelsinger is not the only one to worry about the staffing crisis in his profession. The National Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (Natca) puts the shortfall at 3,800. That means a lot more work for those currently in the system. “Forty per cent of our facilities are working six days a week, 10 hours a day,” says Anthony Schifano, a controller in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Some of these people?.?.?. never see a weekend off.”

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House Republicans slam Trump’s ‘risky and uncoordinated’ military funding strategy

House Republican appropriators are publicly rebuking the Trump administration for seeking must-have military cash through a party-line reconciliation bill that’s not guaranteed to clear Congress. In a report they plan to release later this week, obtained by POLITICO, House appropriators warn that the White House is trying to fund “critical efforts” like weapons and military equipment through the party-line process, rather than using it to “scale up” military dollars beyond Congress’ regular government funding bills.

“This approach is risky and uncoordinated,” reads the report, an official addendum that goes along with the chamber’s defense funding bill for the fiscal year that starts in October. In particular, appropriators criticized President Donald Trump’s budget request for splitting funding for the F-35 fighter, the most expensive program in Pentagon history, between the two bills. The annual government funding bills and the reconciliation process are “entirely separate tracks, with different timelines, committees of jurisdiction, and approval processes,” the report notes. Many Republican lawmakers are also doubtful GOP leaders will succeed in enacting another party-line package this year.

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Senate passes bill to lower housing costs and restrict Wall Street from buying homes

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to pass a sweeping housing affordability bill aimed at lowering costs, putting Congress on the brink of a rare bipartisan victory in President Donald Trump’s second term. The vote was 85-5. Several senators missed the vote due to severe thunderstorms in the Washington area that led to a ground stop at Ronald Reagan National Airport. The legislation, which would make it easier to build homes and slap limits on Wall Street investors’ buying up houses, now goes to the House, which hopes to vote on it in the next few days. Then, it would go to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act would be a desperately needed win for Republicans, who have seen their 2026 midterm election prospects deteriorate throughout the year as voters believe Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress haven’t done enough to tackle the cost of living. A mid-June poll by The Associated Press found that Trump’s overall approval rating is 37%, dragged down by the fact that just 33% said they approve of his handling of the economy. Other surveys have shown him getting low marks on handling the cost of living, the main issue that powered him to victory in 2024. And a June NBC News poll showed nearly 80% of U.S. voters believe the “American Dream” is harder to achieve than it was a generation ago. The bill represents a tangible victory on a top affordability concern. The “four corners” deal reached last week among key committee chairs, which was blessed by party leaders, brought together an eclectic mix of lawmakers from all over the ideological spectrum. It was negotiated by Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Reps. French Hill, R-Ark., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

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Tucker Carlson says he'll no longer support GOP

Longtime conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said on a podcast that “there’s no chance I would support the Republican Party” ahead of the November midterm elections, dismissing the political affiliation he’s defended as a pundit for decades, including as one of Fox News Channel’s most popular hosts. “Not gonna support the Democratic Party,” Carlson was quick to add, speaking late last week on the show “Can’t Be Censored.” “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Carlson, who has amassed a large following on his own podcast since being fired from Fox News in 2023, has more recently diverged from the party, a disillusionment supercharged by President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran in February.

Carlson supported Trump in 2024. After the war began, he apologized for supporting the then-presidential candidate and “misleading people,” saying it wasn’t intentional. He’s repeatedly criticized the war as being at the behest of Israel at the expense of Americans, and attacked the party for failing to represent its own voters, citizens and nation. “They are making decisions on the basis of other criteria, what’s best for this company, what’s best for Israel, what’s best for our donors,” he said. “That’s not just, like, they are off in the wrong direction, like, that is unacceptable, that’s treasonous, it’s immoral, it can’t continue.” “I’ve been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party, I mean very consistent defender, but there’s no defending this,” he said. “So no, I’m out. And if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out.”

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Federal judge halts Trump administration effort to subpoena Walz in immigration enforcement probe

A federal judge has blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to subpoena Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other state officials, calling it an effort to “harass and retaliate against them.” In a ruling unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz found the “dominant purpose” of the subpoenas was to “coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so.” The subpoenas were served in January as part of an investigation into whether Walz and other officials obstructed or impeded law enforcement during a sweeping immigration operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The subpoenas, which seek records, were sent to the offices of Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties. The judge ruled that there appeared to be “extremely weak to nonexistent” connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation. The subpoenas seek materials “that largely if not entirely relate to constitutionally protected conduct,” the judge wrote, noting that Minnesota has the legal right not to devote its resources to enforcing federal immigration law. The Justice Department “is not conducting a criminal investigation,” the judge wrote, “but is instead using the grand jury process for other (unlawful) purposes.” The evidence that the subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons is overwhelming, the judge said, arguing that the Justice Department “has struggled — without success — to identify a single plausible investigatory justification” for them.

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Five arrested as part of Trump’s reflecting pool ‘vandalism’ crackdown

Five people have been arrested and an additional five cited for vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, President Trump said Monday as he blamed political saboteurs for the peeling paint and a green algae bloom wrecking his much-hyped $14 million renovation. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that vandals “very violently” cut close to a 300-foot gash in the pool’s new “American flag blue” lining with “a box cutter or knife of some kind.” A White House official added that 14 police reports were filed in connection with vandalism on the Reflecting Pool, including one report regarding the large gash Trump described.

National Guard members and officers from various regional law enforcement agencies have been patrolling the area around the Reflecting Pool since this weekend, when Trump said “disgraceful vandalism” was responsible for damage to the newly renovated pool. He said the pool would once again be drained and fixed. “We had people lifting up – it’s not a lot of damage, but we’ll probably have to let the water out and fix it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. Neither the president nor the White House has offered specific evidence that the pool was purposefully vandalized, and questions remain whether the fast-tracked sealing and painting of the pool may be to blame. The Trump administration awarded Atlantic Industrial Coatings a no-bid $6.89 million contract in April to resurface the pool with his color choice, “American flag blue.” Millions more were added to the contract in May and June, bringing the total cost for the paint job and waterproofing to nearly $15 million.

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Lead Stories

Jasmine Crockett refuses to endorse Talarico in Texas Senate race

There is a tradition in Texas of people named Crockett making famous last stands. For Davey Crockett, it was at the Alamo, but the hill that Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, seems inclined to die on is stopping James Talarico, who beat her in the primary, from winning his Senate race. The famously sassy Crockett told The Dallas Morning News this week she has "no idea" when asked if she would support Talarico in November, saying she is focused on the down-ballot races. Crockett also declined an invitation to speak on Talarico’s behalf at the upcoming Texas Democratic Party Convention. In fact, she is just skipping the whole thing. On one hand, this refusal to play ball could just be the ire of a woman scorned, but even if that is so, there are a few reasons for Democrats to be worried about Crockett taking her endorsement and going home.

The first reason Crockett's refusal to endorse Talarico would hurt is that it takes away an important political weapon, specifically, the fact that long-serving GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who lost his party's primary, is also refusing to endorse the man who beat him, Ken Paxton. Talarico would love to slap on a smug smile and tell Texas voters, "Even John Cornyn, who is as Republican as it gets, won’t back my extreme opponent," or whatever. But if his own primary opponent, a sitting member of Congress, is snubbing him too, it just evens out. The deeper problem for the party that Crockett’s recalcitrance reveals is a growing worry among Black Democrats that their power in the party is being marginalized and diminished. In our deep blue cities, the Democratic Socialists of America are actively replacing old Black power within the party with immigrant candidates. The voters most aggressively fueling this shift are well-off, well-educated White people who always rank most progressive-leaning in polls.

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Microsoft and Chevron sign 20-year power deal For Texas data center

Chevron Corp. signed a 20-year deal with Microsoft Corp. to provide natural-gas fired power for a proposed West Texas data center, which could be one of the biggest in the US. Project Kilby, as the power plant is named, is expected to provide first power by 2028 and will ramp up to 2.67 gigawatts over time, Houston-based Chevron said. The oil giant, which is collaborating on the development with investment fund Engine No. 1, plans to make a final investment decision later this year. Bloomberg News previously reported the companies were in exclusive talks over a long-term power deal.

Microsoft is doubling down on building data centers as it competes with Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to expand in artificial intelligence. The longtime backer of ChatGPT maker OpenAI plans to double its data-center footprint over the next two years. The partnership with Chevron, one of the country’s biggest gas producers, is expected to supply the large-quantities of reliable power needed for AI’s energy-hungry models. Overall, the US is expected to double its data center capacity to 77 gigawatts by 2030, according to BloombergNEF. That is expected to put severe pressure on the power grid and is already raising costs for consumers, prompting political backlash around the US. Chevron’s plant will feed cheap gas from the Permian Basin, America’s biggest oil field, to several large GE Vernova Inc. turbines that will power a data-center campus that Microsoft plans to build on that site near the city of Pecos, Texas. The project will generate its own power, meaning it will not draw from the grid or involve a local utility, Jeff Gustavson, Chevron’s president of New Energies, said in an interview. “Consumers are concerned about and are already feeling the effect of power-demand growth,” he said. “We specifically designed this, in this part of the country, to avoid any of that.”

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Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Fed, dies at age 100

Alan Greenspan, who presided over the Federal Reserve for 19 years under four presidents and mastered the art of obfuscation known as Fedspeak, has died. He was 100. The influential economist died Monday from complications of Parkinson’s Disease, said his wife of 29 years, Andrea Mitchell, the chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News. Greenspan was appointed Fed chairman in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and held the position — through busts and booms — until retiring in 2006. His tenure was the second longest, four months short of that of William McChesney Martin, who presided over the central bank from 1951 to 1970.

In an apparent bid to avoid rocking the markets or not showing the Fed’s hand until it was time, Greenspan would cloak his utterances in language that left the sharpest minds — including those of contentious members of Congress — scratching their heads. “His long, convoluted sentences seem to take away at the end what they have given at the beginning as they flow to new levels of incomprehensibility,” The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward said in his 200 biography “Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom.” But it was his unusual frankness in one televised speech, on Dec. 5, 1996, that set off a bit of market madness. Discussing the challenges of setting monetary policy, he said: “How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? ... We should not underestimate or become complacent about the complexity of the interactions of asset markets and the economy.”

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GOP group confirms primary meddling

A Republican group seeded pop-up super PACs with $4.4 million last month to meddle in Democratic primaries. A new trove of FEC data reveals the fullest picture yet of the GOP’s efforts to choose its preferred Democratic opponent in key battleground seats.

Conservative Americans PAC funded Lead Left PAC and Real Change PAC, groups that played in Democratic primaries in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Maine and New Jersey. It also funded California Blue PAC, which meddled in a red-leaning seat in the Golden State. “Republicans are leveling the playing field after over a decade of Democrats meddling in our primaries,” Samantha Bullock, a spokesperson for the PAC, told us. “And with the Democrat Party in the midst of a civil war, Republicans would be stupid not to take advantage while pushing their candidates farther left.” The American Prosperity Alliance, a GOP-aligned nonprofit, funds Conservative Americans PAC. Democrats have been highly suspicious of Real Change PAC and Lead Left PAC, which initially took great effort to hide their leadership and partisan affiliations. But a few clues were pointing to Republican meddling. The group is now confirming the role it played. This effort has had some success. Conservative Americans PAC got its preferred candidates in Nebraska and Maine. But it’s not clear how decisive their spending was.

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State Stories

Travis County lawsuit could change Texas child welfare investigations

A Travis County judge is weighing a case that could force Texas to change how it labels parents accused of child neglect, potentially reshaping child abuse investigations statewide. The debate came from a lawsuit filed by Temecia and Rodney Jackson, parents from Dallas County, who had their third child, M.J., taken from them for nearly a month just days after she was born in 2023 following a home birth with a Texas-certified midwife. At the center of the case is a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services designation known as “unable to determine,” which allows the agency to conclude it cannot determine whether abuse or neglect occurred. Unlike more serious findings, the designation cannot be appealed, a policy that Jacksons argue is unconstitutional.

“Mrs. Jackson's decision to use a midwife for a home birth is one that should have been a beautiful experience that the agency essentially robbed her of,” said ACLU staff attorney Charelle Lett, who represents the Jacksons. “The distrust in this Black family to choose proper health care for their child is really disheartening, and the distrust in midwives who are trained and licensed by the state of Texas to do a job has also been disheartening.” The Jacksons, who opted for a home birth with a state-certified midwife, went to their pediatrician's office in the days after M.J.'s birth for a routine appointment. Dr. Anand Bhatt, the Jacksons' pediatrician of 12 years, called Temecia Jackson to tell her M.J.'s test results showed potential jaundice warning signs and to advise her to take M.J. to a hospital for monitoring. Temecia Jackson told Bhatt that she'd consult with her midwife and husband, and after doing so, she decided to pursue an alternate treatment plan at home. Temecia Jackson then laid down for a nap, according to court filings. As she slept, Bhatt called Temecia Jackson, whose phone was on silent. After she did not immediately respond to repeated calls from the doctor, he called the police to perform a welfare check the same night. Bhatt did not call Rodney Jackson. Police arrived, and after they left, the Jacksons called Bhatt to let him know they'd be following the advice of their midwife.

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Letitia Plummer says anti-Islam messaging from GOP is a distraction

Democrat Letitia Plummer is ready for the fight. At a time Republicans are ramping up anti-Islamic messaging, Plummer, a Democrat who could become the first Muslim woman to lead Harris County, said she’s not going to let the GOP use another culture war to divert focus from the real mission of tackling affordability and public safety. “It’s another distraction that I think Republicans are doing to divide us,” Plummer said in an exclusive interview on this week’s Texas Take Podcast.

At the Republican Party of Texas Convention last week in Houston, delegates held discussions about how to fight the “Islamification of Texas” and passed a legislative priority package that included “stopping Sharia law” in Texas. Sharia law is the religious, legal and moral code of Islam. But what it is and how it is defined varies. While in majority Muslim nations it can be part of the legal system, in places like the United States, Sharia is more commonly a set of moral and religious principles that guide people in prayer and diet. For the state's GOP delegates and Gov. Greg Abbott, the concept is a threat. “This next session, we need to leave no doubt by totally banning Sharia law,” Abbott said in a speech to the delegates. Plummer is concerned about where the rhetoric is heading. But said if she wins in November, she’ll try to find common ground where she can with GOP leaders for the sake of Harris County residents and the issues they are battling day to day. “When people are having culture wars, we’re bringing hope,” she said. “And when people are driving fear, we are driving with hope and ambition.” Plummer, a former Houston city council member, stunned many by defeating fellow Democrat and former Houston mayor Annise Parker in a primary runoff battle last month. She faces Republican Orlando Sanchez, former county treasurer, in November to see who will replace Lina Hidalgo as county judge. After two terms in office, Hidalgo is not seeking reelection. Plummer said she wants to be a new voice for Harris County and promises to mend fences with the city of Houston and Mayor John Whitmire. "I will be a different type of leader," she said. "I understand how to negotiate. I can find similarities and focus on those and work through our differences."

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Driver told deputies Tesla was on Autopilot during crash through Katy-area home, killing woman: HCSO

A 76-year-old woman was killed after a Tesla crashed through a home in the Katy area on Friday evening, authorities say. According to the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable's Office, the Tesla crashed into a home in the 21300 block of Rose Hollow Lane near Park Brush Lane at 8:30 p.m. The driver told investigators that he had the Tesla on Autopilot, according to the constable's office. "We're still evaluating what caused that car to fail to control its speed just before this crash," said Sgt. A. Turman. "We've asked people who are familiar with Teslas, as well as the driver involved in the car, to see what role the driver's control over the car played in this crash."

Officials said the driver of the Tesla was taken to the hospital by ambulance, and the older woman, who was inside the house, was taken by helicopter to Memorial Hermann. According to the Harris County Sheriff's Office, the woman was later pronounced dead. Neighbor Bryan Diaz said he and his family were outside celebrating a birthday party when the crash happened. "The kids were scared and my mom and my uncles," Diaz said. "It's insane what just happened, especially right in front of us." Diaz told Eyewitness News the Tesla appeared to be driving fast on the road before the vehicle failed to stop and struck the home. HCSO stated the driver failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway, and struck the house at a high rate of speed. Video obtained by Eyewitness News showed the car speeding along the street moments before the crash. "Just flew straight into their home and just happened so quick," Diaz said. Authorities said the investigation remains ongoing.

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“Mass euthanasias”: Screwworm could have deeper implications for Texas’ already-crowded animal shelters

After the New World screwworm was found in a dog in Texas, pet owners across the state worried how it might affect their animal companions. But the state’s uncontrollable stray animal population has the potential to make the spread of screwworm worse. And in some cases, animals in shelters could die as a result of this outbreak, without ever being touched by the screwworm. “They will do mass, mass, mass euthanasias if they aren’t allowed to move the animals out of the quarantine zones,” said Rebecca Giamona, assistant medical care director for Austin Pets Alive. “There could be thousands of animals dying in shelters because they don’t have the space to continue to cover those animals.”

For years, animal advocates across Texas have been raising awareness about the overcrowding in animal shelters all over the Lone Star state. According to Best Friends Animal Society, an animal welfare nonprofit, an estimated 568,325 cats and dogs entered Texas shelters. Then the New World screwworm burrowed its way to the U.S. The parasitic fly lays eggs in open wounds, which then turn into larvae that feast on the living flesh of warm-blooded animals. And it isn’t limited to cattle, livestock and wildlife — anything with a wound is at risk of attracting the fly. This includes cats, dogs and humans. Earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statewide disaster proclamation for all of Texas’ 254 counties in response to screwworm cases in the state. The parasitic fly has mostly infested livestock so far, but it was also caught in a dog. After a screwworm infested zone was established, the Texas Animal Health Commission put quarantine orders in parts of 13 counties: Coke, Edwards, Gillespie, Kerr, Kimble, La Salle, Schleicher, Sutton, Tom Green, Uvalde, Val Verde, Webb and Zavala.

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San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones supports canceling Ye’s July 4 concert at Alamodome

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones expressed her concerned opinions through social media on Saturday about the Alamodome hosting a Ye concert next month. The Grammy Award winning rapper, Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — has been involved in multiple controversial moments throughout his two decade career. The mayor made it clear she dislikes the idea of a city-funded stadium being used for his concert. “I support canceling the Ye concert,” Jones said on X. Jones also does not like San Antonio hosting Ye on the United States’ birthday, the Fourth of July. “Military City USA should not host someone with a record of hate speech and antisemitic comments in a city-funded facility like our Alamodome—not ever, and certainly not on July 4th, our Nation’s 250th birthday,” Jones continued on X. “Standing up to antisemitism is exactly what it takes to achieve a more perfect Union.” Ye was recently barred from entering the United Kingdom where he was scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in July, after a backlash over Ye’s history of antisemitic remarks, the Associated Press reported in April. KSAT has reached out to the Alamodome for a comment.

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Dallas City Council skipped budget talks as some members left for FIFA

City officials were supposed to talk about a $51 million shortfall in next year’s annual budget and how they were going to overcome it. Instead, they got a ride to the World Cup. Some council members went to Wednesday’s soccer match between Croatia and England, which started half an hour after the council voted 9-5 to authorize evaluation of relocation sites for City Hall and emergency operations, the Dallas Observer first reported. But what was not known was that council offices received an email with transit information exactly five minutes after the vote: “Please let your CMs know that if they wish to utilize provided transportation to today’s FIFA game at 3pm, there are two SUVs located on L1 Green,” read an email sent by a senior administrator in the mayor and city council office.

A city spokesperson said in a statement that city leaders often attended events in their official capacity to represent the city, "which is necessary to support diplomatic relations, economic development, opportunities, and key hospitality efforts." The spokesperson declined to offer specifics about the transportation provided by the city citing security reasons. The public meeting didn’t continue after that because not enough council members — nine — were present in person or online to conduct business. Council meetings and smaller committee meetings have been mired in lost time, cancellations and infighting. Elected officials go over a bulk of the city’s business during this time and when council members don’t show up or leave midway, pressure grows on how fast and efficiently the city can address resident needs. Council members Maxie Johnson, Kathy Stewart, Bill Roth, Cara Mendelsohn, Gay Donnell Willis and Paul Ridley were present in council. Council members Chad West and Laura Cadena tuned in virtually. Zarin Gracey told The Dallas Morning News he was at the game. Council members Jesse Moreno, Jaime Resendez, Adam Bazaldua, Lorie Blair and Mayor Eric Johnson did not respond to The News’ inquiry. Some blame the dynamics on the council. District 9 council member Paula Blackmon said she left the meeting when she saw others leave for the game because she was “emotionally whipped.” “I look at the council and it’s just a sad place to be,” she said about the barbs traded among the council. “I’m guilty of it too and I’m trying to be careful. But I’m going to court, suing my own city. It’s not fun.”

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In post-DEI era, Trump admin turns to San Antonio for more veteran-owned businesses

As President Donald Trump’s administration forces an end to race- and gender-conscious contracting preferences, governments at every level are ramping up their goals to award more contracts to veteran-owned businesses instead. There’s just one problem, however: finding enough veteran contractors who have the certifications to complete the work. Top officials from Trump’s Small Business Administration are now scrambling to fill the gaps as the federal government ramps up its own goals for small veteran-owned businesses — and could soon go even higher.

Beneath an arch of red, white and blue balloons on a sticky Friday morning, Trump’s SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler visited San Antonio to personally christen a new Veterans Business Outreach Center [VBOC] that her office is standing up at St. Philip’s College. The agency has long operated centers across the country that help mentor veterans as they start and grow their businesses, including one in the Rio Grande Valley and one in Arlington. But the San Antonio location is the first of its kind in response to rapid policy changes happening in federal government contracting. The city has one of the nation’s largest concentrations of veterans — as well as roughly 80,000 active-duty service members who could open businesses as they transition into civilian careers. SBA’s new center is designed to help them build and grow businesses that could compete for federal contracts under the same roof where the Texas Veterans Commission already has staff doing similar work for state contractors.

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The troubling disappearance of ‘El Gallito’

Ernesto Gonzales liked to hold court in the morning from a corner booth of El Rancho in Harlingen, a busy local eatery festooned with multicolored papel picado party banners—one of several spots he frequented after rising at dawn and reading the Bible. Between slurps of coffee—he drank it like water—and bites of breakfast taco, he would pause to finger his brushy, ample mustache and call out greetings. No one could predict from his deadpan expression whether the 62-year-old attorney might glance up to deliver a skewering remark, a sly joke, or, more rarely, a compliment. After decades of trail riding, running a solo law practice, and serving as mayor of the nearby town of Primera, Gonzales seemingly knew secrets about everyone, gleaned from his encyclopedic knowledge of the Rio Grande Valley and his voluminous divorce and criminal case files. He lived perpetually surrounded by friends—and by enemies. His flamboyant style verged on cantankerous.

As a young attorney, a judge noticed the flourishes of aggressive energy he deployed in court, earning him the moniker “El Gallito,” the Little Rooster. But in late middle age, the Rooster had strayed from his flock. He spoke infrequently to his only son, and never to his former wives, though he’d quietly made sure they’d benefit in the event of his death. In June 2017, he began to fight with two of his seven siblings over their mother’s treatment and medications. He soon filed related formal complaints against the home healthcare business run by his sister, a nurse, accusing her of patient abuse, neglect, and Medicaid fraud. (She denied all allegations.) A Primera patrolman was summoned to the family home on June 21 over an argument Gonzales began over whether his mother, Francisca, bedridden after suffering small strokes, needed emergency treatment. Over his loud objections, the ambulance was sent away. Gonzales later alleged his mother had been “unduly influenced by my siblings to say she did not want to go to the hospital though I have the power of attorney.” He blamed siblings, nieces, and their husbands when she died days later, executing a posthumous maneuver to exclude some from the list of pallbearers.

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Montgomery County on pace to see increase in murders for 2026

Montgomery County is on pace for a slight increase in murders in 2026, but law enforcement officials say that doesn’t indicate a growing threat to public safety. Since the beginning of the year, the county has recorded nine murders, including the recent shooting death of James Blount, 81, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office. “Based on the number of cases we have seen so far this year, we are currently on pace for approximately 21 murders in 2026,” District Attorney Mike Holley said. Homicides are when one person causes the death of another. Murder is a type of homicide that is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice.

The county recorded 17 murders in 2024 and 17 murders in 2025, according to the DA's office. Holley said one factor in the increase is population growth. Montgomery County has grown from around 620,000 people in 2020 to more than 800,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. “Given the continued growth and changing demographics of our county, such a figure would not be unexpected,” Holley said. Holley said murders committed by a stranger are rare. Of the 43 murders that have occurred in Montgomery County since Jan. 1, 2024, only two involved a suspect who was a stranger to the victim. In many counties, including Montgomery County, murders are commonly the result of family violence. Texas saw 240,925 family violence offenses in 2025, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Of those, 454 were murders. “Many murders involve family violence, often accompanied by the use of drugs or alcohol,” Holley said. “This is one reason why law enforcement and prosecutors in Montgomery County devote substantial resources to addressing family violence.”

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State Board of Education to vote on new curriculum emphasizing Texas, Christian themes

The Texas State Board of Education is voting this week on new curriculum that includes references to Christian texts and emphasizes Texas history. At its meeting in Austin, the 15-member board is expected to give final approval to changes to history, social studies and reading lists that every public school student in Texas child is taught. Advocates for the changes say they put Texas and Christianity in their proper perspective of their impact on U.S. history, as well as advocate for freedom and capitalism. Critics say the curriculum favors Christianity over other religions and includes inaccuracies.

“There's a concerted effort to teach history from a perspective that highlights Christian contributions and ignores others,” said Southern Methodist University religious studies professor Mark Chancey. “So Christian contributions to American society are emphasized but not those of other groups, other peoples.” The proposed curriculum would teach third-graders about Moses’ “contributions as a law-giver through the Ten Commandments,” and “how Christian beliefs … helped shape American ideas about equality, rights, and treating people with dignity.” The state board adopted the new social studies framework last year and worked on rewriting the standards earlier this year. A board-appointed academic adviser told SBOE the changes would “create an American and Texas identity.” Rocia Fierro-Perez, political director of the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network, said the same tenets are found in other religions. “To attribute these values exclusively to Christianity misrepresents the world and ignores the contributions of other beliefs that help shape American culture,” she said. The new curriculum would go into effect in 2030. Members of her organization plan to testify before the board this week before it takes the final vote. “Texans need to know what’s going on,” she said. “We would love to have a reasonable conversation with members, but that seems further and further away.”

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2 new screwworm cases detected in Edwards County over last 24 hours, USDA says

Three new cases of New World Screwworm were detected within 24 hours, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Sunday, bringing the total detections domestically up to 15. Two of the new cases were detected in Edwards County calves, the USDA said in a post on its Screwworm Rapid Response page, which were found in animals already inside the currently affected area. The USDA said the new Edwards County cases were anticipated, even with sterile fly dispersals underway, because it does not kill existing larvae but instead prevents future generations.

“Because a fly’s life cycle is an average of 21 days, it takes multiple reproductive cycles for populations to die off following sterile fly releases,” the USDA said. “As such, we may continue to see cases occur in already affected zones — a sign that our surveillance is working." Another case was detected in a lamb Saturday in Crockett County, Texas, which is west of the previously affected areas. The USDA said it plans to start sterile fly dispersal flights over Crockett County to combat cases in the newly infested zone. The Texas Animal Health Commission has a map of infested and adjacent surveillence zones on its website.

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National Stories

Staggering amounts of fentanyl hit streets as the DEA watched and took no action, records show

Even as it battled the deadliest drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to hit the streets of New Mexico between 2023 and 2025, according to three current and former DEA agents and government records reviewed by The Associated Press. DEA agents repeatedly monitored shipments of fentanyl pills — but did not seize them — as federal prosecutors sought to bring bigger criminal cases against traffickers of a synthetic opioid that the White House last year designated a “ weapon of mass destruction.” Agents and experts, however, said the tactic amounted to a gamble with public safety that potentially imperiled communities in and around Albuquerque and may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules intended to safeguard the public.

“We poisoned our community to make cases,” DEA Special Agent David Howell told AP in a series of interviews in New Mexico. “Through our own willful blindness, we get to say, ‘We don’t really know what happened to the drugs.’ But we 100% got people killed.” The DEA has long contended it would not be plausible to seize every shipment of every drug. But the strategy of allowing staggering amounts of counterfeit painkillers to hit the streets shocked several veteran agents who spoke with AP. Ridding the streets of illicit fentanyl, manufactured mostly in Mexican labs, became DEA’s top priority over the past decade as overdose deaths surged. At the same time, its lethality — a few milligrams can kill the average adult — upended time-tested tactics that had been used to combat drugs like cocaine and heroin.

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Keir Starmer says he will resign as prime minister; Andy Burnham expected to be next U.K. leader

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that he will resign, paving the way for the country’s seventh leader in a decade after facing an uprising within his center-left Labour Party. The announcement clears the path to power for Starmer’s likely successor, Andy Burnham, the popular ex-mayor of Greater Manchester who secured a return to Parliament last week. Burnham confirmed Monday, shortly after Starmer said he would stand aside, that he would seek to replace the departing leader. He is now the runaway favorite. Starmer said he had spoken to King Charles III to inform the monarch of his decision to stand down, but that he would remain in the job as caretaker until a new leader is chosen.

“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” Starmer said, as he spoke in front of supporters outside No. 10 Downing Street on a sweltering summer morning. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace,” he said. Starmer’s voice choked as he talked about the support of his wife, Victoria, and his two children — a rare public display of emotion for the prime minister. “Every decision I have taken has been about putting the country I love first,” Starmer said. “That is why I will resign.” Starmer said that nominations to replace him as leader of the Labour Party, and thus prime minister, will open on July 9 and close when Parliament breaks up for its summer recess on July 16. If no challenger emerges to Burnham he could be in office shortly after that. If there is a contest, Starmer said a new leader will be chosen by September 1. Starmer’s “decision marks the beginning of a transition and it is important that this process is conducted in an orderly and responsible way,” Burnham said in a statement. “I will put myself forward as part of this process.” One of the few people who had been expected to challenge Burnham, former health secretary Wes Streeting, said Monday that he would in fact back his leadership bid.

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Trump administration shuttered a criminal probe into fraudster’s clemency

President Trump’s political appointees quashed an early-stage criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding his clemency grant to a convicted fraudster, according to five people with knowledge of the events. The investigation, which has not been previously reported, had begun examining whether improper payments were made to help facilitate the commutation awarded to David Gentile, a private equity executive who was convicted in a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of mostly mom-and-pop investors, some of whom lost their retirement savings. The clemency grant freed Mr. Gentile last November less than two weeks into a seven-year prison sentence, and wiped away the possibility of forfeiting more than $15.5 million to the government.

Within a few months, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, where Mr. Gentile’s conviction had been secured, opened an investigation into how the commutation came about. Among the evidence they gathered was information about jailhouse communications in which Mr. Gentile discussed making payments of $2.5 million or more to people or companies to help facilitate his clemency, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation who were not authorized to discuss it. One of the people who came under scrutiny by investigators was the Rev. Frank Mann, a retired Catholic priest from Queens who is friends with Mr. Trump. In an email sent to The New York Times, Father Mann denied having anything to do with the clemency. But people with knowledge of the prison communications say that the priest corresponded with Mr. Gentile about lobbying the president on his behalf. By May, the investigation had come to an abrupt halt after The Times inquired about the matter with the White House and the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York, where the career prosecutors pursuing the inquiry worked. In a phone call with Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Aakash Singh, an associate deputy attorney general, expressed concern about the investigation, according to two people with an understanding of the sequence of events.

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A California man's case highlights gaps in care and oversight at DHS detention centers

Just about every Saturday, Ulises Parias drives two hours to visit his father, Carlitos Ricardo "Richard" Parias, at the Adelanto Detention Center in California. They talk on the phone regularly. Parias tells his father about his 16-year-old sister and about his college classes. Occasionally, his dad's health comes up: his left arm hurts and he gets headaches, fevers and blurry vision. It has been over eight months since Parias' father was shot by federal agents during an immigration enforcement arrest in Los Angeles. Immigration attorneys representing Parias allege he is not receiving adequate medical care, including pain medication and physical therapy, following an encounter with federal agents that resulted in Parias being shot near his left elbow.

"The last thing he told me was, have a good day at school. Then, like five minutes later, I heard some commotion outside," Parias, 20, said in an interview with NPR. "My heart stopped for a minute, and then I quickly went outside [to] the streets. And that's when I found my dad's car. The window was shattered." Attorneys for Parias have tried to secure his release from detention while his immigration case plays out. So far, that request has been denied. Parias' case, his attorneys say, is one that exemplifies the challenges facing many detainees in a judicial and detention system with limited resources and dwindling avenues for any recourse, including for people with no criminal record. This year brought increased scrutiny on federal law enforcement's use of force, after two federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, and on the conditions within immigration detention centers, including medical care amid some of the highest numbers of people in detention and of deaths of those in custody.

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Apple to work with Intel on US chip design and production, Trump says

President Donald Trump said Thursday that Apple has agreed to work with Intel on designing and producing chips in the U.S. "When I won my Second Term, it was clear America needed its Semiconductor Industry to come back to the U.S.A. We design everything, but we need to BUILD it here, NOW! So I decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America," Trump wrote on Truth Social. The partnership could help Apple diversify its manufacturing base as it looks for additional chip capacity. The tech giant relies heavily ?on the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which has advanced production ?lines in ?high demand from AI chipmakers such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel shares rose in premarket trading following the announcement from the president. "The Technology the World relies on was invented in America. We all remember 'Intel Inside.' Stupid Presidents took our Economy for granted, and let Taiwan and others steal our Semiconductor Factories," Trump said. Intel reportedly reached a preliminary agreement to make some chips for Apple after more than a year of talks. Apple and Intel have not publicly detailed which chips or products would be involved. An Apple contract would give Intel steady demand from a top consumer electronics company after its reputation and manufacturing business fell behind TSMC in recent years. Earlier this week, Intel announced that a new generation of its manufacturing technology, 18A-P, had entered initial production, as the chipmaker works to meet demand for advanced processors. The Trump administration took a roughly 10% stake in Intel last year and announced plans to invest billions of dollars in the chipmaker to build or expand factories in the U.S. Trump previously said he "should have asked for more" of a stake in Intel after the value of the federal government's Intel position rose sharply. "When was the last time a President made America money??" Trump wrote on Thursday. The administration has been boosting efforts to secure U.S. supply chains for critical minerals and semiconductors, including by taking equity stakes in companies as part of an effort to cut reliance on China.

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Why Trump has been attacking the Supreme Court, with 3 key rulings ahead

When Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch hosted a gathering of his former clerks last year, a prominent attorney and Donald Trump ally who had played a key role in Gorsuch’s rise was notably absent. Gorsuch had nicknamed his friend Mike Davis “the general” for helping him secure his first federal judgeship, leading a campaign to get Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court and then serving as one of his inaugural clerks. But the relationship soured last year as the Supreme Court began to rule on some of Trump’s policies, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

One recounted how Gorsuch became upset when Davis lashed out at Justice Amy Coney Barrett, calling her a “rattled law professor” for siding with the court’s liberals in a pair of rulings against Trump. The other said Davis was angered by Gorsuch’s vote to block Trump’s use of a wartime authority to deport Venezuelans. The people differed on whether Gorsuch had asked Davis not to come to his clerks’ gathering or he chose not to. Either way, the rift highlighted the growing conflict between Trump, his MAGA allies and the justices, which has burst more fully into public view in recent months. That turbulence makes for a tense backdrop in the waning days of the Supreme Court’s 2025-26 term, as the justices prepare to rule on three signature Trump initiatives: limiting birthright citizenship, firing the heads of independent agencies and reshaping the Federal Reserve. Many legal experts believe that the justices have signaled they will rule against Trump on two out of the three, blocking his bid to deny citizenship to those who were born to parents here illegally or lacking permanent residency, as well as his effort to remove a governor of the Fed board.

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Lead Stories

Texas Democrats seek unity at state convention without Jasmine Crocket

Texas Democrats will gather next week in Corpus Christi, seeking to project unity and build momentum behind state Rep. James Talarico's Senate campaign. One of the party's most recognizable stars won't be there. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, who lost a hard-fought Senate primary to Talarico in March, told The Dallas Morning News she does not plan to attend the state convention and instead is focusing on helping down-ballot candidates across the country.

Crockett also said she’s not sure whether Democrats, particularly Black voters, have united fully behind Talarico and the rest of the ticket. She said the lack of a Black nominee for major statewide office could dampen enthusiasm among some voters. “I've not heard a bunch of kumbaya,” she said. “People don't seem to be convinced at this point, but there's a lot of time between now and November.” Asked whether she would actively campaign for or with Talarico, Crockett said: “I have no idea. I am more focused on down-ballot races in general.” Crockett’s absence from the convention reflects a lingering divide between her and Talarico, who served together in the Texas House and became rivals during the hotly contested Senate race. He faces Republican Ken Paxton in November. She said she received what she described as an “afterthought invite” on June 8 from Talarico, based on the preview message on her cell phone. “I had a missed call that I've not returned, nor have I listened to the message from Talarico,” Crockett told The News. “It seemed like an afterthought invite. I can't say for sure, because I haven't listened to it.”

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Texas job growth climbs with 17,800 jobs added in May

Texas added more than 17,000 new jobs last month as the state continues to outpace the nation in growth. The state added 17,800 positions in May, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, bringing the total number of nonfarm jobs in the state to more than 14.4 million. Texas has added 98,000 new jobs in the last year, putting the state's growth rate at 0.7% since last May. The national growth rate in that time is just 0.3%. "The addition of more than 17,000 positions in May highlights the industriousness of Texas employers and expanding opportunities for Texas’ highly skilled workforce,” said TWC Chairman Joe Esparza in a statement. “Driven by our entrepreneurial spirit, Texas continues to outpace the nation in job growth, and TWC offers a wide variety of programs to maintain this momentum.”

The state's job growth is aided in part by the continued expansion of its labor force, which grew by 6,800 people last month. Texas's employment numbers so far this year reflect a bounceback from 2025, when political uncertainty, declining immigration and higher tariffs led to stagnant job growth in the state and nation, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The Dallas Fed expects year-over-year job growth of about 1.1% by the end of 2026, an improvement from last year but still "well below" the state's historical average of about 2%. The trade, transportation, and utilities industry led the state in job growth last month with 7,100 new jobs. The leisure and hospitality industry added 3,900 jobs, while the mining and logging field added 3,800. The construction industry posted the highest growth rate for the 22nd straight month, growing by 2.1% in May.

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Trump faces new hurdles after deal: Iran’s leverage, Israel’s attacks, MAGA’s backlash

President Donald Trump’s effort to strike a deal with Iran faced significant headwinds on Sunday, as Tehran flexed its control of the Strait of Hormuz, Israel and Hezbollah traded strikes and the right flank of Trump’s party continued to accuse him of making too many concessions to secure an agreement. The challenges underscored the difficulty of Trump’s task as he seeks to turn a fragile ceasefire into a lasting agreement after months of war sent energy prices skyrocketing. Ending the fighting addressed Trump’s immediate concerns about oil prices and the stock markets, but it left unresolved the question at the heart of the conflict: what limits, if any, Iran will accept on its nuclear program. Vice President JD Vance is set to meet Sunday with senior Iranian leaders in hopes of keeping Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump may have less leverage than he did during talks in February before the war. Then, Iranian leaders feared a U.S. attack could topple the regime.

Now the government has proved it can survive, even after the Feb. 28 killing of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump has made clear that a halt to oil shipping out of the Persian Gulf is a pressure point. And Tehran has shown that it can send shocks through global energy markets with just the threat of attacks on ships. Vance and other senior U.S. officials seeking a breakthrough at the bargaining table must haggle over the many issues Trump deferred to halt the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz — restoring what amounted to the status quo before the initial U.S. strikes on Feb. 28. The concessions the White House has already offered to get back to the bargaining table have become a central line of attack for Trump’s critics. Trump is no longer demanding regime change, despite promising Iranians that help was on the way. He says he understands why the country needs ballistic missiles, upsetting U.S. allies who feel threatened by those weapons. And he has made clear he wants to avoid anything that would derail the stock market’s upward trajectory.

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Vance and Iranian officials set to launch talks in Switzerland

U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Sunday is meeting with top Iranian officials as the White House looks to build out the interim deal to end the war in Iran reached by the two sides last week. Vance was expected to meet with Tehran’s negotiators, including parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, at a Swiss mountainside resort near Lake Lucerne. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar were also in the room for the direct engagement. Iran dealt two quick blows to the interim agreement with the United States on Saturday, angered by Israel’s continued attacks in Lebanon, saying it had closed the Strait of Hormuz and announcing that while its negotiators were going to Switzerland for talks, not much is likely to happen there.

Iranian officials appeared to avoid being seen during a brief appearance by Vance in front of reporters before the start of the talks. IRIB, the Iranian state broadcaster, announced the four-way talks had begun shortly after Vance delivered a statement to media and took a couple of questions from reporters. The U.S. side is looking to get Iran locked into negotiations over its nuclear program. But the on-again, off-again conflict in Lebanon, between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, continues to threaten to derail the effort for the U.S. to win concessions from Tehran on its nuclear program and keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Iran’s main focus during negotiations on Sunday would be the ongoing war between Israel and Lebanon, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Iran’s state news agency ahead of the meeting with Vance.

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Texas Senators Cruz, Cornyn express concerns over President Trump and VP Vance's Iran deal

After supporting President Trump's war against Iran, Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz said they're now concerned by the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran. Cruz questioned some of the provisions of the deal in remarks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol late last week. "History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea," said Cruz. "And I think, unfortunately, the president is receiving some really bad advice on this deal. I don't want to see us send a penny to the Ayatollah." Cornyn said he hadn't seen the MOU when asked about it Thursday. "I'm looking forward to seeing it, but everything I've heard about it causes me concern," he told reporters.

"I supported the President's Operation Epic Fury because I believe he has delayed the Iranian regime's ability to get a nuclear weapon, which is very, very important," Cornyn added. "But my hope would have been that he would have finished the job and basically eliminated that threat in the future." For their part, both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance — who led the negotiations with Iran — praised the deal. In France last week, the president told reporters, "Ending the current conflict, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. That's what it was all about." At the White House, Vance said, "The only way the Iranians get any of those resources, not a single penny by the way, from the United States of America under any circumstances, but the only way that they would ever get any benefit of the bargain is if they comply fully and change their behavior." Under the MOU, Iran will be given a way to have its economic sanctions lifted, the ability to sell its oil on the world market, and potentially receive hundreds of billions of dollars, but not from the U.S., to rebuild its country. Cruz said the regime shouldn't be allowed to receive the money no matter where it comes from.

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State Stories

How Gina Hinojosa is trying to convince 'MAGA moms' to turn on Greg Abbott

Gina Hinojosa’s recent campaign swing felt more like a public vent session than a conventional political tour. A teacher at her Richardson stop detailed his frustrations with his school district’s broken air conditioning and aging buildings. In Fort Worth, dozens of parents worried that the recent state takeover of the district would kickstart a staff exodus. Even in the wealthy suburbs, like Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, moms fretted about the recent closure of two elementary schools forcing larger class sizes. It’s this frustration about the state of public schools that the Austin Democrat is hoping to tap into as she takes on Gov. Greg Abbott, betting that she can galvanize parents across the political spectrum to reject the Republican's approach to education.

In stops through North Texas last week, Hinojosa roused loud cheers with her “day-one” promise to fire Mike Morath, Abbott’s education commissioner, who has overseen the adoption of controversial Christianity-infused textbooks and initiated the takeover of several large districts. She accused Abbott of diverting property taxes meant for public schools into his own “corruption schemes,” including his private school voucher program. “I am counting on that anger and that love for our public schools, from parents, Democratic moms, Republican moms, to be the difference in this election,” Hinojosa said at a stop in Grapevine. It’s the first time a candidate challenging Abbott has made education so central to the campaign, and Hinojosa may face an uphill climb. Josh Blank, a political scientist at the University of Texas-Austin, said his polling shows only one in five Texas voters has school-aged children. Even fewer named schools a top issue compared to concerns about inflation and immigration, he said. “There’s a certain limit to the salience of what is going on in schools,” Blank said. “For most voters, it’s just not of direct concern.” Last election cycle, Texas Democrats running for the Legislature campaigned against Abbott’s private school voucher plan, arguing it would sap much-needed funds from public schools. The message didn’t seem to land, as the party failed to flip any of their targeted seats. Still, Blank said the focus could help shore up hardcore supporters with direct ties to public education.

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Talarico calls for Paxon to release the 'Hoffman Files' in Adam Dean Hoffman case

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico held a press conference Thursday, June 18 outside the McLennan County Courthouse, demanding that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton release all emails, text messages, memos and internal documents related to the AG's office handling of the Adam Dean Hoffman case. The "Hoffman Files", as Talarico calls them, center around the plea deal that Paxton's Attorney General's Office gave Hoffman, which allowed him to serve only 29 days in jail after admitting to sexually abusing a child. Talarico calls the plea deal an "Epstein-style sweetheart deal" and says that Texans deserve more answers from Paxton on the case.

"We need answers to these questions immediately," Talarico said. "It's why today I am calling on Ken Paxton to release the Hoffman files, all text messages, all emails, all documents, all internal memos relating to the Adam Hoffman case. Those documents need to be made public immediately, so Texans can get answers." The Adam Dean Hoffman case is now becoming part of Texas' high-profile U.S. Senate race. The case started with Adam Dean Hoffman, a former Waco attorney, who accepted a plea deal in a child sex abuse case. The case was prosecuted by the Attorney General's office after the McLennan County District Attorney's Office recused itself. The request to release the "Hoffman Files" come after months of controversy surrounding that plea deal. After he was initially sentenced to 30 days in jail, a judge doubled Hoffman's sentence to 60 days following public backlash. He was released just 29 days into the sentence. Talarico believes that public pressure will lead to more transparency and answers from the AG's office.

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As independent candidates race to collect enough signatures, a national group is taking up their cause

Now that the Republican and Democratic primary runoffs are over, independent candidates are scrambling to qualify for the November ballot in Texas. Instead of paying a filing fee or appearing on the primary ballot like major party candidates, state law requires independent candidates to collect hundreds or even thousands of signatures to get on the ballot. The names can only be from people who didn’t vote in either party’s primary — and candidates only have a narrow window to find them. The collection process starts after the Republican and Democratic primaries are over their race, and must be submitted to the Secretary of State’s office by June 25. As of this week, one San Antonio-area congressional candidate who’s been preparing his campaign for nearly a year now said he’s quickly found the signature collection process to be all but impossible.

U.S. Air Force IT specialist Gerard Villalobos planned to run as an independent in U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro‘s (D-San Antonio) 20th Congressional District, and even bought a digital billboard to help get his name out. “I have been trying hard [for] the past two months … my platform is sincere,” he said Monday. “Unfortunately, per the Texas Legislature, I can only move forward after I have 500 signatures validated … and I doubt I reach that number.” Several other Bexar County candidates are also hustling to meet the deadline. Defense attorney Jason Wolff is waging an independent bid for District Attorney, while Jonathan LaFevers is trying to get on the ballot in the hotly contested Texas House District 121 race. Each must collect 500 signatures before the end of next week, while Mike Collier, who is running as an independent candidate for lieutenant governor in Texas, needs more than 80,000 for his statewide race. This week all of Texas’ independent hopefuls got a boost from a national group trying to build a third political party in the U.S. —which is suing the state over its signature requirements.

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Supreme Court of Texas denies appeal in case challenging Harris County’s 2024 elections conduct

The Supreme Court of Texas announced Friday that it would not hear an appeal on behalf of conservative activist and Republican megadonor Steven Hotze, in a suit in which he and three other plaintiffs accused the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector's Office of failing to uphold election integrity by properly maintaining the county's voter registration roll. An appeals court had earlier ruled in favor of Tax Assessor-Collector Annette Ramirez, on the grounds that Hotze and his fellow plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.

Hotze initially filed the lawsuit in mid-October 2024, just weeks ahead of that year's presidential election. Joining him in the suit against then-Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett were Joseph Trahan, a Republican nominee for Texas State Senate District 15, and Caroline Kane, a Republican running for Congressional District 7 of the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller later joined the suit as a fourth plaintiff. Hotze alleged Harris County's voter roll was "bloated" by "tens of thousands" of illegal voters, who he expected would vote for Democratic candidates. By allowing this, Hotze argued, Bennett had violated the Texas Election Code. Hotze demanded that the alleged illegal voters be removed from the county’s voter roll. The lawsuit asserted that the registration roll includes voters "who have moved out of Harris County, voters who have died, voters who are felons, voters who have registered at post office or private mail boxes with commercial mail receiving agencies, scores of voters who are not related to each other but have registered at the same address, voters who have registered at a commercial address and do not reside there and voters who claim to live on vacant [properties]."

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Texas tribe to open state's fourth tribal casino

Shovels broke ground and dirt flew on a 95-acre patch of land belonging to the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas — a historic moment that commemorated the start of construction on the state’s fourth tribal casino. “It’s been a long way, baby,’’ Alabama-Coushatta Vice-Chairwoman Nita Battise, who was among a line-up of tribal members and casino employees who held shovels to mark the official groundbreaking on Thursday in Leggett. “Keep in mind, we had all these obstacles going against us,” Battise said. “But we are reminded that we are resilient people and we will move forward and this is what we did.”

When completed in 2028, the new casino resort will house a 685,000-square -foot resort casino with a large gaming floor that includes 3,400 electronic gaming machines, a multi-story 366-room hotel, a resort-style pool complex and an event and conference center. The event and conference area are expected to include a grand ballroom that will accommodate 1,000 guests and will be designed to attract conferences, special events and group gatherings from across the region, tribal officials said. For years, Texas leaders had blocked efforts by the Alabama-Coushatta to open a casino on its 11,000-acre reservation in Livingston, roughly 73 miles northeast of Houston in deep east Texas. That all changed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not impose its regulations on reservation gaming, which is overseen by the federal government.

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Nonprofit organization serves more than 9,000 NBISD students in 2025-26 school year

Communities in Schools of South Central Texas, or CISSCT, a nonprofit organization working to support students at risk of dropping out, served 9,607 New Braunfels ISD students in the 2025-26 school year, according to preliminary data presented by CISSCT CEO Susan Wetz during a June 15 school board meeting. x Approximately 923 students received continuous intensive services, and 2,405 students received targeted services for additional support ranging from food, school supplies and resources for parents to ongoing individual and small group services. There were 9,607 students who received schoolwide prevention services, according to the presentation. CISSCT provided 985 students with attendance-related services. Of those, 53 students received rides to or from school for a total of 258 trips, according to board documents.

The organization also provides mental health and counseling services through site coordinators and clinical counselors. Site coordinators provide daily interventions, referrals, parent consultations, individual and group counseling as well as suicidal ideation and self-harm interventions. Clinical counselors provide intensive, solution-focused therapy to students experiencing anxiety, depression, self-harming behaviors or suicidal ideation, the presentation stated. Site coordinators served 864 students, and clinical counselors provided 83 students with therapeutic counseling, according to the presentation. “Those therapeutic and preventions are all grant-funded; that cost is not passed onto the school district,” Wetz said. “In addition to that, we helped students with five suicide protocols, and it is decreasing every year, which makes me very happy, but there’s still work to do.” Hispanic students make up the largest demographic served by CISSCT, followed by white students and Black or African American students. The organization is in 60 schools across several districts, including: Luling ISD, Marion ISD, Comal ISD, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD, Seguin ISD, and Navarro ISD.

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Principal reassigned over social media posts sues Fort Worth ISD

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Fort Worth principal who was reassigned after backlash over old social media posts about the Black Lives Matter movement and Sharia law, the organization said in a news release Friday. Shayma Alzubi is suing the Fort Worth Independent School District for allegedly violating her First Amendment and equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution, according to the complaint. The 15-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in Tarrant County. “This is the clearest violation of the First Amendment our organization has seen all year,” CAIR attorney Gadeir Abbas said in the release. “We call on the school district to realize the unlawful path it’s walking down, change course, and return our client to her school.”

Alzubi was announced as the incoming principal of Western Hills High School on May 22, but Fort Worth ISD officials said four days later that the Muslim educator had been reassigned to another position. According to the district’s statement, officials had become aware of several social media posts by Alzubi that didn’t align with the district’s policies or expectations. The lawsuit alleges that Alzubi’s reassignment was really due to “the demands of online hecklers.” “School officials made the decision to punish the incoming principal because some people online were upset,” the lawsuit states. “But those people were upset not at what Shayma said or how she said it. The online hecklers were upset that Plaintiff was Palestinian and Muslim.” Alzubi has worked in the district in various capacities, including chemistry teacher and assistant principal, since 2013. She was promoted to the role of principal for the 2026-27 school year, and was supposed to have started her official duties at Western Hills on June 1, according to the complaint.

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3 men have now died in Tarrant County Jail custody this week. A family demands answers

Three men have died in Tarrant County Jail custody within four days this week — raising serious concerns for at least one family, a county commissioner and several community members. Mack Greer, 46, was pronounced dead Thursday afternoon at John Peter Smith Hospital after he suffered internal bleeding in his brain, his parents told KERA News Friday. "We don't deserve this pain," Lea Hurd, Greer's mother, said through tears. "Our children are supposed to bury us. We're not supposed to bury our children because of somebody else." Hurd said she received a call from the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office early Wednesday morning that her son was in the hospital, but wasn't given details on his condition or what happened prior.

She and her husband arrived at the hospital shortly after but weren't able to see Greer until hours later when he was already brain dead, Hurd said. While at the hospital, an officer told Greer's parents their son had asked for a blanket and was found slumped over and unresponsive when a guard returned to give him one. Hurd said the officer told them he may have intentionally banged his head against the wall to have caused the bleeding in his brain. His parents don’t believe the story. "Mack was scared of pain," Hurd said. "Mack didn't hurt nobody, and he sure wouldn't hurt himself." Joseph Hurd, Greer's father, said there were multiple bumps on his head when he saw him. "I just want to know the truth, and what they're saying that happened is not the truth," he said. His parents also said it's not possible he had an altercation with another inmate as he had been moved to a psychiatric hold by himself, suffering from depression and bipolar disorder.

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Texas homeowners face nation’s highest home insurance costs

Texas homeowners continue to face some of the highest home insurance costs in the nation, with average annual premiums nearing $4,000. The state ranks fifth nationwide for these high costs, according to a recent report from LendingTree. The average annual home insurance premium in Texas is $3,969, which is 65.7% above the national average of $2,395. This comes despite a minimal 0.6% increase in 2025, which was the third-smallest increase in the nation for that year. However, home insurance rates in Texas have risen 55.9% since 2020. Lindsay Bishop, a home insurance expert at LendingTree, highlighted the ongoing financial impact on residents. “While rate growth has slowed in Texas recently, homeowners are still paying substantially more for coverage than they were just a few years ago,” Bishop said. She added, “The affordability challenges created by years of steep increases don’t disappear simply because annual rate hikes begin to moderate.”

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Gov. Abbott, don’t ditch Texas’ open primaries

Every time we think our politics couldn’t get any bleaker, the Texas GOP says, “hold my beer.” The Republican Party has a stranglehold on state government, from the statehouse to the Supreme Court to the governor’s office. But the party won’t be satisfied with controlling every branch; it must also control every member. Even good-faith disagreement within the ranks won’t be tolerated, as conservative lawmakers who opposed Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher plan found out the hard way when Abbott teed up opponents to oust them in the 2024 primary.

Those electoral victories didn’t satiate the governor’s need for party purity. At the state party’s convention in Houston this month, Abbott indicated that he would support a push to close primaries in Texas, the Texas Tribune reported. That means forcing Texans to officially affiliate with a party instead of letting them choose their primary every two years. We criticized the Texas GOP last fall for filing a lawsuit to stop the Texas secretary of state from enforcing the state’s open primaries. Our illustrious Attorney General Ken Paxton, who will go to bat for party leaders but not the state agencies he has a duty to defend in court, filed a motion with the Texas GOP asking to toss open primaries. The whole thing came across as a foolish stunt. Party leaders had tried and failed to get state lawmakers to end open primaries during the 2025 legislative session. Secretary of State Jane Nelson, an Abbott appointee, defended her office against the lawsuit — and did so gingerly.

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Pete McCanna: My father’s final years showed me our healthcare system must be rebuilt

(Pete McCanna is CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health.) For much of my adult life, my father and I talked on Sundays at 3 p.m. We talked about family, work and his beloved Green Bay Packers. But in his final years, as Parkinson’s took more from him, our conversations became less about football and more about medications, appointments, symptoms and frustrations. My father did not complain often, so when he did, I listened. I began to hear more about the suffering, not just from his disease, but from conflicting healthcare instructions, lingering questions and incomplete handoffs. My siblings and I, many of us from afar, filled those gaps the best we could. We compared notes and tried to help manage the care. When I traveled back to visit him, I took my dad to as many appointments as I could. One of the most painful visits began the way so many do — with a clipboard and forms. Parkinson's had made it hard for him to hold a pencil steady, and I will never forget the frustration and embarrassment on his face that day. Watching him struggle made it impossible to ignore how many healthcare processes are designed around the system's needs rather than the people it should serve.

I spent 40 years in this industry focused on optimizing organizations to perform. I believed strong systems produced better outcomes for patients, and I still do. Healthcare requires disciplined structures, focus on quality and precise execution. But the experiences with my father and our Sunday conversations near the end of his life made clear to me the central flaws in American healthcare — and my own complicity in them. American healthcare is often extraordinary when there is a serious and urgent condition and people know where to go. But most needs do not require an emergency room, hospital stay or complex procedure. Today, most patients seeking care in our ERs can likely be treated outside of a hospitals’ walls. That requires more care options and effective, accessible navigation assistance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3 out of every 4 American adults live with at least one chronic condition, like my dad did. They are largely left to manage their care themselves and seek emergency care when that fails. Fixing this requires timely, reliable clinical support between appointments, including monitoring, a care plan and medication coordination. We also know the onset of most chronic diseases could be delayed or avoided in the first place. We should focus as much on proactive prevention, education and timely guidance as we do episodic care.

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How North Dakota could overtake Texas and Florida as the most tax-friendly state

Texas and Florida usually come to mind when Americans think of tax-friendly states. But another deep red enclave has quietly joined the club: North Dakota. Tax cuts, strong finances and billions in oil revenue have combined to create one of the nation's most competitive tax environments while other states grapple with budget shortfalls and debates over tax hikes. The issue is likely to remain front and center for governors and state lawmakers as they look to attract residents, businesses and investment in the years ahead, and amid a growing affordability crisis in the United States.

Most states do not sit atop one of the nation's largest oil formations like North Dakota does, but tax experts say the broader lesson to take from the state is applicable almost anywhere — strong revenues can lower tax burdens and strengthen state finances rather than fuel spending increases. The payoff for North Dakota has been straightforward — residents keep more of what they earn, businesses face fewer tax burdens and the government remains on solid financial footing. And while tax policy is only one piece of the equation, Nicole Fox, senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation told Fox News Digital that the group's analysis of IRS migration data points to a clear trend. "States that have experienced net in-migration are states with more competitive tax structures and lower overall costs of living," Fox said. While North Dakota ranks second in tax collections per capita, it remains one of the country's more tax-friendly states — a welcome contradiction for the state's government and residents.

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National Stories

Mamdani burns allies in making a big bet for Congress and the Left

A year ago this week, Zohran Mamdani’s surprise victory in the Democratic primary for mayor upended New York politics. Now, in the closing days of another primary season, he has thrown himself back onto the campaign trail, this time risking his political capital in a high-stakes bid to catapult fellow leftists to primary victories against the old Democratic guard. Mr. Mamdani and allies are attempting to unseat two Democratic incumbents, Representatives Daniel Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, whom they view as too friendly to corporate donors and Israel. They want to lay claim to a third House seat. And down the ballot, they have designs on expanding the socialist block in Albany.

If he prevails on Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani, 34, will go a long way toward establishing socialists as a major faction in New York City politics and himself as a kingmaker capable of vaulting relatively unknown candidates to victory and sidelining erstwhile power brokers. But a string of losses could be disastrous, weakening the mayor’s political standing just six months into his term, empowering political opponents and creating new ones. His involvement has already alienated Black and Latino progressives, powerful labor unions and the left-leaning Working Families Party, all of which helped him get to City Hall and partnered with him as mayor. Some, like Representative Nydia Velázquez, have taken the rare step of publicly declaring they have lost trust in him. “I have a pit in my stomach because of secondhand anxiety,” said Michael Lange, an elections analyst and fellow democratic socialist who rose to prominence chronicling Mr. Mamdani’s ascent. “This is a way to remake the Democratic Party,” he said. “But if he loses, the knives would be out. They would be really out. The risk is that they’ll say this is more man than movement.”

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UK's Starmer considers political future, could decide as early as Monday

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was considering his ?political future on Sunday, after rival Andy Burnham's decisive election victory to parliament prompted more ministers in the governing Labour ?Party to call for him to go. Struggling with some of the lowest popularity ratings for any British leader, Starmer could decide as soon as Monday whether to step aside or fight a leadership contest against Burnham, one source said. Get a look at the day ahead in European and global markets with the Morning Bid Europe newsletter. Sign up here. The scale of victory Burnham won for a parliamentary seat in northwestern England on Friday has piled ?pressure on Starmer, with dozens of lawmakers and some ministers privately calling for him to set out a timetable for his ?departure to clear the way for the former mayor.

A source with knowledge of the matter said Starmer was ?spending the weekend thinking about and discussing his position with his family but that an expected conversation with Burnham would clarify matters. "Keir likes ?to think about things," the source said. Starmer's unpopularity was laid bare by Labour's heavy losses in local elections in May, and polls of party members ?indicate Burnham would win a formal leadership contest. Should Burnham take the helm, he would become Britain's seventh prime minister in the past 10 years. Sky News reported that it understood foreign minister Yvette Cooper had called on Starmer to stand down in a private conservation over the weekend. Her spokesperson did not ?immediately respond to a request for comment. Her apparent appeal, alongside other ministers and dozens of lawmakers, increased the sense that it was now ?a case of when, rather than if, Starmer would step aside. Starmer said only a few days ago that he would stand in any formal Labour leadership contest ?that sought ?to replace him. While Starmer's team believes his landslide national election win in 2024 gives him the mandate to stay in post until 2029, business minister Peter Kyle said the prime minister was reflecting on the "the political challenges that he faces in this moment".

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Why Richard Nixon has suddenly gone viral

He’s tanned, rested and ready — and he’s been dead for 32 years. Amazingly, Richard Nixon, the most nefarious American political personality of the 1970s, appears to be making a comeback, at least online. It’s being called Nixonmaxxing, and it involves a series of slickly edited social media videos that cut archival Nixon footage to rap tracks and turn the 37th president into the sort of stone-cold, sigma male-style antihero that Gen Z bros can’t get enough of these days. As it turns out, the videos are the work of the Richard Nixon Foundation, a Yorba Linda, California-based nonprofit founded in 1983 — by Nixon himself — that has long been dedicated to protecting Tricky Dick’s public image. Which they’ve now apparently decided should look something like Walton Goggins in a Tarantino pic.

Of course, Nixon has never fully disappeared from the pop culture ether. Over the decades, he’s popped up as a head-in-a-bottle on Futurama, had a whole story arc on HBO’s Watchmen, appeared on rubber masks during a bank robbery in Point Break and most recently turned up in Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, where he’s shown giving a tour of dead alien bodies at a secret government base — a nod to a bonkers bit of UFO lore in which Nixon supposedly took his golfing pal Jackie Gleason to an Air Force base in Florida to show off top secret E.T. corpses. Still, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: The Nixon Foundation videos — which include snippets of EsDeeKid’s “Rottweiler” and BIA’s “We on Go,” as well as a clip of Mad Men’s Don Draper throwing his support behind RMN (“Kennedy? I see a silver spoon. Nixon? I see myself”) — are a whole other thing, more posthumous political rehabilitation than nose-tweaking satire. And they appear to be working: The foundation’s Insta account has 107,000 followers, while its most popular video has 1.4?million views. As for who’s behind the audacious social campaign? The foundation credits its marketing team for “meeting new audiences where they are” — but it’s also known that its 33-year-old CEO, Jim Byron, who started at the organization as a 14-year-old marketing intern, is back at the job after taking 14 months off to serve as President Trump’s guy at the National Archives. We’re going to guess he’s the one to blame, or credit, depending on whether you agree with Don Draper or not.

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Trump doubles down on feud with Italian Prime Minister Meloni, insisting she asked for G7 photo

US President Donald Trump deepened his feud with Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni on Saturday, doubling down on claims that she insisted on a photo with him at the G7 summit in France this week. “Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France,” Trump wrote on social media of a leader who has been a key European ally. He claimed that Meloni’s popularity was plummeting, suggesting it was a result of her refusing to help the US in its conflict against Iran. But the Italian leader was quick to rebuff Trump’s declarations, suggesting his argument was nonsense and advising the president to direct his attention toward his own popularity rather than hers.

“President Trump, these constant and gratuitous attacks are senseless,” Meloni wrote on Facebook later Saturday. She added that her friendship with the US leader has never contributed to her popularity, as the president claimed. The right-wing leader said her popularity endures because of her “ability to defend Italy’s national interests,” which, she said, is why she denied the US access to Italian military bases earlier this year. “In any case, my popularity is none of your concern,” Meloni added. “I’d suggest you focus on yours.” The spat is the latest dip in the deteriorating relationship between the once-close leaders and a further fracture between the US and its European allies, coming after tentative signs of repair at the G7 summit this week in France. Trump’s remarks come after Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced Friday he was canceling a planned trip to the United States, where he was due to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the heated exchange. The two were snapped during the summit, but the spat began when, in an interview with Italy’s La7 TV this week, Trump claimed Meloni had “begged” him for a photo, and he obliged because he felt sorry for her, according to a dubbed Italian translation posted by the outlet.

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Trump likely to drain Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool again, following peeling paint and algae

President Donald Trump said Saturday night that he was likely to drain the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool again, as workers contend with paint peeling off its surface and algae blooming in the wake of his $14 million effort to resurface it. The president made his announcement, after what he said was a meeting with contractors while he was at Camp David in Maryland for the weekend. It comes 16 days after the government began refilling the pool following a renovation that Trump had said would result in clean water and “could last for 100 years.” Since pieces of peeling paint started floating to the water’s surface earlier this week, the Interior Department has not responded to questions about the paint and why the pool surface is separating.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that it is treating the pool with hydrogen peroxide and “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to limit the spread of algae. “We met with contractors today, will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs, but will have them done as quickly as possible,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Saturday evening. The president spent the weekend at Camp David with senior advisers, as Iran said it has once again closed the Strait of Hormuz, testing the fragile ceasefire in place with the United States. Trump blamed the damage on “disgraceful Vandalism,” an accusation he also made earlier this week. “Many additional people” were arrested, he said. The U.S. Park Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the number of arrests. The Park Police patrolling the Lincoln Memorial area on Friday afternoon observed an individual peeling paint from the pool, a spokesperson for the department said via email. The person was arrested on charges of destruction of government property.

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Kennedy Center says tarp will stay in place for maintenance after Trump's name was removed

A tarp covering the area where President Donald Trump's name was removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remained in place Friday. According to a Kennedy Center official, the tarp will remain while crews address maintenance needs involving marble and soffit panels. Officials did not specify why the covering was installed. The issue drew renewed attention Friday after the Kennedy Center filed a court-ordered status report outlining plans for the facility amid an ongoing legal dispute over a proposed closure. The center was directed to explain why a full two-year closure may be necessary.

In its filing, the Kennedy Center said it intended to remain open beyond a previously discussed July 5 closure date and was evaluating several options, including a possible full closure, for the board to consider during a vote expected in mid-July. Attorneys representing Rep. Joyce Beatty argued in court filings that Kennedy Center leadership was failing to properly manage the institution and accused officials of using the tarp to shield conditions at the facility from public scrutiny. The dispute follows months of debate over the condition of the building after Kennedy Center Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Matt Floca publicly highlighted what he described as extensive water damage and maintenance concerns during a tour of the facility. Critics, including former Kennedy Center volunteers and arts advocates, have challenged those characterizations, arguing the center's maintenance issues do not justify a prolonged closure and warned any extended shutdown could disrupt programming and discourage audiences from returning. Demonstrators gathered outside the center Friday evening to protest the proposed closure and broader changes at the institution, saying they plan to continue their efforts as the board weighs its options. The Kennedy Center's board is expected to consider potential next steps, including whether any temporary or long-term closure is necessary, during a meeting next month.

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Lead Stories

Texas Democrats seek unity at state convention without Jasmine Crocket

Texas Democrats will gather next week in Corpus Christi, seeking to project unity and build momentum behind state Rep. James Talarico's Senate campaign. One of the party's most recognizable stars won't be there. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, who lost a hard-fought Senate primary to Talarico in March, told The Dallas Morning News she does not plan to attend the state convention and instead is focusing on helping down-ballot candidates across the country. Crockett also said she’s not sure whether Democrats, particularly Black voters, have united fully behind Talarico and the rest of the ticket. She said the lack of a Black nominee for major statewide office could dampen enthusiasm among some voters.

“I've not heard a bunch of kumbaya,” she said. “People don't seem to be convinced at this point, but there's a lot of time between now and November.” Asked whether she would actively support Talarico's campaign, Crockett said: “I have no idea. I am more focused on down-ballot races in general.” Crockett’s absence from the convention reflects a lingering divide between her and Talarico, who served together in the Texas House and became rivals during the hotly contested Senate race. He faces Republican Ken Paxton in November. She said she received what she described as an “afterthought invite” on June 8 from Talarico, based on the preview message on her cell phone. “I had a missed call that I've not returned, nor have I listened to the message from Talarico,” Crockett told The News. “It seemed like an afterthought invite. I can't say for sure, because I haven't listened to it.” According to Talarico’s campaign, he called Crockett and left a message suggesting she make the keynote speech at the convention. In a statement to The News, Talarico said that “Texans are coming together…to do something extraordinary.”

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Hormuz relief may not ease the economic toll that's already 'baked in,' analysts warn

Early signs that the Strait of Hormuz is reopening have eased the most acute threat to global energy supplies, but economic damages from the nearly four months of war will take months to unwind, analysts warned. The U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum Thursday to open the Strait of Hormuz, ending a war that has upended global energy supply chains, pushed inflation higher and dented the outlook for growth. But even if shipping through the strait normalizes, higher inflation has already been largely “baked in” across many economies, Simon MacAdam, deputy chief global economist at Capital Economics, said in a note this week.

“It can take many months for higher energy and fertiliser prices to be passed along food supply chains to end-consumers,” MacAdam said. Prices of natural gas piped to households typically lag the upstream market by around three months, he said. Oil prices retreated to around $80 a barrel on Friday, down from a peak of $118 in March when the war was at its height. Goldman Sachs cut its oil price forecast Tuesday, projecting Brent to average $80 in late 2026 and $75 in 2027, citing a faster-than-expected recovery in Persian Gulf crude flows. Higher energy costs and upstream supply disruptions would take longer to feed through to the downstream food and energy sectors. A backlog of vessels waiting to transit the Strait of Hormuz could further delay a full recovery in freight flows. The World Bank, which last week lowered its global economic growth forecast to 2.5%, the slowest pace since the pandemic, expects global inflation to climb to 4% this year, up from 3.3% in 2025, even if disruptions to oil flows ease in the coming weeks. Fertilizer prices could jump as much as 38% this year as supply disruptions and shortages of key inputs from the Gulf ripple through agricultural markets, it said.

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Report heading to Texas leaders cites Camp Mystic emergency planning failures before 2025 flood

No written emergency plans. Stalled evacuations. Chaotic incident management and re-unification efforts. Those were some of the main findings included in a new investigative report on Camp Mystic’s response to last year’s historic July Fourth flood that killed 25 of its campers and two counselors. The 115-page document, which was adopted Thursday by a special joint committee in the Texas Legislature, paints a troubling picture of Camp Mystic’s preparedness prior to the flood. “This report represents months of careful work by the Senate and House General Investigative Committees to establish a complete and factual record of the events surrounding this tragedy, honor the memories of those that were lost, and identify lessons that can help prevent future loss of life,” said state Sen. Pete Flores (R-Pleasanton), a committee chair.

More than 130 people were killed in the July Fourth floods. The majority of those deaths took place in Kerr County in the Texas Hill Country, where Camp Mystic is one of many popular summer camps lining the banks of the Guadalupe River. Now, lawmakers say the report’s findings will be used to guide policy changes for the Texas Legislature to take up when they reconvene in 2027. This move comes after state lawmakers passed a package of bills during a special session last year aimed at improving youth camp safety and boosting the state’s emergency preparedness and response planning. State Sen. Charles Perry (R-San Angelo), told the panel on Thursday that he believes a good portion of the issues cited in the new report on Camp Mystic were already addressed by that legislation, and that he believes only a few tweaks are needed going forward. “What I don't want to do is have to effectively bring back the hurt that comes with these conversations if we've already addressed it the way it needs to be addressed — to the legislature's credit,” said Perry. The report was created by Casey Garrett and Judge Michael Massengale, investigators hired by the legislature to look into the flood and its response — including what went wrong at Camp Mystic.

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Paxton breaks with Texas GOP’s anti-IVF platform, saying he supports the procedure

Attorney General and Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton broke with his state party’s opposition to in-vitro fertilization Thursday, calling himself a “strong supporter” of the fertility treatment. “Strong families are the foundation of a strong nation,” Paxton said in a statement shared exclusively with The Texas Tribune. “Every child is a blessing, and every family hoping to welcome a child deserves support and compassion. I am a strong supporter of IVF and pro-family policies that help Americans experience the wonders of parenthood.” Paxton’s support puts him in the same camp as President Donald Trump, but on the opposite side of the issue as the Republican Party of Texas. The state party, in a platform and legislative priorities adopted last weekend at its Houston convention, called on lawmakers to “protect fetal life from destructive practices, such as IVF and commercial surrogacy.”

Another plank of the state GOP platform states that the party opposes “public funding for procedures that destroy embryonic life, including IVF”, and called for regulation to prevent “embryo discarding, eugenic practices and commodification of human life.” But Paxton’s campaign said he would work to safeguard IVF if elected to the U.S. Senate. The Republican nominee supports the IVF Protection Act, a bill from Sens. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to bar Medicaid funding for any state that bans IVF. Paxton will cosponsor the bill if elected. Paxton had taken heat from Democratic nominee James Talarico’s campaign over the Texas GOP’s stated opposition to IVF. Polling on IVF finds the treatment to be highly popular; a 2024 Pew Research Center survey found 70% of Americans say access to IVF is a good thing, while only 8% say it’s bad. But while high-level Republicans, including President Donald Trump, are supportive of IVF, the treatment is divisive among conservative activists and abortion opponents. The fertility treatment was thrust into the political spotlight in 2024 when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children, under a state law extending rights to “unborn children,” and that fertility clinics could be found liable for wrongful death if embryos are destroyed. The ruling immediately chilled IVF access in the state, with several providers pausing treatments. Top Republicans came out in support of IVF, including then-candidate Trump, and Alabama’s Republican Legislature quickly passed a law shielding IVF providers and patients from civil and criminal liability for embryo destruction, allowing the state’s clinics to resume fertility treatments.

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State Stories

Public Utility Commission of Texas finalizes new data center standards

The Public Utility Commission of Texas on Thursday approved stricter standards for data centers looking to connect to the state's power grid — the final step in the development of new regulations meant to weed out speculative projects. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the state's main power grid, approved the new standards earlier this month, before passing them onto the Public Utility Commission for final approval. When large energy consumers want to join the state's power grid, ERCOT will now evaluate them in a group study, rather than individually. ERCOT says it will notify applicants for the first study, known as “Batch Zero,” in August.

The study will prioritize projects that are further along in the development process, and require large energy users to post a financial security equal to $50,000 per megawatt of the proposed project in order to be included. "This new process represents a fundamental shift in how ERCOT manages the significant growth of large load interconnection, providing a structured, transparent path forward that protects reliability for Texans while supporting the state’s continued economic growth," ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said in a news release. Data centers and other large energy consumers looking to connect to the grid are requesting five times the amount of power used to power the entire state during record-breaking demand. ERCOT is trying to figure out which data centers are actually ready to build in Texas — and what infrastructure will be needed to connect them to the power grid. Bryan Clark, a partner at the global energy firm Bracewell LLP, said unprecedented economic growth has created a need for Texas to build more transmission infrastructure — such as power lines and transformers. "I think it’s both organic to the data center industry but also just unprecedented economic growth in Texas," he said. Jared Berg, another partner at Bracewell, said the state's clear standards are part of the reason data centers are flocking to Texas. "Why is there so much industrial load that’s attracted to the state?" he said. "It’s because we have that inclination to set the rules of the road and make it clear so that companies know how to operate and the right way to operate."

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Supreme Court sides with Texas marijuana user who was barred from owning guns

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously limited the use of a gun law used to prosecute President Biden's son Hunter. The case, however, did not affect Biden, who was pardoned by his father. The case was brought by a Ali Hemani, a Texas resident who admitted to FBI agents that he used pot several times a week at the same time that he owned a legally purchased gun. He was soon indicted under the federal Gun Control Act, which makes it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison for an individual to use illegal drugs and to have even a legally purchased gun. While it is the same law used to prosecute Hunter Biden, the Supreme Court's decision was sufficiently narrow that it may not insulate from prosecution those who, like Biden, use more serious drugs, and own a gun.

In explaining the decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch stressed that the ruling was extremely limited, in part because marijuana use has become so ubiquitous, widely accepted and is now legal to one degree or another in 40 states. Indeed, as Gorsuch observed, the federal government itself has reclassified many marijuana products from a schedule one, high-potential-for-abuse category, down to a schedule 3 drug. Therefore, said Gorsuch, the only thing before the court is the government's "ambitious theory" that could "could automatically strip Mr. Hemani of his Second Amendment right to own a gun because he uses marijuana a few times week." The court's answer was basically, no you can't do that. The decision was unanimous, though several justices filed concurring opinions. So, was this a big win for gun rights advocates? "It's a good question" said Stephen Stamboulieh, a lawyer for Gun Owners of America. "I think it's a pretty significant win when we have basically the entire court saying that a federal statute can't go as far as it tried to go." Eric Ruben, a law professor at Southern Methodist University had a different take. "I think the outcome of this case was based on the view that most Americans may hold, which is that weed is the new booze. The narrowness of Thursday's ruling, plus the fact that a total of five justices filed concurring opinions that spelled out different approaches, is a reflection of the many divisions among the justices on the subject of guns and gun regulations. In 2022 the court's conservative majority declared for the first time that in order for a gun law or gun regulation to be constitutional, it had to be analogous to laws at the nation's founding in the 1700s and early 1800s. Since then, however, lower court judges, and the Supreme Court itself, have struggled with how to apply such a rigid rule.

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Texas version of Epstein files? Talarico targets Paxton over child sex abuse deal

James Talarico is deeming a child sex offender’s plea deal the Texas version of the Epstein files. And he wants everything that led to the bargain from the Texas attorney general’s office released to the public. State Rep. Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, is running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a race that’s garnering nationwide (and White House) attention. On Thursday, Talarico is calling for Paxton’s office to release “the Hoffman files.” Here’s what you need to know.

Former Waco attorney Adam Hoffman, 49, was arrested in June 2022 and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child after a friend of his son’s told authorities that he had been abused since he was about 7 years old. Hoffman initially faced between 25 years to life in prison on the first-degree felony charge. The McLennan district attorney recused himself in the case, which is why the Attorney General’s Office took over. The victim testified when the case went to trial, but it ended with a hung jury. The victim, now 14, didn’t want to testify again in an effort not to be re-traumatized, according to Paxton’s office. In March, Paxton’s office offered Hoffman a plea deal that included reduced charges and 30 days in jail if he pleaded guilty. Before the bargain, Hoffman was facing a life sentence without parole. Talarico called it an “Epstein-style sweetheart deal.” Hoffman pleaded guilty on April 16 to reduced charges of indecent assault and displaying harmful materials to a minor, Class A misdemeanors that could lead to up to a year in jail. The judge in the case extended the jail time to 60 days. On day 29 in the McLennan County Jail, Hoffman was released for good behavior. The jail often grants similar “two-for-one” deals when inmates exhibit good behavior, according to KWTX-TV in Waco. After moving to Omaha with his wife, Hoffman was required to register as a sex offender in his home county of Sarpy County. Because of the plea deal, Hoffman was not required to register in Texas. At a press conference, Talarico said no matter a person’s political leaning, anyone can agree that child molesters must be brought to justice. “So today I am calling on Ken Paxton to release the Hoffman files, all text messages, all emails, all documents, all internal memos relating to the Adam Kaufman case,” Talarico said at a press conference in Waco. “Those documents need to be made public immediately, so Texans can get answers about this corrupt deal.”

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Records challenge UT Austin’s allegations against former KUT leader Debbie Hiott

Earlier this week, the University of Texas at Austin fired KUT Public Media’s General Manager Debbie Hiott, marking an extraordinary and unprecedented intervention in the governance of the public radio station that has been housed at UT for decades. The move has reverberated across journalism and higher education circles, with many asking the same questions: Was this really about a dispute over the planning of a KUT event on campus, as the university claims? Is Austin’s NPR station being deliberately targeted amid explicit attacks on public media and attempts to reshape higher education institutions across Texas? Hiott’s termination letter simply cites her “oversight and management of planning for the KUT festival” as reason for her firing. The letter also appears to reference the fact that she publicly denied allegations by UT that the station had engaged in “insufficient planning” related to the event.

But in an interview with KUT, Hiott said her firing was a symptom of “pettiness” within the university and that its current leaders don’t “have any sense of accountability or concern” for the station’s audience. University leadership has changed in recent years as Texas Republicans exert more influence on the state’s flagship public school. “I was just holding out hope that they would let it all die down, because the station never did anything wrong. I never did anything wrong,” Hiott said. “They're just angry because they looked stupid through it all — the whole festival back-and-forth.” In a text message on Monday, UT Austin spokesman Mike Rosen said “the university does not comment on personnel matters.” University officials also did not respond to a detailed request for comment. KUT and its sister music station, KUTX, are editorially independent from the university. While they are based at UT's Moody College, they are funded by community and business donations, rather than tuition or state taxpayer dollars. Last month, KUT requested records of communications between UT Austin officials and KUT staff and festival planners in an attempt to square the two competing narratives. The university asked for $536 for the records but has yet to provide them.

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Debate over sterilized screwworm flies plays out in Texas Capitol

Texas lawmakers heard competing approaches Thursday for how to combat the New World screwworm, as federal officials defended the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current eradication strategy while private sectors urged the state to invest in alternative sterile fly production methods. Sterile flies are used to disrupt the reproduction cycle of the screwworm. The hearing, chaired by state Rep. Ryan Guillen, R – Rio Grande City, comes as Texas and federal officials continue responding to recent New World screwworm detections in the state.

Nathan Moses-Gonzales, CEO of M3 Agriculture Technologies, testified that Texas should consider investing in modular insect-rearing facilities that use x-ray technology to sterilize flies, arguing the approach could quickly expand the supply of sterile insects used to suppress screwworm populations. Moses-Gonzales told lawmakers his company is seeking roughly $4 million from Texas to partner with the University of Veracruz in Mexico and help produce additional sterile flies while larger federal facilities come online. Moses-Gonzales told lawmakers he could produce 100 million sterile flies per week in a year. The USDA is currently building a $619 million facility on 19 acres of land at Moore Air Base in South Texas that will be capable of producing up to 300 million sterile flies per week. But it could take years for the facility to reach that level of output. “We see ourselves as partners with and enabling USDA to have this capacity as a bridge until Moore Airfield comes online,” Moses-Gonzales said. He described the proposal as a short-term way to boost production capacity and support broader eradication efforts. Federal officials, however, cautioned against adopting x-ray sterilization before additional research is completed.

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Rep. David Cook backs residents fighting Tarrant County wastewater facility

At a public meeting at the Forest Hill Civic and Convention Center on Thursday night, residents from the southern edge of Tarrant County urged the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to reconsider permitting a wastewater treatment facility that would discharge treated wastewater into a creek already being monitored for high levels of the bacteria E. coli. During public comments and an informal question-and-answer session, several of the approximately 200 in attendance, many wearing red in a show of solidarity, voiced concerns about effects on the environment and people’s health. State Rep. David Cook — who requested the public meeting at the behest of some of his constituents — addressed the TCEQ staffers present and asked the agency to reject the wastewater permit application, raising questions about whether the applicants had followed proper protocol.

This fight began more than a year ago when Greg Coontz, a Burleson attorney, and his sister, Cathy Frederick, a Burleson real estate agent, applied for a TCEQ permit for a domestic wastewater treatment facility. According to application documents, the facility would be built on land Coontz and Frederick own at the corner of FM 1187 and Bill Levey Road near Burleson. It would handle wastewater for a planned mobile home community on the site, discharging treated wastewater into a normally dry creek bed that runs into Village Creek, which in turn feeds into Lake Arlington. Since 2010, TCEQ has categorized Village Creek as impaired because of its high E. coli concentrations. When asked whether the wastewater treatment plant could worsen that, a TCEQ spokesman told the Star-Telegram it would not. “The permit and proposed facility are designed to provide adequate treatment to protect the stream from bacterial loads,” the spokesman wrote in a statement.

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Dallas nabs defense lawyer discount to fight Paxton gun suits

An acclaimed Texas trial lawyer with a long record of supporting Democratic candidates is charging half his hourly rate to help Dallas thwart Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton‘s (R) push for guns in more public spaces. High stakes litigator Jeff Tillotson represents the city in a trio of firearms lawsuits from Paxton’s office over whether the lessor of government property for a private event can deny access to patrons legally carrying a gun. Dallas, thus far, is getting favorable rulings in all three suits. In an interview with Bloomberg Law, Tillotson said he bills a typical client at an hourly rate of about $2,000. According to a contract reviewed by Bloomberg Law obtained through public records, he’s charging the city just $895 per hour in one of the cases.

“They have many, many fine lawyers in the city’s office so the fact they’d give me the opportunity to work on this is an honor,” Tillotson said. Dallas declined to release invoice statements from his firm, Tillotson Patton, showing how much it’s spending in legal fees to defend the gun restrictions. The city is on the hook directly for one case and for the other two could recoup expenses from private organizations whose firearms bans drew the suits. The final resolutions will be felt not only in Dallas but throughout the deeply-red state where the legislature has passed some of the most firearms-friendly laws in the country. People in Texas can carry a handgun openly in libraries, recreation centers, the Texas State Capitol, and government buildings except for when a meeting is happening. Paxton, a right-wing champion of firearms protections, argues Dallas must also allow them in public spaces that are leased by a private entity, because the city can’t confer authority to a third party to ban them that itself lacks.

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Scores fall ill at Texas Air Force base after Hegseth makes flu vaccine optional

A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said. The outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open bays and share meals at large communal tables. A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak. A comprehensive medical review into his death is underway to determine the cause, according to the Air Force.

In the weeks since Mr. Hegseth’s vaccine policy took effect on April 21, only about 40 percent of Air Force trainees have opted to take the vaccine, which had long been mandatory, an Air Force official said. In the aftermath of the outbreak, the Air Force issued an exception to the voluntary vaccine policy, requiring that all recruits at Lackland get flu shots — part of a broader effort to stem the virus’s spread. Sign up to get Maggie Haberman's articles emailed to you. Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent reporting on President Trump. Mr. Hegseth cast his decision to make the flu vaccine optional as a matter of religious freedom and medical autonomy. “Under the disastrous Biden administration, this Pentagon waged an unrelenting war on our warriors on many fronts, including when it came to denying them simple medical autonomy and the freedom to express their religious convictions,” he said in a video announcing his decision in April. He described the longstanding flu vaccine requirement as an “absurd, overreaching” mandate that had served to “weaken our warfighting capabilities.” At the time, many lawmakers, including some prominent Republicans, expressed puzzlement and dismay at Mr. Hegseth’s decision.

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Brazoria County hires Houston attorney after deputy fatally shoots Mendoza Jr.

Brazoria County hired a Houston attorney as legal counsel in a dispute over the deputy-involved shooting that killed a Texas State University student in Lake Jackson earlier this month. Norman Giles, a civil rights and police defense litigation attorney for the nationwide law firm Lewis Brisbois, told the Chronicle he will represent Brazoria County as it grapples with the fallout of the shooting. A Brazoria County sheriff's deputy shot and killed 18-year-old John Mendoza Jr. in his father's garage after a failed traffic stop turned into a slow pursuit in the early morning hours of June 1.

Another Houston attorney, Charles Adams, represents Mendoza Jr.'s family. He said Mendoza Jr. and his three friends were unarmed and had their hands up at the time of the shooting. The sheriff's office has not said what prompted the traffic stop, but Adams said the young men were hanging out, playing basketball and walking a park track before the deputy began trailing them. Brazoria County Sheriff Bo Stallman has since fired former Deputy Kevin Tippit, and the Texas Rangers opened an investigation into the shooting with the Brazoria County District Attorney's Office. Neither office has released its findings, and Tippit has not been formally charged with any wrongdoing.

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Harris County set to name Marcus Stuckett as new chief of Flood Control District

The Harris County Commissioners Court appears set to name a longtime employee as executive director of the Flood Control District on Thursday, two weeks after Tina Petersen resigned amid concerns about the handling of a federal grant program. According to documents provided by the agency, commissioners plan to name Marcus Stuckett to be the post at their next meeting June 25. Stuckett has worked for the Flood Control District since 2015, most recently as director of engineering, according to his LinkedIn profile. Tina Petersen stepped down June 11 after commissioners had discussed her job performance in closed sessions. Criticism over Petersen's performance emerged after commissioners learned this year that the city was at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Hurricane Harvey recovery aid due to projects expected to miss spending deadlines. Petersen said she "plan(s) to continue to be available to implement a transition plan."

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Ed Longanecker: Fifty years of permitting dysfunction may finally be coming to an end

(Ed Longanecker is president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association.) For decades, the American oil and gas industry has watched viable infrastructure projects collapse under the weight of a federal permitting system that was never designed to deliver timely decisions. Projects with strong economics, willing investors, and genuine public need have spent five, six, or ten years waiting for federal approvals before a shovel touched the ground. That is now changing, through a convergence of executive action, landmark legislation, and agency reform that together constitute the most significant overhaul of energy permitting in a generation. On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed EO 14156 declaring a National Energy Emergency under the National Emergencies Act and EO 14154 titled “Unleashing American Energy,” directing all agencies to identify and eliminate regulations imposing undue burdens on domestic energy development.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright followed on February 5, 2025 with a secretarial order directing the Department of Energy to prioritize more efficient permitting for energy infrastructure. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Order No. 908 on June 30, 2025, authorizing reliance on environmental reviews completed by other agencies and eliminating redundant parallel reviews. On October 7, 2025, FERC permanently rescinded Section 157.23, which had barred natural gas pipeline companies from proceeding with construction while rehearing requests were pending. Executive orders are reversible, which is why the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last July 4, represented a more durable development. The OBBBA capped Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) reviews at 150 pages and two years and created a fast-track mechanism under which a project sponsor pays a fee equal to 125% of anticipated preparation costs and receives a completed environmental assessment within 180 days or a full EIS within one year. It replaced the presidential permit requirement for cross-border energy infrastructure with a Certificate of Crossing issued by FERC or DOE, removing the State Department and White House from a process subject to political manipulation, as demonstrated by the Biden administration’s cancellation of the Keystone XL permit. The Interior Department was ordered to mandate a minimum of 30 oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of America through 2040, restart Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) lease sales, and the OBBBA raised the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) revenue-sharing cap from $500 million to $650 million annually through 2034, benefiting Texas and three other Gulf-producing states.

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USDA moves Rural Development roles to new D-FW hub

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is moving some roles from the Washington, D.C.-area to D-FW, the federal agency announced Wednesday. The roles fall under the umbrella of the USDA’s Rural Development arm, which offers various loan and grant programs designed to help rural Americans with housing, infrastructure, healthcare and other needs. The bureaucratic operation oversees a loan portfolio of more than $200 billion and counts several thousand employees in Washington, D.C. and hundreds of offices around the country, including one in McKinney that’s responsible for programs in Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Fannin, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman, Palo Pinto, Parker, Rockwall and Tarrant counties.

The USDA is relocating some positions from the D.C.-area to D-FW to create a new “operational hub” that will support loan and grant processing and program management, according to a news release. The agency is also creating a new hub in St. Louis as part of the same initiative. Further details about the relocation, including how many roles are being moved and whether the operation will be based at the existing McKinney office, were not immediately clear. A representative for the USDA did not immediately respond to questions from The Dallas Morning News about the move on Wednesday. While the relocation comes as part of a broad effort by the Trump Administration to reduce the federal government’s footprint in Washington — as a candidate in 2024 Trump said he wanted to move 100,000, or roughly one in three, federal jobs out of the capital, expanding on a similar initiative from his first term — USDA executives this week framed the moves to D-FW and St. Louis as an effort to more efficiently serve rural communities. “When rural communities collaborate with USDA they deserve a streamlined experience,” Stephen Vaden, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, said in a statement. “This reorganization injects new attention to our systems and processes that will eliminate unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, improve our ability to engage with our customers and conduct responsible oversight of federal investments.” The USDA, an agency now led by the Glen Rose-native Brooke Rollins, announced last year that it would undergo a broad restructuring that included vacating a Maryland research center and moving more than half of its nearly 5,000 Washington-based employees to five hubs around the country, prompting criticism from a major federal employee union. The agency's Rural Development division has around 3,000 total employees nationwide, less than half of its total staff in 2005, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, an advocacy group. Last year, the division lost around 1,500 employees — including over 30% of its staff in Texas — from DOGE-related reductions, according to the group.

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The World Cup in Arlington is imperfectly perfect

The World Cup being played in Arlington is, in a word, unnatural. It is unnatural—and sometimes a little jarring—to witness such an overt melding of old-world soccer rituals and American stadium sports schlock, like a fusion restaurant getting very extra about Philly cheesesteak eggrolls. Because there’s no preparing a seasoned watcher of both European soccer and American stadium sports for the mashup of the English national team and the Chicago Bulls’ entrance theme. Or an overly peppy PA announcer barking out “let’s see who’s cheering on Croatia!!” by way of introducing fans clad in the country’s traditional red-and-white checkered kits. Same goes for the traditional unfurling of flags, the captain’s handshake at midfield, and the pre-match team photos all playing out beneath the JerryTron. And a hydration break sponsored by Powerade, featuring a performance by the Dallas Cowboys’ drum line and dancers.

Our touches are as manufactured in this sport as theirs are organic, which isn’t a matter of laziness versus this just being what America has to contribute to a sport still relatively new in these parts. (That, and a place of employment for Croatia’s Petar Musa, who plays his club matches for FC Dallas.) You can be cynical about that if you’d like. Chances are the fans in attendance yesterday afternoon would pay you no mind. Because North Texas is now two for two in its group stage matches, after the late drama from Sunday’s Netherlands-Japan tilt was bettered by England and Croatia providing arguably the match—and inarguably the half—of the tournament thus far. That was to be expected from two of the top 10 teams in the world, each of which skews ambitious in its play. Something would have had to go especially wrong for Harry Kane to stay silent in front of net and Jude Bellingham to be muted in the midfield. England is a team with so much leftover ammunition that Bukayo Saka, one of the pillars of Arsenal’s English Premier League title team, had to come off the bench. Regrettably, something did go wrong for Croatia, when the legendary Luka Modric was subbed off in the 57th minute because his 40-year-old legs lacked the juice to keep up with England’s pace and power. But the team that punched higher above its weight than any other in Europe over the past decade landed a couple of haymakers to make this a spectacle.

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National Stories

California labor union could scale back billionaire tax proposal

A labor union behind a controversial tax on California billionaires significantly scaled back its proposal a day after it qualified for the November ballot, but the offer Thursday wasn’t enough to get the governor on board. The proposal from the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West to impose a one-time, 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion faces staunch pushback from a wide swath of critics, including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. The union said Thursday that it would abandon the 5% tax proposal if Newsom would join them in supporting a 2% levy. The updated proposal would instead have to be passed by the Legislature, given a June 25 deadline for the measure to qualify for the ballot. Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom, said scaling it back doesn’t change its “fundamental flaws that harm working Californians.”

“The Governor supports making the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share, but this poorly designed state-only measure will defund teachers, schools, clinics, and public safety,” she said in a statement. The tax, to be paid by those living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026, is meant to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to counter federal cuts to healthcare for low-income people with some money going to food assistance and education programs. “A 2% one-time tax on that accumulated wealth is modest by any objective measure especially if it means keeping emergency rooms open and saving patient lives,” backers wrote in a letter to Newsom. Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, said Wednesday night that petitioners collected more than the roughly 875,000 signatures needed to place the original proposal before voters. States have been debating how to respond to the major tax breaks and spending cuts legislation President Donald Trump signed last year. The proposal has already divided Democrats and major labor unions and triggered an expensive campaign to defeat it. The proposed tax is backed by prominent progressives including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

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Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits

Meta Platforms has lobbied the U.S. Congress for legal immunity from child-harm claims tied to social media products such as Instagram, as it faces thousands of lawsuits from young users and their families, according to ?a source familiar with the matter and proposed legislative language reviewed by Reuters. If adopted by lawmakers and passed into law ?as part of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) under consideration in the U.S. Senate, such a provision could undermine thousands of lawsuits against Meta and other online platforms over ?harms to children. Meta and Google's YouTube face a combined $6 million in damages after they lost the first case at trial early this year. While legislators have given no indication of adopting the language, the lobbying effort shows the kind of legal protections Meta is seeking amid the biggest attempt to regulate online platforms in the U.S. since the 1990s.

The proposed language reviewed by Reuters would make online companies "immune from suit or liability under state law ?with respect to all claims for loss caused by, ?arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the safety or privacy of individuals under the age of eighteen online or otherwise related to the provisions" of KOSA. The provision appears alongside language that would preempt state ?laws on children's online safety and privacy. Asked about the lobbying effort and the proposed language, Meta spokesperson Stephanie Otway said the provision "does not extinguish existing lawsuits, nor does it represent blanket immunity." "Instead, it establishes uniform national standards for online youth safety, ensuring these critical issues are governed by comprehensive federal legislation, ?not plaintiffs' ?lawyers or patchwork state legislation," she said.

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Rebel lawmaker’s election win clears path to oust U.K.’s Starmer

British politics is set for a fresh bout of chaos after Labour politician Andy Burnham won a special district election, allowing him to enter Parliament and launch a leadership challenge against the deeply unpopular Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Burnham, the 56-year-old mayor of Manchester, was elected by a comfortable margin in voting Thursday to represent the district of Makerfield in northern England, defeating a candidate from the anti-immigration party Reform UK. By entering Parliament, Burnham can now attempt to unseat Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister, raising the prospect that the U.K. could get its sixth prime minister in seven years, a period of unprecedented turmoil in one of the world’s oldest and most stable democracies.

“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working, everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be,” Burnham said during a victory speech. “Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.” Starmer, who took Labour into power with a big majority just two years ago, is under pressure from his own lawmakers as his party trails Reform in the polls. Many Labour lawmakers fear losing their jobs in the next general election in 2029 and think swapping out Starmer gives them the best chance of survival. Speaking on Friday, Starmer said he won’t quit and would face down any leadership challenge. He added that now wasn’t the time for a change of prime minister. “I don’t think that is a good thing for the country, to plunge us into chaos,” he said. It is unclear when Burnham will formally launch his leadership challenge, or if Labour ministers will rise up en masse to try to topple the prime minister. Starmer, a former prosecutor turned politician, is likely to come under growing pressure in coming days from lawmakers and some of his own cabinet members to step down and avoid a drawn-out leadership fight.

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Firm tied to Trump donor got no-bid contract to clean reflecting pool

A business tied to a longtime supporter of President Trump was given a no-bid contract to install a water-purification system in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool earlier this spring. Now that work is coming under scrutiny after algae blooms have come back and turned the iconic pool in Washington a vibrant shade of green rather than the American-flag blue Mr. Trump says he chose. The contract shows that the National Park Service bypassed the competitive-bidding process that is typically required, and gave a $1.7 million contract to the firm, Greenwater Services of Brookfield, Ohio.

Federal contracting records show that firm’s ultimate owner is the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, led by John J. Cafaro, a donor to Mr. Trump and a neighbor to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. The water treatment company also listed Mr. Cafaro’s Palm Beach mansion as its address in Florida corporate records, and listed his investment trust’s phone number and email in Ohio lobbying records. Mr. Cafaro, a longtime Republican donor whom Mr. Trump has described as a “fantastic man,” was once involved in a high-profile bribery scandal. He has also donated to Democrats in the past, and his daughter Capri Cafaro served in the Ohio State Senate as a Democrat from 2007 to 2016. On Thursday, when a photographer for The New York Times visited the pool, about half of its water remained green, as workers sought to vacuum out algae. Workers have also added hydrogen peroxide to the water in recent days in an attempt to kill the algae, the Interior Department said in an email to The Times.

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Israeli military strikes in southern Lebanon in intense fighting as US-Iran talks postponed

Israel’s military struck targets throughout southern Lebanon overnight into Friday and Hezbollah reported intense fighting in the area, threatening the nascent agreement between Iran and the United States to end their war. Lebanese media reported at least 18 people killed in the strikes, and Israel said four soldiers died. The conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah is the most precarious part of the Iran deal. Neither Israel nor the militant group signed the agreement — but it is supposed to end their fighting, and Iran has signaled its willingness to risk renewed war in the region for the sake of its interests in Lebanon and its most important regional ally. Iranian officials didn’t travel as planned to Switzerland for talks on Friday with the United States, in part over the fighting, a regional official said. U.S. Vice President JD Vance also called off his trip, and mediators are now scrambling to reschedule the meetings, which were supposed to begin addressing how to restrict Iran’s nuclear program — the core issue over which Israel and the U.S. went to war on Feb. 28.

The talks are also supposed to bring about a permanent end to the conflict. The interim deal has already reopened the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, after Iranian attacks and threats all but stopped the flow of oil and natural gas through the waterway. That caused energy prices to skyrocket far beyond the region, and President Donald Trump said he signed the agreement to avoid “economic catastrophe” in the U.S. The Israeli military said strikes were ongoing on Friday after four of its soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel, were killed in an attack on a tank in a village near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh. An explosive drone attack wounded another five, it added. Israel then launched multiple strikes against “Hezbollah infrastructure sites” in Nabatiyeh and other areas, according to a military statement, which accused the militant group of “blatant ceasefire violations.” Later, the military said it also struck targets in the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, with Lebanese media saying the village of Douris was hit. “Israel will not tolerate attacks on our soldiers or on our territory, and it will exact a very heavy price from Hezbollah for these attacks,” Netanyahu said in a statement Friday.

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Senate targets Hegseth’s travel in standoff over apparent Iran school attack, boat strikes

Frustrated senators are threatening to withhold 75 percent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget unless the Pentagon provides Congress with answers about an apparent U.S. strike on a girls school in Iran and the military’s ongoing attacks targeting alleged drug smuggling boats in Latin America. The proposal is tucked into an early version of the Senate’s 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), sprawling, must-pass legislation that sets Defense Department priorities. It reflects the growing bipartisan frustration over the Pentagon’s refusal to comply with congressional requests. The Pentagon said it would not comment on pending legislation. For months lawmakers have sought the complete, unedited video of the first, and highly controversial, boat strike in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of an initial attack that mostly destroyed the vessel.

Since that episode in early September, U.S. forces have killed more than 200 people in strikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the bill by a vote of 18-9 last week and has since made the legislation public. The committee is seeking unedited footage of every boat strike in waters around Latin America. Lawmakers have also sought information on the military’s investigation into how a girls school in Iran was apparently targeted by a Navy Tomahawk missile on Feb. 28, during the war’s initial hours. The strike, for which the U.S. government has not publicly accepted blame amid an ongoing investigation, killed more than 170 people, most of them children, Iranian officials have said. No one has yet been held accountable for those deaths. The investigation is being conducted by U.S. Central Command.

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Everyone in Trump’s Cabinet is eating sauerkraut

A new diet is sweeping through President Trump’s cabinet—and it involves heaping portions of sauerkraut. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Vice President JD Vance have all embraced the diet, drawn by the promise of slimmer waistlines and glowing skin. They all apparently have determined the health benefits outweigh the slightly sulfurous odors that have been the cause of some domestic friction. “Within 30 days I lost 20 pounds,” Kennedy said at an event in Michigan this week. “JD Vance is also on the diet and you can see how different he looks.” The diet is the brainchild of Dr. Sean O’Mara, who advises his high-profile patients to eat fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi, alongside grass-fed steak—and to abstain from alcohol and sugary food.

O’Mara says the diet leads to a reduction in visceral fat, which wraps around organs, as well as a more robust microbiome, which can help with digestion. Kennedy, 72, was the first to convert. Lutnick, 64, and Duffy, 54, followed suit. Vance, 41, committed to the diet for Lent earlier this year, and has stuck with it. “I tend to like to work with older people because the ROI is so much greater…. it’s like taking over a sinking ship, a company that is headed to bankruptcy,” O’Mara said. He declined to discuss his patients, citing privacy concerns. But people familiar with the matter said Kennedy, Lutnick and Duffy have all seen O’Mara. Kennedy began the diet about a year ago after meeting with O’Mara. Though he is sometimes turned off by the tangy and pungent taste of sauerkraut, he found the diet helped him shed fat, and reduced aches and pains. He also credits it with eliminating the atrial fibrillations he had been experiencing. The Trump administration officials on the diet have been known to trade tips when they are gathered at the White House. Online commentators recently remarked that Vance was looking thin in a photo posted earlier this month.

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Kash Patel accused of directing $1m to ‘slush fund’ to pay bonuses to loyalist agents

Kash Patel, the FBI director, has been accused of directing more than $1m in taxpayer-funded bonus payments to a small circle of loyalist agents as part of a “personal slush fund” that may have violated federal law. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the House of Representatives judiciary committee, alleged Patel had authorized substantial recurring payments to agents in his inner circle and security detail. According to information received by the House judiciary minority committee, some agents received payments of nearly $8,000 every two weeks, despite already earning at the federal salary ceiling. While the exact total received by each individual remains unclear, the committee says it can confirm a number of agents received at least five such payments in consecutive pay periods, amounting to close to $40,000 per person.

The pace of disbursements was so rapid, the committee says, that FBI reserve accounts set aside for bonus payments were drained dry, causing some payments to bounce back from exhausted funds. “Why are these agents receiving extra pay simply for doing their jobs?” Raskin wrote in a 15 June letter to the FBI director. “Are they, in fact, collecting bonus compensation for engaging in actions outside of their duties and outside of the law?” He added: “We write to find out precisely how much slush fund largess you have put on the American taxpayer’s tab.” The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. As the minority, Democrats have no authority to compel the bureau to hand over documents, though they would gain that power if they retake the House in November’s midterm elections, as some forecasts suggest they may. The main beneficiaries, according to Raskin, were agents serving on Patel’s “director’s advisory team”. The unit was created in 2025 and tasked with examining internal documents and government materials to expose and discredit federal law enforcement officials who had investigated Trump and his allies.

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Lead Stories

Austin tech leader Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, dies in plane crash in Laredo

Capital Factory founder Joshua Baer was killed in a plane crash on his way back to Austin from a vacation in Mexico late Tuesday night. The news was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Tech leaders and politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Congressman Lloyd Doggett and Congressman John Carter, expressed condolences in posts on social media. "Josh has been one of the most significant figures driving innovation and entrepreneurship across America," Cruz said. "In Texas, he made our state a global leader. His impact was incalculable." The private plane crash happened on Loop 20 in Laredo, a few miles south of the city's airport. Video posted by the Laredo Police Department shows firefighters spraying the plane, which came to rest on a highway barrier after hitting a car.

Baer founded Capital Factory, a tech investment company based in Austin, in 2009. Baer is the entrepreneur in residence for the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, according to his UT bio page, which says he lives in Austin with his wife and three children. Baer was also a speaker at the KUT Festival in May on a panel about AI in Austin. Six people were inside the plane, said investigator Jose Baeza with LPD at a news conference posted online. First responders took them out of the aircraft, but Baer did not survive. The five others on the plane, as well as the driver of the car that was hit on the highway, were taken to local hospitals and are in stable condition, said Gilberto Sanchez, the director of Laredo International Airport. Five officers were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation and the plane crash caused road closures in the area.

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Trump reviews slowed screwworm response, former officials say

The Trump administration’s sweeping federal spending reviews slowed government efforts to contain the New World screwworm, according to three former Agriculture Department officials and a fourth person with knowledge of the matter. USDA reviews held up funding for the construction of one facility that is crucial to slowing the flesh-eating pest’s threat to the U.S. cattle supply, according to the three former officials, who like the fourth person were granted anonymity to discuss internal decision-making. A $100 million research initiative designed to create new tools to slow the screwworm’s advance was also delayed, two of the former officials said. Skepticism from the White House budget office meanwhile delayed plans for a second facility at a Texas air base, said two of the former officials and the person with knowledge of the matter.

“That sense of urgency wasn’t there,” said one of the former officials. “Even though screwworm was given a high priority, it did not help us get things done faster.” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has told Senate lawmakers that staff cuts had no effect on the government’s response and that President Donald Trump approved new spending to combat the screwworm early in 2025. She has repeatedly blamed former President Joe Biden’s administration for a faulty response to the threat and insists the screwworm would have arrived in the country sooner were it not for the Trump administration’s approach. “Since the initial few months of the second Trump administration, USDA has moved at lightning speed to obtain any and all necessary funding and approvals to fight New World screwworm,” USDA spokesperson Michael Abboud said in a statement. “We have aggressively moved dollars and project timelines at a pace unprecedented for [the] U.S. government, as expected of us by President Trump.” New presidents frequently review spending approved by their predecessors, but the Trump administration did not act quickly on the recommendations of career USDA staffers who sought to convey the seriousness of a potential outbreak, according to two of the former officials.

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US and Iran presidents sign ceasefire agreement, but Trump says he could still resume attacks

The U.S. and Iran released the text of an interim agreement their presidents have signed to end their war on Wednesday, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to resume attacks and kill Iranian officials if they failed to honour their ?commitments. Trump, attending the G7 with other leaders in France, also withdrew at least one of his stated rationales for attacking Iran in the first place, saying it would be "unfair" for Tehran not to have ballistic missiles, having previously ?vowed to obliterate them. "We're going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement," Trump said of Iran at a press conference. "I don't want them to. I want them to honor the agreement." He also called Iranians "smart people" as U.S. and Iranian negotiators work on a permanent truce over the coming 60 days, which Trump said he hoped would usher in peace in the Middle East and lower oil prices.

Earlier, he had said: "If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?" Iran's leaders did not address the new threats while celebrating the ?moment, releasing photographs of what is believed to be the first agreement signed by both a U.S. and Iranian president since the Islamic Republic's founding in 1979. "Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; it ?was not even comparable," Iran's lead negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told state television about the agreement, which includes the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets. The U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran ?on February 28, assassinating the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military leaders on the first day. It quickly spiralled into a regional conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon; driven up energy prices; renewed inflationary pressures and sparked concerns about a ?major food supply crisis in developing countries.

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Apple price increases ‘unavoidable,’ Tim Cook says

Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.” Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products would be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone. Price increases, especially for Macs and iPads, could come sooner. Apple raised the starting price of the Mac Mini last month in between launch events.

Skyrocketing demand for memory and storage chips from artificial-intelligence companies has pushed up their cost so much that Apple would have to raise device prices substantially to maintain its profit margins. Passing the higher cost on to consumers while maintaining its profit margin would add about $270 to the price of the next iPhone Pro model, estimates research firm TechInsights. Chips for memory and storage are key components inside most computing devices, including smartphones, laptops, game consoles, medical equipment and even cars. But now AI servers are gobbling up rapidly increasing volumes of those chips, so even a company as rich and powerful as Apple is struggling to secure supply. Since last year, when Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon began announcing big increases in their capital spending budgets, the prices for memory and storage chips have both quadrupled. TechInsights expects both prices to continue increasing into 2027. Memory, also called DRAM, and storage, also called NAND, are like elements of a mid-20th-century office: The memory is a desk that holds all the papers a worker needs to perform a task, while storage is the filing cabinet that holds everything else. Smartphones use DRAM memory to run apps currently in use; they use NAND storage to file away photos and videos, for example.

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State Stories

40+ Texas lawmakers back effort to pause major transmission lines

A coalition of Texas lawmakers (including nine state senators and 34 state representatives) are backing a legal motion against a controversial transmission line project. On Monday, State Representative Brad Buckley announced the legislators had signed an amicus brief asking to delay decisions related to proposed 765kV transmission lines, including projects like the Bell County East to Big Hill line. The brief also asks for the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) to stop evaluating projects on a case-by-case basis for now and to determine if the lines are needed at all. “The motion is intended to seek limited relief and would allow more time for route studies, environmental reviews, landowner concerns, or other project-specific issues,” a statement from Buckley’s office said.

The Bell County East to Big Hill 765-kV transmission project, proposed by Oncor and the Lower Colorado River Authority, is designed to move power across Texas and strengthen the state grid as demand rises from population growth, data centers and industrial expansion. However, the proposed routes for the three transmission lines have seen significant pushback. “It’s going to traverse our property, not along the property lines, but right through the middle, about 150 feet from our front door,” said Burnet County resident Jan Rose. “It’s heartbreaking when you think about it,” said Rose, whose home sits up on a hill overlooking the valley to the north. “Every morning when you come out here, those power lines are going to be right in your focal point.” “The burden of this falls disproportionately on rural landowners,” Buckley said in the release. In March, the utilities filed plans with the Public Utility Commission of Texas that included 122 potential route options. Last week, administrative judges heard testimony from landowners about the proposed routes.

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Talarico courted Silicon Valley donors in multi-day Bay Area trip

James Talarico has campaigned against the influence of billionaires in politics. Yet facing a must-win Senate race that could shatter spending records in one of the country’s biggest states, he’s turning to wealthy tech donors for help. Talarico attended at least four Bay Area fundraisers with prominent Democratic Party donors with ties to the tech industry in mid-April, according to copies of the invitations obtained by POLITICO, one donor and one Democratic aide with knowledge of the gatherings. They were granted anonymity to discuss private events. Talarico has vowed not to accept any corporate PAC money and backed a ban on super PACs as his race against Republican Ken Paxton accelerates toward what could be one of the most expensive Senate races in U.S. history and will determine the balance of power in Washington. Donations from the fundraisers, which have not been previously reported, were accepted on behalf of Talarico’s campaign committee, not any super PAC.

Two super PACs, Moment of Truth PAC and Lone Star Rising PAC, have collectively pledged to spend big for Talarico. He also previously accepted PAC money in his last campaign for the state legislature. At the time, a spokesperson told POLITICO that Talarico would not “unilaterally disarm and let Texas Republicans play by different rules” while he pushed for stricter campaign finance legislation. Federal law prohibits the groups from coordinating directly with the campaign. “We already know who we’re running against: The billionaire megadonors and their corrupt political system,” Talarico said in his primary night victory speech in March. Talarico’s campaign pointed to his public comments supporting stricter campaign finance regulations. “James is the only candidate who’s outlined a comprehensive agenda to ban super PACs, ban corporate PACs, ban congressional stock trading and tax billionaires so we can fix this broken, corrupt political system,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement to POLITICO. “If anyone supports taxing billionaires more and limiting big money’s influence on our politics, they’re welcome to help defeat politicians like Ken Paxton, who rake in millions of dollars from special interests then enrich wealthy donors while working Texans struggle.”

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Houston bayous spared from significant flooding amid bouts of heavy rain, tropical storm

The Houston area appears to have dodged a bullet in terms of severe and widespread flooding. Tropical Storm Arthur and the heavy rainfall that preceded it largely spared the network of waterways that honeycombs the region. Rainy weather in the region had largely subsided by Wednesday afternoon. Galveston remained under a coastal flooding advisory through Wednesday night, but a tropical storm warning was scrapped as Arthur dissipated several hours after forming along the Texas coast.

"The bayous and creeks have done really well with this event," said Jeff Lindner, meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. "The breaks in the rainfall, so we get a couple hours of heavy rainfall and then we get 10, 12, 14 hours of a break, and that’s really saved us throughout this event, and so that’s given the bayous and creeks time to drain off the water before the next round comes in." Lindner said what made the difference was that, while regions to the north of Houston saw heavy rainfall, Montgomery and San Jacinto counties were mostly spared the worst effects. A 15-year-old boy drowned Tuesday evening in a flooded retention pond in Montgomery County. "That can come down the San Jacinto River and those watersheds and impact Harris County," Lindner said. Lindner said the main danger for the region in the immediate future will come not from flooding but from intense heat and humidity as temperatures soar back into the 90s as early as Thursday. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for the Houston and Galveston region that will be in effect from 11 a.m. Thursday until 10 p.m. Friday. "The next four or five days is going to be the first taste of some really humid and hot conditions here," Lindner said, "so we need to really stress those heat precautions. Drink plenty of water. Take breaks in AC if you can."

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Houston developer and homebuilder Vincent Kickerillo dies at 97

Vincent Kickerillo, a prolific real estate developer responsible for shaping much of west Houston, died June 7 at 97. Across his nearly 70-year career, his company developed more than 22,000 lots and built 16,500 homes. He transformed forested land into suburban-style homes along Memorial Drive, and established master-planned communities such as Keilliwood and Nottingham Country in Katy as well as Lakes of Parkway near the Energy Corridor. He was known for large, traditional brick houses with cedar-shingle roofs, fireplaces and open floor plans, many of which still stand today.

“Vincent Kickerillo’s impact on the homebuilding industry and community development in our region cannot be overstated,” Aimee Bertrand, executive director and CEO of the Greater Houston Home Builders Association. “Generations of Houston builders and developers owe their careers and countless opportunities to Mr. Kickerillo.” Long before he and his wife, Mary, became familiar faces in Houston’s high-society circles, Kickerillo came from humble beginnings. The son of an Italian immigrant and sharecropper, Kickerillo was the youngest of 14 children in a low-income family in Bryan. He moved to Houston without his parents at 13, worked for Hughes Tool Co. and joined the Merchant Marines at 16, an experience his daughter said taught him the discipline he carried throughout his life. After at least 12 years as a merchant mariner, Kickerillo used earnings he won playing poker to start building houses. When he was unhappy with a builder’s work on his own Memorial Drive home, he took over construction himself. He liked the process so much he started his own company in 1957.

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With gas tax holiday, are Texas Dems pushing ‘irresponsible’ policy for political gain?

President Donald Trump’s poorly planned war with Iran has paralyzed global shipping routes and spiked the average price of gas by about $1 per gallon nationwide. For three months, Americans have struggled to rationalize both the conflict and the painful prices at the pump, as many work several jobs and side hustles to survive the current affordability crisis. Meanwhile, Trump’s flagrant lack of concern has smashed his purported “America First” promise into bits—and Texas Democrats are scrambling to pick up the pieces. They’ve started with the cost of gas, one of the most salient barometers for the sitting president’s economic stewardship. On April 21, Texas’ Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico stood in a rainy gas station parking lot and, in his usual practiced cadence, proposed a suspension of the federal gas tax, which currently amounts to 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel. “Americans in the last election voted for two things: to end the forever wars and to make life more affordable,” Talarico said in his address. “But the people in power have done the exact opposite.”

It’s a rather stark departure from the standard Democratic Party line, one that several other party members—in Texas and in Washington—have also rallied behind, including gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa and agriculture commissioner candidate Clayton Tucker. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have also embraced the idea to satisfy voters on pocketbook issues. Still, several other Dems in Congress have lined up in opposition. Longtime critics of the gas tax holiday measure say that the idea amounts to scrounging for quarters in a junk drawer rather than focusing on the root cause of inflationary policies; they warn that a gas tax suspension could drastically defund public roadways and education in the long term. For years, the standard Democratic position on the federal gas tax has been to maintain (or even increase) the tax rate as a means to both shore up the infrastructure fund and curb car travel—one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. But populist “affordability” politics are in vogue for the out-of-power left as many average Americans face dire financial circumstances. Climate policy, which was all the rage for Democrats just five or six years ago, has now been sidelined as a toxic turnoff. The federal gas tax generates over $20 billion in annual revenue for the Highway Trust Fund, which covers the cost of construction and repair for highways, bridges, and mass transit. (The Texas state gas tax is a flat 20 cents per gallon for regular and diesel, which generates over $3.5 billion annually for the State Highway Fund and the Available School Fund.) A federal suspension for just five months could lead to a $17 billion deficit for the Highway Trust Fund, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

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‘We didn’t have a lot of deer’: Screwworm threat revives old fears in South Texas

A South Texas veterinarian says older generations remember when screwworm infestations took a toll on local deer populations. Now, wildlife officials are working to keep the parasite from spreading again and threatening Texas’ $10 billion hunting industry. State officials are asking Texans to help protect the state’s white-tailed deer population from the spread of New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite spread by flies. Texas is home to more than 5 million white-tailed deer, including some of the largest bucks in the country. The herd attracts hunters and wildlife enthusiasts from across the state and beyond. Deer are among the wildlife vulnerable to screwworm infestations.

Dr. Gaylon Wilmeth-Burleson, a veterinarian in Dilley, said older generations of South Texans still remember the parasite’s impact on wildlife before it was eradicated from the United States. “My dad can tell me stories about, you know, when he was a kid, we didn’t have a lot of deer down here anymore because of screw worm infestations,” Wilmeth-Burleson told TPR’s The Source. The timing is particularly concerning because South Texas is in the middle of fawning season, when newborn deer are especially vulnerable to infestation. “We are in the meat of the season,” Wilmeth-Burleson said. “Fawns in South Texas are born mid June through the end of July. Most of our fawns in this part of the world are June, so we are right smack dab in baby time for our deer.” Wilmeth-Burleson said newborn fawns can become infected through their navels, much like newborn calves.

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Hundreds of new river barriers arrive at the border

Nearly 300 giant cylindrical foam-filled buoys have been placed on the banks of the Rio Grande in the South Texas town of Eagle Pass, ready to be put in the international river. Frontera Foundation co-director Amerika Garcia-Grewal tells Border Report that the buoys arrived last week at the 47-acre Shelby Park, which is owned by the City of Eagle Pass and sits across the border from Piedras Negras, Mexico.

Garcia-Grewal was able to get into the park and she took exclusive and up-close photos of the buoys, which the federal government is placing up and down the Rio Grande in South Texas. She says she is concerned about access to the park and destruction to the land. The Trump administration says the buoys — which measure 12 to 15 feet each in length, and 4 to 5 feet in diameter — will help prevent illegal immigration from Mexico. The devices are part of the agency’s “Smart Wall” system, which includes 536 miles planned of waterborne barrier flotation devices put in the Rio Grande, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As of June 10, CBP reports that 15 miles of waterborne barrier has been put in the river, and 112 miles of the buoys are under construction.

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Uber plans Houston robotaxi service launch in 2027

Houston's growing robotaxi market will gain another competitor in mid-2027 as Uber, Nuro and Lucid plan to launch their own service. Andrew Chapin, chief operating officer at Nuro, said in a Wednesday announcement that Houston's large, varied metro area will allow Nuro to test its autonomous driving system across different types of roads and operating conditions. “We're excited to help bring this robotaxi service to the city through our partnership with Uber and Lucid,” he said.

Lucid, a technology company, is manufacturing cars for the robotaxi service. Nuro, a company developing autonomous driving technology, is testing the self-driving system in cars with human monitors behind the wheel. Once the service officially launches, it will be made available through the rideshare company Uber. Nearly 100 vehicles will operate in Texas and California, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Uber has secured a 50,000-square-foot depot facility and dedicated charging pitstop in Houston to support fleet operations. The robotaxis’ self-driving systems include cameras, lidar and radar. According to Nuro, the tests will consist of simulations, closed-course testing and supervised public-road testing. The companies said they plan to expand the robotaxis service to dozens of additional markets in the coming years. The San Francisco service plans to launch later this year.

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Why The New York Times is expanding in Texas

For many people, Texas brings to mind politics and barbecue. “People know it as a big, red state,” said Fernando Alfonso III, The New York Times’s first Texas-based editor and the leader of a new team of reporters and editors in the state, which has been in the works since last year. But, he added, “it’s also a cultural force, from Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ fueling a Western-fashion revival, to shows like ‘Landman,’ to the endless fascination with Texas cuisine.” The new hub of Times journalists aims to capture all of that and more in its reporting. In its first six months, the team of five has covered the aftermath of the deadly flooding at Camp Mystic last summer, explored why so many people in San Antonio are still living in poverty despite the city’s booming economy, and followed a family of children who had to raise one another after their parents were taken by ICE.

Over two interviews, Mr. Alfonso, who lives in the Houston suburb of Bellaire and joined The Times in December from The Houston Chronicle, shared more about why The Times is prioritizing Texas, how reporters navigate perceptions that The Times doesn’t understand the state and what story lines the nation should be watching. These are edited excerpts from the conversations. Why does The Times need a Texas hub? It’s a big state, an economic powerhouse, a cultural force; the stories out of Texas have been of great interest to the national New York Times audience. So the idea of creating a Texas hub is to use the state as a way to explain the phenomena to come or that are already happening across the country through different societal lenses, whether that’s business, culture, religion or, of course, politics. Texas looms large in American culture and politics. But there are distinct communities with particular approaches to civic life. How are we approaching those? It starts with just being there. You have to put in real time in a community before you can understand how it sees itself, which is often entirely different from how outsiders do. Texas is full of places and groups that are talked about constantly and understood almost never: Muslim families up in North Texas. Vietnamese communities down along the Gulf. Ranching families out near the border. And the suburbs that keep sprawling outward, reshaped by people moving from all over the country. What we’re after is how people here actually take part in civic life, where they find community, which institutions they trust, what they make of all the change around them. If living in Texas has taught me one thing, it’s that a lot of these communities don’t fit the boxes people outside the state like to reach for. The more time you spend with folks, the more tangled the story becomes — and a lot more interesting. How do you navigate perceptions that The Times doesn’t really understand Texas? I try to spend less time trying to persuade people that The Times isn’t what they think it is and far more trying to demonstrate how we work: the questions we ask, how we listen, how we verify information, why we call people back. We try to get it right. I also try to meet people where they are and take their opinions seriously. At my former newspaper, we had a longtime reader who frequently emailed me and other newsroom leaders with a barrage of criticisms. Some were justified. Many were not. I took it upon myself to meet him for coffee. We had a fairly intense but measured conversation about our coverage, the state of conservatism in Texas and the role of journalism. There was an understanding that we weren’t going to see eye to eye on everything. But there was enough shared experience that we walked away with a deeper respect for one another.

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Former San Antonio cop who fed homeless man feces-filled sandwich gets big promotion

The former San Antonio police officer accused of feeding a homeless man a sandwich stuffed with dog feces is now the chief of police of the small South Texas town of Benavides. One-time SAPD officer Matthew Luckhurst was appointed top cop in the town of about 1,100 people on June 1, Benavides City Clerk Tiffany Bazan told the Current. Benevides City Council discussed and voted on appointing Luckhurst as the town’s new chief of police on April 30, public records show. Prior to his promotion, Luckhurst worked as one of the two officers in town and earned a School-Based Law Enforcement Officer license in April 2024, public records show.

Luckhurst was terminated from the San Antonio Police Department in 2020 following two poop-related incidents. In 2016, SAPD investigators accused Luckhurst of giving a homeless man a sandwich filled with dog shit while on patrol. A month later, Luckhurst found himself in another stinky situation over allegations he took a dump in a SAPD women’s restroom without flushing and rubbed a “brown substance with the consistency of tapioca” on the toilet seat after a female officer asked for the facilities to be kept clean. Although Luckhurst avoided being fired over the first incident on a technicality, SAPD canned the officer in 2020 over the second. Luckhurst subsequently found employment with the Floresville Police Department before being fired in 2022 amid public uproar over reporting on his rehiring in the Alamo City bedroom community. Benavides Mayor Ramiro Saenz was unavailable for immediate comment on Luckhurst’s promotion. However, Benavides’ prior police chief, Andre Hines, previously told the Current that Luckhurst met employment standards upon his hiring. “As required by the State of Texas, we have to do a background check,” Hines said. “And so when [Luckhurst] was applying for employment here with the City of Benevides, we request all information from these previous agencies that he has worked for.”

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Texas Comptroller greenlights all 8 Terafab tax break applications: Here’s what that means

The Texas Comptroller’s Office has issued formal recommendations to approve all eight tax incentive applications tied to the proposed TeraFab semiconductor manufacturing facility near Gibbons Creek Reservoir in Grimes County, clearing a major hurdle for what could be the largest industrial investment in Texas history. The recommendations, signed by Deputy Comptroller Lisa Craven and dated June 15, cover applications filed by TeraFab AI, LLC — a special-purpose entity linked to SpaceX — with both Iola ISD and Anderson-Shiro CISD. But the Comptroller’s approval is not the end of the road.

Both Iola and Anderson-Shiro CISD received four applications for TeraFab, each with four phases. Each phase covers a separate piece of land with its own 10-year tax incentive period. The combined proposed investments could be as high as $119 billion, among the highest manufacturing investments in U.S. history. But it’s important to note that phases 2, 3, and 4 aren’t guaranteed. SpaceX’s own filings state that after completing each phase, the company will “determine whether to proceed with constructing the future phases.” The $119 billion figure — and the full job and tax projections — only materialize if all four phases are built in both districts. School property taxes are split into two buckets: maintenance and operations (M&O) and interest and sinking (I&S). M&O covers day-to-day costs like teacher salaries and utility bills. I&S covers repayments on voter-approved bonds used for things like new buildings and school buses. Under the JETI program, SpaceX would only pay M&O taxes on half of TeraFab’s appraised value for 10 years per phase — a significant discount on what would otherwise be one of the largest property tax bills in Texas history. The school district doesn’t simply absorb that loss: Texas’s school finance system is designed so the state sends additional funding to districts when their local tax base is reduced by incentive deals like this. In theory, the district gets made whole.

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Will SpaceX fortunes trickle down to this Texas town?

Many of the tech bros who swing by Found Fine Art in Bastrop, Texas, are smitten with “Schoolgirl Witchblade,” a bronze statuette of a manga-style character with pigtails, a barely there bodice and a clawed hand ready for a supernatural brawl (price: $3,200). The preference seems on brand. These bros work for SpaceX, the reusable rocket and internet satellite megacorporation led by Elon Musk, who created a sexy, pigtailed, manga-style digital girlfriend for premium users of his Grok chatbot. “They ask a lot about these,” said Alexandria Lagos, a gallery sales associate, pointing to “Schoolgirl” and similar works. “Though I haven’t seen anyone buy one.” That could change. On Friday, SpaceX raised $75 billion in the largest initial public offering in history. The company employs 1,600 people near Bastrop, which means that a sizable chunk of the town’s 14,000 residents just got rich, or at least richer. On Thursday, the gallery’s owner, Jamie Howard, wore a look of subdued delight, as if she were waiting for a piñata to get whacked and the candy to drop on the floor.

“I definitely have clients who plan to celebrate by investing in various things,” she said with a smile. “Once they cash out their shares there is going to be some delightful fallout around here.” The bounty has been five years in the making. Mr. Musk started buying land in Bastrop and Travis Counties, near Austin, in 2021, using about a dozen different private companies to snap up more than 1,000 acres. His tunneling enterprise, the Boring Company, opened here first, and Starlink, part of SpaceX, opened an operational plant two years later. The companies — plus X and a fledging residential community — form a compound on about 600 acres 10 miles northwest of downtown Bastrop, known to locals as “Elon Land.” Soon after the stock market closed on Friday, Elon Land was briefly a scene of pure jubilation. Ten SpaceX employees, dressed in jeans and black T-shirts with YOLO printed on them in large letters, gathered to celebrate at the Boring Bodega, a warehouse-size convenience store, bar and hair salon next to the Boring Company and across the street from SpaceX.

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Tropical Storm Arthur dissipates after forming along Texas coast

Tropical Storm Arthur formed Wednesday morning and dissipated several hours later after making landfall on the Texas coast. The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season brought gusty winds and some coastal flooding to the Galveston area and was expected to lead to rainy weather and potential flooding in the southeastern U.S. during the following days, according to the National Hurricane Center. Tropical storm warnings, which had been issued for Galveston and other coastal areas between Sargent, Texas, and Morgan City, Louisiana, were canceled Wednesday night. Galveston remained under a coastal flooding advisory until early Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Although the storm deteriorated after moving inland, Arthur was “expected to produce rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches, with isolated higher totals near 20 inches, through early Friday” along the upper Texas and Louisiana coasts and potentially in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, the National Hurricane Center wrote in a Wednesday night advisory. “This could generate dangerous to life-threatening flash flooding,” the advisory stated. Before Arthur formed and moved toward the Galveston area, local officials asked residents to stay aware by watching for weather alerts and flooding in the area. "If you can’t see the road, don’t drive through it. It’s not a time to try to gauge the depth of the water with your car or truck," Galveston County Judge Mark Henry said Tuesday. "If you can’t see the road, turn around, don’t drown, find another route." A flood watch for the Houston and Galveston areas, which had been set to expire Wednesday night, was called off earlier by the National Weather Service. A flood watch means conditions are favorable for possible flooding. A flood warning means flooding is imminent or underway.

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County Stories

A 2nd man dies in Tarrant County Jail custody in as many days

A second man died this week at the Tarrant County Jail, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office Wednesday. A 40-year-old man on Tuesday was kneeling next to his bed and failed to respond to verbal greetings from a detention officer during a routine cell check, the sheriff's office said in a press release. The officer then entered the cell after receiving no response and saw the unidentified man was having a "medical emergency," according to the press release. The man was transported to John Peter Smith Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. “Many individuals entering our facility arrive with significant, long-term health issues related to substance abuse or other medical conditions," the sheriff's office said in a press release.

"Our staff works diligently to identify medical and mental-health concerns through our screening process the moment someone comes into our custody. However, even with these efforts, we cannot compel individuals to follow the medical guidance provided by the doctors and nurses from John Peter Smith Hospital." The man was arrested by Fort Worth Police on a possession of marijuana less than two ounces charge. He was booked into the Tarrant County Jail Sunday. The sheriff's office said the man refused to cooperate or consent to a medical screening, which is conducted on all inmates after being booked. Another man, James Johnson, died while in custody at the county jail Monday under similar circumstances. Johnson experienced a medical emergency in his cell and also refused a medical screening, the sheriff's office claimed. Tuesday's death marks the third this year at Tarrant County Jail.

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City Stories

Dallas convention center delayed until 2030

Dallas officials say a dispute over plans to redesign the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center has delayed its opening until 2030, forcing the city to relocate events expected at the facility. The $3.8 billion project has now been delayed twice, and some City Council members have raised concerns about the city’s management of one downtown's most ambitious redevelopment efforts. City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert sent a memo to council members Tuesday night flagging the latest delay. She said recent discussions about roads around the center, including at a committee meeting Monday, prompted staff to delay the planned closure of Jefferson Boulevard while city leaders consider whether to redesign portions of the project.

The setback raises the stakes in an increasingly contentious debate over the project's future, with city officials warning that continued disruptions could cost Dallas convention business and undermine years of planning for a redevelopment expected to reshape downtown. Any delays beyond December 2030 could cost the city $1.4 million a month in lost tax revenue, according to Visit Dallas, the nonprofit responsible for marketing the city. Continued uncertainty and delays to the project give convention hotspots like Houston, Nashville and Denver a chance to snatch business from Dallas, the promotional group said in a recent report. Visit Dallas has asked the City Council to finalize a deadline for the opening – and stick to it – to prevent a further hit to the city’s reputation. The new convention center was originally expected to open in 2028 but that date was pushed back to late 2029, causing the relocation of some events. The latest delay will force nine conventions to move and a loss of about 30 conventions the city was about to book, Visit Dallas CEO Craig Davis said Wednesday.

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San Antonio inches closer to buying property for Spurs arena as it prepares to talk with team owners

The city is closing in on plans to acquire the property formerly occupied by the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) for the planned Spurs arena. That announcement, and the pending acquisition of one of two federal buildings at Hemisfair, were part of a delayed progress update Wednesday on the $4 billion proposed downtown sports and entertainment mecca. The update came following a fiery discussion in May and a rush to vote last fall. The latest council discussion was more measured with city staff laying out various development milestones and council advocating for affordable housing, small business involvement and mobility and accessibility issues.

Council members also said they’re eager to see the planned online dashboard, under development by the executive program manager Accenture. The public dashboard is expected in early 2027 and will track the various studies, construction and costs on the project known as Project Marvel. Last August, the council voted 7-4 to approve the framework for a $489 million city contribution to the arena anchoring the sweeping sports and entertainment district, and Bexar County voters followed it up by approving another $311 million on the Nov. 4 ballot. But the dazzling vision for the district has continued to shift since it’s gone from concept in November 2024 to actual implementation this year. Gone are plans for a new convention center hotel and hospitality school in place of a water chilling plant, and a land bridge connecting the East Side to downtown, while other pieces of the plan, like the former courthouse-turned-concert venue, have been put on pause. Moving forward at full speed are proposals for a new Spurs arena in place of the demolished ITC and an expanded Henry B. González Convention Center.

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National Stories

Georgia Republicans backtrack on redistricting plans

Georgia lawmakers will not redraw the state’s political maps this month after GOP Gov. Brian Kemp called them into a special session to do so. Following a major Supreme Court ruling on redistricting this spring, Kemp asked the Republican-led Legislature to consider new congressional and state legislative lines ahead of the 2028 election, since the 2026 election is already underway. But on Wednesday afternoon, state Republican legislative leaders said they did not have enough time to take up redistricting in the current special session. “When the House learned that it was placed on the call for a special session, we knew it was not the right path forward for our state at this time. We believe that it is important to do things the Georgia way — responsibly, transparently and with ample opportunity for public input,” House Speaker Jon Burns said at a news conference at the state Capitol flanked by colleagues.

Still, Republican leaders suggested they could revisit the issue ahead of the 2028 election cycle. “Because any changes to our current congressional or legislative districts would not go into effect until 2028, we believe it is prudent to take the appropriate and necessary time to do this important duty the right way and not to rush through it,” said Republican state Senate President Pro Tempore Larry Walker III. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday that some Republicans feared a redistricting push months out from competitive Senate and governor’s races could backfire and mobilize Democrats in the battleground state. Democrats celebrated as Republicans shelved their redistricting plans. “Republicans thought they could get away with drawing racist, rigged maps without a fight. Today, thanks to the people showing up and showing out, we won. Racist, rigged maps are dead for now,” state House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley and Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II said in a joint statement. “Fight now, vote Republicans out in November, and stop these racist, rigged maps for good.”

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Pentagon chief lashes out at NATO allies and announces a review of US forces in Europe

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on Thursday, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take responsibility for their own security. “This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” he told his NATO counterparts in Brussels. Hegseth lambasted European allies for failing to provide U.S. forces access to bases in Europe to launch attacks on Iran, calling it “shameful.”

“These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access, basing and overflight that never should have been in question at all,” he said. Taking the microphone at the top of the meeting, Hegseth also railed against migration and gender equality policies in Europe, in remarks reminiscent to those of Vice President JD Vance in February last year that angered many Europeans. “Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus has been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity. Europe’s borders flew wide open, welfare states expanded, defense budgets cratered. Along with Europe’s belief in itself and its civilization,” Hegseth said. Hegseth’s comments largely mischaracterized European policies today. On defense, European allies and Canada have launched an unprecedented effort to boost defense spending and expand their armed forces. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that they spent $90 billion more on defense last year, a 20% increase over 2024. And while Europe accepted large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers more than a decade ago, most countries have tightened their borders since. The Trump administration now wants a reboot of the 32-nation organization to turn it into a “NATO 3.0” capable of deterring any threat, Hegseth said. Hegseth’s remarks came a few weeks after the United States told its allies that it would no longer supply certain warships and aircraft if one of them comes under attack. European allies and Canada are trying to work out how to plug the gaps.

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Trump’s surprise DNI announcement leaves Senate Republicans reeling

President Donald Trump torched the Senate’s chances of expeditiously confirming Jay Clayton to become the next director of national intelligence on Wednesday, effectively grinding the chamber to a halt as members try to pick up the pieces following the presidential blockade. Senate Republicans had been confident they would be able to quickly confirm Clayton’s nomination this week. That move would have killed two birds with one stone — denying Bill Pulte from becoming acting DNI on Friday and potentially allowing them to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Those hopes were dashed in the wee hours of Wednesday morning with the president tying both items to unmovable business, leaving members fuming.

“There’s some frustration,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of the mood of the conference after members convened for lunch. “702 is going to stay dark, and that’s a danger to the country during the World Cup. We have a lot of people here from around the world, and where we’ve got regimes like the Iranian regime mad at us.” “We’ve basically blinded our intelligence community,” Cornyn said, noting that 60% of the president’s daily brief, a summary of current national security threats, emanates from intelligence gathered via the spy powers. Both Democrats and Republicans raised concerns about Pulte’s credentials for the acting DNI post, and there appeared to be bipartisan support to confirm Clayton as soon as this week. Republicans have grown increasingly bothered by recent maneuvers from Trump, with a number of them coming at inopportune times. Those continued with Wednesday’s social media post that came just hours before Clayton was set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the afternoon.

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RFK Jr. orders American exposed to Hantavirus to stay quarantined against medical advice

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered an American passenger exposed to hantavirus on a cruise ship to remain in quarantine Monday against her will and despite expert advice. Kennedy said the passenger, Angela Perryman, needed to remain isolated even though a review from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she should be allowed to quarantine at home in Florida, according to his order viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Perryman, 47, was one of more than a dozen Americans exposed to hantavirus aboard a cruise ship earlier this spring. The group had initially been placed at a Nebraska quarantine unit. The World Health Organization had recommended people with high-risk exposure undergo quarantine at home or in a facility for 42 days “as a precautionary measure” because of the long incubation period of the virus.

In a phone interview, Perryman said Kennedy’s quarantine order, slipped under her door Monday, was “ridiculous.” “I’m in a room 23, 24 hours a day,” she said. “It does not serve public health.” She said her quarantine was set to end on Sunday after 42 days. She expected some of the nine others in quarantine with her to head home this week. She said she believed Kennedy’s order was retaliation for speaking out against the quarantine measures. “I’m the only one here involuntarily,” she said. Courtney Spencer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said, “In the absence of proper home monitoring by state authorities, the administration’s quarantine order is necessary to ensure both Ms. Perryman’s and her community’s wellbeing.” Representatives for the White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Hantavirus, a disease carried by rodents, typically doesn’t spread between humans. The Andes strain, which has left three people dead amid this outbreak, is the exception, but the CDC has maintained that the overall risk to the American public remains extremely low.

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World Cup fans share videos of them trying American good. They’re a hit.

On Shaun Alexander’s recent trip to the United States, he checked off some of the classic American pastimes from his bucket list: Catch a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston, see live music in New York, visit the Alamo and try barbecue in Texas. But he also had an unusual goal: Alexander wanted to visit Bass Pro Shops in every state he passed through. “It’s just unbelievable,” said Alexander, 38, from Edinburgh. “It’s like a theme park and a museum all wrapped into, you know, a big retail store.” He is an avid fisherman, he said, but it was about much more than that. There was a model humpback whale on the roof of a location in Foxborough, Mass., that he compared to “the size of a whale that we have in one of our biggest museums in the U.K.” He added that it was “the type of thing that could really only exist in America.”

Like many World Cup visitors, Alexander is going off the beaten path while he follows his team. Whether it’s because of the downtime between games, the routes between stadiums or the steep prices of hotels, many are getting out of big cities or taking road trips. Their itineraries may include the more traditional Statue of Liberty or the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But as millions of Americans follow along on social media, buoyed by the videos romanticizing daily life in their towns, the soccer tourists are also marveling over the everything-in-one Southern gas station chain Buc-ee’s, as well as combing through grocery store shelves and picking up Italian heroes at the local deli. “I’ve been coming to America since I was a kid, but we’re visiting places that I’ve never been,” said Sammie Bell, 30, from Hertfordshire, England, whose trip included stops in Dallas, Fort Worth and Tampa, Fla. She regarded not only the stadiums as highlights, but also the wildlife. The lizards she saw in Florida, she said, were “the animals we’d see in a zoo in England.” Alexander, who has come to be known online as Scottish Shaun, highlighted the ice machines. “In Europe, you have to fight for your ice.” For Elsa Thora, 24, who is from Stockholm, it was the fire trucks: “They’re shiny, they look really cool — just like in the movies.”

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Kevin Warsh’s first interest rates decision: Keep things steady

The Federal Reserve’s new chair, under immense pressure from President Donald Trump to lower interest rates, is keeping rates steady for now. It was the first test of Kevin Warsh’s commitment to maintaining the independence of the central bank as Trump continues to call for sweeping rate cuts. The Federal Open Market Committee maintained rates at 3.5 to 3.75% on Wednesday, citing economic uncertainty in the Middle East and high inflation. All twelve members, including Warsh, voted to hold rates. “Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East. Productivity growth and capital investment are strong. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.” the committee wrote in a statement.

The committee also removed the easing bias, language that indicates the committee seeks to lower rates in its next meeting. Warsh has said the Fed should reel in its communications to the public about its policymaking, with Fed governors making fewer public appearances and the central bank releasing fewer economic forecasts, including “dot plot” projections. That easing language was absent from the Fed’s statement on Wednesday. Warsh’s calls to limit the Fed’s public communications rankled some on Capitol Hill. “I don’t know if I agree with Kevin on that, but he deserves to try it his way, and it may work better,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) said on Tuesday. “I’m very uneasy when the head of any government agency says they would like less transparency into their actions and thinking,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), who has accused Warsh of serving as Trump’s “sock puppet.” Economists widely expected the committee to cut the easing bias and maintain rates, as the Iran war supercharged inflation and Trump’s fluctuating tariff rates raised prices for consumers. The Trump administration has argued that oil prices will plummet when the Strait of Hormuz reopens, following the pending U.S. peace deal with Iran, but economists predict high prices for food and consumer goods will linger for months.

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Trump-endorsed pastor suspends Oklahoma House campaign after texting scandal

Jackson Lahmeyer, an Oklahoma Republican congressional candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump, has suspended his campaign one day after advancing to a runoff, saying he did not want to be a “distraction” amid questions about the nature of his relationship with a former staffer. Lahmeyer, a megachurch pastor who is married with five children, has been mired in scandal since the Daily Mail published text messages, days before the primary, between him and a woman who formerly served as his campaign fundraiser that suggested an inappropriate relationship. In a statement Monday, Lahmeyer admitted to “crossing a boundary line through text messaging” with his former staffer but otherwise dismissed what he called a “distorted story from a British Tabloid.”

In Tuesday’s Republican primary, Lahmeyer received 26 percent of the vote, coming in second to Oklahoma state Rep. Mark Tedford, who got 32 percent. The two were set to advance to a runoff when Lahmeyer abruptly announced he was leaving the race. “After prayerful consideration with my wife, Kendra, and my team over the last twenty four hours, I’ve made the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for Congress,” Lahmeyer said in a statement Wednesday. “I do not want to be a distraction to my family, my church, and the great people of Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, who deserve a strong conservative voice representing them in Washington,” he added. Last month, President Donald Trump endorsed Lahmeyer from a crowded field of nearly a dozen candidates hoping to succeed Rep. Kevin Hern (R), who is running for Senate. At the time, the president described Lahmeyer — who founded Pastors for Trump — as “a very successful Pastor, Businessman, and Civic Leader” who had his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”

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State Farm’s AI plan for sales agents sparks uproar. ‘A real slap in the face.’

State Farm rolled out the red carpet for its army of sales agents at a Las Vegas convention last month. Thousands who flew into Sin City on the insurer’s dime were treated to a Pink concert, a Jimmy Fallon-led singalong and selfies with the “Jake from State Farm” actor. Then Jon Farney, State Farm’s chief executive, took to the Allegiant Stadium stage and dropped a bombshell. Farney, a 33-year State Farm veteran, told his sales force he was ripping up their existing contracts. Any agent who wants to stay past 2027 will have to sign up to a new compensation deal and sales targets. “State Farm needs to change,” he said, according to a video of the event reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

A big driver of that change: AI. The rapidly evolving technology is shaking up the industry’s decades-old sales model, paving the way for faster, cheaper, more targeted transactions. Apps and bots are reinventing how people want to buy products like insurance. Agents’ responses to the changes lighted up Facebook, Reddit and Instagram. “A lot of folks are really mad,” one commented. “Take it or leave. A real slap in the face.” The initiatives appear to be a response to State Farm’s eroding status in the industry. The insurer was this year usurped as the nation’s biggest personal auto insurer by Progressive, losing a throne it had held since World War II, according to S&P. The fast-growing Progressive sells over half its personal auto policies direct to consumers, using AI and tech to keep costs low, analysts said. State Farm, by contrast, is “the Goliath among agent-sold auto insurance,” said Michael Zaremski, an insurance analyst at BMO Capital Markets. Founded 104 years ago by an Illinois farmer turned insurance agent, State Farm grew to the nation’s biggest home and auto insurer on the back of a sprawling sales network.

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Lead Stories

Data center boom tests Republicans’ hold on rural Texas

The Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner won a boost from an unexpected source last week: The Republican he’s trying to replace. Sid Miller, the outgoing commissioner, appeared at a packed campaign event in Matagorda County for Clayton Tucker and told the crowd he agrees with the Democrat on many things — but especially Tucker's calls for a statewide moratorium on data centers. “It's not a Republican issue, it's not a Democrat issue,” Miller told the crowd. “This is one of those red, white, and blue issues about protecting our community.” Texas is on track to be the world’s largest data center hub in just a couple of years. Most Republican state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have wholeheartedly embraced the rush as a boon for the state’s economy.

But there’s a growing backlash from the rural Texans they have long counted as their strongest supporters, as the centers that suck up huge amounts of power and water crop up next to farms, schools and hospitals. At last week’s GOP convention in Houston, activists worked reforms aimed at slowing the data center boom into the party’s legislative priorities. The agriculture commissioner race could prove a key test of just how much the issue will scramble typical partisan politics. Tucker is building his entire campaign around the brewing panic, with stickers featuring his name alongside the slogan: “stop AI data centers.” On a Thursday night, at least 100 people crammed into a small building on the Matagorda County Fair Grounds to hear from Tucker, a political newcomer and rancher from Lampasas, and Miller, a hard right Republican backed by President Donald Trump. Some in the crowd asked how they could put the brakes on data center construction. One woman asked Miller directly if they should vote for Democrats if Republicans won’t take action. “You know, basically what she's asking is, ‘Should we vote on the issues that count towards us?’” Miller, who lost the GOP primary in March, said to the crowd. “And I would say, ‘Vote your conscience. Vote who you think represents you the best.’”

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Trump delays nomination for intel director, citing frustration over spying tool and voter ID bill

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community, citing his frustration over a lapsed surveillance tool and a voter ID bill that currently lacks enough support for passage. In a lengthy overnight post to Truth Social, Trump said that he was canceling a confirmation hearing for Clayton to be his director of national intelligence, which was planned for Wednesday. He issued the post while keeping world leaders waiting for nearly an hour on the final day of the Group of Seven summit in Evian-les-Bains, France. Trump accused Democrats of reneging on a deal to renew a powerful surveillance tool backed by national security hawks, which had lapsed due to bipartisan concerns over Trump’s initial pick for the role, Bill Pulte, who has no national security background.

The president added another condition: linking his approval of the surveillance program to the passage of a bill requiring people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and to show ID at the polls. Trump also said he does not want to take Clayton out of his current role as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before his replacement, former federal prosecutor and Trump personal lawyer Jamie McDonald, is approved. The nomination of Clayton had been fast-tracked because of the lapse of the key spying program — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. “The Republicans agreed with Dumocrats to remove very fair, and talented, William Pulte, from serving as Acting DNI in return for getting FISA approved by the Dumocrats. However, the Republicans moved so fast with the hearings of the Great Jay Clayton, current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, that Pulte would be gone before the Dumocrats would vote on FISA. Now, the Dumocrats are saying they will vote against FISA — So, the Republicans wound up having fulfilled their commitment, but Dumocrats broke the Deal,” Trump said.

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USDA invests $105M in projects to combat New World screwworm threat

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday it will invest more than $100 million in new projects aimed at strengthening the nation’s response to the New World screwworm, a parasitic pest that poses risks to livestock and wildlife. The agency said about $105 million will fund 40 projects designed to improve detection, control and eradication efforts, as part of a broader federal initiative to combat the parasite. Officials said the funding stems from the USDA’s “Grand Challenge” launched earlier this year, which called for innovative solutions from government, academic and private partners to address the threat.

“We launched the Grand Challenge expecting bold, innovative, and science-backed ideas to fight New World screwworm, and the proposals delivered just that,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement. The selected projects were chosen from more than 200 applications and focus on improving several key areas, including increasing sterile fly production, developing better detection tools and advancing treatments to reduce the impact on animals. The USDA said additional efforts are already underway, including research at Texas A&M and the University of Florida exploring new ways to sterilize screwworm flies without traditional radiation methods. The new investments are intended to strengthen rapid response capabilities and reinforce ongoing programs such as surveillance, cross-border coordination and sterile insect release strategies, according to the release.

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US set to offer Iran broad financial gains in peace deal

Iran is set to receive broad financial incentives as part of its agreement with the US, including the right to sell oil immediately, tap a $300 billion development fund and get eventual access to its frozen assets, according to a final draft of the deal. While the contours of the memorandum of understanding have been circulating for days, the latest document — a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg News — offers the most complete accounting yet of the economic boost Iran is set to receive for ending its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and reiterating its commitment never to seek a nuclear weapon. The two sides agreed to the deal on Sunday and plan to formally sign it on June 19 in Switzerland, clearing the way for 60 days of talks intended to end the war for good and put strict new limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Neither side has formally released the text but the US has begun circulating it with allied nations at the Group of Seven summit in France, a person familiar with the matter said.

Another person familiar with its contents, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, said technical details were still being worked out. That suggested precise language may still change before the signing. Under its terms, the US Treasury Department “will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives” immediately after the memorandum is signed. The US will lift its naval blockade and the two countries will work to ensure that traffic in the Strait of Hormuz returns to its prewar level within 30 days. According to the draft document, the US and its regional partners would create a plan to rehabilitate Iran and allow for its economic development, with financing of at least $300 billion. It is vague on the release of Iran’s frozen assets, saying the US undertakes that those funds “will be released and made fully available” without setting a timeline. Asked for comment, a US official declined to discuss the specifics of the draft but said Iran can only get the benefits of the deal if it meets its commitments. Those include never getting a nuclear weapon, neutralizing its enriched material and allowing free navigation in the strait. Trump had earlier denied that the US would pay Iran $300 billion. The draft says only that the US and its partners would ensure financing of that amount. The agreement offers a mix of immediate and eventual incentives for Iran while committing it never to seek a nuclear weapon. The country has long insisted it doesn’t want the atomic bomb and had committed not to seek one as part of the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

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State Stories

Fired KUT leader calls successor Gerald Johnson a 'smart leader' and 'ethical person'

The University of Texas at Austin has announced Gerald Johnson as the interim general manager of KUT Public Media, a day after firing former General Manager Debbie Hiott following a major dispute over the KUT Festival. Johnson is the executive director for innovation and partnerships at the Moody College of Communication. He is also the former director of Texas Student Media, which includes The Daily Texan, and has worked with KUT and Hiott on revenue operations for the stations. He previously managed advertising and revenue at the Houston Chronicle. "His depth of understanding of media operations, sales and marketing will ensure the continued success of the organization during this transition," said Anita L. Vangelisti, the interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, in an email announcing the appointment on Tuesday.

The Moody College houses KUT and KUTX, and staff are university employees. The newsroom is editorially independent from UT. Vangelisti and Johnson spoke to KUT staff at an in-person meeting Tuesday about the transition. Vangelisti said firing Hiott was her decision, and that officials plan to launch a search for a new general manager as soon as possible. Johnson said he only plans to serve as interim general manager for three months, but may stay longer if needed to lead the hiring of a permanent leader. Johnson said he wasn't involved in firing Hiott and declined to comment on whether he agreed with the decision. He said he's close friends with Hiott and spoke with her Monday. When asked for comment on the hire, Hiott called Johnson a "smart leader and an ethical person." "As long as no one interferes with him, he should be a good steward for the stations," she said in a text message. Johnson said he doesn't see KUT's work changing as a result of the transition.

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Houston forecast calls for up to 6 more inches of rain

Monday’s heavy rain was only the beginning of a potentially dangerous stretch of weather for the Houston metro area. The concern is not whether it will rain, but how much. Another 4 to 6 inches of rain could fall across parts of Southeast Texas through Thursday as a slow-moving area of low pressure develops near the Texas coast, increasing the risk of flash flooding and flooded roads. The National Hurricane Center is also monitoring the system for possible tropical development, though the flooding threat exists whether it becomes a tropical cyclone or not. Monday offered an early glimpse of what this week’s weather pattern could do. Most of Harris County received an inch to 3 inches of rain, while parts of central Houston picked up 3 to 5 inches. Those amounts are expected to be only a fraction of what some locations could receive by the end of the week.

Some spots could pick up more than half a foot of more rainfall through Thursday, especially where thunderstorms repeatedly track over the same areas. Confidence is growing that parts of Southeast Texas will receive significant rainfall, according to forecast models, but uncertainty remains over exactly where the highest totals will occur. The heaviest rainfall could develop on the eastern side of the low pressure system, meaning even small shifts in its eventual track could dramatically change which communities see the greatest flooding threat. For now, confidence is higher in the likelihood of heavy rainfall somewhere in the region than in identifying exactly where the worst flooding will occur.

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Despite gains, Austin ISD takeover looms as key middle schools post low STAAR results

Three Austin school district middle schools at the center of the district’s fight to avoid a state takeover posted modest gains on this year’s state exams, but passing rates remained critically low, signaling the campuses could be headed toward a fifth consecutive failing state accountability rating. Burnet, Dobie and Webb middle schools improved across math and reading during the 2025-26 school year, but the overwhelming majority of students still did not meet grade-level standards, according to preliminary STAAR results released Tuesday by the Texas Education Agency. In math, just under 10% of students passed math at Dobie and Webb middle schools, with Burnet at 15% of students passing. In reading, students who met or exceeded grade level expectations reached nearly 19% at Burnet, 26% at Dobie and 15.5% at Webb. The stakes are unusually high for Austin ISD.

The three campuses are one failing state accountability rating away from triggering a state intervention, and possibly a state takeover, of the district, with STAAR performance carrying significant weight in those ratings. Based on the preliminary results, the campuses could receive that fifth failing mark when official grades are doled out in August, opening the door for a state intervention as early as this fall. Across Austin ISD, middle school students showed improvement in both math and reading, with districtwide rates for Grade 6 through 8 rising from the previous year. Statewide, results showed similar gains, including growth in seventh and eighth grade reading and eighth grade math. The early STAAR results showed mixed outcomes across Austin ISD elementary and middle school campuses, reflecting uneven academic recovery as the district works to raise achievement and avoid deeper state intervention. The district’s passing math rates for Grades 6-8 saw a 4 percentage point jump, with a 2 percentage point increase in students passing reading. Still, an estimated 60% of Austin’s students Grades 6-8 have yet to meet expectations in math and just over 40% of those students have yet to meet expectations in reading. In elementary, Grades 3-5 rose 2 percentage points in students passing reading and a 4 percentage point increment in students passing math. Statewide, Texas elementary and middle school students showed little movement in reading, while math and social studies rates improved.

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KP George trial: Suspended Fort Bend County judge sentenced to 5 years probation, 180 days in jail in money laundering case

Suspended Fort Bend County Judge KP George has been sentenced to five years' probation and 180 days in the county jail after being convicted of money laundering. In March, George was convicted of stealing from his donors by making two transfers totaling more than $46,000 from his campaign account to his personal account. It was decided then that a judge would determine his sentence on June 16. Days before the sentencing, George's defense team requested to delay the hearing until George's other case. George faces misdemeanor charges tied to fake racism social media posts, prosecutors said he was involved with prior to his 2022 re-election. That trial is scheduled for July. Prosecutors requested that the judge deny George's request and move forward with the felony sentencing.

On Tuesday, George's sentencing hearing began, and 458th District Judge Maggie Jaramillo made no mention of the delay request. The district attorney's office told ABC13 that George's team dropped the motion. During opening remarks, prosecutors told Judge Jaramillo that George should be treated differently with a sentence because they said, as a politician, he broke the public's trust. If probation is granted, the DA's office said that, as a condition of probation, a substantial amount of jail time should be served. George's defense team asked for community supervision, arguing that given George has no criminal history, and has already been severely punished with the loss of his political position. George elected to have the presiding judge set the sentence.

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Rural North Texas counties trying to regulate data centers face legal threats

Tensions flared at a recent public meeting in Hood County that devolved into a shouting match between county attorney Matthew Mills and residents who oppose data centers. "How much did y'all get paid?" asked a resident. "Not a dime," Mills said. "You're accusing people of being crooks!" That day commissioners were voting to approve another data center project called Comanche Circle without conditions after the developer threatened to sue. Mills told KERA many residents want to stop the industry from moving in — but commissioners are only upholding the law to avoid legal action. “There is a sense, I think, of ‘we can't keep doing this, and we got to pick our battles here,’” Mills said. There are at least nine proposed projects in Hood and nearby Somervell counties, which have a combined population of about 80,000 people.

Concerned residents say the projects could raise their electricity bills, use up water resources and ruin tourism for nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park. "I would be able to see the entire Comanche Circle project from my backyard," said Joanne Carcamo, who lives in Somervell County and spoke at the meeting. Carcamo co-founded the advocacy group Protect the Paluxy, which opposes data center construction in the region. "There really are no studies on these impacts and [I hope] that they set some parameters to limit these developers from building these things in rural areas and next to state parks," Carcamo said. "We spend so much money as a state on our parks and they bring in so much money, you know, and tourism, it would just be devastating." As rural leaders try to slow or regulate the influx of new data centers, some companies are using lawsuits to push developments forward in Texas and across the nation. In Michigan, a town faced legal pressure from a developer after leaders voted to limit data center construction. The town settled, allowing the facility to be built. In Hill County, south of Fort Worth, commissioners rescinded a moratorium on data center construction after a company sued for $100 million dollars, arguing the county didn’t have the legal authority to impose the ban.

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Wealthy businesswoman and wife of judge who spent COVID money on Mercedes-Benz avoids prison

A wealthy businesswoman who submitted fraudulent loan applications during the pandemic avoided prison Tuesday. Sandra Pope Solis, 61, of Rancho Viejo collected $206,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program during the pandemic — and spent the money on a Mercedes-Benz. “It wasn’t her idea,” said attorney David Lindenmuth of McAllen, who represented Pope. “But she participated in it. And she benefitted from it.”

She and her husband, La Feria Municipal Judge William L. Pope, live in a home worth more than $1 million, according to information published by the Cameron County Appraisal District. Pope had a net worth of more than $5 million in 2026, according to the motion filed by federal prosecutors, which included more than $400,000 in cash and more than $2 million in a retirement account. Pope owned two businesses, Along Came Sandra and Designs By Sandra, which planned special events. In 2020, when COVID-19 struck the United States, the federal government spent billions to keep small businesses afloat. The government encouraged businesses to apply for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which provided working capital, and Paycheck Protection Program, which covered payroll costs. Pope submitted an Economic Injury Disaster Loan application in December 2020 for Along Came Sandra, according to the indictment against her. The U.S. Small Business Administration sent her $140,300. In May 2021, she applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan to cover the payroll at Designs by Sandra. The government sent her another $65,700. Pope spent the money on personal expenses, according to documents filed in the case, including a 2020 Mercedes-Benz G550. A grand jury indicted Pope on two counts of wire fraud. She pleaded guilty in April 2026.

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Houston attorney Dan Cogdell says he didn't anticipate reaction to Talarico endorsement

Houston Attorney Dan Cogdell says he did not anticipate the amount of attention he would receive for endorsing a candidate in the US Senate race in Texas. Cogdell was Ken Paxton's criminal defense attorney for years, and he successfully represented him as part of a team of lawyers in his impeachment trial. But he publicly endorsed Paxton's opponent in the U.S. Senate race, James Talarico. "It wasn't so much a decision against Paxton as it was for Talarico," Cogdell told ABC13. "I never knew anybody would care about me as much as they apparently have. It's a shock to me that anybody gives a damn. I was taken aback by that. And I don't know whether to be impressed or annoyed with how much attention it's gotten. But it is what it is." Paxton's campaign told ABC13 of Cogdell, "He's a Democrat. Least surprising thing that has happened."

Cogdell said his choice was not about party. "I don't really consider myself a Democrat or a Republican," Cogdell said. "I'm a moderate. I have raised far more money for Republican candidates and donated far more money for Republican candidates than I have Democrats, so I don't really care about the label. I'm a criminal defense lawyer. If I cared what people thought about me, I chose the wrong gig." State Representative Ann Johnson faced off against Cogdell when she helped the Texas House prosecute its impeachment case against Paxton in 2023. Paxton was acquitted of all charges. "I'm not surprised that it made news," Johnson said. "There are two people that probably know him best. His wife and his longtime criminal defense lawyer, and both of them have walked away from him, effectively." Ultimately, though, do endorsements matter? ABC13 spoke with SMU political science professor Cal Jillson. "It's like fundraising. You need enough money to make your case, you'd rather have endorsements than not have them, but they're not going to win you the election," Jillson said. "So this is a story that you and I are interested in, and following a little bit, but for most voters, it will not penetrate."

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Flight delays reported at Bush, Hobby airports as rain moves inland

Heavy storms trained over parts of Houston, especially north Harris County, on Tuesday, causing airport flight delays. George Bush Intercontinental Airport was reporting 75 delayed flights as of 11 a.m. A tropical disturbance in South Texas strengthened into Potential Tropical Cyclone One on Tuesday as it headed toward the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. As of 10 a.m., the system was centered about 65 miles southwest of Corpus Christi with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph, according to newsroom meteorologist Justin Ballard. Airport officials urged travelers to check with their airlines for delays and arrive early due to the weather. Delays at William P. Hobby Airport were about 15 to 30 minutes, according to the Houston Airport System.

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State probing SAISD leader for alleged failure to report misconduct

The Texas Education Agency is investigating outgoing San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Jaime Aquino’s educator certificate over allegations that he failed to report misconduct related to child endangerment to the agency. It’s not clear when TEA’s Educator Investigations Division began looking into Aquino. The probe escalated from a preliminary review to a formal investigation this month. “TEA can confirm an open investigation concerning an alleged failure to report misconduct to the agency,” spokesperson Jake Kobersky said in an email Tuesday. “The individual was notified of the investigation, and their online certification was flagged as under investigation on June 7th, 2026.”

Kobersky declined to comment further, citing the active investigation. San Antonio ISD said it is cooperating with the agency and has properly reported the incident being investigated. Both TEA and the district declined to provide additional details about the misconduct the agency is investigating as unreported. “We have shared documentation with TEA to demonstrate the district had followed through on appropriate reporting at the time of the incident,” SAISD spokesperson Laura Short said. “We understand that once TEA evaluates this documentation, it will clear the review.” She added that the incident was reported to Child Protective Services by the district and that SAISD has “the documentation to confirm.” “If TEA agrees with this documentation, the case will be resolved,” she said. Short said the district was unaware its leader was under investigation until this week.

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Cannabis advocates tour Capitol, prepare for 2027 session

Cannabis advocates gathered at the Texas Capitol Tuesday afternoon as they prepare for the 90th Texas Legislature and ongoing debates over the future of hemp-derived THC products in the state. The event, announced by the Texas Cannabis Collective via Instagram, featured a Capitol tour designed to familiarize attendees with the legislative process and encourage political engagement ahead of the next legislative session in January. THC debates rose in Texas during the 89th Legislature, when lawmakers approved a bill that would have significantly restricted consumable hemp products containing THC. Gov. Greg Abbott ultimately vetoed the measure and called for a regulatory approach instead, while court battles over state hemp rules continue.

“There’s a lot of this back-and-forth litigation that’s happening that’s impacting people’s lives,” said executive director Austin Zamhariri. “We wanted to coalesce the group, show up to the Capitol, take a tour from a cannabis advocate standpoint and get people motivated ahead of elections.” The Texas Cannabis Collective says the Capitol tour is intended to help supporters build relationships, learn more about the legislative process and develop strategies for future advocacy efforts as lawmakers prepare to return to Austin in 2027. Sarah Todd, a longtime cannabis policy advocate, said she attended to network with other advocates and push for changes to state law. Todd said one of the biggest misconceptions lawmakers have about the hemp industry is that businesses oppose regulation. “That was a lot of the messaging last year, that we were selling things that were unlabeled, untested and marketing to children, which is not true,” Todd said. “Everyone is happy to comply to continue operating our business.” The Texas Cannabis Collective says it hopes to build momentum ahead of the next legislative session, when lawmakers are expected to revisit hemp and cannabis-related policies.

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Austin robotaxi crash reports rise for Waymo, Tesla, Avride

Waymo, an industry leader in autonomous vehicles, has now reported more than 100 crashes in Austin, where it operates hundreds of vehicles. The AV arm of Google parent company Alphabet, Waymo reported 11 Austin crashes to federal regulators in May, raising its total in the city to 103 since June 2025. Tesla reported one additional crash in Austin, bringing its citywide total to 18 among a fleet of 69 vehicles across Texas. Avride, which has 317 vehicles in the state, reported three new Austin crashes, raising its city total to 23. Zoox, owned by Amazon, remained at one reported crash in Austin. None of the companies responded to requests for comment.

Several of the crashes occurred while the autonomous vehicles were stopped, a point Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted in a post on X. The reports highlight instances of robotaxis navigating situations involving weather, human traffic direction and road work. In one case, Waymo reported that one of its vehicles was traveling west when it approached an intersection where police officers were directing traffic. The Waymo stopped, then proceeded into the intersection after traffic cleared. A passenger car traveling south entered the intersection at the direction of an officer, according to the report. Waymo said its vehicle slowed to yield before the front left side of the passenger car made contact with the front right side of the Waymo. Both vehicles were damaged, and the report mentions that a vehicle was towed but doesn't specify which one. The crash is being investigated by the Austin Police Department. Avride reported another crash in which one of its vehicles slowed to a stop as a traffic light changed. A passenger car behind it tried to stop but hydroplaned on the wet road and hit the rear of the Avride vehicle. Both vehicles were damaged, but no injuries were reported.

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Dallas city employees pen letter about City Hall

About 30 minutes ago, an open letter to Mayor Eric Johnson and the Dallas City Council arrived in my inbox from “hundreds of current and former City of Dallas employees.” They’re asking the body to vote to restore City Hall. The group says the I.M. Pei-designed, Brutalist building has been “a pillar of strength when we felt anything but,” and that it is a place where they made “lifelong friendships,” including some who met their spouses there. “Perhaps many of us have taken her for granted, not realizing a day would come in our lifetimes that she might be gone,” the letter continues. “As employees, we have seen first hand the many battles trying to make Dallas into something. Something better. Every one of those battles was driven by someone promising us more. For many of those — but not all — they put down roots, they invested in our community. They became part of us.”

“We keep reading in the news you are doing this for us, yet we’ve never been asked,” the letter says. “What we are asking of you is to lead our city in a plan to restore both downtown and Dallas City Hall, and not abandon who we are. To seek our opinions about how best to restore and beautify this irreplaceable space. We are asking you to choose Dallas, our Dallas.” As we reported last week, not even a full 24 hours after the Dallas City Council voted to hold off on any other City Hall moves until the end of August, Mayor Eric Johnson posted a special-called meeting for tomorrow. It begins at 8 a.m., which means it could start at 8 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 8:45 a.m., or even 9:01 a.m. The agenda has two items. Between the two, the Council is asked to approve $3 million to allow City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert to begin “pre-acquisition” work to find four locations for a new City Hall, as well as four locations for housing the city’s 911, 311, and emergency operations. If you are feeling some kind of way about the matter, the deadline to register to speak is 5 p.m. today. You can do so here. Some tips: You’re going to want to register to speak on an agenda item – Item 1 is moving City Hall, item 2 is moving 911, etc. Come equipped with two versions of what you want to say: the 3-minute version and a 1-minute version in case the mayor opts to reduce the time limit because of the number of speakers. Consider going with a friend so you can tag team in and out for restroom breaks or to run for a snack if the meeting runs long. (No food in the City Council chambers, you’ll need to keep those in your car.) So far, there are 29 people registered to speak, but that number will likely grow.

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Dallas Council Members question legality of last week’s City Hall vote

During last week’s special-called City Council meeting about City Hall (not to be confused with this week’s special-called meeting about City Hall), the motion the Council ultimately voted on may run afoul of a temporary restraining order that limited the open portion of the meeting to one item, two council members say. Last week’s meeting was limited to two items slated for a closed session discussion and a vote on whether to repair and preserve City Hall after two council members—Adam Bazaldua and Paula Blackmon—were successful in obtaining a temporary restraining order preventing the body from voting on whether to allow city staff to begin the advance work on moving city operations out of City Hall. Judge Eric Moyé found that the other items on the agenda were not transparent enough to satisfy the Texas Open Meetings Act (T.O.M.A.) and that if the council voted on those items, the “public’s right to transparent and lawful decision-making will have been violated.”

In the end, the Council voted down a measure to repair and restore City Hall, and instead voted 9-6 to direct City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert to explore options for a sale and the costs associated with leasing or purchasing a new home for City Hall and come back at the end of August, when the Council would again take up the matter. That directive is what has landed Tolbert, City Secretary Bilierae Johnson, and Councilmember Chad West, who made the motion, in potentially hot water. Blackmon and Bazaldua have asked Moyé to issue a show-cause order, which could require all three to appear before the court to explain why they should not be held in constructive contempt. (Johnson and Tolbert are named as defendants; West is named later in the filing.) Moyé is due to hear arguments on an injunction related to last week’s meeting on Thursday afternoon. The Council will meet at 8 a.m. tomorrow to vote on whether to spend $3 million to allow advance work on identifying potential locations (four for City Hall and four for emergency operations and 911) to move to. But that wasn’t the only legal document to arrive at the City Attorney’s Office on Tuesday. The attorneys for Save Dallas City Hall warned the city that documents and videos related to three meetings were removed from the city’s website.

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National Stories

Pentagon used Elon Musk’s Grok AI to fire 2,000 missiles at Iran, official says

Donald Trump’s administration turned to Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot to launch thousands of missiles in Iran, according to a top defense official. In a sworn statement defending the trillionaire from a lawsuit alleging xAI data centers are illegally polluting Black communities, the Pentagon’s artificial intelligence chief said the chatbot’s continued operation is “a matter of paramount national security” — and was used to fire more than “2,000 munitions at 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours.” Grok, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI, is among four AI models “currently capable of supporting national security applications,” according to Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer.

The chatbot is also one of three products “equipped to support mission-critical operations” in top secret settings, Stanley wrote. The filing appears to be the first explicit admission from an administration official that the government is using Musk’s AI to bomb Iran, joining several other AI systems that have come under intense scrutiny after U.S.-led attacks killed hundreds of civilians, including children. U.S. military investigators believe American forces were likely responsible for a strike on an Iranian girl’s school in Minab that killed at least 175 people, mostly children, in what analysts and human rights officials believe is the deadliest incident for civilian casualties since the U.S. and Israeli forces began attacking the country in February. Outside analysts have suggested that the Pentagon’s AI-driven targeting — in addition to human error that failed to check whether target maps were up to date — may have played a role in the bombing. The targets for Operation Epic Fury were identified with the aid of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Maven Smart System, which uses AI to lay out data on a dashboard to support officials in their decision-making.

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Americans agree that childcare is expensive. Democrats are running on it.

Three top Senate Democrats are accusing the Trump administration and Republicans of “taking a wrecking ball” to childcare programs, highlighting the issue in a midterm year where many Democrats are running on inflation and the high cost of living. Childcare costs have skyrocketed in recent decades, outpacing inflation. There’s bipartisan consensus on the crisis: an Associated Press-NORC poll from last year found that 76 percent of Americans, including over 70 percent of independents and Republicans, view the cost of childcare as “a major problem.” Democrats have long highlighted the issue, but many Republican politicians also agree there’s a problem — if not on the solutions to it.

Republicans, who largely oppose major new spending on social programs, control the White House and both chambers of Congress, meaning that Democratic-controlled states and cities like New York City and New Mexico have been taking the lead on major investments aimed at making childcare more accessible. Now, in a new report, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and two fellow Senate Democrats are accusing the GOP of having “inflamed the childcare crisis.” The report on childcare from Schumer and Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, released Tuesday and shared first with The 19th, is the latest in a series of reports highlighting what Schumer says are the Trump administration’s “broken promises” in areas including healthcare, housing and energy affordability. Even as childcare costs rise for families, wages for childcare providers remain low and draw fewer workers, creating a shortage of childcare slots and leaving many providers in a precarious position, especially since the funds Congress passed to stabilize the childcare industry during the COVID-19 pandemic have run out.

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Takeaways from primaries in Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma

President Donald Trump had mixed results with his endorsements for key races Tuesday in Georgia, where he was dealt a rare blow when his preferred candidate did not make it out of the Republican runoff for governor. Trump’s gubernatorial pick, Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who was also backed by the current governor, Republican Brian Kemp, lost to billionaire health executive Rick Jackson. But in another marquee race, a last-gasp endorsement from the president helped Rep. Mike Collins secure the Republican nomination for a pivotal Senate seat. In November, Collins will compete with Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a contest that is vital for control of the chamber. The president’s support has carried immense weight in Republican primaries across the country this year, even as his standing with the broader public declines.

The Georgia governor’s race, however, is the second big primary this month where the president’s candidate suffered a loss. In Iowa, Trump’s pick for governor, Rep. Randy Feenstra, lost to businessman Zach Lahn. On Tuesday, the president’s endorsement in the Oklahoma governor’s race was not enough for his candidate to avoid a runoff. A streak of Trump losses could undercut his strong grip on the GOP that has defined the last decade of Republican politics. But he remains a powerful force, as evidenced by races in Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas, where his preferred candidates ousted incumbents this year, and several races Tuesday where they also won. The U.S. congressman defeated Derek Dooley, a former football coach who Kemp recruited to run for Senate. Trump endorsed Collins on Sunday, casting him as the most loyal and MAGA-aligned candidate. Trump specifically praised Collins for his support of an aggressive immigration crackdown, and he ridiculed Dooley for not amplifying his false claims that he won the 2020 election — a factor on which the president has hung previous endorsements. Collins has boosted GOP election-denial claims and has said that the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — some of whom attacked law enforcement officers and threatened lawmakers — were “peaceful,” calling them “political prisoners.” Jackson’s victory Tuesday was a defeat for Trump and Kemp, both of whom endorsed Jones. The race to succeed Kemp, who is term-limited, elicited a crowded field of candidates, including Georgia’s secretary of state and attorney general. In May, Jones and Jackson finished atop the field with 38 percent and 34 percent of the vote, respectively.

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Democratic Socialist takes substantial early lead in D.C. mayoral primary

Janeese Lewis George took an early and sizable lead in D.C.’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday based on preliminary vote tallies, though the Associated Press had not projected a winner in the race as of early Wednesday. The latest update from the city’s elections board — which captured the first choice of voters among ballots cast in person Tuesday and in early voting, as well as from mail-in ballots received before Election Day — put Lewis George ahead of fellow front-runner Kenyan R. McDuffie by double digits. Lewis George was leading in every ward except Ward 3, the city’s wealthiest ward, with about two-thirds of the vote counted.

If her lead holds, a Lewis George victory would make her the first democratic socialist to win a mayoral race in the nation’s capital, marking a stark political shift after more than a decade with centrist Muriel E. Bowser (D) at the helm. The vast majority of District voters are Democrats, making the primary the election of consequence for the city. “What seemed like a distant dream not long ago is already history unfolding before our eyes,” Lewis George, who represents Ward 4 on the D.C. Council, told a crowd of supporters at the Howard Theatre late Tuesday. “This moment is for those who refuse to surrender their hope in a government that works for all of us.” Initial results began streaming in late Tuesday, after delays because of long lines at several polling sites. Election officials had warned that the city may not learn the winners in key races for days — a product of the way the city’s new ranked-choice voting would combine with the popularity of voting by mail.

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Judge who attended Fani Willis event exits election records case

A federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found that she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and attended a partisan event, then lied when confronted with the allegations, has recused herself in a fight over Georgia election records after the U.S. Department of Justice raised questions about her ability to be impartial. The Justice Department sought to remove U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from the case, citing her reported attendance at an event for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Donald Trump. Ross on Tuesday filed an order recusing herself, writing that she was doing so “out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias.”

The Justice Department had sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger seeking an unredacted statewide voter list, and Ross was presiding over that case. “Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized,” Ross wrote, explaining that she “cannot discount” that an objective observer might interpret her attendance at an event sponsored by Willis’ campaign as support for the district attorney’s position, even if she only went to see former colleagues. Ross received a “private reprimand” after a court investigation found that she had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan event and then initially lied to deny the allegations. The investigation report says Ross went to an event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign. The judge said the district attorney had been a friend since 1999 and acknowledged having gone to the a private mixer held on the sidelines of the event to visit with former colleagues in the district attorney’s office. Ross previously worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and overlapped there with Willis there before Willis was district attorney. Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That case was ultimately dismissed in November.

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Democrats prep for shrinking Southern delegations

House Democrats face a conundrum — they are optimistic about retaking the majority in the midterms, but with redistricting reshuffling the map it means Southern lawmakers’ power will be greatly diminished. Bracing for the loss of some of their colleagues, Black Democrats from the South are appealing to leadership to help the region maintain power and influence in the caucus, even if its numbers shrink. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the only Democrat in the Mississippi delegation, dodged a potential forced retirement last month when Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session meant to redraw the state’s maps in Republicans’ favor. But legislators Republicans have suggested they’ll draw out Thompson’s 2nd Congressional District, eventually.

“I think there ought to be some consideration for the South. If not, that means that the area with the most African Americans in the United States will have the least amount of African American representation in Congress,” he added. Members across the caucus are already thinking about how Democratic leadership can address the issue. Delegations from Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama are all at risk of having fewer Black Democrats in the next Congress after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v Callais . The loss of those seats means House Democrats could have to adjust how they distribute committee assignments in 2027. “If they don’t do a realignment, that means we’re even worse off,” Thompson, who has served as the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee since 2005, told NOTUS about how the caucus spreads out powerful committee gavels and slots. Democrats currently separate all 50 states and the territories into 12 regions. Southern states are divided across three of those regions. Internally, the regions are critical to how Democrats wield power and move up into more influential posts. Each region elects a member to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which decides committee assignments. Those elected regional members are often the first to make the case for lawmakers to leadership for plum assignments.

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Trump’s ‘American Flag Blue’ reflecting pool is green with algae

President Donald Trump’s nearly $15 million directive to ensure the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool glistens a pristine, deep, “American flag blue” has hit a snag: The water is green. Now refilled after a weeks-long project to paint the bottom of the pool, an algal bloom has coated the basin with a layer of gunk thick enough to write in. On Tuesday, crews were working to get the reflecting pool back to reflecting. National Park Service staff poured hydrogen peroxide into one corner of the pool — the chemical can be temporarily “pretty effective” at killing off bacteria, according to Hans W. Paerl, a marine and environmental science professor at University of North Carolina Chapel-Hill. Later in the day, that area of the pool was noticeably a milky blue.

Multiple staff could be seen wading through the shallow water, clearing the bottom of the pool inch by inch. Two NPS crewmembers told NOTUS that they were vacuuming the algae from the bottom of the pool. NPS and the Department of Interior did not respond to an emailed question from NOTUS about whether or not they planned to clean the whole pool that way. Also on Tuesday, a contractor was injecting ozone — which is highly effective at killing algal blooms — directly into the water from equipment parked on the edge of the pool. That process has been ongoing for several days. Renovating the reflecting pool was one of Trump’s “beautification initiatives” ahead of celebrations for America’s 250th birthday. Trump’s critics attacked the project as a desecration of a national monument — and a symbol of Trump wasting taxpayer dollars on his own aesthetic preferences. One D.C. nonprofit unsuccessfully attempted to stop the renovations with a lawsuit. When the painting was done, Trump championed the pool as an early success of his plans for the city — one that includes a giant Arc de Triomphe-esque archway and gold-guilded horse statues.

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Cigars, a canceled Lacrosse season and the scandals rocking a Massachusetts town

The boys gathered on an Ipswich, Mass., beach to celebrate their high-school graduation, some with medals draped over their black gowns. Jutting from each mouth: cigars that may or may not have been real. The photos taken under cloudy skies June 7 mirrored those snapped all around the country lately. But in this coastal enclave dubbed America’s Best-Preserved Puritan Town, those snapshots have lit a burning debate. What’s beyond dispute: Six of the grads were on Ipswich High School’s lacrosse team, and administrators suspended all six from a playoff game two days later for violating state athletic association rules against tobacco use. The team ultimately voted to forfeit the contest—and just like that, their championship run went up in smoke.

Now, this hamlet of 14,000 north of Boston is in a fierce debate over whether the penalty matched the foul. It has grown into a saga featuring a “CSI-level investigation” at a local grocery store, and a heated showdown involving two dads in the principal’s office—captured on a police body camera. “Come on, how many times you’ve been pulled over and a cop has said, ‘Ahh, go ahead?’ ” said Marc Randazza, a lawyer representing one of the suspended students and his father. “There is always discretion, right?” To Ipswich resident Heidi Garofalo, though, the line was clear. “Kids have to learn the consequences when they do something wrong,” she said. “You have to abide by the rules. It just takes one slip [to] ruin everything.” The road to the suspensions began a day after graduation, when local school officials and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association received two photos from the beach celebration, according to a statement from Ipswich’s school superintendent and the high-school principal. One photo showed the boys with “full length cigars with the cigar bands visible,” it said. The second showed the cigars “smoked down significantly; a cloud of smoke surrounding one of the students; and a torch type lighter visible in the hand of another of the students.”

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Lead Stories

Dangerous flooding unfolds across Texas as heavy rain drenches state

rain drenched communities from the Hill Country to the Gulf Coast, prompting flash flood warnings, water rescues and widespread concerns about additional rainfall through midweek. As of Monday afternoon, flood watches remained in effect across much of the state, including through Monday evening in Dallas-Fort Worth, through Tuesday evening in the Austin–San Antonio corridor and through Thursday morning in the Houston area. Throughout the early Monday morning hours, heavy overnight rain flooded roads and low-lying areas across Central Texas, where some locations received 3 to 4 inches of rain since midnight, according to the Lower Colorado River Authority. In Austin, emergency crews conducted at least one water rescue after a vehicle became stranded in floodwaters. The Texas Department of Public Safety also reported multiple water rescues south of Waco late Sunday.

Similar rainfall totals were reported in the San Antonio area, where forecasters warned rainfall rates could exceed 2 to 3 inches per hour. The greatest flooding threat may come Monday night into Tuesday as additional storms move through the region, forecasters said. As the week progresses, the storm system is expected to shift toward Southeast Texas, where organizers closed Houston’s FIFA World Cup Fan Festival on Monday because of flood concerns. NWS meteorologist Cody Lindsey said tropical moisture moving north from Mexico is expected to combine with the south-moving storm system over the Houston region, bringing several days of heavy rain and an increased risk of flooding. “We could see rainfall rates in excess of two inches per hour,” Lindsey told Houston Public Media on Monday. Emergency officials throughout the state have urged Texans to closely monitor weather alerts and avoid driving through flooded roads. The National Weather Service continued to emphasize its longstanding warning: “Turn Around, Don’t Drown.”

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As screwworm spreads, USDA faces potential sterile fly shortage

After spending the morning testifying before Congress, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins flew to South Texas to assure ranchers and local officials that the government was moving quickly to combat the New World screwworm outbreak. “We’re going to beat this," she said, standing before television cameras on a ranch Friday. "We beat it before, and we’re going to beat it again.” So far, authorities have relied on sterile screwworm flies grown in a Panamaian lab to mate with the wild population to slow the spread. But it will be years before the U.S. Department of Agriculture has the additional capacity it says it needs to fully eradicate the flesh-eating parasite here, leading to a blame game between members of the Trump and Biden administrations, who each say the other has not been quick enough to react.

The months ahead are likely to prove critical. If the screwworm outbreak in Texas expands rapidly, authorities’ ability to control its spread with sterile flies could soon be overwhelmed, said Phillip Kaufman, an entomologist at Texas A&M University who is working with the U.S.Department of Agriculture. “So long as people keep reporting, we currently have the capacity for fly production to come in and do the sterile releases over their areas, which will knock the population down,” he said. “The risk is that the Texas outbreak reaches a level the USDA simply doesn’t have enough sterile flies.” For decades, a roadless 50-mile wide stretch of jungle connecting Panama to South America, known as the Darien Gap, had been considered the barrier for a parasite that had devastated cattle herds in Texas and the southwestern United States in the 1960s and 70s. U.S. and Panamanian authorities would regularly release sterile screwworm flies into the jungle to keep the wild population at bay. But in 2023, they reported a sudden surge in the screwworm population, and from there, the pest began a steady northward march through Central America and Mexico. The first U.S. case was identified in South Texas earlier this month, and since then, the USDA has confirmed 11 more infections across calves, goats and a dog.

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Chair Harris warns against rushing data center legislation, suggests foreign influence in part pushing resistance

State Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, says Texas can support responsible growth while safeguarding natural resources. Harris, chairman of the Texas House Committee on Natural Resources, will hold a hearing June 24 to examine data center water usage. He discussed the issue in an interview with Blake Holland for East Texas Politics on East Texas Now. When asked about possible legislative solutions, Harris said the focus should be on responsible resource use. “I think that’s really where it comes down to making sure that they’re utilizing the natural resources responsibly and not harming their neighbor by pumping too much water, using too much water that is a detriment to the community that they’re surrounding and to other property owners,” Harris said. “I think noise control as well. You know, there have been reports of some data centers being very, very loud. Well, there should be some guardrails around that as well to where you’re not a nuisance to your neighbor down the road.”

Harris said he believes the country is in a race when it comes to data centers. “If they aren’t built in the United States, then China is 100% going to build them,” Harris said. “Because until you and I and all of our friends and neighbors stop taking pictures on our iPhone and storing that on the cloud or using AI or Googling things on the internet, and watching streaming services, data centers are going to be built either here or there.” When asked by Blake Holland whether the situation warrants a special session being called by the governor to address immediate threats, Harris said only the governor can make that decision. “I do think until we understand fully what’s going on and dive into it. If we get to a special session, let’s say the governor called one next week and we got to Austin, there’d be a whole lot of ideas. It’d be a lot of knee-jerk reactions,” Harris said. “And I don’t think that is the prudent way to go about creating new state law. I think we really need to take the time to dive into it to figure out what’s actually happening.” Harris said opposition to data center development may be influenced by foreign interests. “Let’s keep in mind that if you rewind the clock about 10 or 15 years ago, maybe I have the dates for the time frame wrong, but there was a big push to be in opposition of fracking in the oil and gas industry. And we soon discovered that whole initiative of being against fracking was being pushed by China,” Harris said. “And now there’s evidence and report to suggest that the push to be against data center development in the United States and in Texas is also being funded and pushed by China.”

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World’s biggest fortunes soar by record $336 billion in one day

By almost any measure, Monday June 15 was a superlative day for the world's wealthiest. At the close of trading in New York, the 500 richest people on the globe had added $336 billion to their fortunes, the biggest haul ever recorded in a single day, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That brought their collective net worth to a record $13.3 trillion. Elon Musk, the world's first trillionaire, extended his lead over the group with his net worth rising more than 10% to $1.27 trillion. And the dozen people at the bottom of the list — the least wealthy of the world's superrich — each stood at $7.9 billion, the highest-ever bar to enter the index.

Markets were buoyant going into Monday after the US and Iran reached an interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. had just made a blockbuster debut the previous week as a public company. The optimism pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record while the Nasdaq 100 and the MSCI World Index both ended near their all-time highs. SpaceX was the wealth rally's biggest driver as retail traders poured in to snap up shares. Its market value surged 20%. That helped to add $164 billion to Musk's net worth — nearly equal to the combined gain of the other 499 people on Bloomberg's index and one of the biggest one-day increases ever recorded. Musk's fortune has for years illustrated the gaping wealth inequality between the world's rich elite and everyone else. It's now also become an example of a growing gap among ranks of the ultrawealthy. The top 50 now control $6.5 trillion, nearly as much as the $6.8 trillion held by bottom 450, the index shows.

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State Stories

New World screwworm infestations rise to 12 as parasite spreads in Texas

The number of confirmed New World screwworm infestations in the United States has risen to 12, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as state and federal officials continue efforts to contain the flesh-eating parasite. Eleven infestations have been confirmed in Texas and one in New Mexico. The latest Texas case was identified in a sheep in Sutton County, about 135 miles northwest of San Antonio. The detection adds to growing concerns that the parasite is spreading beyond South Texas and into other parts of the state. Screwworm was eradicated from the United States in the 1960s before reappearing in Texas this month after spreading north through Mexico from Central America.

New World screwworm is the larval stage of a parasitic fly that attacks warm-blooded animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, wildlife, pets and, in rare cases, humans. Unlike many fly larvae that feed on dead tissue, screwworm larvae feed on living flesh. The outbreak has raised concerns across Texas’ livestock industry. Texas leads the nation in cattle production, and agricultural officials have warned that a widespread infestation could have significant economic consequences. Adult flies lay eggs in open wounds or body openings of animals. After hatching, the larvae burrow into tissue, creating painful wounds that can become severe or even fatal if left untreated. The parasite poses a potentially significant threat to Texas livestock producers and wildlife populations. State and federal officials have responded with surveillance, testing and the release of millions of sterile male screwworm flies. Because female screwworm flies generally mate only once, breeding with a sterile male prevents reproduction and helps suppress the population. Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration covering all 254 Texas counties as state and federal officials work to contain the outbreak. Livestock owners are being urged to inspect animals regularly and immediately report suspected infestations to veterinarians or animal health authorities. Early detection and treatment are considered critical to preventing further spread. Officials emphasize that properly handled meat remains safe to eat and that screwworm does not spread through meat products.

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Gov. Abbott issues disaster declaration for 101 Texas counties, including Travis, Bastrop and Burnet

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration Monday covering 101 Texas counties as severe storms that began Sunday continue to threaten the state with heavy rainfall, flash flooding, hazardous wind gusts, large hail, and tornado threats. The declaration is designed to give local officials and communities access to the full range of state resources and support. Additional counties may be added as conditions warrant. Abbott addressed the ongoing threat in a statement Monday. "Texas is prepared to respond to the severe weather threats that continue to move across our state," Abbott said.

"Because of the impact caused by ongoing storms and flood risks, I have issued a disaster declaration for 101 Texas counties to ensure that local officials and communities have access to the full range of state resources and support. Texans should heed the guidance of state and local officials and take all necessary precautions to stay safe during this severe weather." The declaration covers counites including Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers, Liberty, Waller, Austin, Colorado, Wharton, Matagorda, Walker, San Jacinto, Polk, Trinity, Grimes, Washington, and Brazos. Earlier Monday, Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to activate additional state emergency response resources and implement 24-hour operations at the Texas State Emergency Operations Center. Last week, the governor had already directed TDEM to activate state emergency response resources ahead of the anticipated flood threat.

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UT Austin leadership fires KUT General Manager Debbie Hiott

The University of Texas at Austin fired KUT Public Media General Manager Debbie Hiott on Monday afternoon, following a heated dispute over the public radio station’s inaugural festival. The surprise move marks an unprecedented intervention in the governance of Austin’s NPR station at a time when public radio stations across the country are dealing with mounting financial and political pressures. Congress slashed federal funding to public media last year at the urging of President Donald Trump, and the landscape has also been shifting dramatically at public universities where many of the newsrooms are based. That includes KUT, which has operated out of UT Austin for decades. Texas’ Republican leaders have gotten far more involved in the running of the state’s flagship public university in recent years, most recently by initiating a major academic restructuring effort that targeted various gender and ethnic studies programs.

In a phone interview shortly after she was fired, Hiott blasted the university for terminating her and called for a change in KUT’s ownership structure. UT Austin holds the broadcast license for KUT and its sister music station, KUTX, and it employs the station’s staff. “It’s a clear sign that a community asset as important as KUT should not be in the hands of an institution that doesn't have any sense of accountability or concern for the community,” Hiott said, referring to the university’s current leadership. “My hope would be that the university would relinquish the licenses to the community.” KUT and KUTX are editorially independent from UT. They are funded by community and business donations, rather than state taxpayer dollars or student tuition. In a text message, UT spokesman Mike Rosen said that “the university does not comment on employment matters.” An email announcing Hiott’s departure from the interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, the university department that houses KUT and KUTX, also did not provide a reason for her termination. “I am writing to inform you that Debbie Hiott is no longer serving as general manager of KUT/KUTX, effective immediately,” the dean, Anita L. Vangelisti, wrote in an email to the station’s staff, adding that an interim successor for Hiott could be named as soon as Tuesday.

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Trial date scheduled for former Uvalde ISD police chief

A trial date has been set for former Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, according to a Uvalde County court official. Arredondo is scheduled to stand trial on Feb. 22, 2027, though it remains unclear where the proceedings will take place. His attorneys have previously argued that he cannot receive a fair trial in Uvalde County. Arredondo led the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department when a gunman entered Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, killing 19 children and two teachers. The gunman remained barricaded inside adjoining classrooms for 77 minutes before officers fatally shot him.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Arredondo was indicted on 10 counts of abandoning or endangering a child. Prosecutors allege he failed to act as the gunman carried out the attack inside two fourth-grade classrooms. Arredondo faced widespread criticism for not ordering officers to breach the classrooms sooner and confront the gunman, a tactic that is standard in active-shooter responses. In January, a Nueces County jury in Corpus Christi acquitted the only other Uvalde ISD police officer charged in the shooting, Adrian Gonzales, of 29 counts of abandoning or endangering a child. Arredondo and Gonzales were among the first officers to arrive at Robb Elementary School. They are the only two law enforcement officers among the roughly 380 responders to face criminal charges in connection with the shooting.

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Bexar County elects LGBTQ+ advocate to serve on Texas GOP’s executive committee

At a state GOP convention where the LGBTQ+ community has long been under attack, San Antonians bucked the trend this weekend. Delegates from Texas’ 26th state Senate District, which encompasses much of the blue city’s urban core, elected attorney Justin Nichols to serve as one of their two representatives body that governs the Republican Party of Texas. Nichols filed some of the earliest complaints under the city’s 2013 nondiscrimination ordinance — earning him the designation of one of San Antonio’s most influential gay leaders by Out in SA magazine. In the past, his law firm has advertised services to help transgender clients obtain a legal name change and gender marker correction.

More recently, Nichols represented The Texas Conservative Liberty Forum — a GOP group that wants the party to be more inclusive of different races, religions and sexuality — on a joint lawsuit with LGBTQ+ advocacy groups suing to stop the removal of a rainbow crosswalk and installation of a rainbow sidewalk without a public vote. The 64-member State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) is tasked with holding elected officials accountable to the party’s policy platform, which includes condemning homosexuality and opposing “all efforts to validate transgender identity and ideology.” Delegates from each of Texas’ 31 state Senate districts get to elect one man and one woman to the SREC. Nichols earned 39 votes — beating out longtime conservative activist and City Hall gadfly Jack M. Finger, who took 17. Asked about the historic nature of his candidacy, Nichols said Monday that he didn’t think his sexuality factored into delegates’ calculus. “I think that they selected me because of what I’ve done, not necessarily some factor of who I am,” he said. He’s been a GOP precinct chair for 16 years, and currently serves as the general counsel and parliamentarian for the Republican Party of Bexar County. At 42-years old, he’s also relatively young compared to the rest of the SREC, if not the youngest. “For me this isn’t a story of ‘a first,'” Nichols told the Report. “I think this is a story about new blood and the new voice coming into a party that I think needs it.”

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After threats, lawsuits and chaos, Brendan Sorsby and Texas Tech going their separate ways

After a seven-day battle that spanned multiple courtrooms, Brendan Sorsby has decided that he will not play college football this season at Texas Tech. The decision comes on the same day that the Big 12 filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court that was aimed at being provided the power to sanction Texas Tech for playing the quarterback this season, even with the NCAA ruling him ineligible to play. Over the past three months, Sorsby had been embroiled in an NCAA investigation tied to thousands of bets placed during his college career, with a number of them coming while he was on the roster at Indiana. These bets were flagged by law enforcement officials, who then turned them over to the NCAA.

During these last few weeks, Sorsby filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in Lubbock district court, where an injunction was granted that would have allowed him to suit up this season for the Red Raiders. Then came the backlash from across college athletics, with the Big 12 conference searching for ways in which it could possibly punish Texas Tech. That lawsuit from Sorsby is expected to be dropped on Tuesday morning, sources tell OutKick. The school will also continue to support the quarterback in his battle off the field with an addiction to gambling. Also, Texas Tech officials are not going to be seeking a return of money already paid to Sorsby, with sources noting that the quarterback had already taken home a significant amount of earnings. Board of Regents chair, Cody Campbell, released a statement on Monday night, confirming these details. "Texas Tech will not seek return of any amounts already paid to Brendan through his NIL agreements with the University," Campbell noted.

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Galveston runoff elections decided, clearing way for Discovery Sands hearing

The final two members on Galveston's City Council were decided Saturday night in the city's runoff election. Sharon B. Lewis will continue serving as the District 1 council member, and Michael Niebuhr will take over as the District 5 council member. The elected council members now face a looming conversation at the next city council meeting about a proposed development called Discovery Sands that has sparked controversy on the island.

Lewis received 58.9% of the 338 votes cast, while her opponent, Gerald Wilson, received 41.1% of the votes, according to results released by the Galveston County Clerk's Office. Michael Niebuhr garnered 56.8% of the 803 votes cast against District 5 incumbent and challenger Beau Rawlins, who received 43.2% of the votes. Runoffs for the District 1 and 5 council seats ended up being a deciding factor in the delay of the controversial Discovery Sands development discussion. A Galveston City Council hearing on the proposed development was delayed until the end of June after residents raised concerns about Galveston city council members taking up the item before the entire newly elected city council was seated. Now that runoffs are over, a hearing on the Discovery Sands proposal will come back to the table at the city council’s June 25 meeting, according to Galveston Mayor John Paul Listowski. Niebuhr said he plans to hit the ground running and speak with the developer for Discovery Sands, Jeffory Blackard of Blackard Companies, ahead of the council meeting to get a better sense of how the plan could be a benefit to Galveston.

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Body cam shows DPS trooper used encryption app in Austin student’s immigration arrest

A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper used an encrypted messaging app to communicate with what appears to be federal immigration agents during a traffic stop that led to the detention of an Austin Independent School District student, body worn camera video shows. The video obtained by KXAN shows the early morning May 1 traffic stop of high school senior Luis Fernando Cabrera Chavarria. The 18-year-old varsity soccer player was pulled over for alleged expired vehicle registration and later detained at the Karnes County Immigration and Processing Center before being released on a federal court order last week. His arrest and detention, just weeks ahead of his high school graduation, prompted U.S. Congressman Greg Casar, D-Austin, to publicly call for his release.

The body camera video shows the trooper initially informed Cabrera he would receive a ticket for driving without a license. The teen said he only had his school identification card. The trooper is seen minutes later in his vehicle taking a picture of Cabrera’s school ID card and sending it through the encrypted messaging app Signal. The response to the trooper’s message and photo was an image and a message that read “detain.” The trooper responded to the message with his location and within minutes a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent arrived. Signal is an end-to-end encrypted private messaging platform that allows only the sender and the recipient the ability to read messages. The application allows users to set a timer for when to delete new messages, as soon as 30 seconds after they have been seen. Multiple news outlets nationwide have reported in recent years on transparency concerns surrounding government and law enforcement agencies’ and officials’ use of Signal when communicating about matters of public interest. KXAN has requested copies of the Signal communication sent during the traffic stop.

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Life on the edge of Musk's Starbase brings fortunes and fractures

The last time SpaceX launched a rocket in South Texas, charter boat captain Eddie Reyes was bobbing in a pontoon boat less than 2 miles from the pad with a group of paying passengers. A blast of flames erupted and shockwaves rattled the boat while the rocket climbed into the sky. The arrival of SpaceX has brought good business to Reyes and his family. Since the establishment of Starbase, Elon Musk's company town, his charter boat business has picked up ?as space fans flock to the area for a glimpse of launches. Reyes' nephew works at SpaceX as a welder, driving a Tesla Cybertruck. But the same rockets Reyes sees lifting his family's fortunes are also shaking his mother's home. Shockwaves from launches are cracking the ceiling, ?loosening window seals and sinking the foundation. She's among dozens of residents now suing Musk's company for damage.

"You can't stop progress," Reyes said. Many of the people in the Rio Grande Valley region surrounding Starbase – the company town centered around SpaceX's rocket operations – have arrived at a similar conclusion. They're willing to ride the wave of Musk's interplanetary ambitions and accept the consequences that come with ?it. While SpaceX's rapid expansion is bringing jobs, visitors and global attention, it is also fueling lawsuits, environmental concerns and a growing divide among the 1.4 million residents of the Rio Grande Valley. After SpaceX's record-setting $1.75 trillion IPO on Friday – which will raise $75 billion partly to scale Starship from intermittent test launches to potentially weekly flights – the pressures facing residents around Starbase are set to intensify. "This company is literally shaking the earth," said Tino Villarreal, city commissioner of Brownsville, a city of 185,000 people that borders Starbase. "By the amount of workforce it wants to produce, by the actual wavelengths that are shaking our soil." SpaceX declined to comment for this story.

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Austin ISD's $181 million budget crisis was years in the making

When Rachel Preston became a teacher more than a decade ago, she fell in love with helping Austin students learn French. “Sometimes, I get to see the kids go from zero to conversant, almost fluent in the language,” said Preston, who teaches at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, or LASA. “They’re growing the whole time they’re in your class. You just get to see them succeed.” The school district is far from alone in its financial woes. School systems across Texas have laid off staff and scaled back student programming to grapple with multimillion-dollar deficits as the costs grew. However, no other Texas school system faces a deficit of such scale.

AISD’s shortfall dwarfs those of any other urban-area district in Texas and represents nearly 20% of Austin ISD’s operating budget. Trustees will debate the budget at a meeting Thursday and must approve it by the end of June. The $181 million deficit cannot be explained by state funding issues alone. A Statesman analysis found that district leaders spent years delaying difficult decisions as enrollment plummeted — preserving staffing levels, operating dozens of under-enrolled campuses and maintaining programs that became increasingly expensive to sustain. Over the years, Travis County’s growing property values helped soften the impact of declining enrollment in the short term. But Austin ISD remained vulnerable to financial pressures when inflation, state mandates and student enrollment declines intensified budget issues. Although academic failings at a single campus can trigger a state takeover, Education Commissioner Mike Morath has said he also considers a district’s fiscal health when deciding whether to remove elected trustees from power.

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Corpus Christi community organizers file Fair Water Amendment to be placed on November ballot

A coalition of community organizations has submitted more than 12,000 signatures to the city of Corpus Christi in an effort to place the proposed Fair Water Amendment on the November ballot. Supporters of the amendment say it would require large-volume industrial water users to pay drought surcharges, while city officials say the current system helps fund long-term water supply projects. On Monday, organizers delivered the signatures to the City Secretary's Office, where they will now undergo a verification process. Dr. Isabel Araiza, Founder of For the Greater Good, led the group into City Hall to formally submit the petition.

"Our city's water policy right now is very imbalanced, and this is an opportunity for us to make our water policy a little bit better by ending industry's drought exemption surcharge fee," Araiza said. The proposal targets the city's Drought Surcharge Exemption Fee program, which was created in 2018. Under the voluntary program, large-volume industrial customers pay 31 cents per 1,000 gallons of water to help fund drought-proof water supply projects. In exchange, participating customers are exempt from certain drought allocation surcharges. "If they actually paid the drought surcharge, they would be paying over a million dollars, in some cases over $2 million every single month," Araiza said. Nick Winkelmann, Chief Operating Officer of Corpus Christi Water, said the program provides a significant source of funding for the city's water supply efforts. "We collect approximately $6 million dollars a year," Winkelmann said. "And it is utilized for our water supply projects." Without the program, Winkelmann said some of those costs would likely fall on ratepayers.

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El Paso ISD board votes to lay off 55 employees under financial exigency

Fifty-five El Paso Independent School District employees are losing their jobs after the board of trustees took a series of votes Monday to terminate their contracts for the 2026-27 school year. The vote was the final step needed to lay off dozens of employees, including teachers, instructional coaches and social workers, who received notices last week informing them their positions were identified for elimination as part of a reduction in force. “Today is just one of the most difficult days we’ll ever have as trustees,” board President Leah Hanany said during a news conference after the meeting. “We know that what we’re doing is making a very concerted and valiant, to be frank, effort to align our budget to what needs of kids are in the classrooms. This board has been so committed to doing that work.”

Hanany said other at-will positions that don’t require contracts may still be cut by the district’s administration without going to the board for a vote, but did not say how many could be impacted or when the decision will be made. Superintendent Brian Lusk said the district has been working to reduce the number of employees affected by the layoff, and will try to find jobs for those who were. “I can tell you without question that the team has worked extremely hard to find the best fit for all team members who may be in this position, as we’ve been going through this financial exigency process,” Lusk said during the meeting. The affected employees include 42 teachers and 13 support staff, ranging from instructional coaches to social workers. District leaders voted to eliminate over 90 employees last week and initially estimated they would need to cut 400 jobs. The votes were grouped by job title and location and were part of a cost-cutting plan approved by the board June 4, which included declaring financial exigency. The declaration allows the district to terminate employee contracts in the middle of their term to reduce payroll expenses by $40 million from 2025-26 levels.

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National Stories

Israel is alarmed by Trump’s deal with Iran

President Trump’s deal to wind down the war with Iran set off alarm bells in Israel, where top officials are wrestling with the consequences of easing the pressure on Tehran and the risks of opening a rift with the U.S. over the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The tension has been heightened by the lack of certainty about what exactly Trump has agreed to in the deal, which is expected to be signed later this week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was urgently trying to set up a meeting with the president to sort out the competing issues, a person familiar with the matter said. An Israeli strike on Beirut over the weekend in response to Hezbollah attacks on Israel almost derailed the agreement and set off a last-minute scramble by the White House and mediators to keep the deal on track.

Trump criticized the strike in an interview with The Wall Street Journal and said on social media that Israel had to stop its attacks across Lebanon. That was at odds with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement earlier in June that only required Israel to end the fighting if Hezbollah also stopped. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. was on the hook to end Israel’s attacks and aggression in Lebanon, state media reported. Defying those claims, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military would hold its so-called security zone in Lebanon indefinitely, saying it was needed to protect communities in northern Israel. He also said Israel would act independently to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons if necessary. At a news conference Monday, Netanyahu declined to criticize the emerging U.S.-Iran deal and said his country’s war aims in Iran had largely been achieved. He said Iran’s war-production capacity had been damaged, its economy was in tatters, and its nuclear program set back. “People ask what we have achieved, and the answer is: we have pushed away the immediate threat of annihilation,” Netanyahu said. “The struggle is not over and done. We will need to continue to stand guard and defend ourselves as necessary.”

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Senate Republicans won't back Iran deal without details

Senate Republicans were noncommittal on backing President Donald Trump’s emerging deal with Iran, saying they are awaiting more information about the accord that is set to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the ceasefire for 60 days. The president was quick to tout the agreement on Sunday, with administration officials claiming it would force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. However, details were scarce, with Vice President JD Vance saying in an interview with CNN that the preliminary deal is “a very general document” roughly a page and a half long. The lack of specifics kept many lawmakers from weighing in on Monday. “It’s hard to know based on the media descriptions and social media, so I think I’ll wait to see what it says,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters. “It’d be good to see it, so we’d know what’s in it.” Some Senate Republican defense hawks are already expressing concern about Iran’s truthworthiness and believe Congress needs to weigh in.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told reporters that the law requires Congress to vote on any deal involving Iran’s nuclear program, adding that he’s doubtful Iran will agree to the terms being touted by the administration. “If you can get what the president and vice president have outlined, that would be a deal we can all live with, that would be a good deal,” Graham said. “Count me skeptical that Iran will ever go there, but time will tell.” Graham added that he would need Iran to be “out of the enrichment business” before he would vote for a final agreement, saying that step would differentiate the compromise from the Obama-era Iran deal. “What I envision is no enrichment,” Graham said. “They destroy their enrichment facilities, and I don’t care if we say 15 years from now we can revisit it, but they need to be out of the enrichment business for 15 years.” Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) told reporters on Monday that he would also like to see Congress vote on the deal. “If it’s a good deal, we want to be able to resolve it,” Lankford said. “We’ve got to have a vote to solidify it long term.” However, that feeling was not universal, with some Republicans indicating that a vote down the road is an open question.

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Gavin Newsom says Justice Department is investigating him and his wife

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the Justice Department was investigating him and his wife, accusing President Trump of urging the probe to get back at a political enemy. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a social-media video that federal agents had been questioning family, friends and former aides in recent days, “digging through years and years of random documents.” “Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom said in the video. “He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president.” Newsom didn’t elaborate further on the nature of the investigation but alleged that Trump was trying to get to him by going after his wife. Siebel Newsom is a documentary filmmaker and founder of The Representation Project, an advocacy group that uses film to challenge gender stereotypes.

Federal prosecutors in California are conducting several interviews related to the governor, including one examining Siebel Newsom and her taxes and another into his former chief of staff, a person familiar with the matter said. The probes have been going on since at least 2025 and were started by federal law-enforcement officials in California—not political appointees in Washington—after witnesses there came forward with information, the person said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment. The U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service last week began approaching more than a dozen people in the governor’s orbit, aides to Newsom said. They asked about a wide range of topics that dated back five or six years, including the governor’s family and Siebel Newsom’s business interests. Some questions were about specific transactions from bank or credit card statements that would only be accessible through a subpoena of a financial institution, they said. A Newsom aide said the governor’s office wasn’t aware of any subpoenas for records directed to Newsom or his wife, or of any target letter notifying Newsom or Siebel Newsom that they were the subjects of a criminal investigation.

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How Kratom, an addictive gas station drug, found allies in Trump’s Cabinet

For years, federal health officials have warned about the risks associated with a supplement derived from the leaves of kratom trees that adherents say can kill pain or boost energy. Sold in gas stations across America, kratom has been linked to liver toxicity, seizures and thousands of deaths. Powerful figures close to President Trump, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, pushed to downplay those concerns. Mr. Mullin, until recently a Republican senator from Oklahoma, played a key role in a sprawling influence campaign spearheaded by the kratom industry that courted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Vice President JD Vance, among others in the Trump administration, an investigation by The New York Times found. Only when he was nominated by Mr. Trump in March to lead the Homeland Security Department did it become clear that Mr. Mullin had a financial connection to the supplement. In a disclosure statement, he listed an investment worth as much as $1 million in a kratom company, Botanic Tonics, that could benefit from the changes he has sought.

The company’s founder, Jerry W. Ross — who had been an energy executive in Mr. Mullin’s home state before pleading guilty to a financial crime — is a leading player in the influence campaign that was devised to benefit kratom at the expense of its rivals in the marketplace. The kratom campaign underscores how corporations in the growing wellness industry can gain traction in Mr. Trump’s government by casting risky products as aligned with the administration’s Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, agenda championed by Mr. Kennedy, who has sometimes prioritized unproven remedies over science. In July, while still a senator, Mr. Mullin showed up at a Food and Drug Administration news conference and endorsed proposed federal restrictions on more powerful synthetic supplements that compete with kratom for shelf space. In explaining his position, Mr. Mullin pointed to a history of addiction in his family, though health experts say kratom products have also been shown to be addictive. His disclosure form did not indicate when he acquired his stake in Botanic Tonics, but he has not filed paperwork to indicate that he has divested from it. The Homeland Security Department did not answer questions about the investment. In a statement, the department said that Mr. Mullin “follows all ethics and conflict of interest standards and has not lobbied for any individual or company.” The restrictions that Mr. Mullin supported on the synthetic products would have been a boon to Mr. Ross’s company and others in the kratom industry, which market their supplements as safer and more natural. The kratom companies used donations and lobbyists to push for the crackdown.

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Justice Department decision to allow Paramount deal surprised staff investigators

The Justice Department’s senior leadership closed an investigation of Paramount’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery before career staffers who were concerned about the acquisition had an opportunity to object, according to people familiar with the matter. A team of career lawyers who had spent months scrutinizing the deal were leaning toward recommending a lawsuit challenging it on the grounds that the combination of the two movie studios would be anticompetitive and violate antitrust law, the people said. The staff investigators hadn’t yet made a final recommendation—a typical step in the deal-review process—and were told Friday that the department would close the investigation, effectively clearing the deal at the federal level, some of the people said.

The Justice Department’s senior leaders believed that Paramount Chief Executive Officer David Ellison, son of Trump ally Larry Ellison, persuasively addressed many of the staff’s questions about the deal during a two-hour interview last month, according to people familiar with their thinking. Among staffers’ questions was how the combined company could meet its commitment to make 30 theatrical releases a year, given its increased debt load. The senior leaders allowed the inquiries but believed Paramount’s debt wasn’t a reason to challenge the merger, the people familiar with their thinking said. No one on the investigative team spoke up to leadership voicing support for filing a lawsuit, they said. “The Antitrust Division conducted a thorough investigation to assess whether the proposed transaction would harm competition,” a Justice Department spokeswoman said. “The investigatory record indicated that the transaction will increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, benefiting American consumers and workers.” Justice Department decision makers often follow staff recommendations on mergers, but there are times when the two camps disagree.

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Only 1 Dan Sullivan will appear on Alaska’s ballot

GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan won’t face a same-name challenger after all. Alaska’s top elections official said Monday that Dan J. Sullivan was ineligible to appear on the August primary ballot for the state’s critical Senate race after determining his candidacy was “not filed in good faith” but instead “with the purpose of confusing or misleading the electorate.” Director of Elections Carol Beecher’s decision is a massive relief for the national GOP apparatus, which had accused Dan J. Sullivan of attempting to deceive voters by appearing on the ballot with the same name and party affiliation as the incumbent — and of working with an operative who previously backed former Rep. Mary Peltola to try to rig the Senate race in the Democrat’s favor.

Peltola’s campaign had previously denied any involvement with either Sullivans’ bids and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Dan S. Sullivan, the incumbent senator, immediately took a victory lap on Monday. “Every Alaskan has the right to a free and fair election, free from deception and gamesmanship. We thank Lieutenant Governor [Nancy] Dahlstrom for upholding that right and for ensuring Alaskans can choose their next senator without a sham candidate whose primary purpose was to confuse Alaskan voters, treat Alaskans with contempt, and rig the election for Peltola,” Billy Mackey, Sullivan’s campaign manager, said in a statement. Dan J. Sullivan has 30 days to appeal. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday, but he posted on social media Sunday that he “met the qualification” and had entered the race “because I am unhappy with the 12 year record of the current Senator and I feel we need a change.” He would have to work fast; Beecher noted in her letter that ballots are printed on June 28 — less than two weeks away.

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Records reveal $600M estimate for Trump’s ballroom project, with half from taxpayers

Five months after the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, President Donald Trump claimed that the project to construct a massive ballroom and a bunker in its place would cost up to $400 million and that private donors would pay for all of it. “This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on March 31, describing the project as including bomb shelters and major medical facilities. But a detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the contractor more than three weeks before Trump’s comments estimated the total construction cost at $600 million — with more than half coming from taxpayers, according to a copy of the contractor estimate obtained by The Washington Post.

By the time Trump made his comments in March, the federal government had already approved more than a dozen payments to the contractor overseeing the work, Clark Construction, totaling tens of millions of dollars in public funds, according to a log of the contractor’s invoices obtained by The Post. Since first announcing the East Wing project last July, Trump has repeatedly said that the price tag would not exceed $400 million and that private donations routed through a nonprofit would cover its entire cost. At other times, he has said that the Secret Service and the military would contribute security enhancements, without elaborating on the price of those upgrades. Multiple project summaries provided to the White House by Clark Construction show that internal cost estimates have been significantly higher than administration officials have acknowledged in public comments or court filings. They also show that the work was projected to rely heavily on taxpayer dollars from the moment it was announced. The White House did not answer questions about the internal cost estimates or taxpayer funding.

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Fox is buying Roku. It’s a big bet on making streaming free.

Media giant Fox Corp. on Monday announced a deal to buy streaming and smart-TV company Roku for $22 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. It’s a deal that will plunge Fox deeper into the streaming wars as a major player in free, ad-supported streaming at a time when large streamers such as Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu have pivoted away from offering only subscription plans and have begun providing ad-supported subscription options. Fox’s move into the streaming era has been slow but deliberate . The company sold its television and film studio, then called 21st Century Fox, to Disney for $71 billion in 2019, and announced a pivot to live news and sports. In 2020, Fox spent $440 million buying Tubi, a free, ad-supported streaming service with a devoted fan base. This new deal would put Tubi and the Roku Channel, Roku’s own free-to-stream, ad-supported offering, under one roof.

In a statement Monday, Fox’s executive chair and CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, called the deal a “defining moment” for the company and a logical move after a decade of focusing on streaming. “Today, we take the next step,” he wrote, “bringing together the most valuable live content portfolio in video consumption with the preeminent streaming platform through which America watches it.” Roku’s chairman and CEO, Anthony Wood, said that Roku reaches 100 million households around the world and that the sale to Fox will allow the company to “accelerate our vision, scale faster and innovate more aggressively for viewers, partners and advertisers.” The deal would further consolidate the news, entertainment and streaming industries, announced just days after the Justice Department approved Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. That combination will put streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+ under one roof, along with two Hollywood studios, and news networks CBS News and CNN.

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Copyright June 23, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved